FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   >>   >|  
still lookin' healthy. Come along! Look happy, for you're goin' to be queen of the May, mother!" But when they started to drag him from the room both women interposed. "Hiram, dear," pleaded his wife, "please let the man go. Louada Murilla and I know now what a scalawag he is, and we know how we've misjudged both you and Cap'n Sproul, and we'll spend the rest of our lives showin' you that we're sorry. But let him go! If you make any such uproar as you're talkin' of it will all come out that he made your wives believe that you were bad men. It will shame us to death, Hiram. Please let him go." "Please let him go, Aaron," urged Mrs. Sproul, with all the fervor of her feelings. "It will punish him worst if you drop him here and now, like a snake that you've picked up by mistake." Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look stared at each other a long time, meditating. They went apart and mumbled in colloquy. Then the Cap'n trudged to his front door, opened it, and held it open. Hiram cut the strip that bound their captive's wrists. The second selectman had not the courage to raise his eyes to meet the stares directed on him. With head bowed and the tall feather nodding over his face he slunk out into the night. And Hiram and the Cap'n called after him in jovial chorus: "Good-night, marm!" "This settling down in life seems to be more or less of a complicated performance," observed Cap'n Sproul when the four of them were alone, "but just at this minute I feel pretty well settled. I reckon I've impressed it on a few disturbers in this town that I'm the sort of a man that's better left alone. It looks to me like a long, calm spell of weather ahead." XVII Mr. Gammon's entrance into the office of the first selectman of Smyrna was unobtrusive. In fact, to employ a paradox, it was so unobtrusive as to be almost spectacular. The door opened just about wide enough to admit a cat, were that cat sufficiently slab-sided, and Mr. Gammon slid his lath-like form in edgewise. He stood beside the door after he had shut it softly behind him. He gazed forlornly at Cap'n Aaron Sproul, first selectman. Outside sounded a plaintive "_Squawnk!_" Cap'n Sproul at that moment had his fist up ready to spack it down into his palm to add emphasis to some particularly violent observation he was just then making to Mr. Tate, highway "surveyor" in Tumble-dick District. Cap'n Sproul jerked his chin around over his shoulder so as to stare a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Sproul
 

selectman

 

Gammon

 

unobtrusive

 

Please

 
opened
 
observed
 

performance

 
weather
 

jovial


complicated

 

settling

 
chorus
 

pretty

 
minute
 

settled

 
disturbers
 
reckon
 

impressed

 

emphasis


violent

 

Squawnk

 

plaintive

 

moment

 

observation

 

jerked

 

shoulder

 

District

 

making

 

highway


surveyor

 
Tumble
 

sounded

 

Outside

 

spectacular

 
paradox
 

employ

 
office
 

entrance

 
Smyrna

sufficiently
 

softly

 
forlornly
 
edgewise
 

captive

 

showin

 
misjudged
 

uproar

 
talkin
 

scalawag