Olive Higgins Prouty

Name: The Star in the Window — Chapter 3
Author: Olive Higgins Prouty

The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

Summary

“The Star in the Window — Chapter 3”, published in 1918, is a work by Olive Higgins Prouty. It explores elements such as Reba, Augusta and the Christian Endeavor Society.

Quotes from The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (Olive Higgins Prouty)

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ She had lived all her life with the mill whistle. Would she still be sitting here in the same little room, in the same little chair, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, listening to the same mill-whistle toll off the eventless hours? The monotony of her existence swept over Reba in a big engulfing wave. The lights at the foot of the hill, in spite of herself, melted into a gold sea before her vision. Older people used to tell her, first shaking their heads dismally, to make the most of her childhood. She had thought then that growing old simply meant work instead of play. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ When they began removing life-long restraints from Reba they observed her as eagerly as if (instead of being anything so ruled by the laws of nature as a girl, or even a rose) she were a magical Japanese flower that had only to be dropped into a glass of water to unfold into marvelous beauty.
But Reba disappointed them. For five years Aunt Augusta repeated the two weeks at the fashionable summer-resorts, but it was absolutely useless. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ Reba recalled now how often throughout those ten long years she had stared wistfully through the high picket fence around the public school-yard at recess-time, when she was out taking exercise with Miss Billings, and wondered what it would be like to play with other children like that—run fast, make one's feet fly; how it would feel to strain one's self to the very limit in a hard-run race ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ No handsome and eligible young men came courting Reba. No young men of any kind came courting her. In spite of long skirts and turned-up hair, removed restrictions, summer-resorts full of young people, diamond bracelets, gold watches and chains, Reba would not unfold. Occasionally one finds a Japanese flower that refuses to bloom in the water. It has been too tightly compressed. So had Reba.
The weeks spent at the summer hotels with Aunt Augusta had all been periods of torture. "Why don't you go off with the young folks?" Aunt Augusta would ask. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ Ever since Reba was seven years old she had been taught by a private teacher at home.
Augusta Morgan was economical in the kitchen; she was economical in the sick-room too, but she had her extravagances. There's as much personality shown in the choice of one's economies, as in the choice of one's amusements. Augusta always scraped her mixing-bowls scrupulously clean. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ We're fortunate in Miss Billings. Miss Billings can take her through Latin as well as any boarding-school, I guess. I don't intend to let any public, money-making institution go and spoil Reba for us now. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll have her father buy her a grand-piano and she can take music-lessons instead."
A piano instead of fifty shining opportunities of a girl-friend all her own! Piano-lessons instead of some one to share confidences with! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ Once in a while she used to steal out to the forbidden barn (a perilous place with holes a child might slip through) and shyly approach the stall occupied by her father's solitary horse, courageously reaching up craving fingers and poking them against the dumb creature's warm investigating nose. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ You'll have to watch out," Reba recalled the minister having smilingly said to her mother and aunts when she appeared before him for the first time in her lengthened skirts. "There'll be young men coming thick and fast now, I'm thinking."
How they had beamed! Inwardly how she had beamed too. Aunt Augusta had had the parlor furniture re-covered in preparation for the minister's prediction. All three of the women who had tended Reba so long, with such diligence, expected wonderful things of her when at last she stood before them a finished young lady. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Olive Higgins Prouty, The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (1918)

“ Her father and mother and aunts all attended the Congregational Church, were members there—her father was a deacon—and timidly, when Reba was fourteen she had asked permission to join the Christian Endeavor Society at the Congregational Church. But, "What! At your age?" Aunt Augusta had exclaimed. "Humph! I should say not! I've heard of the goings-on down at the church after the Christian Endeavor meetings. All half the girls and boys join the Christian Endeavor Society for, is to walk home with each other afterwards in the dark. ”

Olive Higgins Prouty

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Quotes from The Star in the Window — Chapter 3 (Olive Higgins Prouty)

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