United States or Pakistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Yes." The little man got out at the point where the Bigbee drive met the road, and walked up the drive toward the house. Agatha Lord was standing at the gateway, as he approached it, and seemed rather startled at his appearance. But she quickly controlled her surprise and asked in a calm voice, as she faced him: "What's up, O'Gorman?" "Hathaway's coming here," he said. "Are you sure?"
We shook him off; but when we returned at sundown across the fields, from a visit to Anne Hathaway's cottage, we met the sidewheeler cheerfully towing along a large party, upon whom he had fastened. The people of Amsterdam are only less queer than their houses. The men dress in a solid, old-fashioned way.
Swelling up of the puffy form, and reddening ripples of the broad face heralded it, it began with a contagious cackle, it deepened into a flabby guffaw, and after all the others roundabout had finished their cachinnatory tribute it wound up with what was between a roar and the lazy drone of a bagpipe. It now rewarded Nels Hathaway's irony, and the rest of the loungers joined in.
The doctor had known his family, varying from thirty to fifty, all down at one time with bad colds, or coryza, as named by the medical profession, when isolating the first small cougher and sneezer might have saved all of the others. "If only that young Mrs. Dexter, Jim Hathaway's granddaughter, would make us a small donation," he groaned.
Hathaway's expert contortions saved his head and body on divers occasions, but presently a low bounder glanced off the grass and manifested an affinity for his leg. We all knew from the crack and the way the pitcher went down that the "rabbit" had put him out of the game. The umpire called time, and Merritt came running on the diamond. "Hard luck, old man," said the manager.
I've had no lunch. Can you feed me?" "Certainly." They turned and walked slowly up the path. Said Nan, musingly: "That Sarah Judd is rather clever, O'Gorman. Is she in Hathaway's pay?" "I think not," he replied, with an amused chuckle. Nan tossed her head indignantly. "Very well; play me for a ninny, if you like," she said resentfully. "You'll get a heap more out of me, in that way!"
It may be suggested in passing that much of the early romance associated with Anne Hathaway's cottage is spurious, and the worthy people who tell of the poet's courtship there overlook the fact that his relations with his wife were clandestine and his marriage almost a secret union.
It was built of stone, and then painted white, but the roof and gables were tiled with great pink tiles, giving an odd little foreign look to it, something like Anne Hathaway's cottage in general contour, Leslie declared. The top of the terrace was pink-tiled, too, and all the porches were paved with tiles. The house itself seemed filled with windows all around.
There are no such surprises in our oldest places as one finds in Chester, or Tewkesbury, or Stratford, or Salisbury, and I have no doubt in scores or hundreds of similar places which I have never visited. Without imagination, Shakespeare's birthplace is but a queer old house, and Anne Hathaway's home a tumble-down cottage.
"I'll get an alpenstock," she said to herself, as she rose, wearily, and tried to summon courage to start. Then the gate clicked softly and the sweetest voice in the world said: "My dear, you are tired won't you come in?" Turning, she saw Miss Ainslie, smiling graciously. In a moment she had explained that she was Miss Hathaway's niece and that she would be very glad to come in for a few moments.
Word Of The Day