Gods Puppets Author:Imogen Clark Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill IN ANNETJE'S GARDEN The neighbors spoke of it as Domine Ryerssen's garden, whereas in reality it belonged to Annetje his daughter. The birds, and bees,... more » and nodding flowers that made it their home were wiser, for they knew and acknowledged her to be mistress. At first she crowed and blinked at the budding beauties from the vantage ground of Heilke's arms, grasping exultantly at the riches within reach; then, grown a little older, she trotted untiringly after Jan, watching him at work and imitating him in her turn. Here, or there, in some remote sunshiny corner, or even in the midst of the brown paths, she made her posy beds; bits of grass waved their tiny blades in air like so many swords of combatant fairies, short-stemmed flowers, plucked when no one was looking, were planted close to the heart of the great mother and with them all a child's dearest hopes. They never answered to her coaxing, nor rewarded her expectancy; sometimes she would find the bright, pretty things crushed and dirt bedraggled and in the near-by loam the print of an immense foot to mark the passing of the destroyer, or they drooped beneath the pitiless sun or rain; disappointed, she would bedew them with tears and cast them forth in wrath, only to begin her planting the next day with undiminished ardor. Overand over the little tragi-comedy was enacted through the spring, and summer and she, knowing no better, suffered the same heart-aches and—miracle of childhood ! kept her faith entire. The years brought wisdom. A little later she swaggered through the garden with a tiny rake of Jan's fashioning slanted over her shoulder and, hanging from her arm, an infinitesimal basket which held small paper cornucopias, grimy and broken from much handling, containing seeds. These latter she filtered through h...« less