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142 pages

English

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Orphaned as toddlers, sisters Gwynette and Jeanette were adopted by two very different families and spent most of their childhoods separated. A series of circumstances conspire to bring the pair together, but will they ever find out that their relationship runs much deeper than friendship?

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Children's

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 octobre 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776592579
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

SISTERS
* * *
GRACE MAY NORTH

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Sisters First published in 1928 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-257-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-258-6 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I - How it Began Chapter II - Jenny Chapter III - Forlorn Etta Chapter IV - A Pitiful Plight Chapter V - Friends in Need Chapter VI - Wanted, a Waitress Chapter VII - Jenny's Teacher Chapter VIII - An Adventure Filled Day Chapter IX - An Old Friend Appears Chapter X - Brother and Sister Chapter XI - Views and Reviews Chapter XII - Plots and Plays Chapter XIII - Ferns and Friends Chapter XIV - Dearest Desires Chapter XV - Peers or Pigs Chapter XVI - Good News Chapter XVII - Pride Meets Pride Chapter XVIII - A New Experience Chapter XIX - A Welcome Guest Chapter XX - Ingratitude Personified Chapter XXI - A Second Meeting Chapter XXII - Revelations and Regrets Chapter XXIII - Mother and Son Chapter XXIV - Harold and Charles Chapter XXV - A Jolly Plan Chapter XXVI - A Rustic Cabin Chapter XXVII - Fun as Farmers Chapter XXVIII - A Difficult Promise Chapter XXIX - The Haughty Gwynette Chapter XXX - Gwyn's Awakening Chapter XXXI - Conflicting Emotions Chapter XXXII - Three Girls Chapter XXXIII - Gwynette's Choice Chapter XXXIV - An Agreeable Surprise Chapter XXXV - A Birthday Cake Chapter XXXVI - Sisters
Chapter I - How it Began
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Gold and blue were the colors that predominated on one glorious Aprilday. Gold were the fields of poppies that carpeted the foothillsstretching down to the very edge of Rocky Point, against which thejewel-blue Pacific lapped quietly. It was at that hour of the tides whenthe surf is stilled.
A very old adobe house surrounded on three sides by wide verandas, thepillars of which were eucalyptus logs, stood about two hundred feet backfrom the point. Rose vines, clambering at will over the picturesque olddwelling, were a riot of colors. There was the exquisite pink CecilBrunner in delicate, long-stemmed clusters; Gold of Ophir blossoms in amass glowing in the sunshine, while intertwined were the vines of thestar-like white Cherokee and Romona, the red.
Mingled with their fragrance was the breath of heliotrope which grew,bushwise, at one corner so luxuriantly that often it had to be cut awaylest it cover the gravel path which led around the house to the orchard.There, under fruit trees that were each a lovely bouquet of pearly bloom,stood row after row of square white hives, while bees, busy at honeygathering, buzzed everywhere.
Now and then, clear and sweet, rose the joyous song of mating birds.
A little old woman, seated in a rustic rocker on the western side porch,dropped her sewing on her lap and smiled on the scene with blissfulcontent. What a wonderful world it was and how happy she and Silas hadbeen since Jenny came. She glanced across the near gardens, aglow withearly bloom, to a patch of ploughed brown earth where an old man wascultivating between rows of green shoots, some of them destined toproduce field corn for the cow and chickens, and the rest sweet corn forthe sumptuous table of Mrs. Poindexter-Jones.
Then the gaze of the little old woman continued a quarter of a mile alongthe rocky shore to a grove of sycamore trees, where stood the castle-likehome of the richest woman in Santa Barbara township. Only the topmostturrets could be seen above the towering treetops. The vast grounds weresurrounded by a high cypress hedge, and, not until he reached the wroughtiron gates could a passer-by obtain a view of the magnificence that laywithin. But the little old woman knew it all in detail, as she had beenhousekeeper there for many years, until, in middle-age, she had marriedSilas Warner, who managed the farm for Mrs. Algernon Poindexter-Jones.
For the past fifteen years the happy couple had lived in the old adobehouse at Rocky Point, while at Poindexter Arms, as the beautiful estatewas named, there had been a succession of housekeepers and servants, fortheir mistress was domineering and hard to please.
Of late years the grand dame had seldom been seen by the kindly oldfarmer, Si Warner and his wife, for Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had preferredto live in her equally palatial home in San Francisco overlooking theGolden Gate.
She visited Santa Barabra periodically, merely to assure herself that herorders were being carried out by the servants left in charge ofPoindexter Arms and Rocky Point farm. Often Mrs. Si Warner did not catcha glimpse of their employer on these fleeting visits, and yet she wellknew that the imperious mistress of millions was linked more closely thanshe liked to remember to the old couple at Rocky Point.
As she resumed her sewing, memory recalled to her that long ago incidentwhich, by the merest chance, had made the proud woman and the humble,sharers of a secret which neither had cared to divulge.
It had been another spring day such as this, only they had all beenyounger by fourteen years.
While ploughing in the lot nearest the highway, Farmer Si had noticed astrange equipage drawn to one side of the road. He thought little of itat first, believing it to be a traveling tinsmith, as the canopied wagonwas evidently furnished with household utensils, but, when an hour later,he again reached that side of the field and saw the patient horse stillstanding there with drooping head and no one in sight, his curiosity wasaroused, and, leaping over the rail fence, he went to investigate.
Under that weather-stained canopy a sad tragedy had been enacted. On thedriver's seat a young man, clothed in a garb of a clergyman, seemed to besleeping, but a closer scrutiny revealed to the farmer that the Angel ofDeath had visited the little home on wheels. For a home it evidently hadbeen. In the roomier part of the wagon a beautiful little girl of threesat on a stack of folded bedding, while in a crude box-like crib a sicklylooking infant lay sleeping.
Whenever Mrs. Silas Warner recalled that long ago day, she againexperienced the varying emotions which had come to her following eachother in rapid succession. She had been ironing when she had seen a queercanopied equipage coming up the lane which led from the highway.Believing it to be a peddlar, who now and then visited their farm, shehad gone to the side porch, there to have her curiosity greatly arousedby the fact that it was her husband Si who was on the seat of the driver.Then her surprise had been changed to alarm when she learned of the threewho were under the canopy. Awe, because she was in the presence of death,and tender sympathy for the little ones, who had evidently been orphaned,mingled in the heart of the woman as she held the scrawny, crying infantthat her husband had given to her. Even with all these crowding emotionsthere had yet been room for admiration, when the little three-year-oldgirl was lifted down. The child stood apart, quiet and aloof. She hadheard them say that her father was dead. She was too young to understandand so she just waited. A rarely beautiful child, with a tangled mass oflight brown, sun-glinted hair hanging far below her shoulders, and wide,wondering brown eyes that were shaded with long curling lashes.
But still another emotion had been stirred in the heart of Susan Warner,for a most unexpected and unusual visitor had at that moment arrived. Acoach, bearing the Poindexter Arms, turned into the lane, and when theliveried footman threw open the door, there sat no less a personage thanthe grand dame, Mrs. Algernon Poindexter-Jones, on one of her veryinfrequent visits to the farm which belonged to her estate. She had beencharmed with the little girl, and after having heard the story, sheannounced that she would keep the child until relatives were found. Thenshe was driven away, without having stated her errand, and accompanyingher, still quietly aloof, rode the three-year-old girl. A doctor andcoroner soon arrived, having been summoned by Mrs. Poindexter-Jones. Thelatter had searched the effects of the dead man and had found anunfinished letter addressed to a bishop in the Middle West. In it the manhad told of his wife's death, and that he was endeavoring to keep on withhis traveling missionary work in outlying mountain districts, but thathis heart attacks were becoming threateningly more frequent. "There is norelative in all the world with whom to leave Gwynette, who is now three,and little Jeanette, who is completing her first year." No more had beenwritten.
After the funeral Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had announced that she wouldadopt the older child and that, if they wished, the farmer and his wifemight keep the scrawny baby on one condition, and that was that the girlsshould never be told that they were sisters. To this the childless couplehad rejoicingly agreed. The doctor and coroner had also been sworn tosecrecy. The dead man's effects were stored in the garret above the oldadobe and the incident was closed.
Mrs. Poindexter-Jones left almost at once for Europe, where she hadremained for several years.
Tenderly loved, and nourished with the best that the farm could produce,the scrawny, ill-looking infant had gradually changed to a veritablefairy of sunshine. "Jenny," as they called her, feeling that Jeanette wasa bit too grand, walked with a little skipping step from the time thatshe was first sure that she would not tumble, and looked up, withlaughter in her lovely eyes, that were the same liquid brown as were hersister's, and tossed back her l