FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34  
35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   >>   >|  
our social standing. I supposed that the world was peopled by Joneses, Lincolns, Humphries and Dunkelbergs, but mostly by Dunkelbergs. These latter were very rich people who lived in Canton village. I know, now, how dearly Aunt Deel loved her brother and me. I must have been a great trial to that woman of forty unused to the pranks of children and the tender offices of a mother. Naturally I turned from her to my Uncle Peabody as a refuge and a help in time of trouble with increasing fondness. He had no knitting or sewing to do and when Uncle Peabody sat in the house he gave all his time to me and we weathered many a storm together as we sat silently in his favorite corner, of an evening, where I always went to sleep in his arms. He and I slept in the little room up-stairs, "under the shingles"--as uncle used to say. I in a small bed, and he in the big one which had been the receiver of so much violence. So I gave her only a qualified affection until I could see beneath the words and the face and the correcting hand of my Aunt Deel. Uncle made up the beds in our room. Often his own bed would go unmade. My aunt would upbraid him for laziness, whereupon he would say that when he got up he liked the feel of that bed so much that he wanted to begin next night right where he had left off. I was seven years old when Uncle Peabody gave me the watermelon seeds. I put one of them in my mouth and bit it. "It appears to me there's an awful draft blowin' down your throat," said Uncle Peabody. "You ain't no business eatin' a melon seed." "Why?" was my query. "'Cause it was made to put in the ground. Didn't you know it was alive?" "Alive!" I exclaimed. "Alive," said he, "I'll show ye." He put a number of the seeds in the ground and covered them, and said that that part of the garden should be mine. I watched it every day and by and by two vines came up. One sickened and died in dry weather. Uncle Peabody said that I must water the other every day. I did it faithfully and the vine throve. "What makes it grow?" I asked. "The same thing that makes you grow," said Uncle Peabody. "You can do lots of things but there's only one thing that a watermelon can do. It can just grow. See how it reaches out toward the sunlight! If we was to pull them vines around and try to make 'em grow toward the north they wouldn't mind us. They'd creep back and go reachin' toward the sunlight ag'in just as if they had a compass to sho
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34  
35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Peabody
 

ground

 

watermelon

 
Dunkelbergs
 

sunlight

 
exclaimed
 

throat

 

appears

 

blowin

 

business


things

 
reaches
 

wouldn

 

reachin

 

compass

 

watched

 

number

 

covered

 

garden

 
sickened

throve

 

faithfully

 
weather
 

mother

 

offices

 

Naturally

 

turned

 
tender
 

children

 
unused

pranks

 

refuge

 

sewing

 

weathered

 
knitting
 

trouble

 

increasing

 
fondness
 

Humphries

 

Lincolns


Joneses

 
peopled
 

social

 

standing

 

supposed

 

dearly

 

brother

 

village

 

Canton

 

people