Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 14
You’re reading novel Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 14 online at LightNovelFree.com. Please use the follow button to get notification about the latest chapter next time when you visit LightNovelFree.com. Use F11 button to read novel in full-screen(PC only). Drop by anytime you want to read free – fast – latest novel. It’s great if you could leave a comment, share your opinion about the new chapters, new novel with others on the internet. We’ll do our best to bring you the finest, latest novel everyday. Enjoy!
said Uncle Jake in one of his half-audible sneers.
"Well," contended Dawn, "men always sneer at women for doing in a small degree what men do fifty times worse. If a pretty barmaid comes to town all the men are after her like bees, and if a pretty woman stood for parliament the men would go off their heads about her, and yet they get their hair off terribly if a woman happens to prefer a nice gentlemanly man to a big, old, fat beer-barrel, with his teeth black from tobacco and his neck gouging over his collar from eating too much. Can I join the committee, grandma?"
"If it's proper, and he's my man, you can, an' work instead of me, but I must hear them both first."
"If Walker could get you to make a speech for him, we'd all vote for him in a body," laughed Eweword; but Dawn replied--
"Oh, you, I suppose you say that to every girl."
Eweword sizzled in his blushes, while Ernest's face slightly cleared at this rebuff dealt out to another.
Grandma brought in the coffee and grumbled to Dawn about Carry's absence.
"That Larry Witcom ain't no monk, and while a girl is in my house I feel I ought to look after her. I believe in every one having liberty, but there's reason in everythink."
The girl did not appear till after the young men had gone and Dawn and I had withdrawn, but we heard grandma's remonstrance.
"That feller, I told you straight, was took up about a affair in a divorce case, an' it would be as well not to make yourself too cheap to him. I don't say as most men ain't as bad, only they're not caught and bowled out; but w'en they are made a public example of, we have to take notice of it. Marry him if you want--use your own judgment; he'll be the sort of feller who'll always have a good home, and in after years these things is always forgot, and it would be better to be married to a man that had that against him (seein' they're all the same, only they ain't found out) and could keep you comfortable, than one who was _supposed_ to be different an' couldn't keep you. But if you ain't goin' to marry him, don't fool about with him. An' unless he gets to business an' wants marriage at once, don't take too much notice to his soft soap, as you ain't the only girl he's got on the string by a long way."
"He acknowledges about the fault he did in his young days, and he says it's terribly hard that it's always coming against him now," said Carry.
"Well, if a woman does a fault she has to pay for it, hasn't she?--that's the order of things," said grandma.
"But this was when he was young and foolish," continued Carry.
"Yes, the poor child, he was terribly innocent, wasn't he? an' was got hold of by some fierce designing hussy--they always are--and it was all her fault. It always is a woman's fault--only for the women the men would be all angels and flew away long ago," said grandma sarcastically. "They'll give you plenty of that kind of yarn if you listen to 'em; an' if you are built so you can believe it, well an'
good, but the facts was always too much of a eye-opener for me," and with that the contention ended.
"Yes, Carry's the terriblest silly about that Larry Witcom," said Dawn; "she swallows all he says. She said to me yesterday, 'He seems to be terribly gone on me.' 'Yes,' I said. 'You keep cool about his goneness. Wait till he gets down on his knees and bellows and roars about his love, and take my tip for it he could forget you then in less than a week.' I've seen men pretending to be mad with love, and the next month married to some one else. Men's love is a thing you want to take with more discount than everything you know. You might be conceited enough to believe them if you went by your own lovers, but you want to look on at other people's love affairs, and see how much is to be depended on there, and measure your own by them, and it will keep your head cool," said this girl, who had the most sensible head I ever saw in conjunction with her degree of beauty.
She had contracted the habit of slipping into my room for a talk before going to bed, and as her bright presence there was a delight to me, I encouraged her in it. The gorgeous kimono was a great attraction; she loved it so that I had given it her after the first night, but did not tell her so, or she would have carried it away to her own room, where I would have been deprived of the pleasure of seeing it nightly enhance the loveliness of her firm white throat and arms.
"How did you and Dora get on together?" she presently inquired.
"Well, you see we didn't elope; how did you and Ernest manage?"
"Well, you see we didn't elope," she laughed.
"No, but you might have arranged such a thing."
"Arranged for such a thing!" she said scornfully. "I'm not in the habit of trucking with other people's belongings."
"What do you mean?"
"It was you who said something about his young lady this afternoon--as far as I can see he doesn't behave much as if he had one."
So it was my chance remark that had run her wheel out of groove during the last few hours!
"Does he not?" I replied. "I think he appears more as though he has a young lady now than he did during my previous knowledge of him."
"Well, I don't know how you see it," she said, as she tore down her pretty hair.
"What!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in feigned consternation. "He has not been making love to you, has he, Dawn? I always had such faith in his manliness."
"Well, he doesn't _say_ anything," said Dawn, with a blush. "But he glares at me in the way men do, and when I mention anything I like or want, he wants to get it for me, and all that sort of business."
"Perhaps he's falling in love unawares. Young men are often stupid, and do not recognise their distemper till it is very ripe. He ought to be removed from danger."
"Well, if I ever had a lover, and he liked another girl better, I'd be pretty sure he hadn't cared for me, and would not want him any more,"
she said off-handedly.
"But would it not be better to let him go away and be happy with the maid who loves him than to spoil his life by wasting his affection on you, when you only think him a great pug-looking creature that you'd be ashamed to be seen with?"
"Yes, I don't care for him," she said still more off-handedly; "but he doesn't look so queer now I've got used to him. I suppose any one who liked him wouldn't think him such a horror."
"No; I for one think him handsome."
"Handsome?"
"Yes, _handsome_."
"Well, I'll go to bed after that and think how some people's tastes differ."
"Well, take care you don't think about Ernest."
"Thank you; I don't want the nightmare," she retorted, tossing her head.
THIRTEEN.
VARIOUS EVENTS.
The following day was eventful. To begin with, after Andrew had discharged his early morning duties, he was to appear before his grandma for the execution of the sentence she had pa.s.sed upon him the night before. I was a.s.sisting him to dry the parts of the cream-separator, a task which had become chronic with me, when Carry shouted from the kitchen, where she was putting in her week--
"Your grandma says not to be long; she's waiting for you."
Andrew unburdened his soul to me.
"Lord, ain't I just in for it! I'll hear how me grandma rared me since I was born! I'm dead sick of this born and rared business. It would give a bloke the pip. I didn't make meself born, nor want any one else to do it; there ain't much in bein' alive," he said with that pessimism which, like measles and whooping-cough, is indigenous to extreme youth.
"How could I help being rared? I didn't ask 'em to rare me. I didn't make meself a little baby that couldn't help itself, and they needn't have rared me unless they liked. Goodness knows, I'd have rather died like a little pup before his eyes were opened," he continued so tragically that I took the opportunity of smiling behind his back as he threw out the dish-water.
"Hurry up! your grannie is waiting!" called Carry once more.
"Blow you! you'll have to wait till I'm done," retorted the boy in a tone the reverse of genial.
Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 14
You're reading novel Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 14 online at LightNovelFree.com. You can use the follow function to bookmark your favorite novel ( Only for registered users ). If you find any errors ( broken links, can't load photos, etc.. ), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible. And when you start a conversation or debate about a certain topic with other people, please do not offend them just because you don't like their opinions.
Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 14 summary
You're reading Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 14. This novel has been translated by Updating. Author: Miles Franklin already has 557 views.
It's great if you read and follow any novel on our website. We promise you that we'll bring you the latest, hottest novel everyday and FREE.
LightNovelFree.com is a most smartest website for reading novel online, it can automatic resize images to fit your pc screen, even on your mobile. Experience now by using your smartphone and access to LightNovelFree.com