United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Garland studied it in the lives of its victims: the private soldier returning drably and mutely from the war to resume his drab, mute career behind the plow; the tenant caught in a trap by his landlord and the law and obliged to pay for the added value which his own toil has given to his farm; the brother neglected until his courage has died and proffered assistance comes too late to rouse him; and particularly the daughter whom a harsh father or the wife whom a brutal husband breaks or drives away the most sensitive and therefore the most pitiful victims of them all.
But because of another wild revel, enduring through four days and participated in, at one time or another, by more than a dozen people, they did sign the lease; to their utter horror they signed it and sent it, and immediately it seemed as though they heard the gray house, drably malevolent at last, licking its white chops and waiting to devour them.
The drive that night, though it divided the drably commonplace from the wildly bizarre though it was the bridge between the ordinary and the outre has left no impression upon my mind. Into the heart of a weird mystery the cab bore me; and in reviewing my memories of those days I wonder that the busy thoroughfares through which we passed did not display before my eyes signs and portents warnings.
They graced the grey rock beside him one big figure and a little figure or two in clay skirts, also a quaint version of a perambulator. They showed up rather drably against the glory of Western sun and blue sky. The letter announced Perpetua's plighted troth. It was from the curate. He added that they were both looking forward to settling down shortly in the family living.
With carbolic acid and soap Mother cleaned away much of the smell of former inhabitants, while Father propped up the rusty stove with a couple of bricks, and covered the drably patternless wall-paper with pictures cut from old magazines, which he bought at two for five cents on Fourteenth Street.
The drably ancient and moth-eaten story with which every unsuccessful gambler seeks to establish an alibi. "Whose wheel was it?" said Racey. "Lacey's at Marysville." "In the back room of the Sweet Dreams, huh? An' there's nothing crooked about Lacey's wheel, either. It's as square as Lacey himself." "Lacey's wasn't the only wheel. They was McFluke's, too." So McFluke had a wheel, had he?
It occurred to Edna that her young man could not possibly know what she did with those evenings he remained in the foundry. If she chose to go with a group of girls to a dance hall, what harm? The long years of married life stretched themselves out somewhat drably to Edna. She decided to have a good time beforehand. This girl from now on literally lived a double life.
She was not drably shabby, though. She wore silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes, only the red feather in her hat drooped, and the clasp of her bag was weak, for out fell a copy of Madame Tussaud's programme as she walked. She had the ankles of a stag. Her face was hidden. Of course, in this dusk, rapid movements, quick glances, and soaring hopes come naturally enough.
At the end, weeping drably, Zilla promised to restrain herself. Paul returned four days later, and the Babbitts and Rieslings went festively to the movies and had chop suey at a Chinese restaurant. As they walked to the restaurant through a street of tailor shops and barber shops, the two wives in front, chattering about cooks, Babbitt murmured to Paul, "Zil seems a lot nicer now."
Word Of The Day