{"product_id":"2940012898197","title":"THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE OPEN ROAD","description":"KATHERINE TO THE WINNEBAGOS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                                                       Oct. 1, 19--.\u003cbr\u003eDear First-And-Onlys:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I got to the post-office to-day and found there was no letter from\u003cbr\u003eyou, my heart sank right through the bottom of my number seven boots and\u003cbr\u003eburied itself in the mud under the doorsill. All day long I had had a\u003cbr\u003efeeling that there would be a letter, and that hope kept me up nobly\u003cbr\u003ethrough the trying ordeal of attempting to teach spelling and geography\u003cbr\u003eand arithmetic to a roomful of children of assorted ages who seem as\u003cbr\u003edetermined not to learn as I am determined to teach them. It sustained\u003cbr\u003eand soothed me through the exciting process of \"settling\" Absalom Butts,\u003cbr\u003ethe fourteen-year-old bully of the class, with whom I have a preliminary\u003cbr\u003eskirmish every day in the week before recitations can begin; and through\u003cbr\u003ethe equally trying business of listening to his dull-witted sister,\u003cbr\u003eClarissa, spell \"example\" forty ways but the right way, and then dissolve\u003cbr\u003einto inevitable tears. When school was out I was as limp as a rag, and so\u003cbr\u003ethankful it was Friday night that I could have kissed the calendar. I\u003cbr\u003efairly \"sic\"ed Sandhelo along the road to the post-office, expecting to\u003cbr\u003erevel in the bale of news from my belovéds that was awaiting me, but when\u003cbr\u003eI got there and the post box was bare the last button burst off the\u003cbr\u003emantle of my philosophy and left me naked to the cold winds of\u003cbr\u003edisappointment. A whole orphan asylum with the mumps on both sides would\u003cbr\u003ehave been gay and chipper compared to me when I turned Sandhelo's head\u003cbr\u003ehomeward and started on the six-mile drive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt had been raining for more than a week, a steady, warmish, sickening\u003cbr\u003edrizzle, that had taken all the curl out of my spirits and left them\u003cbr\u003ehanging in dejected, stringy wisps. I couldn't help feeling how well the\u003cbr\u003eweather matched my state of mind as I drove homeward. The whole landscape\u003cbr\u003ewas one gray blur, and the tall weeds that bordered the road on both\u003cbr\u003esides wept unconsolably on each other's shoulders, their tears mingling\u003cbr\u003ein a stream down their stems. I could almost hear them sob. The muddy\u003cbr\u003eyellow road wound endlessly past empty, barren fields, and seemed to hold\u003cbr\u003eout no promise of ever arriving anywhere in particular. All my life I\u003cbr\u003ehave hated that aimlessly winding road, just as I have always hated those\u003cbr\u003eempty, barren fields. They have always seemed so shiftless, so utterly\u003cbr\u003eunambitious. I can't help thinking that this corner of Arkansas was made\u003cbr\u003eout of the scraps that were left after everything else was finished. How\u003cbr\u003efather ever came to take up land here when he had the whole state to\u003cbr\u003echoose from is one of the seven things we will never know till the coming\u003cbr\u003eof the Cocqcigrues. It's as flat as a pancake, and, for the most part,\u003cbr\u003etreeless. The few trees there are seem to be ashamed to be caught growing\u003cbr\u003ein such a place, and make themselves as small as possible. The land is\u003cbr\u003estony and barren and sterile, neither very good for farming or grazing.\u003cbr\u003eThe only certain thing about the rainfall is that it is certain to come\u003cbr\u003eat the wrong time, and upset all your plans. \"Principal rivers, there are\u003cbr\u003enone; principal mountains--I'm the only one,\" as Alice-in-Wonderland used\u003cbr\u003eto say. But father has always been the kind of man that gets the worst of\u003cbr\u003eevery bargain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, you unvaryingly cheerful Winnebagos, go ahead and sniff\u003cbr\u003econtemptuously when you breathe the damp vapors rising from this epistle,\u003cbr\u003eand hear the pitiful moans issuing therefrom. \"For shame, Katherine!\" I\u003cbr\u003ecan hear you saying, in superior tones, \"to get low in your mind so soon!\u003cbr\u003eWhy, you haven't come to the first turn in the Open Road, and you've gone\u003cbr\u003elame already. Where is the Torch that you started out with so gaily\u003cbr\u003eflaring? Quenched completely by the first shower! Katherine Adams, you\u003cbr\u003ebig baby, straighten up your face this minute and stop blubbering!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut oh, you round pegs in your nice smooth, round holes, you have never\u003cbr\u003ebeen a stranger in a familiar land! You have never known what it was to\u003cbr\u003ebe out of tune with everything around you. Oh, why wasn't I built to\u003cbr\u003eadmire vast stretches of nothing, content to dwell among untrodden ways\u003cbr\u003eand be a Maid whom there were none to praise and very few to love, and\u003cbr\u003eall that Wordsworth business? Why do crickets and grasshoppers and owls\u003cbr\u003emake me feel as though I'd lost my last friend, instead of impressing me\u003cbr\u003ewith the sociability of Nature? Why don't I rejoice that I've got the\u003cbr\u003ewhole road to myself, instead of wishing that it were jammed with\u003cbr\u003eautomobiles and trolley cars, and swarming with people?","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079061291248,"sku":"2940012898197","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012898197_p0.jpg?v=1763574031","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012898197","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}