The Open Gate
Page 22
The song was ended. Still, dark peace lay over the valley. Stars twinkled in the sky; it seemed again, as if the bright light in the Van Keuran yard was one of them, that dropped down for a closer look at a lost Christmas that was found again after so many years of darkness. Maybe, it was a star. Maybe it was, and decided to stay there, disguised as a light.
To all of them, looking at it in silence, it seemed to grow larger and so bright, that it hurt their eyes. Or maybe their eyes were a little wet with tears of joy . . . maybe it was the tears that made the light seem so bright, that the light from it, surely, could not have stayed in the valley, nor in the land, but must have spilled into every dark corner of the earth. They didn’t speak; only Gran could trust her voice not to tremble. She did. It did not tremble in the slightest, except with a small, hidden laughter, when she said:
“Well, we may have lost our way on a dead-end road, but now, we have found a star to see by for the rest of our lives.”
Father sighed, a deeply happy sigh. “Yes, Mom, we have.” Then he exclaimed: “Looking back at the chain of accidents that led us to that gate . . . it is amazing!”
Gran sniffed: “Oh fiddlesticks! That gate was opened . . . for us. And now we’ll never close it. An open door, an open gate, an open heart—you never can tell what minute happiness walks in, if we only keep them open.”
Front Flap
THE OPEN GATE
Written and Illustrated
by Kate Seredy
It was Gran who suggested that Father start the bidding on the farm—just to get the ball rolling. Naturally she could scarcely have known it would be knocked down to him. But somehow there was a determined twinkle in her eye as she surveyed her family, fresh from the “gadget life” of a big city, and a certain obstinacy in the way she bustled about getting supper that first night.
Oh, she was very innocent! She didn’t exactly tell the Van Keurans that the Prestons were settling in Orange County. And she did faithfully promise Father that she wouldn’t raise her voice at the second auction. But the blood of the pioneers ran in Gran’s veins, and somehow she saw to it that the Prestons found more to living than indirect lighting and air-conditioning. The open gate bid them come in, and once inside there was the problem of Andy Van Keuran and the homely friendship of Mike Mogor, and most of all the deep inner security of the land itself to hold and keep them.
This is a novel about new things and old, about farms and families and about America. It is an affirmation of faith in the earth itself, and in the value of living close to it. And as it is by Kate Seredy, it is full of humor and jollity, racing along at break neck speed. Janet and Dick Preston and Andy Van Keuran would be good friends with Kate and Jancsi of The Good Master and The Singing Tree.
Published by The Viking Press, Inc.
18 East 48th Street
New York 17, New York
09013
Rear Flap
THE OPEN GATE
Written and Illustrated
by Kate Seredy
Kate Seredy knows whereof she writes in THE OPEN GATE, for she herself runs a farm in orange County. In fact she writes us, “I’ve met or known most of the people in the book. Some of them are like the products of modern chemistry: a little milk, a little coal tar, some cornhusks and peanut shells—and there is your Easter outfit. But at any rate I know all the peanut shells intimately.”
She is not, however, a New York Stater born and bred. Her background is international. Born in Budapest, Hungary, of a family Turkish and French, she started to draw for children as soon as she was old enough to go to school, and later studied in France and Italy, and came to America after the last war for a “short visit.” Since then she has illustrated countless books for American children, and has written six books herself, one of which, The White Stag, was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1938.
Published by The Viking Press, Inc.
18 East 48th Street
New York 17, New York
About this E-book
v1.0 - Scanned, OCR'd, 1st proof and conversion to ebook done by WJ from a 1943 edition of "The Open Gate" written and illustrated by Kate Seredy and published by The Viking Press.