Читать книгу From the Land of the Snow-Pearls: Tales from Puget Sound - Ella Higginson - Страница 5
ОглавлениеESTHER’S “FOURTH”
It was the fourth day of July, and the fourth hour of the day. Long, beryl ribbons of color were streaming through the lovely Grand Ronde valley when the little girl awoke—so suddenly and so completely that it seemed as if she had not been asleep at all.
“Sister!” she cried in a thin, eager voice. “Ain’t it time to get up? It’s just struck four.”
“Not yet,” said the older girl drowsily. “There’s lots o’ time, Pet.”
She put one arm under the child affectionately and fell asleep again. The little girl lay motionless, waiting. There was a large cherry tree outside, close to the tiny window above her bed, and she could hear the soft turning of the leaves, one against the other, and the fluttering of the robins that were already stealing the cherries. Innocent thieves that they were, they continually betrayed themselves by their shrill cries of triumph.
Not far from the tiny log-cabin the river went singing by on its way through the green valley; hearing it, Esther thought of the soft glooms under the noble balm trees, where the grouse drummed and butterflies drifted in long level flight. Esther always breathed softly while she watched the butterflies—she had a kind of reverence for them—and she thought there could be nothing sweeter, even in heaven, than the scents that the wind shook out of the balms.
She lay patiently waiting with wide eyes until the round clock in the kitchen told her that another hour had gone by. “Sister,” she said then, “oh, it must be time to get up! I just can’t wait any longer.”
The older girl, with a sleepy but sympathetic smile, slipped out of bed and commenced dressing. The child sprang after her. “Sister,” she cried, running to the splint-bottomed chair on which lay the cheap but exquisitely white undergarments. “I can’t hardly wait. Ain’t it good of Mr. Hoover to take me to town? Oh, I feel as if I had hearts all over me, an’ every one of ’em beating so!”
“Don’t be so excited, Pet.” The older sister smiled gently at the child. “Things never are quite as nice as you expect them to be,” she added, with that wisdom that comes so soon to starved country hearts.
“Well, this can’t help bein’ nice,” said the child, with a beautiful faith. She sat on the strip of rag carpeting that partially covered the rough floor, and drew on her stockings and her copper-toed shoes. “Oh, sister, my fingers shake so I can’t get the strings through the eyelets! Do you think Mr. Hoover might oversleep hisself? It can’t help bein’ nice—nicer’n I expect. Of course,” she added, with a momentary regret, “I wish I had some other dress besides that buff calico, but I ain’t, an’ so—it’s reel pretty, anyways, sister, ain’t it?”
“Yes, Pet,” said the girl gently. There was a bitter pity for the child in her heart.
“To think o’ ridin’ in the Libraty Car!” continued Esther, struggling with the shoe strings. “Course they’ll let me, Paw knows the store-keeper, and Mr. Hoover kin tell ’em who I am. An’ the horses, an’ the ribbons, an’ the music—an’ all the little girls my age! Sister, it’s awful never to have any little girls to play with! I guess maw don’t know how I’ve wanted ’em, or she’d of took me to town sometimes. I ain’t never been anywheres—except to Mis’ Bunnels’s fun’ral, when the minister prayed so long,” she added, with a pious after-thought.
It was a happy child that was lifted to the back of the most trustworthy of the plow-horses to be escorted to the celebration by “Mr. Hoover,” the hired man. The face under the cheap straw hat, with its wreath of pink and green artificial flowers, was almost pathetically radiant. To that poor little heart so hungry for pleasure, there could be no bliss so supreme as a ride in the village “Libraty Car”—to be one of the states, preferably “Oregon!” To hear the music and hold a flag, and sit close to little girls of her own age who would smile kindly at her and, perhaps, even ask her name shyly, and take her home with them to see their dolls.
“Oh,” she cried, grasping the reins in her thin hands, “I’m all of a tremble! Just like maw on wash days! Only I ain’t tired—I’m just glad.”
There were shifting groups of children in front of the school house. Everything—even the white houses with their green blinds and neat door-yards—seemed strange and over-powering to Esther. The buoyancy with which she had surveyed the world from the back of a tall horse gave way to sudden timidity and self-consciousness.
Mr. Hoover put her down in the midst of the children. “There, now,” he said cheerfully, “play around with the little girls like a nice body while I put up the horses.”
A terrible loneliness came upon Esther as she watched him leading away the horses. All those merry children chattering and shouting, and not one speaking to her or taking the slightest notice of her. She realized with a suddenness that dazed her and blurred everything before her country eyes that she was very, very different from them—why, every one of the little girls was dressed in pure, soft white, with a beautiful sash and bows; all wore pretty slippers. There was not one copper-toed shoe among them!
Her heart came up into her thin, little throat and beat and beat there. She wished that she might sit down and hide her shoes, but then the dress was just as bad. That couldn’t be hidden. So she stood awkwardly in their midst, stiff and motionless, with a look in her eyes that ought to have touched somebody’s heart.
Then the “Liberty Car” came, drawn by six noble white horses decorated with flags, ribbons and rosettes, and stepping out oh, so proudly in perfect time with the village band. Esther forgot her buff calico dress and her copper-toed shoes in the exquisite delight of that moment.
The little girls were placed in the car. Each carried a banner on which was painted the name of a state. What graceful, dancing little bodies they were, and how their feet twinkled and could not be quiet! When “Oregon” went proudly by, Esther’s heart sank. She wondered which state they would give to her.
The band stopped playing. All the girls were seated; somehow there seemed to be no place left for another. Esther went forward bravely and set one copper-toed shoe on the step of the car. The ladies in charge looked at her; then, at each other.
“Hello, Country!” cried a boy’s shrill voice behind her suddenly. “My stars! She thinks she’s goin’ in the car. What a jay!”
Esther stood as if petrified with her foot still on the step. She felt that they were all looking at her. What terrible things human eyes can be! A kind of terror took hold of her. She trembled. There seemed to be a great stillness about her.
“Can’t I go?” she said to one of the ladies. Her heart was beating so hard and so fast in her throat that her voice sounded far away to her. “My paw knows Mr. Mallory, the store-keeper. We live down by the river on the Nesley place. We’re poor, but my paw alwus pays his debts. I come with Mr. Hoover; he’s gone to put up the horses.”
It was spoken—the poor little speech, at once passionate and despairing as any prayer to God. Then it was that Esther learned that there are silences which are harder to bear than the wildest tumult.
But presently one of the ladies said, very kindly—“Why, I am so sorry, little girl, but you see—er—all the little girls who ride in the car must—er—be dressed in white.”
Esther removed her foot heavily from the step and stood back.
“Oh, look!” cried “Oregon”, leaning from the car. “She wanted to ride in here! In a yellow calico dress and copper-toed shoes!”
Then the band played, the horses pranced and tossed their heads, the flags and banners floated on the breeze, and the beautiful car moved away.
Esther stood looking after it until she heard Mr. Hoover’s voice at her side. “W’y, what a funny little girl! There the car’s gone, an’ she didn’t go an’ git in it, after all! Did anybody ever see sech a funny little girl? After gittin’ up so airly, an’ hurryin’ everybody so for fear she’d be late, an’ a-talkin’ about ridin’ in the Libraty Car for months—an’ then to go an’ not git in it after all!”
Esther turned with a bursting heart. She threw herself passionately into his arms and hid her face on his breast.
“I want to go home,” she sobbed. “Oh, I want to go home!”
