Alice Adams Booth Tarkington (ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Booth Tarkington
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âHush!â Alice said, sharply. âDonât say âpoor Aliceâ! Iâm all right.â
âYou must be!â her mother cried, clutching her. âYouâve just got to be! One of us has got to be all rightâ âsurely God wouldnât mind just one of us being all rightâ âthat wouldnât hurt Himâ ââ
âHush, hush, mother! Hush!â
But Mrs. Adams only clutched her the more tightly. âHe seemed such a nice young man, dearie! He may not see this in the paperâ âMr. Lohr said it was just a little bit of an itemâ âhe may not see it, dearieâ ââ
Then her anguish went back to Walter again; and to his needs as a fugitiveâ âshe had meant to repair his underwear, but had postponed doing so, and her neglect now appeared to be a detail as lamentable as the calamity itself. She could neither be stilled upon it, nor herself exhaust its urgings to self-reproach, though she finally took up another theme temporarily. Upon an unusually violent outbreak of her husbandâs, in denunciation of the runaway, she cried out faintly that he was cruel; and further wearied her broken voice with details of Walterâs beauty as a baby, and of his bedtime pieties throughout his infancy.
So the hot night wore on. Three had struck before Mrs. Adams was got to bed; and Alice, returning to her own room, could hear her fatherâs bare feet thudding back and forth after that. âPoor papa!â she whispered in helpless imitation of her mother. âPoor papa! Poor mama! Poor Walter! Poor all of us!â
She fell asleep, after a time, while from across the hall the bare feet still thudded over their changeless route; and she woke at seven, hearing Adams pass her door, shod. In her wrapper she ran out into the hallway and found him descending the stairs.
âPapa!â
âHush,â he said, and looked up at her with reddened eyes. âDonât wake your mother.â
âI wonât,â she whispered. âHow about you? You havenât slept any at all!â
âYes, I did. I got some sleep. Iâm going over to the works now. I got to throw some figures together to show the bank. Donât worry: Iâll get things fixed up. You go back to bed. Goodbye.â
âWait!â she bade him sharply.
âWhat for?â
âYouâve got to have some breakfast.â
âDonât want âny.â
âYou wait!â she said, imperiously, and disappeared to return almost at once. âI can cook in my bedroom slippers,â she explained, âbut I donât believe I could in my bare feet!â
Descending softly, she made him wait in the dining-room until she brought him toast and eggs and coffee. âEat!â she said. âAnd Iâm going to telephone for a taxicab to take you, if you think youâve really got to go.â
âNo, Iâm going to walkâ âI want to walk.â
She shook her head anxiously. âYou donât look able. Youâve walked all night.â
âNo, I didnât,â he returned. âI tell you I got some sleep. I got all I wanted anyhow.â
âBut, papaâ ââ
âHere!â he interrupted, looking up at her suddenly and setting down his cup of coffee. âLook here! What about this Mr. Russell? I forgot all about him. What about him?â
Her lip trembled a little, but she controlled it before she spoke. âWell, what about him, papa?â she asked, calmly enough.
âWell, we could hardlyâ ââ Adams paused, frowning heavily. âWe could hardly expect he wouldnât hear something about all this.â
âYes; of course heâll hear it, papa.â
âWell?â
âWell, what?â she asked, gently.
âYou donât think heâd be theâ âthe cheap kind itâd make a difference with, of course.â
âOh, no; he isnât cheap. It wonât make any difference with him.â
Adams suffered a profound sigh to escape him. âWellâ âIâm glad of that, anyway.â
âThe difference,â she explainedâ ââthe difference was made without his hearing anything about Walter. He doesnât know about that yet.â
âWell, what does he know about?â
âOnly,â she said, âabout me.â
âWhat you mean by that, Alice?â he asked, helplessly.
âNever mind,â she said. âItâs nothing beside the real trouble weâre inâ âIâll tell you some time. You eat your eggs and toast; you canât keep going on just coffee.â
âI canât eat any eggs and toast,â he objected, rising. âI canât.â
âThen wait till I can bring you something else.â
âNo,â he said, irritably. âI wonât do it! I donât want any dang food! And look hereââ âhe spoke sharply to stop her, as she went toward the telephoneâ ââI donât want any dang taxi, either! You look after your mother when she wakes up. I got to be at work!â
And though she followed him to the front door, entreating, he could not be stayed or hindered. He went through the quiet morning streets at a rickety, rapid gait, swinging his old straw hat in his hands, and whispering angrily to himself as he went. His grizzled hair, not trimmed for a month, blew back from his damp forehead in the warm breeze; his reddened eyes stared hard at nothing from under blinking lids; and one side of his face twitched startlingly from time to time;â âchildren might have run from him, or mocked him.
When he had come into that fallen quarter his industry had partly revived and wholly made odorous, a negro woman, leaning upon her whitewashed gate, gazed after him and chuckled for the benefit of a gossiping friend in the next tiny yard. âOh, good Satan! Whaâssa matter that ole glue man?â
âWho? Him?â the neighbour inquired. âWhat he do now?â
âTalkinâ to his ole seâf!â the first explained, joyously. âLook like gone distractedâ âole glue man!â
Adamsâs legs had grown more uncertain with his hard walk, and he stumbled heavily as he crossed the baked mud of his broad lot, but cared little for that, was almost unaware of it, in fact. Thus his eyes saw as little as his body felt, and so he failed to observe something that would have given him additional light upon an old phrase that already meant quite enough for him.
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