Christian fiction; Families -- Fiction; Love stories
She finished the last crumb of the piece of one-egg cake that Carol had
made the day before for her lunch, and ran down to the spring to see
whether she could get a drink, for she was very thirsty.
There proved to be an old tin can on the stones in the spring-house,
doubtless used by the last tramp or conductor who came that way; but
Shirley scrubbed it carefully in the sand, drank a delicious draught,
and washed her hands and face in the clear cold water. Then she went
back to the barn again, for a new thought had entered her mind.
Supposing it were possible to rent that place for the summer at any
reasonable price, how could they cook and how keep warm? Of course
there were such things as candles and oil-lamps for lighting, but
cooking! Would they have to build a fire out-of-doors and play at
camping? Or would they have to resort to oil-stoves? Oil-stoves with
their sticky, oily outsides, and their mysterious moods of smoke and
sulkiness, out of which only an expert could coax them!
But, though she stood on all sides of that barn, and gazed up at the
roof, and though she searched each floor diligently, she could find no
sign of a chimney anywhere. Her former acquaintance with barns had not
put her into a position to judge whether this was a customary lack of
barns or not. There were two wooden, chimney-like structures
decorating the roof, but it was all too evident that they were solely
for purposes of ornament. Her heart sank. What a grand fireplace
there might have been right in the middle of the great wall opposite
the door! Could anything be more ideal? She could fancy mother
sitting in front of it, with Harley and Doris on the floor playing with
a kitten. But there was no fireplace. She wondered vaguely whether a
stovepipe could be put out of the window, and so make possible a fire
in a small cook-stove. She was sure she had seen stovepipes coming out
of all sorts of odd places in the cities. But would the owners allow
it? And would any fire at all perhaps make it dangerous and affect the
fire-insurance? Oh, there were so many things to think about, and it
was all so impossible, of course.
She turned with heavy heart, and let herself down the ladder. It was
time she went home, for the afternoon was well on its way. She could
hear the whir of the trolley-car going up. She must be out and down
the road a little way to get the next one that passed it at the switch
when it came back.
So with a wistful glance about the big dusty floor she turned away, and
went down to the ground floor and out into the afternoon sunshine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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