Barton returned to his establishment cheered and
animated."
The gross, the immoral romanticism of this tale was not then, of course,
apparent to me. Children are so defenceless! Child that I was, I
believed it would be entirely practicable for a lad in his teens to
borrow two thousand dollars from a Boston merchant, by reminding him
that the boy is not the man. So readily is the young mind poisoned.
During the latter part of the lesson, between looks stolen fearfully at
her profile, I was mentally engaged in borrowing two thousand dollars
from a convenient Mr. Barton with which to establish myself in a small
retail business--preferably a candy store with an ice-cream parlor in
the rear. Then I took her to wife, not forgetting to reward Mr. Barton
handsomely in the day of his ruin. Dimly, in the background of this
hasty dramatization, the distrustful Mr. Hawley, who refused to share
the loan with Mr. Barton, figured as a rival for my love's hand; and
lived to hear her say that she hated, loathed, and despised him.
At recess the others crowded about her, girls at the centre, within a
straggling circumference of young males, who dissembled their gallantry
under a pretence of being mere brutal marauders.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57