National Avenue by Booth Tarkington (book recommendations website .txt) 📕

through the mazes of tossing rain he seemed to see, however vaguely, the new Martha he had recognized in that queer night after his homecoming; and the recollection of their strange moment together brought him another not unlike it now. Something mystic operated here; he felt again that same enrichment, charged with an indefinite regret; and though the moment was no more than a moment, passing quickly, it comforted him a little. “There! Don’t worry!” Martha seemed to say to him gently. So he said it to himself and felt in better spirits.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Lena wept, huddling in a corner of the shed. “How this horrible old world does make us pay for not knowing what to do!” And when he turned to try again to soothe her, she shrank but farther away from him and bade him let her alone.

“But it’ll be all cleared up, half an hour from now,” he said. “You’ll be warm as toast as soon as the sun comes out again, and then we’ll go over the whole Addition and see what’s what, Lena!”

The first half of this prediction was amply fulfilled; Lena was indeed warm soon after the sun reappeared; but they did not inspect the Addition further. They went home, and a few days later Lena wrote an account of the expedition in a letter to her brother George. Not altogether happy when she wrote, she was unable to refrain from a little natural exaggeration.

You said to me once you’d like to come here to live. Read Martin Chuzzlewit again before you do. “Eden!” That’s what the famous Ornaby Addition looks like! It isn’t swampy, but that’s all the difference I could see. We drove miles in the heat and choking dust and there wasn’t anything to see when we got there! Just absolutely nothing! People had been digging around in spots and cutting a lot of trees down and after a cyclone and cloudburst that came up while we were there he pointed out a post sticking out of the ground and showed the greatest pride because it had “47th St.” painted on it! This was when we were driving out of the woods. He wanted to poke all over the dreary place, looking at other posts and stumps of trees, but I couldn’t stand any more of it.

We had the most horrible storm I was ever out in, and it hailed so that after being ill in bed for a week with the ghastly heat, it got so cold I almost died, and then as soon as the cyclone was over it got hot again⁠—it isn’t like ordinary heat; it gets hot with a sticky heaviness I can’t express and the thermometer must stay up over 100 even at night⁠—and as soon as we got home I had to go to bed where I’ve been ever since⁠—hence this pencil⁠—and I’ve just escaped pneumonia! And during the cyclone when I was really ill with the nervous anguish lightning always causes me, he began telling me how wonderfully a former sweetheart of his behaved in a storm on a lake! It was his idea of how to make me not mind it. Of course he only meant to cheer me up⁠—but really!

His father and mother aren’t bad, I must say. They’re quite like him, good-looking and full of kindness; his mother is really sweet and I like them both, though I’ll never get used to hearing people talk with this terrible Western accent. To a sensitive ear, it’s actual pain. The brother looks rather like Dan, too; but he’s pompous in a dry way and affected. Reads heavy things and seems to me a cold-hearted sort of prig, though he’s always polite. The father and mother read, too. Their idea is Carlyle and Emerson and Thoreau⁠—you know the type of mind⁠—and Harlan (the brother) talks about that Englishman, Shaw, who writes the queer plays. They say they have two theatres open in winter, but of course there’s no music here except something they brag about called the “April Festival,” when there’s a week of imported orchestra and some singing. Pleasant for me!⁠—one week in the year!⁠—though I suppose you’ll think it’s all I should have.

They meant to be kind, but they gave me the most fearful “reception.” I never endured such a ghastly ordeal. The weather was over 100 in the shade⁠—and in crowded rooms, well, imagine it! The people were dressed well enough⁠—some of them were rather queer, but so are some at home⁠—but I wish you could have seen the vehicles they drive in and their coachmen! Slouchy darkies in old straw hats with long-tailed horses that get the reins under their tails⁠—and fringed surreys and family carryalls, something like what you’d see out in the country towns in Connecticut. They have phaetons and runabouts and a few respectable traps, but I’ve seen just one good-looking victoria since I came here. They don’t like smartness really. I believe they think it’s effeminate!

The real head of the Oliphant family is an outrageous old hag, Dan’s grandmother, who behaved terribly to me at my only meeting with her⁠—it will remain our only meeting! They’re all afraid of her, and she has a lot of money. Queer⁠—I understand he’s tried to raise money for his Eden all over the town, but never asked the terrible grandmother. She doesn’t believe in it, and I must say she’s right about that! Rather!

How strange that any girl should do what I’ve done⁠—and with my eyes wide open! I did it, and yet I knew he didn’t understand me. I ought to have known that he can never understand me, that we don’t speak the same language and never will. I ought to have realized what it means to know that I must live days, weeks, months, years with a person who will never understand anything whatever of my real self!

Yet I still care for him, and he is good. He does a thousand little