Bride Comes to Yellow Sky
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky and The Open Boat Stephen Crane The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky The great Pullman was whirling onward with such dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were pouring eastward. ... The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young. ... " cried the bride. ... "We are due in Yellow Sky at 3:42," he said, looking tenderly into her eyes. ... The train was approaching it at an angle, and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was apparent that, as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became commensurately restless. ... Occasionally he was even rather absent-minded and far-away when the bride leaned forward and addressed him. ... He, the town marshal of Yellow Sky, a man known, liked, and feared in his corner, a prominent person, had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl he believed he loved, and there, after the usual prayers, had actually induced her to marry him, without consulting Yellow Sky for any part of the transaction. He was now bringing his bride before an innocent and unsuspecting community. Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it pleased them, in accordance with a general custom; but such was Potters thought of his duty to his friends, or of their idea of his duty, or of an unspoken form which does not control men in these matters, that he felt he was heinous. ... But the hour of Yellow Sky, the hour of daylight, was approaching. ... Yellow Sky had a kind of brass band, which played painfully, to the delight of the populace. ... If the citizens could dream of his prospective arrival with his bride, they would parade the band at the station and escort them, amid cheers and laughing congratulations, to his adobe home. ... The bride looked anxiously at him. ... Im only thinking of Yellow Sky. ... The traitor to the feelings of Yellow Sky narrowly watched the speeding landscape. ... Presently the two engines and their long string of coaches rushed into the station of Yellow Sky. ... He laughed, and groaned as he laughed, when he noted the first effect of his marital bliss upon Yellow Sky. ... II THE California Express on the Southern Railway was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. ... Save for the busy drummer and his companions in the saloon, Yellow Sky was dozing. ... But when he comes youd better lay down on the floor, stranger. ... "Here he comes," they said. III A MAN in a maroon-colored flannel shirt, which had been purchased for purposes of decoration and made, principally, by some Jewish women on the east side of New York, rounded a corner and walked into the middle of the main street of Yellow Sky. ... The man called to the sky. ... IV POTTER and his bride walked sheepishly and with speed. ... As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. ... "You know I fight when it comes to fighting, Scratchy Wilson, but I aint got a gun on me. ... I NONE of them knew the color of the sky. ... The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down. ... The sun swung steadily up the sky, and they knew it was broad day because the color of the sea changed from slate to emerald-green, streaked with amber lights, and the foam was like tumbling snow. ... It had now almost assumed color, and appeared like a little gray shadow on the sky. ... Even as the light-house was an upright shadow on the sky, this land seemed but a long black shadow on the sea. ... A tiny house was blocked out black upon the sky. ... Far ahead, where coast-line, sea, and sky formed their mighty angle, there were little dots which seemed to indicate a city on the shore. ... There comes another man! ... " "There comes something up the beach. ... " A faint yellow tone came into the sky over the low land. ... In the far Algerian distance, a city of low square forms was set against a sky that was faint with the last sunset hues. ... VII WHEN the correspondent again opened his eyes, the sea and the sky were each of the gray hue of the dawning. ... The morning appeared finally, in its splendor with a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of the waves. ... At various points on its surface the iron had become luminous and glowed yellow from the heat. ... One might have thought that he had the sense of silly suspicion which comes to guilt. ... This yellow effulgence, streaming upward, colored only his prominent features, and left his eyes, for instance, in mysterious shadow. ... Kneeling on the floor he unrolled the coat and extracted from its heart a large yellow-brown whisky bottle.