Explore "The Heart of a Child" by Josephine Daskam Bacon on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The sun-glare lies on the road and the field and the house. The beetles buzz and buzz, and the hens chuckle drowsily, half sunk in the gray dust. There are only three little white clouds in all the warm blue sky. It is quite still, except for the hens and the beetles and the occasional flap of the collie's tail on the warm flags. No one passes up or down the road. It is the hot noon sleep of the country in August.
Suddenly comes the grating sound of something dragged over the floor, and the door opens. The Child pushes out with a little wooden rocking-chair and a great tin pan heaped with unshelled peas. She stands the chair carefully in the coolest patch of shade and squeezes her plump little body between the curved arms. Her blue-checked apron is tied by the waistband around her neck-it is a grown woman's apron, and covers her and the chair, which is far too small for her, now. But one cannot be always eight years old, and when one is eleven shall one relinquish without a pang the birthday gifts of one's childhood?