Georgina of the Rainbows

Tis

drawers for something. Georgina could tell what she was doing from the sounds which reache

me the straight of it. What's this about his leaving the service and going junketing off to the interior of China on some mission of his own? Jane tells me he got a year's leave of absence from the Navy just to study up some outlandish disease that attacks the sailors in foreign ports. She says why should he take a whole year out of t

pped her search as soon as Cousin Mehitable said that, and the two of them went over to the fire and talked in low tones for a few minutes, lea

and I was sure you could

r one eye. Then she scudded down the hall and up the back stairs. She knew the company would be going soon, and she would be expected to bid them goo

here for a small fire still burned in the little drum stove. She opened the front damper to make it burn faster, and the light

der his cloak and never showed, even by the twitching of a muscle, that he was in pain. Of course, she knew that no live thing was tearing at her mother's heart,

out Dan Darcy and Belle Triplett. Nearly everyone whom the guests talked about had borne some unhappiness, and even her o

ry and disappointed, especially after the postman had come and gone without leaving a letter. Only t

lding and stewing around because he hadn't heard from him when he was away at school. Le

nion of her whenever she came to visit her Aunt Maria, and Georgina had admired her because she was so pretty and blonde and gentle, and enjoyed her because she was always so willing to do whatever Georgin

e damper and thought and thought. Then she looked out through the little square window-panes across the wind-swept dunes. It did not s

that Barby might be happy. But before the whispered verse had entirely passed her lips she stopped to amend it, adding Uncle Darcy's name and Belle's. Then s

dy in the world

se desire to set things right, she scrambled to her feet. Ther

a chapter beginning with the words, 'It came

ht streaming through the damper. The book opened at First Kings, seventeenth chapter. She held it directly in the broad rays examining the pages anxious

jah the T

orse to be scared by a fear which is not understood than by one which is familiar. Suddenly she felt as bewildered and frightened as she had

der to shut out the dreadful things closing down on her. It had puzzled and frightened her to know that something was eating Barby's

g to waken her, but Georgina's eyes opened and after a bewildered stare around the room she sat up, remembering. She had wakened to a world of trouble. Somehow it did not seem quite so b

her voice with Barbara's in the hymn that had been her earliest lull

ather, str

th bind the

s when we

in peril o

her father were "peculiar," Barby wouldn't have that sweet look on her face when she sang that prayer for him. If he were making her

began thinking again about those whispering voices which she had heard as she sat under the bed, behind the bird-of-paradise val

far more interesting than the bungalow. Georgina took him all over it, from the garret where she played on rainy days to the seat up in the willow, where standing in its highest crotch one could look clear across the Cape to the

ies did who came to see his Aunt Letty, as if they were talking merely to be gracious and kind to a strange little boy in whom t

s played with my brother Eddy's friends. Boys make such good c

see-saw, where Captain Kidd persisted i

ere one summer," she said, after the plank was adjusted so as to balance them properly. "Only

d he do

some, too, one time when he was little, because the

d i

or not. Something did though, f

then said: "I wonder what it would

. "There's some hanging up in the old powder-horn over the dining

r giving fair warning, she ra

"I'm going to give Ca

her conversation wit

be careful not to disturb the pans that ha

t of," called Georgina, "

ed the refrigerator door and p

he kitchen table," she bade

firearm that had done duty in the battle of Lexington. Richard wanted to get his hands on it, and was glad when she could not pul

than a spoonful le

st a little will make a gun go off. It mightn't be safe to fee

to her, then went to the kitchen whistling for Captain Kidd. Not all of the powder went into t

few grains into her own hand. If the Tishbite was going to do anybody any harm, it would be well to be p

if he liked it," he reported.