Quotation from: The Little Lady of the Big House

Written by: Jack London


Young Dick, kneeling and holding, watched. The train gathered way. The
cars moved more swiftly. Tim, with a cool head, his back to the fall,
his face to the passing cars, his arms by his sides, with nowhere save
under his feet a holding point, balanced and swayed. The faster the
train moved, the wider he swayed, until, exerting his will, he
controlled himself and ceased from swaying.


And all would have been well with him, had it not been for one car.
Young Dick knew it, and saw it coming. It was a "palace horse-car,"
projecting six inches wider than any car on the train. He saw Tim see
it coming. He saw Tim steel himself to meet the abrupt subtraction of
half a foot from the narrow space wherein he balanced. He saw Tim
slowly and deliberately sway out, sway out to the extremest limit, and
yet not sway out far enough. The thing was physically inevitable. An
inch more, and Tim would have escaped the car. An inch more and he
would have fallen without impact from the car. It caught him, in that
margin of an inch, and hurled him backward and side-twisting. Twice he
whirled sidewise, and two and a half times he turned over, ere he
struck on his head and neck on the rocks.

PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT
Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~
Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.