3 Books To Know Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Edith Wharton
his ninth birthday anniversary, when the Major gave him his pony, he had already become acquainted with the toughest boys in various distant parts of the town, and had convinced them that the toughness of a rich little boy with long curls might be considered in many respects superior to their own. He fought them, learning how to go berserk at a certain point in a fight, bursting into tears of anger, reaching for rocks, uttering wailed threats of murder and attempting to fulfil them. Fights often led to intimacies, and he acquired the art of saying things more exciting than “Don't haf to!” and “Doctor says it ain't healthy!” Thus, on a summer afternoon, a strange boy, sitting bored upon the gate-post of the Reverend Malloch Smith, beheld George Amberson Minafer rapidly approaching on his white pony, and was impelled by bitterness to shout: “Shoot the ole jackass! Look at the girly curls! Say, bub, where'd you steal your mother's ole sash!”
“Your sister stole it for me!” Georgie instantly replied, checking the pony. “She stole it off our clo'es-line an' gave it to me.”
“You go get your hair cut!” said the stranger hotly. “Yah! I haven't got any sister!”
“I know you haven't at home,” Georgie responded. “I mean the one that's in jail.”
“I dare you to get down off that pony!”
Georgie jumped to the ground, and the other boy descended from the Reverend Mr. Smith's gatepost—but he descended inside the gate. “I dare you outside that gate,” said Georgie.
“Yah! I dare you half way here. I dare you—”
But these were luckless challenges, for Georgie immediately vaulted the fence—and four minutes later Mrs. Malloch Smith, hearing strange noises, looked forth from a window; then screamed, and dashed for the pastor's study. Mr. Malloch Smith, that grim-bearded Methodist, came to the front yard and found his visiting nephew being rapidly prepared by Master Minafer to serve as a principal figure in a pageant of massacre. It was with great physical difficulty that Mr. Smith managed to give his nephew a chance to escape into the house, for Georgie was hard and quick, and, in such matters, remarkably intense; but the minister, after a grotesque tussle, got him separated from his opponent, and shook him.
“You stop that, you!” Georgie cried fiercely; and wrenched himself away. “I guess you don't know who I am!”
“Yes, I do know!” the angered Mr. Smith retorted. “I know who you are, and you're a disgrace to your mother! Your mother ought to be ashamed of herself to allow—”
“Shut up about my mother bein' ashamed of herself!”
Mr. Smith, exasperated, was unable to close the dialogue with dignity. “She ought to be ashamed,” he repeated. “A woman that lets a bad boy like you—”
But Georgie had reached his pony and mounted. Before setting off at his accustomed gallop, he paused to interrupt the Reverend Malloch Smith again. “You pull down your vest, you ole Billygoat, you!” he shouted, distinctly. “Pull down your vest, wipe off your chin—an' go to hell!”
Such precocity is less unusual, even in children of the Rich, than most grown people imagine. However, it was a new experience for the Reverend Malloch Smith, and left him in a state of excitement. He at once wrote a note to Georgie's mother, describing the crime according to his nephew's testimony; and the note reached Mrs. Minafer before Georgie did. When he got home she read it to him sorrowfully.
Dear Madam: Your son has caused a painful distress in my household. He made an unprovoked attack upon a little nephew of mine who is visiting in my household, insulted him by calling him vicious names and falsehoods, stating that ladies of his family were in jail. He then tried to make his pony kick him, and when the child, who is only eleven years old, while your son is much older and stronger, endeavoured to avoid his indignities and withdraw quietly, he pursued him into the enclosure of my property and brutally assaulted him. When I appeared upon this scene he deliberately called insulting words to me, concluding with profanity, such as “go to hell,” which was heard not only by myself but by my wife and the lady who lives next door. I trust such a state of undisciplined behaviour may be remedied for the sake of the reputation for propriety, if nothing higher, of the family to which this unruly child belongs.
Georgie had muttered various interruptions, and as she concluded the reading he said: “He's an ole liar!”
“Georgie, you mustn't say 'liar.' Isn't this letter the truth?”
“Well,” said Georgie, “how old am I?”
“Ten.”
“Well, look how he says I'm older than a boy eleven years old.”
“That's true,” said Isabel. “He does. But isn't some of it true, Georgie?”
Georgie felt himself to be in a difficulty here, and he was silent.
“Georgie, did you say what he says you did?”
“Which one?”
“Did you tell him to—to—Did you say, 'Go to hell?”
Georgie looked worried for a moment longer; then he brightened. “Listen here, mamma; grandpa wouldn't wipe his shoe on that ole story-teller, would he?”
“Georgie, you mustn't—”
“I mean: none of the Ambersons wouldn't have anything to do with him, would they? He doesn't even know you, does he, mamma?”
“That hasn't anything to do with it.”
“Yes, it has! I mean: none of the Amberson family go to see him, and they never have him come in their house; they wouldn't ask him to, and they prob'ly wouldn't even let him.”
“That isn't what we're talking about.”
“I bet,” said Georgie emphatically, “I bet if he wanted to see any of 'em, he'd haf to go around to the side door!”
“No, dear, they—”
“Yes, they would, mamma! So what does it matter if I did say somep'm' to him he didn't like? That kind o' people, I don't see why you can't say anything you want to, to 'em!”
“No, Georgie. And you haven't answered me whether you said that dreadful thing he says you did.”
“Well—” said Georgie. “Anyway, he said somep'm' to me that made me mad.” And upon this point he offered no further details; he would not explain to his mother that what had made him “mad” was Mr. Smith's hasty condemnation of herself: “Your mother ought to be ashamed,” and, “A woman that lets a bad boy like you—” Georgie did not even consider excusing himself by quoting these insolences.
Isabel stroked his head. “They were terrible words for you to use, dear. From his letter he doesn't seem a very tactful person, but—”
“He's just riffraff,” said Georgie.
“You mustn't say so,” his mother gently agreed “Where did you learn those bad words he speaks of? Where did you hear any one use them?”
“Well, I've heard 'em several places. I guess Uncle George Amberson was the first I ever heard say 'em. Uncle George Amberson said 'em to papa once. Papa didn't like it, but Uncle George was just laughin' at papa, an' then he said 'em while he was laughin'.”
“That was wrong of him,” she said, but almost instinctively he detected the lack of conviction in her tone. It was Isabel's great failing that whatever an Amberson did seemed right to her, especially if the Amberson was either her brother George, or her son George. She knew that she should be more severe with the latter now, but severity with him was beyond her power; and the Reverend Malloch Smith had succeeded only in rousing her resentment against himself. Georgie's symmetrical face—altogether an Amberson face—had looked never more beautiful to her. It always looked unusually beautiful when she tried to be severe with him. “You must promise me,” she said feebly, “never to use those bad words again.”
“I