It seemed to Dick Minot that he had been looking out of a car window
for a couple of eternities. Save for the diversion at Jacksonville,
nothing had happened to brighten that long and wearisome journey. He
wanted, now, to glance across the car aisle toward the diversion at
Jacksonville. Yet it hardly seemed polite--so soon. Wherefore he
continued to gaze out at the monotonous landscape.
For half a mile the train served its masters. Then, with a pathetic
groan, it paused. Still Mr. Minot gazed out the window. He gazed so
long that he saw a family of razor-backs, passed a quarter of a mile
back, catch up with the train and trot scornfully by. After that he
kept his eyes on the live oaks and evergreens, to whose topmost
branches hung gray moss like whiskers on a western senator.
Then he could stand it no longer. He turned and looked upon the
diversion at Jacksonville. Gentlemen of the jury--she was beautiful.
The custodian of a library of books on sociology could have seen that
with half an astigmatic eye. Her copper-colored hair flashed
alluringly in that sunny car; the curve of her cheek would have created
a sensation in the neighborhood where burning Sappho loved and sang.
Dick Minot's heart beat faster, repeating the performance it had staged
when she boarded the train at Jacksonville.
Beautiful, yes--but she fidgeted. She had fidgeted madly in the
station at Jacksonville during that hour's wait; now even more madly
she bounced about on that plush seat. She opened and shut magazines,
she straightened her pleasant little hat, she gazed in agony out the
window. Beauty such as hers should have been framed in a serene and
haughty dignity. Hers happened to be framed in a frenzy of fidget.
In its infinite wisdom, the train saw fit to start again. With a sigh
of relief, the girl sank back upon her seat of torture. Mr. Minot
turned again to the uneventful landscape. More yellow sand, more
bearded oaks and evergreens. And in a moment, the family of
razor-backs, plodding along beside the track with a determined demeanor
that said as plainly as words: "You may go ahead--but we shall see what
we shall see."
Excellent train, it seemed fairly to fly. For a little while. Then
another stop. Beauty wildly anxious on the seat of ancient plush.
Another start--a stop--and a worried but musical voice in Dick Minot's
ear:
"I beg your pardon--but what should you say are this train's chances
for reaching San Marco by one o'clock?"
Minot turned. Brown eyes and troubled ones looked into his. A dimple
twitched beside an adorable mouth. Fortunate Florida, peopled with
girls like this.
"I should say," smiled Mr. Minot, "about the same as those of the
famous little snowball that strayed far from home."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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