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The Hawthorns A Story about Children By: Amy Walton (1848-1899) |
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by Amy Walton
This is a nice little book, which would certainly appeal to
its intended audience of eleven or twelve year old little
girls. Its background is distinctly late Victorian, but
nevertheless a modern child would find nothing it could not
relate to other than the more pleasant general atmosphere
of those days. Amy Walton has written a sequel to this book, "Penelope and
the Others," also published on the Athelstane website.
NH
THE HAWTHORNS; A STORY ABOUT CHILDREN BY AMY WALTON CHAPTER ONE. EASNEY VICARAGE. Quite close to the nursery window at Easney Vicarage there grew a very
old pear tree. It was so old that the ivy had had time to hug its trunk
with strong rough arms, and even to stretch them out nearly to the top,
and hang dark green wreaths on every bough. Some day, the children had
been told, this would choke the life out of the tree and kill it; that
would be a pity, but there seemed no danger of it yet, for every spring
the pear tree still showed its head crowned with white blossoms, and
every summer the pears grew yellow and juicy, and fell with a soft
"splosh!" on the gravel path beneath. It was interesting to watch that,
and it happened so often, that it was hard to imagine a windsor pear
without a great gash where the sharp stones had cut into it; it was also
natural to expect when you picked it up that there would be a cunning
yellow wasp hidden somewhere about it, for all the little Hawthorns had
always found it so except the baby, and she was too small to have any
experience. Five little Hawthorns, without counting the baby, had
looked out of the nursery window and watched the pear tree blossom, and
the sparrows build their nests, and the pears fall; but by the time this
story begins, four of them, whose names were Penelope, Ambrose, Nancy,
and David, were schoolroom children, and learnt lessons of Miss Grey
down stairs. They had no longer much time for looking out of the
window, and the nursery was left in the possession of Dickie and Cicely
the baby. Dickie, whose real name was Delicia, was three years old a
great girl now she thought but she was still fond of kneeling up in the
window seat and flattening her little nose against the glass. She could
not see very much. Through the branches of the pear tree a little to
the left appeared the church tower, and a glimpse here and there of grey
and white tombstones in the churchyard. Straight in front of her there
was a broad lawn sloping down to a sunk fence, and beyond that a meadow
with tall elms in it, and after that another meadow where cows were
feeding, and that was all. In the spring the meadows turned to gold and
silver with the buttercups and daisies, and the rooks cawed noisily in
the elms; but in the summer it was all very green and very quiet.
Particularly at lesson time, when the "others" were busy with Miss Grey,
and Dickie must not make a noise because baby was asleep. Then there
was only Andrew to be seen in the distance, bending over his barrow or
rake or spade; but he never looked up to the nursery window, and this
was not surprising, for Andrew had a great deal to do. He worked in the
garden, and fed the chickens, and took care of Ruby the horse, and
sometimes drove the wagonette into Nearminster; he also rang the church
bell, and was parish clerk. Perhaps it was because he had so much on
his mind that he was of a melancholy disposition, and seldom disposed
for conversation with the children. They thought it a pity sometimes that neither the nursery nor the
schoolroom window looked out to the front of the house, for it was only
a little way back from the street; not that there was much going on in
the village, but still you could hear the "clink, clink" from the
blacksmith's forge opposite, and see anyone passing the white gate which
led out into the road. The vicarage was an old house; many and many a
vicar had lived in it, and altered or added to it according to his
liking, so that it was full of twists and turns, inside and out, and had
wonderful nooks and corners, and strange cupboards under the stairs... Continue reading book >>
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Genres for this book |
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Animals |
Fiction |
Teen/Young adult |
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Wikipedia – Amy Walton |
Wikipedia – The Hawthorns A Story about Children |
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