Christie looked back over the long, lonely years she had spent in
the old farm-house, plodding to school and church, and doing her
tasks with kind Aunt Betsey while a child; and slowly growing into
girlhood, with a world of romance locked up in a heart hungry for
love and a larger, nobler life.
She had tried to appease this hunger in many ways, but found little
help. Her father's old books were all she could command, and these
she wore out with much reading. Inheriting his refined tastes, she
found nothing to attract her in the society of the commonplace and
often coarse people about her. She tried to like the buxom girls
whose one ambition was to "get married," and whose only subjects of
conversation were "smart bonnets" and "nice dresses." She tried to
believe that the admiration and regard of the bluff young farmers
was worth striving for; but when one well-to-do neighbor laid his
acres at her feet, she found it impossible to accept for her life's
companion a man whose soul was wrapped up in prize cattle and big
turnips.
Uncle Enos never could forgive her for this piece of folly, and
Christie plainly saw that one of three things would surely happen,
if she lived on there with no vent for her full heart and busy mind.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26