Read Online Sophie and the Rising Sun by Augusta Trobaugh - Free Book Online Page B

whisperings of the gentle wind in the live oak tree. And little by little, they began to talk, hesitantly and somewhat timidly at first, merely offering small comments about the angle of the sun and occasionally identifying migrating flocks of birds to each other—which reminded Mr. Oto that he had not yet seen the great crane again, that creature he had sought to find at the river and which, now, he had nearly forgotten. Except for the painting.
    But as Sunday followed Sunday, Mr. Oto and Sophie began giving bits of old stories of their youth to each other—exquisite, glimmering images of worlds they lived in before their acquaintance. So that Sophie could see him as a small boy, trying to catch the goldfish in the pond in the center of his father’s garden. And Mr. Oto knew Sophie as the little girl who loved to run back and forth under the crisp, white sheets hanging on the clothesline.
    On the first Sunday in December, Sophie studied him quite openly and frankly, so much so that he felt the tips of his ears burning.
    “Is everything all right?” he asked, anxious that she was not ill or perhaps angry with him about something.
    “Oh, yes,” she fluttered. “It’s just...”
    “Please go on,” he urged, wondering if something he’d said or done had disappointed or alarmed her.
    But she smiled and shrugged her shoulders a bit. “Well, it’s just that I don’t know your name. Your full name,” she added. “I know something about what you were like as a little boy—because you’ve told me—but I don’t even know your first name.”
    The burning tips of Mr. Oto’s ears began pulsating, and he felt ribbons of blushing heat running up his neck on either side.
    “I am so sorry,” he mumbled.
    “No, please don’t be embarrassed,” Sophie urged, and before she knew what happened, she reached over and put her hand on his arm. They both just sat and stared at that, and then she slowly removed her hand.
    “My name...” he began, “is Grover. Grover Cleveland Oto.”
    “Grover Cleveland?”
    If she laughed, he knew that he would die. But she didn’t, even though she lifted her eyebrows a little quizzically.
    “Like President Grover Cleveland?”
    “Yes. Because of my father’s pride that his youngest son... me... that I was born in this country. That I am an American.”
    “Oh, that’s lovely,” she murmured. Then she added, “If you’re the youngest son, they you must have older brothers. Were they born in China?”
    “No. Not China,” he said, realizing that Sophie simply believed what everyone else in town believed about him. Even Miss Anne.
    “Not China?”
    “Japan.” How strange the word sounded to him.
    “But everybody thinks —”
    “I know,” he interrupted her gently.
    “Why don’t you correct them?” Sophie asked.
    “Because I do not want them asking questions about me,” he confessed. “I am a very private man.”
    “Oh! I’m so sorry!” Sophie breathed. “Why, I’ve been as rude as can be, asking you all kinds of personal questions!”
    “No!” He hastened to halt such an abject apology. “You are not like them. For you to ask is perfectly fine.”
    Suddenly, he realized how relaxed and smooth the English words were rolling off his tongue. Exactly as in his daydream.
    “Then may I please ask just one more?” Her voice had a playful lilt he had never heard in it before.
    “Of course.”
    “May I call you by your given name?”
    “Given name?” He had never heard of such a thing.
    “Your first name.”
    “Yes. Please.” But he almost stopped breathing at the thought of the lovely Miss Sophie actually saying his name aloud.
    “Grover.” Her voice was soft and melodic, like the faint lapping of ripples at the edge of a beautiful marsh deep inside him.
    So that all the next week, he heard her voice over and over again, saying his name. And it was enough.
    The next Sunday—December 7 —Sophie sighed deeply only halfway through the morning and put down her