NCERT Textbook - Best Seller | English Class 9 PDF Download

 Page 1


47
1. Before you read the story write down the answers to these questions.
• Which was the latest book that you read?
• Who was the author?
• Who were the main characters?
• When did you read the book?
• How long did you take to complete reading it?
• What genre did it belong to?
• Why would/wouldn’t you recommend it?
2 Now read the story.
1. One day last summer, I went to Pittsburgh-well, I had to go there on business.
2. My chair-car was profitably well-filled with people of the kind one usually sees
on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk dresses cut with square
yokes, with lace insertion and dotted veils, who refused to have the windows
raised. Then there was the usual number of men who looked as if they might be
in almost any business and going almost anywhere. I leaned back idly in chair
No. 7, and looked with tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head
just visible above the back of No.9.
3. Suddenly No.9 hurled a book on the floor between his chair and the window,
and, looking, I saw that it was “The Rose Lady and Trevelyan,” one of the best-
selling novels of the present day. And then, the critic veered his chair toward the
window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud of Pittsburgh, travelling
salesman for a plate-glass company - an old acquaintance whom I had not
seen in two years.
4. In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such
topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have
followed next; but I was not so ill-fated.
F.5   Best Seller
                        by  O. Henry
Fiction
Unit
tepidest : Feeling for showing little interest or enthusiasm
Page 2


47
1. Before you read the story write down the answers to these questions.
• Which was the latest book that you read?
• Who was the author?
• Who were the main characters?
• When did you read the book?
• How long did you take to complete reading it?
• What genre did it belong to?
• Why would/wouldn’t you recommend it?
2 Now read the story.
1. One day last summer, I went to Pittsburgh-well, I had to go there on business.
2. My chair-car was profitably well-filled with people of the kind one usually sees
on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk dresses cut with square
yokes, with lace insertion and dotted veils, who refused to have the windows
raised. Then there was the usual number of men who looked as if they might be
in almost any business and going almost anywhere. I leaned back idly in chair
No. 7, and looked with tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head
just visible above the back of No.9.
3. Suddenly No.9 hurled a book on the floor between his chair and the window,
and, looking, I saw that it was “The Rose Lady and Trevelyan,” one of the best-
selling novels of the present day. And then, the critic veered his chair toward the
window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud of Pittsburgh, travelling
salesman for a plate-glass company - an old acquaintance whom I had not
seen in two years.
4. In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such
topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have
followed next; but I was not so ill-fated.
F.5   Best Seller
                        by  O. Henry
Fiction
Unit
tepidest : Feeling for showing little interest or enthusiasm
48
5. I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroes are not
often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with a wide smile, and an
eye that seems to be fixed upon that little red spot on the end of your nose.
6. He believes that “our” plate-glass is the most important commodity in the world,
The Cambria Steel Works, the best company and that when a man is in his
home town, he ought to be decent and law-abiding.
7. During my acquaintance with him earlier I had never known his views on life,
romance, literature and ethics. We had browsed, during our meetings, on local
topics and then parted.
8. Now  I  was  to  get  more  of  his ideas.
By way of facts, he told me that business
had picked up since the party
conventions and that he was going to
get off at Coketown.
9. “Say,”  said  Pescud,  stirring  his
discarded book with the hand, “did you
ever read one of these best-sellers? I
mean the kind where the hero is an
American swell-sometimes   even
from Chicago - who falls in love with a royal princess from Europe who is travelling
under an alias and follows her to her father’s kingdom or principality? I guess
you have. They’re all alike.
10.       “Well, this fellow chases the royal chair-warmer home as I said, and finds
out who she is. He meets her in the evening and gives us ten pages of
conversation. She reminds him of the difference in their stations and that gives
him a chance to ring in three solid pages about America’s uncrowned sovereigns.
11.   “Well, you know how it runs on, if you’ve read any of ‘em-he slaps the king’s
Swiss bodyguards around like every thing whenever they get in his way. He’s a
great fencer, too.
12.  “Yes,” said Pescud, “but these kind of love-stories are rank on-the-level. I know
something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass.
13. “When people in real life marry, they generally hunt up somebody in their own
station. A fellow usually picks out a girl who went to the same high-school and
belonged to the same singing-society that he did.”
14. Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page.
15. “Listen to this,” said he. “Trevelyan is sitting with the Princess Alwyna at the
back end of the tulip-garden. This is how it goes:
Swell : a wealthy person of upper class and fashionably dressed.
alias : also known by another name, false name
Fi ct io n
Page 3


47
1. Before you read the story write down the answers to these questions.
• Which was the latest book that you read?
• Who was the author?
• Who were the main characters?
• When did you read the book?
• How long did you take to complete reading it?
• What genre did it belong to?
• Why would/wouldn’t you recommend it?
2 Now read the story.
1. One day last summer, I went to Pittsburgh-well, I had to go there on business.
2. My chair-car was profitably well-filled with people of the kind one usually sees
on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk dresses cut with square
yokes, with lace insertion and dotted veils, who refused to have the windows
raised. Then there was the usual number of men who looked as if they might be
in almost any business and going almost anywhere. I leaned back idly in chair
No. 7, and looked with tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head
just visible above the back of No.9.
3. Suddenly No.9 hurled a book on the floor between his chair and the window,
and, looking, I saw that it was “The Rose Lady and Trevelyan,” one of the best-
selling novels of the present day. And then, the critic veered his chair toward the
window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud of Pittsburgh, travelling
salesman for a plate-glass company - an old acquaintance whom I had not
seen in two years.
4. In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such
topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have
followed next; but I was not so ill-fated.
F.5   Best Seller
                        by  O. Henry
Fiction
Unit
tepidest : Feeling for showing little interest or enthusiasm
48
5. I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroes are not
often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with a wide smile, and an
eye that seems to be fixed upon that little red spot on the end of your nose.
6. He believes that “our” plate-glass is the most important commodity in the world,
The Cambria Steel Works, the best company and that when a man is in his
home town, he ought to be decent and law-abiding.
7. During my acquaintance with him earlier I had never known his views on life,
romance, literature and ethics. We had browsed, during our meetings, on local
topics and then parted.
8. Now  I  was  to  get  more  of  his ideas.
By way of facts, he told me that business
had picked up since the party
conventions and that he was going to
get off at Coketown.
9. “Say,”  said  Pescud,  stirring  his
discarded book with the hand, “did you
ever read one of these best-sellers? I
mean the kind where the hero is an
American swell-sometimes   even
from Chicago - who falls in love with a royal princess from Europe who is travelling
under an alias and follows her to her father’s kingdom or principality? I guess
you have. They’re all alike.
10.       “Well, this fellow chases the royal chair-warmer home as I said, and finds
out who she is. He meets her in the evening and gives us ten pages of
conversation. She reminds him of the difference in their stations and that gives
him a chance to ring in three solid pages about America’s uncrowned sovereigns.
11.   “Well, you know how it runs on, if you’ve read any of ‘em-he slaps the king’s
Swiss bodyguards around like every thing whenever they get in his way. He’s a
great fencer, too.
12.  “Yes,” said Pescud, “but these kind of love-stories are rank on-the-level. I know
something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass.
13. “When people in real life marry, they generally hunt up somebody in their own
station. A fellow usually picks out a girl who went to the same high-school and
belonged to the same singing-society that he did.”
14. Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page.
15. “Listen to this,” said he. “Trevelyan is sitting with the Princess Alwyna at the
back end of the tulip-garden. This is how it goes:
Swell : a wealthy person of upper class and fashionably dressed.
alias : also known by another name, false name
Fi ct io n
49
16.  “Say not so, dearest and sweetest of earth’s fairest flowers. Would I aspire? You
are a star set high above me in a royal heaven; I am only-myself. Yet I am a
man and I have a heart to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned
sovereign; but I have an arm and a sword that yet might free Schutzenfestenstein
from the plots of traitors.”
17. “Think of a Chicago man packing a sword, and talking about freeing anything
that sounded as much like canned sardines!”
18. “I think I understand you, John,” said I. “You want fiction- writers to be consistent
with their scenes and characters. They shouldn’t mix Turkish pashas with
Vermont farmers, or English Dukes with Long Island clamdiggers or Cincinnati
agents with the Rajahs of India.”
19. “Or plain business men with aristocracy high above ‘em,” added Pescud. “It
doesn’t jibe. I don’t see why people go to work and buy hundreds of thousands
of books which are best sellers. You don’t see or hear of any such capers in real
life.”
20. “Well John,” said I, “I haven’t read a best-seller in a long time. May be I’ve had
notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me more about yourself. Getting
along all right with the company?”
21. “Bully,” said Pescud, brightening at once. “I’ve had my salary raised twice since
I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I’ve bought a neat slice of real estate.
Next year the firm is going to sell me some shares of stock. Oh, l’m in on the
line of General Prosperity.
22. “Met your affinity yet, John?” I asked.
23. “Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” said Pescud with a broader grin.
24. “O-ho!” I said. “So you’ve taken off enough time from your plate-glass to have a
romance?”
25. “No, no,” said John. “No romance-nothing like that! But I’ll tell you about it,
26. “I was on the south-bound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen months ago,
when I saw, across the aisle, the finest looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on. Nothing
spectacular, you know, but just the sort you want for keeps.”
27. She read a book and minded her business, which was, to make the world prettier
and better just by residing in it. I kept on looking out of the side-doors of my
eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the carriage into a case of cottage
Turkish  pashas : a high official of the Ottoman empire
Vermont : a state of north east US bordering Canada
clamdiggers : people who hunt for clams (edible shell fish)
aristocracy : class of people of high social rank
general prosperity : doing well
for keeps : for ever, permanently
Fi ct io n
Page 4


47
1. Before you read the story write down the answers to these questions.
• Which was the latest book that you read?
• Who was the author?
• Who were the main characters?
• When did you read the book?
• How long did you take to complete reading it?
• What genre did it belong to?
• Why would/wouldn’t you recommend it?
2 Now read the story.
1. One day last summer, I went to Pittsburgh-well, I had to go there on business.
2. My chair-car was profitably well-filled with people of the kind one usually sees
on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk dresses cut with square
yokes, with lace insertion and dotted veils, who refused to have the windows
raised. Then there was the usual number of men who looked as if they might be
in almost any business and going almost anywhere. I leaned back idly in chair
No. 7, and looked with tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head
just visible above the back of No.9.
3. Suddenly No.9 hurled a book on the floor between his chair and the window,
and, looking, I saw that it was “The Rose Lady and Trevelyan,” one of the best-
selling novels of the present day. And then, the critic veered his chair toward the
window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud of Pittsburgh, travelling
salesman for a plate-glass company - an old acquaintance whom I had not
seen in two years.
4. In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such
topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have
followed next; but I was not so ill-fated.
F.5   Best Seller
                        by  O. Henry
Fiction
Unit
tepidest : Feeling for showing little interest or enthusiasm
48
5. I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroes are not
often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with a wide smile, and an
eye that seems to be fixed upon that little red spot on the end of your nose.
6. He believes that “our” plate-glass is the most important commodity in the world,
The Cambria Steel Works, the best company and that when a man is in his
home town, he ought to be decent and law-abiding.
7. During my acquaintance with him earlier I had never known his views on life,
romance, literature and ethics. We had browsed, during our meetings, on local
topics and then parted.
8. Now  I  was  to  get  more  of  his ideas.
By way of facts, he told me that business
had picked up since the party
conventions and that he was going to
get off at Coketown.
9. “Say,”  said  Pescud,  stirring  his
discarded book with the hand, “did you
ever read one of these best-sellers? I
mean the kind where the hero is an
American swell-sometimes   even
from Chicago - who falls in love with a royal princess from Europe who is travelling
under an alias and follows her to her father’s kingdom or principality? I guess
you have. They’re all alike.
10.       “Well, this fellow chases the royal chair-warmer home as I said, and finds
out who she is. He meets her in the evening and gives us ten pages of
conversation. She reminds him of the difference in their stations and that gives
him a chance to ring in three solid pages about America’s uncrowned sovereigns.
11.   “Well, you know how it runs on, if you’ve read any of ‘em-he slaps the king’s
Swiss bodyguards around like every thing whenever they get in his way. He’s a
great fencer, too.
12.  “Yes,” said Pescud, “but these kind of love-stories are rank on-the-level. I know
something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass.
13. “When people in real life marry, they generally hunt up somebody in their own
station. A fellow usually picks out a girl who went to the same high-school and
belonged to the same singing-society that he did.”
14. Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page.
15. “Listen to this,” said he. “Trevelyan is sitting with the Princess Alwyna at the
back end of the tulip-garden. This is how it goes:
Swell : a wealthy person of upper class and fashionably dressed.
alias : also known by another name, false name
Fi ct io n
49
16.  “Say not so, dearest and sweetest of earth’s fairest flowers. Would I aspire? You
are a star set high above me in a royal heaven; I am only-myself. Yet I am a
man and I have a heart to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned
sovereign; but I have an arm and a sword that yet might free Schutzenfestenstein
from the plots of traitors.”
17. “Think of a Chicago man packing a sword, and talking about freeing anything
that sounded as much like canned sardines!”
18. “I think I understand you, John,” said I. “You want fiction- writers to be consistent
with their scenes and characters. They shouldn’t mix Turkish pashas with
Vermont farmers, or English Dukes with Long Island clamdiggers or Cincinnati
agents with the Rajahs of India.”
19. “Or plain business men with aristocracy high above ‘em,” added Pescud. “It
doesn’t jibe. I don’t see why people go to work and buy hundreds of thousands
of books which are best sellers. You don’t see or hear of any such capers in real
life.”
20. “Well John,” said I, “I haven’t read a best-seller in a long time. May be I’ve had
notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me more about yourself. Getting
along all right with the company?”
21. “Bully,” said Pescud, brightening at once. “I’ve had my salary raised twice since
I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I’ve bought a neat slice of real estate.
Next year the firm is going to sell me some shares of stock. Oh, l’m in on the
line of General Prosperity.
22. “Met your affinity yet, John?” I asked.
23. “Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” said Pescud with a broader grin.
24. “O-ho!” I said. “So you’ve taken off enough time from your plate-glass to have a
romance?”
25. “No, no,” said John. “No romance-nothing like that! But I’ll tell you about it,
26. “I was on the south-bound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen months ago,
when I saw, across the aisle, the finest looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on. Nothing
spectacular, you know, but just the sort you want for keeps.”
27. She read a book and minded her business, which was, to make the world prettier
and better just by residing in it. I kept on looking out of the side-doors of my
eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the carriage into a case of cottage
Turkish  pashas : a high official of the Ottoman empire
Vermont : a state of north east US bordering Canada
clamdiggers : people who hunt for clams (edible shell fish)
aristocracy : class of people of high social rank
general prosperity : doing well
for keeps : for ever, permanently
Fi ct io n
50
with a lawn and vines running over the porch. I never thought of speaking to
her, but I let the plate glass business go to smash for a while.”
28.  “She changed cars at Cincinnati and took a sleeper to Louisville. There she
bought another ticket and went on through Shelbyville, Frankford, and Lexington.
Along there, I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. The trains came
along when they pleased, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular,
except to keep on the track and on the right way as much as possible. Then
they began to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stopped
altogether
29. “I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could, but I never lost track of
her. The last station she got off at was away down in Virginia, about six in the
evening. There were about fifty houses.
30. “The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds.
31. “A tall old man, with a smooth face and white hair, looking as proud as Julius
Caesar was there to meet her. His clothes were frazzled but I didn’t notice that
till later. He took her little satchel, and they started over the plank walks and
went up a road along the hill. I kept along a pace behind ‘em, trying to look like
I was hunting a garnet ring in the sand that my sister had lost at a picnic, the
previous Saturday.
32. “They went in a gate on top of the hill. It nearly took my breath away when I
looked up. Up there in the biggest grove, I had ever seen was a huge house
with round white pillars, about a thousand feet high, and the yard was so full of
rose-bushes and box-bushes and lilacs that you couldn’t have seen the house
if it hadn’t been as big as the Capitol at Washington.
33. “ ‘Here’s where I have to trail,’ say I to myself. I thought before that she seemed
to be in moderate circumstances, at least. This must be the Governor’s mansion,
or the Agricultural Building of a new World Fair, anyhow. I’d better go back to
the village and get posted by the postmaster, for some information.
34. “In the village, I found a fine hotel called the Bay View House. The only excuse
for the name was a bay horse grazing in the front yard. I set my sample-case
down, and tried to be ostensible. I told the landlord, I was taking orders for
plate-glass”.
35. “By-and-by, I got him down to local gossip and answering questions.
36. _”’Why?’, says he, ‘I thought everybody knew who lived in the big white house
on the hill. It’s Colonel Allyn, the biggest man and finest quality in Virginia, or
anywhere else. They’re the oldest family in the State. That was his daughter
who had got off the train. She’s been up to Illinois to see her aunt, who is sick.’
frazzled : worn out
garnet : red, semi-precious gemstone.
Fi ct io n
Page 5


47
1. Before you read the story write down the answers to these questions.
• Which was the latest book that you read?
• Who was the author?
• Who were the main characters?
• When did you read the book?
• How long did you take to complete reading it?
• What genre did it belong to?
• Why would/wouldn’t you recommend it?
2 Now read the story.
1. One day last summer, I went to Pittsburgh-well, I had to go there on business.
2. My chair-car was profitably well-filled with people of the kind one usually sees
on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silk dresses cut with square
yokes, with lace insertion and dotted veils, who refused to have the windows
raised. Then there was the usual number of men who looked as if they might be
in almost any business and going almost anywhere. I leaned back idly in chair
No. 7, and looked with tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head
just visible above the back of No.9.
3. Suddenly No.9 hurled a book on the floor between his chair and the window,
and, looking, I saw that it was “The Rose Lady and Trevelyan,” one of the best-
selling novels of the present day. And then, the critic veered his chair toward the
window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud of Pittsburgh, travelling
salesman for a plate-glass company - an old acquaintance whom I had not
seen in two years.
4. In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such
topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have
followed next; but I was not so ill-fated.
F.5   Best Seller
                        by  O. Henry
Fiction
Unit
tepidest : Feeling for showing little interest or enthusiasm
48
5. I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroes are not
often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with a wide smile, and an
eye that seems to be fixed upon that little red spot on the end of your nose.
6. He believes that “our” plate-glass is the most important commodity in the world,
The Cambria Steel Works, the best company and that when a man is in his
home town, he ought to be decent and law-abiding.
7. During my acquaintance with him earlier I had never known his views on life,
romance, literature and ethics. We had browsed, during our meetings, on local
topics and then parted.
8. Now  I  was  to  get  more  of  his ideas.
By way of facts, he told me that business
had picked up since the party
conventions and that he was going to
get off at Coketown.
9. “Say,”  said  Pescud,  stirring  his
discarded book with the hand, “did you
ever read one of these best-sellers? I
mean the kind where the hero is an
American swell-sometimes   even
from Chicago - who falls in love with a royal princess from Europe who is travelling
under an alias and follows her to her father’s kingdom or principality? I guess
you have. They’re all alike.
10.       “Well, this fellow chases the royal chair-warmer home as I said, and finds
out who she is. He meets her in the evening and gives us ten pages of
conversation. She reminds him of the difference in their stations and that gives
him a chance to ring in three solid pages about America’s uncrowned sovereigns.
11.   “Well, you know how it runs on, if you’ve read any of ‘em-he slaps the king’s
Swiss bodyguards around like every thing whenever they get in his way. He’s a
great fencer, too.
12.  “Yes,” said Pescud, “but these kind of love-stories are rank on-the-level. I know
something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass.
13. “When people in real life marry, they generally hunt up somebody in their own
station. A fellow usually picks out a girl who went to the same high-school and
belonged to the same singing-society that he did.”
14. Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page.
15. “Listen to this,” said he. “Trevelyan is sitting with the Princess Alwyna at the
back end of the tulip-garden. This is how it goes:
Swell : a wealthy person of upper class and fashionably dressed.
alias : also known by another name, false name
Fi ct io n
49
16.  “Say not so, dearest and sweetest of earth’s fairest flowers. Would I aspire? You
are a star set high above me in a royal heaven; I am only-myself. Yet I am a
man and I have a heart to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned
sovereign; but I have an arm and a sword that yet might free Schutzenfestenstein
from the plots of traitors.”
17. “Think of a Chicago man packing a sword, and talking about freeing anything
that sounded as much like canned sardines!”
18. “I think I understand you, John,” said I. “You want fiction- writers to be consistent
with their scenes and characters. They shouldn’t mix Turkish pashas with
Vermont farmers, or English Dukes with Long Island clamdiggers or Cincinnati
agents with the Rajahs of India.”
19. “Or plain business men with aristocracy high above ‘em,” added Pescud. “It
doesn’t jibe. I don’t see why people go to work and buy hundreds of thousands
of books which are best sellers. You don’t see or hear of any such capers in real
life.”
20. “Well John,” said I, “I haven’t read a best-seller in a long time. May be I’ve had
notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me more about yourself. Getting
along all right with the company?”
21. “Bully,” said Pescud, brightening at once. “I’ve had my salary raised twice since
I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I’ve bought a neat slice of real estate.
Next year the firm is going to sell me some shares of stock. Oh, l’m in on the
line of General Prosperity.
22. “Met your affinity yet, John?” I asked.
23. “Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” said Pescud with a broader grin.
24. “O-ho!” I said. “So you’ve taken off enough time from your plate-glass to have a
romance?”
25. “No, no,” said John. “No romance-nothing like that! But I’ll tell you about it,
26. “I was on the south-bound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen months ago,
when I saw, across the aisle, the finest looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on. Nothing
spectacular, you know, but just the sort you want for keeps.”
27. She read a book and minded her business, which was, to make the world prettier
and better just by residing in it. I kept on looking out of the side-doors of my
eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the carriage into a case of cottage
Turkish  pashas : a high official of the Ottoman empire
Vermont : a state of north east US bordering Canada
clamdiggers : people who hunt for clams (edible shell fish)
aristocracy : class of people of high social rank
general prosperity : doing well
for keeps : for ever, permanently
Fi ct io n
50
with a lawn and vines running over the porch. I never thought of speaking to
her, but I let the plate glass business go to smash for a while.”
28.  “She changed cars at Cincinnati and took a sleeper to Louisville. There she
bought another ticket and went on through Shelbyville, Frankford, and Lexington.
Along there, I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. The trains came
along when they pleased, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular,
except to keep on the track and on the right way as much as possible. Then
they began to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stopped
altogether
29. “I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could, but I never lost track of
her. The last station she got off at was away down in Virginia, about six in the
evening. There were about fifty houses.
30. “The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds.
31. “A tall old man, with a smooth face and white hair, looking as proud as Julius
Caesar was there to meet her. His clothes were frazzled but I didn’t notice that
till later. He took her little satchel, and they started over the plank walks and
went up a road along the hill. I kept along a pace behind ‘em, trying to look like
I was hunting a garnet ring in the sand that my sister had lost at a picnic, the
previous Saturday.
32. “They went in a gate on top of the hill. It nearly took my breath away when I
looked up. Up there in the biggest grove, I had ever seen was a huge house
with round white pillars, about a thousand feet high, and the yard was so full of
rose-bushes and box-bushes and lilacs that you couldn’t have seen the house
if it hadn’t been as big as the Capitol at Washington.
33. “ ‘Here’s where I have to trail,’ say I to myself. I thought before that she seemed
to be in moderate circumstances, at least. This must be the Governor’s mansion,
or the Agricultural Building of a new World Fair, anyhow. I’d better go back to
the village and get posted by the postmaster, for some information.
34. “In the village, I found a fine hotel called the Bay View House. The only excuse
for the name was a bay horse grazing in the front yard. I set my sample-case
down, and tried to be ostensible. I told the landlord, I was taking orders for
plate-glass”.
35. “By-and-by, I got him down to local gossip and answering questions.
36. _”’Why?’, says he, ‘I thought everybody knew who lived in the big white house
on the hill. It’s Colonel Allyn, the biggest man and finest quality in Virginia, or
anywhere else. They’re the oldest family in the State. That was his daughter
who had got off the train. She’s been up to Illinois to see her aunt, who is sick.’
frazzled : worn out
garnet : red, semi-precious gemstone.
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37. “I registered at the hotel, and on the third day I caught the young lady walking in
the front yard, down next to the paling fence. I stopped and raised my hat -
there wasn’t any other way.
38. ‘Excuse me,’ says I, ‘can you tell me where Mr. Hinkle lives?’
39. “She looks at me as cool as if I was the man come to see about the weeding of
the garden, but I thought I saw just a slight twinkle of fun in her eyes.
40. ‘No one of that name lives in Birchton,’ says she. ‘That is,’ she goes on, ‘as far
as I know’.
41. “Well, that tickled me. ‘No kidding,’ says I. ‘I’m not looking for smoke, even if I
do come from Pittsburgh.’
42. ‘You are quite a distance from home,’ says she.
43. ‘I’d have gone a thousand miles farther,’ says I.
44. ‘Not if you hadn’t woken up when the train started in Shelbyville,’ says she; and
then she turned almost as red as one of the roses on the bushes in the yard. I
remembered I had dropped off to sleep on a bench in the Shelbyville station,
waiting to see which train she took, and only just managed to wake up in time.
45. “And then I told her why I had come, as respectful and earnest as I could. And
I told her everything about myself, and what I was making, and how that all I
asked was just to get acquainted with her and try to get her to like me.
46. “She smiles a little, and blushes some, but her eyes never get mixed up. They
look straight at whom so ever she’s talking to.
47. ‘I never had any one talk like this to me before, Mr. Pescud,’ says she. ‘What did
you say your name is-John?’
48. ‘John A.,’ says I.
49. “ ‘And you came mighty near missing the train at Powhatan Junction, too,’ says
she, with a laugh that sounded as good as a mileage-book to me.”
50. “ ‘How did you know?’ I asked.
51. “ ‘Men are very clumsy,’ said she. ‘I know you were on every train. I thought you
were going to speak to me, and I’m glad you didn’t.
52. “Then we had more talk; and at last a kind of proud, serious look came on her
face, and she turned and pointed a finger at the big house.
53. ‘The Allyns,’ says she, ‘have lived in Elmcroft for a hundred years. We are a
proud family. Look at that mansion. It has fifty rooms. See the pillars and porches
and balconies. The ceilings in the reception-rooms and the ball-room are twenty-
eight feet high. My father is lineal descendant of the Belted Earls.’
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