Country life -- Juvenile fiction; Orphans -- Juvenile fiction; Self-perception -- Juvenile fiction; Vermont -- Juvenile fiction
Now for what seemed to her a long, long time she drove, drove so hard
she could think of nothing else. She guided the horses around stones,
she cheered them through freezing mud-puddles of melted snow, she kept
them in the anxiously exact middle of the road. She was quite astonished
when Uncle Henry put his pencil and paper away, took the reins from her
hands, and drove into a yard, on one side of which was a little low
white house and on the other a big red barn. He did not say a word, but
she guessed that this was Putney Farm.
Two women in gingham dresses and white aprons came out of the house. One
was old and one might be called young, just like Aunt Harriet and Aunt
Frances. But they looked very different from those aunts. The
dark-haired one was very tall and strong-looking, and the white-haired
one was very rosy and fat. They both looked up at the little, thin,
white-faced girl on the high seat, and smiled. “Well, Father, you got
her, I see,” said the brown-haired one. She stepped up to the wagon and
held up her arms to the child. “Come on, Betsy, and get some supper,”
she said, as though Elizabeth Ann had lived there all her life and had
just driven into town and back.
And that was the arrival of Elizabeth Ann at Putney Farm.
The brown-haired one took a long, strong step or two and swung her up on
the porch. “You take her in, Mother,” she said. “I’ll help Father
unhitch.”
The fat, rosy, white-haired one took Elizabeth Ann’s skinny, cold little
hand in her soft warm fat one, and led her along to the open kitchen
door. “I’m your Aunt Abigail,” she said. “Your mother’s aunt, you know.
And that’s your Cousin Ann that lifted you down, and it was your Uncle
Henry that brought you out from town.” She shut the door and went on, “I
don’t know if your Aunt Harriet ever happened to tell you about us, and
so ...”
Elizabeth Ann interrupted her hastily, the recollection of all Aunt
Harriet’s remarks vividly before her. “Oh yes, oh yes!” she said. “She
always talked about you. She talked about you a lot, she ...” The little
girl stopped short and bit her lip.
If Aunt Abigail guessed from the expression on Elizabeth Ann’s face what
kind of talking Aunt Harriet’s had been, she showed it only by a
deepening of the wrinkles all around her eyes. She said, gravely: “Well,
that’s a good thing. You know all about us then.” She turned to the
stove and took out of the oven a pan of hot baked beans, very brown and
crispy on top (Elizabeth Ann detested beans), and said, over her
shoulder, “Take your things off, Betsy, and hang ’em on that lowest hook
back of the door. That’s YOUR hook.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account