|
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 83
"You're going to surprise Glenn again?" queried Aunt Mary.
"Oh, I must! I want to see his face when I tell him."
"Well, I hope he won't surprise you," declared the old lady. "When did you
hear from him last?"
"In January. It seems ages--but--Aunt Mary, you don't imagine Glenn--"
"I imagine nothing," interposed her aunt. "It will turn out happily and
I'll have some peace in my old age. But, Carley, what's to become of me?"
"Oh, I never thought!" replied Carley, blankly. "It will be lonely for you.
Auntie, I'll come back in the fall for a few weeks. Glenn will let me."
"Let you? Ye gods! So you've come to that? Imperious Carley Burch! . . .
Thank Heaven, you'll now be satisfied to be let do things."
"I'd--I'd crawl for him," breathed Carley.
"Well, child, as you can't be practical, I'll have to be," replied Aunt
Mary, seriously. "Fortunately for you I am a woman of quick decision.
Listen. I'll go West with you. I want to see the Grand Canyon. Then I'll go
on to California, where I have old friends I've not seen for years. When
you get your new home all fixed up I'll spend awhile with you. And if I
want to come back to New York now and then I'll go to a hotel. It is
settled. I think the change will benefit me."
"Auntie, you make me very happy. I could ask no more," said Carley.
Swiftly as endless tasks could make them the days passed. But those on the
train dragged interminably.
Carley sent her aunt through to the Canyon while she stopped off at
Flagstaff to store innumerable trunks and bags. The first news she heard of
Glenn and the Hutters was that they had gone to the Tonto Basin to buy hogs
and would be absent at least a month. This gave birth to a new plan in
Carley's mind. She would doubly surprise Glenn. Wherefore she took council
with some Flagstaff business men and engaged them to set a force of men at
work on the Deep Lake property, making the improvements she desired, and
hauling lumber, cement, bricks, machinery, supplies--all the necessaries for
building construction. Also she instructed them to throw up a tent house
for her to live in during the work, and to engage a reliable Mexican man
with his wife for servants. When she left for the Canyon she was happier
than ever before in her life.
It was near the coming of sunset when Carley first looked down into the
Grand Canyon. She had forgotten Glenn's tribute to this place. In her
rapturous excitement of preparation and travel the Canyon had been merely a
name. But now she saw it and she was stunned.
What a stupendous chasm, gorgeous in sunset color on the heights, purpling
into mystic shadows in the depths! There was a wonderful brightness of all
the millions of red and yellow and gray surfaces still exposed to the sun.
Carley did not feel a thrill, because feeling seemed inhibited. She looked
and looked, yet was reluctant to keep on looking. She possessed no image in
mind with which to compare this grand and mystic spectacle. A
transformation of color and shade appeared to be going on swiftly, as if
gods were changing the scenes of a Titanic stage. As she gazed the dark
fringed line of the north rim turned to burnished gold, and she watched
that with fascinated eyes. It turned rose, it lost its fire, it faded to
quiet cold gray. The sun had set.
Then the wind blew cool through the pinyons on the rim. There was a sweet
tang of cedar and sage on the air and that indefinable fragrance peculiar
to the canyon country of Arizona. How it brought back to Carley remembrance
of Oak Creek! In the west, across the purple notches of the abyss, a dull
gold flare showed where the sun had gone down.
In the morning at eight o'clock there were great irregular black shadows
under the domes and peaks and escarpments. Bright Angel Canyon was all
dark, showing dimly its ragged lines. At noon there were no shadows and all
the colossal gorge lay glaring under the sun. In the evening Carley watched
the Canyon as again the sun was setting.
Deep dark-blue shadows, like purple sails of immense ships, in wonderful
contrast with the bright sunlit slopes, grew and rose toward the east, down
the canyons and up the walls that faced the west. For a long while there
was no red color, and the first indication of it was a dull bronze. Carley
looked down into the void, at the sailing birds, at the precipitous slopes,
and the dwarf spruces and the weathered old yellow cliffs. When she looked
up again the shadows out there were no longer dark. They were clear. The
slopes and depths and ribs of rock could be seen through them. Then the
tips of the highest peaks and domes turned bright red. Far to the east she
discerned a strange shadow, slowly turning purple. One instant it grew
vivid, then began to fade. Soon after that all the colors darkened and
slowly the pale gray stole over all.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|