She
remembered the remark of an old lady, who was friendless and poor: "The
hardest time of my life was between forty and forty-five; I had to accept
several bitter facts that after became easier to bear." Prudence Pomeroy
looked at herself, then looked up to God and accepted, submissively, even
cheerfully, his fact that she had begun to grow old, and then, she
dressed herself for a walk and with her sun-umbrella and a volume of
poems started out for her tramp along the road and through the fields to
find her little friend Marjorie. The china plate and pathetic note last
night had moved her strangely. Marjorie was in the beginning of things.
What was her life worth if not to help such as Marjorie live a worthier
life than her own two score years had been?
A face flushed with the long walk looked in at the window upon Marjorie
asleep. The child was sitting near the open window in a wooden rocker
with padded arms and back and covered with calico with a green ground
sprinkled over with butterflies and yellow daisies; her head was thrown
back against the knitted tidy of white cotton, and her hands were resting
in her lap; the blue muslin was rather more crumpled than when she had
seen it last, and instead of the linen collar the lace was knotted about
her throat. The bandage had been removed from her forehead, the swelling
had abated but the discolored spot was plainly visible; her lips were
slightly parted, her cheeks were rosy; if this were the "beginning of
things" it was a very sweet and peaceful beginning.
Pages:
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101