The Spenders: A Tale of the Third GenerationWilson, Harry Leon
General
The Spenders: A Tale of the Third Generation
Wilson, Harry Leon
Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
It will be recalled that the young man frequently expressed himself
with regrettable inelegance; that he habitually availed himself,
indeed, of a most infelicitous species of metaphor. It must not be
supposed that this spring day in the spring places had reformed his
manner of delivery. When he chose to word his emotions it was still
done in a manner to make the right-spoken grieve. Thus, going back
toward the road, after reviewing his great plans for the future, he
spoke aloud: "I believe it's going to be a good game."
When he became hungry he thought with relief that he would not be
compelled to seek one of those "hurry-up" lunch places with its clamour
and crowd. What was the use of all that noise and crowding and piggish
hurry? A remark of the German's recurred to him:
"It is a happy man who has divined the leisure of eternity, so he feels
it, like what you say, 'in his bones.'"
When he came out on the road again he thought regretfully of the pretty
girl and her flower bed. He would have liked to go back and suggest
that she sing to the seeds as she put them to sleep in their earth
cradle, to make their awakening more beautiful.
But he turned down the road that led away from the girl, and when he
came to a "wheelman's rest," he ate many sandwiches and drank much
milk.
The face of the maid that served him had been no heaven for the souls
of dead flowers. Still she was a girl; and no girl could be wholly
without importance on such a day. So he thought the things he would
have said to her if matters had been different.
When he had eaten, he loafed off again down the road. Through the long
afternoon he walked and lazed, turning into strange lanes and by-roads,
resting on grassy banks, and looking far up. He followed Doctor von
Herzlich's directions, and, going off into space, reduced the earth,
watching its little continents and oceans roll toward him, and viewing
the antics of its queer inhabitants in fancy as he had often in fact
viewed a populous little ant-hill, with its busy, serious citizens.
Then he would venture still farther--away out into timeless space,
beyond even the starry refuse of creation, and insolently regard the
universe as a tiny cloud of dust.
When the shadows stretched in the dusky languor of the spring evening,
he began to take his bearings for the return. He heard the hum and
clang of an electric car off through a chestnut grove.
The sound disturbed him, bringing premonitions of the city's unrest. He
determined to stay out for the night. It was restful--his car would not
arrive until late the next afternoon--there was no reason why he should
not. He found a little wayside hotel whose weather-beaten sign was
ancient enough to promise "entertainment for man and beast."
"Just what I want," he declared. "I'm both of them--man and beast."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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