Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories — John Shaqi
Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short StoriesNesbit, E. (Edith)
General
Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories
Nesbit, E. (Edith)
Short stories
'Well, I suppose they are as nice as any one could have without spending
money. You didn't show her the tablecloth I gave you?'
'No, I thought I'd wait to show the linen until it was all done up.'
Her mother fingered the lace on the sack.
'I don't believe she has a much better tablecloth than that one, Eunice.
Do you suppose so?'
'No,' answered Eunice, 'probably not. It's very beautiful.' She laid
down the garment she was folding and looked up, troubled, into her
mother's face. 'Oh, it seems so selfish for me to have it all. You've
always wanted nice fine linen, mother.'
'I've given up wanting, I guess. I don't care as long as you have them.
You had better lay tissue paper in that sleeve, Eunice, the way I showed
you. I'll start supper so that you can put these things away. They won't
look like anything if you leave them about.'
When her mother was gone, Eunice took up the pink kimono and spread it
out on the bed. She could fold it more carefully that way. She touched
it with caressing fingers. 'Dawn and apple-blossoms,' she repeated
softly. Then she smiled, remembering Mabel's remark: 'Stephen has a
funny way of saying things.'
Stephen was different somehow from Harry, from any of the men whom her
friends had married. They were nice young men, of course, all of them.
One was superintendent of the Sunday School, besides getting a good
salary in the Cash Register Company; another had gone to college, had
been in Stephen's class at the Ohio State University in fact, and was
now doing well as part owner of the garage on Main Street; still another
was paying-teller in the bank next to the garage; he wore very
'good-looking' suits, usually with a tiny line of white at the edge of
the waistcoat. Still Stephen was different.
When he had got his B.A. degree at Ohio, he decided that he wanted to be
a lawyer, and that he would go to one of the best schools in the
country. He chose Columbia. He had worked his way through college, but
he considered that it would not pay to work his way through Law School.
He wanted the time to get something out of New York. His father was
unable to advance the money, so Stephen went to a friend of his
father's, a prosperous coal-dealer in the town, and asked that he lend
him enough to put him through economically, but not, he plainly said,
too economically. He would give the coal-dealer notes, payable with
interest four years after he was admitted to the bar.
The coal-dealer, taking into consideration the fact that the young man
had broken every record at the university in scholarship, and two other
facts, the young man's forehead and mouth, lent him the money. He said
that the interest need not begin until he was admitted.
Stephen thanked him and went to Columbia. One of the professors there
took a great fancy to him. He introduced him to his sister, a maiden
lady living in Washington Square, who, finding him very likable,
introduced him to other people living in the Square.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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