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expand2002 (1)
1Author:  Cary Alice 1820-1871Add
 Title:  Pictures of country life  
 Published:  2002 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: The rain had fallen slowly and continuously since midnight —and it was now about noon, though a long controversy among the hands had decided the time, finally to be three o'clock; no one among the dozen of them had a watch, except Lem Lyon, the most ill-natured, the least accommodating of all the work-hands on the farm, and no man ventured to inquire of him, for he was more than ordinarily unamiable to-day, and lay on the barn-floor apart from his work-mates, with a bundle of oat-straw for his pillow, and his hat pulled over his eyes, taking no part in the discussion about the time, and affecting to hear nothing of it. “I have so many things to say, and am so little used to writing, that I don't know how to begin; but as I promised to keep a sort of journal of every day's experience, I suppose I may as well begin now, for this is the second night of my being here. You can't imagine what a nice ride we had in the open wagon, so much pleasanter than being shut up in a coach—it was such a pleasure to see the stout horses pull us along, and trotting or walking just as Uncle Wentworth directed: I say uncle, because I like Mr. Wentworth, and wish all the time he was some true relation. The straw in the wagon smelled so sweet, sweeter than flowers, it seemed to me; and when we got into the real country everything looked so beautiful, that I laughed all the time, and Uncle Wentworth said folks would think he had a crazy girl. I was very much ashamed of my ignorance, for I thought all country people lived in holes in the ground, or little huts made of sticks, and that cows and horses and all lived together; but we saw all along the road such pretty cottages and gardens, and some houses indeed as fine as ours. I kept asking Uncle Wentworth what sort of place we were going to, for I could not help fearing it was a very bad place; but he only laughed, and told me to wait and see. A good many men were at work in fields of hay—some cutting and some tossing it about—and I kept wishing I was among them, they seemed so merry, and the hay was so sweet. In some places were great fields of corn, high as my head, with grey tassels on the tops of it. I thought men were at work there too, it shook so; but Uncle Wentworth said it was only the wind. And back of the fields, and seeming like a great green wall between the earth and the sky, stood the woods. I mean to go into them before long, but I am a little afraid of wild beasts yet; though uncle says I will find no worse thing than myself there. We met a good many carriages, full of gayly dressed people coming into town; and saw a number of young ladies dressed in bright ginghams, tending the flowers in front of the cottages, sometimes at work in the gardens, indeed, so my dresses will be right in the fashion. In one place we passed a white school-house, set right in the edge of the woods; and when we were a little by, out came near forty children, some girls as big as I, and a whole troop of little boys, all laughing, and jumping, and frolicking, as I never heard children laugh. I asked Uncle Wentworth if it were proper? and he said it was their nature, and he supposed our wise Father had made them right. Some of the boys ran and caught hold of the tail of our wagon and held there, half swinging and half riding, ever so long. Pretty soon uncle stopped the horses, and asked a slim, pale-faced girl, who was studying her book as she walked to ride; and thanking him as politely as anybody could do, she climbed up, right behind the horses, and sat down by me, and spoke the same as though she had been presented. She had a sweet face under a blue bonnet, but was as white, and looked as frail, as a lily. After she was seated, she looked back so earnestly, that I looked too, and saw the schoolmaster come out of the house and lock the door, and cross his hands behind him as he turned into a lane that ran by, which seemed to go up and up, green and shady as far as I could see. I could only see that his cheeks were red, and that he had curls under his straw hat. The girl kept looking the way he went; but if it were he she thought of, he didn't turn to look at her. Close by a stone-arched bridge, from under which a dozen birds flew as we rattled over it, Uncle Wentworth stopped the horses, and the young lady got out, and went through a gate at the roadside; and I watched her walking in a narrow and deep-worn path that was close by the bank of a run, till she turned round a hill, and I could not see her any more; but I saw a lively blue smoke, curling up over the hill-top, and in the hollow behind, Uncle Wentworth said she lived.
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