Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as I leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous urchins, the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted aloft, bleeding but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out reassurances to his wife; the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a frantic woman, clawing, sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened for the splash.
"In Mendel's top drawer, I suppose.... The question is how are we going to make it up to Plooie?" "I don't think you need worry about that," returned the Bonnie Lassie loftily. Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred an irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes.
Her golden laughter floated back to me. But there was no mirth in her voice when she returned. "It's so dark in there I can hardly see. But the big man is sitting on a pile of ribs talking to Plooie, and Annie Oombrella's face is all swollen with crying. I saw it in the window for a minute." Pro and con we argued what the probable event might be and how we could best meet it.
Habitude is the real secret of tolerance. As we became accustomed to Plooie, Our Square ceased to resent his invincible outlandishness; we endured him with equanimity, although it would be exaggeration to say that we accepted him, and we certainly did not patronize him professionally. Nevertheless, in a minor degree, he nourished. Annie Oombrella must have lavished care upon him. His pinched-in shoulders broadened perceptibly. His gait, still a halting shuffle, grew noticeably brisker. There was even a heartier note in his lamentable trade cry: "Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees
From across the park sounded Plooie's patient falsetto: "Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees! Annie Oombrella for mend? Parapluie-ee-ee-" The call broke off in a kind of choke. "What's happened to Plooie?" I asked. "The youngsters can't have got back from the parade already, have they?" "A very tall man has stopped him," said the Bonnie Lassie.
As the juvenile sense of humor is highly developed in Our Square, Plooie got a good deal of exercise, first and last. Eventually he foiled them by coming out only in school hours. This didn't help his trade. But then his trade had dwindled to the vanishing point anyway. Even Madame Tallafferr had dropped him. She preferred not to deal with a poltroon, as she put it.
Plooie did his best to break for a run through, which was the worst thing he could have tried. They collared him. By that contact he became their captive, their prey. What to do with him? To loose a prisoner, once in the hand, is an unthinkable anti-climax. Somebody developed an inspirational thought: "Ride him on a rail!" Near by, a house front under repair supplied a scantling.
The big man has taken him by the arm and is leading him along. Poor Plooie! He's all wilted down. It's a shame!" cried the Bonnie Lassie, beginning to flame. "It ought not to be allowed." "Probably they're taking him away. Do you see an official-looking automobile anywhere about?" "There's a strange car over on the Avenue. Oh, dear! Poor Annie Oombrella! But but they're not going there.
"I see," said the Bonnie Lassie softly. After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes. Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice. "Plooie!" she said, and that was all. "You are crying," I said. "I'm not," she retorted indignantly. "But you ought to be. For your injustice."
This was that, if you sneaked softly up behind him and shouted: "Hey, Plooie! What was you doing in the war?" his jaw would drop and his whole rackety body begin to quiver, and he would heave his burden to his shoulder and break into a spavined gallop, muttering and sobbing like one demented.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking