The Bozeman courier., 1927-01-14
The Best House

were in the dining room2" he asked. he
lowered his voice and lifted an eyebrow.
Ashta wriggled and blushed:
"It was for you l took them" Ana Il Ehen
she had an inspiration Why should IneTe I9it,
be only one person who could 90 the J9uy
and Jolly stuff? Two could play at tna'
aJally and Jolly were there" she said
urbanely. "They were talking. But tney
/ didn't say any Of the things you say Iney
say. They weren't talking about me-hOC d
word"
"Ah?" The King stopped his plane in the
middle of a delicate shaving, and looked up
! She paused, frOwning in the attempt TO re-
] Jolly said. 'Fhe first new felt hat in
/ five years she meant yours, l think.
Then she said, You can draw your own
| conclusions "
The Kings attention drew to a sharp
point. Ashta went on like phOnOgraphL[
"She doesn't look a day older and suc1
a lot Of lovely girls he might have marrleu
twelve times"
The Kings face took on a strangeness
"a dozen times over" corrected Ashta:
! ''That's twelve I should hope. Don't tell
me she didn't understand he was building
that house for her And Alice Allen
is an artist"
Ashtas memory began to fail. She took
a. thoughtful bite ia cooky. -
"Then Jolly said, "I'n just make the
whole darn thing into custard! SO tneTe, 4eT,,
saw board?"
Butte ne remained so long staring at her
=, that she became embarrassed. She placed
the bitten cOOky on the bench, and began
to split a shaving into strips with frOWn-
ing attention. She had reasoned sketcnlIy
that stealing cookies would not be stealing
if she brought her SpO1lS to the King anu
that repeating conversations would not
be unethical if she attributed it to mythical
speakers, Yet now that these things were
! accomplished she found herself uneasy
Was something wrong with her logic! Snt
dropped the shaving and nervouSly put the
back of her wrist in her mOuth-halt-way
to tears.
make the whole darn thing into Gus
tard !" repeated the King haltingly. He rar
= his panty fingers through his Overlong
E hair, making himself look very perplexeC
= Twelve times-gosh!" and then, men
: acinlyy, "D'yOu know what I'm going t
l do to you? I'm going to put you IN the
1 parallelOpipedOn.' Now this was not new
threat. ParallelOpipedOns were another mat
e ter of breakfast table discussion betweeI
them. There was something thrillingly dir
7 about the word, though Ashta knew tn
thing to be as fictiOnal as Jally and Jolly
Fl His long arm made a snatch at her whicl
she eluded, but that load was lifted from
q her heart. Nothing like a scrimmage t
3 make things right He would never scrlm
q make if she had been really bad. That tim
: when she broke his dividers he had sai
. nothing at all. That was terrible!
e Mother says a parallelopipedOn is moth
e ing but geometry y she shrieked as she lie
d around the carpenter bench. And geOmetr
is just lines that don't really exist, so 20
@ can't-Ow! If my glasses get broken in
scrimmage, maybe my eyes VIII De pu
le out. It'n be the third time since | sc
N them. You be careful, mister! owl!
= He carried her kicking around the shOl
,e pausing reflectively before different piece
n of apparatus.
It ''Where-ah, there it is ~ He stopped bt
h fore a crate which had recently held choit
fixtures for one Of his houses on the hi
n It was roOmy and Slated like a chicke
Good and there still remained very con
at Portable nest material of excelsior in Il
Ie bottom: He popped her in, repeating a.
IS stractedly- ''make the whole darn thiI
y into custard!' and went back to his Wor
er Ashta arranged the excelsior comfortabl
III and settled down without argument. Art
ce all there was a certain calm within e
or naraileIopipedon. and she was not sOr
ee to retreat for a while. In spite OF the chez
je, full scrimmage, she was not at ease. Stei
We ing and repeating conversations! Two fea
" full tabOOS violated, and that, too, on I
{: day before Christmas! At least, while
the. parallelOpipedOn, one was safe frC
ut committing other crimes, and while wa
t. ing for release one could finish OH
of cOOky that remained in the sweater pock
he It was broken anyway and unfit to OF
m. to the King. Through the Stats she had
ur good view Of the shop, in. particular
ely Of all her friends, the Kings kingdom
For upon a broad shelf, curiOusly
ed, iusted by pulleys so that it could
it raised nearly to the ceiling or lowered
pre- enough to be exhibited to callers or worl
upon by a mans hands, there lay displa,
ese a tiny hill and meadow, with the dear
be river winding across and cut OH SOU
the as it reached the side of the shelf; bu
Ind did not drip because it was made or ira
1t lucent eellulOid. A road crossed 1t by
ry of a bridge and went on up the hill,
to three of the darlingest autos strung al
md it and one truck that said Long Dista
ing Moving" And there were trees made
he's of gray moss dyed green and glued
'ver little sticks; the grass looked like 81
plush, as indeed it was.
On But this was only the setting fol
greater. Ten tiny houses, none OF t
ms more than six by eight inches, were pli
1Iot at intervals all the way up and down
,aa- la' road. Real houses mind you; not toys
'3y' all. Ashta was not allowed to touch [
= lexcept when the King was by and
q q given special permission. For these '
J5 JuSI the images of his real houses, which
rrof big enough for anybody and were
80 in by real people, about a mile away ac
-sn iio the river on the real hill that beloI
AZ quite really to him. He had designed
. EO. e built them, much of the work being
~ u by his own hands: and once they
we built he rented or sold them. Ashta
esSP an idea that there was magic conne(
: =" between the tiny models and the.
, houses; that an accident TO one OF
. :. TIMES would mean trouble for the co
q so.n III pinding big one, and that everythin
.lTlD oo1l the evolution of the big one .depende
OOnS the little one, like a plant upon a see
anu anu The best of these houses was the
,., nInS that stood square across the end OF
uP0N road where it had to turn on accouI
10, the hill going straight up at that ?
S0U The whole length Of the Kings stree
. up to it like a path. But ever since
could remember its windows had
boarded up, nor could she remember
des- ever having been a FOR SALE or TO
free sign there, as there were on the Oth'
The only thing wrong about it now
- that it was all green with summer W
uenI sui, as the real kingdom was now froze
lnlns s and showed under. She must speak t
GUS King about that. Some time
anu anu she wasn't sleepy. She yawned, {
SVeIIy about in the excelsior. She must RENE
?. to be surprised, she ruminated' drO
aides, when she found those cookies in her
Conf ing on Christmas morning e.
75SM, then she was walking up the road
house. The long distance moving val
ladies in motion, its motor purring along
/. vOur Of her. AS she passed it there were
Isssil- and Jolly on the drivers seat. They /
around at her wagging their heads.
--o-5os- "CoOky thiefr' said Jolly. "Get bac
-VLIes SEs your parallelOpipedonw
MONAS Rut TallV called ont in q more fr