United States or Christmas Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Louisa agreed with me, but I don't doubt that many people never looked at those pots full of goldenrod without seeing beans. It was to my way of thinking more their misfortune than the Jamesons' mistake; and they made enough mistakes which were not to be questioned not to have the benefit of any doubt. Soon the Jamesons, with their farm, were the standing joke in our village.
The seventeenth-of-June picnic is a regular institution in our village. I went with Louisa, and little Alice in her new white muslin dress; the child had been counting on it for weeks. We were nearly all assembled when the Jamesons arrived. Half a dozen of us had begun to lay the table for luncheon, though we were not to have it for an hour or two.
It was certainly rather unfortunate, as far as the social standing of the Jamesons among us was concerned, that they brought Grandma Cobb with them. Everybody spoke of her as Grandma Cobb before she had been a week in the village. Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson always called her Madam Cobb, but that made no difference.
We missed her auburn-wigged head appearing in our doorways at all hours, and there was a feeling all over the village as if company had gone home. I missed Harriet more than any of them. During the last of the time she had stolen in to see me quite frequently when she was released from her mother's guardianship for a minute. None of our village girls were kept as close as the Jamesons.
The Jamesons are still with us every summer even Grandma Cobb, who does not seem to grow feeble at all. Sarah is growing to be quite a pretty girl, and there is a rumor that Charlie White is attentive to her, though they are both almost too young to think of such things. Cobb is a very nice boy, and people say they had as soon have him come in and sit a while and talk, as a girl. As for Mrs.
They could scarcely reconcile it with the statement that the Jamesons had lost their money.
Of course, a carpet would have taken off something of that effect. Another thing struck us as odd, and really scandalized the village at large: the Jamesons had taken down every closet and cupboard door in the house.
That very evening Harry went past to the Jamesons, in his best suit, carrying a cane, which he swung with the assured air of a young man going courting where he is plainly welcome. "I am glad for one thing," said I, "and that is there is no more secret strolling in my grove, but open sitting up in her mother's parlor."
Louisa and I are not very curious, but the next day we did watch though rather furtively the Jamesons moving into the old Wray house. All day we saw loads of furniture passing, which must have been bought in Grover. So many of the things were sewed up in burlap that we could not tell much about them, which was rather unfortunate.
The woods were just bursting into leaf; the spring-flowers filled the air with odor, and chequered the green foliage and grass; the whole scene was full of vernal freshness, life, and beauty. The track which the Jamesons had followed was about midway between the northern and southern routes generally pursued by emigrants, and it was quite unlikely that others would cross the river at that point.
Word Of The Day