FullReads

Old Woman Magoun, standing stiff and straight in the road, said nothing.

“They look good to eat,” said Lily.

Old Woman Magoun still said nothing, but she looked up into the ineffable blue of the sky, over which spread at intervals great white clouds shaped like wings.

Lily picked some of the deadly nightshade berries and ate them.”Why, they are real sweet,” said she.”They are nice.”She picked some more and ate them.

Presently her grandmother spoke.”Come,” she said, “it is time we were going. I guess you have set long enough.”

Lily was still eating the berries when she slipped down from the wall and followed her grandmother obediently up the road.

Before they reached home, Lily complained of being very thirsty. She stopped and made a little cup of a leaf and drank long at a mountain brook.”I am dreadful dry, but it hurts me to swallow,” she said to her grandmother when she stopped drinking and joined the old woman waiting for her in the road. Her grandmother’s face seemed strangely dim to her. She took hold of Lily’s hand as they went on.”My stomach burns,” said Lily, presently.”I want some more water.”

“There is another brook a little farther on,” said Old Woman Magoun, in a dull voice.

When they reached that brook, Lily stopped and drank again, but she whimpered a little over her difficulty in swallowing.”My stomach burns, too,” she said, walking on, “and my throat is so dry, grandma.”Old Woman Magoun held Lily’s hand more tightly.”You hurt me holding my hand so tight, grandma,” said Lily, looking up at her grandmother, whose face she seemed to see through a mist, and the old woman loosened her grasp.

When at last they reached home, Lily was very ill. Old Woman Magoun put her on her own bed in the little bedroom out of the kitchen. Lily lay there and moaned, and Sally Jinks came in.

“Why, what ails her?” she asked.”She looks feverish.”

Lily unexpectedly answered
for herself.”I ate some sour apples and drank some milk,” she moaned.

“Sour apples and milk are dreadful apt to hurt anybody,” said Sally Jinks. She told several people on her way home that Old Woman Magoun was dreadful careless to let Lily eat such things.

Meanwhile Lily grew worse. She suffered cruelly from the burning in her stomach, the vertigo, and the deadly nausea.”I am so sick, I am so sick, grandma,” she kept moaning. She could no longer see her grandmother as she bent over her, but she could hear her talk.

Old Woman Magoun talked as Lily had never heard her talk before, as nobody had ever heard her talk before. She spoke from the depths of her soul; her voice was as tender as the coo of a dove, and it was grand and exalted.”You’ll feel better very soon, little Lily,” said she.

“I am so sick, grandma.”

“You will feel better very soon, and then– “

“I am sick.”

“You shall go to a beautiful place.”

Lily moaned.

“You shall go to a beautiful place,” the old woman went on.

“Where?” asked Lily, groping feebly with her cold little hands. Then she moaned again.

“A beautiful place, where the flowers grow tall.”

“What color?Oh, grandma, I am so sick.”

“A blue color,” replied the old woman. Blue was Lily’s favorite color.”A beautiful blue color, and as tall as your knees, and the flowers always stay there, and they never fade.”

“Not if you pick them, grandma?Oh!”

“No, not if you pick them; they never fade, and they are so sweet you can smell them a mile off; and there are birds that sing, and all the roads have gold stones in them, and the stone walls are made of gold.”