The Front Yard, and Other Italian Stories

THE FRONT YARD AND OTHER ITALIAN STORIES CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON


'MADEMOISELLE NEED GIVE HERSELF NO UNEASINESS'
BY CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON AUTHOR OF ANNE HORACE CHASE ETC. ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1895
Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. —— All rights reserved.
NOTE
OF the stories contained in this volume, In Venice was originally published in the Atlantic Monthly , The Street of the Hyacinth in the Century Magazine , and the other four stories in Harper's Magazine .

WELL, now, with Gooster at work in the per-dairy, and Bepper settled at last as help in a good family, and Parlo and Squawly gone to Perugia, and Soonter taken by the nuns, and Jo Vanny learning the carpenter's trade, and only Nounce left for me to see to (let alone Granmar, of course, and Pipper and old Patro), it doos seem, it really doos, as if I might get it done sometime ; say next Fourth of July, now; that's only ten months off. 'Twould be something to celebrate the day with, that would; something like!
The woman through whose mind these thoughts were passing was sitting on a low stone-wall, a bundle of herbs, a fagot of twigs, and a sickle laid carefully beside her. On her back was strapped a large deep basket, almost as long as herself; she had loosened the straps so that she could sit down. This basket was heavy; one could tell that from the relaxed droop of her shoulders relieved from its weight for the moment, as its end rested on a fallen block on the other side of the wall. Her feet were bare, her dress a narrow cotton gown, covered in front to the hem by a dark cotton apron; on her head was a straw bonnet, which had behind a little cape of brown ribbon three inches deep, and in front broad strings of the same brown, carefully tied in a bow, with the loops pulled out to their full width and pinned on each side of her chin. This bonnet, very clean and decent (the ribbons had evidently been washed more than once), was of old-fashioned shape, projecting beyond the wearer's forehead and cheeks. Within its tube her face could be seen, with its deeply browned skin, its large irregular features, smooth, thin white hair, and blue eyes, still bright, set amid a bed of wrinkles. She was sixty years old, tall and broad-shouldered. She had once been remarkably erect and strong. This strength had been consumed more by constant toil than by the approach of old age; it was not all gone yet; the great basket showed that. In addition, her eyes spoke a language which told of energy that would last as long as her breath.