Not only did he wear a
silk sash, and silk stockings, and a broad lace collar, with his
little black velvet suit: he had long brown curls, and often came home
with burrs in them.
Except upon the surface (which was not his own work, but his mother's)
Georgie bore no vivid resemblance to the fabulous little Cedric. The
storied boy's famous "Lean on me, grandfather," would have been
difficult to imagine upon the lips of Georgie. A month after his
ninth birthday anniversary, when the Major gave him his pony, he had
already become acquainted with the toughest boys in various distant
parts of the town, and had convinced them that the toughness of a rich
little boy with long curls might be considered in many respects
superior to their own. He fought them, learning how to go berserk at
a certain point in a fight, bursting into tears of anger, reaching for
rocks, uttering wailed threats of murder and attempting to fulfil
them. Fights often led to intimacies, and he acquired the art of
saying things more exciting than "Don't haf to!" and "Doctor says it
ain't healthy!" Thus, on a summer afternoon, a strange boy, sitting
bored upon the gate-post of the Reverend Malloch Smith, beheld George
Amberson Minafer rapidly approaching on his white pony, and was
impelled by bitterness to shout: "Shoot the ole jackass! Look at the
girly curls! Say, bub, where'd you steal your mother's ole sash!"
"Your sister stole it for me!" Georgie instantly replied, checking
the pony.
Pages:
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40