Читать книгу From the Land of the Snow-Pearls: Tales from Puget Sound онлайн

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“Oh,” she cried, grasping the reins in her thin hands, “I’m all of a tremble! Just like maw on wash days! Only I ain’t tired—I’m just glad.”

There were shifting groups of children in front of the school house. Everything—even the white houses with their green blinds and neat door-yards—seemed strange and over-powering to Esther. The buoyancy with which she had surveyed the world from the back of a tall horse gave way to sudden timidity and self-consciousness.

Mr. Hoover put her down in the midst of the children. “There, now,” he said cheerfully, “play around with the little girls like a nice body while I put up the horses.”

A terrible loneliness came upon Esther as she watched him leading away the horses. All those merry children chattering and shouting, and not one speaking to her or taking the slightest notice of her. She realized with a suddenness that dazed her and blurred everything before her country eyes that she was very, very different from them—why, every one of the little girls was dressed in pure, soft white, with a beautiful sash and bows; all wore pretty slippers. There was not one copper-toed shoe among them!