Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
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F
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<p>She climbed by log steps to a narrow frame back porch littered with<br />
parts of a broken cream-separator. She told herself that she was simple and friendly in going to the back door instead of the front, and it was with gaiety that she knocked on the ill-jointed screen door, which flapped dismally in response.
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<p>"Girl like her, she's darn particular about her looks. I'm a sloppy hound. Used to be snappier about my clothes when I was in high school. Getting lazy—too much like Mac. Think of me sleeping in my clothes last night!"
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<p>That Ben Sittka whom an hour ago he had cajoled as a promising child he now admired for the sniffing calmness with which he was demanding, "Want a red or gray tube?"
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<p>The second Good Samaritan knew that one of the wires in the distributor must be detached and, though she assured him that she had inspected them, he looked pityingly at her smart sports-suit, said, "Well, I'll just take a look," and removed the distributor cover. He also scratched his head, felt of the fuses under the cowl, scratched his cheek, poked a finger at the carburetor, rubbed his ear, said, "Well, uh——" looked to see if there was water and gas, sighed, "Can't just seem to find out what's the trouble," shot at his own car, and escaped.
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<p>"I know. Of course. He probably works hard in a garage, and is terribly nice to his mother and sisters at home. I mean—— I wouldn't want the dear lamb to be a devoted knight, though. Too thankless a job."
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<p>He fastened the tow-rope to the rear axle of his car, to the front of hers. "Now will you be ready to put on all your power as I begin to pull?" he said casually, rather respectfully.
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<p>"Come from New York, eh? Quite a ways from home, all right. Father in business there?"
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<p>If there had been a war, Milt would probably have been in it—rather casual, clearing his throat, reckoning and guessing that maybe his men might try going over and taking that hill ... then taking it. But all of this history concerns the year just before America spoke to Germany; and in this town buried among the cornfields and the wheat, men still thought more about the price of grain than about the souls of nations.
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<p>She waded down the road toward an old wood-lot. At first she tried to keep dry, but she gave it up, and there was pleasure in being defiantly dirty. She tramped straight through puddles; she wallowed in mud. In the wood-lot was long grass which soaked her stockings till her ankles felt itchy. Claire had never expected to be so very intimate with a brush-pile. She became so. As though she were a pioneer woman who had been toiling here for years, she came to know the brush stick by stick—the long valuable branch that she could never quite get out from under the others; the thorny bough that pricked her hands every time she tried to reach the curious bundle of switches.
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<p>He heartily shook hands with her father, and he droned, "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Uh."
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<p>She had learned that what had seemed rudeness in garage men and hotel clerks was often a resentful reflection of her own Eastern attitude that she was necessarily superior to a race she had been trained to call "common people." If she spoke up frankly, they made her one of their own, and gave her companionable aid.
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<p>Adolph Zolzac clumped out to the highroad behind his vast, rolling-flanked horses—so much cleaner and better fed than his wisp of a wife. Claire followed him, and in her heart she committed murder and was glad of it. While Mr. Boltwood looked out with mild wonder at Claire's new friend, Zolzac hitched his team to the axle. It did not seem possible that two horses could pull out the car where seventy horsepower had fainted. But, easily, yawning and thinking about dinner, the horses drew the wheels up on the mud-bank, out of the hole and
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<p>"Now that's enough-plenty out of you, <i>seien die</i> boots <i>verdammt</i>, and <i>mach' dass du fort gehst</i>—muddy boots, hell!—put <i>mal ein</i> egg in <i>die</i> boots and beat it, <i>verleicht</i> maybe I'll by golly arrest you myself, <i>weiss du</i>! I'm a special deputy sheriff."
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<p>She was in a haze, conscious only of her father's hand fondling hers. She heard a quick pit-pit-pit-pit behind them. Car going to pass? She'd have to let it go by. She'd concentrate on finding something she could——
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<p>There were two factions in Schoenstrom: the retired farmers who said that German was a good enough language for anybody, and that taxes for schools and sidewalks were yes something crazy; and the group who stated that a pig-pen is a fine place, but only for pigs. To this second, revolutionary wing belonged a few of the first generation, most of the second, and all of the third; and its leader was Milt Daggett. He did not talk much, normally, but when he thought things ought to be done, he was as annoying as a machine-gun test in the lot next to a Quaker meeting.
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<p>"You have a punk time, don't you, countess? Like to beat it to Minneapolis with me?"
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<p>"Oh, he just happened to, I suppose," hemmed her father.
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<p>But suppose the engine overheated, ran out of water? Anxiety twanged at her nerves. And the deep distinctive ruts were changing to a complex pattern, like the rails in a city switchyard. She picked out the track of the one motor car that had been through here recently. It was marked with the swastika tread of the rear tires. That track was her friend; she knew and loved the driver of a car she had never seen in her life.
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<p>It did not seem possible that Claire's body could be nagged into going on any longer. Her muscles were relaxed, her nerves frayed. But the moment the Gomez started, she discovered that magic change which every long-distance motorist knows. Instantly she was alert, seemingly able to drive forever. The pilot's instinct ruled her; gave her tireless eyes and sturdy hands. Surely she had never been weary; never would be, so long as it was hers to keep the car going.
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