Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Those sacred window curtains, of green paper, flowered with crimson roses, were never rolled up; but as the light strayed in at one side, and fell on the Cradlebow's fine head, often I reflected that under certain other conditions of life, meaning conditions more favorable to Luther Larkin, I might have regarded him very tenderly, and invested the strength and beauty of his young manhood with heroic meaning.
There was one room that served as kitchen, dining-room, and parlor, with a corresponding medley of furniture. A very finely chased gold watch hung against the loose brown boards of the wall a reminder of Godfrey Cradlebow's youth. But what distinguished this house from all the others, was the profusion of books it contained.
I would have stooped to his forehead, but he put up his arm with an extremely boyish, inoffensive gesture, almost with a sob, I thought, to draw me closer. I would have had that kiss as passionless as though it had been given to a child. The Cradlebow's breath was pure upon my cheek but I was compelled to feel the answering flame creep slowly in my own blood. "Never ask me to do that again!"
Among the professors, Godfrey Cradlebow's mother, Aunt Sibylla, with quite as much fire and less delicacy of expression than characterized the speech of the strange lame man, was always ready to warn, threaten, and exhort.
Madeline snapped out excitedly, "but, ma, you know I'm in the right of it just as well as I do; and there's Lute Cradlebow's got to dreamin' and moonin' around in the same way. Took it into his head he wanted to get an education well, what hasn't he took into his head! So he must begin recitin' to teacher.
Secretly willing to await the departure of the Cradlebow's ship, to have a brief season of rest from all care and responsibility among the scenes of my past labors a little breathing space in which to study these people quietly, to exchange unhurried kindly words with them before I should go away from them forever I was glad to have it so.
I knew that my dress had an air and a grace also foreign to Wallencamp, that a delicate perfume went up from my garments, that my voice was more than usually winning. I experienced a dangerous sense of satisfaction in the conquest of this unsophisticated youth a conquest not wholly without its retributive pain and intoxication. I felt the Cradlebow's arm tremble as we walked up the lane.
So, a little later, I sat up in my new chair and received the Cradlebow, in a loose, trailing gown of rich material, daintily embroidered. In the midst of my narrow and humble surroundings I had an exiled-princess sort of consciousness, and recognized with a new pleasure the Cradlebow's lordly face and bearing, as he stooped on entering the little red door.
"A dissertation on the graveyard," I began in a tone of affected lightness, and then paused, convicted of untruth by the solemn light in the Cradlebow's strange, grand eyes. Wallencamp had its peculiar seasons. After the season of hulled corn, came the reign of baked beans. It was during this latter dispensation that my courage failed considerably.
This little phenomenon, whom you see before you, is the youngest but one in a flock of thirteen. Some of that beautiful band " here Mr. Cradlebow raised a very shaky hand for an instant to his eyes, and although a fitting occasion for sentiment, I was compelled to think of what Grandpa Keeler had said about Godfrey Cradlebow's "sprees" "some of that beautiful band rest in the graveyard, yonder.
Word Of The Day