The Brick Moon, and Other StoriesHale, Edward Everett
Science
The Brick Moon, and Other Stories
Hale, Edward Everett
Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
He left the door wide open, and the gaslight
streaming in revealed to him the aspect of the cells
arranged for Australian voting. The rails were all in
their places, and the election might take place the very
next day. It instantly occurred to Dane that he might
save the five cents which otherwise he would have given
to his masters of the street railway, and be the next
morning three miles nearer his work, if he spent the
night in the polling-cabin. He looked around for a
minute or two, and found some large rolls of street
posters, which had been left there by some disappointed
canvasser the year before, and which had accompanied one
cell of the cabin in its travels. Dane is a prompt man,
and, in a minute more, he had locked the door behind him,
had struck a wax taper which he had in his cigar-box, had
rolled the paper roll out on the floor, to serve as a
pillow. In five minutes more, covered with his heavy
coat, he lay on the floor, sleeping as soundly as he had
slept the year before, when he found himself on the lee
side of an iceberg under Peary's command.
This is perhaps unnecessary detail, by way of saying
that this is the beginning of the arrangement which a
city, not very intelligent, will make in the next century
for unsettled people, whose own houses are not agreeable
to them. There exist in Boston at this moment three or
four hundred of the polling-booths,--nice little houses,
enough better than most of the peasantry of most of
Europe ever lived in. They are, alas, generally packed
up in lavender and laid away for ten months of the
year. But in the twentieth century we shall send them
down to the shores of islands and other places where
people like to spend the summer, and we shall utilize
them, not for the few hours of an election only, but all
the year round. This will not then be called
"Nationalism," it will be called "Democracy;" and that is
a very good name when it is applied to a very good thing.
Dane was an old soldier and an old seaman. He was
not troubled by disagreeable dreams, and in the morning,
when the street-cars began to travel, he was awaked a
little after sunrise, by their clatter on the corner. He
felt well satisfied with the success of his experiment,
and began on a forecast, which the reader shall follow
for a few weeks, which he thought, and thought rightly,
would tend to his own convenience, possibly to that of
his friends.
Dane telegraphed down to the office that he should be
detained an hour that morning, went out to his home of
the day before at Ashmont, paid his landlady her scot,
brought in with him his little possessions in a valise to
the office, and did not appear at his new home until
after nightfall.
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