T WO T HANKSGIVING DAY G ENTLEMEN
There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not lf-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it ud to. Bless the day. President Roovelt gives it to us. We hear some talk of the Puritans, but don’t just remember who they were. Bet we can lick ’em, anyhow, if they try to land again. Plymouth Rocks? Well, that sounds more familiar. Lots of us have had to come down to hens since the Turkey Trust got its work in. But somebody in Washington is leaking out advance information to ’em about the Thanksgiving proclamations.
The big city east of the cranberry bogs has made Thanksgiving Day an institution. The last Thursday in November is the only day in the year on which it recognizes the part of America lying across the ferries. It is the one day that is purely American. Yes, a day of celebration, exclusively American.
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And now for the story which is to prove to you that we have traditions on this side of the ocean that are becoming older at a much rapider rate than tho of England are—thanks to our git-up and enterpri.avance
sp是什么意思Stuffy Pete took his at on the third bench to the right as you enter Union Square from the east, at the walk opposite the fountain. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had taken his at there promptl
y at 1 o’clock. For every time he had done so things had happened to him—Charles Dickensy things that swelled his waistcoat above his heart, and equally on the other side.
But today Stuffy Pete’s appearance at the annual trysting place emed to have been rather the result of habit than of the yearly hunger which, as the philanthropists em to think, afflicts the poor at such extended intervals.
Certainly Pete was not hungry. He had just come from a feast that had left him of his powers barely tho of respiration and locomotion. His eyes were like two pale gooberries firmly imbedded in a swollen and gravy-smeared mask of putty. His breath came in short wheezes;
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a natorial roll of adipo tissue denied a fashionable t to his upturned coat collar. Buttons that had been wed upon his clothes by kind Salvation fingers a week before flew like popcorn, strewing the earth around him. Ragged he was, with a split shirt front open to the wishbone; but the November breeze, carrying fine snowflakes, brought him only a grateful coolness. For Stuffy Pete was overcharged with the caloric produced by a super-bountiful dinner, beginning with oysters and ending with plum pudding, and including (it emed to him) all the roast turkey and baked potatoes and chicken salad and squash pie and ice cream in the world. Wherefore he sat, gorged, and gazed upon the world with after-dinner contempt.
The meal had been an unexpected one. He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth avenue, in which lived two old ladies of ancient family and a reverence for traditions. They even denied the existence of New York, and believed that Thanksgiving Day was declared solely for Washington Square. One of their traditional habits was to station a rvant at the postern gate with orders to admit the first hungry wayfarer that came along after the hour of noon had struck, and banquet him to a finish. Stuffy Pete happened to pass by on his way to the park, and the neschals gathered him in and upheld the custom of the castle.
ntences是什么意思After Stuffy Pete had gazed straight before him for ten minutes he was conscious of a desire for a more varied field of vision. With a tremendous effort he moved his head slowly to the left. And then his eyes bulged out fearfully, and his breath cead, and the rough-shod ends of his short legs wriggled and rustled on the gravel.
For the Old Gentleman was coming across Fourth avenue toward his bench.
Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years the Old Gentleman had come there and found Stuffy Pete on his bench. That was a thing that the Old Gentleman was trying to make a tradition of. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had found Stuffy there, and had led him to a restaurant and watc
hed him eat a big dinner. They do tho things in England unconsciously. But this is a young country, and nine years is not so bad. The Old Gentleman was a staunch American patriot, and considered himlf a pioneer in American tradition. In order to become picturesque we must keep on doing one thing for a long time without ever letting it get away from us. Something like collecting the weekly dimes in industrial insurance. Or cleaning the streets.
The Old Gentleman moved, straight and stately, toward the Institution that he was rearing. Truly, the annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was nothing national in its character, such as the Magna Charta or jam for breakfast was in England. But it was a step. It was almost feudal. It showed, at least, that a Custom was not impossible to New Y—ahem!—America.
The Old Gentleman was thin and tall and sixty. He was dresd all in black, and wore the old-fashioned kind of glass that won’t stay on your no. His hair was whiter and thinner than it had been last year,
and he emed to make more u of his big, knobby cane with the crooked handle.
As his established benefactor came up Stuffy wheezed and shuddered like some woman’s over-fat pug when a street dog bristles up at him. He would have flown, but all the skill of Santos–Dumont co
uld not have parated him from his bench. Well had the myrmidons of the two old ladies done their work.
“Good morning,” said the Old Gentleman. “I am glad to perceive that the vicissitudes of another year have spared you to move in health about the beautiful world. For that blessing alone this day of thanksgiving is well proclaimed to each of us. If you will come with me, my man, I will provide you with a dinner that should make your physical being a ccord with the mental.”深圳卓越教育
That is what the old Gentleman said every time. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years. The words themlves almost formed an Institution. Nothing could be compared with them except the Declaration of Independence. Always before they had been music in Stuffy’s ears. But now he looked up at the Old Gentleman’s face with tearful agony in his own. The fine snow almost sizzled when it fell upon his perspiring brow. But the Old Gentleman shivered a little and turned his back to the wind.
Stuffy had always wondered why the Old Gentleman spoke his speech rather sadly. He did not know that it was becau he was wishing every time that he had a son to succeed him. A son who would come there after he was gone—a son who would stand proud and stro ng before some subquent Stuffy, and say: “In memory of my father.” Then it would be an Institution.
But the Old Gentleman had no relatives. He lived in rented rooms in one of the decayed old family brownstone mansions in one of the
quiet streets east of the park. In the winter he raid fuchsias in a little conrvatory the size of a steamer trunk. In the spring he walked in the Easter parade. In the summer he lived at a farmhou in the New Jery hills, and sat in a wicker armchair, speaking of a butterfly, the ornithoptera amphrisius, that he hoped to find some day. In the autumn he fed Stuffy a dinner. The were the Old Gentleman’s occupations.
Stuffy Pete looked up at him for a half minute, stewing and helpless in his own lf-pity. The Old Gentleman’s eyes were bright with the giving-pleasure. His face was getting more lined each year, but his little black necktie was in as jaunty a bow as ever, and the linen was beautiful and white, and his gray mustache was curled carefully at the ends. And then Stuffy made a noi that sounded like peas bubbling in a pot. Speech was intended; and as the Old Gentleman had heard the sounds nine times before, he rightly construed them into Stuffy’s old formula of acceptance.
“Thankee, sir. I’ll go with ye, and much obliged. I’m very hungry, sir.”
The coma of repletion had not prevented from entering Stuffy’s mind the conviction that he was the b
asis of an Institution. His Thanksgiving appetite was not his own; it belonged by all the sacred rights of established custom, if not, by the actual Statute of Limitations, to this kind old gentleman who bad preempted it. True, America is free; but in order to establish tradition some one must be a repetend—a repeating decimal. The heroes are not all heroes of steel and gold. See one here that wielded only weapons of iron, badly silvered, and tin.
gelatinThe Old Gentleman led his annual protege southward to the restaurant, and to the table where the feast had always occurred. They were recognized.
“Here comes de old guy,” said a waiter, “dat blo ws dat same bum to a meal every Thanksgiving.”
The Old Gentleman sat across the table glowing like a smoked pearl at his corner-stone of future ancient Tradition. The waiters heaped the table with holiday food—and Stuffy, with a sigh that was mistaken for hunger’s expression, raid knife and fork and carved for himlf a crown of imperishable bay.
No more valiant hero ever fought his way through the ranks of an enemy. Turkey, chops, soups, vegetables, pies, disappeared before him as fast as they could be rved. Gorged nearly to the uttermost when he entered the restaurant, the smell of food had almost caud him to lo his honor
广告英语as a gentleman, but he rallied like a true knight. He saw the look of beneficent happiness on the Old Gentleman’s face—a happier look than even the fuchsias and the ornithoptera amphrisius had ever brought to it—and he had not the heart to e it wane.
深圳游学In an hour Stuffy leaned back with a battle won. “Thankee kindly, sir,” he puffed like a leaky steam pipe; “thankee kindly for a he arty meal.” Then he aro heavily with glazed eyes and started toward the kitchen. A waiter turned him about like a top, and pointed him toward the door. The Old Gentleman carefully counted out $1.30 in silver change, leaving three nickels for the waiter.
黑豹电视剧They parted as they did each year at the door, the Old Gentleman going south, Stuffy north.
Around the first corner Stuffy turned, and stood for one minute. Then he emed to puff out his rags as an owl puffs out his feathers, and fell to the sidewalk like a sunstricken hor.
When the ambulance came the young surgeon and the driver curd softly at his weight. There was no smell of whiskey to justify a transfer to the patrol wagon, so Stuffy and his two dinners went to the
