File:Two girls on a barge (1891) (14761638906).jpg

Identifier: twogirlsonbarge00cote (find matches)
Title: Two girls on a barge
Year: 1891 (1890s)
Authors: Cotes, V. Cecil
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and Company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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40 TWO GIRLS ON A BARGE

It was a halcyon way of taking life.
Our ' usually ' attitude, as the Bargee would
say, was an extreme content with idleness. Idleness
in action, idleness at leisure. There was small
apparent difference. Idleness in action perhaps
may indicate the artist sketching, which was the
very luxury of idleness. His drawing-boards and
pencils strewed the narrow gangway with that air
of negligence peculiar to artistic properties, and his
feet dangled blissfully. He never made bad shots
or began again. When he felt like it he sketched,
and the sketch grew of itself. When he didn't feel
like it he didn't sketch. Generally Mrs. Bargee
steered, sometimes the Cadet. That was very idle ;
and we bumped against the bank. In fact, the
only people who were really busy were Edna and
myself, sitting on the yellow cabin watching Dob.
I dont know why we called him Dob—his name
was Tom; and he was known to the Bargees
simply as the orse. Perhaps it was that Eccles
said he waddled more than the old mare. But
that hardly seems a reason. Mrs. Bargee reproved
Eccles when he said it: she told him not to be
Text Appearing After Image:

IDLENESS IN ACTION

42 TWO GIRLS ON A BARGE

ondacent—I should not have repeated it,
perhaps. So we left Uxbridge far behind, with its funny
little streets and utterly uncomprehending air. It
seemed to be holding on to a ragged corner of
Nurse London's city cloak, and sucking a chubby
sun-tanned finger, as if it didn't quite know what
to make of all the baby brick-kilns standing round
about it so perplexingly. And dawdling through
the morning, we came after a long while to
Rickmansworth. Another of those funny little
centres, blistered, overgrown, and under-populated,
that have been silted up high and dry between the
railway and canal. Eickmansworth, however, has
two stations, and you see its name on Great
Western notice-boards. That was quite ridiculous,
and the brown tracks flowed off on either side; one
to nobody knows where, the other to everybody
knows what sordid destination. But neither
stayed a moment, needlessly, for fear of being
overtaken of that continual procrastination winding
in and out and round the little stranded centre,
like the tangles of a first offence.

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