Skylark Read Online Free PDF Page A

clouds.
    “Come on,” said Sarah after a moment. She took our hands. “Let’s go meet the aunts.”
    We walked up the lawn to the house. The house was large with shutters on the windows. There were gardens with flowers I had never seen before.
    “Will they like us?” asked Caleb.
    “They will love you,” said Sarah, laughing. “They will fall upon you with kisses.”
    We walked up the steps of the big porch. Sarah put out her hand to open the door, but it swung open, and a woman in a silk dress stood there, her feet bare. Her eyes widened when she saw us. Her hand went up to her mouth. Sarah smiled.
    “Hello, Mattie,” she said softly. “We’re home.”
     
    The aunts laughed and cried and fed us.
    “I loved your letters,” said Aunt Mattie. “I loved all the pictures you drew.” She kissed Sarah and Caleb and she kissed me. Then she kissed Sarah again.
    Aunt Harriet, tall with wire glasses, in bare feet, too, tried to feed us all the food in the kitchen.
    “I made these cookies, Anna, Caleb,” she said. “Are you tired? I made the bread, too. And the soup! Do you want a nap? Do you want a bath?”
    “Harriet, let them be!” said Aunt Mattie.
    Sarah leaned over close to us.
    “See?” she said. “I told you.”
    And then Aunt Lou, dressed in overalls and high boots, came in the front door with her dog.
    “Lou!” said Sarah.
    Aunt Lou hugged Sarah. She hugged me.
    “Mind that beast,” said Aunt Harriet.
    “The beast’s name is Brutus,” said Aunt Lou.
    “Lou works with animals,” said Aunt Harriet.
    “Lou works with a veterinarian,” said Aunt Lou. She kissed Caleb twice. “Harriet wants me in silk and pearls.”
    Brutus jumped up on Caleb’s lap.
    “Oh, get away!” scolded Aunt Harriet.
    “Dogs like me,” said Caleb, smiling. “We have two dogs at home.”
    “This is what we’ve needed all along, a child!” said Aunt Lou, hugging Caleb. “We must get ourselves one.”
    “It looks like we have two,” said Aunt
Mattie softly.
    “Sarah,” said Aunt Harriet, “will Jacob be coming, too?”
    Sarah looked out the window.
    “No,” she said softly. “Jacob won’t be coming.”
    “Papa’s home,” I said.
    Somehow hearing my own words made it worse. I started to cry. Sarah put her arms around me, and I cried harder.
    “Papa had to stay home.”

     
     
     
     
----
    Maine is green and full of voices and people laughing and talking; the tide going in and going out; the moon rising above the water. Sarah loves it here. The last thing every night she walks by the water, and the first thing in the morning she is there, too. Now I know how much she missed her old home. I miss my home. I miss Lottie and Nick and the land and the big sky.
    I miss Papa.
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11
    I t took longer for Caleb to miss Papa. Caleb swam every day in the cold water. Aunt Lou wrapped him in blankets when he came out, shivering, his teeth chattering. He went fishing with Aunt Lou and with Sarah’s brother, William, who was so happy when he first saw Sarah that he ran up the hill and whirled her around in his arms. It made me think of Papa and Sarah turning around and around in the prairie wind at night.
    William’s wife, Meg, hugged Sarah, too.
    “It’s been so long!” she said. “Almost two years since we’ve seen you!”
    Two years. I looked at Sarah and wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking. Would it be two years before we saw Papa?
    “William looks like you, Sarah,” said Caleb.
    “Plain and tall, I told you so,” said Sarah. “Remember?”
    “Did you hear what I just heard?” said Aunt Harriet as we picnicked on a blanket in the grass by the sea. “Seal is going to have kittens!”
    “The father is orange,” called Caleb, making the aunts laugh.
    “Seal!” exclaimed William. “I remember that Seal was independent. Independent like Sarah.”
    William put his arm around Sarah. The sun came out from a cloud, but it wasn’t hot like home. It was cool and green and beautiful. But