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The Gay Cockade By: Temple Bailey (-1953) |
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THE
GAY COCKADE
BY
TEMPLE BAILEY AUTHOR OF
THE TRUMPETER SWAN,
THE TIN SOLDIER, Etc.
FRONTISPIECE BY
C.E. CHAMBERS [Illustration]
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America COPYRIGHT
1921 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY [Illustration] Manufacturing
Plant
Camden, N.J. Made in U.S.A.
The Gay Cockade For permission to reprint some of the stories in this volume, the author
is indebted to the courtesy of the editors of Harper's Magazine ,
Scribner's Magazine , Collier's Magazine , Ladies' Home Journal ,
Saturday Evening Post , Good Housekeeping , and Harper's Bazar .
Contents THE GAY COCKADE 7 THE HIDDEN LAND 33 WHITE BIRCHES 84 THE EMPEROR'S GHOST 118 THE RED CANDLE 132 RETURNED GOODS 149 BURNED TOAST 165 PETRONELLA 187 THE CANOPY BED 205 SANDWICH JANE 223 LADY CRUSOE 272 A REBELLIOUS GRANDMOTHER 310 WAIT FOR PRINCE CHARMING 327 BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK 351
THE GAY COCKADE
THE GAY COCKADE
From the moment that Jimmie Harding came into the office, he created an
atmosphere. We were a tired lot. Most of us had been in the government
service for years, and had been ground fine in the mills of departmental
monotony. But Jimmie was young, and he wore his youth like a gay cockade. He
flaunted it in our faces, and because we were so tired of our dull and
desiccated selves, we borrowed of him, remorselessly, color and
brightness until, gradually, in the light of his reflected glory, we
seemed a little younger, a little less tired, a little less petrified. In his gay and gallant youth there was, however, a quality which partook
of earlier times. He should, we felt, have worn a feather in his
cap and a cloak instead of his Norfolk coat. He walked with a little
swagger, and stood with his hand on his hip, as if his palm pressed the
hilt of his sword. If he ever fell in love, we told one another, he
would, without a doubt, sing serenades and apostrophize the moon. He did fall in love before he had been with us a year. His love affair
was a romance for the whole office. He came among us every morning
glorified; he left us in the afternoon as a knight enters upon a quest. He told us about the girl. We pictured her perfectly before we saw her,
as a little thing, with a mop of curled brown hair; an oval face,
pearl tinted; wide, blue eyes. He dwelt on all her small
perfections the brows that swept across her forehead in a thin black
line, the transparency of her slender hands, the straight set of her
head on her shoulders, the slight halt in her speech like that of an
enchanting child. Yet she was not in the least a child. "She holds me up to my best, Miss
Standish," Jimmie told me; "she says I can write." We knew that Jimmie had written a few things, gay little poems that he
showed us now and then in the magazines. But we had not taken them at
all seriously. Indeed, Jimmie had not taken them seriously himself. But now he took them seriously. "Elise says that I can do great things.
That I must get out of the Department." To the rest of us, getting out of the government service would have
seemed a mad adventure... Continue reading book >>
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Literature |
Short stories |
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