The Lightning Conductor Discovers AmericaWilliamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
General
The Lightning Conductor Discovers America
Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris)
Automobiles -- Fiction
Apropos, it is Molly Winston who gives me courage that life can after
all be full of pleasant things and good endings, for she and Jack go on
having romance and grand adventures. She believes that if "_you want
things enough_," they come to you sooner or later. She is a very nice
chaperon to have.
Three dear boys are in love with me, not enough to hurt them, but enough
to make me pleasure and themselves, too, all fighting together and
pretending to be angry if I am more kind to one than another. Also there
is always Mr. Caspian. He has now asked me what we used to call "_The_
question"; and in America it is done to the girl herself, as we so often
read, not to the father or mother. But, it seems, he spoke first to
Larry, almost in the French way. When I have answered no, I was too
young (that is the best to say when you are caught by surprise and wish
not to offend). He told me that Larry wished me to think of him, because
they had made up a big friendship, they two, and there were deep reasons
why I should engage myself. I went to Larry to inquire of this, and he
said he did not go so far as Mr. Caspian thought. However, it would be
good for me to be nice to Mr. C. and not make him sorrow, for a time,
until some things were settled. So I am being nice, but sometimes it is
difficult, because Mr. Caspian and Mr. Storm are not sympathetic. Still,
don't you find the little difficulties in the life are like the cloves
and cinnamon in the rice pudding which we at school asked for in a
"Round Robin?" (Oh, that nice word! We found it, you remember, in an
English book!)
Mr. Storm drives my darling car, with which we make many dollars from
our visitors who love to go on tour. I am considered too small, though I
can do it quite well and have no fear. In smooth places without turns
Mr. Storm lets me take the wheel. I cannot talk when I drive. I am too
happy and have a thousand emotions, like a beehive filled with bees that
keep flying home with honey. But he can talk, no matter what happens,
and he says things I remember. They seem to paint my brain with pictures
which he gives me to keep. So his words are like his eyes, not to be
forgotten. You know in our garden at the convent there were flowers
which would not be banished, though the gardener pulled them up by the
roots again and still again: poppies for instance. Some thoughts which
come to one from other people's minds are like these. They persist, and
they plant their seeds in a deep place where they cannot be pulled out.
Mr. Caspian is like the gardener at the convent. He tries to stamp out
these thoughts, to plant others in me. But the roots have gone down
where he cannot find them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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