Unit 12 Spring Time on the Menu
By O. Henry
It was a day in March. (Never, never begin a story this way when you write one. No opening could possibly be worse. There is no imagination in it. it is flat and dry. But we can allow it here because the following paragraph which should have started the story is too wild and impossible to be thrown into the face of the reader without preparation.)
Sarah was crying over the menu....(To explain this, you may guess that oysters were not listed, or that she had ordered onions, or that she had just come from the cinema. But all your guesses are wrong. And you will please let the story continue.)
The gentleman who said that the world was an oyster which he would open with his sword became more famous than he deserved. It is not difficult to open an oyster with a sword. But did you ever notice anyone try to open it with a typewriter?
Sarah had managed to open the world a little with her typewriter. That was her work--- typing. She did copy typing and worked long not in an office. The greatest success of Sarah's battle with the world was the arrangement that she made with Schulenburg's Home Restaurant. The restaurant was next door to the old red brick building in which she had a room. One evening, after dining at the Shuldonburg Sarah took the menu away with her. It was written in almost unreadable handwriting, neither English nor German. And it was so difficult to understand that if you were not careful you began with the sweet and end in the soup at the day of the week. The next day, Sarah showed Schulenburg a beautifully type-written menu with the food listed in right and proper places from the beginning to the words at the bottom, not responsible for codes and umbrellas. Shouldonburg was very pleased. Before Sarah left him, he had made an agreement with her. She would provide type-written menus for the 21 tables in the restaurant. A new one for each day's dinner, and new ones for breakfast and lunch as often as there are changes in the food or as neatness made necessary. In return for this, Schulenburg would send three meals a day to Sarah's room and send her also each afternoon a list in pencil of the foods that were planned for Schulenburg's customers on the next day. Both were satisfied with the agreement. Those who ate at Schulenburg's now know what the food they were eating was called even if its nature sometimes confused them. And Sarah had food during a cold winter which was the main thing for her.
When the spring month arrived, it was not spring. Spring comes when it comes. The frozen sonws of January still lay hard outside. Men and streets with their musical instruments still played "In the Good Old Summertime" with expression and determination with which they had played it in December. The city was still in the power of winter.
One afternoon, Sarah was shaking with cold in her bedroom. She had no work to do except type Schulenburg's menu. Sarah sat in her rocking chair and looked out of the window. The month was a spring month and kept crying to her:"Spring time is here Sarah, spring time is here I tell you. You've got a neat figure year Sarah and a nice spring figure year. Why do you look out of the window so sadly?" Sarah's room was at the back of the house. Looking out of the window, she could see the windowless brick wall of the box factory in the next street. But she thought of grassy walks and trees and bushes and roses. In the summer of last year, Sarah had gone into the country and fallen in love with a farmer. (In writing a story, never go backwards like this. It is bad art and destroys interest. Let it go forwards)
Sarah stayed two weeks at Sunnybrook Farm. There she learned to love old farmer Franklin's son Walter. Farmers have been loved and married in last time. But young Walter was a modern farmer. He even had telephone in the building where he milked the cows. It was all a grassy walk that Walter had won her. And together they had sat and he had put dandelions in her hair. He has praised the effect of the yellow flowers against her brown hair. And she had left the flowers there and walked back to the house swinging her hat in her hands. They planned to marry in the spring. "At the first science of spring." Walter said. And Sarah came back to the city to hit the typewriter keys. A knock on the door drove away Sarah's dreams of the happy day. A waiter had brought the rough pencil list of the home restaurant's next-day's food written in old Schulenburgs' pointed handwriting. Sarah sat down at her typewriter and slipped the card beneath the roller. She was a quick worker. Generally, in an hour and a half, the twenty-one cards were typed and ready. Today, there are more changes on the menu that usual. The soup were lighter. There were changes in the meat dish. The spirit of Spring filled the whole list. Sarah's fingers danced over the typewriter like little flies above summer stream. Down through the courses she worked giving the name of each dish its proper position according to its length with watchful eye. Just above the sweets came the list of vegetables.
And then, Sarah was crying over the menu. Tears from the depth of the hopelessness rose in her heart and filled her eyes. Down went here head on the little typewriter stand. For she had received no letter from Walter in two weeks and the next thing on the menu was dandelions. Dandelions with some kind of egg, but never mind the egg. Dandelions with whose golden flowers Walter had decorated the hair of his queen of love and future wife. Dandelions, the messages of spring, reminder of her happiest days. But what a magical thing spring is! Into the great cold city of stone and iron, a message had to be sent. There was none to bring it except the little messenger of the fields with its green tough coat---the dandelion, the lion's tooth as the French called him. "When it is in flower, he would help with love making, twisted in my lady's nut-brown hair. When young, before it has flowers, he goes into the boiling pot."
In a short time, Sarah force back her tears. The cards must be typed. But still, in a fade golden light from her dandelion dream, she fingered the typewriter keys absently for a little while her mind and heart on the country walk with her young farmer. But soon she come back to the stone streets of Manhattan and the typewriter begun to jump. At six o'clock, the waiter brought her dinner, and carried away the menus. While Sarah ate, she put the dish of dandelion sadly to one side, just as its bright flower had been changed into a dark, unimportant vegetable, so her summer hopes had died.
At 7:30, the two people from the next room began to quarrel; he gas light went a little lower; someone started to unload coal; cats could be heard from the back fences. By these signs, Sarah knew that it was the time for her to read. She got her book settled, her feet on the trunk, and began. The front door bell rang, the lady down stairs answered it, Sarah stopped reading and listened. (Oh yes, you would just as she did). And then a strong voice was heard at the hall below.
And Sarah jumped for the door leaving the book on the floor. (You have guessed it, She reached at the top of the stairs, just as her farmer came rushing up, and held her tightly in his arms. )
"Why haven't you written, oh why?" Cried Sarah.
"New York is a rather large town," said Walter Franklin, "I came in a week ago to your old address, I have found that you've had gone away on the Thursday, the police and I had hunted for you ever since."
"I wrote you," Said Sarah with feeling.
"Never got it."
"Then how did you find me?"
The young farmer smiled a spring smile, "I went into the home restaurant next door this evening," said he, "I don't care who knows it, I'd like a dish of some kind of greens at this time of the year. I ran my eyes down that nice type-written menu looking for something like that. When i got to the vegetables, I knocked my chair over, and shouted for the owner. He told me where you lived."
"why?"
"I know that capital double U above the line that your typewriter makes anywhere in the world." Said Franklin. The young man pulled a menu from his pocket, and pointed to a line. Sarah recognized the first card she had typed that afternoon. there was still a mark at the upper right hand corner where a tear had fallen, but over the spot, where one should have read the name of a certain plant, the memory of their golden flowers had caused her fingers to strike strange keys. Between two vegetables listed on the menu was the description: Dearest Walter with heart boiled egg. |