|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 17
All the children knew that she "made up rhymes," but only Davy had any
knowledge of the old ledger. He could not understand all the verses she
read to him about the wild flowers, and life and death and time, but
they jingled pleasantly in his ears, and he made an attentive listener.
"I'll take it," she decided at last, slipping some loose pages in
between the covers. "I may want to write something at Locust."
She paused long at the foot of her bed, trying to make up her mind about
her godmother's picture, that hung there in a little frame of pine
cones.
"I don't know whether to take it or not," she said to Davy, looking up
lovingly at the Madonna of her dreams, whose sweet face had been her
last greeting at night, and first welcome on waking, for several years.
"I hate to leave it behind, but I'll have my real godmother to look at
while I'm gone, and it'll seem so nice to have this picture here to
smile at me when I get back, as if she was glad I'd come home. I believe
I'll leave it."
It was a solemn moment when Betty climbed into the wagon after her trunk
had been lifted in at the back, and perched herself on the high spring
seat, beside Davy and his father. The other children were drawn up in a
line along the porch, to watch her go. She wore one of her every-day
dresses of dark blue gingham, and her white sunbonnet, but the familiar
little figure had taken on a new interest to them. They regarded her as
some sort of a venturesome Columbus, about to launch on a wild voyage of
discovery. None of them had ever been beyond Jaynes's Post-office in
their journeyings, and the youngest had not seen even that much of the
outside world.
Betty herself could not remember having been on a longer trip than to
Livermore, a village ten miles away. There was an excited flutter in her
throat as the wagon started forward with a jolt, and she realised that
now she was looking her last on safe familiar scenes, and breaking loose
from all safe familiar landmarks.
"Good-bye!" she cried again, looking back at the little group on the
porch with tears in her eyes.
"Good-bye! Good-bye!" they called, in a noisy chorus, repeating the call
like a brood of clacking guineas, until the wagon passed out of sight
down the lane. The road turned at the church. Betty leaned forward for
one more look at the window, on whose sill she had passed so many happy
afternoons reading to Davy. The board was still leaning against the
house, where she had propped it.
"Good-bye, dear old church," she said softly to herself.
They drove around the corner of the little neglected graveyard, where
the headstones gleamed white in the morning sunshine, above the dark,
glossy green of the myrtle vines. How peaceful and quiet it seemed. The
dew still shone in tiny beads on the cobwebs, spun across the grass, a
spicy smell of cedar boughs floated across the road to them, and a dove
called somewhere in the distant woodlands. As they passed, a wild rose
hung over the gray pickets of the straggling old fence, and waved a
spray of pale pink blossoms to them.
"Good-bye," she whispered, turning for one more look at the familiar
headstones. They were like old friends; she had wandered among them so
often. One held her gaze an instant, with its well-known marble hand,
pointing the place in a marble book in which was carved one text. How
often she had spelled the words, pointing out the deeply carven letters
to Davy: "_Be ye also ready._"
She had a vague feeling that the headstones knew she was going away and
would miss her. "Good-bye," she said to them, too, nodding the white
sunbonnet gravely. It seemed a solemn thing to start on such a journey.
After leaving the church there was only one more place to bid good-bye,
and that was the schoolhouse sitting through its lonely vacation time
in a deserted playground, gone to weeds.
There was no time to spare at the station. Mr. Appleton tied the horses
and hurried to have Betty's trunk checked. The shriek of the locomotive
coming down the track made Betty turn cold. It was like a great demon
thundering toward her. Davy edged closer to her, moved by the strange
surroundings to ask a question.
"Say, Betty, ain't you afraid?"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|