登陆注册
18991500000020

第20章

The doctor looks at me like he don't skeercly know me. Which he don't. He has one of them quiet kind of drunks on. Which Looey explains is bound to come every so often. He don't do nothing mean, but jest gets low-sperrited and won't talk to no one. Then all of a sudden he will go down town and walk up and down the main streets, orderly, but looking hard into people's faces, mostly women's faces. Oncet, Looey says, they was big trouble over it. They was in a store in a good-sized town, and he took hold of a woman's chin, and tilted her face back, and looked at her hard, and most scared her to death, and they was nearly being a riot there. And he was jailed and had to pay a big fine. Since then Looey always follers him around when he is that-a-way.

Well, that night Doctor Kirby is too fur gone fur us to have our show. He jest sets and stares and stares at the fire, and his eyes looks like they is another fire inside of his head, and he is hurting outside and in. Looey and me watches him from the shadders fur a long time before we turns in, and the last thing I seen before I went to sleep was him setting there with his face in his hands, staring, and his lips moving now and then like he was talking to himself.

The next day he is asleep all morning. But that day he don't drink any more, and Looey says mebby it ain't going to be one of the reg'lar pifflicated kind. I seen Martha agin that day, too--twicet I has talks with her. I told her about the doctor.

"Is he into a quest, do you think?" I asts her.

She says she thinks it is remorse fur some crime he has done. But I couldn't figger Doctor Kirby would of done none. So that night after the show I says to him, innocent-like:

"Doctor Kirby, what is a quest?" He looks at me kind of queer.

"Wherefore," says he, "this sudden thirst for enlightenment?""I jest run acrost the word accidental-like," Itold him.

He looks at me awful hard, his eyes jest natcherally digging into me. I felt like he knowed I had set out to pump him. I wisht I hadn't tried it. Then he tells me a quest is a hunt. And I'm glad that's over with. But it ain't. Fur purty soon he says:

"Danny, did you ever hear of Lady Clara Vere de Vere?""No," I says, "who is she?"

"A lady friend of Lord Tennyson's," he says, "whose manners were above reproach.""Well," I says, "she sounds kind of like a medi-cine to me."

"Lady Clara," he says, "and all the other Vere de Veres, were people with manners we should try to imitate. If Lady Clara had been here last night when I was talking to myself, Danny, her manners wouldn't have let her listen to what Iwas talking about."

"I didn't listen!" I says. Fur I seen what he was driving at now with them Vere de Veres. He thought I had ast him what a quest was because he was on one. I was certain of that, now. He wasn't quite sure what he had been talking about, and he wanted to see how much I had hearn. Ithinks to myself it must be a awful funny kind of hunt he is on, if he only hunts when he is in that fix. But I acted real innocent and like my feelings was hurt, and he believed me. Purty soon he says, cheerful like:

"There was a girl talking to you to-day, Danny.""Mebby they was," I says, "and mebby they wasn't." But I felt my face getting red all the same, and was mad because it did. He grinned kind of aggervating at me and says some poetry at me about in the spring a young man's frenzy likely turns to thoughts of love.

"Well," I says, kind of sheepish-like, "this is summer-time, and purty nigh autumn." Then Iseen I'd jest as good as owned up I liked Martha, and was kind of mad at myself fur that. But Itold him some more about her, too. Somehow I jest couldn't help it. He laughs at me and goes on into the tent.

I laid there and looked at the fire fur quite a spell, outside the tent. I was thinking, if all them tales wasn't jest dern foolishness, how I wisht Iwould really find a dad that was a high-mucky-muck and could come back in an automobile and take her away. I laid there fur a long, long time;it must of been fur a couple of hours. I supposed the doctor had went to sleep.

But all of a sudden I looks up, and he is in the door of the tent staring at me. I seen he had been in there at it hard agin, and thinking, quiet-like, all this time. He stood there in the doorway of the tent, with the firelight onto his face and his red beard, and his arms stretched out, holding to the canvas and looking at me strange and wild.

Then he moved his hand up and down at me, and he says:

"If she's fool enough to love you, treat her well--treat her well. For if you don't, you can never run away from the hell you'll carry in your own heart."And he kind of doubled up and pitched forward when he said that, and if I hadn't ketched him he would of fell right acrost the fire. He was plumb pifflicated.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 陌上花开待君归

    陌上花开待君归

    原本过着平淡生活的巫九紫阴差阳错被错认成了墨九紫,引了一堆麻烦上身。原本以为进了仙界最有实力的门派九华门就能从此翻身,可她却遇到了他,万人景仰的祭司风间留香,这一切是劫是缘?仙魔禁恋,身世之谜,情种痴缠,奸邪使绊……神秘的艾比锋上有怎样的迷藏,他那如修罗含血的模样究竟是相象还是假面,新欢旧爱他又将如何选择,历劫重生后可否守得云开见月明?
  • 求仙引

    求仙引

    大荒九州,朝廷腐朽。少年秦凡带着母亲的遗愿,进京赶考,一路上故事不断,机遇?祸事?一段往事徐徐展开,这其中又隐藏着什么惊天秘密?道法三千,修法无数。奈何仙道飘渺,世人皆痴,妄图求仙圣引。遂,自太古以来各类传奇故事无数,只是却无一人实证成仙。一个另类的大荒,一个故事的开始,一代鬼主崛起之路。
  • 权卧江山

    权卧江山

    他儒雅翩翩,谦逊礼让。他眉目如画,风姿俊朗。他谋略在手,江山在望。他运筹帷幄,掀翻秦浪。他是一介书生,一个身负国仇家恨的不由之人。他腹内藏有万卷书香,指点江山,无人能挡。他力灭八国,权势在手毅然释放。他笑看红尘,舞墨人生,辅佐君王。他是寒梅公子,他也是宋柳。
  • 丫鬟翻身记

    丫鬟翻身记

    洞房花烛夜。“夫人久等了。”夫君大人戏谑的声音传来。呃……她该怎么回答?其实没有等多久?还是……你个杀千刀的怎么现在才来?但她知道,如果她敢叫他“杀千刀的”,她一定会被他杀千刀的!
  • 红眼猎人传说

    红眼猎人传说

    这是一个魔法师少年的故事,恩,简介什么的以后能改再改吧。。
  • 天际:大界

    天际:大界

    林界一行逃亡三人组逍遥两年,终于被两路联盟大军先后找上门。一位独生,两位异能,联盟的通缉等级不断提高。林界的逃亡大军也不断壮大。被肃清的独生,触碰了禁忌的异能,百年前一位预言者的预言,一场贯穿始终的追杀与逃亡。林界:如果反抗可以让我活下去,我宁愿成为预言中的主宰。
  • 是谁负了谁的青春

    是谁负了谁的青春

    刚刚分手的苏雁漫无目的在大街上游荡,又碰倒喝成“酒鬼”的陆彦,鬼使神差的就做了陆雁的女朋友,爱情接憧而来,但是婚姻依然渺茫。直到在酒吧里碰到了沈奇,一个没有彼此青春回忆,淡淡的波澜不惊的两个人,却最终走进婚姻的殿堂,女人最后想要的就是结婚这件小事儿。--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 为君解罗裳:妖女倾天下

    为君解罗裳:妖女倾天下

    这东南国,谁人不知,谁人不晓,这要嫁的王爷,是传说中的暴君,杀人不眨眼,嗜血成狂的一个魔君的?圣旨一下,要千家的女儿嫁给东南国国的这个平南王爷,千家一听,仿佛是立马炸开了锅一样的,你不愿意去,我不愿意去,自然,就是由这个痴儿傻儿嫁过去了?
  • 拽妃不好惹:魔君滚下榻

    拽妃不好惹:魔君滚下榻

    君风华是谁?是各大势力闻风丧胆的一代妖女,是天赋空前绝后的妖孽天才,是无数年轻男女为之疯狂的无上偶像!当玩世不恭的妖女一朝玩儿脱把自己玩成了五岁状态的奶娃娃,于是,妖女握着小拳头,奶声奶气道:“奶娃娃也可以很彪悍!”她心狠手辣:“龙有逆鳞,触之者死!”她任性护短:“是非道理算个屁,亲疏远近才是正道!”她重情重义:“不就是下趟火海,有我陪着你敢再怕一个试试?”她就是君风华,一个哪怕变成奶娃娃也不减半分傲骨的妖孽,只是奶娃娃看着对面狂笑不止的某个男人,忍不住咬牙切齿:“你敢再笑一下,这辈子也休想爬上我的床了!”
  • 电烤箱食谱

    电烤箱食谱

    《电烤箱食谱》精选了近百道烧烤的做法、制作烧烤注意事项,从各方面解析美味烧烤的制作过程,简单易学,营养多元,有益身心,让你吃得美味,吃出健康。《电烤箱食谱》内容丰富,实用性强,通俗易懂,是普通大众的有益参考书。