Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Old Gray Homestead by Frances Parkinson Keyes
page 57 of 237 (24%)
It was almost ten o'clock Saturday morning when I waked up, and of course
I felt like a fool again. But that is getting to be such a habitual state
with me, that I don't need to keep wasting paper by mentioning it. By the
time I was washed and shaved and dressed, Mr. Stevens had been to his
office, transacted all the business necessary for the day, and was ready
to see sights again. "It doesn't take long to do things when you get the
hang of hustling," he said, referring to his own transactions; "come
along. We've got a couple of hours before lunch, and then we'll take the
2.14 train down to my farm." So we shot downstairs about forty flights to
the second in the elevator, hailed a passing taxicab, jumped in, and were
tearing out Riverside Drive--much too fast to see anything--in no time.
We had "lunch" at a big restaurant called Delmonico's, a great deal to
eat and not half enough time to eat it in, then took another taxi and
made our train by catching on to the last car.

I don't need to tell you about the farm, because you know all about that
already. I never left Jenkins's heels one second, and he said I was much
more of a nuisance than Thomas, because Thomas caught on to things
naturally, and I asked questions all the time. I don't believe I'll see
anything in Europe to beat that place. When we get to milking our cows,
and separating our cream, and doing our cleaning by electricity, it'll be
something like, won't it?

We took a seven o'clock train back to New York this morning, so that Mr.
Stevens could get to his office by nine, and he had me go with him and
wait around until he was at leisure again. I certainly thought the
stenographers' fingers would fly off, and all the office boys moved with
a hop, skip, and jump; really, the slowest things in the rooms were the
electric fans whizzing around. By half-past eleven Mr. Stevens had
dictated about two hundred and fifty letters, sold several million
DigitalOcean Referral Badge