He was not the preoccupied Milt of the garage but a gay-eyed gallant,

the evening when he gave a lift to the school-teacher and drove her from

the district school among the wild roses and the corn to her home in the

next town. She was a neat, tripping, trim-sided school-teacher of

nineteen or twenty.

"You're going out to Seattle? My! That's a wonderful trip. Don't you get

tired?" she adored.

"Oh, no. And I'm seeing things. I used to think everything worth while

was right near my own town."

"You're so wise to go places. Most of the boys I know don't think there

is any world beyond Jimtown and Fargo."

She glowed at him. Milt was saying to himself, "Am I a fool? I probably

could make this girl fall in love with me. And she's better than I am;

so darn neat and clean and gentle. We'd be happy. She's a nice comfy

fire, and here I go like a boob, chasing after a lone, cold star like

Miss Boltwood, and probably I'll fall into all the slews from hell to

breakfast on the way. But---- I'd get sleepy by a comfy fire."

"Are you thinking hard? You're frowning so," ventured the

school-teacher.

"Didn't mean to. 'Scuse!" he laughed. One hand off the steering wheel,

he took her hand--a fresh, cool, virginal hand, snuggling into his,

suddenly stirring him. He wanted to hold it tighter. The lamenting

historian of love's pilgrimage must set down the fact that the pilgrim

for at least a second forgot the divine tread of the goddess Claire, and

made rapid calculation that he could, in a pinch, drive from Schoenstrom

to the teacher's town in two days and a night; that therefore courtship,

and this sweet white hand resting in his, were not impossible. Milt

himself did not know what it was that made him lay down the hand and

say, so softly that he was but half audible through the rattle of the

engine: "Isn't this a slick, mean to say glorious evening? Sky rose and then

that funny lavender. And that new moon---- Makes me think of--the girl

I'm in love with."

"You're engaged?" wistfully.

"Not exactly but---- Say, did you study rhetoric in Normal School? I

have a rhetoric that's got all kind of poetic extracts, you know, and

quotations and everything, from the big writers, Stevenson and all.

Always been so practical, making a garage pay, never thought much about

how I said things as long as I could say 'No!' and say it quick. 'Cept

maybe when I was talking to the prof there. But it's great sport to see

how musical you can make a thing sound. Words. Like Shenandoah. Gol-lee!

Isn't that a wonderful word? Makes you see old white mansion, and

mocking birds---- Wonder if a fellow could be a big engineer, you know,

build bridges and so on, and still talk about, oh, beautiful things?

What d' you think, girlie?"




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