Olive Higgins Prouty

Name: The Star in the Window — Chapter 18
Author: Olive Higgins Prouty

The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

Summary

“The Star in the Window — Chapter 18”, published in 1918, is a work by Olive Higgins Prouty. It explores elements such as Reba, Katherine Park and Miss Park.

Quotes from The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (Olive Higgins Prouty)

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ She had married the strange man of the sea for freedom, and freedom was hers without him! The sailor's gold ring, hidden, here in Boston, in a deep corner of the top tray of her hump-backed trunk (Mamie had such seeing eyes) became a symbol of vague foreboding and alarm. Back again in the inspiring atmosphere of class-rooms, reaching out to untried joys, Miss Katherine Park once more her high and shimmering ideal, the sailor—stoop-shouldered, shuffling, ill-at-ease, hiding his big red hands in his baggy coat-pockets, fell across Reba's shining path like a shadow. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ The sealed-up pools of dark, still water lying here and there among the quiet hills of Ridgefield, Massachusetts, were scarcely rippled by the cannon-boom and bomb-fire of the early weeks of the European War. Reba, like many of her isolated New England sisters that summer, sitting late afternoons in their low rockers, their sewing laid aside a moment while they read of the far-away tramping of armies across neutral Belgium (few of the horrors of that march had filtered through then) , of the menacing advance upon Paris, of the battle of the Marne, felt no shock or alarm. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ She made personalities pulsing and alive for Reba out of those distant countries, which a few weeks ago had been mere names in a history-book to her—irregular, pastel-shaded shapes on a geography map, which Miss Billings used to make her bound and name the chief exports of. It was Miss Park who made out of England something big and strong, like an older brother, sternly protective of the weak and persecuted; of France something inspiring and lovable—like a younger brother perhaps—fun-loving but ready at the first call, smiling but steady in the face of terrific odds ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ In spite of the fact that nature had finished with Reba's stature, contour, and features long since, still some sort of late loveliness bloomed upon her during that first fall of hers in Boston.
"Like green apples, picked and put down in a dark cellar before they're ripe," said Katherine Park to Louise Bartholomew one day. "Take them out in December and leave them in the sun a little while and they'll mellow up." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ Life had never seemed so rich, so full of possibilities as it did to Reba that Indian summer when she returned to Boston. The Indian summer of her own life enveloped her in its glowing warmth, the very consciousness of the brevity of the rare season of postponed youth, making her live each day with intensity. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ Oh, Reba shuddered, felt the horror at last. She, Rebecca Jerome, admired, loved and pitied vague masses of people she had never seen!
Aunt Augusta scornfully remarked at the end of Reba's fourth Sunday-letter home (she wrote, as before, persistently every week) , "Reba's putting on great airs—presuming to get heated up over this war-business. She knows about as much about it, I guess, as a cat! There'll be no living with that girl. She thinks she's being pretty smart, I suppose, with her exclamation-points about Belgium and France!" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ Nights when I lie in my dark hole below, smelling strong of kerosene oil from a smoky lantern, and creaking as the old 'Ellen T.' rises and falls, and listen to the snores of two big greasy Portuguese next to me, I just think you and your pretty white kid gloves aren't true, and then I feel around on the ribbon round my neck till I find the ring, and then I know it has really happened, and that we really have said good-by like married people do. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ Reba had never been taught how to set her thoughts free on paper. The note she wrote in answer to Nathan's letter made scant reference to his intimate thoughts of her. It was in a brief postscript after she had signed her name as usual, "So good-by. Rebecca," that she suggested that they keep their marriage a secret, not only from the world, but from themselves, until they were a little better acquainted—that is, if he thought well of it. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ So instead she put herself into the hands of a single expert and trusted herself implicitly to her, scarcely inquiring the prices of the lovely pastel-shaded materials she recommended. Reba adopted the dressmaker whom Miss Park suggested with as little question as she did her idol's dentist, doctor, hair-dresser, and bank. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ She returned to her place in the various classes at the Alliance, with a dogged determination to make the most of each precious day; in spite of forebodings, to sample every interest and harmless pleasure that the city had to offer, even if the query, "Should a married woman go adventuring?" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (1918)

“ This letter had not reached her until she had been installed for over a month at the Alliance. Mr. Perkins had forwarded it to her from Ridgefield, inclosing it first in one of the bank's official envelopes. It had required four cents in postage, for Nathan had buried his letter to Reba inside three envelopes. The outside envelope was addressed to Mr. James Perkins, the second to Miss Rebecca Jerome, with "Private" in one corner, and the third to Mrs. ”

Olive Higgins Prouty

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Quotes from The Star in the Window — Chapter 18 (Olive Higgins Prouty)

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