Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 3, 2025
Near the communion-bench knelt Horieneke, her eyes wide open, full of brightness and gladness and ecstacy, face to face with Our Lord. The incense smelt so good and the whole little church was filled with the trailing chords of the organ and with soft, plaintive Latin chant.
The boys were lying on their backs, under the walnut-tree, talking, when Horieneke came past.
She was holding a loaf against her fat stomach and, with a curved pruning-knife, was cutting off good thick slices which the youngsters snatched away one by one and stuffed into their pockets. Horieneke fetched her basket of knitting and her school-books.
Mother fetched the things as they were wanted. There was a constant discussing, approving, asking if it wouldn't meet or if it hung too wide, all in a whisper, so as not to wake the boys. There came a scrabbling overhead and down the stairs; and, before any one suspected it, Bertje stood dancing round Horieneke in his shirt. "Jesu-Maria! Oo, you rascal!"
And she lifted Horieneke from among the flowers, right up to her beaded breast, and pressed her thick lips to the child's forehead with a resounding smack. "Godmother, godmother," whimpered Trientje. "Yes, you too, my duck!" And the child forthwith received two fat kisses on its little cheeks. The dogs were now unharnessed and father and Petrus had gone for a stroll in the orchard.
Horieneke came walking step by step under the lime-trees, along the narrow grass-path beside the sand, keeping her eyes fixed on the play of her knitting-needles. When she reached the bridge that crossed the brook, she looked round after her brothers.
Time dragged on; cold weather came and rain and it seemed as if it never would be summer. And that constant repetition of getting up and going to bed and learning her lessons and counting the hours and the minutes became so dreary and seemed to go round and round in an endless circle. To-day at last was the long-awaited holiday when Horieneke might go into town with mother to buy clothes.
In between it all, the sparrows chattered and chirped and fluttered safely in the powdery sand of the playground. The sun was now high in the sky and the light glittered on the young leaves, full of the glad life of youth and gleaming with gold. Horieneke, with a few more children, was in another school.
At home, everything was put away, the table cleared and wiped; the lamp was alight and all the doors open. The boys were in bed. Horieneke had read evening prayers to them and then hurried to her little room, to be alone; and there she had lain thinking of all that had happened during that long day: her jaws ached from the constant smiling; and she felt dead-tired and sad.
In a short time this went as exactly, as evenly as could be, just like soldiers drilling. Finally, they had to recite once more their acts of faith, adoration and thanksgiving; and Horieneke and the first of the little boys had to write out on large sheets of paper the preparation and thanks which they had learnt by heart, to be read to-morrow in church.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking