Bess Streeter Aldrich 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

“And then, the miracle! Spring came over the prairie, —not softly, shyly, but in great magic strides. It was in the flush of green on the elders and willows by Stove Creek. It was in the wind, —in the smell of loam and grasses, in the tantalizing oder of wild plums budding and wild violets flowering. Nature, the alchemist, took them all, the faint oders of the loam and grasses, the willow buds and the little flowers, and mixing them in her mortar, threw them over the prairie on the wings of the wind.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern in her Hand

“Always keep the Christmas spirit going. Promise me, that when you get big and have homes of your own, you'll keep the Christmas spirit in your homes.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern in Her Hand

“She pulled the silken cord and the drape parted. Behind the soft folds there hung a huge painting in a wide dull gold frame, —the painting of a lovely lady in velvet draperies, her reddish-brown hair curling over her shoulder, and a string of pearls at her neck. A hat with a sweeping plume was in one hand, —held by long slender fingers that tapered at the ends. "My, my, Kathie, tears on your wedding day. Whatever will you think? How selfish of me,— I'm that ashamed! But when I saw... when I saw the lovely lady that I used to dream about... it just came over me... in s sort of wave... all the wonderful things I planned to do when I was younger... and never did.”
― 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