[who moi]

I have always loved this story...it is so heart warming...finally found a copy of it on the net (legally shared).

It is long, so don't feel the need to read it...with these long winter days looming around...perhaps some warm stories of the heart could ease some of our pains....

bless you all as I head out...

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The Hiltons' Holiday : By Sarah Orne Jewett

I

There was a bright, full moon in the clear sky, and the sunset was still shining faintly in the west. Dark woods stood all about the old Hilton farmhouse, save down the hill, westward, where lay the shadowy fields which John Hilton, and his father before him, had cleared and tilled with much toil—the small fields to which they had given the industry and even affection of their honest lives.

John Hilton was sitting on the doorstep of his house. As he moved his head in and out of the shadows, turning now and then to speak to his wife, who sat just within the doorway, one could see his good face, rough and somewhat unkempt, as if he were indeed a creature of the shady woods and brown earth, instead of the noisy town. It was late in the long spring evening, and he had just come from the lower field as cheerful as a boy, proud of having finished the planting of his potatoes.

“I had to do my last row mostly by feelin’,” he said to his wife. “I’m proper glad I pushed through, an’ went back an’ ended off after supper. ’Twould have taken me a good part o’ to-morrow mornin’, an’ broke my day.”

“ ’Tain’t no use for ye to work yourself all to pieces, John,” answered the woman, quickly. “I declare it does seem harder than ever that we couldn’t have kep’ our boy; he’d been comin’ fourteen years old this fall, most a grown man, and he’d work right ’longside of ye now the whole time.”

“ ’Twas hard to lose him; I-do seem to miss little John,” said the father, sadly. “I expect there was reasons why ’twas best. I feel able an’ smart to work; my father was a girt strong man, an’ a monstrous worker afore me. ’Tain’t that; but I was thinkin’ myself to-day what a sight o’ company the boy would ha’ been. You know, small’s he was, how I could trust him to leave anywheres with the team, and how he’d beseech to go with me wherever I was goin’; always right in my tracks I used to tell ’em. Poor little John, for all he was so young he had a great deal o’ judgment; he’d ha’ made a likely man.”

The mother sighed heavily as she within the shadow.

“But then there’s the little girls, a sight o’ help an’ company,” urged the father, eagerly, as if it were wrong to dwell upon sorrow and loss. “Katy, she’s most as good as a boy, except that she ain’t very rugged. She’s a real little farmer, she’s helped me a sight this spring; an’ you’ve got Susan Ellen, that makes a complete little housekeeper for ye as far as she’s learnt. I don’t see but we’re better off than most folks, each on us having a workmate.”

“That’s so, John,” acknowledged Mrs. Hilton, wistfully, beginning to rock steadily in her straight splint- bottom chair. It was always a good sign when she rocked.

“Where be the little girls so late?” asked their father. “’Tis gettin’ long past eight o’clock. I don’t know when we’ve all set up so late, but it’s so kind o’ summer-like an’ pleasant. Why, where be they gone?”

“I’ve told ye; only over to Becker’s folks,” answered the mother. “I don’t see myself what keeps ’em so late; they beseeched me after supper till I let ’em go. They’re all in a dazzle with the new teacher; she asked ’em to come over. They say she’s unusual smart with ’rethmetic, but she has a kind of gorpen look to me. She’s goin’ to give Katy some pieces for her doll, but I told Katy she ought to be ashamed wantin’ dolls’ pieces, big as she’s gittin’ to be. I don’t know’s she ought, though; she ain’t but nine this summer.”

“Let her take her comfort,” said the kind-hearted man. “Them things draws her to the teacher, an’ makes them acquainted. Katy’s shy with new folks, more so’n Susan Ellen, who’s of the business kind. Katy’s shy-feelin’ and wishful.”

“I don’t know but she is,” agreed the mother slowly. “Ain’t it sing’lar how well acquainted you be with that one, an’ I with Susan Ellen? ’Twas always so from the first. I’m doubtful sometimes our Katy ain’t one that’ll be like to get married—anyways not about here. She lives right with herself, but Susan Ellen ain’t nothin’ when she’s alone, she’s always after company; all the boys is waitin’ on her a’ready. I ain’t afraid but she’ll take her pick when the time comes. I expect to see Susan Ellen well settled—she feels grown up now—but Katy don’t care one mite ’bout none o’ them things. She wants to be rovin’ out o’ doors. I do believe she’d stand an’ hark to a bird the whole forenoon.”

“Perhaps she’ll grow up to be a teacher,” suggested John Hilton. “She takes to her books more’n the other one. I should like one on ’em to be a teacher same’s my mother was. They’re good girls as anybody’s got.”

“So they be,” said the mother, with unusual gentleness, and the creak of her rocking-chair was heard, regular as the ticking of a clock. The night breeze stirred in the great woods, and the sound of a brook that went falling down the hillside grew louder and louder. Now and then one could hear the plaintive chirp of a bird. The moon glittered with whiteness like a winter moon, and shone upon the low-roofed house until its small window-panes gleamed like silver, and one could almost see the colours of a blooming bush of lilac that grew in a sheltered angle by the kitchen door. There was an incessant sound of frogs in the lowlands.

“Be you sound asleep, John?” asked the wife presently.

“I don’t know but what I was a’most,” said the tired man, starting a little. “I should laugh if I was to fall sound asleep right here on the step; ’tis the bright night, I expect, makes my eyes feel heavy, an’ ’tis so peaceful. I was up an’ dressed a little past four an’ out to work. Well, well!” and he laughed sleepily and rubbed his eyes. “Where’s the little girls? I’d better step along an’ meet ’em.”

“I wouldn’t just yet; they’ll get home all right, but ’tis late for ’em certain. I don’t want ’em keepin’ Mis’ Becker’s folks up neither. There, le’s wait a few minutes,” urged Mrs. Hilton.

“I’ve be’n a-thinkin’ all day I’d like to give the child’n some kind of a treat,” said the father, wide awake now. “I hurried up my work ’cause I had it so in mind. They don’t have the opportunities some do, an’ I want ’em to know the world, an’ not stay right here on the farm like a couple o’ bushes.”

“They’re a sight better off not to be so full o’ notions as some is,” protested the mother, suspiciously.

“Certain,” answered the farmer; “but they’re good, bright child’n, an’ commencin’ to take a sight o’ notice. I want ’em to have all we can give ’em. I want ’em to see how other folks does things.”

“Why, so do I”—here the rocking-chair stopped ominously—“but so long’s they’re contented——”

“Contented ain’t all in this world; hopper-toads may have that quality an’ spend all their time a-blinkin’. I don’t know’s bein’ contented is all there is to look for in a child. Ambition’s somethin’ to me.”

“Now you’ve got your mind on to some plot or other.” (The rocking-chair began to move again.) “Why can’t you talk right out?”

“Tain’t nothin’ special,” answered the good man, a little ruffled; he was never prepared for his wife’s mysterious powers of divination. “Well there, you do find things out the master! I only thought perhaps I’d take ’em to-morrow, an’ go off somewhere if ’twas a good day. I’ve been promisin’ for a good while I’d take ’em to Topham Corners; they’ve never been there since they was very small.”

“I believe you want a good time yourself. You ain’t never got over bein’ a boy.” Mrs. Hilton seemed much amused. “There, go if you want to an’ take ’em; they’ve got their summer hats an’ new dresses. I don’t know o’ nothin’ that stands in the way. I should sense it better if there was a circus or anythin’ to go to. Why don’t you wait an’ let the girls pick ’em some strawberries or nice ros’berries, and then they could take an’ sell ’em to the stores?”

John Hilton reflected deeply. “I should like to get me some good yellow-turnip seed to plant late. I ain’t more’n satisfied with what I’ve been gettin’ o’ late years o’ Ira Speed. An’ I’m goin’ to provide me with a good hoe; mine’s gettin’ wore out an’ all shackly. I can’t seem to fix it good.”

“Them’s excuses,” observed Mrs. Hilton, with friendly tolerance. “You just cover up the hoe with somethin’, if you get it—I would. Ira Speed’s so jealous he’ll remember it of you this twenty year, your goin’ an’ buyin’ a new hoe o’ anybody but him.”

“I’ve always thought ’twas a free country,” said John Hilton, soberly. “I don’t want to vex Ira neither; he favours us all he can in trade. ’Tis difficult for him to spare a cent, but he’s as honest as daylight.”

At this moment there was a sudden sound of young voices, and a pair of young figures came out from the shadow of the woods into the moonlighted open space. An old cock crowed loudly from his perch in the shed, as if he were a herald of royalty. The little girls were hand in hand, and a brisk young dog capered about them as they came.

“Wa’n’t it dark gittin’ home through the woods this time o’ night?” asked the mother, hastily, and not without reproach.

“I don’t love to have you gone so late; mother an’ me was timid about ye, and you’ve kep’ Mis’ Becker’s folks up, I expect,” said their father, regretfully. “I don’t want to have it said that my little girls ain’t got good manners.”

“The teacher had a party,” chirped Susan Ellen, the elder of the two children. “Goin’ home from school she asked the Grover boys, an’ Mary an’ Sarah Speed. An’ Mis’ Becker was real pleasant to us: she passed round some cake, an’ handed us sap sugar on one of her best plates, an’ we played games an’ sung some pieces too. Mis’ Becker thought we did real well. I can pick out most of a tune on the cabinet organ; teacher says she’ll give me lessons.”

“I want to know, dear!” exclaimed John Hilton.

“Yes, an’ we played Copenhagen, an’ took sides spellin’, an’ Katy beat everybody spellin’ there was there.”

Katy had not spoken, she was not so strong as her sister, and while Susan Ellen stood a step or two away addressing her eager little audience, Katy had seated herself close to her father on the doorstep. He put his arm around her shoulder, and drew her close to his side, where she stayed.

“Ain’t you got nothin’ to tell, daughter?” he asked, looking down fondly, and Katy gave a pleased little sigh for answer.

“Tell ’em what’s goin’ to be the last day o’ school, and about our trimmin’ the schoolhouse,” she said, and Susan Ellen gave the programme in most spirited fashion.

“’Twill be a great time,” said the mother, when she had finished. “I don’t see why folks want to go trapesin’ off to strange places when such things is happenin’ right about ’em.” But the children did not observe her mysterious air. “Come, you must step yourselves right to bed.”

They all went into the dark, warm house, the bright moon shone upon it steadily all night, and the lilac flowers were shaken by no breath of wind until the early dawn