FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   >>   >|  
a Gray's little late suppers were rather famous. It was not that she spent so much money, but that she spent much thought. Tonight she was giving Captain Hewes a sweet potato pie. "He has never eaten real American things," she said to Jean. "Nice homey-cooked things--" "No one but Drusilla would ever think of pie at night," said Marion Gray, "but she has set her heart on it." There were some very special hot oyster sandwiches which preceded the pie--peppery and savory with curls of bacon. "I hope you are hungry," said Drusilla as her big black cook brought them in. "Aunt Chloe hates to have things go back to the kitchen." Nothing went back. There was snow without, a white whirl in the air, piling up at street corners, a night for young appetites to be on edge. "Jove," said the Captain, as he leaned back in his chair, "how I shall miss all this!" Jean turned her face towards him, startled. "Miss it?" "Yes. I am going back--got my orders today." Drusilla was cutting the pie. "Isn't it glorious?" Jean gazed at her with something like horror. Glorious! How could Drusilla go on, like Werther's Charlotte, _calmly cutting bread and butter_? Captain Hewes loved her, anybody with half an eye could see that--and whether she loved him or not, he was her friend--and she called his going "glorious!" "I was afraid my wound might put me on the shelf," the Captain said. "He is ordered straight to the front," Drusilla elucidated. "This is his farewell feast." After that everything was to Jean funeral baked meats. The pie deep in its crust, rich with eggs and milk, defiant of conservation, was as sawdust to her palate. Glorious! Well, she couldn't understand Margaret. She couldn't understand Drusilla. She didn't want to understand them. "Some day I shall go over," Drusilla was saying. "I shall drive something--it may be a truck and it may be an ambulance. But I can't sit here any longer doing nothing." "I think you are doing a great deal," said Jean. "Look at the committees you are managing." "Oh, things like that," said Drusilla contemptuously. "Women's work. I'm not made to knit and keep card indexes. I want a man's job." There was something almost boyish about her as she said it. She had parted her hair on the side, which heightened the effect. "In the old days," she told Captain Hewes, "I should have worn doublet and hose and have gone as your page." "Happy old days-
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Drusilla

 

Captain

 

things

 

understand

 

glorious

 

cutting

 
couldn
 

Glorious

 

palate

 

friend


defiant
 

called

 

afraid

 

sawdust

 

conservation

 

farewell

 

ordered

 

elucidated

 
straight
 

funeral


effect

 
committees
 

managing

 

contemptuously

 

boyish

 
heightened
 

indexes

 
parted
 

Margaret

 

doublet


ambulance

 

longer

 

oyster

 

sandwiches

 

preceded

 

special

 

Marion

 
peppery
 

savory

 

brought


hungry
 
thought
 

Tonight

 
famous
 
suppers
 
giving
 

cooked

 

American

 

potato

 

kitchen