The Peterkin PapersHale, Lucretia P. (Lucretia Peabody)
General
The Peterkin Papers
Hale, Lucretia P. (Lucretia Peabody)
Family life -- Juvenile fiction; Humorous stories
Elizabeth Eliza found it difficult to pack in a hurry; there were so
many things she might want, and then again she might not. She must put
up her music, because her grandfather had a piano; and then she
bethought herself of Agamemnon's flute, and decided to pick out a
volume or two of the Encyclopaedia. But it was hard to decide, all by
herself, whether to take G for griddle-cakes, or M for maple-syrup, or
T for tree. She would take as many as she could make room for. She put
up her work-box and two extra work-baskets, and she must take some
French books she had never yet found time to read. This involved
taking her French dictionary, as she doubted if her grandfather had
one. She ought to put in a "Botany," if they were to study trees; but
she could not tell which, so she would take all there were. She might
as well take all her dresses, and it was no harm if one had too many
wraps. When she had her trunk packed she found it over-full; it was
difficult to shut it. She had heard Solomon John set out from the
front door with his father and the little boys, and Agamemnon was busy
holding the horse at the side door, so there was no use in calling for
help. She got upon the trunk; she jumped upon it; she sat down upon
it, and, leaning over, found she could lock it! Yes, it was really
locked.
[Illustration]
But, on getting down from the trunk, she found her dress had been
caught in the lid; she could not move away from it! What was worse,
she was so fastened to the trunk that she could not lean forward far
enough to turn the key back, to unlock the trunk and release herself!
The lock had slipped easily, but she could not now get hold of the key
in the right way to turn it back.
She tried to pull her dress away. No, it was caught too firmly. She
called for help to her mother or Amanda, to come and open the trunk.
But her door was shut. Nobody near enough to hear! She tried to pull
the trunk toward the door, to open it and make herself heard; but it
was so heavy that, in her constrained position, she could not stir it.
In her agony she would have been willing to have torn her dress; but
it was her travelling dress, and too stout to tear. She might cut it
carefully. Alas, she had packed her scissors, and her knife she had
lent to the little boys the day before! She called again. What silence
there was in the house! Her voice seemed to echo through the room. At
length, as she listened, she heard the sound of wheels.
Was it the carriage, rolling away from the side door? Did she hear the
front door shut? She remembered then that Amanda was to "have the
day." But she, Elizabeth Eliza, was to have spoken to Amanda, to
explain to her to wait for the expressman. She was to have told her as
she went downstairs. But she had not been able to go downstairs! And
Amanda must have supposed that all the family had left, and she, too,
must have gone, knowing nothing of the expressman. Yes, she heard the
wheels! She heard the front door shut!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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