FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111  
112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   >>   >|  
liged if you'd get me some more." "Wa-all, I'm purty busy." "I'll pay you anything you ask." The milkman was modest in his ambitions. "How'd two dollars strike ye?" "Five would be better if you hurried." This looked suspicious, but the milkman consented. "Wa-all, all right, but what would I fetch the gasolene in?" "One of your milk-cans." "They're all fuller melk." "I'll buy one, milk and all." "Wa-all, I reckon I'll hev to oblige you." "Here's five dollars on account. There'll be five more when you get back." "Wa-all, all ri-ight. Get along there, Jawn Henry." John Henry got along. Even his _cloppety-clop_ did not waken Miss Webling. The return of the rattletrap and the racket of filling the tank with the elixir finished her sleep, however. She woke in confusion, finding herself sitting up, dressed, in her little room, with three strange men at work outside. When the tank was filled, Davidge entered her compartment with a cheery "Good morning," and slammed the door after him. The gasolene, like the breath of a god, gave life to the dead. The car snarled and jumped, and went roaring across the bridge, up the hill and down another, and down that and up another. Here they caught, through a frame of leaves, a glimpse of Washington in the sunrise, a great congregation of marble temples and trees and sky-colored waters, the shaft of the Monument lighted with the milky radiance of a mountain peak on its upper half, the lower part still dusk with valley shadow, and across the plateau of roofs the solemn Capitol in as mythical a splendor as the stately dome that Kubla Khan decreed in Xanadu. This sight of Canaan from Pisgah-height was no luxury to the taxi-driver, and he hustled his coffee-grinder till he reached Rosslyn once more, crossed the Potomac's many-tinted stream, and rattled through Georgetown and the shabby, sleeping little shops of M Street into the tree-tunnels of Washington. He paused to say, "Where do we go from here?" Davidge and Marie Louise looked their chagrin. They still had no place to go. "To the Pennsylvania Station," said Davidge. "We can at least get breakfast there." The streets of Washington are never so beautiful as at this still hour when nothing stirs but the wind in the trees and the grass on the lawns, and hardly anybody is abroad except the generals on their bronze horses fronting their old battles with heroic eyes. The station outside was s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111  
112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Washington

 

Davidge

 

gasolene

 
milkman
 
looked
 

dollars

 
radiance
 

shadow

 

hustled

 

coffee


luxury
 

mountain

 

driver

 

grinder

 

Rosslyn

 
crossed
 

Monument

 

reached

 

lighted

 
solemn

mythical

 
valley
 

Capitol

 

Xanadu

 

decreed

 

splendor

 

stately

 
height
 

Pisgah

 

Canaan


Potomac

 

plateau

 

beautiful

 

breakfast

 

streets

 

fronting

 

battles

 

heroic

 

station

 

horses


bronze

 

abroad

 

generals

 

Street

 

tunnels

 

sleeping

 
stream
 

tinted

 

rattled

 

Georgetown