Explore "The Little Colonel's Holidays" by Annie Fellows Johnston on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
NOTHING worse than rats and spiders haunted the old house of Hartwell / Hollow, but set far back from the road in a tangle of vines and cedars, / it looked lonely and neglected enough to give rise to almost any report. / The long unused road, winding among the rockeries from gate to house, / was hidden by a rank growth of grass and mullein. From one of the trees / beside it an aged grape-vine swung down its long snaky limbs, as if a / bunch of giant serpents had been caught up in a writhing mass and left / to dangle from tree-top to earth. Cobwebs veiled the windows, and dead / leaves had drifted across the porches until they lay knee-deep in some / of the corners.
As Miss Allison paused in front of the doorstep with the keys, a snake / glided across her path and disappeared in one of the tangled rockeries. / Both the coloured women who were with her jumped back, and one screamed.