The Dancing Girls
By Edna Ferber
()
About this ebook
Edna Ferber
Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Edna Ferber (1885-1968) was a novelist, short-story writer, and playwright whose work served as the inspiration for numerous Broadway plays and Hollywood films, including Show Boat, Cimarron, Giant, Saratoga Trunk, and Ice Palace. She co-wrote the plays The Royal Family, Dinner at Eight, and Stage Door with George S. Kaufman and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel So Big.
Read more from Edna Ferber
Roast Beef, Medium (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Big Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Basket Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Show Boat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Big Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Best Humorous Writings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFanny Herself: Autobiographical Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSo Big Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Half Portions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Big (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsButtered Side Down Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShow Boat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPersonality Plus: Some Experiences of Emma McChesney And Her Son, Jack Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Dancing Girls
Titles in the series (100)
Sota ja rauha 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSota ja rauha 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSota ja rauha 4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMay Night, or the Drowned Maiden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nose Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnsa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSota ja rauha 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiv Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarit Skjölte Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBaseball Joe of the Silver Stars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollected Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDr. Ox's Experiment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Inspector General Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRedgauntlet II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKonovalov Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDead Souls Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRedgauntlet I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQuentin Durward Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeleena Wrede Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Day of a Condemned Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIvanhoe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mantle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Prisoner in the Caucassus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fair at Sorochyntsi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMartin Paz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOorlog en vrede 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Red and the Black Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPikku haltijoita Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPaavo Nissinen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDe schat van Heer Arne Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
The Cow Puncher Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Motor Scout A Story of Adventure in South America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTracer, Inc.: A Mystery Introducing the Tracer Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUntamed: WILD HORSES, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ragged Edge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUntamed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsProse Fancies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSteve and the Steam Engine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lookout Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBroken Hearts Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Will People Say? A novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Flying Fifty-Five Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExpendable Assets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder at the Bayswater Bicycle Club Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Flying U's Last Stand Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man in Ratcatcher and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mesa Trail Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExposure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Came from the Garage! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brave Tom; Or, The Battle That Won Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHunted Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Airships & Automata Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZeroboxer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twice: Guilty Pleasures Editions, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mayor Of Casterbridge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYellowstone Nights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeorge Cruikshank Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPunch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, March 19, 1919 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRiding High Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Green Mouse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Short Stories For You
The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sex and Erotic: Hard, hot and sexy Short-Stories for Adults Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Skeleton Crew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Explicit Content: Red Hot Stories of Hardcore Erotica Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ficciones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Scorched Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unfinished Tales Of Numenor And Middle-Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night Side of the River Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Five Tuesdays in Winter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lovecraft Country: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Past Midnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Novices of Lerna Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Only Living Girl on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sour Candy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Dancing Girls
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Dancing Girls - Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber
The Dancing Girls
SAGA Egmont
The Dancing Girls
Cover image: Shutterstock
Copyright © 1920, 2020 Edna Ferber and SAGA Egmont
This work is republished as a historical document. It contains contemporary use of language.
ISBN: 9788726553512
1st ebook edition
Format: EPUB 2.0
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievial system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor, be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.sagaegmont.com
Saga Egmont - a part of Egmont, www.egmont.com
The dancing girls
When, on opening a magazine, you see a picture of a young man in uniform with a background of assorted star-shells in full flower; a young man in uniform gazing into the eyes of a young lady (in uniform); a young man in uniform crouching in a trench, dugout, or shell-hole, this happens:
You skip lightly past the story of the young man in uniform; you jump hurriedly over the picture; and you plunge into the next story, noting that it is called The Crimson Emerald
and that, judging from the pictures, all the characters in it wear evening clothes all the time.
Chug Scaritt took his dose of war with the best of them, but this is of Chug before and after taking. If, inadvertently, there should sound a faintly martial note it shall be stifled at once with a series of those stylish dots… indicative of what the early Victorian writers conveniently called a drawn veil.
Nothing could be fairer than that.
Chug Scaritt was (and is) the proprietor and sole owner of the Elite Garage, and he pronounced it with a long i. Automobile parties, touring Wisconsin, used to mistake him for a handy man about the place and would call to him, Heh, boy! Come here and take a look at this engine. She ain't hitting.
When Chug finished with her she was hitting, all right. A medium-sized young fellow in the early twenties with a serious mouth, laughing eyes, and a muscular grace pretty well concealed by the grease-grimed grotesquerie of overalls. Out of the overalls and in his tight-fitting, belted green suit and long-visored green cap and flat russet shoes he looked too young and insouciant to be the sole owner—much less the proprietor—of anything so successful and established as the Elite Garage.
In a town like Chippewa, Wisconsin—or in any other sort of town, for that matter—a prosperous garage knows more about the scandals of the community than does a barber-shop, a dressmaker-by-the-day, or a pool-room habitue. It conceals more skeletons than the catacombs. Chug Scaritt, had he cared to open his lips and speak, might have poured forth such chronicles as to make Spoon River sound a pæan of sweetness and light. He knew how much Old Man Hatton's chauffeur knocked down on gas and repairs; he knew just how much the Tillotsons had gone into debt for their twin-six, and why Emil Sauter drove to Oshkosh so often on business, and who supplied the flowers for Mrs. Gurnee's electric. Chug didn't encourage gossip in his garage. Whenever possible he put his foot down on its ugly head in a vain attempt to crush it. But there was something about the very atmosphere of the place that caused it to thrive and flourish. It was like a combination newspaper office and Pullman car smoker. Chug tried to keep the thing down but there might generally be seen lounging about the doorway or perched on the running board of an idle car a little group of slim, flat-heeled, low-voiced young men in form-fitting, high-waisted suits of that peculiarly virulent shade of green which makes its wearer look as if he had been picked before he was ripe.
They were a lean, slim-flanked crew with a feline sort of grace about them; terse of speech, quick of eye, engine-wise, and, generally, nursing a boil just above the collar of their soft shirt. Not vicious. Not even tough. Rather bored, though they didn't know it. In their boredom resorting to the only sort of solace afforded boys of their class in a town of Chippewa's size: cheap amusements, cheap girls, cheap talk. This last unless the topic chanced to be of games or of things mechanical. Baseball, or a sweet-running engine brought out the best that was in them. At their worst, perhaps, they stood well back in the dim, cool shade of the garage doorway to watch how, when the girls went by in their thin summer dresses, the strong sunlight made a transparency of their skirts. At supper time they would growl to their surprised sisters:
Put on some petticoats, you. Way you girls run around it's enough to make a person sick.
Chug Scaritt escaped being one of these by a double margin. There was his business responsibility on one side; his very early history on the other. Once you learn the derivation of Chug's nickname you have that history from the age of five to twenty-five, inclusive.
Chug had been christened Floyd (she had got it out of a book) but it was an appendix rather then an appellation. No one ever dreamed of addressing him by that misnomer, unless you except his school teachers. Once or twice the boys had tried to use his name as a weapon, shrieking in a shrill falsetto and making two syllables of it. He put a stop to that soon enough with fists and feet. His virility could have triumphed over a name twice as puerile. For that matter, I once knew a young husky named Fayette who—but that's another story.
The Scaritts lived the other side of the tracks. If you know Chippewa, or its equivalent, you get the significance of that. Nobodys. Not only did they live the other side of the tracks; they lived so close to them that the rush and rumble of the passing trains shook the two-story frame cottage and rattled the crockery on the pantry shelves. The first intelligible sound the boy made was a chesty chug-chug-chug in imitation of a panting engine tugging its freight load up the incline toward the Junction. When Chug ran away—which was on an average of twice daily—he was invariably to be found at the switchman's shanty or roaming about the freight yards. It got so that Stumpy Gans, the one-legged switchman, would hoist a signal to let Mrs. Scaritt know that Chug was safe.
He took his first mechanical toy apart, piece by piece. Wait till your pa comes home!
his mother had said, with terrible significance. Chug, deep in the toy's wreckage, seemed undismayed, so Mrs. Scaritt gave him a light promissory slap and went on about her housework. That night, before supper, Len Scaritt addressed his son with a sternness quite at variance with his easy-going nature.
Come here to me! Now, then, what's this about your smashing up good toys? Huh? Whatdya mean! Christmas not two days back and here you go smashing—
The culprit trotted over to a corner and returned with the red-painted tin thing in his hand. It was as good as new. There may even have been some barely noticeable improvement in its locomotive powers. Chug had merely taken it apart in order to put it together again, and he had been too absorbed to pause long enough to tell his mother so. After that, nothing that bore wheels, internally or externally, was safe from his investigating fingers.
It was his first velocipede that really gave him his name. As he rode up