Datasets:
edwindvinas
/
testdataset

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
text
stringlengths
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72
“Doss, what on earth are you doing? Have you gone crazy?”
“No,” said Valancy. She meant to say it defiantly, but habit was too
strong for her. She said it deprecatingly. “I—I just made up my mind to
cut this bush down. It is no good. It never blooms—never will bloom.”
“That is no reason for destroying it,” said Mrs. Frederick sternly. “It
was a beautiful bush and quite ornamental. You have made a
sorry-looking thing of it.”
“Rose trees should _bloom_,” said Valancy a little obstinately.
“Don’t argue with _me_, Doss. Clear up that mess and leave the bush
alone. I don’t know what Georgiana will say when she sees how you have
hacked it to pieces. Really, I’m surprised at you. And to do it without
consulting _me_!”
“The bush is mine,” muttered Valancy.
“What’s that? What did you say, Doss?”
“I only said the bush was mine,” repeated Valancy humbly.
Mrs. Frederick turned without a word and marched back into the house.
The mischief was done now. Valancy knew she had offended her mother
deeply and would not be spoken to or noticed in any way for two or
three days. Cousin Stickles would see to Valancy’s bringing-up but Mrs.
Frederick would preserve the stony silence of outraged majesty.
Valancy sighed and put away her garden knife, hanging it precisely on
its precise nail in the tool-shop. She cleared away the severed
branches and swept up the leaves. Her lips twitched as she looked at
the straggling bush. It had an odd resemblance to its shaken, scrawny
donor, little Cousin Georgiana herself.
“I certainly have made an awful-looking thing of it,” thought Valancy.
But she did not feel repentant—only sorry she had offended her mother.
Things would be so uncomfortable until she was forgiven. Mrs. Frederick
was one of those women who can make their anger felt all over a house.
Walls and doors are no protection from it.
“You’d better go uptown and git the mail,” said Cousin Stickles, when
Valancy went in. “_I_ can’t go—I feel all sorter peaky and piny this
spring. I want you to stop at the drugstore and git me a bottle of
Redfern’s Blood Bitters. There’s nothing like Redfern’s Bitters for
building a body up. Cousin James says the Purple Pills are the best,
but I know better. My poor dear husband took Redfern’s Bitters right up
to the day he died. Don’t let them charge you more’n ninety cents. I
kin git it for that at the Port. And what _have_ you been saying to
your poor mother? Do you ever stop to think, Doss, that you kin only
have one mother?”
“One is enough for me,” thought Valancy undutifully, as she went
uptown.
She got Cousin Stickles’ bottle of bitters and then she went to the
post-office and asked for her mail at the General Delivery. Her mother
did not have a box. They got too little mail to bother with it. Valancy
did not expect any mail, except the _Christian Times_, which was the
only paper they took. They hardly ever got any letters. But Valancy
rather liked to stand in the office and watch Mr. Carewe, the
grey-bearded, Santa-Clausy old clerk, handing out letters to the lucky
people who did get them. He did it with such a detached, impersonal,
Jove-like air, as if it did not matter in the least to him what
supernal joys or shattering horrors might be in those letters for the
people to whom they were addressed. Letters had a fascination for
Valancy, perhaps because she so seldom got any. In her Blue Castle
exciting epistles, bound with silk and sealed with crimson, were always
being brought to her by pages in livery of gold and blue, but in real
life her only letters were occasional perfunctory notes from relatives
or an advertising circular.
Consequently she was immensely surprised when Mr. Carewe, looking even
more Jovian than usual, poked a letter out to her. Yes, it was
addressed to her plainly, in a fierce, black hand: “Miss Valancy
Stirling, Elm Street, Deerwood”—and the postmark was Montreal. Valancy
picked it up with a little quickening of her breath. Montreal! It must
be from Doctor Trent. He had remembered her, after all.
Valancy met Uncle Benjamin coming in as she was going out and was glad
the letter was safely in her bag.
“What,” said Uncle Benjamin, “is the difference between a donkey and a
postage-stamp?”
“I don’t know. What?” answered Valancy dutifully.
“One you lick with a stick and the other you stick with a lick. Ha,
ha!”
Uncle Benjamin passed in, tremendously pleased with himself.
Cousin Stickles pounced on the _Times_ when Valancy got home, but it
did not occur to her to ask if there were any letters. Mrs. Frederick
would have asked it, but Mrs. Frederick’s lips at present were sealed.
Valancy was glad of this. If her mother had asked if there were any
letters Valancy would have had to admit there was. Then she would have
had to let her mother and Cousin Stickles read the letter and all would