Amnesiacs -- Fiction; New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Trials -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Minga looked earnestly at Dunstan's back. "You see," she worked this
out as she had once worked it out with Sard, "you see, Dunce, whether
we like it or not, we've got to get busy, us young ones. It's queer,"
said little Minga with an omniscience not to be despised, "but though
the grown-ups try all they can to discourage us when we do take hold,
they know as well as we do that we've got to take hold. We," said
Minga, with awed prophecy, "our kind, the Bunches, don't you know,
all over the world. The French Bunch, like us, the Italian Bunch, the
English Bunch, the flappers of the world. Our Bunches have got to
run the world; it's awful, it's queer, but," the little bobbed head
nodding violently, "it's true; so we ought to be preparing. The fathers
and mothers and aunts and uncles and things hate to have us take
hold before they tell us what to do. Though you can see," said Minga
solemnly, "that they don't half of them know what to do themselves.
So we have _got_ to take hold." The bobbed maiden was sober to a
terrifying degree. Dunstan stared at the little mouth that summed up,
"And I suppose for this reason we ought to sort of brace up and begin
to take notice. Now, for instance," said Minga with a sudden virtuous
decision, "I've made up my mind that love is divine; I'm not going to
fool any more. Love is divine," announced Minga.
"Wow!" said Dunstan, "don't hit me there again, as the lady said."
"Yes, it is," returned his car-washing companion determinedly.
"I--I--I've grown sick of these petting parties and all this silly
stuff. When you really don't care you--you just don't do it, so I'm
going to cut out these fake engagements just to wear different kinds
of rings--I--I--if love is really divine," said Minga, she looked half
timidly off to the mountain where the organ builder's house stood,
"why, those petting parties are kind of common; do you get me?"
"Do I get you?" ejaculated Dunstan. "Say," he straightened up, "if you
knew what I knew. Say, I could tell you things, Minga."
Minga, her resolutions almost overcoming her, sat down on an upturned
box. "I really feel different," she said solemnly. "After that night
Tawny Troop bawled me out, and--and something else happened, well,
I got a sort of different feeling. Now, for instance," said Minga,
"old people; I don't want to make fun of them any more. Isn't that
queer? I want to sort of study 'em and see what they mean. Imagine! I
really want," went on Minga in an awed voice, "to hang around and talk
seriously to Judgie, and--and queer unnatural things like that. I'm
going to be a daughter and sort of get interested; isn't it awful?"
Dunstan walked lovingly around his car, trying all its functions, and
cast an appreciative eye on his comrade. "Good stuff," he commended.
"The old birds must have some sense packed away somewhere. The
old-timers like to beat the air and say things, but they ain't so low
in the grave but what they see a few facts too.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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