Farm life -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Wisconsin -- Fiction
Other authors started other trains of thought in his mind:
nostalgic, wistful, lonely thoughts of the time when he had been
lost and his mother and father had come hunting him with a lantern.
He had heard them calling far off through the rain-wet woods. They
had wrapped him in a blanket and they had driven for miles in the
horse and buggy until at last they were at home again; thoughts of
his mother coming to tuck him in at night and how desperately he
wanted her to come and how fearful he was that she might forget;
thoughts of the picnic to which he was not invited and how he had
lain beneath the lilac bush watching the other children going by
with their picnic baskets. (Often he was homesick for the farm.)
But some of the things he read made him fighting mad, and others
made him ambitious. This evening, waiting for Maxine Larabee, he
had picked up a book on the Gypsies. A young Gypsy woman stepping
from her van had given him what he thought was a tremendous idea....
Why not a camp trailer fitted up with every convenience for a
traveling home? If Gypsies could live in vans so could a world of
roving motorists. Here was the idea which would make him famous and
which would cinch his progressive rise at the "Trailer." He wanted
to shout his discovery to everyone in the room. He wanted most
desperately to find Maxine Larabee and pour out his hopes and plans.
He could see just how the camp trailer would look. It would be
mounted on a one-ton chassis. There would be two small windows on
each side and one at the front end fitted out with screens and
bright curtains. There would be a door at the back with steps which
would let down. Inside there would be one bunk on either side which
would fold up against the wall; a folding table; built-in, narrow
cupboards and clothes press; a small coal-oil stove for cooking.
He felt somewhat at a loss in designing the tiny kitchen. He would
have to ask Maxine to help him with that.
It suddenly came over him that after he and Maxine were married
they could take their honeymoon in one of his own camp trailers. He
was sure that she would be an awfully good sport. He could see her
helping to catch their dinner and cooking it over the camp fire. He
took a pencil and paper from his pocket, began to sketch rapidly.
Despite two years of mechanical drawing at the high school his
fingers lagged behind his racing mind.
And now the sketch was finished. But where was Maxine? He was
afraid that she would not come.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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