FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   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   >>   >|  
she stopped him, and stood facing him with level, solemn eyes: "I give myself to you, Gordon," she said, "gladly and gladly, and I will go wherever you go, and try all my life to be what you would like." As she repeated her simple words, erect and brave, with her arms filled with roses, for a fleeting second he was again conscious of the vague menace that had towered darkly at her back on the night when she had laid in his grasp that other rose ... the rose that had faded. "Let's get along," he urged. The whip swung out across the roan's ears, and the horse started forward with a vicious rush. The dewy fragrance of the flowers trailed out behind the buggy, mingling with the swirling dust, then both settled into the empty road, under the burning brightness of the sun, the insensate beauty of the azure sky. TWO I In the clear glow of a lengthening twilight of spring Gordon Makimmon sauntered into Simmons' store. The high, dusty windows facing the Courthouse were raised, and a warm air drifted in, faint eddies of the fragrance of flowering bushes, languorous draughts of a countryside newly green. A number of men idling over a counter greeted him with a familiar and instantly alert curiosity. The clerk behind the counter bent forward with the brisk assumption of a business-like air. "Certainly," Gordon replied to his query, pausing to allow his purpose to gain its full effect; "I want to order a suit of clothes." "Why, damn it t'ell, Gord!" exclaimed an individual, with a long, drooping nose, a jaw which hung loosely on a corded, bare throat; "it ain't three weeks ago but you got a suit, and it ain't the one you have on now, neither." "Shut up, Tol'able," Buckley Simmons interposed, "you'll hurt trade. Gordon's the Dandy Dick of Greenstream." "Haven't I a right to as many suits of clothes as I've a mind to?" Gordon demanded belligerently. "Sure you have, Gord. You certainly have," a pacific chorus replied. "I want one like the last drummer wore through here," he continued; "a check suit with braid on all the edges." The clerk dropped a bulky volume heavily on the counter. "The Chicago Sartorial Company," he asserted, "have got some swell checks." He ran hastily over the pages, each with a sample rectangle of cloth pasted within a printed gold border, and a cabalistic sign beneath. Finally, "How's that?" he demanded, indicating a bold, mathematical design in pale orange, blue and grey.
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   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   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Gordon

 

counter

 

demanded

 
Simmons
 
fragrance
 

gladly

 

replied

 

facing

 
forward
 

clothes


Buckley
 

interposed

 

drooping

 

effect

 

Certainly

 

pausing

 

purpose

 

exclaimed

 
loosely
 

corded


throat

 

individual

 

rectangle

 

sample

 

pasted

 

printed

 

checks

 

hastily

 

border

 

design


mathematical

 

orange

 
indicating
 

cabalistic

 

beneath

 

Finally

 

asserted

 
business
 
pacific
 

chorus


belligerently

 
drummer
 

volume

 

heavily

 
Chicago
 
Company
 

Sartorial

 

dropped

 

continued

 

Greenstream