Zona Gale

“ Arpeggio recalled her smile, her white, white glove. She had a pleasing hand to shake. But he had not taken her hand! That hand was Mamie's. He passed the house and slipped within the May night, dreaming miscellaneous dreams.
When three days had passed without reply, Arpeggio took account of himself. What was the matter with him, anyway? Women! Women had no part in his life. He was forty-six. He was absorbed in that part of his commissionership which had to do with the people—not the mathematics of his town. ”

“ Shadd?" she asked.
It was fortunate that it was Mr. Shadd, because if it had not been, Arpeggio would have claimed it.
"Sure," said he, blankly—but with a pleased, pleased blankness.
"Edith Granger," she said, and he was aware of a white glove.
Arpeggio brought his right hand about his bundle, so that the bundle lay at ease upon his chest. Then he remembered.
"Guess you'd better not shake," said he. "I been sharpenin' my lead-pencil. Your glove looks awful clean."
She did not laugh. A thousand blessings on the woman who does not necessarily laugh. ”

“ This here town has got to have a liberary."
"That's what Miss Granger told her ma," said Mamie.
"Precisely," said Arpeggio for the third time, and smiled so enchantingly that Mamie smiled back. Then Arpeggio closed his sociological investigations and said, gently—and for no reason—unless it was the young greenness of May, "Mamie, where do you live?"
Instantly her eyes welled, brimmed. Lo, she was one of those women whose eye can brim and never leak. Admirable creatures. For between that brimming and that leaking a man's heart can slip away, nor find the trail return. ”

“ What had set him thinking about Edith Granger, anyway? He put on his old hat and went down to the office, business in his eye, his gait, his air. Women, indeed—and he a commissioner.
Stack Mayhew stood over the commissioners' table with a letter whose superscription he was frankly scrutinizing.
"Here's some female wants her taxes dawdled down to nothin'," Stack hazarded, and tossed the letter.
Arpeggio caught, divined, retired to a window and rapturously read: She had been in town for a few days. Certainly he was free to use the library whenever he wished. ”

“ It is noticeable that when in any community a proposal is inaugurated or championed by the best-looking automobile about, that proposal finds followers. Here is no cause for cynicism. How better could that automobile be occupied? In Banning there was the Granger automobile, and forthwith Merrills and Listers and Dents and Bards and Cordys fell in line, agreed to canvass the town, held little living-room meetings, buttonholed husbands, sent committees to interview business houses—just generally revolted against having no town library in Banning. ”

“ The race could not persist without this co-operation. There is, in a man's display of his garden, some reflection of that terrific minute of man's second sublime triumph, when at last he controlled his food. ”

“ Somebody had ought to get 'em for subscriptions to the band concerts.
"Yah!" said Stack. "I hear the darter's set on gettin' a public liberary for Banning doorin' the summer. We hain't no time to fool with liberaries—not now."
"Is she?" said Arpeggio. "Is she?" And stroked his hair, which was trained straight back from brow to crown. "Is she?" said he, fatuously.
"The question is," said Stack, "who's goin' to run it, now Stover's bust his leg."
"I don't think," Arpeggio offered, mildly—"I don't think Miss Granger would like that. With or without legs, Stover's no man to run a liberary." ”

“ Shadd, seated comfortably in his chair.
"Did you find what you wanted in our library? Yes? I was so sorry to have been engaged that day, when you came. Won't you come again?"
"Sure," said Arpeggio, graciously. She was beyond the threshold before it occurred to him to scramble to his feet. Stack, the beau, was showing them out.
Stack, the beau, came back from the door, and he was rubbing his hands. "Nice, sensible lot of ladies," said he. "Up and down sort. No nonsense. Real ladies, each and every one. ”

“ And since to have graduated from eighth grade is acknowledged to fit young women for something better than life on the hill farm, these find for themselves in the towns opportunities to "work out."
"Little homesick for the farm?" Arpeggio at length deduced. "I tell you what. How'd you like to go out and spend a day by yourself on some farm around? Sure. I can fix it. I'll speak to Miss Granger," added Arpeggio. Mamie palpitated. "Sure," Arpeggio sustained it. ”

“ Me?" said Arpeggio. "Shut up. I didn't know I was in the room. Say! Either of you fellows heard who's come home to the Grangers'?"
Dodd Purcell lifted his head and told, with the importance, masked as casualness, of the born gossip.
"Mis' T. M. Granger and her darter," said he. "They aim to pass the summer to home. ”

“ Stack accosted him, an arm waving. "A bloomin' lot o' women trapsin' the streets of Banning, gettin' everybody all het up over a new town liberary. They're at it."
"So?" said Arpeggio, looking over the seed catalogues which constituted his mail. "A new one? What they goin' to do with the old liberary, Stack?"
"Don't you go bein' fi-cetious," said Mr. Mayhew, in warning. "Us commissioners and this hull town 'd be all right if it wasn't for this darned uplift."
Dodd Purcell carressed his nose with all five fingers. ”