Hulbert Footner

“ It's like this: when your brain stops working for a moment, and your head is perfectly empty, before it starts off on a new track something rolls around in it like a pea on a hot shovel. I knew a girl at college who at such times always found herself muttering "Fourteen hundred and twenty-nine," and there was another who said "Ichthyosorcerous" over and over. She didn't know what it meant, and neither do I.
My obsession isn't so silly as that; it's Mother Goose rimes. And really, if you stop to think, there's a lot in Mother Goose. There seems to be a rime to fit every mood. ”

“ At night I used to lie in my bunk thinking of the different kinds of fool I had made of myself during the day. I repeated Mother Goose from end to end to keep from thinking of him; but the moment I fell asleep I started to dream of his handsome, good humored, scornful face, and would finally wake up weeping. There's a confession for a self respecting girl to make!
Meanwhile, fancy how I was enjoying that overgrown Thomas' lovemaking! Thomas was like liquid glue. ”

“ It's true Thomas is so soft you could poke your finger through him; but he was a willing slave. He's tall and loose jointed, and he falls over everything or drops it, and the worst thing about him is, no one ever thinks of calling him Tom. He's a Thomas through and through. But I thought he would do as well as anybody.
I've changed my mind. Men are like marshmallows,—aren't they, Dear?—either like they come out of the box, floury, tasteless, and sticky ”

“ One generally keeps an obsession to oneself, it sounds so silly. But mine helped me out of an awful scrape this summer. Wait till you hear!
I WAS almost engaged to Thomas Bunting, you know. No, I didn't care about him especially; but I had my plan of life all doped out, as Corwin says, and had decided not to care for anybody really. You see they all say I'm pretty, and seem to like me,—I don't think so myself ”

“ We always laid at anchor in one of the harbors. The old people remained below—to keep out of the dampness, they said—and there was nothing for me to do but sit with Thomas in the stern. Very often French Straiker would be sitting up in the point of the bow with his back to us, strumming on a guitar very softly. ”

“ Illustration: "My Obsession Is Mother Goose Rimes."
(Miss Erda Hammill and Miss Betty Buhannon in peignoirs and slippers are discovered toasting marshmallows over the open fire in the pink and white bedroom of the latter young woman. The hands of the clock on the mantel above their heads are about to meet at the top of the face. There is no light but that from the fire. Erda speaks.)
MY brother Corwin says it's an obsession—have you ever noticed how boys always sprout a crop of big words with their mustaches? ”

“ After he graduated he went to work for the man, paying him little by little, and everything went along all right until a girl came along—"
"Was she pretty," I asked.
"Yes," he said very low, "lovely enough to make the fellow's head swim; lovely enough to make him forget his gratitude to the man, and everything else in the world!"
Fancy how sweet this was for me to hear! "Go on!" I said breathlessly.
"The man's son was in love with the girl, you see, and the man's heart was set on their getting married. In the circumstances the fellow's duty was plain—hands off! ”

“ He handed me into the dinghy with a face like a polite wooden Indian's. He had his coat over his arm, and as I got in the little pocketbook that was so much in my thoughts slipped out without his seeing it and fell in the bottom of the boat. ”

“ You see, he'd had to work so hard that girls had no part in his life up to that time, and he didn't know how to resist them, He was obliged to see her every day, and little by little he found himself caving in—though he despised himself for it. ”

“ I was sure he carried some girl's picture in his pocketbook, he was so careful of it. How I hated her, whoever she was!
Illustration: I Was So Happy the Harbour Spun Round and round
ONE morning when we lay off Solomons Island Mr. Bunting and Thomas took the little motorboat up to the dockyard to be fixed. Thomas has a perfect genius for getting things out of whack. Mrs. Bunting and I needed some sewing materials, and she asked French Straiker to row me ashore in the dinghy. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1944, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 79 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”