"Yes. And weren't you lucky?" observed Carolyn May. "For you might have
found a boy, you know."
She hoped the new Carolyn would be as happy as she had been for some
months at the old homestead.
On the very next morning the little girl began to run about the Corners
to renew acquaintance with all the neighbours, while Prince chased
ancient feline enemies and became friendly again with the dogs of the
hamlet, which he had not seen for more than a year.
Carolyn must needs search out Freda Payne, who had been her dearest
school friend when she had attended the red schoolhouse; and with Freda
she went to call on Miss Minnie, who had been their much loved teacher
but was now married to the school committeeman who most frequently came
to visit the school.
"There!" said Carolyn May wisely. "I always thought something would
come of _that_."
Miss Minnie warmly welcomed Prince, as well as the little girls, for
she had reason to feel friendly toward Carolyn's dog.
Then, when dinner was over, and the baby was asleep, Carolyn and her
"cayenne friend," as Chet Gormley had once called Prince, went over
into the churchyard. Already the shadows of the church and its steeple
had begun to lengthen. The windows of the minister's study looked out
upon this quiet nook; chancing to glance up from his work the Reverend
Afton Driggs saw a familiar little figure digging industriously with
a trowel about the three little lozenge-shaped stones that marked the
graves of Aunty Rose Kennedy's little ones who were too "puny" to grow
up and around the bigger stone, "sacred to the memory of Frank Kennedy,
beloved spouse."
"If I believed in ghosts, I surely should think I saw one now," said
the minister, putting his head out of the window. "Is it really, truly
you, Carolyn May?"
Carolyn laughed delightedly. Everybody seemed so glad to see her! She
came to stand beneath the window and reached up to the minister a
rather grubby hand.
"And are you still in the 'Look Up' business, Carolyn May?" he asked.
"Still brightening the world? Still seeing the sunshine and blue sky
rather than the grey clouds and gloomy days?"
"Why, Mr. Driggs!" cried Carolyn, aghast, "there aren't any such days.
Leastways, I never see 'em. You know, there is always so much that's
pleasant going on that I forget to think of anything unpleasant."
Yet that was not altogether so. There was one thing deep in the child's
heart that pricked her thought frequently. Hers was not a nature,
however, to thrust her own troubles upon the attention of others.
This particular thing was a very real trouble, nevertheless. She
continued to think of the pale lady and her baby. That they should
have to remain in the hot city and in that hopelessly uncomfortable
apartment, caused the child positive heartache.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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