FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  
like an election night. No. He was usually readin' seed catalogues and munchin' salted peanuts out of a paper bag. It was early last spring that he'd bought this Villa Nova place, a mile or so beyond the Ellinses, and moved out with the bride he'd picked out of his list of screen stars. I don't know whether he expected the Piping Rock crowd to fall for him or not. Anyway, they didn't. They just shuddered when his name was mentioned and stayed away from Villa Nova same as they had when that Duluth copper plute, who'd built the freak near-Moorish affair, tried the same act. But it didn't look like the Zoscos meant to be frozen out so easy. After being lonesome for a month or so they begun fillin' their 20 odd bedrooms with guests of their own choosin'. Course, some of 'em that I saw arrivin' looked a bit rummy, but it was plain the Zoscos didn't intend to bank on the neighbors for company. Maybe they didn't want us crashin' in either, as Mr. Robert suggests. You couldn't worry Mrs. Robert with hints like that, though. She's a good mixer. Besides, if she'd made up her mind to play that new pipe organ you could pretty near bet she'd do it. So inside of three minutes she had us loaded into the car and off we rolls to surprise the Zoscos. Villa Nova, you know, is perched on the top of quite a sizable hill, with a private road windin' up from the Pike. As you swing in you pass an odd-shaped vine-covered affair that I suppose was meant for a gate-keeper's lodge, though it looks like a stucco tower that had been dropped off some storage warehouse. Well, we'd just made the turn and Mr. Robert had gone into second to take the grade when I gets a glimpse of somebody doin' a hasty duck into the shrubbery; a slim, skinny party with a plaid cap pulled down over his eyes so far that his ears stuck out on either side like young wings. What struck me as kind of odd, though, was his jumpin' away from the door of the lodge as the car swung in and the fact that he had a basket covered with a white cloth. "Huh!" says I, more or less to myself. "What's the matter?" asks Vee. "Seeing things in the moonlight?" "Thought I did," says I. "Didn't you, there by the gate!" "Oh, yes," says she. "Some lilac bushes." And not being any too sure of just what I had seen I let it ride at that. Besides, there wasn't time for any lengthy debate. Next thing I knew we'd pulled up under the porte cochere and was pilin' out. We finds the big do
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Robert
 

Zoscos

 

pulled

 

affair

 

Besides

 
covered
 
shaped
 

keeper

 
perched
 

glimpse


skinny

 

suppose

 
shrubbery
 

warehouse

 
private
 

storage

 
dropped
 
windin
 

sizable

 

stucco


bushes

 

cochere

 

lengthy

 

debate

 

Thought

 

struck

 

jumpin

 

matter

 

Seeing

 

moonlight


things

 
basket
 

Anyway

 

Piping

 

screen

 
expected
 

shuddered

 
Moorish
 

stayed

 
mentioned

Duluth
 

copper

 
picked
 
munchin
 

catalogues

 

salted

 
peanuts
 

readin

 
election
 

Ellinses