The Hundred, and Other StoriesBrownell, Gertrude Hall
General
The Hundred, and Other Stories
Brownell, Gertrude Hall
American fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, American
"Is it freaks, Sally? oh, tell me if it's freaks? It isn't? Are you
sure I shall like it very much? It's nothing to eat, and it's nothing
I can have to keep, and it's not a circus. What color is it? You'll
answer straight, won't you?"
"Oh, it's every color in the world, and striped and polka-dotted and
crinkled and smooth. There's a hundred of it."
The child would have stopped short on the sidewalk the better to centre
her mind on guessing, but Sally dragged her briskly along. At the top
of the street they came to a standstill.
"What is it?" asked the child.
"We're going to take the car," said Sally, grandly.
"O--h!" breathed the child.
"I guess you never stepped on to one of these before. This, Tibbie, is
nothing but the beginning. Hi! Hi!"
The swiftly gliding, fiery, formidable car stopped, and the hoarse
buzz died out in a grinding of brakes; the light was dimmed a minute,
then flared out again, as if the monster had winked. Sally and Tibbie
climbed on; it moved, banging and whirring on its farther way. They had
to stand, of course, but what of that? Tibbie looked all about with her
shining, intelligent brown eyes, and felt a flush of gratified pride
to see Sally, when the conductor had squeezed himself near, pay like
the others; it had seemed impossible that some compromise should not
have to be made with him. She slipped her hand in Sally's, and was too
occupied with the people and the colored advertisements to talk.
"Did you get anything for Christmas yet, Tibbie?"
She moved her head up and down, bestowing all her attention on a
parcel-laden woman bound to drop something the next time she stirred.
"What did you get?"
"A doll's flat-iron and a muslin bag of candy. I put the iron on to
heat, and it melted. I gave what was left to Jimmy."
"Who gave them to you?"
"Off the Sunday-school tree. But there were no lights on it, because it
was daytime. Sally, I know something that has a hundred--"
"What's that? Let's see if you've got it now?"
Tibbie looked a little shamefaced, then said, "A dollar--is a hundred
cents."
"Well, and would I be bringing you so far just to show you a dollar?
This is worth as much as a dollar, every individual one of them.
Tibbie, it's just the grandest sight you ever seen--pink and blue and
yellow and striped--"
Tibbie, who was looking Sally fixedly in the face, as if to see if her
secret anywhere transpired, now almost shouted, "It's marbles!"
"Aw, but you're downright stupid, Tibbie. I don't mind telling you I'm
disappointed. You're just a common, every-day sort of young one, with
no idear of grandness in your idears at all. And you don't seem to keep
a hold on more than one notion at a time. First it's a dollar. Is that
pink and blue? And next it's marbles. Is marbles worth a dollar apiece?
Now tell me what's the grandest, prettiest thing that ever you saw--"
"... Angels."
"D' you ever see any?"
"In the church window, painted."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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