The Little Colonel's House Party

Annie F. (Annie Fellows) Johnston

Informations

• Publié par: erkya
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 14
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Little Colonel's House Party, by Annie Fellows Johnston, Illustrated by Louis Meynell This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Little Colonel's House Party Author: Annie Fellows Johnston Release Date: May 2, 2005 [eBook #15741] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY*** GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (www.pgdp.net) THE LITTLE COLONEL'S™ HOUSE PARTY BY ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON AUTHOR OF THE LITTLE COLONEL , TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF KENTUCKY , THE STORY OF DAGO , ETC. Illustrated by LOUIS MEYNELL BOSTON L.C. PAGE AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS 1907 Colonial Press Electrotyped and Printed by C.H. Simonds & Co. Boston. Mass., U.S.A. Works of Annie Fellows Johnston The Little Colonel Series (Trade Mark, Reg. U.S. Pat. Of.) Each one vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated The Little Colonel Stories $1.50 (Containing in one volume the three stories, "The Little Colonel," "The Giant Scissors," and "Two Little Knights of Kentucky.") The Little Colonel's House Party The Little Colonel's Holidays The Little Colonel's Hero The Little Colonel at Boarding-School The Little Colonel in Arizona The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor The above 8 vols.,boxed Illustrated Holiday Editions 1.50 12.00 Each one vol., small quarto, cloth, illustrated, and printed in color The Little Colonel $1.25 The Giant Scissors 1.25 Two Little Knights of Kentucky 1.25 The above 3 vols.,boxed 3.75 Cosy Corner Series Each one vol., thin 12mo, cloth, illustrated The Little Colonel $.50 The Giant Scissors .50 Two Little Knights of Kentucky .50 Big Brother .50 Ole Mammy's Torment .50 The Story of Dago .50 Cicely .50 Aunt 'Liza's Hero .50 The Quilt that Jack Built .50 Flip's "Islands of Providence" .50 Mildred's Inheritance .50 Other Books Joel: A Boy of Galilee In the Desert of Waiting The Three Weavers Keeping Tryst Asa Holmes $1.50 .50 .50 .50 1.00 Songs Ysame (Poems, with Albion Fellows Bacon) 1.00 L.C. PAGE & COMPANY 200 Summer Street Boston, Mass. "MALCOLM WENT ON CUTTING." (See page 137 .) CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT II. "ONE FLEW INTO THE C UCKOO 'S N EST" III. "ONE FLEW EAST" IV. "ONE FLEW WEST" V. BETTY R EACHES THE "H OUSE BEAUTIFUL " VI. THE ENCHANTED N ECKLACE VII. BITS FROM BETTY'S D IARY VIII. THE GYPSY FORTUNE-TELLER IX. H ER SACRED PROMISE X. FOUND OUT XI. SOME STORIES AND A POEM XII. A PILLOW-CASE PARTY XIII. MORE MEASLES XIV. A LONG N IGHT XV. "THE R OAD OF THE LOVING H EART" XVI. A FEAST OF LANTERNS PAGE 11 25 39 50 62 81 96 110 128 150 171 189 205 216 233 248 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE "MALCOLM WENT ON CUTTING " "'OH, RUN AND GET IT, QUICK, D AVY,' SHE CRIED" "SHE SORTED THE RIBBONS AND EXAMINED THE GLOVES" "BETTY BEGAN THE STORY " "'I'M GLAD THAT I DON'T HAVE TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY THE YEAR ROUND !'" "THERE WAS ONE WILD SCREAM AFTER ANOTHER" "'BUT WE CAUGHT THE CHICKENS AND BROUGHT THEM BACK!'" "'LET'S ALL SIT DOWN ON THE STEPS'" Frontispiece 35 59 83 110 167 228 255 THE LITTLE COLONEL'S™; HOUSE PARTY. CHAPTER I. THE INVITATIONS ARE SENT. Down the long avenue that led from the house to the great entrance gate came the Little Colonel on her pony. It was a sweet, white way that morning, filled with the breath of the locusts; white overhead where the giant trees locked branches to make an arch of bloom nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and white underneath where the fallen blossoms lay like scattered snowflakes along the path. Everybody, in Lloydsboro Valley knew Locust. "It is one of the prettiest places in all Kentucky," they were fond of saying, and every visitor to the Valley was taken past the great entrance gate to admire the long rows of stately old trees, and the great stone house at the end, whose pillars gleamed white through the Virginia creeper that nearly covered it. Everybody knew old Colonel Lloyd, too, the owner of the place. He also was often pointed out to the summer visitors. Some people called attention to him because he was an old Confederate soldier who had given his good right arm to the cause he loved, some because they thought he resembled Napoleon, and others because they had some amusing tale to tell of the eccentric things he had said or done. Nearly every one who pointed out the imposing figure, which was clad always in white duck or linen in the summer, and wrapped in a picturesque military cape in winter, added the remark: "And he is the Little Colonel's grandfather." To be the grandfather of such an attractive little bunch of mischief as Lloyd Sherman was when she first came to the Valley was a distinction of which any man might well be proud, and Colonel Lloyd was proud of it. He was proud of the fact that she had inherited his lordly manner, his hot temper, and imperious ways. It pleased him that people had given her his title of Colonel on account of the resemblance to himself. She had outgrown it somewhat since she had first been nicknamed the Little Colonel. Then she was only a spoiled baby of five; but now his pride in her was even greater, since she had grown into a womanly little maid of eleven. He was proud of her delicate, flower-like beauty, of her dainty ways, and all her little schoolgirl accomplishments. "She is like those who have gone before," he used to say to himself sometimes, pacing slowly back and forth under the locusts; and the bloom-tipped branches above would nod to each other as if they understood. "Yes-s, yes-s," they whispered in the soft lisping language of the leaves, "we know! She's like Amanthis,—sweet-souled and starry-eyed; we were here when you brought her home, a bride. She's like Amanthis! Like Amanthis!" Under the blossoms rode the Little Colonel, all in white herself this May morning, except the little Napoleon hat of black velvet, set jauntily over her short light hair. Into the cockade she had stuck a spray of locust blossoms, and as she rode slowly along she fastened a bunch of them behind each ear of her pony, whose coat was as soft and black as the velvet of her hat. "Tarbaby" she called him, partly because he was so black, and partly because that was the name of her favourite Uncle Remus story. "There!" she exclaimed, when the flowers were fastened to her satisfaction. "Yo' lookin' mighty fine this mawnin', Tarbaby! Maybe I'll take you visitin' aftah I've been to the post-office and mailed these lettahs. You didn't know that Judge Moore's place is open for the summah, did you, and that all the family came out yesta'day? Well, they did, and if Bobby Moore isn't ovah to my house by the time we get back home, we'll go ovah to Bobby's." As she spoke, she passed through the gate at the end of the avenue and turned into the public road, a wide pike with a railroad track on one side of it and a bridle-path on the other. Two minutes' brisk canter brought her to another gate, one that had been closed all winter, and one that she was greatly interested in, because it led to Judge Moore's house. Judge Moore was Rob's grandfather, and she and Rob had played together every summer since she could remember. The wide white gate was standing open now, and she drew rein, peering anxiously in. She hoped for the sight of a familiar freckled face or the sound of a welcoming whoop. But it was so still everywhere that all she saw was the squirrels playing hide and seek in the beech-grove around the house, and all she heard was the fearless cry, "Pewee! pewee!" of a little bird perched in a tree overarching the gate. It balanced itself on the limb, leaning over and cocking its bright bead-like eyes at her, as if admiring the sight. What it saw was a slender girl of eleven, taller than most children of that age, and more graceful. There was a colour in her cheek like the delicate pink of a wild rose, and the big hazel eyes had a roguish twinkle in them, as they looked out fearlessly on the world from under the little Napoleon hat with its nodding cockade of locust blossoms. "There's nobody in sight, Tarbaby," said the Little Colonel, "and there isn't time to go in befo' we've been to the post-office, so we might as well be travellin' on." She was turning slowly away when down the pike behind her came the quick beat of a horse's hoofs and a shrill whistle. A twelve-year-old boy was riding toward her as fast as his big gray horse could carry him. He was riding bareback, straight and lithe as a young Indian, his cap pushed to the back of his head. He snatched it off with a flourish as he came within speaking distance of the Little Colonel, his freckled face all ashine with pleasure. "Hello! Lloyd," he called, "I was just going to your house." "And I was looking for you, Bobby," she answered, as informally as if it were only yesterday they had parted, instead of eight months before. "Come and go down to the post-office with me. I must take these lettahs." "All right," said Rob, wheeling the gray horse around beside the black pony, and smiling broadly as he looked down into the Little Colonel's welcoming eyes. "You don't know how good it feels to get back to the country again, Lloyd. I could hardly wait for school to close, when I'd think about the fish waiting for me out here in the creek, and the wild strawberries getting ripe, and the horses just spoiling to be exercised. It was more than I could stand. What have you been doing all winter?" "Oh, the same old things: school and music lessons, and good times in the evenin' with mothah and papa Jack and grandfathah." As they jogged along, side by side, the Little Colonel chatting gaily