with a quaint smirk.
Well then heres the dope uttered my father in a vage tone I am going to drop you at the 125 st station where you will only half to wait 2 hours and a ½ for the rest of the family as the train from the west is do at 350 at 125 st in the meen wile I will drive out to Grenitch with Bill and see if the house is ready and etc and if the other peaples train is on time you can catch the 4 4 and I an Bill will meet you at the Grenitch station.
If you have time get a qt of milk for David said my mother with a pail look.
What kind of milk arsked my dad.
Oh sour milk my mother screened.
As she was now in a pretty bad temper we will leave her to cool off for 2 hours and a ½ in the 125 st station and end this chapter.
X
N.Y. To Grenitch 500.0
The lease said about my and my fathers trip from the Bureau of Manhattan to our new home the soonest mended. In some way ether I or he got balled up on the grand concorpse and next thing you know we was thretning to swoop down on Pittsfield.
Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly.
Shut up he explained.
At lenth we doubled on our tracks and done much better as we finley hit New Rochelle and puled up along side a policeman with falling archs.
What road do I take for Grenitch Conn quired my father with poping eyes.
Take the Boston post replid the policeman.
I have all ready subscribed to one out of town paper said my father and steped on the gas so we will leave the flat foot gaping after us like a prune fed calf and end this chapter.
XI
How It Ended
True to our promise we were at the station in Grenitch when the costly train puled in from 125 st. Myself and father hoped out of the lordly moter and helped the bulk of the famly off of the train and I aloud our nurse and my 3 brothers to kiss me tho Davids left me rarther moist.
Did you have a hard trip my father arsked to our nurse shyly.
Why no she replid with a slite stager.
She did too said my mother they all acted like little devils.
Did you get Davids milk she said turning on my father.
Why no does he like milk my father replid with a gastly smirk.
We got lost mudder I said brokenly.
We did not screened my father and accidently cracked me in the shins with a stray foot.
To change the subjeck I turned my tensions on my brother Jimmie who is nerest my age.
I’ve seen our house Jimmie I said brokenly I got here first.
Yes but I slept all night on a train and you didnt replid Jimmie with a dirty look.
Nether did you said my brother John to Jimmie you was awake all night.
Were awake said my mother.
Me and David was awake all night and crid said my brother John.
But I only crid once the whole time said my brother Jimmie.
But I didnt cry at all did I I arsked to my mother.
So she replid with a loud cough Bill was a very very good boy.
So now we will say fare well to the characters in this book.
The Big Town
How I and the Mrs. Go to New York to See Life and Get Katie a Husband
Preface
This book deals with the adventures of a man and his wife and his sister-in-law who move to New York from a small middle western city. Because the writer and she who jokingly married him moved to New York from the middle west, and because the writer has almost as many sister-in-laws as Solomon, several Nordic blondes have inquired whether the hero and heroines of the book are not actually us. Fortunately most of the inquirers made the inquiry of me, the possessor of a notoriously sweet disposition. Two of them, however, asked the madam herself and were both shot down.
In the first place, the ladies of the book are supposed to have inherited enough money to make them and the gent more or less independent. Nothing like that in our family.
In the second place, the sister-in-law of the book has a hard time getting a man. The sister-in-laws in real life acquired permanent men while still in their nonage, you might say, and didn’t have to move out of the middle west to do it. And though none of them, perhaps, can be said to have done as well as the madam herself, at least from an aesthetic standpoint, still it is something to boast of that none of them was obliged to go Democratic.
The contents of “The Big Town” were written mostly in a furnished house in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the author wishes to thank the rats for staying out of the room while he worked. It was winter time and the furnished house was a summer cottage, but we didn’t realize that when we rented it. Nor, apparently, did the rats.
I
Quick Returns
This is just a clipping from one of the New York papers; a little kidding piece that they had in about me two years ago. It says:
Employees of the brokerage firm of H. L. Krause & Co. are authority for the statement that a wealthy Indiana speculator made one of the biggest killings of the year in the Street yesterday afternoon. No very definite information was obtainable, as the Westerner’s name was known to only one of the firm’s employees, Francis Griffin, and he was unable to recall it last night.
You’d think I was a millionaire and that I’d made a sucker out of Morgan or something, but it’s only a kid, see? If
