The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North WoodsPaine, Albert Bigelow
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The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods
Paine, Albert Bigelow
Adirondack Mountains (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Love stories
"But the child remembered. She remembered the mountains and the storms,
and the little house at the top of the hill, and her mother, and the
brother who had stayed among the hills, and who wrote now and then to
tell them he was making his way. But more than all she remembered the
prince--her knight she called him as she grew older--because it seemed
to her that he had been so noble and brave to come back up the hill and
give her his lucky piece that had brought her all the fortune. Always
she kept the coin for him, ready when he should call for it, and when
she read how Elaine had embroidered a silken covering for the shield of
Launcelot, she also embroidered a little silken casing for the coin and
wore it on her neck, and never a day or night did she let it go away
from her. Some day she would meet him again, and then she must have it
ready, and being a romantic schoolgirl, she wondered sometimes what she
might dare to claim for it in return. For he would be a true, brave
knight, one of high purpose and noble deeds; and by day the memory of
the handsome boy flitted across her books, and by night she dreamed of
him as he would some day come to her, all shining with glory and high
resolve."
Again she paused, this time as if waiting for him to speak. But now he
only stared at the bushes in front of him, and she thought he had grown
a little pale. She stepped across the wall into the road.
"Come," she said; "I will tell you the rest as we walk along."
He followed her over the wall. They were at the foot of a hill, at the
top of which there was a weather-beaten little ruin, once a home. He
recognized the spot instantly, though the hill seemed shorter to him,
and less steep. He turned and looked at her.
"My memory has all come back," he said; "I know all the rest of the
story."
"But I must tell it to you. I must finish what I have begun. The girl
kept the talisman all the years, as I have said, often taking it out of
the embroidered case to study its markings, which she learned to
understand. And she never lost faith in it, and she never failed to
believe that one day the knight with the brave, true heart would come to
claim it and to fulfill his bond.
"And by and by her school-days were ended, and then her parents decided
to return to their native land. The years had tempered the mother's
sorrow, and brought back a measure of health. So they came back to
America, and for the girl's sake mingled with gay people, and by and by,
one day--it was at a fine place and there were many fine folk there--she
saw him. She saw the boy who had been her fairy prince--who had become
her knight--who had been her dream all through the years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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