You just watch your desert
stretches or your meanest grazin' meadows turn into fairyland. I say, Mrs.
Gaylor, have you ever read a mighty fine book--old but good and fresh as
to-morrow's bread--called _The Arabian Nights?_"
"I don't know. I dare say I read some of it when I was a little girl,"
replied Carmen, wondering what Nick was leading up to. "It's for children,
isn't it?"
"I reckon it's for every one with the right stuff in 'em," said Nick.
"Anyhow, I haven't grown up enough to get beyond it. I don't mean ever to
turn the boy that lives inside of me out-of-doors. If I ever do anything
to make him so mad that he quits, I'll be finished--dried up. That book,
_The Arabian Nights_, has got a dead clinch on me. You know, when I run
into Bakersfield, I like to have a browse in the bookstores. It sort of
rests me, and seein' the pictures in that book made me buy it--a birthday
present for my affectionate self----"
"Your birthday!" Carmen broke in, tired of this book talk, but not tired
of anything that concerned him. "You never told me. That was bad of you.
How old, Nick? I'm not sure to a year or so."
"Twenty-nine. Quite some age, isn't it? But there's lots I want to do
before I'm old. I don't know, though, as I mean ever to be old.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33