Read Online Fruitlands by Gloria Whelan - Free Book Online

We made a boat out of an old wooden box and shipwrecked it on the bank of the river. Anna was Prospero and the Prince, Lizzie was Miranda, and I was Caliban and looked as ugly and frightening as I could. Abby May, with her fairy looks, made a fine Ariel and tookgreat delight in pinching me and making me fetch and carry.
    In the evening we all took our dinner outside and had a picnic.
    This morning the sun disappeared, and all across the sky gray clouds were bumping into one another. The sun shone behind the clouds and lit their edges, so at first they were very pretty. In the afternoon the clouds turned black. Swords of lightning were thrust out of the sky followed by rumbling thunder. Mother ran in and out of the house, looking first at the sky and then at the barley lying upon the ground.
    â€œIf the rain falls on the barley it will rot, and we’ve no other crop to depend upon for food this winter,” she said. She turned to us. “Girls, bring every basket in the house here. And quickly.”
    Lizzie, Anna, and I ran from room to room tumbling papers and firewood and sewing out of baskets, snatching them up and running with them to Mother. Even Abby May dragged a basket to the porch.
    Handing the baskets out, Mother led us into the field. “We must be as quick as we can, girls. The barley is all that lies between us and starvation this winter.” We flew up and down the rows gathering the sheaves of barley, piling them into our baskets, and running with them to the granary. Backand forth we ran, unmindful of the flashing and roaring over our heads. We bumped into one another, we tripped, we fell, the sheaves scratched our hands, and the barley got in our hair and down the necks of our dresses and itched. By the time the first drops of rain fell, we had saved a good part of the crop.
    Mother hugged us all and told us our efforts had saved us from starving. I am not very fond of barley, but I am even less fond of starving, so I took satisfaction in our afternoon’s work. I said, “Father told us Providence would provide.”
    Mother smiled at us. “Luckily, He had five helpers.”
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    S EPTEMBER 14, 1843
    We have had three days of rain, so I have been reading. There is nothing I like so well as to curl up in the attic with a book while the rain dances upon the roof and slides down the window. I will put down some of my favorite books. The first is The Pilgrim’s Progress . I think the burden I carry of selfishness and thinking only of myself is very like the burden Christian carries on his journey past the Hill of Difficulty and the Valley ofHumiliation to the Celestial City. The next is The Vicar of Wakefield . Everyone in the book has faults as I have, but in spite of the fact that Dr. Primrose loses all of his money and is thrown into prison, it has a happy ending. Maybe I will, too.
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    S EPTEMBER 14, 1843
    Father says that we must read to find characters whom we wish to imitate. Though Christian and Dr. Primrose are such characters, I must confess that I like villains just as well. It really makes you want to turn the pages when you are hoping that something bad will finally happen to evil people.
    Today on my paper scrap I wrote, “If sharing all we have with one another is so important, shouldn’t Anna be made to let me have her room to myself sometimes?”
    Father said I should be thinking of what I could share with others and not what I wished others to share with me. I let Anna wear my best blue ribbon around her hair.
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    S EPTEMBER 28, 1843
    Now that our berries and most of our vegetables are gone, we were happy to receive several barrels of apples. Mother wishes to get more maple sugar so that she can begin to make applesauce again, but Mr. Lane says that self-denial is the road to a spiritual life. He insists we eat our applesauce unsweetened. Mother said there must be more to life than doing without everything that might give one a little pleasure. A