Читать книгу Jean Craig in New York онлайн

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So it slipped out, Jack’s personal history, and the father and daughter wondered at his sturdy acceptance of life’s discipline. Only nine, but already he faced the world as his own master, fearless and optimistic. All through that first evening he sat in the kitchen on the high stool, playing tunes he had learned from his father. Tommy was entranced and begged him to teach him how to play.

After supper the girls and Tommy drew up their chairs around the dining room table as usual. Here every night the three younger ones prepared their lessons for the next day. Jean generally read or sat with her father awhile, but tonight she answered Peg Moffat’s letter. It was read over twice, the letter that blended in so curiously with the coming of the cousins from New York.

Ever since Jean could remember she had drawn pictures. No one guessed how she loved the paintings in New York’s art galleries. They had seemed so real to her, the face of a Millet peasant lad crossing a stubble field at dawn; a Breton girl knitting as she walked homeward behind some straying sheep; one of Frans Hals’ Flemish boys, his chin pressed close to his violin, his deep eyes looking at you from under the brim of his hat.