Then arose one from a seat near the leaping foun- tain, and came and sat himself at Vallance's side. The park-dweller, though a stubborn fighter against autumnal coolness, is slow to attack the advance line of spring's chilly cohorts. He felt precisely the sensation of the aero- naut when he cuts loose his parachute and lets his balloon drift away. The sudden severing of all his life's ties had brought him a free, thrilling, almost joyous elation. Sitting there, he leaned far back on the hard bench and laughed a jet of cigarette smoke up to the lowest tree branches. And so Vallance fell grandly as Lucifer to the lowest pit, joining the tattered ghosts in the little park. Now drag- nets were out for him he was to be rehabilitated and restored. Being without grace or hope, he had long ago disappeared in the mire. There was another nephew, of a different branch, who had once been the prospective heir and favorite. And all that was because his nephew had disobeyed him concerning a certain girl, who comes not into this story - therefore, all readers who brush their hair toward its roots may be warned to read no further. Therefore lie had chosen the park.Īnd all this was because an uncle had disinherited him, and cut down his allowance from liberality to nothing. As he sat there was not in the whole city for him a bed or a broiled lobster or a street-car fare or a carnation for buttonhole unless be should obtain them by spong- on his friends or by false pretenses. His clothes, save what were upon him, had descended to his man-servant for back wages.
His furniture had gone toward certain debts. He had given up his apartment that morning. Then he felt in every pocket and found not a single penny. For three minutes be mildly regretted the last hundred of his last thousand that it had cost him when the bicycle cop put an end to his last automobile ride. Vallance buttoned his coat, lighted his last cigarette and took his seat upon a bench. Raw and astringent as a schoolgirl - of the old order - young May breathed austerely among the budding trees. Vallance felt rather than knew this, but when he stepped down out of his world into chaos his feet brought him directly to Madison Square. Here is an aristocracy of the public parks and even of the vagabonds who use them for their private apartments. Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe.The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett.The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane.The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne.
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