It was a gray afternoon in November;
the air was frosty, although the laurel-bushes in the garden were all
in bloom.
"I s'pect there is snow on the ground at home," thought Joyce, "and
there's a big, cheerful fire in the sitting-room grate.
"Holland and the baby are shelling corn, and Mary is popping it. Dear
me! I can smell it just as plain! Jack will be coming in from the
post-office pretty soon, and maybe he'll have one of my letters. Mother
will read it out loud, and there they'll all be, thinking that I am
having such a fine time; that it is such a grand thing for me to be
abroad studying, and having dinner served at night in so many courses,
and all that sort of thing. They don't know that I am sitting up here in
this pear-tree, lonesome enough to die. Oh, if I could only go back home
and see them for even five minutes," she sobbed, "but I can't! I can't!
There's a whole wide ocean between us!"
She shut her eyes, and leaned back against the tree as that desolate
feeling of homesickness settled over her like a great miserable ache.
Then she found that shutting her eyes, and thinking very hard about the
little brown house at home, seemed to bring it into plain sight. It was
like opening a book, and seeing picture after picture as she turned
the pages.
There they were in the kitchen, washing dishes, she and Mary; and Mary
was standing on a soap-box to make her tall enough to handle the dishes
easily.
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