Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-12-24
LITTLE ANNE OLIVER.
BY LUCY A. LEEDS.

/ - ASoScl piOpOseu entertain
ment, and certainly he had spared neither
trouble nor expense in his efforts to
make the party a successful one.
81. Martins, the first station out of
Sandpeach, was only two miles distant
| rom White Barns, and by II o'clock on
lhat memorable morning an open landau
and pair drew up outside the station
yard, awaiting, in fashionable state. the
arrival OF Anne and the talented children
by train.
Gerry and Phil were delighted when
they found themselves for the first time
| IN all their lives driving rapidly along
the green lanes, with the trees arching
overhead and the hedges on either side.
10 little Anne also the country sights
ana sounds savored of enchantment.
In all her three and twenty years the
| girl had hardly known what it was to
nave hollday-neyer a country holiday.
her father, like most toilers and work
ers IN great towns and cities, mad been
lnoued with the idea that five hours by
the seaside was the ultimatum of en-
Joyment, when few shillings could be
squeezed out of the scanty hoard to af,
FORD the family such luxury.
linus little Anne's experience in his
lifetime were only of exhausting DAYS
spent at Ramsgate or Margate, where
dust, hot sun, high winds. trippers and
hlghIy-perfumed shell fish got mixed up
on her tired brain in inextricable CON
fusion, eliminating in a violent head
ache that caused her to be supremely
thankful when the holiday pleasure-so-
caled-was over.
But since the loss of her parent she
mad resolutely set her face against any
sort OF cheap excursion or outing. either
Tor herself or the children. The horrors
OF the companiOnship on such occasions
which during the journeys it was hnpos-
slble to avoid, quite outweighed any sort
OF enjoyment resulting from these expe.
dltlons, and little trip on a penny
steamboat or a picnic Just for the three
OF them IN some out of the way spot in
the Rents park or Kensington gardens
was the extent of any dissipation they
INDUCED in when bank holidays or birth
days seemed to demand some special fes.
tivity. The delights of green fields.
waving corn, breezy uplands and shady
lanes, were to little Annie Oliver as un-
known as the Coptic language or the rid
die of the Sphinx.
She literally held her breath as they
drove past rustic cottages powered in
honeysuckIe and travellers 10Y. grassy
commons, where geese waddled on the
green, and fat white ducks, fit for the
larders of Mrs. Bond of immortal mem
DRY, swan on CLASSY ponds edged with
elder bushes and brown bulrushes in
bloom. The corn was Just being cut.
and some of the fields We're still piled
with golden sheaves, while Others where
the grain had already been carried
showed white and bare, and Were dotted
with cleaners, girls and children in
tilted sun bonnets and cotton frocks
gathering up the fallen ears into their
aprons. The reapers resting beneath a
tall hedge for the noon day meal. the
cattle standing for shade under the
spreading boughs of the big trees in the
fields, the numbering wagons, drawn by
teams of sleek horses, brave in brass
harness and tinkling bells that stood
aside in narrow lanes to allow the car
riage to pass; the old water mill, with
its great wheel and rush of brown cream
ing water falling into the dark stream
below-each of these familiar country
sights was separate and absorbing de-
Light to little Anne, and she breathed
! at
last turned in through some huge iron
gates, past rustic lodge, smothered in
pink roses, and rolled beneath the arch
ing boughs of fine elm avenue up to
the great front door of White Barns.
Here Sir Roger Gresham, looking de-
ightfully at home and familiar in gray
tweeds and CATERS, stood bareheaded
eagerly awaiting his guests.
The two hours before luncheon seemed
literally to fly with all Gresham had to
show them. The gardens first, in all the
perfection of late summer leaf and
bloom, the hot houses where melons,
grapes, cucumbers and tomatoes grow
ing were displayed before the childrens'
wondering eyes; the bowling green,
where a small platform draped with red
and white had already been arranged for
the afternoon concert, and rows of chairs
were being placed by men hired from
Sandbeach for the purpose A peep at
the home farm, where Phil and Gerry
nursed downy chicks and ducklings, and
were promised one of the hayloft cats
snow white kittens to take back to
London; the stables, the orchards. the
kitchen gardens with rosy peaches and
golden apricots clinging amidst their
leaves to the high brick walls, and, final.
". the grand and stately house itself.
The old building, gray with age, and
with high peaked. brown-tied roofs,
where pigeons, fantais, tumblers and
pouters preened and summed themselves
all day long, occupied three sides of a
square courtyard, a quaint stone foun-
tain shaped like a gigantic dolphin, in
! the center of it. The woodwork of the
doors and easements was painted white
with greenish glass let into the tiny
panes. while over the front door appeared
/ the arms of the Gresham family rudely
cut in stone, Clipped and defaced by the
winds and weather OF four or five cen
/ turtles.
Little Anne. treading lightly through
the spacious, dimly-lit old rooms, beside
| their owner. felt herself transported back
/ three or four generations at the sight of
/ the dark oak floors. the faded brocades
and ehintzes, the green spindle-legged,
/ highly polished furniture, the family
portraits and miniatures, the cabinets
Z IL I .hf IL,