The Gate of the Giant Scissors | Page 2

Cousin Kate was a very rich old maid, who had spent years abroad, studying music and languages, and she had expected to see a stout, homely woman with bushy eyebrows, like Miss Teckla Schaum, who played the church organ, and taught German in the High School.
But Cousin Kate was altogether unlike Miss Teckla. She was tall and slender, she was young-looking and pretty, and there was a stylish air about her, from the waves of her soft golden brown hair to the bottom of her tailor-made gown, that was not often seen in this little Western village.
Joyce saw herself glancing admiringly at Cousin Kate, and then pulling down her dress as far as possible, painfully conscious that her shoes were untied, and white with dust. The next picture was several days later. She and Jack were playing mumble-peg outside under the window by the lilac-bushes, and the little mother was just inside the door, bending over a pile of photographs that Cousin Kate had dropped in her lap. Cousin Kate was saying, "This beautiful old French villa is where I expect to spend the winter, Aunt Emily. These are views of Tours, the town that lies across the river Loire from it, and these are some of the chateaux near by that I intend to visit. They say the purest French in the world is spoken there. I have prevailed on one of the dearest old ladies that ever lived to give me rooms with her. She and her husband live all alone in this big country place, so I shall have to provide against loneliness by taking my company with me. Will you let me have Joyce for a year?"
Jack and she stopped playing in sheer astonishment, while Cousin Kate went on to explain how many advantages she could give the little girl to whom she had taken such a strong fancy.
Looking through the lilac-bushes, Joyce could see her mother wipe her eyes and say, "It seems like pure providence, Kate, and I can't stand in the child's way. She'll have to support herself soon, and ought to be prepared for it; but she's the oldest of the five, you know, and she has been like my right hand ever since her father died. There'll not be a minute while she is gone, that I shall not miss her and wish her back. She's the life and sunshine of the whole home."
Then Joyce could see the little brown house turned all topsy-turvy in the whirl of preparation that followed, and the next thing, she was standing on the platform at the station, with her new steamer trunk beside her. Half the town was there to bid her good-by. In the excitement of finding herself a person of such importance she forgot how much she was leaving behind her, until looking up, she saw a tender, wistful smile on her mother's face, sadder than any tears.
[Illustration: WHERE JOYCE LIVED]
Luckily the locomotive whistled just then, and the novelty of getting aboard a train for the first time, helped her to be brave at the parting. She stood on the rear platform of the last car, waving her handkerchief to the group at the station as long as it was in sight, so that the last glimpse her mother should have of her, was with her bright little face all ashine.
All these pictures passed so rapidly through Joyce's mind, that she had retraced the experiences of the last three months in as many minutes. Then, somehow, she felt better. The tears had washed away the ache in her throat. She wiped her eyes and climbed liked a squirrel to the highest limb that could bear her weight.
This was not the first time that the old pear-tree had been shaken by Joyce's grief, and it knew that her spells of homesickness always ended in this way. There she sat, swinging her plump legs back and forth, her long light hair blowing over the shoulders of her blue jacket, and her saucy little mouth puckered into a soft whistle. She could see over the high wall now. The sun was going down behind the tall Lombardy poplars that lined the road, and in a distant field two peasants still at work reminded her of the picture of "The Angelus." They seemed like acquaintances on account of the resemblance, for there was a copy of the picture in her little bedroom at home.
All around her stretched quiet fields, sloping down to the ancient village of St. Symphorien and the river Loire. Just across the river, so near that she could hear the ringing of the cathedral bell, lay the famous old town of Tours. There was something in these country sights and sounds that soothed her with their homely cheerfulness. The crowing of a rooster