Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!
I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.
Besides, I wouldnt do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued.
I dont like to look out of the windows even there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.
I wonder if they all come out of that wall paper, as I did?
But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope you dont get me out in the road there!
But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope you dont get me out in the road there!
I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!
It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!
I dont want to go outside. I wont, even if Jennie asks me to.
For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow.
But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.
Why, theres John at the door!
It is no use, young man, you cant open it!
How he does call and pound!
Now hes crying for an axe.
It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door!
John, dear! said I in the gentlest voice, the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!
That silenced him for a few moments.
Then he said very quietly indeed, Open the door, my darling!
I cant, said I. The key is down by the front door, under a plantain leaf!
And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it, of course, and came in. He stopped short by the door.
What is the matter? he cried. For Gods sake, what are you doing?
I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.
Ive got out at last, said I, in spite of you and Jane! And Ive pulled off most of the paper, so you cant put me back!
Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!
Bret Harte
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath[81] lull in the air which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.
Mr. Oakhursts calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was another question. I reckon theyre after somebody, he reflected; likely its me. He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.
In point of fact, Poker Flat was after somebody. It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however, to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgment.
Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets of the sums he had won from them. Its agin justice, said Jim Wheeler, to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp an entire stranger carry away our money. But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.
Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer.
A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman familiarly known as the Duchess; another, who had won the title of Mother Shipton; and Uncle Billy, a suspected sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only, when the gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at the peril of their lives.