Come Along with Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

glass of milk and pushed the plate of cookies a little closer to him. “I’ll go and check your room,” she said to me.
    â€œI’m pretty smart,” he said to me anxiously. “I’m not stupid, of course.”
    â€œI’m pretty smart, but I never got pushed back and forth to school.”
    â€œWell, I’m planning to be a scholar, and I better get started pretty soon. You know any Spanish?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI want to learn Spanish and French and Italian and Russian and then Latin and Greek and be a scholar. So far I only know a little Spanish, but I’m lazy.”
    â€œOne of these days I might push you to the movies,” I said.
    â€œI would like that,” he said. “Perhaps a movie in Spanish or French to improve my accent.”
    We each had another cookie. Then he said, “What do you study, Mrs. Motorman?”
    â€œI was married to a painter.”
    â€œWas he any good?”
    â€œHe was lousy.”
    â€œIs he dead?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow long you think I ought to go on studying Spanish before I start French? They’re both good languages.”
    â€œIf you’re so lazy why not give up the whole thing?”
    â€œWell,” he said, thinking, “I suppose it’s because they all keep waiting for me to be so smart. I wouldn’t play baseball if I could, you can hurt yourself playing those games. But I don’t mind being a scholar.”
    â€œLook,” I said, “I’m not used to talking to kids.”
    â€œOh, that’s all right,” he said.
    â€œI don’t know why you can’t just sit around and read books.”
    Mrs. Faun came back and said “Drink your milk there,” and “Your room is ready.” She touched the boy on the head and he said, “Hey, Mrs. Motorman and I are going to the movies someday,” and Mrs. Faun looked at me for a minute and then said, “I think you’re going to like the room.”

3
    I brought a couple of cookies upstairs with me, just in case. My room was perfectly square, which was good. My name was Mrs. Angela Motorman and this was where I was going to live, in a square room in Mrs. Faun’s house on Smith Street. I did not know as yet what I was going to add to this room; it already held a bed and a dresser and two chairs and a pretty little desk, something like the pretty little desk I had last seen disappearing into the back of a station wagon when I had my auction. There was nothing in these desk drawers; I did not know as yet what I was going to put in them. There was a little bookcase which would hold, I thought, perhaps eleven books; I would have to choose my eleven books very carefully; when I found them I could write “Angela Motorman” on the flyleaves. I put my underwear and stockings into the dresser drawers, and hung my two dresses and my fur stole in the closet; someday I would go to the department stores and buy new clothes; I put my brush and comb on the dresser and put my sleeping pills on the bedside table and put my reading glasses beside them. I had no pets, no address books, no small effects to set around on tables or pin on walls, I had no lists of friends to keep in touch with and no souvenirs; all I had was myself.
    I like people, but I have never needed companions; Hughie was my only mistake.
    I set an armchair next to the window of my room, and I was pleased to see that I did indeed look out over the trees and onto the spot on the street where I had stood not long ago wondering over a name; “It’s all right, Angela,” I said very softly out the window, “it’s all right, you made it, you came in and it’s all right; you got here after all.” And outside the dim nameless creature named herself Mrs. Angela Motorman and came steadily to the door.

4
    I have a real feeling for shapes; I like things square, and my room was finely square. Even though I couldn’t