A Country Child Author:Grant Showerman General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1917 Original Publisher: The Century Co. Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can... more » select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Ill We Have Dinner, and I Show My Pictures THE south window is full of geraniums. There is the sill, and there is the shelf above it. The leaves are big and green, and all turned toward the window-panes, as if they were trying to look out. The sill and the shelf are broad, and there are so many leaves we can hardly see up the road to the church. The sun shines through wherever it can, and makes bright places on the floor. The floor is n't quite dry yet. It smells the way it always does when it is mopping day. There is a big fire in the kitchen stove, and dinner will soon be ready. Bertha has the plates and things all on. She is our hired girl. My mother's face is red. She says to Bertha: " I declare! if it keeps on getting warm, we 'll soon have to move the stove out into the woodshed. S'posing you pull down that curtain." Bertha gives two or three pulls on the cord that makes the curtain go up and down. The curtain is almost as green as the leaves. There are little holes and torn places in it, and the sun shining through makes them bright and warm-looking. Some ofthem are so big that the light shines through on to the geraniums and on to the floor. My mother opens the oven door and takes something out. Now I smell baked beans and Indian pudding instead of the floor. Bertha begins to mash the potatoes. She keeps talking about how much the men eat. She says: " Seems 's if you never could get 'em filled up. They eat as though they 'd never seen victuals before in all their lives." My mother goes out to the woodshed door, and calls them to dinner. She says: " Din...« less