Читать книгу Barren Ground онлайн

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"Just for a little while, he says, until he can get the place off his hands. What he meant but didn't like to say, I suppose, was that he would stay as long as his father lives. The old man has got Bright's disease, you know, and he's already had two strokes of paralysis. The doctor up at the Courthouse says it can't be longer than six months, or a year at the most."

Six months or a year! Well, anything might happen, anything did happen in six months or a year!

On the floor the children were busily pretending that the oblong hole in the rug was a grave. "Mrs. Brown bought a crape veil that came all the way down to the bottom of her skirt," Minnie May was whispering, alert and animated. "That paper doll in the veil is Mrs. Brown on the way to the funeral."

"Well, I'd better be going," Dorinda said, throwing the orange shawl over her head, while she thought, "I ought to have worn my hat, only the snow would have ruined my Sunday hat, and the other isn't fit to be seen."

Picking up the basket by the door, she looked over her shoulder at Rose Emily. "If the snow isn't too heavy, I'll be over early to-morrow, and help you with the children. I hope you'll feel better."