Humorous stories; Washington (State) -- Fiction; Western stories
From Cora's description I was all prepared to find Dulcie a tall,
stately creature of twenty-eight, kind of blase and haggard from her
wearing social duties in New York. But not so. Not so at all. Cora had
invitations out for a tea the day after Dulcie come; invitations, that
is, to the non-Bohemians and such as had reformed or give good signs of
it. I don't know which head I got in under. And this Dulcie niece was
nothing but a short, fat, blond kid of seventeen or eighteen that had
never led any society whatever. You could tell that right quick.
She was rapidly eating cream-cheese sandwiches when I was presented to
her. I knew in one look that society had never bothered Dulcie any.
Victuals was her curse. In the cattle business it ain't riding
disrespectful horses that gets you the big money; it's being able to
guess weights. And if Dulcie pulled a pound less than one hundred and
eighty then all my years of training has gone for naught. She was
certainly big-framed stock and going into the winter strong. Between
bites of sandwich, with a marshmallow now and then, she was saying that
she was simply crazy about the war, having the dandiest young French
soldier for a godson and sending him packages of food and cigarettes
constantly, and all the girls of her set had one, and wasn't it the
darlingest idea.
And her soldier was only twenty-two, though his beard made him look more
mature, and he wrote such dandy letters, but she didn't suppose there
would ever be anything between them because papa was too busy with his
coal yard to take her over there.
As the girl chattered on it didn't seem to me that our Latin Quarter was
in the slightest danger from her. Still, some of the girls that was there
seemed quite impressed or buffaloed by her manner. One idea she give out
now was new in Red Gap. She had all her rings named after meals. She had
a breakfast ring and a dinner ring and a supper ring and a banquet ring,
and Daisy Estelle Maybury admired the necklace she had on, and Dulcie
said that was a mere travelling necklace; and how did they like this cute
little restaurant frock she was wearing? A little dressmaker over on
Amsterdam Avenue had turned it out. All the parties she dealt with,
apparently, was little. She had a little dressmaker and a little hair
woman and a little manicure and a little florist, and so forth. She'd
et five cream-cheese sandwiches by this time, in spite of its being quite
painful for her to pick up a dropped napkin. Dulcie didn't fold over
good. You could tell here was a girl that had never tried to get away
from it all. She wanted to be right where it was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account