Search -
The Novels and Stories of Frank R. Stockton ...: The hundredth man
The Novels and Stories of Frank R Stockton The hundredth man Author:Frank Richard Stockton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV On the day after Gay Armatt's birthday Mr. Stratford went fishing near the foot of the mountains, and he brought back a very fair string of trout ;... more » but on the following day, which was Thursday, he drove over to Mrs. Justin's place, and found the two ladies engaged in setting up a target on the lawn, where they were going to practice archery. He received a warm welcome, for Mrs. Justin knew him as a good bowman, and he speedily took the arrangement of the target and the stringing of the bows into his own hands. It was not long before he found that the course of studies at Miss Armatt's college had not included archery, and that, although she had a good eye and a strong arm, she knew but little of the use of the bow and arrow. Mrs. Justin was an excellent archer, and needed no assistance, and although Stratford took his shots when his turn came, he gave the most of his lime to the tuition of Miss Armatt. He informed her —and in a manner which seemed as if he were telling her something she had once known and now forgotten — how she m ust stand, how she must throw back her shoulders and advance her left foot, how she must draw the feathered end of the arrow back to her little ear, how she must set her eye upon the target and hermind upon the arrow. Once he found it necessary to place her fingers properly around the string. But whatever he did and whatever he told her was done and said with such a courteous, almost deferential manner that the relation of teacher to pupil scarcely suggested itself. It seemed rather as if Gay and Mr. Stratford were partners in a match against Mrs. Justin, and that they were helping each other. When he had gone, Gay Armatt expressed a high opinion of Mr. Stratford. He seemed to know so much, and was so kind and gentle and pleasant in h...« less