THE APPLE TREE GIRL
times she'd burst out laughing. 'What's the matter now?' I'd ask her. 'Oh, it's so funny!' she'd say, and curl up 'round the book again as if she'd never let go."
It was up at the old Marlin farm where Aunt Hepzibah told me these things, and, after I had gathered a few of Micah's apples, she let me look at the books which Charlotte had read. There was a set of Longfellow, and one of Dickens, and Hawthorne was there between Charles Reade and the Waverley Novels—good, old-fashioned sets of that half-morocco binding in which our grandfathers seemed to take such deep delight. It didn't require much imagination to picture Charlotte "curled up" in her chair by the window, laughing over Sam Weller, or her eyes filling with, tears as she followed the fortunes of Evangeline. And when the twilight came I think we can both imagine her laying her book aside and looking out of the window at Micah's tree …
18
