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The Skylight Room

By O. Henry

First Mrs. Parker would show you the double parlours. You would not dare to interrupt her description of their advantages and of the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years. Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist. Mrs. Parker’s manner of receiving the admission was such that you could never afterward entertain the same feeling toward your parents, who had neglected to train you up in one of the professions that fitted Mrs. Parker’s parlours.

English story for learning - The Skylight Room

Next you ascended one flight of stairs and looked at the second- floor-back at $8. Convinced by her second-floor manner that it was worth the $12 that Mr. Toosenberry always paid for it until he left to take charge of his brother’s orange plantation in Florida near Palm Beach, where Mrs. McIntyre always spent the winters that had the double front room with private bath, you managed to babble that you wanted something still cheaper.

If you survived Mrs. Parker’s scorn, you were taken to look at Mr. Skidder’s large hall room on the third floor. Mr. Skidder’s room was not vacant. He wrote plays and smoked cigarettes in it all day long. But every room-hunter was made to visit his room to admire the lambrequins. After each visit, Mr. Skidder, from the fright caused by possible eviction, would pay something on his rent.

Then–oh, then–if you still stood on one foot, with your hot hand clutching the three moist dollars in your pocket, and hoarsely proclaimed your hideous and culpable poverty, nevermore would Mrs. Parker be cicerone of yours. She would honk loudly the word “Clara” she would show you her back, and march downstairs. Then Clara, the coloured maid, would escort you up the carpeted ladder that served for the fourth flight, and show you the Skylight Room. It occupied 7×8 feet of floor space at the middle of the hall. On each side of it was a dark lumber closet or storeroom.

In it was an iron cot, a washstand and a chair. A shelf was the dresser. Its four bare walls seemed to close in upon you like the sides of a coffin. Your hand crept to your throat, you gasped, you looked up as from a well–and breathed once more. Through the glass of the little skylight you saw a square of blue infinity.

“Two dollars, suh,” Clara would say in her half-contemptuous, half- Tuskegeenial tones.

One day Miss Leeson came hunting for a room. She carried a typewriter made to be lugged around by a much larger lady. She was a very little girl, with eyes and hair that had kept on growing after she had stopped and that always looked as if they were saying: “Goodness me ! Why didn’t you keep up with us?”

Mrs. Parker showed her the double parlours. “In this closet,” she said, “one could keep a skeleton or anaesthetic or coal “

“But I am neither a doctor nor a dentist,” said Miss Leeson, with a shiver.

Mrs. Parker gave her the incredulous, pitying, sneering, icy stare that she kept for those who failed to qualify as doctors or dentists, and led the way to the second floor back.

“Eight dollars?” said Miss Leeson. “Dear me! I’m not Hetty if I do look green. I’m just a poor little working girl. Show me something higher and lower.”

Mr. Skidder jumped and strewed the floor with cigarette stubs at the rap on his door.

“Excuse me, Mr. Skidder,” said Mrs. Parker, with her demon’s smile at his pale looks. “I didn’t know you were in. I asked the lady to have a look at your lambrequins.”

“They’re too lovely for anything,” said Miss Leeson, smiling in exactly the way the angels do.

After they had gone Mr. Skidder got very busy erasing the tall, black-haired heroine from his latest (unproduced) play and inserting a small, roguish one with heavy, bright hair and vivacious features.

“Anna Held’ll jump at it,” said Mr. Skidder to himself, putting his feet up against the lambrequins and disappearing in a cloud of smoke like an aerial cuttlefish.

Presently the tocsin call of “Clara!” sounded to the world the state of Miss Leeson’s purse. A dark goblin seized her, mounted a Stygian stairway, thrust her into a vault with a glimmer of light in its top and muttered the menacing and cabalistic words “Two dollars!”

“I’ll take it!” sighed Miss Leeson, sinking down upon the squeaky iron bed.

Every day Miss Leeson went out to work. At night she brought home papers with handwriting on them and made copies with her typewriter. Sometimes she had no work at night, and then she would sit on the steps of the high stoop with the other roomers. Miss Leeson was not intended for a sky-light room when the plans were drawn for her creation. She was gay-hearted and full of tender, whimsical fancies. Once she let Mr. Skidder read to her three acts of his great (unpublished) comedy, “It’s No Kid; or, The Heir of the Subway.”

There was rejoicing among the gentlemen roomers whenever Miss Leeson had time to sit on the steps for an hour or two. But Miss Longnecker, the tall blonde who taught in a public school and said, “Well, really!” to everything you said, sat on the top step and sniffed. And Miss Dorn, who shot at the moving ducks at Coney every Sunday and worked in a department store, sat on the bottom step and sniffed. Miss Leeson sat on the middle step and the men would quickly group around her.

Especially Mr. Skidder, who had cast her in his mind for the star part in a private, romantic (unspoken) drama in real life. And especially Mr. Hoover, who was forty-five, fat, flush and foolish. And especially very young Mr. Evans, who set up a hollow cough to induce her to ask him to leave off cigarettes. The men voted her “the funniest and jolliest ever,” but the sniffs on the top step and the lower step were implacable.

* * * * * *

I pray you let the drama halt while Chorus stalks to the footlights and drops an epicedian tear upon the fatness of Mr. Hoover. Tune the pipes to the tragedy of tallow, the bane of bulk, the calamity of corpulence. Tried out, Falstaff might have rendered more romance to the ton than would have Romeo’s rickety ribs to the ounce. A lover may sigh, but he must not puff. To the train of Momus are the fat men remanded. In vain beats the faithfullest heart above a 52-inch belt. Avaunt, Hoover! Hoover, forty-five, flush and foolish, might carry off Helen herself; Hoover, forty-five, flush, foolish and fat is meat for perdition. There was never a chance for you, Hoover.

As Mrs. Parker’s roomers sat thus one summer’s evening, Miss Leeson looked up into the firmament and cried with her little gay laugh:

“Why, there’s Billy Jackson! I can see him from down here, too.”

All looked up–some at the windows of skyscrapers, some casting about for an airship, Jackson-guided.

“It’s that star,” explained Miss Leeson, pointing with a tiny finger. “Not the big one that twinkles–the steady blue one near it. I can see it every night through my skylight. I named it Billy Jackson.”

“Well, really!” said Miss Longnecker. “I didn’t know you were an astronomer, Miss Leeson.”

“Oh, yes,” said the small star gazer, “I know as much as any of them about the style of sleeves they’re going to wear next fall in Mars.”

“Well, really!” said Miss Longnecker. “The star you refer to is Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia. It is nearly of the second magnitude, and its meridian passage is–“

“Oh,” said the very young Mr. Evans, “I think Billy Jackson is a much better name for it.”

“Same here,” said Mr. Hoover, loudly breathing defiance to Miss Longnecker. “I think Miss Leeson has just as much right to name stars as any of those old astrologers had.”

“Well, really!” said Miss Longnecker.

“I wonder whether it’s a shooting star,” remarked Miss Dorn. “I hit nine ducks and a rabbit out of ten in the gallery at Coney Sunday.”

“He doesn’t show up very well from down here,” said Miss Leeson. “You ought to see him from my room. You know you can see stars even in the daytime from the bottom of a well. At night my room is like the shaft of a coal mine, and it makes Billy Jackson look like the big diamond pin that Night fastens her kimono with.”

There came a time after that when Miss Leeson brought no formidable papers home to copy. And when she went out in the morning, instead of working, she went from office to office and let her heart melt away in the drip of cold refusals transmitted through insolent office boys. This went on.

There came an evening when she wearily climbed Mrs. Parker’s stoop at the hour when she always returned from her dinner at the restaurant. But she had had no dinner.

As she stepped into the hall Mr. Hoover met her and seized his chance. He asked her to marry him, and his fatness hovered above her like an avalanche. She dodged, and caught the balustrade. He tried for her hand, and she raised it and smote him weakly in the face. Step by step she went up, dragging herself by the railing. She passed Mr. Skidder’s door as he was red-inking a stage direction for Myrtle Delorme (Miss Leeson) in his (unaccepted) comedy, to “pirouette across stage from L to the side of the Count.” Up the carpeted ladder she crawled at last and opened the door of the skylight room.

She was too weak to light the lamp or to undress. She fell upon the iron cot, her fragile body scarcely hollowing the worn springs. And in that Erebus of the skylight room, she slowly raised her heavy eyelids, and smiled.

For Billy Jackson was shining down on her, calm and bright and constant through the skylight. There was no world about her. She was sunk in a pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh, so ineffectually named. Miss Longnecker must be right; it was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson. And yet she could not let it be Gamma.

As she lay on her back she tried twice to raise her arm. The third time she got two thin fingers to her lips and blew a kiss out of the black pit to Billy Jackson. Her arm fell back limply.

“Good-bye, Billy,” she murmured faintly. “You’re millions of miles away and you won’t even twinkle once. But you kept where I could see you most of the time up there when there wasn’t anything else but darkness to look at, didn’t you? . . . Millions of miles. . . . Good-bye, Billy Jackson.”

Clara, the coloured maid, found the door locked at 10 the next day, and they forced it open. Vinegar, and the slapping of wrists and burnt feathers proving of no avail, some one ran to ‘phone for an ambulance.

In due time it backed up to the door with much gong-clanging, and the capable young medico, in his white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced up the steps.

“Ambulance call to 49,” he said briefly. “What’s the trouble?”

“Oh, yes, doctor,” sniffed Mrs. Parker, as though her trouble that there should be trouble in the house was the greater. “I can’t think what can be the matter with her. Nothing we could do would bring her to. It’s a young woman, a Miss Elsie–yes, a Miss Elsie Leeson. Never before in my house–“

“What room?” cried the doctor in a terrible voice, to which Mrs. Parker was a stranger.

“The skylight room. It–

Evidently the ambulance doctor was familiar with the location of skylight rooms. He was gone up the stairs, four at a time. Mrs. Parker followed slowly, as her dignity demanded.

On the first landing she met him coming back bearing the astronomer in his arms. He stopped and let loose the practised scalpel of his tongue, not loudly. Gradually Mrs. Parker crumpled as a stiff garment that slips down from a nail. Ever afterward there remained crumples in her mind and body. Sometimes her curious roomers would ask her what the doctor said to her.

“Let that be,” she would answer. “If I can get forgiveness for having heard it I will be satisfied.”

The ambulance physician strode with his burden through the pack of hounds that follow the curiosity chase, and even they fell back along the sidewalk abashed, for his face was that of one who bears his own dead.

They noticed that he did not lay down upon the bed prepared for it in the ambulance the form that he carried, and all that he said was: “Drive like h**l, Wilson,” to the driver.

That is all. Is it a story? In the next morning’s paper I saw a little news item, and the last sentence of it may help you (as it helped me) to weld the incidents together.

It recounted the reception into Bellevue Hospital of a young woman who had been removed from No. 49 East — street, suffering from debility induced by starvation. It concluded with these words:

“Dr. William Jackson, the ambulance physician who attended the case, says the patient will recover.”

– THE END –

Source: americanliterature.com

English Story for Learning English Free Download- The Skylight Room By O. Henry book PDF

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English story for learning TOP Sites

  1. learnenglish.britishcouncil.org – English story for learning

Do you enjoy reading stories?

Reading short stories in English is a great way to improve your language level. In this section, read our short stories that were specially written for English language learners. There are two sections, one for lower level learners (A2/B1) and one for higher levels (B2/C1) English story for learning. 

You will improve your reading fluency and comprehension and develop your vocabulary. English story for learning Each story has interactive exercises to help you understand and use the language.

In this section, read our entertaining short stories specially written for pre-intermediate (CEFR level A2) or intermediate (CEFR level B1) learners.

You will improve your reading fluency and comprehension and develop your vocabulary. Each story has interactive exercises to help you understand and use the language.

2. cambridgeenglish.org-English story for learning

A good story encourages us to turn the next page and read more. We want to find out what happens next and what the main characters do and what they say to each other. We may feel excited, sad, afraid, angry or really happy. This is because the experience of reading or listening to a story is much more likely to make us ‘feel’ that we are part of the story, too. Just like in our ‘real’ lives, we might love or hate different characters in the story. Perhaps we recognise ourselves or others in some of them. Perhaps we have similar problems.

Because of this natural empathy with the characters, our brains process the reading of stories differently from the way we read factual information. Our brains don’t always recognise the difference between an imagined situation and a real one so the characters become ‘alive’ to us. What they say and do is therefore more meaningful. This is why the words and structures that relate a story’s events, descriptions and conversations are processed in this deeper way.

In fact, cultures all around the world have always used storytelling to pass knowledge from one generation to another. Our ancestors understood very well that this was the best way to make sure our histories and information about how to relate to others and to our world was not only understood, but remembered too. (Notice that the word ‘history’ contains the word ‘story’ – More accurately, the word ‘story’ derives from ‘history’.)

3. storylineonline.net – English story for learning

The SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Daytime Emmy®-nominated and award-winning children’s literacy website, Storyline Online®, streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations. Readers include Oprah Winfrey, Chris Pine, Kristen Bell, Rita Moreno, Viola Davis, Jaime Camil, Kevin Costner, Lily Tomlin, Sarah Silverman, Betty White, Wanda Sykes and dozens more.

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4. pdfdrive.com– English story for learning PDF Drive is your search engine for PDF files. As of today we have 77,391,392 eBooks for you to download for free. No annoying ads, no download limits, enjoy it and don’t forget to bookmark and share the love!

5. matrubharti.com – English story for learning This is the story of romance couple Vikram and Ahana, but fall in love with each other unknowingly. Ahana young cute and beautiful girl, Ahana join as nurse at Pinka hospital.Vikram a rich businessman and a successful doctor at Pinka with Diya at her home having talk, Diya and Vikram was dating her. But he suddenly wakes up from his dream due his phone rings. Dr.Vikram was sitting on chair and eyes were closed, it was night time and he was taking a short nap. Dr.Vikram sees its Ahana calling to him. Dr.Vikram remembers he has to pick up Ahana from pub because she was on date with a guy. Ahana was in pub and with guy was dancing on dance floor. Ahana was enjoying the date. But he takes her to a side and asked Ahana to come close. Ahana was drunk and she was in her own world. But she feels seeing him that it’s Vikram. Ahana comes close to him and she hugs him.

6. infobooks.org – English story for learning

Enjoying a book is something that many appreciate, there are really varied, some more extensive than others, but with excellent content, this time we have made a selection of short books in PDF format. You can share it, download it, use it for whatever you need!

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7. britannica.com – english story for learning Literary critics, historians, avid readers, and even casual readers will all have different opinions on which novel is truly the “greatest book ever written.” Is it a novel with beautiful, captivating figurative language? Or one with gritty realism? A novel that has had an immense social impact? Or one that has more subtly affected the world? Here is a list of 12 novels that, for various reasons, have been considered some of the greatest works of literature ever written.

Any fan of stories that involve juicy subjects like adultery, gambling, marriage plots, and, well, Russian feudalism, would instantly place Anna Karenina at the peak of their “greatest novels” list. And that’s exactly the ranking that publications like Time magazine have given the novel since it was published in its entirety in 1878. Written by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, the eight-part towering work of fiction tells the story of two major characters: a tragic, disenchanted housewife, the titular Anna, who runs off with her young lover, and a lovestruck landowner named Konstantin Levin, who struggles in faith and philosophy. Tolstoy molds together thoughtful discussions on love, pain, and family in Russian society with a sizable cast of characters regarded for their realistic humanity. The novel was especially revolutionary in its treatment of women, depicting prejudices and social hardships of the time with vivid emotion.

8. oberlo.com – english story for learning

English story for learning Classic Novels to Read

1984 tells the futuristic story of a dystopian, totalitarian world where free will and love are forbidden. Although the year 1984 has long since passed, the prophecy of a society controlled by fear and lies is arguably more relevant now than ever.

Tolkien’s fantasy epic is one of the top must-read books out there. Set in Middle Earth – a world full of hobbits, elves, orcs, goblins, and wizards – The Lord of the Rings will take you on an unbelievable adventure.

9. rd.com– English story for learning

English story for learning – Books everyone should read

From the best fiction books to the best nonfiction books, there are so many excellent titles collected in libraries and bookstores around the world. So how do you know when one belongs among the best books of all time? Well, we believe the best books open our minds to new characters, points of view, and worlds. They stay with us long after the last page is read. They make us want to share them with everyone.

That’s true of all the tomes on our list of the best books of all time. To land in the top 100, a book needed to truly stand out in the stacks. We considered best sellers, award winners, and books that are highly rated by readers and critics alike. Many have been made into blockbuster movies. Many are taught in schools today. Many have snagged spots on other “best of” lists published by the likes of the New York TimesThe Guardian, NPR, PBS, Time magazine, and more. And most have had profound impacts on literature, culture, or the world in general. Our list includes everything from classics to new favorites, the best biographies to the best children’s books. Ready? Let’s dive in!

For more book trivia and inside info on authors and book news, follow the Reader’s Digest Select Editions page on Facebook

8. powells.com – English story for learning

A few months back, one of our customers sent us a special request for a list of 10 books we felt everyone absolutely must read in his or her lifetime. The question intrigued us and we immediately launched into a heated debate. Should the Bible be on the list? No text has influenced Western culture more, but might it be equally important to read the Koran or the Torah for a more enlightened worldview? Shakespeare seemed like a given, but how to choose between Hamlet and The Sonnets, between A Midsummer Night’s Dream and King Lear? And what of lesser-known works — things like The Rings of Saturn or Bluets or No-No Boy or The Book of Disquiet? How could we whittle down our list to just 10 books?

As it turns out, we couldn’t. We posed the question to our fellow book-savvy colleagues and, after receiving some 1,400 nominations(!) and putting it to a vote, we ultimately settled on 25 titles. Instead of worrying so much about what had to be included, we opted to present a collection of books that has the ability to change the way you think and feel and reflects our diverse interests here at Powell’s. We hope you enjoy our suggestions.

10. lifehack.org – English story for learning

English story for learning 30 Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once In Their Lives

The wonders of books are endless – they can eliminate your stress, increase your happiness, and boost your intelligence. Whether you’ve crossed out some best books to read or you’re just starting out to broaden your literary horizons, you should be familiar with the books to read before you die.

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If you love reading, here’s a perfect reading list for you that contains books that everyone should read. Even if you are not the biggest fan of reading, here’re 10 reasons to love reading.

Everyone should read at least once for these 30 books to read before you die — some are well known classics, others are modern giants.  All are well worth reading at least once in your life!

11. thegreatestbooks.org – English story for learning

This list is generated from 130 “best of” book lists from a variety of great sources. An algorithm is used to create a master list based on how many lists a particular book appears on. Some lists count more than others. I generally trust “best of all time” lists voted by authors and experts over user-generated lists. On the lists that are actually ranked, the book that is 1st counts a lot more than the book that’s 100th. If you’re interested in the details about how the rankings are generated and which lists are the most important(in my eyes) please check out the list details page.

12. free-ebooks.net – English story for learning

Running away from his mother’s crazy political schemes and a cheating fiancee by enlisting, Gellibrand Obsidian is shot down over jungle on the imperial rim and has to lead his platoon on a fightback against a deadly group of mercenaries known as The Destroyers. Then there are the dark secrets behind the beautiful sex worker Athena and the murder…

13. openlibrary.org – English story for learning

What books can I borrow? How can I find them?

The easiest way to find books to borrow is with the eBook Lending Library which shows books that have editions available through the Internet Archive.

You can also use the search page and check the box “Show only eBooks” though this will also return results in DAISY format. You may also want to browse books in the Accessible Book subject facet.

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