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

"Hello," said the pink cloud, and Esther looked up. "Are you Amish?"

Esther nodded. The girl sat down but twisted herself about in the seat and smiled. "I'm glad I sit by you," she said.

Suddenly, though she did not know why the girl was glad, Esther felt glad too. She did not say so, but only sat looking at her desk and then, once more,
at the wonderful books. The children all came in, filling the room with noise and motion, until the teacher rapped, again, with her stick.

It was still very bad, for Esther felt squeezed into her

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desk and into the room and into the crowd of children and even her heart felt tight and her stomach a little sick. But it was not as bad as it had been
that morning. Over her book, over her pencil and paper, somehow between Esther and all of the others, was the girl in pink. Twice during the afternoon
she turned with a smile.

Never in her life had Esther dreamed how wonderful it could be to see Father sitting in the buggy, after school finally ended, waiting for her to come.
He sat very straight, looking neither to the right or to the left, even when the teacher called, "Good afternoon!"

As they drove off down the road toward home, Esther looked back once and saw the girl in pink lift her hand to wave good-by. But of course she did not lift
her hand to answer, or even so much as glance back again. Father did not mention the school. He did not even ask her how the day had been, but began to
tell her of all the things that had happened at home during the day.

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For days the school made Esther feel so tight and so terrible that she could scarcely wait until it ended and she could hurry outside where Father sat patiently
in the buggy, waiting behind the patient horses, whose names she knew. Each day she could not wait to pat them and speak to them.

The teacher was kind enough. She wore colored shirts and was pleasant to look at when she sat still at her desk. But when she got up she was entirely too
thin. Her bones looked uncomfortable, showing at the base of her neck and in hard wing-points, like the wings of a plucked chicken, when she wrote on the
blackboard. Her voice stretched and broke in two when the boys made her cross. For a few days they did it on purpose, many many times. Esther felt ashamed
for them and looked at the floor when it happened. But the boys did not seem in the least ashamed.

Esther did as Father had told her and never looked at the children-at least when they were looking at

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her. But almost every time she glanced up, somebody was looking. They laughed too. Jumpy laughter. All of a sudden one of them would burst out and then
everybody else joined in. It made Esther want to laugh too, so her throat ached with laughter. But then she learned that the laughter was unkind.

She knew this because the teacher scolded about it.

"Now we won't have this silly laughing!" she said, and pounded on the desk with her little stick.

But they did have it, anyhow, whether she said Yes or No, and no matter how hard she pounded.

Esther didn't know the laughing was at her until the girl in pink said it. She was sitting directly in front of Esther, and did not laugh. Instead, she
turned around suddenly one day and said, "I'm not laughing at you! I wouldn't!"

Esther looked at her in surprise. Of course it was good to know she wouldn't, but it was not good to know the others were. She felt her face begin to burn.