Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 3, 2025
"Mother, it's nearly five; we shall be late!" Mother, drunk with sleep, kept on looking at the window and yawning: "Yes, child, I'll come at once." She got up and came out in her short blue petticoat stretched round her fat hips, with an open slit behind, and her loose jacket and wooden shoes on. She lit the stove. Horieneke read her morning prayers.
All the world was one pure vista full of blue, curling mist and fresh, untasted fragrance. A soft melody of dreamy song was wafted through the air. And Horieneke saw herself also playing in that great garden, an angel among angels.
On another evening, when mother and Horieneke were alone at home, the seamstress brought the new clothes: a whole load of white muslin in stiff white folds full of satin bows and ribbons and white lace. They had to be tried on; and Horieneke stood there, for the first time in her life, all in white, like an angel.
There, in the midst of them, was Horieneke, bent also like the others, in her coarse workaday clothes, with a basket of seed-potatoes on her arm; and her red-gold curls now hung, like long corkscrews, wet against her face; and every now and then she would draw herself up, tossing her head back to keep them out of her eyes.
Half-way through the morning, they went two and two through the village to the church, where the priest was waiting to hear their catechism. This also went quietly; and the questions and answers sounded hollow in that empty church. Horieneke sat at the head of the girls; she had caught up almost half of them because she always knew her lessons so well and listened so attentively.
The children mused: "I should like to fall down dead, here and now," said Horieneke. Doorke looked up in surprise: "Why, Horieneke?" "Then I should be in Heaven at once." They again sat thinking a little: "Playing with the angels!... Have you ever seen angels, Doorke?" "Yes, in the procession, Horieneke." "Ah, but I mean live ones!
The wives felt and tested the material, examined the tucks and seams and the knots and the lining, the bows and ribbons and clapped their hands together in admiration. It became known all over the village that Horieneke would be the finest of all in the church. The counted days crept slowly by, the sun climbed higher every day and the mornings and evenings lengthened.
She felt a lump in her throat and could hardly get out her words: "It's all forgiven, my darling. God bless you and keep you! And now go quick to bed; you have to be up early to-morrow." Horieneke put her arm over mother's shoulders and whispered softly in her ear: "I have something else to ask you, mother. All the children's parents are going to communion to-morrow: shall you too, mother?"
Father made a remark or two about uncle and aunt and about their village, but got only half-answers from his wife. Then, all of a sudden, he asked: "What did the farmer come and say to you?" Frazie sighed: "They're planting potatoes to-morrow and we were to go and work; and Horieneke was to come too." "Ay." "But she'll stay here!" "What do you mean, stay here?"
The child kept on weeping: "Father, please, it's my first communion to-morrow and we must first receive forgiveness: Sister at school said so...." "The sisters at school are mad! And they'll make you mad too! To bed with you now, d'you hear?" Mother could stand it no longer; she sobbed aloud, took Horieneke under the arms and lifted her to her breast.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking