CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington
* * *
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington #4 in our series by Booth Tarkington
Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
Please take a look at the important information in this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and further information is included below. We need your donations.
* * *
Alice Adams
by Booth Tarkington
July, 1997 [Etext #980]
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington ******This file should be named aladm10.txt or aladm10.zip******
Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, aladm11.txt. VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, aladm10a.txt.
Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software
We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a new copy has at least one byte more or less.
Information about Project Gutenberg
(one page)
We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text files per month: or 400 more Etexts in 1996 for a total of 800. If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the total should reach 80 billion Etexts.
The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001 should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
We need your donations more than ever!
All donations should be made to “Project Gutenberg/CMU”: and are tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- Mellon University).
For these and other matters, please mail to:
Project Gutenberg P. O. Box 2782 Champaign, IL 61825
When all other email fails try our Executive Director: Michael S. Hart
We would prefer to send you this information by email (Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
****** If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: [Mac users, do NOT point and click…type]
ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu login: anonymous password: your@login cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] dir [to see files] get or mget [to get files…set bin for zip files] GET INDEX?00.GUT for a list of books and GET NEW GUT for general information and MGET GUT* for newsletters.
**
Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor
** (Three Pages)
***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** Why is this “Small Print!” statement here? You know: lawyers. They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from someone other than us, and even if what’s wrong is not our fault. So, among other things, this “Small Print!” statement disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept this “Small Print!” statement. If you do not, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- tm etexts, is a “public domain” work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at Carnegie-Mellon University (the “Project”). Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext under the Project’s “PROJECT GUTENBERG” trademark.
To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain works. Despite these efforts, the Project’s etexts and any medium they may be on may contain “Defects”. Among other things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described below, [1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that time to the person you received it from. If you received it on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement copy. If you recei
ved it electronically, such person may choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to receive it electronically.
THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU “AS-IS”. NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER “PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm”
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this “Small Print!” and all other references to Project Gutenberg, or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this “small print!” statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (i) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this “Small Print!” statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don’t derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to “Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon University” within the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON’T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money should be paid to “Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon University”.
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
* * *
Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software
* * *
ALICE ADAMS by BOOTH TARKINGTON
CHAPTER I
The patient, an old-fashioned man, thought the nurse made a mistake in keeping both of the windows open, and her sprightly disregard of his protests added something to his hatred of her. Every evening he told her that anybody with ordinary gumption ought to realize that night air was bad for the human frame. “The human frame won’t stand everything, Miss Perry,” he warned her, resentfully. “Even a child, if it had just ordinary gumption, ought to know enough not to let the night air blow on sick people yes, nor well people, either! ‘Keep out of the night air, no matter how well you feel.’ That’s what my mother used to tell me when I was a boy. ‘Keep out of the night air, Virgil,’ she’d say. ‘Keep out of the night air.’”
“I expect probably her mother told her the same thing,” the nurse suggested.
“Of course she did. My grandmother–-“
“Oh, I guess your GRANDmother thought so, Mr. Adams! That was when all this flat central country was swampish and hadn’t been drained off yet. I guess the truth must been the swamp mosquitoes bit people and gave ‘em malaria, especially before they began to put screens in their windows. Well, we got screens in these windows, and no mosquitoes are goin’ to bite us; so just you be a good boy and rest your mind and go to sleep like you need to.”
“Sleep?” he said. “Likely!”
He thought the night air worst of all in April; he hadn’t a doubt it would kill him, he declared. “It’s miraculous what the human frame WILL survive,” he admitted on the last evening of that month. “But you and the doctor ought to both be taught it won’t stand too dang much! You poison a man and poison and poison him with this April night air–-“
“Can’t poison you with much more of it,” Miss Perry interrupted him, indulgently. “To-morrow it’ll be May night air, and I expect that’ll be a lot better for you, don’t you? Now let’s just sober down and be a good boy and get some nice sound sleep.”
She gave him his medicine, and, having set the glass upon the center table, returned to her cot, where, after a still interval, she snored faintly. Upon this, his expression became that of a man goaded out of overpowering weariness into irony.
“Sleep? Oh, CERTAINLY, thank you!”
However, he did sleep intermittently, drowsed between times, and even dreamed; but, forgetting his dreams before he opened his eyes, and having some part of him all the while aware of his discomfort, he believed, as usual, that he lay awake the whole night long. He was conscious of the city as of some single great creature resting fitfully in the dark outside his windows. It lay all round about, in the damp cover of its night cloud of smoke, and tried to keep quiet for a few hours after midnight, but was too powerful a growing thing ever to lie altogether still. Even while it strove to sleep it muttered with digestions of the day before, and these already merged with rumblings of the morrow. “Owl” cars, bringing in last passengers over distant trolley-lines, now and then howled on a curve; faraway metallic stirrings could be heard from factories in the sooty suburbs on the plain outside the city; east, west, and south, switch-engines chugged and snorted on sidings; and everywhere in the air there seemed to be a faint, voluminous hum as of innumerable wires trembling overhead to vibration of machinery underground.
In his youth Adams might have been less resentful of sounds such as these when they interfered with his night’s sleep: even during an illness he might have taken some pride in them as proof of his citizenship in a “live town”; but at fifty-five he merely hated them because they kept him awake. They “pressed on his nerves,” as he put it; and so did almost everything else, for that matter.
He heard the milk-wagon drive into the cross-street beneath his windows and stop at each house. The milkman carried his jars round to the “back porch,” while the horse moved slowly ahead to the gate of the next customer and waited there. “He’s gone into Pollocks’,” Adams thought, following this progress. “I hope it’ll sour on ‘em before breakfast. Delivered the Andersons’. Now he’s getting out ours. Listen to the darn brute! What’s HE care who wants to sleep!” His complaint was of the horse, who casually shifted weight with a clink of steel shoes on the worn brick pavement of the street, and then heartily shook himself in his harness, perhaps to dislodge a fly far ahead of its season. Light had just filmed the windows; and with that the first sparrow woke, chirped instantly, and roused neighbours in the trees of the small yard, including a loud-voiced robin. Vociferations began irregularly, but were soon unanimous.
“Sleep? Dang likely now, ain’t it!”
Night sounds were becoming day sounds; the far-away hooting of freight-engines seemed brisker than an hou
r ago in the dark. A cheerful whistler passed the house, even more careless of sleepers than the milkman’s horse had been; then a group of coloured workmen came by, and although it was impossible to be sure whether they were homeward bound from night-work or on their way to day- work, at least it was certain that they were jocose. Loose, aboriginal laughter preceded them afar, and beat on the air long after they had gone by.
The sick-room night-light, shielded from his eyes by a newspaper propped against a water-pitcher, still showed a thin glimmering that had grown offensive to Adams. In his wandering and enfeebled thoughts, which were much more often imaginings than reasonings, the attempt of the night-light to resist the dawn reminded him of something unpleasant, though he could not discover just what the unpleasant thing was. Here was a puzzle that irritated him the more because he could not solve it, yet always seemed just on the point of a solution. However, he may have lost nothing cheerful by remaining in the dark upon the matter; for if he had been a little sharper in this introspection he might have concluded that the squalor of the night-light, in its seeming effort to show against the forerunning of the sun itself, had stimulated some half-buried perception within him to sketch the painful little synopsis of an autobiography.
In spite of noises without, he drowsed again, not knowing that he did; and when he opened his eyes the nurse was just rising from her cot. He took no pleasure in the sight, it may be said. She exhibited to him a face mismodelled by sleep, and set like a clay face left on its cheek in a hot and dry studio. She was still only in part awake, however, and by the time she had extinguished the night-light and given her patient his tonic, she had recovered enough plasticity. “Well, isn’t that grand! We’ve had another good night,” she said as she departed to dress in the bathroom.
“Yes, you had another!” he retorted, though not until after she had closed the door.
Presently he heard his daughter moving about in her room across the narrow hall, and so knew that she had risen. He hoped she would come in to see him soon, for she was the one thing that didn’t press on his nerves, he felt; though the thought of her hurt him, as, indeed, every thought hurt him. But it was his wife who came first.
Alice Adams Page 1