Mary Heaton Vorse

“ When bidden by her nephew to arise and call upon the fairest flower in New England, Miss Titherington had done so without a murmur. She was probably the one person of her class in all Greenhurst who could have made such advances to lovely Rose Nelligan, because Rose had had her heart broken when, on leaving high-school, she found that her friends belonging to the "real American families" faded from her. Rose had taken this defection of her friends deeply to heart, the wound had never healed, and this was why Gideon found her shy and hard to find as any of the lovely wood flowers she resembled. ”

“ It was here that Town and Manor parted and went their separate ways. Just as the theory of Adolph as the Disintegrator, as the prophet of the future, was flowering in the minds of Amelia Titherington and her friends, Miss Zella Allen and her friends began muttering about him in sinister fashion. They could stand for dynamite being prepared for a distant capitalist, but not for their hens being prepared for a dynamiter's dinner. ”

“ On their way across the common were two ladies; one was Miss Amelia Titherington, and she clasped in her hand a sheaf of leaflets which even from that distance her nephew recognized as tracts. She was president of the Temperance Society, and had been informed no less than seven times by telephone of the event. She was accompanied by Miss Rose Nelligan, that flower-like person whom Howes had discovered in his excursions into democracy. Rose Nelligan had the freshness of a hawthorn-tree in full bloom, and her eyes were like blue-gray sapphires, and they were edged with dark rims ”

“ Men who took an interest in him were many of them singularly good and gentle; many of them had lived lives as unadventurous as that of the average woman. It inflamed their imaginations to meet one who had stepped out of the frame of civilization as they knew it, who didn't need the support of the accustomed run of things to keep him alive. They enjoyed being treated by Adolph as though they were the robber barons of industry. They did not know that in conversation with Gideon Howes Adolph asked:
"What do those old hens want o' me? What makes 'em come down here?" ”

“ Thus was planted the seed of the flower that turned Adolph Heffelinger from a drunken young anarchist into a prophet.
Although a small country town, Culture walked through the streets of Greenhurst unchecked. There were more cultured men per hundred inhabitants—that is, if you include the small and exclusive summer colony from Boston—than one would find per thousand in the average town of its size. Each one of these intelligent men heard within the week that Gideon Howes considered Adolph Heffelinger a charming fellow. Greenhurst was going to run no risk of harboring an angel unawares ”

“ It was not long after this that Miss Amelia asked her nephew, as he came in for his cup of tea:
"Gideon, my dear, have you found out, as I asked you, if that drunken young anarchist is lurking around these woods?"
"If he is," said one of the three ladies taking tea with Miss Amelia, "I sha'n't sleep in my bed nights."
"Dear aunt," said Gideon, "I wish you wouldn't call my friend, Adolph Heffelinger, a drunken anarchist. He's a very charming young fellow, most amusing and intelligent. It is true that he's camping temporarily down in Cornwall woods." ”

“ Gideon Howes," said Rose, her black brows publishing her displeasure, "Adolph's going to be just as much of an anarchist when he's married to me as he ever was."
"Sure," said Gideon, "sure. Talk's free. You can keep on talking, Adolph. You will be a 'quaint character' when you get old enough." ”

“ The unreasonableness of the Temperance Society proved again how little fitted are women for the ballot, and how no arguments can avail; they do not understand politics. In vain the husbands pointed out the pain Richardson's wife and daughter would feel, and that election was nearing, and in vain they showed what a laughing-stock among its less temperate neighbors Greenhurst would seem. ”

“ As long as the memory of living man could reach, those who got drunk did so in solitude or in the privacy of the back room of the Allen House. Here they were put to bed and kept quiet by Si Allen until they sobered up. ”