To Nowhere and Back by Margaret J. Anderson

Author:Margaret J. Anderson [Margaret J. Anderson]
Language: eng
Format: epub

After school Nancy waited for Elizabeth at the gate.

“Do you want to come down to the post office and buy sweets?” Nancy asked.

“I don’t have any money with me,” answered Elizabeth.

“I’ve got five pence, and I’ll share with you,” said Nancy.

So the two girls walked down to the village. Outside the post office was a huge baby carriage, or pram. There was nothing unusual in that. There were often prams left outside the shops while the mothers were inside shopping.

What made Elizabeth notice the pram was the thin, fretful cry from the baby inside. It sounded just like Michael. Elizabeth peered under the hood of the pram. Tiny fists were waving, and all she could see of the baby was a red face and a huge, wide mouth. The baby had been twisting and turning so that his bonnet half-covered his face, and the satin bow was tight under his chin.

Elizabeth leaned into the pram and rearranged the baby’s hat and talked gently. The baby’s shrill cry stopped, and Elizabeth gently rocked the pram.

“Come on!” said Nancy.

“You choose the sweets,” answered Elizabeth. “I’ll stay and keep the baby quiet.”

Nancy shrugged and went into the shop. It was crowded at this time of day when school got out. Children went in to buy sweets and comics, and mothers stopped in to pick up groceries they had forgotten earlier. The post office was more than a place to mail letters.

Elizabeth stood rocking the pram and talking to the baby. He looked older than Michael and was much rounder and rosier. She admired his clean, soft white clothes and his lacy pillow. How she wished Michael could have a bonnet like that!

Maybe she could take him one. Then she remembered the jam. What had happened to it? She remembered she had it when she had met Ann on the path, but where had it gone after that? She didn’t know. Maybe that proved it was no use trying to take presents into the past.

She looked again at the baby in his fresh new clothes. She loved his bonnet with its lacy brim and satin ribbon. If only she could give Michael something pretty instead of the matted wool shawl he wore. She wondered if, as Ann, she could give him something—but then Ann never had any money.

Just then a tall young woman hurried out of the shop with an assortment of parcels.

“Hello,” she said to Elizabeth. “I wondered why he’d stopped crying. He does like to be bounced.”

The young mother looked at Elizabeth in a friendly way. “Want to push him?” she asked.

“Oh, yes!” Elizabeth said, and carefully released the pram brake with her foot.

Just then Nancy came out of the post office and ran to join them.

“This is my friend Nancy,” said Elizabeth, and added to Nancy, “She’s letting me push her baby.”

“I thought we’d go to my house,” said Nancy. Clearly pushing a baby carriage was not the way Nancy would choose to spend the afternoon.

“Yes, you go on with your friend,” urged the young mother.

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.