Kate Chopin

“ If a wagon required a brace or a bolt, it was nothing for him to step into a shop and turn out one as deftly as the most skilled blacksmith. Any one seeing him at work with plane and rule and chisel would have declared him a born carpenter. ”

“ Maybe it was because of his talent, and his indifference in turning it to good, that he was often called “a no-account creole” by thriftier souls than himself. But no-account creole or not, painter, carpenter, blacksmith, and whatever else he might be at times, he was a Santien always, with the best blood in the country running in his veins. ”

“ And many thought his choice had fallen in very low places when he engaged himself to marry little Euphrasie, the daughter of old Pierre Manton and a problematic mother a good deal less than nobody.
Placide might have married almost any one, too; for it was the easiest thing in the world for a girl to fall in love with him, - sometimes the hardest thing in the world not to, he was such a splendid fellow, such a careless, happy, handsome fellow. ”