Sophie and the Rising Sun by Augusta Trobaugh Read Free Book Online Page B

of Salty Greek, Georgia, where the sheriff lifted him up into his big arms just like a baby and the doctor’s wife befriended him—and then later, Miss Anne.
    Over a year had passed before Mr. Oto sent a letter to his father, confessing his shameful foolishness, begging his father’s forgiveness, and enclosing the money it would take to bring his aunt to California—money he had saved from the very small amount of what Miss Anne called “pocket money,” that she gave to him, over and above his use of the cottage. And he told his father all about Miss Anne, the kind lady who befriended him, and of his desire to repay that kindness by restoring her garden. After long consideration, Mr. Oto put a return address on the letter: General Delivery, Salty Creek, Georgia.
    For weeks after he sent his confession and the money, he thought that perhaps he would receive a letter in return. He even dreamed the words of his father’s forgiveness. And so he went to the little post office often, asking if such a letter had come for him.
    Finally, it did come. The envelope was addressed in his father’s spidery handwriting and the letter inside was very short: “Come home, my son.”
    But he had not gone home. He didn’t quite know why. Because he always meant to go. But one thing had led to another—the fertilizings and the transplantings and the prunings. And his own desire to leave Miss Anne with a lovely garden she would be able to maintain after he had gone. A garden that would be his gift to her.
    Now, a great crane of his father’s homeland had come to him in Miss Anne’s garden. And what could it mean? What did the crane bring to him, besides the terrible memory of his shame and the reminder of his father’s great mercy?
    All afternoon, he stayed in the hut, meditating and waiting for the answer. Only when it was night did he creep out very quietly and tiptoe around the wall until he entered Miss Anne’s garden from the rear gate. He walked across the manicured oval of grass rimmed by the shrubbery. The garden stood empty and expectant. Under his bare feet, the grass was cool and damp, and his shadow in the moonlight stretched across the whole garden, so that he seemed to be a giant.
    “Where are you, Great Crane?” he whispered.
    But there was nothing in the garden except his shadow.
    Every day, Mr. Oto worked in the back garden, watching and waiting, so that he even sacrificed being able to see Sophie, just so he could see the crane again and learn what meaning it had, this impossible thing.
    But the crane did not appear. On Wednesday, a small egret came, very early, for a brief look around the garden, and later that same afternoon, an osprey tilted across the sky. But no great crane. Mr. Oto worked and waited and began to wonder if it had really existed at all.
    Every afternoon, he sat quietly in the hut, trying to meditate, but instead, he was thinking and wondering about the crane, so that instead of feeling peaceful, he felt worn and more than a little confused.
    On Sunday, in the deepest darkness before dawn, the crane came to him once again, this time in what he knew was certainly only a dream. It entered the cottage and stood gazing down at him where he slept, watching him with great, bright eyes. So that he awakened with a start. Nothing there, of course, except for the silver light of the descending moon lying across the floor.
    But the dream left him so filled with longing that he got up and made a cup of tea and took it out into the garden at first light to stand quietly, gazing around at the trees hung with Spanish moss and breathing in the aroma of the nearby salt marsh in the morning air.
    Suddenly, he knew where to look for the crane. Of course! I will go to the river this morning, he thought. Perhaps the crane is waiting for me there. After all, a crane doesn’t belong in a garden, and if one has come all this way, it would want to be in the marsh by the river.
    He went back inside to get dressed, and