The Magic Egg, and Other StoriesStockton, Frank R.
Science
The Magic Egg, and Other Stories
Stockton, Frank R.
Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
"What do you do with them, mother?" asked Miss Kitty.
"You lift houses with them," said she. "He says that in large cities
they lift whole blocks of houses with them and build stories
underneath. He thinks that we can get rid of our trouble here if we
use jack-screws."
"But how does he propose to use them?" I asked.
"Oh, he has a good many plans," answered Mrs. Carson. "He said that he
should not wonder if jack-screws could be made large enough to lift
your house entirely over mine and set it out in the road, where it
could be carried away without interfering with anything, except, of
course, vehicles which might be coming along. But he has another
plan--that is, to lift my house up and carry it out into the field on
the other side of the road, and then your house might be carried along
right over the cellar until it got to the road. In that way, he says,
the bushes and trees would not have to be interfered with."
"I think brother George is cracked!" said Kitty.
All this sort of thing worried me very much. My mind was eminently
disposed toward peace and tranquillity, but who could be peaceful and
tranquil with a prospective jack-screw under the very base of his
comfort and happiness? In fact, my house had never been such a happy
home as it was at that time. The fact of its unwarranted position upon
other people's grounds had ceased to trouble me.
But the coming son George, with his jack-screws, did trouble me very
much, and that afternoon I deliberately went into Mrs. Carson's house
to look for Kitty. I knew her mother was not at home, for I had seen
her go out. When Kitty appeared I asked her to come out on her back
porch. "Have you thought of any new plan of moving it?" she said, with
a smile, as we sat down.
"No," said I, earnestly. "I have not, and I don't want to think of any
plan of moving it. I am tired of seeing it here, I am tired of
thinking about moving it away, and I am tired of hearing people talk
about moving it. I have not any right to be here, and I am never
allowed to forget it. What I want to do is to go entirely away, and
leave everything behind me--except one thing."
"And what is that?" asked Kitty.
"You," I answered.
She turned a little pale and did not reply.
"You understand me, Kitty," I said. "There is nothing in the world
that I care for but you. What have you to say to me?"
Then came back to her her little smile. "I think it would be very
foolish for us to go away," she said.
It was about a quarter of an hour after this when Kitty proposed that
we should go out to the front of the house; it would look queer if any
of the servants should come by and see us sitting together like that.
I had forgotten that there were other people in the world, but I went
with her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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