Waiting at the Door *By Barbara J. Crocker*
  
      My grandmother became a widow in 1970. Shortly after that, we went to the animal shelter to pick out a puppy to keep her company. Grandma decided on a little terrier that had a reddish-brown spot above each eye. Because of these spots, the dog was promptly named Penny.

Grandma and Penny quickly became very attached to each other, but that attachment GREw much stronger about three years later when Grandma had a stroke. Grandma could no longer work, so when she came home from the hospital, she and Penny were constant companions.

After her stroke, it became a real problem for Grandma to let Penny in and out because the door was at the bottom of a flight of stairs. So a mechanism using a rope and pulley was installed from the back door to a handle at the top of the stairs. Grandma just had to pull the handle to open and close the door. If the store was out of Penny''s favorite dog food, Grandma would make one of us cook Penny browned beef with diced potatoes in it. I can remember teasing my grandmother that she loved that dog better than she loved her family.

Jill was one of those lucky people who have a good head for heights. She didn't mind in the least standing on the edge of a precipice. She was rather annoyed with Scrubb for pulling her back - "just as if I was a kid", she said and she wrenched her hand out of his. When she saw how very white he had turned, she despised him.

"What's the matter?" she said. And to show that she was not afraid, she stood very near the edge indeed; in fact, a good deal nearer than even she liked. Then she looked down.

She now realized that Scrubb had some excuse for looking white, for no cliff in our world is to be compared with this. Imagine yourself at the top of the very highest cliff you know. And imagine yourself looking down to the very bottom. And then imagine that the precipice goes on below that, as far again, ten times as far, twenty times as far. And when you've looked down all that distance imagine little white things that might, at first glance, be mistaken for sheep, but presently you realize that they are clouds - not little wreaths of mist but the enormous white, puffy clouds which are themselves as big as most mountains. And at last, in between those clouds, you get your first glimpse of the real bottom, so far away that you can't make out whether it's field or wood, or land or water: farther below those clouds than you are above them.

Jill stared at it. then she thought that perhaps, after all, she would step back afoot or so from the edge; but she didn't like to for fear of what Scrubb would think. Then she suddenly decided that she didn't care what he thought, and that she would jolly well get away from that horrible edge and never laugh at anyone for not liking heights again. But when she tried to move, she found she couldn't. Her legs seemed to have turned into putty. Everything was swimming before her eyes.

High Voltage Insulator  HIGH-SPEED SANITARY NAPKIN MAKING MACHINE  High-Strength Silicone Rubber  HL Series - Vandal & Weatherproof IR Dome Camera  HL-F Series - Vandal & Weatherproof IR Dome Camera  HL-S Series - Vandal & Weatherproof IR Dome Camera  HL-S Series IR Camera  HM1000 laminator  HM2000 dual units laminator  Home Desk And Chair
home furniture  Home Office  Home Security Product  Home Sofa  Home Wood Furniture  homewear  honey flavour  hoody  hook  Horsebean Seed Kernels
Horsebean Seed Tablets  Horsebeans  hot laminator  hot sealing laminator  Hotel armChair  Hotel Bed  Hotel Bedroom  Hotel Chair  Hotel Diningroom Furniture   Hotel  Diningroom Table And Chair