Back to the Farm

'Words for Wednesday' is a one a week writing prompt and you can find links to more at:

Under the Porchlight http://ramblingsoftheterminallyaging.blogspot.com/


This week's words are dashboard, atomic, sensationalism, inconsequential, nondenominational, and mayhem.

I'm a tad late, but the story below is my effort:

     The runabout was anything but as the carriage struggled through the new mud of New York’s spring streets, the dashboard the only barrier between Ambrose and the jetsam flung up from the horse’s hooves. For him, though, the muck was inconsequential. His mind was on more elevated matters, for he was on his way to a new beginning, Dr. Samuel Hickenstoop’s Christian and Missionary Bible College, a nondenominational institution that Ambrose was sure would be his salvation.

          He guided his horse around a persistent street vender, avoided two urchins who were trying to grab his horse’s bridle for no apparent reason – must maintain charitable thoughts! – and finally turned the corner of 6^th and Broadway to find a scene of complete mayhem. The stately front of the college was awash in paddy wagons, Pinkerton agents and gawking onlookers.

          What mind, so small as to be atomic, could have found wrongdoing at such a worthy institution? To Ambrose’s knowledge, the Christian and Missionary Bible College had enjoyed a pristine reputation as a place of superior thought for as long as three years, not a lengthy period of time, perhaps, but enough to establish it as a serious place of learning. It was probably a sudden victim of the unwarranted sensationalism of the time’s yellow journalism, the honest reporting of facts distorted by the need to sell papers. Yes, Ambrose told himself, that was surely the cause and this was all a misunderstanding.

          The heavy oak door at the top of the marble steps opened and out poured a stream of humanity. Ambrose watched as women, obviously daughters of sin, with half- hooked dresses and exposed corsets erupted from the building, followed by men still buttoning their trousers. 
         The last figure through the door, head held high and elbow in the firm grip of a police officer, was Dr. Hickenstoop.