"Sorensen, Virginia - Plain Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sorensen Virginia)

a thing. She almost forgot to say her morning prayer, but not quite, for this one was always about Dan.

"Help Dan to come back home. Help everything here to be the way it was before." But this time she added something else, for herself, thinking of the school
and hearing the happy laughter of the lovers in the kitchen when Mother discovered them: "And help me never to take The First Step Away!"

39

THE GIRL IN PINK

Ruth would be married the first Tuesday in November. Even before school started, a week after Hans' light had come into the window, the house was humming
with work and plans. Esther was so busy and excited she almost forgot about school. But, of course, never entirely. In the middle of gathering eggs or
putting away dishes or peeling potatoes, she would suddenly think: "Next week I am going to school!"

What a mixup her feelings were! She was glad and she was curious. But she was worried too. From going to town and even to the Fair, she knew how it was
going to be in many ways. She could not show more if she wore a dress the color of a cardinal. Only in a crowd of dark dresses exactly alike, and white
bonnets and black shoes and white aprons, was she hidden. At the Fair, where hundreds of people wore different styles and colors, she had been absolutely
clear and alone among them, like one black bird against the sky. At school she would show every day, every hour.

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At the Fair, in a little booth, there had been a wooden bird held up for men to shoot with guns. She would be held up like that, alone, at school.

The time came closer and closer. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. It was not until they had come home from meeting Sunday night that Father mentioned what was
going to happen the next morning.

Mother said, as usual, "Esther, it is time for bed."

Father reached out and touched her as she passed him, and said, "Sit down at the table for a little. There is something we must talk about. Besides-" he
looked at Mother and nodded toward the cupboard where the books were kept. "If you will bring the Book, I have something to read."

Esther sat down. Ruth sat down too, with her knitting. Mother brought the Bible and set it in front of Father, sitting down beside him, then, with her hands
folded on her lap.

"Tomorrow, Esther, you must begin at the school," Father said.

Esther's fingers wanted to move on her lap, but she held them quiet. Only her toes stirred in her high shoes, wiggling and wiggling.

"Later we will try to have a school of our own here," he said, "but now they say you must go to this one

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for a while." He looked steadily at her. "The children at this school are different."

She looked down at her quiet fingers.

"You will see many different things," Father said. He glanced at Mother and seemed to wait for her to add something.

So she said, "Esther has seen some of those different things already. On the streets and in the town."

"But not in the same room!" Father said. And he turned to the worn big book before him. He knew this book so well that it did not take him long to find