A Lantern In Her Hand Quotes

“It was sad, too, that this evening would never come again. The night winds were blowing it away. You could not stop the winds and you could not stop Time. It went on and on, — and on. To-morrow night would come and the moon would look down on this spot, — the trees and the grass, the wagon-tracks and the dead campfire. But she would not be here.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern in Her Hand

“The child lived a life in each of two distant worlds and it is not possible to say which one she most enjoyed. One of them was made of moonbeams and star-dust, of night winds and coloured fancies, of aristocratic gentlemen and lovely ladies. The other was the equally pleasant one of boiled potatoes and salt pork, of games with Basil and Mary, of riding a-top old Buck or picking wild flowers at the edge of the timber.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern In Her Hand

“But even work could take upon itself a mast of fun. One could pretend, when threading the wicks into candle moulds, that one was stringing pearls accidentally broken at the ball, —that the long walk through the hazel-bush to the schoolhouse was between rows of admiring spectators who, instead of a mere rustling in the wind, were whispering, "There she goes, —there goes Abbie Mackenzie, the singer.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern In Her Hand

“How can I explain it to you, so you would understand? I've seen everything... and I've hardly been away from this yard. I've seen cathedrals in the snow on the Lombardy poplars. I've seen the sun set behind the Alps over there when the clouds have been piled up on the edge of the prairie. I've seen the ocean billows in the rise and the fall of the prairie grass. I've seen history in the making... three ugly wars flare up and die down. I've sent a lover and two brothers to one, a son and son-in-law to another, and two grandsons to the other. I've seen the feeble beginnings of a raw state and the civilization that developed there, and I've been part of the beginning and part of the growth. I've married... and borne children and looked into the face of death.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern in Her Hand

“Well, Sarah," said Abbie when they were alone, "my mother blushed and gave my father a rose by a well on the Scottish moors. I cried on Will's shoulder in an old honey-locust lane. Mack courted Emma after church and singing-school. And Kathie... Kathie goes out and gets her man. It may be honest and it may be frank and it may be aboveboard, —but it's not subtle and it's not romantic and it's not artistic." Sarah Lutz's bright black eyes twinkled behind her shell-rimmed glasses. "You've said a mouthful Abbie.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern in her Hand