Maggie - A Girl of the Streets and Other Writings About New York by Stephen Crane

Author:Stephen Crane [Crane, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9781593082482
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics
Published: 1893-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

XIV

THE LITTLE OLD WOMAN arose early and bustled in the preparation of breakfast. At times she looked anxiously at the clock. An hour before her son should leave for work she went to his room and called him in the usual tone of sharpness, “George! George!”

A sleepy growl came to her.

“Come, come it’s time t’ git up,” she continued. “Come now, git right up!”

Later she went again to the door. “George, are yeh gittin’ up?”

“Huh?”

“Are yeh gittin’ up?”

“Yes, I’ll git right up!” He had introduced a valor into his voice which she detected to be false. She went to his bedside and took him by the shoulder. “George—George—git up!”

From the mist-lands of sleep he began to protest incoherently. “Oh, le’ me be, won’ yeh? ’M sleepy!”

She continued to shake him, “Well, it’s time t’ git up. Come—come—come on, now.”

Her voice, shrill with annoyance, pierced his ears in a slender, piping thread of sound. He turned over on the pillow to bury his head in his arms. When he expostulated, his tones came half-smothered. “Oh le’ me be, can’t yeh? There’s plenty ’a time! Jest fer ten minutes! ’M sleepy!”

She was implacable. “No, yeh must git up now! Yeh ain’t got more’n time enough t’ eat yer breakfast an’ git t’ work.”

Eventually he arose, sullen and grumbling. Later he came to his breakfast, blinking his dry eyelids, his stiffened features set in a mechanical scowl.

Each morning his mother went to his room, and fought a battle to arouse him. She was like a soldier. Despite his pleadings, his threats, she remained at her post, imperturbable and unyielding. These affairs assumed large proportions in his life. Sometimes he grew beside himself with a bland, unformulated wrath. The whole thing was a consummate imposition. He felt that he was being cheated of his sleep. It was an injustice to compel him to arise morning after morning with bitter regularity, before the sleep-gods had at all loosened their grasp. He hated that unknown force which directed his life.

One morning he swore a tangled mass of oaths, aimed into the air, as if the injustice poised there. His mother flinched at first; then her mouth set in the little straight line. She saw that the momentous occasion had come. It was the time of the critical battle. She turned upon him valorously. “Stop your swearin‘, George Kelcey. I won’t have yeh talk so before me! I won’t have it! Stop this minute! Not another word! Do yeh think I’ll allow yeh t’ swear b’fore me like that? Not another word! I won’t have it! I declare I won’t have it another minute! ”

At first her projected words had slid from his mind as if striking against ice, but at last he heeded her. His face grew sour with passion and misery. He spoke in tones dark with dislike. “Th’ ‘ell yeh won’t? Whatter yeh goin’ t’ do ’bout it?” Then, as if he considered that he had not been sufficiently impressive, he arose and slowly walked over to her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.