{"product_id":"miss-lulu-bett-and-selected-stories-isbn-9781400095384","title":"Miss Lulu Bett and Selected Stories","description":"Lulu Bett lives in a small town with her sister Ina and Ina’s husband Dwight–a dentist who rules his household with self-righteous smugness. The unmarried Lulu has learned that she cannot question her role as chief cook, housekeeper, and gracious presence. But when Dwight’s sophisticated brother Ninian comes to visit, Lulu finds in herself a surprising wit–and the boldness to accept his playful proposal of marriage. \u003cbr\u003eThrough her appealing, determined heroine, Zona Gale satirically dispatches a sheaf of the social assumptions of her day, from male supremacy to the security of marriage. First published in 1920, \u003cb\u003eMiss Lulu Bett\u003c\/b\u003e was immediately acclaimed, and went on to become one of two bestselling novels of the year. Together with four of Gale’s short stories–including the O. Henry award-winning “Bridal Pond”–\u003cb\u003eMiss Lulu Bett\u003c\/b\u003e reflects Gale’s broad progressive interests and the fast-paced, affecting prose which made her one of the most popular writers of her time and a classic American storteller.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A great book . . . the telling is almost incomparable”  —Robert Benchley, \u003ci\u003eThe World\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Eloquent. . . . \u003cb\u003eMiss Lulu Bett\u003c\/b\u003e is without flaw”  —\u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic Monthly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“It has a narrowly limned beauty. . . . The book stands as a signal accomplishment in American letters” —\u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMiss Lulu Bett\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDream\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Biography of Blade\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Need\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBridal Pond\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/i\u003e“A great book . . . the telling is almost incomparable”  --Robert Benchley, \u003ci\u003eThe World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Eloquent. . . . \u003cb\u003eMiss Lulu Bett\u003c\/b\u003e is without flaw”  --\u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It has a narrowly limned beauty. . . . The book stands as a signal accomplishment in American letters” —\u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003eBarbara H. Solomon is Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Iona college.  Among the books she has edited are \u003ci\u003eThe Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHerland and Selected Stories of Charlotte Perkins Gilman\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eOnce Upon a Childhood: Stories and Memoirs of American Youth\u003c\/i\u003e (with Eileen Panetta.) She lives in New Rochelle, New York.\u003cbr\u003eEileen Panetta is Associate Professor of English at Iona College.  She is coeditor of \u003ci\u003eOnce Upon a Childhood \u003c\/i\u003e(with Barbara H. Solomon).  She lives in New York City.The Deacons were at supper. In the middle of the table was a small,   appealing tulip plant, looking as anything would look whose sun was a   gas jet. This gas jet was high above the table and flared, with a   sound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Better turn down the gas jest a little,\" Mr. Deacon said, and   stretched up to do so. He made this joke almost every night. He   seldom spoke as a man speaks who has something to say, but as a man   who makes something to say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Well, what have we on the festive board to-night?\" he questioned,   eyeing it. \"Festive\" was his favourite adjective. \"Beautiful,\" too.   In October he might be heard asking: \"Where's my beautiful fall coat?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"We have creamed salmon,\" replied Mrs. Deacon gently. \"On toast,\" she   added, with a scrupulous regard for the whole truth. Why she should   say this so gently no one can tell. She says everything gently. Her   \"Could you leave me another bottle of milk this morning?\" would wring   a milkman's heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Well, now, let us see,\" said Mr. Deacon, and attacked the principal   dish benignly. \"Let us see,\" he added, as he served.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I don't want any,\" said Monona.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The child Monona was seated upon a book and a cushion, so that her   little triangle of nose rose adultly above her plate. Her remark   produced precisely the effect for which she had passionately hoped.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"What's this?\" cried Mr. Deacon. \"No salmon?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No,\" said Monona, inflected up, chin pertly pointed. She felt her   power, discarded her \"sir.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Oh now, Pet!\" from Mrs. Deacon, on three notes. \"You liked it before.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I don't want any,\" said Monona, in precisely her original tone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Just a little? A very little?\" Mr. Deacon persuaded, spoon dripping.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The child Monona made her lips thin and straight and shook her head   until her straight hair flapped in her eyes on either side. Mr.   Deacon's eyes anxiously consulted his wife's eyes. What is this?   Their progeny will not eat? What can be supplied?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Some bread and milk!\" cried Mrs. Deacon brightly, exploding on   \"bread.\" One wondered how she thought of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No,\" said Monona, inflection up, chin the same. She was affecting   indifference to this scene, in which her soul delighted. She twisted   her head, bit her lips unconcernedly, and turned her eyes to the   remote.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There emerged from the fringe of things, where she perpetually   hovered, Mrs. Deacon's older sister, Lulu Bett, who was \"making her   home with us.\" And that was precisely the case. They were not making   her a home, goodness knows. Lulu was the family beast of burden.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Can't I make her a little milk toast?\" she asked Mrs. Deacon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mrs. Deacon hesitated, not with compunction at accepting Lulu's   offer, not diplomatically to lure Monona. But she hesitated   habitually, by nature, as another is by nature vivacious or brunette.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes!\" shouted the child Monona.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The tension relaxed. Mrs. Deacon assented. Lulu went to the kitchen.   Mr. Deacon served on. Something of this scene was enacted every day.   For Monona the drama never lost its zest. It never occurred to the   others to let her sit without eating, once, as a cure-all. The   Deacons were devoted parents and the child Monona was delicate. She   had a white, grave face, white hair, white eyebrows, white lashes.   She was sullen, anaemic. They let her wear rings. She \"toed in.\" The   poor child was the late birth of a late marriage and the principal   joy which she had provided them thus far was the pleased reflection   that they had produced her at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Where's your mother, Ina?\" Mr. Deacon inquired. \"Isn't she coming to   her supper?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Tantrim,\" said Mrs. Deacon, softly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Oh, ho,\" said he, and said no more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The temper of Mrs. Bett, who also lived with them, had days of high   vibration when she absented herself from the table as a kind of   self-indulgence, and no one could persuade her to food. \"Tantrims,\"   they called these occasions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Baked potatoes,\" said Mr. Deacon. \"That's good--that's good. The   baked potato contains more nourishment than potatoes prepared in any   other way. The nourishment is next to the skin. Roasting retains it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"That's what I always think,\" said his wife pleasantly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For fifteen years they had agreed about this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They ate, in the indecent silence of first savouring food. A delicate   crunching of crust, an odour of baked-potato shells, the slip and   touch of the silver.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Num, num, nummy-num!\" sang the child Monona loudly, and was hushed   by both parents in simultaneous exclamation which rivalled this lyric   outburst. They were alone at table. Di, daughter of a wife early lost   to Mr. Deacon, was not there. Di was hardly ever there. She was at   that age. That age, in Warbleton.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A clock struck the half hour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"It's curious,\" Mr. Deacon observed, \"how that clock loses. It must   be fully quarter to.\" He consulted his watch. \"It is quarter to!\" he   exclaimed with satisfaction. \"I'm pretty good at guessing time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I've noticed that!\" cried his Ina.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Last night, it was only twenty-three to, when the half hour struck,\"   he reminded her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Twenty-one, I thought.\" She was tentative, regarded him with arched   eyebrows, mastication suspended.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This point was never to be settled. The colloquy was interrupted by   the child Monona, whining for her toast. And the doorbell rang.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Dear me!\" said Mr. Deacon. \"What can anybody be thinking of to call   just at meal-time?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He trod the hall, flung open the street door. Mrs. Deacon listened.   Lulu, coming in with the toast, was warned to silence by an uplifted   finger. She deposited the toast, tiptoed to her chair. A withered   baked potato and cold creamed salmon were on her plate. The child   Monona ate with shocking appreciation. Nothing could be made of the   voices in the hall. But Mrs. Bett's door was heard softly to unlatch.   She, too, was listening.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A ripple of excitement was caused in the dining-room when Mr. Deacon   was divined to usher some one to the parlour. Mr. Deacon would speak   with this visitor in a few moments, and now returned to his table. It   was notable how slight a thing would give him a sense of   self-importance. Now he felt himself a man of affairs, could not even   have a quiet supper with his family without the outside world   demanding him. He waved his hand to indicate it was nothing which   they would know anything about, resumed his seat, served himself to a   second spoon of salmon and remarked, \"More roast duck, anybody?\" in a   loud voice and with a slow wink at his wife. That lady at first   looked blank, as she always did in the presence of any humour couched   with the least indirection, and then drew back her chin and caught   her lower lip in her gold-filled teeth. This was her conjugal   rebuking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Swedenborg always uses \"conjugial.\" And really this sounds more   married. It should be used with reference to the Deacons. No one was   ever more married than they--at least than Mr. Deacon. He made little   conjugal jokes in the presence of Lulu who, now completely unnerved   by the habit, suspected them where they did not exist, feared lurking   entendre in the most innocent comments, and became more tense every   hour of her life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And now the eye of the master of the house fell for the first time   upon the yellow tulip in the centre of his table.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Well, well!\" he said. \"What's this?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ina Deacon produced, fleetly, an unlooked-for dimple.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Have you been buying flowers?\" the master inquired.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Ask Lulu,\" said Mrs. Deacon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He turned his attention full upon Lulu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Suitors?\" he inquired, and his lips left their places to form a sort   of ruff about the word.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lulu flushed, and her eyes and their very brows appealed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"It was a quarter,\" she said. \"There'll be five flowers.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"You bought it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes. There'll be five--that's a nickel apiece.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His tone was as methodical as if he had been talking about the bread.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yet we give you a home on the supposition that you have no money to   spend, even for the necessities.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His voice, without resonance, cleft air, thought, spirit, and even flesh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mrs. Deacon, indeterminately feeling her guilt in having let loose   the dogs of her husband upon Lulu, interposed: \"Well, but,   Herbert--Lulu isn't strong enough to work. What's the use. . . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She dwindled. For years the fiction had been sustained that Lulu, the   family beast of burden, was not strong enough to work anywhere else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"The justice business--\" said Dwight Herbert Deacon--he was a justice   of the peace--\"and the dental profession--\" he was also a   dentist--\"do not warrant the purchase of spring flowers in my home.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Well, but, Herbert--\" It was his wife again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No more,\" he cried briefly, with a slight bend of his head. \"Lulu   meant no harm,\" he added, and smiled at Lulu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There was a moment's silence into which Monona injected a loud \"Num,   num, nummy-num,\" as if she were the burden of an Elizabethan lyric.   She seemed to close the incident. But the burden was cut off   untimely. There was, her father reminded her portentously, company in   the parlour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"When the bell rang, I was so afraid something had happened to Di,\"   said Ina sighing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Let's see,\" said Di's father. \"Where is little daughter to-night?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He must have known that she was at Jenny Plow's at a tea party, for   at noon they had talked of nothing else; but this was his way. And   Ina played his game, always. She informed him, dutifully.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Oh, ho,\" said he, absently. How could he be expected to keep his   mind on these domestic trifles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"We told you that this noon,\" said Lulu. He frowned, disregarded her.   Lulu had no delicacy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"How much is salmon the can now?\" he inquired abruptly--this was one   of his forms of speech, the can, the pound, the cord.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His partner supplied this information with admirable promptness.   Large size, small size, present price, former price--she had them all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Dear me,\" said Mr. Deacon. \"That is very nearly salmoney, isn't it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Herbert!\" his Ina admonished, in gentle, gentle reproach. Mr. Deacon   punned, organically. In talk he often fell silent and then asked some   question, schemed to permit his vice to flourish. Mrs. Deacon's   return was always automatic: \"Herbert!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Whose Bert?\" he said to this. \"I thought I was your Bert.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She shook her little head. \"You are a case,\" she told him. He beamed   upon her. It was his intention to be a case.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lulu ventured in upon this pleasantry, and cleared her throat. She   was not hoarse, but she was always clearing her throat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"The butter is about all gone,\" she observed. \"Shall I wait for the   butter-woman or get some creamery?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mr. Deacon now felt his little jocularities lost before a wall of the   matter of fact. He was not pleased. He saw himself as the light of   his home, bringer of brightness, lightener of dull hours. It was a   pretty role. He insisted upon it. To maintain it intact, it was   necessary to turn upon their sister with concentrated irritation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Kindly settle these matters without bringing them to my attention at   mealtime,\" he said icily.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lulu flushed and was silent. She was an olive woman, once handsome,   now with flat, bluish shadows under her wistful eyes. And if only she   would look at her brother Herbert and say something. But she looked   in her plate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I want some honey,\" shouted the child, Monona.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"There isn't any, pet,\" said Lulu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I want some,\" said Monona, eyeing her stonily. But she found that   her hair-ribbon could be pulled forward to meet her lips, and she   embarked on the biting of an end. Lulu departed for some sauce and   cake. It was apple sauce. Mr. Deacon remarked that the apples were   almost as good as if he had stolen them. He was giving the impression   that he was an irrepressible fellow. He was eating very slowly. It   added pleasantly to his sense of importance to feel that some one,   there in the parlour, was waiting his motion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At length they rose. Monona flung herself upon her father. He put her   aside firmly, every inch the father. No, no. Father was occupied now.   Mrs. Deacon coaxed her away. Monona encircled her mother's waist,   lifted her own feet from the floor and hung upon her. \"She's such an   active child,\" Lulu ventured brightly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Not unduly active, I think,\" her brother-in-law observed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He turned upon Lulu his bright smile, lifted his eyebrows, dropped   his lids, stood for a moment contemplating the yellow tulip, and so   left the room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lulu cleared the table. Mrs. Deacon essayed to wind the clock. Well   now. Did Herbert say it was twenty-three to-night when it struck the   half hour and twenty-one last night, or twenty-one to-night and last   night twenty-three? She talked of it as they cleared the table, but   Lulu did not talk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Can't you remember?\" Mrs. Deacon said at last. \"I should think you   might be useful.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lulu was lifting the yellow tulip to set it on the sill. She changed   her mind. She took the plant to the wood-shed and tumbled it with   force upon the chip-pile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The dining-room table was laid for breakfast. The two women brought   their work and sat there. The child Monona hung miserably about,   watching the clock. Right or wrong, she was put to bed by it. She had   eight minutes more--seven--six--five--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lulu laid down her sewing and left the room. She went to the   wood-shed, groped about in the dark, found the stalk of the one tulip   flower in its heap on the chip-pile. The tulip she fastened in her   gown on her flat chest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Outside were to be seen the early stars. It is said that if our sun   were as near to Arcturus as we are near to our sun, the great   Arcturus would burn our sun to nothingness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the Deacons' parlour sat Bobby Larkin, eighteen. He was in pain   all over. He was come on an errand which civilisation has contrived   to make an ordeal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Before him on the table stood a photograph of Diana Deacon, also   eighteen. He hated her with passion. At school she mocked him, aped   him, whispered about him, tortured him. For two years he had hated   her. Nights he fell asleep planning to build a great house and engage   her as its servant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Yet, as he waited, he could not keep his eyes from this photograph.   It was Di at her curliest, at her fluffiest, Di conscious of her   bracelet, Di smiling. Bobby gazed, his basic aversion to her   hard-pressed by a most reluctant pleasure. He hoped that he would not   see her, and he listened for her voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mr. Deacon descended upon him with an air carried from his supper   hour, bland, dispensing. Well! Let us have it. \"What did you wish to   see me about?\"--with a use of the past tense as connoting something   of indirection and hence of delicacy--a nicety customary, yet   unconscious.","brand":"Anchor","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304746930405,"sku":"NP9781400095384","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400095384.jpg?v=1767732798","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/miss-lulu-bett-and-selected-stories-isbn-9781400095384","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}