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Options-Part20_O.Henry(1862-1910)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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duffer wasn't rather wise!

Chloe had a father, the Reverend Homer Greene, and an intermittent



mother, who sometimes palely presided over a twilight teapot. The

Reverend Homer was a burr-like man with a life-work. He was writing a



concordance to the Scriptures, and had arrived as far as Kings.

Being, presumably, a suitor for his daughter's hand, I was timber for



his literary outpourings. I had the family tree of Israel drilled

into my head until I used to cry aloud in my sleep: "And Aminadab



begat Jay Eye See," and so forth, until he had tackled another book.

I once made a calculation that the Reverend Homer's concordance would



be worked up as far as the Seven Vials mentioned in Revelations about

the third day after they were opened.



Louis Devoe, as well as I, was a visitor and an intimate friend of the

Greenes. It was there I met him the oftenest, and a more agreeable'



man or a more accomplished I have never hated in my life.

Luckily or unfortunately, I came to be accepted as a Boy. My



appearance was youthful, and I suppose I had that pleading and

homeless air that always draws the motherliness that is in women and



the cursed theories and hobbies of pater-familiases.

Chloe called me "Tommy," and made sisterly fun of my attempts to woo



her. With Devoe she was vastly more reserved. He was the man of

romance, one to stir her imagination and deepest feelings had her



fancy leaned toward him. I was closer to her, but standing in no

glamour; I had the task before me of winning her in what seems to me



the American way of fighting--with cleanness and pluck and everyday

devotion to break away the barriers of friendship that divided us, and



to take her, if I could, between sunrise and dark, abetted by neither

moonlight nor music nor foreign wiles.



Chloe gave no sign of bestowing her blithe affections upon either of

us. But one day she let out to me an inkling of what she preferred in



a man. It was tremendously interesting to me, but not illuminating as

to its application. I had been tormenting her for the dozenth time



with the statement and catalogue of my sentiments toward her.

"Tommy," said she, "I don't want a man to show his love for me by



leading an army against another country and blowing people off the

earth with cannons."



"If you mean that the opposite way," I answered, "as they say women

do, I'll see what I can do. The papers are full of this diplomatic



row in Russia. My people know some big people in Washington who are

right next to the army people, and I could get an artillery commission



and--"

"I'm not that way," interrupted Chloe. "I mean what I say. It isn't



the big things that are done in the world, Tommy, that count with a

woman. When the knights were riding abroad in their armor to slay



dragons, many a stay-at-home page won a lonesome lady's hand by being

on the spot to pick up her glove and be quick with her cloak when the



wind blew. The man I am to like best, whoever he shall be, must show

his love in little ways. He must never forget, after hearing it once,



that I do not like to have any one walk at my left side; that I detest

bright-colored neckties; that I prefer to sit with my back to a light;



that I like candied violets; that I must not be talked to when I am

looking at the moonlight shining on water, and that I very, very often



long for dates stuffed with English walnuts."

"Frivolity," I said, with a frown. "Any well-trained servant would be



equal to such details."

"And he must remember," went on Chloe, to remind me of what I want



when I do not know, myself, what I want."

"You're rising in the scale," I said. "What you seem to need is a



first-class clairvoyant."

"And if I say that I am dying to hear a Beethoven sonata, and stamp my



foot when I say it, he must know by that that what my soul craves is

salted almonds; and he will have them ready in his pocket."



"Now," said I, "I am at a loss. I do not know whether your soul's

affinity is to be an impresario or a fancy grocer."



Chole turned her pearly smile upon me.

"Take less than half of what I said as a jest," she went on. "And



don't think too lightly of the little things, Boy. Be a paladin if

you must, but don't let it show on you. Most women are only very big



children, and most men are only very little ones. Please us; don't




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