Silver Pitchers: and Independence, a Centennial Love StoryAlcott, Louisa May
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Silver Pitchers: and Independence, a Centennial Love Story
Alcott, Louisa May
Fiction; Short stories, American
He lies there still, the legend says, under the low green mound, where
violets bloom earliest, where the old willows drop their golden tassels
in the spring, and blackbirds fill the air with their melodious ecstasy.
No song of his lived after him; no trace of him remains, except that
nameless grave; and few ever heard of one who came and went like the
snow for which they christened him. Yet it seems as if his gentle ghost
still haunted those sunny meadows, still listened to the enchanted
river, and touched with some mysterious charm the places that knew him
once. For strangers find a soft attraction in the quiet landscape;
lovers seek those green solitudes to tell the story that is always new;
and poets muse beside the shadowy stream, hearing, as he heard, a call
to live the life that lifts them highest by unwavering fidelity to the
gift Heaven sends.
LETTY'S TRAMP.
Letty sat on the doorstep one breezy summer day, looking down the road
and wishing with all her heart that something pleasant would happen. She
often did this; and one of her earliest delights when a lonely child was
to sit there with a fairy book upon her knee, waiting and watching in
all good faith for something wonderful to happen.
In those days, Cinderella's golden coach dashing round the corner to
carry her away was the favorite dream; but at eighteen one thinks more
of the prince than either golden coach or splendid ball. But no prince
as yet had cut his way through the grove of "laylocks" round the gate,
and the little beauty still dreamed waking dreams on the doorstep, with
her work forgotten in her lap.
Behind her in the quaint, quiet room Aunt Liddy dozed in her easy chair,
the clock ticked, the bird chirped, old Bran snapped lazily at the
flies, and nothing else broke the hush that brooded over the place. It
was always so, and Letty often felt as if an earthquake would be a
blessed relief to the dreadful monotony of her life.
To-day it was peculiarly trying, for a slight incident had ruffled the
calm; and, though it lasted but a moment, it had given Letty a glimpse
into that lovely "new world which is the old." A carriage containing a
gay young couple on their honeymoon trip had stopped at the gate, for
the bride had a fancy for a draught from the mossy well, and the
bridegroom blandly demanded that her whim be gratified.
Letty served them, and while one pretty girl slaked her thirst the other
watched her with admiring eyes and a tender interest, touched by envy.
It was all over in a minute. Then bonny bride and enamoured bridegroom
rolled away on that enchanted journey which is taken but once in a
lifetime, leaving a cloud of dust behind and a deeper discontent in
Letty's heart.
With a long sigh she had gone back to her seat, and, closing her eyes
upon a world that could offer her so little, fell a-dreaming again, till
a rough voice startled her wide awake.
"I say, miss, can you give a poor fellow a bite and a sup?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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