The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1919-10-03
CHAPTER ~.

4
and those citizens who yearned for his
taking down often said: Just wait till
he has to 90 TO public school; then
| he'll get itT' But at twelve George
was sent to q private school In the
town, and there came from this small
and independent institution no report,
or even rumor. of Georges getting
anything that he was thought to de-
serve; therefore the yearning still per-
sisted. though growing gaunt with
feeding upon itself.
The yearners were still yearning
when George at sixteen was sent
away to great prep school,"
Now" they said brightly. hell get
| it! He'll find himself among boys just
as important in their home town as he
! is, and they'll knock the stuffing out
| of him when he puts on his airs with
Them Oh, but that would be worth
something to see!' They were mis-
taken, it appeared, for when George
returned few months later he still
seemed to have the same stuffing. He
had been deported by the authorities,
the offense being stated as ''insOlence
and profanity" in fact, he had given
the principal of the school instruc-
| tons almost identical with those for
merly objected to by the Rev. MallOch
Smith.
But he had not got his come-upance,
and those who counted upon 1t were
embittered by his appearance upon
the downtown streets driving a dog
cart at a criminal speed. making pc
| ha
and behaving himself as if he "owned
| the earth"
! When Mr.. George ANDERSON Nina
! fer came home for the holidays at
| Christmastide in his sophomore year,
probably no great change had taken
place inside him, but his exterior was
visibly altered. Nothing about him
encouraged any hope that he had re-
ceived his come-upance on the con-
trary, the yearners for that stroke of
| justice must yearn even more itch
ingly: the gilded youths manner had
become polite, but his politeness was
of q kind which democratic people
found hard to bear.
Cards were out for ball In his
honor, and this pageant of the ten
| WIS Hclu III Tic DdilTOOII VI TIE
Anderson mansion the night after his
arrival. 1t was, as Mrs. Henry Frank
lin Foster said Of Isabel's wedding, "a
big Amberson-style thing" All "old
citizens" recognized as gentry received
cards. and of course so did their dane
ing descendants.
The orchestra and the caterer were
brought from away, I'm the Anderson
manner. though this was really ges-
ture-perhaps one more of habit than
Of ostentation-fOr servitors of gayety
as proficient as these importationS
| were nowadays to be found in the
town. 1t was the last of the great,
long-remembered dances that every
body talked about"-there were get
ting to be so many people in town that
no later than the next year there were
too many for Everybody" TO hear Of
even such ball as the Ambersons'.
| George, white-gloved, with a garde-
mia In his buttonhole. stood with his
mother and the Major, empowered in
the big red-and-gold drawing room
| downstairs. to receive" the guests !;
and, standing thus together. the trio
| offered picturesque example of good
looks persistent through three gene
rations. The Major. his daughter and
| his grandson were OF type all Am
| berson: tall, straight and regular. with
dark eyes, short noses, good chins |;
and the grandfather's expression. no
less than the grandson's, was one Of
| family amused condescension. There
was difference, however. The grand
sons unlined young face had nothing
| to offer except this condescension !;
the grandfather's had other things to
say. 1t was a handsome. worldly old
face. conscious of its Importance. but
persuasive rather than arrogant, and
not without tokens of sufferings with
stood. The Majors short white hair
was parted in the middle, like his
grandson's, and in all he stood as
| briskly equipped to the fashion as the
| exquisite young George.
Isabel, standing between her father
| and her son, caused vague amaze
ment in the mind of the latter. Her
age. just under forty. was for George
thought of something as remote as
the moons OF Jupiter: he could not
possibly have conceived such an age
ever coming to be his own: five years
was the limit OF his thinking In time.
Five years ago he had been a child
not yet fourteen: and those five years
were an abyss. Five years hence he
would be almost twenty-four; what
the girls he knew called lone Of the
older men," He could imagine himself
at twenty-four. hut beyond that his
powers staggered and refused the
task. He saw little essential differ
ence between thirty-eight and eighty
eight, and his mother was to him not
a woman but wholly q mother. The
woman, Isabel. was stranger to her
son; as completely a stranger as if
he had never in his life seen her or
heard her voice. And it was tonight.
while he stood with her, receiving"
that he caught q disquieting glimpse
of this stranger whom he thus fleet
ingly encountered for the first time.
Youth cannot imagine romance
apart from youth. That is why the
roles Of the heroes and heroines OF
plays are given by the managers to
the most youthful actors they can find