Free Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright Page B

weeks ago, and a bottle of perfume from the dime store. She wound the link chain tight around her wrist and wondered whether or not to wear her hat. She took it out of the closet and looked at it. It was a yellow hat made of cheap straw and it poked up on top of the crown. Garnet thought it was the sort of hat that the pig in the nursery rhyme might have worn to market. When she put it on and looked in the mirror at her red nose and long sad pigtails under the dejected hat brim, she pulled it off in a fury and threw it on the floor. Leroy blew a big bubble in appreciation.
    â€œOh you!” grumbled Garnet. “Why don’t you stay home in your own crib!”
    She creaked down the stairs in her uncomfortable shoes and slipped through the kitchen.
    â€œWhere are you going Garnet?” called her mother above the fat voices of the women. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
    â€œOh, just out,” replied Garnet vaguely. “I’m not hungry anyway. Too many people around.” She closed the screen door behind her; she didn’t care if she was rude. No one suspected the hot little fire of anger and despair that burned beneath her ribs.
    She began to run now, sliding in her slippery shoes. She didn’t want anyone to stop her, and she saw Mr. Freebody ambling across the field.
    â€œHey there!” shouted Mr. Freebody, but Garnet pretended not to hear him and ran all the faster.
    When she had reached the highway her anger began to turn into a feeling of excitement. She hadn’t planned where she would go, but Eric’s stories of hitchhiking were still fresh in her mind. I’ll try it anyway, she thought, and stopped at the roadside; he isn’t the only one who can travel and do things by himself!
    The first car that passed was full of people, and as the second approached she held up her hand. The car slowed down, and to her horror she saw that she knew the people inside: Miss Pentland, her old mother, and two smiley ladies from Big Hollow.
    â€œIt’s little Ruby Linden,” Garnet heard Miss Pentland shouting to her mother who was deaf. “Good morning, Ruby! Did you want to drive into Blaiseville?”
    Garnet wanted nothing less. She was in a bad temper, and her feelings were hurt, and she wanted to be far away from all the people and objects that she knew. And anyhow, what adventure was to be had in a closed coupe, being polite to these four nice ladies.
    â€œWhy no — no thank you,” stammered Garnet, “I just waved, that’s all.”
    â€œAll right, dear,” said Miss Pentland. “Hot, isn’t it?”
    It was hot. Heat trembled over the shining road. Garnet watched it anxiously.
    A fat little roadster rounded the bend and she again raised her hand; but this time the car whistled by her without even slowing down. She felt rebuffed.
    Two more cars and a truck passed in the same manner; but finally an old black sedan wobbled to a stop beside her. “Want a lift?” asked the man at the wheel, and his wife smiled encouragingly, a brilliant smile with a gold tooth in it.
    â€œYes, please, I do,” said Garnet gratefully, feeling like an explorer embarking on a perilous journey.
    â€œHow far are you aiming to go, little girl?” asked the woman.
    For a second Garnet wondered frantically what to tell her. Then she decided.
    â€œNew Conniston,” she answered firmly. New Conniston was eighteen miles away. To Garnet who had never seen a larger city it seemed enormous and as glamorous as Bagdad, or Zanzibar, or Constantinople. It was a town built on a steep hill. There were trolley cars there, department stores, and three different kinds of dime stores. There was a movie theatre, and a little park with a fountain in it and some old Civil War cannons. Garnet had been there only three or four times in her life, and never by herself.
    â€œNew Conniston!” said the lady. “Well, we ain’t going quite so far as that;