The Mermaid of Druid Lake, and Other StoriesBump, Charles Weathers
Science
The Mermaid of Druid Lake, and Other Stories
Bump, Charles Weathers
Fiction; Short stories
Not everybody was pleased among the many thousands who on September 12,
1906, saw the industrial parade with which Baltimore celebrated its
wonderful recovery from the blow given by the great fire of 1904. Tobias
Greenfield, head of a Lexington-street department store, was one who was
not. He was angry, violently so. He had been in a chipper mood all
morning and had enjoyed watching the long line from the windows of a
bedecorated wholesale house on Baltimore street. But when his eyes
alighted on the float of his own firm, the anger came. And the longer it
stayed with him, the worse it grew, especially as he could not escape
the prodding of the friends who had invited him to their warehouse.
When he could decently slip away from them he went to his office and
peremptorily called for his advertising manager.
"What the devil do you mean, Melvale," he shouted, "by putting such a
scrawny little girl on our float as the Goddess? She looked a fright in
the clothes made for Miss Preston, and everyone is laughing at us. Why
was not Miss Preston there? How came you to make such a mess?"
The advertising man was nervous under the volley of questions, but he
explained at length. Boiled down, it was plain he could give only one
reason why the float had been such a mess.
And that reason was William Henry Montgomery.
Miss Preston had been willing to be the Goddess, as planned, but William
Henry Montgomery said no. And that settled it.
And who was William Henry Montgomery? Why, Miss Preston loved William
Henry Montgomery.
You see, down on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, where Maude Preston and
William Henry Montgomery were to the manor born, they had sought each
other's company so assiduously and for so long that in the length and
breadth of Accomac--from Chincoteague to Great Machipongo--every man and
woman regarded it as a sure thing that Maude and William Henry would hit
it off for a marriage. And they had talked, as people will, about their
being an ideal couple, so well suited--William Henry broad-shouldered
and solidly knit and Maude molded on classic Diana's lines, erect and
queenly, but sweet to look upon. The women thought William Henry a
fine-looking lad, while men and women alike regarded Maude as the
handsomest creature on the Peninsula below the Maryland line.
And then one day there had been a quarrel. Maude thought a bit of
William Henry's advice too assertive, too near to an injunction to obey,
and had flared up. And William Henry had flared up likewise. And when
the two came to count the cost, William Henry was moodily filling a job
in a cousin's lumber-yard in Philadelphia, while Maude, unknown to
William Henry, had come to Baltimore to remove herself and her
heart-wound from the well-meant, but too gossipy, neighbors in Accomac.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account