human
I remember.
gpt
It was one of Gilbert's thirsty days, and we stopped at nearly every convenient pump to give him drinks of water, and at noon we came to the loveliest wayside well with a real moss-covered bucket; do you remember?
human
I remember.
gpt
And we all clambered out, and father said it was time for luncheon, and we unpacked the baskets on the greensward near a beautiful tree, and father said, 'Don't spread the table too near the house, dears, or they'll cry when they see our doughnuts!' and Kitty, who had been running about, came up and cried, 'It's an empty house; come and look!'
human
I remember.
gpt
And we all went in the gate and loved every bit of it: the stone steps, the hollyhocks growing under the windows, the yellow paint and the green blinds; and father looked in the windows, and the rooms were large and sunny, and we wanted to drive the horse into the barn and stay there forever!
human
I remember.
gpt
And Gilbert tore his trousers climbing on the gate, and father laid him upside down on your lap and I ran and got your work-bag and you mended the seat of his little trousers. And father looked and looked at the house and said, 'Bless its heart!' and said if he were rich he would buy the dear thing that afternoon and sleep in it that night; and asked you if you didn't wish you'd married the other man, and you said there never was another man, and you asked father if he thought on the whole that he was the poorest man in the world, and father said no, the very richest, and he kissed us all round, do you remember?
human
Do I remember? O Nancy, Nancy! What do you think I am made of that I could ever forget?
gpt
Don't cry, Muddy darling, don't! It was so beautiful, and we have so many things like that to remember.
human
Yes, said Mrs. Carey,
gpt
I know it. Part of my tears are grateful ones that none of you can ever recall an unloving word between your father and mother!
human
The idea, said Nancy suddenly and briefly,
gpt
Nancy! What for?
human
We've got to leave this place, and where could we live on less than in that tiny village? It had a beautiful white-painted academy, don't you remember, so we could go to school there,--Kathleen and I anyway, if you could get enough money to keep Gilly at Eastover.
gpt
Of course I've thought of the country, but that far-away spot never occurred to me. What was its quaint little name,--Mizpah or Shiloh or Deborah or something like that?
human
It was Beulah, said Nancy;
gpt
We even named the house, recalled Mother Carey with a tearful smile.
human
There were vegetables growing behind it, and flowers in front, and your father suggested Garden Fore-and-Aft and I chose Happy Half-Acre, but father thought the fields that stretched back of the vegetable garden might belong to the place, and if so there would be far more than a half-acre of land.
gpt
And do you remember father said he wished we could do something to thank the house for our happy hour, and I thought of the little box of plants we had bought at a wayside nursery?
human
Oh! I do indeed! I hadn't thought of it for years! Father and you planted a tiny crimson rambler at the corner of the piazza at the side.
gpt
Do you suppose it ever 'rambled,' Muddy? Because it would be ever so high now, and full of roses in summer.
human
I wonder! mused Mother Carey.
gpt
Oh! it was a sweet, tranquil, restful place! I wonder how we could find out about it? It seems impossible that it should not have been rented or sold before this. Let me see, that was five years ago.
human
There was a nice old gentleman farther down the street, quite in the village, somebody who had known father when he was a boy.
gpt
So there was; he had a quaint little law office not much larger than Peter's playhouse. Perhaps we could find him. He was very, very old. He may not be alive, and I cannot remember his name.
human
Father called him 'Colonel,' I know that. Oh, how I wish dear Addy was here to help us!
gpt
If he were he would want to help us too much! We must learn to bear our own burdens. They won't seem so strange and heavy when we are more used to them. Now go to bed, dear. We'll think of Beulah, you and I; and perhaps, as we have been all adrift, waiting for a wind to stir our sails, 'Nancy's idea' will be the thing to start us on our new voyage. Beulah means land of promise;--that's a good omen!
human
And father found Beulah; and father found the house, and father blessed it and loved it and named it; that makes ever so many more good omens, more than enough to start housekeeping on,
gpt
OLD BEASTS INTO NEW
human
Happy I must contrive that they shall be, she thought,
gpt
There she is in the middle, says the whale, though Tom sees nothing but a glittering white peak like an iceberg.
human
That's Mother Carey, spouts the whale,
gpt
How does she do that?
human
That's her concern, not mine!