No, Donna was not prepared to obey Bob McGraw's summons. She wept a
little as she reflected how provincial and plebeian she must appear,
stepping down from the train at Bakersfield, clad in a white duck
walking suit, white shoes and stockings and a white sailor hat. She
wanted Bob to be proud of her, and her heart swelled to bursting at the
thought that she must deny him such a simple pleasure. Poor Donna! Once
she had thought that suit so beautiful. It was a drummer's sample which
she had purchased from a commercial traveler who, claiming to own his
own samples, had been prevailed upon to accept a price for the suit when
at length he became convinced that under no circumstances would Donna
permit him to make her a present of it. He had informed her at the time
that it was the very latest Parisian creation and she had believed him.
If Donna had only known how ravishing that simple costume made her
appear and what a vision she would be to the hungry eyes of Bob McGraw!
Yet, she was ashamed to let even the San Pasqualians see her leaving
town in such a dowdy costume, and as she walked up the tracks from the
Hat Ranch that momentous morning, bearing aloft a parasol that but the
day before had been the joy of her girlish existence, she was fully
convinced that a more commonplace addendum to a feminine wardrobe had
never been devised.
She was certain that all San Pasqual must know her secret--that this was
her wedding day. She shuddered lest the telegraph operator had suspected
something, despite Bob's commendable caution, and had incited the
townspeople to line up at the depot, there to shower her with rice
and hurl antiquated footgear after the train that bore her north. Such
horrible rites were preserved and enacted with religious exactitude in
San Pasqual.
Until that morning Donna never had really known how ardently she longed
to escape from the sordid commonplace lonely little town. With its
inhabitants she had nothing in common, although she noted a mental
exception to this condition as, from afar, she observed Harley P.
Hennage standing in front of the eating-house door, picking his teeth
with his gold toothpick. She felt a sudden desire to go to the worst man
in San Pasqual and pour out to him the whole wonderful story; then
to await his quizzical congratulations and bask for a moment in his
infrequent honest childish smile, for Donna had a very great longing
to-day to permit some human being to bear with her the burden of her
joy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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