Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 27, 2025
Down the sandy path under the overhanging blossoms came Jane and Zura, skipping and bowing in time to the game's demands. The last line brought them to us. Hand in hand they stopped, Zura dishevelled, Jane's hat looking as if it grew out of her ear, but old maid and young were laughing and happy as children. "We were practising games for the 'Sylumites," explained Zura.
Our experienced leader assured me, however, these picnics were as slow as a gathering of turtles in a coral cave, but they continued, ceasing only when the nights grew too chill for comfort. Our pleasures were then transferred to the homeyness of the little living-room in "The House of the Misty Star." In my adoption of Zura the humor was incidental; in Zura's adoption of Jane it was uppermost.
With a lightness, all assumed, he answered, "All right; but wait till I make a fortune teaching." He arose, saying he would go out on the balcony for a smoke. Soon after that Jane left, saying she must write many letters of thanks. I was alone with Zura. The night being mild for the time of year, she proposed that we stroll in the garden. To her this lovely spot was something new and beautiful.
"Please let me be Santa Claus this time, and give out the cod liver oil and the milk and the bibs to the babies," Zura begged one day when these articles were to be distributed; "and mayn't I keep the kiddies for just a little while to play with?"
Once only I visited Kishimoto San's house and had an interview with him. He was courteous, and his formality more sad than cold. He would never again take Zura into his house; neither would he interfere with her. Her name had been stricken from his family register. As long as I was kind enough to give her shelter, he would provide for her.
When I first entered, the farther parts of the large room were veiled in the shadow of the late afternoon. But when Mrs. Kishimoto called, "Zura, come!" a stream of sunlight, as though waiting for the proper time, danced into one corner and rested on the figure of a young girl, sitting awkwardly on her feet, reading.
I could give points to the Minister of Education, talk volubly at Mothers' Meetings and translate Confucius from the original, but I was helpless before this girl in her conflict with conditions to which she could never yield and which she fought with all the fierceness of undisciplined strength. I could think of no word to comfort her. I sought to divert her. "Zura, listen!
I could almost believe she was glad, for it gave her unlimited opportunity for coddling. Zura made no comment. So great was the rebound partial freedom induced, her spirits refused to descend from the exhilarating heights of "having a good time and doing things." She blandly ignored any suggestion of hidden trouble, or the possibility of it daring to come in the future.
To at least two of them, Zura was a strange being not of their kind and with whom they had nothing to do. But the look in Kishimoto San's eyes made me shrink for the fate of the girl. Laying my hand upon her arm I asked, "Oh, Zura, why did you do it? Aren't your feet burned?" "Burned! Nonsense! They are not even overheated. I used some of their spirit powder, which is plain salt.
We have it right here in the house." "Oh! Jane Gray," I said, exasperated, "do cultivate a little common sense. I heard Zura softly singing as she went about her work. She sang more and talked less in the two weeks that followed our Thanksgiving celebration than ever before since I had known her. She lightly scoffed at my suggestion of anything more serious.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking