The Newark journal., 1903-12-04
THE REVENGE
OF CELINDA.
BY MARY CLARKE HUNTINGTON.

cause: Rummaglng Of a forbid
den drawer, followed by the APP
plica ton of the rod. And Celinda
Angelina, sitting in the kitchen
doorway, was darkly plotting re
yenge. Her mother was SO uncon-
scious of this plotting that she
hummed a blithe air to the time
of her rolling pin, as she stood at
the table between the two Win
dows, and the sound added to the
listeners grievance. Usually Ce-
linda Angelina delighted to hear
her mother sing with voice as
soft as the voice of the thrush
which nested among the alders BY
the mill brook, and often as she
listened she thought how pink
were her mothers checks, how
blue her eyes, how pretty the
wisps of brown hair curling be-
meath the neat coil. how white the
arms barred to the elbow. Then
she wasn't fat like Louise Green's
mother, or fat like Minnie Ran
dall's mother. CeHnda Angelina
had rejoiced with affectionate
pride that her mother was neither
fiat nor fat-but now fat mother
or a fiat mother seemed better IN
her eyes than this shapely mother.
Some one was coming up the
meadow lane with scythe over
shoulder, and Celinda Angeline's
sulky face frightened. She
would appeal to her father
against maternal tyranny. She
waited until he had reached the
grindstone, which stood in the
shade of the great maple by the
back door, stole up to him under
cover of the "sz-sz-sza Of sharpen
ing steel, and when he took his
foot from the grindstone treadle
said confidentially:
'Pa, I want you to get me new
motherw
Her father pressed a hard brown
thumb against the scythe to test
its edge. There was a droll pull
about the corners of his mouth;
his eyes twinkled. Couldn't you
get along with your old mother
until Eve finished having"
Celinda Angelina felt that she
was being laughed at. She went
and sat again in the doorway, re
sentfully kicking the toes of her
worn shoes together. BY the time
her father turned down the lane
she had decided upon her revenge.
If she couldn't have new mother
she would run away from this old
mother, and live all by herself
like the little boy of nursery jingle
fame!
Had she glanced out of the win
dow a few moments later the
worker in the kitchen might have
seen a figure in Shaker bonnet and
trailing plaid shawl stubbing
through the hot dust to the turn
of the road. 1t was none other
than Celinda Angeline running
away from her old mother-huJ
arrayed in raiment which was
that mothers own; running away
to live all by herself in the cun-
ningest place in the world, where
fathers who laughed and mothers
who whipped would never think
of looking for a lost liStle girl.
At the turn of the road was q
large lichen patched rock, beside
which grew a pussy willow bush
and a blackberry vine. y stout
stick pushed into the ground at
the base of the rock helped sup
port the rail of a bridge, built to
prevent muddiness from a small
brook that each summer dried out
of sight. When there was no wa
ter Celinda Angelina had crawled
in play under the bridge, which al
lowed of her standing upright. |
But she was not in play now, as
she jumped from the road onto
the bank beside the lichened rock.
She meant to live here all her life.
How cool it was in the pleas
antly dim retreat. Sunshine fell
in two long narrow lines between
the bridge planks upon the hard
earth, where only a refreshing
dampness suggested the brook
that every spring trickled along
this sluiceway. Celinda Angelina
took off her Shaker bonnet to
make herself feel quite at home,
folded the shawl and sat down
upon it, cross legged, with a de-
lightful sense of being her own