Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
The Rising Tide
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066167790
Table of Contents
ILLUSTRATIONS
| Frederica | Frontispiece | |
| "Let Me Explain It," Frederica's Man of Business Said … and Proceeded to Put the Project into Words of Three Letters | Facing p. | 22 |
| Howard Did Not Notice Her Preoccupation. He was Pouring Out His Plans, Laura Punctuating All He Said with Cries of Admiration and Envy | " | 108 |
| "Did You See That Fish Jump?" He Asked. Frederica Gave a Disgusted Grunt | " | 140 |
THE RISING TIDE
THE RISING TIDE
CHAPTER I
A single car-track ran through Payton Street, and over it, once in a while, a small car jogged along, drawn by two mules. Thirty years ago Payton Street had been shocked by the intrusion upon its gentility of a thing so noisy and vulgar as a street-car; but now, when the rest of the town was shuttled with trolleys and clamorous with speed, it seemed to itself an oasis of silence. Its gentility had ebbed long ago. The big houses, standing a little back from the sidewalk, were given over to lodgers or small businesses. Indeed, the Paytons were the only people left who belonged to Payton Street's past—and there was a barber shop next door to them, and a livery-stable across the street.
"Rather different from the time when your dear father brought me here, a bride," Mrs. Payton used to say, sighing.
Her daughter agreed, dryly: "I hope so! Certainly nobody would live on Payton Street now, if they could afford to buy a lot in the cemetery."
Yet the Paytons, who could have bought several lots in the cemetery (or over on the Hill, either, which was where they belonged!), did not leave the old house—a big, brownstone cube, with a belvedere on top of it that looked like a bird-cage. The yard in front of the house was so shaded by ailanthus-trees that grass refused to grow there, and an iron dog, guarding the patch of bare earth, was spotted with mold.
The street was very quiet—except when the barber's children squabbled shrilly, or Baker's livery-stable sent out a few funeral hacks, or when, from a barred window in the ell of the Payton house, there came a noisy laugh. And always, on the half-hour, the two mules went tinkling along, their neat little feet cupping down over the cobblestones, and their trace-chains swinging and sagging about their heels. The conductor on the car had been on the route so long that he knew many of his patrons, and nodded to them in a friendly way, and said it was a good day, or too cold for the season; occasionally he imparted information which he thought might be of interest to them.
On this October afternoon of brown fog and occasional dashes of rain he enlightened a lady with a vaguely sweet face, who signaled him to stop at No. 15.
"Miss Payton's out," he said, pulling