Into this wide waste of muddy
ripples every sound in the school-room swam, and also sights and colors,
till between her eye-lash and that filmy distant margin nothing existed
but a freshet, alive yet with nothing, eddying around with purposeless
power, and still moving onward with an under force. The open book in her
hand appeared like a great white wharf, or pier, covered with lime and
coal in spots and places, and pushed forward into this hissing,
rippling, exclaiming deluge, which washed its base and spread beyond.
Podge could barely read a question in the book, and the sound of her
voice was like gravel or sand pushed off the wharf into the river and
swallowed there. She thought she heard an answer in a muddy tone and
gave the question out again, and there seemed to be laughter, as if the
waters, or what was drowned in them, chuckled and purled, going along.
She raised her eyes above the laughers, and there the boundary line of
Jersey stood defined, and all in front of it was the drifting Delaware.
It seemed to her that boys were darting to and fro and swapping seats,
and one boy had thrown a handful of beans. She walked down the aisle as
if into water, wading through pools and waves of boys, who plashed and
gurgled around her.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213