The Spread Eagle and Other Stories

Gouverneur Morris

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• Publié par: fouc
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 81
• Langue: English

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Stories, by Gouverneur Morris
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Title: The Spread Eagle and Other StoriesAuthor: Gouverneur Morris
Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9888]
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Edition: 10
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK THE SPREAD EAGLE AND OTHER
STORIES ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner
and PG Distributed ProofreadersTHE
SPREAD EAGLE
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS
AUTHOR OF "THE FOOTPRINT, AND OTHER
STORIES," ETC.
1910
TO ELSIE, PATSIE, AND KATE
I had thought to sit in the ruler's chair,
But three pretty girls are sitting there—
Elsie, Patsie, and Kate.
I had thought to lord it with eyes of gray,
I had thought to be master, and have my way;
But six blue eyes vote: nay, nay, nay!
_Elsie, Patsie, and Kate.
Of Petticoats three I am sore afraid,
(Though Kate's is more like a candle-shade), Elsie, Patsie, and Kate.
And I must confess (with shame) to you
That time there was when Petticoats two
Were enough to govern me through and
through,
Elsie, Patsie, and Kate.
Oh Patsie, third of a bullying crew,
And Elsie, and Kate, be it known to you—
To Elsie, Patsie, and Kate,
That Elsie_ alone _was strong enough
To smother a motion, or call a bluff,
Or any small pitiful atom thereof—
Elsie, Patsie, and Kate.
So, though I've renounced that ruler's part
To which I was born (as is writ in my heart),
Elsie, Patsie, and Kate,
Though I do what I'm told (yes, you_ know I do)
And am made to write stories (and sell them,
too).
Still—I wish to God I had more like you,
Elsie, Patsie, and Kate.
BAR HARBOR, August, 1910.AUTHOR'S NOTE
Certain persons have told me (for nothing) that
"White Muscats of
Alexandria" resembles a tale in the Arabian Nights.
And so it does.
Most damningly. And this is printed in the hope of
saving other
persons postage.CONTENTS
The Spread Eagle
Targets
The Boot
The Despoiler
One More Martyr
"Ma'am?"
Mr. Holiday
White Muscats of Alexandria
Without a Lawyer
The "Monitor" and the "Merrimac"
The McTavish
The Parrot
On the Spot; or, The Idler's House-PartyTHE SPREAD EAGLE
In his extreme youth the adulation of all with whom
he came in contact was not a cross to Fitzhugh
Williams. It was the fear of expatriation that
darkened his soul. From the age of five to the age
of fourteen he was dragged about Europe by the
hair of his head. I use his own subsequent
expression. His father wanted him to be a good
American; his mother wanted him to be a polite
American, And to be polite, in her mind, was to be
at home in French and German, to speak English
(or American) with the accent of no particular
locality, to know famous pictures when you saw
them, and, if little, to be bosom friends with little
dukes and duchesses and counts of the Empire, to
play in the gravel gardens of St. Germain, to know
French history, and to have for exercise the mild
English variations of American games—cricket
instead of base-ball; instead of football, Rugby, or,
in winter, lugeing above Montreux. To luge upon a
sled you sit like a timid, sheltered girl, and hold the
ropes in your hand as if you were playing horse,
and descend inclines; whereas, as Fitzhugh
Williams well knew, in America rich boys and poor
take their hills head first, lying upon the democratic
turn.
It wasn't always Switzerland in winter. Now and
again it was Nice or Cannes. And there you were
taught by a canny Scot to hit a golf ball cunningly
from a pinch of sand. But you blushed with shamethe while, for in America at that time golf had not
yet become a manly game, the maker young of
men as good as dead, the talk of cabinets But
there was lawn tennis also, which you might play
without losing caste "at home," Fitzhugh Williams
never used that term but with the one meaning. He
would say, for instance, to the little Duchess of
Popinjay—or one just as good—having kissed her
to make up for having pushed her into her
ancestral pond, "Now I am going to the house,"
meaning Perth House, that Mrs. Williams had
taken for the season. But if he had said, "Now I am
going home," the little Duchess would have known
that he was going to sail away in a great ship to a
strange, topsy-turvy land known in her set as "the
States," a kind of deep well from which people
hoist gold in buckets, surrounded by Indians. Home
did not mean even his father's house. Let Fitzhugh
Williams but catch sight of the long, white shore of
Long Island, or the Brooklyn Bridge, or the
amazing Liberty, and the word fluttered up from his
heart even if he spoke it not. Ay, let him but see
the Fire Island light-ship alone upon the deep, and
up leaped the word, or the sensation, which was
the same thing.
One Fourth of July they were in Paris (you go to
Paris for tea-gowns to wear grouse-shooting in
Scotland), and when his valet, scraping and
bowing, informed Fitzhugh Williams, aged nine,
that it was time to get up, and tub, and go forth in
a white sailor suit, and be of the world worldly,
Fitzhugh declined. A greater personage was
summoned—Aloys, "the maid of madame," aravishing creature—to whom you and I, good
Americans though we are, could have refused
nothing. But Fitzhugh would not come out of his
feather-bed. And when madame herself came,
looking like a princess even at that early hour, he
only pulled the bedclothes a little higher with an air
of finality.
"Are you sick, Fitzhugh?"
"No, mamma."
"Why won't you get up?"
His mother at least was entitled to an explanation.
"I won't get up," said he, "because I'm an
American."
"But, my dear, it's the glorious Fourth. All good
Americans are up."
"All good Americans," said Fitzhugh, "are at home
letting off fire-crackers."
"Still," said his mother, "I think I'd get up if I were
you. It's lovely out. Not hot."
"I won't get up," said Fitzhugh, "because it's the
Fourth, because I'm an American, and because I
have nothing but English clothes to put on."
His mother, who was the best sort in the world,
though obstinate about bringing-up, and much the
prettiest woman, sat down on the bed and laughed