|
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 8
The slow, heavy plow horses had stopped during her talk with Uncle
Henry. They stood as still now as though their feet had grown to the
road. Elizabeth Ann looked up at the old man for instructions. But he
was deep in his figures. She had been taught never to interrupt people,
so she sat still and waited for him to tell her what to do.
But, although they were driving in the midst of a winter thaw, it was a
pretty cold day, with an icy wind blowing down the back of her neck. The
early winter twilight was beginning to fall, and she felt rather empty.
She grew very tired of waiting, and remembered how the grocer's boy at
home had started his horse. Then, summoning all her courage, with an
apprehensive glance at Uncle Henry's arithmetical silence, she slapped
the reins up and down on the horses' backs and made the best imitation
she could of the grocer's boy's cluck. The horses lifted their heads,
they leaned forward, they put one foot before the other ... they were off!
The color rose hot on Elizabeth Ann's happy face. If she had started a
big red automobile she would not have been prouder. For it was the first
thing she had ever done all herself ... every bit ... every smitch! She had
thought of it and she had done it. And it had worked!
Now for what seemed to her a long, long time she drove, drove so hard
she could think of nothing else. She guided the horses around stones,
she cheered them through freezing mud-puddles of melted snow, she kept
them in the anxiously exact middle of the road. She was quite astonished
when Uncle Henry put his pencil and paper away, took the reins from her
hands, and drove into a yard, on one side of which was a little low
white house and on the other a big red barn. He did not say a word, but
she guessed that this was Putney Farm.
Two women in gingham dresses and white aprons came out of the house. One
was old and one might be called young, just like Aunt Harriet and Aunt
Frances. But they looked very different from those aunts. The dark-
haired one was very tall and strong-looking, and the white-haired one
was very rosy and fat. They both looked up at the little, thin, white-
faced girl on the high seat, and smiled. "Well, Father, you got her, I
see," said the brown-haired one. She stepped up to the wagon and held up
her arms to the child. "Come on, Betsy, and get some supper," she said,
as though Elizabeth Ann had lived there all her life and had just driven
into town and back.
And that was the arrival of Elizabeth Ann at Putney Farm.
The brown-haired one took a long, strong step or two and swung her up on
the porch. "You take her in, Mother," she said. "I'll help Father
unhitch."
The fat, rosy, white-haired one took Elizabeth Ann's skinny, cold little
hand in her soft warm fat one, and led her along to the open kitchen
door. "I'm your Aunt Abigail," she said. "Your mother's aunt, you know.
And that's your Cousin Ann that lifted you down, and it was your Uncle
Henry that brought you out from town." She shut the door and went on, "I
don't know if your Aunt Harriet ever happened to tell you about us, and
so ..."
Elizabeth Ann interrupted her hastily, the recollection of all Aunt
Harriet's remarks vividly before her. "Oh yes, oh yes!" she said. "She
always talked about you. She talked about you a lot, she ..." The little
girl stopped short and bit her lip.
If Aunt Abigail guessed from the expression on Elizabeth Ann's face what
kind of talking Aunt Harriet's had been, she showed it only by a
deepening of the wrinkles all around her eyes. She said, gravely: "Well,
that's a good thing. You know all about us then." She turned to the
stove and took out of the oven a pan of hot baked beans, very brown and
crispy on top (Elizabeth Ann detested beans), and said, over her
shoulder, "Take your things off, Betsy, and hang 'em on that lowest hook
back of the door. That's YOUR hook."
The little girl fumbled forlornly with the fastenings of her cape and
the buttons of her coat. At home, Aunt Frances or Grace had always taken
off her wraps and put them away for her. When, very sorry for herself,
she turned away from the hook, Aunt Abigail said: "Now you must be cold.
Pull a chair right up here by the stove." She was stepping around
quickly as she put supper on the table. The floor shook under her. She
was one of the fattest people Elizabeth Ann had ever seen. After living
with Aunt Frances and Aunt Harriet and Grace the little girl could
scarcely believe her eyes. She stared and stared.
Aunt Abigail seemed not to notice this. Indeed, she seemed for the
moment to have forgotten all about the newcomer. Elizabeth Ann sat on
the wooden chair, her feet hanging (she had been taught that it was not
manners to put her feet on the rungs), looking about her with miserable,
homesick eyes. What an ugly, low-ceilinged room, with only a couple of
horrid kerosene lamps for light; and they didn't keep any girl,
evidently; and they were going to eat right in the kitchen like poor
people; and nobody spoke to her or looked at her or asked her how she
had "stood the trip"; and here she was, millions of miles away from Aunt
Frances, without anybody to take care of her. She began to feel the
tight place in her throat which, by thinking about hard, she could
always turn into tears, and presently her eyes began to water.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|