Read Against the Day for Free Online Page B

legofmutton sleeve having resulted in a profusion of shirtwaists
with translucent shoulders “big as balloons, all over town”—as Chick
Counterfly, a devoted observer of the female form, would express it—in
Miss McAdoo’s case, saturated in a vivid magenta, and accompanied by a long
ostrichfeather boa dyed the same shade. And her hat, roguishly atilt, egret
plumes swooping each time she moved her head, would have charmed even the most
zealous of conservationist birdlovers.
    “Nice puttogether,” Chick nodded
admiringly.
      “And you haven’t seen the turn she does down to that South
Seas Pavilion yet,” declared Merle Rideout gallantly. “Makes Little Egypt look
like a church lady.”
    “You are an artiste, Miss McAdoo?”
    “ I perform the Dance of LavaLava, the
Volcano Goddess,” she replied.
    “I greatly admire the music of the
region,” said Miles, “the ukulele in particular.”
    “There are several ukulelists in my
pitband,” said Miss McAdoo, “tenor, baritone, and soprano.”
    “And is it authentic native music?”
    “More of a medley, I believe,
encompassing Hawaiian and Philippino motifs, and concluding with a very tasteful
adaptation of Monsieur SaintSaëns’s wonderful ‘Bacchanale,’ as recently
performed at the Paris Opera.”
    “I am only an amateur, of course,”
Miles, though long a member of the prestigious International Academy of
Ukulelists, said modestly, “and get lost now and then. But if I promised to go
back to the tonic and wait, do you think they’d let me come and sit in?”
    “I’ll certainly put in a good word,”
said Chevrolette.
    Merle Rideout had brought a hand
camera with him, and was taking “snaps” of the flying machines, aloft and
parked on the ground, which were continuing to arrive and take off with no
apparent letup. “Some social, ain’t it! Why, every durn professor of flight
from here to Timbuctoo’s flying in, ’s what it looks like.”
    The smoke from breakfast campfires
rose fragrantly through the air. Babies could be heard in both complaint and
celebration. Faroff sounds of railway traffic and lake navigation came in on
the wind. Against the sun as yet low across the Lake, wings cast long shadows,
their edges luminous with dew. There were steamers, electrics, Maxim whirling
machines, ships powered by guncotton reciprocators and naphtha engines, and
electrical liftingscrews of strange hyperboloidal design for drilling upward
through the air, and winged aerostats, of streamlined shape, and wingflapping
miracles of ornithurgy. A fellow scarcely knew after a while where to
look—
    “Pa!” An attractive little girl of
four or five with flaming red hair was runpning toward them at high speed.
“Say, Pa! I need a drink!”
    “Dally, ya little weasel,” Merle
greeted her, “the corn liquor’s all gone, I fear, it’ll have to be back to the
old cowjuice for you, real sorry,” as he went rummaging in a patent dinner pail
filled with ice. The child, meanwhile, having caught sight of the Chums in
their summer uniforms, stood gazing, her eyes wide, as if deciding how well
behaved she ought to be.
    “You have been poisoning this helpless
angel with strong drink?”
cried Lindsay Noseworth. “Sir, one must protest!” Dally, intrigued, ran over
and stood in front of him, peering up, as if waiting for the next part of some
elaborate joke.
    Lindsay blinked. “This cannot be,” he
muttered. “Small children hate me.”
    “ A finelooking little girl, sir,”
Randolph, brimming with avuncularity. “You are the proud grandfather, of
course.”
    “Ha! D’ye hear that, Carrothead?
Thinks I’m your grandpa. Thank you, lad, but this here is my daughter Dahlia,
I’m proud to say. Her mother, alas—” He sighed, gazing upward and into
the distance.
    “Our deepest sympathies,” Randolph
hastily, “yet Heaven, in its inscrutability—”
    “Heaven, hell,” cackled Merle
Rideout. “She’s out there in the U.S.A. someplace with the