Therefore, when I tell you that I am
choosing Pearlie Schultz as my leading lady you are to understand
that she is ugly, not only when the story opens, but to the
bitter end. In the first place, Pearlie is fat. Not plump, or
rounded, or dimpled, or deliciously curved, but FAT. She bulges
in all the wrong places, including her chin. (Sister, who has a
way of snooping over my desk in my absence, says that I may as
well drop this now, because nobody would ever read it, anyway,
least of all any sane editor. I protest when I discover that Sis
has been over my papers. It bothers me. But she says you have to
do these things when you have a genius in the house, and cites
the case of Kipling's "Recessional," which was rescued from the
depths of his wastebasket by his wife.)
Pearlie Schultz used to sit on the front porch summer evenings
and watch the couples stroll by, and weep in her heart. A fat
girl with a fat girl's soul is a comedy. But a fat girl with a
thin girl's soul is a tragedy. Pearlie, in spite of her two
hundred pounds, had the soul of a willow wand.
The walk in front of Pearlie's house was guarded by a row of big
trees that cast kindly shadows.
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