【荆棘鸟】第一章 01

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1915-1917 MEGGIE 1

On December 8th, 1915, Meggie Cleary had her fourth birthday.After the breakfast dishes were put away her mother silently thrust a brown paper parcel into her arms and ordered her outside. So Meggie squatted¹ down behind the gorse bush next to the front gate and tugged² impatiently. Her fingers were clumsy, the wrapping heavy; it smelled faintly of the Wahine general store, which told her that whatever lay inside the parcel had miraculously³ been bought, not homemade or donated. Something fine and mistily⁴ gold began to poke⁵ through a corner; she attacked the paper faster, peeling it away in long, ragged⁶ strips.

 

"Oh, Agnes! Oh, Agnes!" she said lovingly, blinking at the doll lying there in a tattered⁷ nest.

 

A miracle indeed. Only once in her life had Meggie been into Wahine; all the way back in May, because she had been a very good girl. So perched in the buggy beside her mother, on her best behavior, she had been too excited to see or remember much. Except for Agnes, the beautiful doll sitting on the store counter, dressed in a crinoline of pink satin with cream lace frills all over it. Right then and there in her mind she had christened it Agnes,

 

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