"And I have
promised to look after the little girl," he said to himself as he
drove away up the road.
It was a long walk for the elderly people from the house near the main
highway to the little burying-ground. In the earliest days of the farm
the dwelling-place was nearer the river, which was then the chief
thoroughfare; and those of the family who had died then were buried on
the level bit of upland ground high above the river itself. There was
a wide outlook over the country, and the young pine trees that fringed
the shore sang in the south wind, while some great birds swung to and
fro overhead, watching the water and the strange company of people who
had come so slowly over the land. A flock of sheep had ventured to the
nearest hillock of the next pasture, and stood there fearfully, with
upraised heads, as if they looked for danger.
John Thacher had brought his sister's child all the way in his arms,
and she had clapped her hands and laughed aloud and tried to talk a
great deal with the few words she had learned to say. She was very gay
in her baby fashion; she was amused with the little crowd so long as
it did not trouble her. She fretted only when the grave, kind man, for
whom she had instantly felt a great affection, stayed too long by that
deep hole in the ground and wept as he saw a strange thing that the
people had carried all the way, put down into it out of sight. When he
walked on again, she laughed and played; but after they had reached
the empty gray house, which somehow looked that day as if it were a
mourner also, she shrank from all the strangers, and seemed dismayed
and perplexed, and called her mother eagerly again and again.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49