Katharine's Yesterday E-Book

Grace Livingston Hill

• Herausgeber: Reading Essentials
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Young Katharine Bowman is certain the winter will be long and dreary. Her friends from the summer have all gone back to their homes, and she feels deserted and lonely. Then she discovers a gift left for her by a friend - a gift that will change her life!

Leseprobe

Katharine's Yesterday

by Grace Livingston Hill

First published in 1895

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

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Katharine's Yesterday

by

Grace Livingston Hill

Summer's End

Katharine Bowman stood at the front gate of her father’s house, looking drearily down the road at nothing in particular. The air was crisp and clear, and the sun shine of the early morning was making everything dance and sparkle.

All the brilliant red leaves, with their dew-covered faces, came fluttering down with a frosty air. They clanked and clattered against one another, as if to pretend that fall was well on its way and winter would soon be here. Nothing could have looked more enticing that October morning; the air, the sunshine, the leaves, and the very grass seemed full of delightful possibilities. Katharine saw them all: the little whirls of white dust down the road; the purple and blue mists on the distant hills at the end of the street; the big hill, or “mountain” as it was called, which loomed up before her just across the meadows. She had climbed it in company with a party of young-people only a few days before. A little brisk black-and-tan dog moved along the sidewalk in a lively manner, and the cheerful little sparrows that hopped in the road did not care whether winter came or not, but none of them gave Katharine any pleasure or sense of joy.

The truth was, the world looked pretty dark to her that morning. She had just come from the depot, where she had watched the morning express whizz out of sight, carrying with it half a dozen young people, who had been all in all to her the whole summer. They had played tennis and croquet together, had read and sung, walked and talked, gone on picnics, taken rides, and, in short, done all the delightful things that a party of congenial, bright young people can think up to do during a long summer in a country village.

The last delegation of them had gone away this morning; and now only Katharine was left, surrounded by all the pleasant places where they had enjoyed themselves together. How dreary they looked to her now. What was that great hill now, with its waving scarlet foliage and its stores of autumn brilliance?

Nothing but a hill, which she would not climb alone. What was the tennis court, with its clean-shaven smoothness and its clear, white lines, over which played the mirthful sunshine and occasionally a yellow-and-brown leaf? Nothing but a desolate reminder of happy days all gone.

Yes, the summer was over and the winter had begun, a whole long winter, full of work and disagreeableness. She remembered the old brown cashmere dress that lay on her table this morning. Her mother had put it there, reminding her that it should be ripped, sponged, and pressed, to be made over.

How she hated made-over things! She glanced down at the stylish street suit she had on. It would have to be put away and kept only for special occasion, now that there was no more company. Her pretty tennis suit, too, would have no use. Then there was a pile of mending, that had been accumulating during the months when she had given herself over to good times. What else was there not to be done, day in and day out, this long, barren winter?

In the house a pile of dishes was awaiting her attention. The servant had gone away for a day or two, and Katharine knew that the dishes would be left until she returned from the station, as her mother was very busy with the dressmaker. Still she lingered at the gate, dreading to go in and begin the winter. She thought miserably of the other happy girls who had left her, some to spend their winters in boarding school, others in their city homes, and the young men, most of them in college or in business, and not have to poke at home and wash dishes. She wishes she could go to school this winter. Why was it that her father’s business could not have been as good this particular winter, just when she would have so enjoyed going to the seminary with Mabel and Fannie?

She drew a long sigh, and turned away from the gate, drawing off her gloves as she moved slowly toward the house. She would not look at the tennis court as she passed it, and two tears slipped out and rolled down her cheeks. She did so love tennis, and now there would be no more until next summer. Of course, she could not play alone.

But once in the house there was plenty to be done, and no one else there seemed to have time to think of yesterday.

“Katharine, I wish you would wash the dishes as soon as possible, and then make a cake. Mrs. Whiting is coming down to tea tonight and go to prayer meeting, and there isn’t a bit of cake in the house. Make the easiest, quickest kind, and get through as soon as possible. There is a great deal to be done, and I shall need your help this morning.” Her mother said this as she entered the door.

Yesterday, when Katharine had been playing tennis, Frank Warner, her partner, had watched her several times. He had thought what a pleasant expression she always had, and what an exceedingly nice girl she was, for a girl who had been brought up in a small village, and whose father had never been able to give her many advantages. But he would scarcely have known her if he could have seen her now as she took off her hat and jacket, with an almost sullen expression on her face, and her brows drawn together in an inartistic scowl.

There was no time for her to examine the package that the girls had given to her at parting, and which she had not had the heart to open before, so she laid it on the table to wait until a leisure moment should come.

It seemed to her as though the task of washing all those sticky, ugly looking dishes was an impossible one, and likely to prove interminable. She made it all the harder for herself by continually envisioning pleasant things that had happened the days before, and discontentedly wishing those days back once more.