FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   >>  
that no one has ever been able to say which was cause and which effect. Anyhow, the field was now a desolation and the Place had long been burned. It was while going afoot to South Asphyxia, the home of my childhood, that I found both my parents on their way to the Hill. They had hitched their team and were eating luncheon under an oak tree in the center of the field. The sight of the luncheon called up painful memories of my school days and roused the sleeping lion in my breast. Approaching the guilty couple, who at once recognized me, I ventured to suggest that I share their hospitality. "Of this cheer, my son," said the author of my being, with characteristic pomposity, which age had not withered, "there is sufficient for but two. I am not, I hope, insensible to the hunger-light in your eyes, but--" My father has never completed that sentence; what he mistook for hunger-light was simply the earnest gaze of the hypnotist. In a few seconds he was at my service. A few more sufficed for the lady, and the dictates of a just resentment could be carried into effect. "My former father," I said, "I presume that it is known to you that you and this lady are no longer what you were?" "I have observed a certain subtle change," was the rather dubious reply of the old gentleman; "it is perhaps attributable to age." "It is more than that," I explained; "it goes to character--to species. You and the lady here are, in truth, two broncos--wild stallions both, and unfriendly." "Why, John," exclaimed my dear mother, "you don't mean to say that I am--" "Madam," I replied, solemnly, fixing my eyes again upon hers, "you are." Scarcely had the words fallen from my lips when she dropped upon her hands and knees, and backing up to the old man squealed like a demon and delivered a vicious kick upon his shin! An instant later he was himself down on all-fours, headed away from her and flinging his feet at her simultaneously and successively. With equal earnestness but inferior agility, because of her hampering body-gear, she plied her own. Their flying legs crossed and mingled in the most bewildering way; their feet sometimes meeting squarely in midair, their bodies thrust forward, falling flat upon the ground and for a moment helpless. On recovering themselves they would resume the combat, uttering their frenzy in the nameless sounds of the furious brutes which they believed themselves to be--the whole region rang
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   >>  



Top keywords:

father

 

luncheon

 

hunger

 

effect

 

backing

 

delivered

 
vicious
 

squealed

 

solemnly

 
exclaimed

mother

 

unfriendly

 

stallions

 

broncos

 
fallen
 

dropped

 
Scarcely
 

replied

 

fixing

 

simultaneously


falling
 

forward

 

ground

 

helpless

 

moment

 
thrust
 

bodies

 

bewildering

 

meeting

 

squarely


midair

 

recovering

 

brutes

 

furious

 

believed

 
region
 

sounds

 
nameless
 

resume

 

combat


uttering

 
frenzy
 

mingled

 

headed

 

flinging

 

species

 
successively
 

instant

 
earnestness
 
flying