The holidays cheated
them in a similar way. Yet, when it came, they knew it would be as
natural and simple as eating honey, though at the same time with
immense surprise in it. And all agreed that it was somehow connected
with the Dawn, for the Dawn, the opening of a new day, was something
they had heard about but never witnessed. Dawn must be exceedingly
wonderful, because, while it happened daily, none of them had ever
seen it happen. A hundred times they had agreed to wake and have a
look, but the Dawn had always been too quick and quiet. It slipped in
ahead of them each time. They had never seen the sun come up.
In some such sudden, yet quite natural way, this stupendous thing they
expected would come up. It would suddenly be there. Everybody,
moreover, expected it. Grown-ups pretended they didn't, but they did.
Catch a grown-up when he wasn't looking, and he _was_ looking. He
didn't like to be caught, that's all, for as often as not he was
smiling to himself, or just going to--cry.
They shared, in other words, the great, common yearning of the world;
only they knew they yearned, whereas the rest of the world forgets.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98