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edwindvinas
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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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market-place. For the woods, when they give at all, give unstintedly
and hold nothing back from their true worshippers. We must go to them
lovingly, humbly, patiently, watchfully, and we shall learn what
poignant loveliness lurks in the wild places and silent intervals,
lying under starshine and sunset, what cadences of unearthly music are
harped on aged pine boughs or crooned in copses of fir, what delicate
savours exhale from mosses and ferns in sunny corners or on damp
brooklands, what dreams and myths and legends of an older time haunt
them. Then the immortal heart of the woods will beat against ours and
its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own forever,
so that no matter where we go or how widely we wander we shall yet be
drawn back to the forest to find our most enduring kinship.”
“Doss,” called her mother from the hall below, “what are you doing all
by yourself in that room?”
Valancy dropped _Thistle Harvest_ like a hot coal and fled downstairs
to her patches; but she felt the strange exhilaration of spirit that
always came momentarily to her when she dipped into one of John
Foster’s books. Valancy did not know much about woods—except the
haunted groves of oak and pine around her Blue Castle. But she had
always secretly hankered after them and a Foster book about woods was
the next best thing to the woods themselves.
At noon it stopped raining, but the sun did not come out until three.
Then Valancy timidly said she thought she would go uptown.
“What do you want to go uptown for?” demanded her mother.
“I want to get a book from the library.”
“You got a book from the library only last week.”
“No, it was four weeks.”
“Four weeks. Nonsense!”
“Really it was, Mother.”
“You are mistaken. It cannot possibly have been more than two weeks. I
dislike contradiction. And I do not see what you want to get a book
for, anyhow. You waste too much time reading.”
“Of what value is my time?” asked Valancy bitterly.
“Doss! Don’t speak in that tone to _me_.”
“We need some tea,” said Cousin Stickles. “She might go and get that if
she wants a walk—though this damp weather is bad for colds.”
They argued the matter for ten minutes longer and finally Mrs.
Frederick agreed rather grudgingly that Valancy might go.
CHAPTER IV
“Got your rubbers on?” called Cousin Stickles, as Valancy left the
house.
Christine Stickles had never once forgotten to ask that question when
Valancy went out on a damp day.
“Yes.”
“Have you got your flannel petticoat on?” asked Mrs. Frederick.
“No.”
“Doss, I really do not understand you. Do you want to catch your death
of cold _again_?” Her voice implied that Valancy had died of a cold
several times already. “Go upstairs this minute and put it on!”
“Mother, I don’t _need_ a flannel petticoat. My sateen one is warm
enough.”
“Doss, remember you had bronchitis two years ago. Go and do as you are
told!”
Valancy went, though nobody will ever know just how near she came to
hurling the rubber-plant into the street before she went. She hated
that grey flannel petticoat more than any other garment she owned.
Olive never had to wear flannel petticoats. Olive wore ruffled silk and
sheer lawn and filmy laced flounces. But Olive’s father had “married
money” and Olive never had bronchitis. So there you were.
“Are you sure you didn’t leave the soap in the water?” demanded Mrs.
Frederick. But Valancy was gone. She turned at the corner and looked
back down the ugly, prim, respectable street where she lived. The
Stirling house was the ugliest on it—more like a red brick box than
anything else. Too high for its breadth, and made still higher by a
bulbous glass cupola on top. About it was the desolate, barren peace of
an old house whose life is lived.
There was a very pretty little house, with leaded casements and dubbed
gables, just around the corner—a new house, one of those houses you
love the minute you see them. Clayton Markley had built it for his
bride. He was to be married to Jennie Lloyd in June. The little house,