Beauty From Ashes by Eugenia Price

Author:Eugenia Price [Price, Eugenia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Romance
ISBN: 9780312959173
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 1994-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 40 527

“Wake up, Miss Sleepyhead,” Eve sang out as she flung back the winter curtains so that Miss Anne could have her first look in years at real, honest-to-goodness snow covering their well-kept nine acres of land and every bush and tree June, Rollie, and Big Boy tended. “Open your eyes an’ look out de windah! We got us snow for New Year’s Day. An’ Eve brung your breakfus. Mina, she say she send you a New Year surprise!”

As usual, Eve noticed, Miss Anne had slept her nightcap off to one side, but the big smile on her face was like a light shining into Eve’s heart because her beloved mistress had opened her eyes with the smile. Miss Anne had never fooled Eve when that certain smile had to be worked on. This one didn’t. Surprise raisin muffins on her tray from Mina, plus the surprise of a newly fallen snow, plus John Couper’s coming this very morning, plus its being the first day of the new year 1853, guaranteed that the smile would shine first thing.

“Oh, Eve, pull both curtains wide

open so I can have a good look! Do you remember back when we still lived at Lawrence when Papa and John got so Christmasy from one little dab of snow, they dumped tons of pine and cedar and holly branches into poor Mina’s kitchen? Their load was so big, we had to burn half of it in our fireplaces. Then you and I made fragrant little pillows out of the leftover needles.”

Eve’s smile flashed. “I sure do ‘member an’ I kin still feel how them pillows scratch, too! Mausa John an Mausa Couper, they bof go all the way whatever they do.”

She checked Miss Anne’s smile again. It hadn’t faded a bit at the mention of her dead papa or her dead husband. The smile was still there and Eve’s heart felt lit up from it. Only Eve had known how worried her own mind had been that moving all the way north to Marietta, away from the Island Miss Anne loved so much, might stop that smile. But there it was, and Miss Anne looked twenty years younger because of it. Pete and John Couper had been right, Eve thought to herself: It might for sure bring their mama to life again, just having her own house and property to live in.

“I remember the first time John and 529 I saw snow together. He’d grown up with it in Scotland, but he never stopped being amused at me because when we were married, I’d seen only two or three light snows in my whole life!”

Eve turned from pouring Anne’s breakfast coffee and stood facing her. “Mausa John, he sure like to laugh. And that ‘minds me, Miss Anne, I been keepin’ count ob somethin’.was

“What?”

“June tell me today that I kin add one more day to my count. Big Boy, he cry ever mornin’ we been in Mar’etta till last week. Me an’ June we figure he ain’t cried all this week between Christmas an’ today, New Year’s.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.