Girls in Bookland — A Reader’s Guide

ays the most unexpected thing that happened.

“And a snow-storm,” thought Rose, “isn’t so unexpected as a princess.”

She turned her head and looked into the big pleasant room. The fireplace had a fine blaze in it, and lying on the Navajo blanket that covered the floor right before it, busily reading, was Rose’s younger sister, Ruth.

“Oh, Ruth, stop reading and come and look out. It’s getting blizzarder every minute.”

Ruth grunted, turned a page, and remarked:

“Wait just a bit, till I finish this chapter.”

Rose looked out once more, just in time to see a man ride round the corner of the barn and disappear into the flying snow.

“There goes Jim to round up the cows,” she exclaimed. “I guess the other boys have gone too. Probably we are going to have a sockdolager of a storm.”

“Marmie said you mustn’t say sockdolager,” chided Ruth, abandoning her book and joining Rose at the window. “Oh, I wish we could go riding too. But I guess we won’t any more now, till spring. Don’t you hate to think of winter coming, Rose? We can’t go out at all most of the time, or just round the inclosure, and that’s no fun, and we sha’n’t have anything to do, and we sha’n’t see a living soul for months. That’s what Marmie said. I wish we had some other little girls to play with. Books are nice, but they aren’t alive and real—O-o-o see how hard it’s snowing now! I can’t see the barn any more.”

The two little girls leaned close together, looking out at the storm that grew more furious as the moments passed. It shook the house, it blotted out the landscape, it even hid the haystack giants. It made them feel very small and lonely and far from everybody. The nearest ranch was five miles away. That didn’t seem much in summer, but now—why, no one would care to ride there now, and as for the two themselves, they knew they would not get far from home for months to come.

Presently it began to grow dark, and the sisters returned to the fire, curling up close together on the long seat with its thick cushions that stood in front of the hearth.

Rose was a good deal taller than her sister, though they were only a year apart. Her hair was thick and hung in two long red braids, a real golden red, and her eyes were golden too, with brown shadows. There were freckles on her nose, which turned up just a little. Rose was forever imagining and pretending, and wondering whether she might not be lucky enough to stumble on a fairy or a gnome, or find a charm or a wishing cup; and Ruth would listen to the wonderings, and follow her sister about, hoping that Rose really might have an adventure, and that she would be in it too.

Ruth was a slender, vivid, dark little thing, with hair that tumbled round her head in curls, and big, black eyes that opened wide when she sat listening to Rose’s make-believes. She liked to read better than anything, and even when they went off on long rides she would tuck in a book somewhere, and find a chance to read it while they stopped for a rest or to water the ponies or to chat with the Dillinghams, on the next ranch.

“Think of all the little girls there are in the world, hundreds and hundreds and millions, and we don’t know any of them,” continued Rose, lugubriously. “Wouldn’t it be grand if we had a magic carpet, and could sit on it and wish we were anywhere and be there in the shake of a cat’s hind leg.”

“What’s that?” asked Ruth.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just what Jim says when he means a little bit of a time.”

“Where would we go, Rose?”

“Perhaps to a big school, where lots and lots of girls were playing together. Or to a fairy island, where all the nicest boys and girls in the world lived, and went on picnics and had parties. Or maybe we’d go to a nice big house where there were two other girls as old as we are, and they were wishing, like us, that they had some little friends to play with—that would be nicest of all, I think.”

Ruth sighed deliciously, picturing the joy of it.

“I don’t suppose you can _possibly_ find such a carpet,” she murmured.

“N-no—I suppose they are all in Persia or Arabia. Or perhaps they are all worn out by this time.”