Henry Augustin Beers

A Suburban Pastoral, and Other Tales Henry Augustin Beers

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894. Excerpt: ... SPLIT ZEPHYR. An attenuated yarn spun by the Fates. T was the evening of Commencement Day. The old Church on the green, which had rung for many consecutive hours with the eloquence of slim young gentlemen in evening dress, exhorting the Scholar in Politics or denouncing the Gross Materialism of the Age, was at last empty and still. As it drew the dewy shadows softly about its eaves and filled its rasped interior with soothing darkness, it bore a whimsical likeness to some aged horse which, having been pestered all day with flies, was now feeding in peace along the dim pasture. It was Clay who suggested this resemblance, and we all laughed appreciatively, as we used to do in those days at Clay's clever sayings. There were five of us strolling down the diagonal walk to our farewell supper at " Ambrose's." Arrived at that refectory, we found it bare of guests and had things quite to ourselves. After supper, we took our coffee out in the little courtyard, where a fountain dribbled, and the flutter of the grape leaves on the trellises in the night wind invited to confidences. "Well, Armstrong," began Doddridge, "where are you going to spend the vacation?" "Vacation!" answered Armstrong; "vacations are over for me." "You're not going to work for your living at once?" inquired Berkeley. "I'm going to work to-morrow," replied Armstrong emphatically; "I'm going down to New York to enter a law office." "I thought you had some notion of staying here and taking a course of graduate study." "No, sir! The sooner a man gets into harness, the better. I've wasted enough time in the last four years. The longer a man loafs around in this old place, under pretense of reading and that kind of thing, the harder it is for him to take hold." Armstrong was a rosy little man, with...