Christian fiction; Families -- Fiction; Love stories
Out behind the barn a tiny coop held a white hen and her seven little
downy balls of chickens. Another hen was happily ensconced in a barrel
of hay with ten big blue duck-eggs under her happy wings, and a little
further down toward the creek a fine chicken-run ended in a trig little
roosting-place for the poultry, which George had manufactured out of a
packing-box and some boards. The feathered family had been increased
by two white Leghorns and three bantams. George and Harley spent their
evenings watching them and discussing the price of eggs and chickens
per pound. They were all very happy.
Elizabeth came out to spend Sunday as she had promised. She got up
early to see the sun rise and watch the birds. She helped get
breakfast and wash the dishes. Then she went with the others across
the fields to the little white church in the valley to Sunday-school
and church. She was as hungry and eager as any of them when she came
home, and joyfully helped to do the work, taking great pride in the
potatoes she was allowed to warm up under careful tutelage. In the
afternoon there was no more eager listener among them to the Bible
story Shirley told to Doris and the book she read aloud to them all
afterward; her voice was sweetest and clearest of them all in the hymns
they sang together; and she was most eager to go with Shirley to the
Christian Endeavor service.
"I shouldn't wonder if Sidney wishes he was here too," she remarked
dreamily that evening, as she sat before the fire on a little cushion,
her chin in her hands, her eyes on the fantastic shadows in the ashes.
She went to school with Carol the next morning, came home with her in
the afternoon, and when her brother came for her in the evening she was
most reluctant to go home to the big, lonely, elegant house again, and
begged that Carol might soon come and see her.
Friday afternoon Elizabeth called up Mrs. Hollister.
"Please, Mrs. Hollister, let Carol come and stay with me till Monday.
I'm so lonesome, and mamma says she will be so glad if you will let her
come."
"Oh, my dear, that would be impossible. Carol isn't suitably dressed
to make a visit, you know," answered the mother quickly, glad that she
had so good an excuse for keeping her child from this venture into an
alien world about which she had many grave doubts.
But the young voice at the other end of the telephone was insistent.
"Dear Mrs. Hollister, please! She doesn't need any other clothes.
I've got lots of things that would fit her. She loaned me her gingham
dress to make garden in, and why shouldn't I loan her a dress to wear
on Sunday? I've got plenty of clean middy blouses and skirts and can
fix her all out fresh for school, too, Monday morning, and if you'll
just let her stay Sidney will take us both down to her school when he
goes to the office. You've got all those children there at home, and
I've only myself. Sidney doesn't count, you know, for he's grown up."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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