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Hughes, Rupert, 1872-1956

"We Can't Have Everything"

The train stopped at Seventy-second Street and at
Ninety-sixth Street and at many other stations. People got on
or off. But Kedzie was too well entertained to care to leave.
She did not know that the train ran under a corner of Central Park
and beneath the Harlem River. She would have liked to know. To run
under a river would tell well at home.
Suddenly the Subway shot out into midair and became a superway.
The street which had been invisible above was suddenly visible below,
with street-cars on it. Also there was a still higher track overhead.
Three layers of tracks! It was heavenly, the noise they made! She
enjoyed hearing the mounting numbers of the streets shouted
antiphonally by the gentlemen at either door.
At 180th Street, however, the train stopped for good, and the handsome
young man at the front door called, "All out!" He said it to Kedzie
with a beautiful courtesy, adding, "This is as far as we go, lady."
That was tremendous, to be called "lady." Kedzie tried to get out
like one. She smiled at the guard and left his protection with some
reluctance. He studied her as she walked along the platform. She
seemed to meet with his approval in general, and in particular.
He sighed when she turned out of his sight.
The station here was very high up in the world. Kedzie counted
seventy-seven steps on her way to the level. She was distressed
to find herself in a shabby, noisy community where streets radiated
in six directions.


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