Description
A Call (in The Best American Humorous Short Stories )
A boy in an unnaturally clean, country-laundered collar walked down a
long white road. He scuffed the dust up wantonly, for he wished to
veil the all-too-brilliant polish of his cowhide shoes. Also the
memory of the whiteness and slipperiness of his collar oppressed him.
He was fain to look like one accustomed to social diversions, a man
hurried from hall to hall of pleasure, without time between to change
collar or polish boot. He stooped and rubbed a crumb of earth on his
overfresh neck-linen.
This did not long sustain his drooping spirit. He was mentally adrift
upon the _Hints and Helps to Young Men in Business and Social
Relations_, which had suggested to him his present enterprise, when
the appearance of a second youth, taller and broader than himself,
with a shock of light curling hair and a crop of freckles that
advertised a rich soil threw him a lifeline. He put his thumbs to his
lips and whistled in a peculiarly ear-splitting way. The two boys had
sat on the same bench at Sunday-school not three hours before; yet
what a change had come over the world for one of them since then!
"Hello! Where you goin’, Ab?" asked the newcomer, gruffly.
"Callin’," replied the boy in the collar, laconically, but with
carefully averted gaze.
"On the girls?" inquired the other, awestruck. In Mount Pisgah you saw
the girls home from night church, socials, or parties; you could hang
over the gate; and you might walk with a girl in the cemetery of a
Sunday afternoon; but to ring a front-door bell and ask for Miss
Heart’s Desire one must have been in long trousers at least three
years–and the two boys confronted in the dusty road had worn these
dignifying garments barely six months.
Product ID: 9781776798421
Sku: 9781776798421
