|
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 23
"Have they got a DOLL?" said Betsy, thinking this was the very climax of
Putney queerness.
"Oh my, yes!" said Molly, eagerly. "She's the one Mrs. Putney had when
she was a little girl. And she's got the loveliest clothes! She's in the
hair-trunk under the eaves in the attic. They let me take her down once
when I was there with Mother. And Mother said she guessed, now a little
girl had come there to live, they'd let her have her down all the time.
I'll bring mine over next Saturday, if you want me to. Mine's got yellow
hair, but she's real pretty anyhow. If Father's going to mill that day,
he can leave me there for the morning."
[Illustration with caption: Betsy shut her teeth together hard, and
started across.]
Elizabeth Ann had not understood more than one word in five of this, but
just then the school-bell rang and they went back, little Molly helping
Elizabeth Ann over the log and thinking she was being helped, as before.
They ran along to the little building, and there I'm going to leave
them, because I think I've told enough about their school for ONE while.
It was only a poor, rough, little district school anyway, that no
Superintendent of Schools would have looked at for a minute, except to
sniff.
CHAPTER VI
IF YOU DON'T LIKE CONVERSATION IN A BOOK SKIP THIS CHAPTER!
Betsy opened the door and was greeted by her kitten, who ran to her,
purring and arching her back to be stroked.
"Well," said Aunt Abigail, looking up from the pan of apples in her lap,
"I suppose you're starved, aren't you? Get yourself a piece of bread and
butter, why don't you? and have one of these apples."
As the little girl sat down by her, munching fast on this provender, she
asked: "What desk did you get?"
Elizabeth Ann thought for a moment, cuddling Eleanor up to her face. "I
think it is the third from the front in the second row." She wondered
why Aunt Abigail cared. "Oh, I guess that's your Uncle Henry's desk.
It's the one his father had, too. Are there a couple of H. P.'s carved
on it?"
Betsy nodded.
"His father carved the H. P. on the lid, so Henry had to put his inside.
I remember the winter he put it there. It was the first season Mother
let me wear real hoop skirts. I sat in the first seat on the third row."
Betsy ate her apple more and more slowly, trying to take in what Aunt
Abigail had said. Uncle Henry and HIS FATHER--why Moses or Alexander the
Great didn't seem any further back in the mists of time to Elizabeth Ann
than did Uncle Henry's FATHER! And to think he had been a little boy,
right there at that desk! She stopped chewing altogether for a moment
and stared into space. Although she was only nine years old, she was
feeling a little of the same rapt wonder, the same astonished sense of
the reality of the people who have gone before, which make a first visit
to the Roman Forum such a thrilling event for grown-ups. That very desk!
After a moment she came to herself, and finding some apple still in her
mouth, went on chewing meditatively. "Aunt Abigail," she said, "how long
ago was that?"
"Let's see," said the old woman, peeling apples with wonderful rapidity.
"I was born in 1844. And I was six when I first went to school. That's
sixty-six years ago."
Elizabeth Ann, like all little girls of nine, had very little notion how
long sixty-six years might be. "Was George Washington alive then?" she
asked.
The wrinkles around Aunt Abigail's eyes deepened mirthfully, but she did
not laugh as she answered, "No, that was long after he died, but the
schoolhouse was there when he was alive."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|