Properties
- end_line
- 3065
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:16:46.104Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 3031
- text
- 2902 sort of looked at them upside down, they looked in an even bigger hurry to fly south. The
2903 best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.
2904 Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would
2905 still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south,
2906 the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their
2907 pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that
2908 same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be
2909 you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just
2910 be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your
2911 partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd
2912 have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your
2913 mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of
2914 those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in
2915 some way--I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.
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2916 I took my old hunting hat out of my pocket while I walked, and put it on. I knew I
2917 wouldn't meet anybody that knew me, and it was pretty damp out. I kept walking and
2918 walking, and I kept thinking about old Phoebe going to that museum on Saturdays the
2919 way I used to. I thought how she'd see the same stuff I used to see, and how she'd be
2920 different every time she saw it. It didn't exactly depress me to think about it, but it didn't
2921 make me feel gay as hell, either. Certain things they should stay the way they are. You
2922 ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I
2923 know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway. Anyway, I kept thinking about all that
2924 while I walked.
2925 I passed by this playground and stopped and watched a couple of very tiny kids
2926 on a seesaw. One of them was sort of fat, and I put my hand on the skinny kid's end, to
2927 sort of even up the weight, but you could tell they didn't want me around, so I let them
2928 alone.
2929 Then a funny thing happened. When I got to the museum, all of a sudden I
2930 wouldn't have gone inside for a million bucks. It just didn't appeal to me--and here I'd
2931 walked through the whole goddam park and looked forward to it and all. If Phoebe'd been
2932 there, I probably would have, but she wasn't. So all I did, in front of the museum, was get
2933 a cab and go down to the Biltmore. I didn't feel much like going. I'd made that damn date
2934 with Sally, though.
- title
- Chunk 6