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THE GRAY ANGELS
THE GRAY ANGELS
BY
NALBRO BARTLEY
Author of “A Woman’s Woman,”
“Paradise Auction,” etc.
BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1920,
By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
THE GRAY ANGELS
CHAPTER I
The younger generation of Birge’s Corners insistedthat nothing exciting had happened since Abigail Clergy’slove affair in 1867, and the older generation retorted thatThurley Precore, who must have been born in Arcadia,was bound to create excitement.
The older generation were content to have time snailover their doorsteps. To their placid minds much hadhappened and was happening to content any one of normalmakeup. Take the Hotel Button—what more didany one want than that two-story establishment with ramshackleoutbuildings and a crazy wooden fence about thewhole of it? Commercial travellers making the townannually never complained about Prince Hawkins’ hospitalityor Mrs. Prince Hawkins’ cooking—never. Andduring one of those comical cold spells, when twenty belowzero was registered on the thermometer, the younger generationwere mighty glad to end a sleigh ride before theHotel Button, and have one of Mrs. Prince Hawkins’oyster suppers—she had been Lena Button, an onlychild, and her working like a slave now ...! Also,the upstairs parlor with its flowered carpet and torturedwalnut furniture and the same square piano on whichLena Button had learned her “Battle of Prague”—theyounger generation never thought of refusing the upstairsparlor in which to have a wind-up dance. None of themcomplained about the slowness of Birge’s Corners—untilthe next day!
As for stores: there was Oyster Jim’s confectionerystore with a balcony overlooking Lake Birge, and herethe younger generation gathered to eat ice cream anddrink cream soda. Of course, Oyster Jim’s store was notlike New York tea-rooms which some of the youngergeneration had visited and drawn unkind comparisonsabout, but the ice cream was homemade, and, if he diddilute the cream, the water from Lake Birge was aboutas good as there was in the state; a chemist had said so.Besides, Oyster Jim’s other specialty was canary birds,yellow-throated songsters in every corner of th