Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction
Yet this was the world where her father had come penniless, a refugee
from miscarried justice, and had won out. It was the world where he
had been shot down by some miserable, criminal assassin, who, it was
more than likely, had mistaken him for Wayland. It was Wayland's
world, a world in the making. Well had Matthews designated it--The
United States of the World! More Jews than in Palestine; more Germans
than in Berlin; more Italians than in Rome; more Russians than in St.
Petersburg; more Canadians than in any four Canadian cities combined;
more descendants of the British than in the British Isles--the United
States of the World in the Making! Was it any wonder crime was
rampant; and Democracy rocked to the shock of collision and
miscalculation and inexperience; and Righteousness became a tacking to
progress, not a straight line, like the zig-zag of the ship making
headway all the time, but tacking back and forward to wind and current?
It was good to be alive and take part in the making of the United
States of the World!
She had had breakfast and luncheon in her apartments. At mid-day, she
saw Wayland coming along the thronged main street. At every step, some
man stopped him to shake hands; and groups turned and gazed after him
as he passed, and spat their approval or disapproval with great
emphasis at the mottled pavement. Below the window, a big Swede
grabbed his two shoulders with the grip of a steam crane.
"Say, you Vaylan', huh?" he asked. "Say, you a' right! You ever need
yob, Vaylan', you 'ply our union! Huh?" and he laughed, and went on;
and the tears welled to Eleanor's eyes.
Then came the lawyer to read the will; and after the lawyer's
departure, Matthews had told her how she concerned his errand down from
the North; and when the door closed on Matthews, she burst into tears.
She saw the street lights come twinkling out, and she did not turn on
the light of the sitting room chandelier. Did he love her at all; or
if he did, did he know what this waiting all day meant to a woman?
Then, it came to her in a flash, his wistful look in the morning behind
the forced gayety, his reference to the last ride, to keeping
resolutions. Was that resolution for the sake of his work at all; or
for her? Of course, Matthews had told him in the Desert; and with the
thought, the weight that had oppressed her rolled from her heart. She
jumped from her chair and uttered a low cry of happy laughter.
"Oh, I'll soon make short work of that resolution," she vowed.
Alas and alas! Samson straining his manhood for strength to shore up a
resolution, and here was a sharpening of scissors to shear him well!
There was a knock on the door. She thought it the waiter coming up
with a late dinner and had called "come in," when the door opened, and
in the glare of light from the hall way stood the news editor,
embarrassed and hesitating.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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