Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

“Listen, Helen,” said Platt, leaning over the table. “For many years every time the spring flowers blossomed out on the prairies I got to thinking of somebody that I’d never seen or heard of. I knew it was you the minute I saw you yesterday. I’m going back home tomorrow, and you’re going with me. I know it, for I saw it in your eyes when you first looked at me. You needn’t kick, for you’ve got to fall into line. Here’s a little trick I picked out for you on my way over.”

He flicked a two-carat diamond solitaire ring across the table. Miss Asher flipped it back to him with her fork.

“Don’t get fresh,” she said, severely.

“I’m worth a hundred thousand dollars,” said Platt. “I’ll build you the finest house in West Texas.”

“You can’t buy me, Mr. Buyer,” said Miss Asher, “if you had a hundred million. I didn’t think I’d have to call you down. You didn’t look like the others to me at first, but I see you’re all alike.”

“All who?” asked Platt.

“All you buyers. You think because we girls have to go out to dinner with you or lose our jobs that you’re privileged to say what you please. Well, forget it. I thought you were different from the others, but I see I was mistaken.”

Platt struck his fingers on the table with a gesture of sudden, illuminating satisfaction.

“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed, almost hilariously⁠—“the Nicholson place, over on the north side. There’s a big grove of live oaks and a natural lake. The old house can be pulled down and the new one set further back.”

“Put out your pipe,” said Miss Asher. “I’m sorry to wake you up, but you fellows might as well get wise, once for all, to where you stand. I’m supposed to go to dinner with you and help jolly you along so you’ll trade with old Zizzy, but don’t expect to find me in any of the suits you buy.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” said Platt, “that you go out this way with customers, and they all⁠—they all talk to you like I have?”

“They all make plays,” said Miss Asher. “But I must say that you’ve got ’em beat in one respect. They generally talk diamonds, while you’ve actually dug one up.”

“How long have you been working, Helen?”

“Got my name pat, haven’t you? I’ve been supporting myself for eight years. I was a cash girl and a wrapper and then a shop girl until I was grown, and then I got to be a suit model. Mr. Texas Man, don’t you think a little wine would make this dinner a little less dry?”

“You’re not going to drink wine any more, dear. It’s awful to think how⁠—I’ll come to the store tomorrow and get you. I want you to pick out an automobile before we leave. That’s all we need to buy here.”

“Oh, cut that out. If you knew how sick I am of hearing such talk.”

After the dinner they walked down Broadway and came upon Diana’s little wooded park. The trees caught Platt’s eye at once, and he must turn along under the winding walk beneath them. The lights shone upon two bright tears in the model’s eyes.

“I don’t like that,” said Platt. “What’s the matter?”

“Don’t you mind,” said Miss Asher. “Well, it’s because⁠—well, I didn’t think you were that kind when I first saw you. But you are all like. And now will you take me home, or will I have to call a cop?”

Platt took her to the door of her boardinghouse. They stood for a minute in the vestibule. She looked at him with such scorn in her eyes that even his heart of oak began to waver. His arm was half way around her waist, when she struck him a stinging blow on the face with her open hand.

As he stepped back a ring fell from somewhere and bounded on the tiled floor. Platt groped for it and found it.

“Now, take your useless diamond and go, Mr. Buyer,” she said.

“This was the other one⁠—the wedding ring,” said the Texan, holding the smooth gold band on the palm of his hand.

Miss Asher’s eyes blazed upon him in the half darkness.

“Was that what you meant?⁠—did you⁠—”

Somebody opened the door from inside the house.

“Good night,” said Platt. “I’ll see you at the store tomorrow.”

Miss Asher ran up to her room and shook the school teacher until she sat up in bed ready to scream “Fire!”

“Where is it?” she cried.

“That’s what I want to know,” said the model. “You’ve studied geography, Emma, and you ought to know. Where is a town called Cac⁠—Cac⁠—Carac⁠—Caracas City, I think, they called it?”

“How dare you wake me up for that?” said the school teacher. “Caracas is in Venezuela, of course.”

“What’s it like?”

“Why, it’s principally earthquakes and negroes and monkeys and malarial fever and volcanoes.”

“I don’t care,” said Miss Asher, blithely; “I’m going there tomorrow.”

Long before the springtide is felt in the dull bosom of the yokel does the city man know that the grass-green goddess is upon her throne. He sits at his breakfast eggs and toast, begirt by stone walls, opens his morning paper and sees journalism leave vernalism at the post.

For, whereas, spring’s couriers were once the evidence of our finer senses, now the Associated Press does the trick.

The warble of the first robin in Hackensack, the stirring of the maple sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along Main Street in Syracuse, the first chirp of the bluebird, the swan song of the Blue Point, the annual tornado in St. Louis, the plaint of the peach pessimist from Pompton, NJ, the regular visit of the tame wild goose with a broken leg to the pond near Bilgewater Junction, the base attempt of the Drug Trust to boost the price of quinine foiled in the House by Congressman Jinks, the first tall poplar struck by lightning and the usual stunned picknickers who had taken