FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   >>  
er, that they began to look at me as though I was not quite right in my mind. The maids grabbed the children if they started to come near me, and the children stared at me with big round eyes, as though they'd been told I was an ogre who might eat them. I was hungry enough to. The little fruit-stand at the entrance had a fascination for me. I found myself there time and again, till I got afraid I might actually try to get of with a peach or a bunch of grapes. That thought haunted me. Fancy Nance Olden starved and blundering into the cheapest and most easily detected species of thieving! I suppose great generals in their hour of defeat imagine themselves doing the feeblest, foolishest things. As I sat there on the bench, gazing before me, I saw the whole thing--Nancy Olden, after all her bragging, her skirmishing, her hairbreadth scapes and successes, arrested in broad daylight and before witnesses for having stolen a cool, wet bunch of grapes, worth a nickel, for her hot, dry, hungering throat! I saw the policeman that'd do it; he looked like that Sergeant Mulhill I met 'way, 'way back in Latimer's garden. I saw the officer that'd receive me; he had blue eyes like the detective that came for me to the Manhattan. I saw the woman jailer--oh, she was the A.D., all right, who'd receive me without the slightest emotion, show me to a cell and lock the door, as calm, as little triumphant or affected, as though I hadn't once outwitted that cleverest of creatures--and outwitted myself in forestalling her. I saw-- Mag, guess what I saw! No, truly; what I really saw? It made me jump to my feet and grab it with a squeal. I saw my own purse lying on the gravel almost at my feet, near the little fruit-stand that had tempted me. Blank empty it was, stripped clean, not a penny left in it, not a paper, not a stamp, not even my key. Just the same I was glad to have it. It linked me in a way to the place. The clever little girl that had stolen it had been here in this park, on this very spot. The thought of that cute young Nance Olden distracted my mind a minute from my worry--and, oh, Maggie darlin', I was worrying so! I walked up to the fruit-stand with the purse in my hand. The old fellow who kept it looked up with an inviting smile. Lord knows, he needn't have encouraged me to buy if I'd had a penny. "I want to ask you," I said, "if you remember selling a lot of good things to a little girl who had a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   >>  



Top keywords:
grapes
 

thought

 

outwitted

 

looked

 

receive

 
stolen
 
things
 

children

 
forestalling
 

creatures


cleverest

 

Maggie

 
darlin
 

affected

 
slightest
 

emotion

 
worrying
 
remember
 

triumphant

 

selling


squeal

 

clever

 

inviting

 

linked

 

fellow

 

jailer

 

walked

 

gravel

 

distracted

 

tempted


minute

 
stripped
 

encouraged

 

haunted

 

starved

 
afraid
 

blundering

 
suppose
 

generals

 
thieving

species
 

cheapest

 
easily
 
detected
 

started

 

stared

 
grabbed
 

entrance

 
fascination
 

hungry