The abandoned farm, and Connie's mistakeHolmes, Mary Jane
General
The abandoned farm, and Connie's mistake
Holmes, Mary Jane
American fiction -- 20th century
With this his mother was content. She had been very busy, going many
times a day across the road to see that the women hired from Millville
were doing their work right, and herself washing the twelve windows of
the ball-room, where the six cots were set up, giving it the look of a
hospital ward, Kenneth said. Hal liked it and was in high spirits. Five
had accepted his invitation, and were coming the next day. There was Tom
Haynes from Lexington and Jim Drake from Louisville. There was George
and Charlie Browne, brothers, from Boston, and Peter Pond, from he
hardly knew where, except that he was English, and a big swell with
plenty of money. He did not know him personally, but the Brownes did,
and vouched for him, and that was enough.
These were the five young men who landed at the Millville station on a
summer morning in July. Hal was there to meet them with two open
carriages, and the greetings were rather boisterous as four of them
seized Harry’s hand, calling him “Old Boy” and introducing the stranger
as “Peter the Great.” He was a little dapper man, whose head was far too
large for his small body, and whose light summer attire was faultless.
He wore a monocle part of the time, and at once made use of it to look
at Harry, assuring him that he intended to enjoy himself immensely. They
were a jolly set, and the people near the station came to their doors to
look at them as they talked and laughed and collected their
dressing-cases, hand-bags, fishing tackle, guns, gymnasium clubs, a
guitar, a violin and a mandolin, and two boxes marked “Glass,” all of
which were piled into an express wagon which Harry called up.
“Now for Liberty Hall,” they said, as they took their seats in the
carriage, giving, as they drove off, a college yell, the loud
“Rah-rah-rah’s” making the people watching them wonder if they were
crazy, and how the deacon and his wife would stand them for a week if
they continued as noisy as they had commenced.
The deacon wondered, too, when he saw them alight and heard their shouts
and jokes as they looked about them.
“I don’t know for sure, but I guess we or’to go over and welcome ’em.
They are not exactly our company, but they are Hal’s,” Mrs. Stannard
said to the deacon, urging him until, against his will, he started with
her across the street.
Hal did not see them coming, but Charlie Browne did, and said to him,
“Look, you are going to have a call. Who are the old coves coming up the
walk?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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