Books by "Amy Ella Blanchard"
12 books found
A Frontier Knight: A Story of Early Texan Border-Life
by Amy Ella Blanchard
2011 · Library of Alexandria
THE sun was shining gloriously across level sweeps of blue-grass meadow-land, and sending its beams through the windows of a plain, substantial, country house, where it made squares of brightness on the whitewashed walls, sharply outlining the shadows, and touching to gold the fair hair of a girl who sat motionless on a low stool near the window. She was thinking intently and did not heed the entrance of an older girl who glanced at her with a smile and began to busy herself about the room. Finally the girl at the window gave a deep sigh and stretched her hands above her head. “Oh, is it dinner time, Christine?” she said. “Very near,” was the reply. “What a brown study you were in, Alison; you must have been miles away.” “And so I was. I must decide, you know.” “Yes, I do know.” There was a serious note in Christine’s voice. “And have you decided?” she asked after a pause. “Yes.” The girl arose and came to where her sister stood. She laid her hands on the shoulders of the other and looked steadfastly into the clear eyes. “I am going with you and John,” she said. “There are just the three of us, and I cannot be separated from you, even though I have this home for always, mine at Aunt Miranda’s death and all its comforts while I live here. I have thought it over. I have thought of the days which will go by all alike; everything just so, all cut and dried; up at such an hour every morning; hot rolls for breakfast on Wednesdays and Saturdays, cold bread on Mondays. Every chair set at exactly such an angle, Aunt Miranda always with her hair parted precisely, Uncle Brown with his whiskers curled in just such a fashion, never a hair out of place; never any excitement; once a month the minister and his wife to dinner; once a year a day in
The cat and kitten were both eating supper and Marian was watching them. Her own supper of bread and milk she had finished, and had taken the remains of it to Tippy and Dippy. Marian did not care very much for bread and milk, but the cat and kitten did, as was plainly shown by the way they hunched themselves down in front of the tin pan into which Marian had poured their supper. In the next room Grandpa and Grandma Otway were sitting and little bits of their talk came to Marian's ears once in a while when her thoughts ceased to wander in other directions. "If only one could have faith to believe implicitly," Grandma Otway said. "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, and should say to that mountain, be ye removed," quoted Grandpa Otway. Marian sighed. They talked that way very often, she remembered, and she herself had grown to consider it quite as difficult as did her grandmother, to exercise complete faith. She had made numberless mighty efforts, and yet things did not come out as she supposed they ought. She sat gravely watching the cat and kitten lap up the last drop of milk and carefully clean the sides of the pan in a manner quite inelegant for humans, but no doubt entirely a matter of etiquette in cat society, and then when Tippy, having done her duty by the pan, turned her attention to making Dippy tidy, Marian walked slowly away. The sun was setting behind the hills, and touching the tops of the trees along their base; further away the mountains were very dark against a yellow line of sky. Marian continued her way thoughtfully toward the garden, turned off before she reached the gate and climbed a ladder which leaned against the side of the old brick wall. From the ladder one could reach a long limb of a scraggy apple tree upon which hung early apples nearly ripe. Marian went up the ladder very carefully, taking care not to catch her frock upon a nail or a projecting twig as she crept along the stout limb to settle herself in a crotch of the tree. From this spot she could see the distant sea, pinky purple, and shimmering silver. Marian did not gaze at this, however, but turned her face toward the mountains. She clasped her hands tightly and repeated firmly: "Be ye removed into the midst of the sea. Be ye removed into the midst of the sea." Then she waited, but the mountain did not budge an inch, though the child kept her eyes fixed upon it. Twice, three times, she repeated the words, but the mountain remained immovable. "I knew it; I just knew it," exclaimed the child when she had made her final effort, "and now I want to know how large a mustard seed is. To-morrow I'll go ask Mrs. Hunt."