Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction; Time travel -- Juvenile fiction
"But you must sit down quietly," charged Aunt Peggy, "and you must
learn your texts, to repeat to me when I get home."
After Aunt Peggy and the old servant, in their great cloaks and
bonnets and fur tippets, had gone out of the yard and down the road,
Letitia sat quiet for fifteen minutes or so, hunting in the Bible for
easy texts; then suddenly she thought of the little green door, and
wondered, as she had done so many times before, if it could possibly
be opened. She laid down her Bible and stole out through the kitchen
to the cheese-room and tried the door. It was locked just as usual.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Letitia, and was ready to cry. It seemed to her
that this little green door was the very worst of all her trials;
that she would rather open that and see what was beyond than have all
the nice things she wanted and had to do without.
Suddenly she thought of a little satin-wood box with a picture on the
lid which Aunt Peggy kept in her top bureau-drawer. Letitia had often
seen this box, but had never been allowed to open it.
"I wonder if the key can be in that box," said she.
She did not wait a minute. She was so naughty that she dared not wait
for fear she should remember that she ought to be good. She ran out
of the cheese-room, through the kitchen and sitting-room, to her
aunt's bedroom, and opened the bureau drawer, and then the satin-wood
box. It contained some bits of old lace, an old brooch, a yellow
letter, some other things which she did not examine, and, sure
enough, a little black key on a green ribbon.
Letitia had not a doubt that it was the key of the little green door.
She trembled all over, she panted for breath, she was so frightened,
but she did not hesitate. She took the key and ran back to the
cheese-room. She did not stop to shut the satin-wood box or the
bureau drawer. She was so cold and her hands shook so that she had
some difficulty in fitting the key into the lock of the little green
door; but at last she succeeded, and turned it quite easily. Then,
for a second, she hesitated; she was almost afraid to open the door;
she put her hand on the latch and drew it back. It seemed to her,
too, that she heard strange, alarming sounds on the other side.
Finally, with a great effort of her will, she unlatched the little
green door, and flung it open and ran out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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