FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  
s nothing left for Water Serpent to love, so he starved himself to death, and died on Edith's grave. Do you believe there are white men who can love like that? All this side of the Island has Indian names, though on the other they are more English; a few English names here, too, of course, only it is the Indian ones you remember best, they are so queer. And it seems right, in memory of the Indians, that many roads are cut through lovely woods. Could you forget names like "Speonk" and "Moriches?" I _know_ you could not forget the woods either, if you saw them once, or the perfume of the pines and the yellow lilies growing wild. Even they had an Indian name, Captain Winston says, or their roots had: "sebon" or "shubun"; and the legend is that the lilies are the spirits of Indian children who come back each spring to their old playgrounds. There is another thing they say, too: if you travel along this sandy road (it's really part of the big sandbar which makes Fire Island--Fire Island that walls in the South Bay)--if you travel by moonlight, or come on the road between Moriches and Bellport, you can see prints of naked feet, one straight in front of the other, as the Indians used to walk; and they are not the feet of Europeans. I like those tales; and the ways through the woods (even where there are villages, like one I loved, called "Watermill") are so romantic, it would be more strange _not_ to have Indian ghosts! Bellport I _could_ not pass through without stopping, because of the curiosity shops. I had not much money to buy things, but I wanted to look. So the procession stopped; and the three boys we call Tom, Dick, and Harry--the ones who love me--clubbed together and bought me an old black japanned tea tray with flowers painted on it. Their hearts would have been in broken pieces if I had said no, I could not take it. So I said "yes, thank you!" and that put me into trouble, because then Mr. Caspian bought me something also: a tiny model of an old whaling ship. It was perfect, and cost a great deal. I knew, because I had asked the price and he had heard me. But what could I do? I was thinking what to say, when the wife of the shop man rushed up and reminded him that the model was engaged, and could not be sold to this gentleman. That gave me time to finish thinking! I said no one must buy me anything else, so I was in time to stop Mr. Caspian from giving me a fat silver watch of the time of the Georges. It woul
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Indian
 

Island

 

lilies

 

travel

 

Indians

 
Caspian
 
forget
 

bought

 
Moriches
 

thinking


English

 

Bellport

 
curiosity
 

hearts

 
ghosts
 

painted

 
flowers
 
stopping
 

stopped

 

clubbed


procession

 

things

 

japanned

 

wanted

 

engaged

 

Georges

 

reminded

 

rushed

 

gentleman

 

giving


silver

 
finish
 

trouble

 

pieces

 

whaling

 
perfect
 

broken

 
lovely
 

Speonk

 
memory

growing
 

yellow

 
perfume
 
remember
 

starved

 

Serpent

 
Captain
 

Winston

 
straight
 

prints