Hospitals -- Juvenile fiction; Jealousy -- Juvenile fiction; Mate selection -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
“Wal, let’s see, where was I? Oh, yes, to go back to my Miss Flora! One
day before they put up that shally sign over the door I was tellin’
her how I always looked up to this house soon as I got out o’ bed, for
the sun showed right here first of any locality on the mountain. You
see, this is a mite the highest situation, anyway, and it touches up
the chimney first and then the roof before it hits anywhere else, ’cept
some of the trees back. And I remember now how my Miss Flora leaped
up and clapped her hands and cried, ‘Aimé, Aimé! come here quick!’ He
was establishin’ a flower bed down there, and he came right off, and
she said, ‘I’ve got it! I’ve got it!’ ‘Got what?’ he asked, calm as
a violet. ‘The name--“Sunrise Chalet”! Isn’t that the very thing!’ Of
course, he said yes--he always chimed straight in with her, whatever.
And if they didn’t have it up soon as ever they could get it done! And
there it’s been ever since.”
“And I can’t see it!” mourned Grissel.
Russell sprang to his feet, but Benedicta was ahead of him. Taking the
child in her strong arms she descended the steps and faced the veranda.
“That looks nice,” commented the little girl, wagging her head happily.
“Now take me to see the others,” she demanded.
“Why, Grissel!” reproved Polly.
“Well, I want to see ’em,” she explained.
“That isn’t the way to ask. Besides, you are too heavy for Benedicta.”
“Pshaw, she ain’t weightier ’n a hummin’-bird,” scorned the woman. She
was already marching off across the lawn.
Polly shook her head. “If she lets them impose upon her this way,” she
said in a soft tone, “she’ll have her hands full.”
“Suppose we follow on,” Russell suggested. “Can’t any of your kids
walk?”
“Some of them a short distance; but I can’t go now.”
“Why not? I’ll shoulder one; the rest can’t run away--that’s an
advantage.”
“Lilith will show you about,” said Polly. “Shall I call her?”
“Thank you,” he smiled politely, shaking his head; then, with a
twinkling “I can find my own way,” he picked up the girl in the next
chair and started on a run towards the invisible bungalows.
Going inside, Polly met Mrs. Daybill and Lilith coming downstairs.
“Benedicta and Russell have started on a western pilgrimage--you’d
better go, too. And do you mind taking Esther and Timmy along? It won’t
hurt them to walk as far as the Sandfords’ and the Temples’, will it?”
addressing the White Nurse.
“I don’t know how far that is; but a little walk will do them good.
What’s the matter with your going?”
“Not this morning. I’ve promised Russell to go over to Sally’s with him
after dinner.”
“All right for this once,” laughed Mrs. Daybill; “but it is not to be
‘You go and I’ll stay behind’ all summer, remember.”
It was nearly five o’clock when Polly and Russell bade good-bye to
Sally on the steps of the Robinsons’ pretty bungalow.
Some distance away Polly turned to look back at the inscription which
ran across the gable:
THE HILLS REJOICE ON EVERY SIDE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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