Free 41 Stories by O. Henry Page B

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    â€œIn the village I found a pine 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.
    â€œ ‘I don’t want no plates,’ says he, ‘but I need another glass molasses-pitcher.’
    â€œBy-and-by I got him down to local gossip and answering questions.
    â€œ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I thought everybody knowed 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 that got off the train. She’s been up to Illinois to see her aunt, who is sick.’
    â€œI 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.
    â€œ ‘Excuse me,’ says I, ‘can you tell me where Mr. Hinkle lives?’
    â€œShe 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.
    â€œ ‘No one of that name lives in Birchton,’ says she. ‘That is,’ she goes on, ‘as far as I know. Is the gentleman you are seeking white?’
    â€œWell, that tickled me. ‘No kidding,’ says I. ‘I’m not looking for smoke, even if I do come from Pittsburgh.’
    â€œ ‘You are quite a distance from home,’ says she.
    â€œ ‘I’d have gone a thousand miles farther,’ says I.
    â€œ ‘Not if you hadn’t waked 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.
    â€œAnd 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.
    â€œShe smiles a little, and blushes some, but her eyes never get mixed up. They look straight at whatever she’s talking to.
    â€œ ‘I never had any one talk like this to me before, Mr. Pescud,’ says she. ‘What did you say your name is—John?’
    â€œ ‘John A.,’ says I.
    â€œ ‘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.
    â€œ ‘How did you know?’ I asked.
    â€œ ‘Men are very clumsy,’ said she. ‘I knew you were on every train. I thought you were going to speak to me, and I’m glad you didn’t.’
    â€œThen 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.
    â€œ ‘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 a lineal descendant of belted earls.’
    â€œ ‘I belted one of ’em once in the Duquesne Hotel, in Pittsburgh,’ says I, ‘and he didn’t offer to resent it. He was there dividing his attentions between Monongahela whiskey and heiresses, and he got fresh.’
    â€œ ‘Of course,’ she goes on, ‘my father wouldn’t allow a drummer to set his foot in Elmcroft. If he knew that I was talking to one over the fence he would lock me in my room.’
    â€œ ‘Would you let me come there?’ says I. ‘Would you talk to