Girls -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Mother," Barbara, balancing
herself on the arm of a chair, tapped her toe with the putter. "Peggy
and Alice have gone off to Molly Sawyer's and they've left Keineth
home. I don't think they're treating her a bit nicely!"
"Why didn't she go with them?"
"I don't think Peggy asked her to go. She and Molly were going to play
tennis on the Sawyer courts with Joan Crate, a girl that's out here
from town, and Keineth felt left out. Peggy told her she couldn't play
well enough to play with them and that it spoiled a game playing with
beginners, anyway!"
Mrs. Lee stitched in silence. Barbara went on:
"And I heard Billy the other day teasing her about her father. He
laughed at her when she said her father was a soldier, only the kind
that didn't wear a uniform, and he told her there weren't any soldiers
like that! I think you ought to speak to the children, Mother."
"Never mind, Bab, those things will straighten themselves. Peggy must
be more considerate and patient and I will tell Billy something about
Keineth's father--Billy will be interested. We may some day have reason
to be very proud of knowing him, for he may become a very great man,
besides doing an immense good for this country of ours. Run along,
dear, to your game and good luck to you!"
Barbara kissed the top of her head and hurried away. Mrs. Lee sat on
alone, her hands idly clasped over the blouse in her lap. It was her
way to puzzle out these little problems quietly.
Suddenly across the June stillness came the sound of exquisite music;
clear, thrilling notes, unreal--fairylike! Almost hesitatingly Mrs. Lee
turned as though she expected to see a fairy sprite in gauzy robes
approaching her from the shadows of the house! She rose and crept
toward the window. No sprite was there--only Keineth sitting before the
piano, her small hands softly touching the keys as though by magic she
drew the melody from them. Across her fair head fell a slanting bar of
sunlight. To this her eyes were raised in rapt contentment.
From the window Mrs. Lee watched and listened. There seemed to be no
beginning or end to the melody--it ran on and on, now plaintive, like a
small voice crying--now full of laughter with a happy note like that of
a bird.
"Child--" Mrs. Lee stepped through the long window into the room.
Keineth turned quickly.
"I didn't know--anyone was here," she said, shyly.
But Mrs. Lee scarcely heard her. She had clasped her arms about the
small form and was holding it very close.
"I was just playing--what the fairies put in my fingers," Keineth
explained from the depths of Mrs. Lee's embrace.
"They are fairy fingers indeed," laughed Mrs. Lee. "Let us sit down
here together and you must tell me all about it. Who taught you to play
like that, child?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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