New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Villages -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
You see, Kitty did not know, could not possibly know, psychical
processes being in their present veiled condition, that currents were
flowing, wireless messages flashing, between her subliminal self and
another; that Tom Lee, striding up and down the deck of his steamer, was
crying all day long in his heart, "Kitty! Kitty! Kitty! I am coming!
_Wait for me!_" Had "Psychic Wireless, Unlimited," informed Tom that
there were other aspirants for the hand he had so confidently thought
his? Who can tell? Certainly, he told Kitty afterward, the voyage was
"H. E. Double," and ten times a day he thought of jumping overboard and
swimming the Pacific Ocean, as likely to make better time.
John Tucker emerged from the harness-room, in leather apron and gloves.
"It's good to hear you singin' round the place, Miss Kitty," he said:
"it is so! I enjoy it, and I expect they do as well, if they could
speak."
He nodded toward Dan and Pilot, who were certainly pictures of
attention, as they stood with shining eyes, ears pricked forward, and
delicate nostrils dilated.
"Bless them!" said Kitty. "It's sugar they want, the darlings, not
singing. Pilot, stop! You cannot get your head into my pocket, you
greedy cherub, and it is Dan's turn, anyhow. Here, Dan! Don't slobber,
darling! Eat like a gentleman, because you know you are one, a Perfect
Pattern, except for just a shade of gluttony. Now, Pilot!"
John Tucker stood in the doorway, gazing at her with delight. She was
the "very moral" of a picture that hung in his own sitting-room; a steel
engraving, neatly framed. It was labeled "Thoroughbred," and showed a
fair girl patting a noble horse. John Tucker had seen it in the window
of a print shop in the city and had bought it, refusing steadfastly to
tell his Mary what it cost. Miss Kitty and Pilot might have sat for the
two portraits, he maintained, except for Pilot's being black, which was
all a Pilot colt _could_ be.
The horses fed and petted--not to their hearts' content, but as near it
as the passing nature of time would allow--John Tucker turned back into
the harness-room with a backward jerk of his head which said as plainly
as one of Pilot's gestures, "Aren't you coming to see _me_ now?"
Kitty followed him into the pleasant little leather-scented room and
perched on the arm of a chair as was her wont.
"What was that tune you was singin' just now, Miss Kitty?" asked John.
"It is called the 'Duke of Lee,'" said Kitty. "It's an old English song,
John, and there's a dance that goes with it."
"Didn't your Ma used to sing it now and then? 'Pears to me I remember of
her singin' it."
"Of course she did! You clever John Tucker to remember! She used to sing
it when I was a tiny tot, and I used to dance. Tommy and I," she added
bravely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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