The Spread Eagle and Other StoriesMorris, Gouverneur
General
The Spread Eagle and Other Stories
Morris, Gouverneur
Fiction; Short stories
So once more Mrs. Williams became a lovely, trailing figure out of the
seventh heaven, and Fitz, stoical but bored, followed her into the
court-yard of the hotel. Here were little iron tables and chairs, four
symmetrical flower-beds containing white gravel, four palm-trees in
tubs, their leaves much speckled with coal smuts; a French family at
breakfast (the stout father had unbuttoned his white waistcoat); and in
a corner by herself an American child sitting upon one of the
puff-seated iron chairs, one leg under her, one leg, long, thin, and
black, swinging free, and across her lap a copy of a fashion paper.
On perceiving Mrs. Williams the child at once came forward, and dropped
the most charming little courtesy imaginable.
"How do you do?" she said. "Poor, dear mamma isn't a bit well. But I
said that she would see you, Mrs. Williams. She said yesterday that she
wanted so much to see you."
In the event Mrs. Williams went up three flights in the elevator that
you worked yourself; only on this occasion the proprietor, hastily
slipping into his frock-coat and high hat (you could see him at it
through the office window), worked it for her. And Fitz remained with
the gloomy prospect of being entertained by little Miss Burton.
She was younger than Fitz by two years and older by ten--a serene,
knowing, beautiful child. When Fitz proposed that they sit in the
victoria, as softer than the iron chairs, she called him a funny boy,
but she assented. And as they went she tossed aside her fashion paper,
remarking, "_You_ wouldn't care for that."
When they had settled down into the soft, leather cushions of the
victoria she sighed luxuriously and said:
"This _is_ nice! I wish--" and broke off short.
"What?" asked Fitz.
"Oh," she said, "that the horses would start, and take us all over Paris
and back, and everybody would see us go by, and envy us. But mamma and
I," she said, "are devoted to fiacres--not smart, are they?"
"I don't mind," said Fitz, "if they go where I tell 'em to, and don't
set up a row over the _pourboire_."
"Still," said she, "it must be nice to have carriages and things. We
used to have. Only I can hardly remember. Mamma says I have a dreadfully
short memory."
"How long have you been abroad?" Fitz asked.
"Dear me," she said, "ever so long. I don't remember."
"Won't it be fun," said Fitz, "to go home?"
"America?" She hesitated. "Mamma says it's all so crude and rude. I
forget."
"Don't you remember America!" exclaimed Fitz, much horrified.
"Not clearly," she admitted.
"I guess you never saw Cleveland, Ohio, then," said Fitz, "'n' Euclid
Avenue, 'n' Wade Park, 'n' the cannons in the square, 'n' the
breakwater, 'n' never eat Silverthorn's potatoes at Rocky River, 'n'
never went to a picnic at Tinker's Creek, 'n' never saw Little Mountain
'n' the viaduct."
"You are quite right," said little Miss Burton, "I never did."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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