1
In the Brailsford Junction Public Library where the youth of the town came to make love, look at classic nudes, peruse the stimulating success stories to be found in the Alger books, explore the jungles with Livingstone and Stanley, sigh and weep with the Victorian poets, wallow in Cooper, Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott and General Lew Wallace, and if special favorites of the Librarian to visit the restricted shelves where such infamous authors as Lord Byron, Walt Whitman, Anatole France and Theodore Dreiser languished in sin....
In this den of vicarious iniquity Peter Brailsford found companions more in harmony with his spirit than in the town itself, which just now was banking around its houses with manure, putting up storm doors, and getting out long underwear, fur caps, and mackinaws.
Here were Hamlets who wandered brooding and mourning even as Peter brooded and mourned. Here were flaming young women who spoke in well-rounded phrases to dashing, intelligent young men who really got somewhere in life. Here were Poetic heroes off on their tremendous Odysseys through wine-dark seas. Soldiers of Fortune easily subduing whole South American Republics.
Reading had been something of a chore while he was still in high school. Now he read for the joy of reading, everything he could get his hands on from Dumas to Ibsen and from Rider Haggard to Shakespeare.
Haggard's terrific tales curdled his blood and started him off on the chain of episodes in his own life which bothered his dreams. The great men who had stood beside his bed at night bringing their huge faces closer and closer until he awoke in a cold sweat; the fear of God which had made his childhood miserable, the early fear of railroad trains which during his fourth and fifth years had sent him terrified into the cellar whenever he heard the distant whistle and the clanging of the bell; night fears as when he had gone down into the woods to find a calf and had heard the stealthy whisper of some unseen thing passing through the deep grass; the fear of death and the absolute finality of damnation.
Other authors started other trains of thought in his mind: nostalgic, wistful, lonely thoughts of the time when he had been lost and his mother and father had come hunting him with a lantern. He had heard them calling far off through the rain-wet woods. They had wrapped him in a blanket and they had driven for miles in the horse and buggy until at last they were at home again; thoughts of his mother coming to tuck him in at night and how desperately he wanted her to come and how fearful he was that she might forget; thoughts of the picnic to which he was not invited and how he had lain beneath the lilac bush watching the other children going by with their picnic baskets. (Often he was homesick for the farm.)
But some of the things he read made him fighting mad, and others made him ambitious. This evening, waiting for Maxine Larabee, he had picked up a book on the Gypsies. A young Gypsy woman stepping from her van had given him what he thought was a tremendous idea....
Why not a camp trailer fitted up with every convenience for a traveling home? If Gypsies could live in vans so could a world of roving motorists. Here was the idea which would make him famous and which would cinch his progressive rise at the "Trailer." He wanted to shout his discovery to everyone in the room. He wanted most desperately to find Maxine Larabee and pour out his hopes and plans.
He could see just how the camp trailer would look. It would be mounted on a one-ton chassis. There would be two small windows on each side and one at the front end fitted out with screens and bright curtains. There would be a door at the back with steps which would let down. Inside there would be one bunk on either side which would fold up against the wall; a folding table; built-in, narrow cupboards and clothes press; a small coal-oil stove for cooking. He felt somewhat at a loss in designing the tiny kitchen. He would have to ask Maxine to help him with that.
It suddenly came over him that after he and Maxine were married they could take their honeymoon in one of his own camp trailers. He was sure that she would be an awfully good sport. He could see her helping to catch their dinner and cooking it over the camp fire. He took a pencil and paper from his pocket, began to sketch rapidly. Despite two years of mechanical drawing at the high school his fingers lagged behind his racing mind.
And now the sketch was finished. But where was Maxine? He was afraid that she would not come.
At eight forty-seven, however, there was a stir near the door. In a new fall ensemble with a hobble skirt that not one of the girls in the room had seen before, and which must have been purchased at some exclusive shop like Bostwick's in Janesville, the Belle of Brailsford Junction made her majestic entry. Cleopatra, or Helen of Troy, or Marie Antoinette could not have slain them more effectively. And, mirabile dictu, she was headed for Peter's table. She sat down directly across from the boy, who, despite his delight, experienced as always an empty feeling in his solar plexus, blurred vision, and cold sweat in the palms of his hands.
"Whatcha reading?" asked Maxine, sticking her gum on the under surface of the library table already plastered with dried chicle in geological strata running back half a decade.
"Uh ... uh ... a book on Gypsies."
"The dirty things," squealed Maxine. "Ee-magine going out in the woods like that with spiders and snakes and everything. They steal and have things in their hair."
"Aw, you're always spoiling everything," said Peter.
"Well, if I'm spoiling everything I'll just run along," said the girl.
"No, don't. Please stay," said Peter.
"You can walk me home," the girl said, smiling archly, "if you don't talk about Gypsies and horrid things like that."
"Can I walk you home?" Peter asked, his disappointment forgotten, his whole being an ecstasy of expectation.
"Sure, you can walk me home," Maxine said. "Walking a girl home don't mean anything. I let lots of fellows walk me home."
"Gee, Maxine. Gee, you're beautiful tonight."
"Did you notice the hobble skirt?"
"Did I notice it! How could I help but notice it?"
"I just coaxed and teased till Mamma had to get it for me."
"Gee, Maxine. You sure look swell in it. I guess you're the prettiest girl in Rock County."
"In Rock County?" asked Maxine, regarding him through large, offended eyes from beneath her coyly-tilted hat brim.
"In the world, I mean," said Peter, feeling his Adam's apple pressing uncomfortably against his high, stiff collar.
"Well, it's nine o'clock," said the girl, as the Librarian began banging Webster's Dictionary on her desk,—the usual signal for closing time.
They walked home together through the fall evening talking of everything except what was near their hearts. She took his arm at the crossing, and the small place where her hand rested was burning hot beneath his coat. There was a big harvest moon rising out of the elm trees from which the leaves were drifting down like large yellow petals. Their breath was white on the frosty air. Far overhead they could hear the honk of the wild geese flying south and the whistle of wings cutting the air.
They stood for a long time at the gate of the Larabee home whose windows gleamed invitingly. A smell of wood-smoke came from the chimney of the fireplace. The wind stirred in the trees.
"Well, ain't you going to kiss me goodnight," Maxine pouted, putting up her lips.
He thought she couldn't have said it. Nothing so wonderful could happen to a country boy. He hesitated, looking down at her loveliness, her lips a trifle apart, her eyes closed, waiting. His blood was singing a chorus through his temples and his ears rang with a strange music.
"Well," she said.
But he had waited too long. From the front door of the Larabee domicile came the booming voice of Mr. Larabee:
"Maxine! You come right in the house, young lady. It's after nine o'clock."
The clock had struck eleven before Peter Brailsford, tossing on his bed, remembered the camp trailer which was to revolutionize motoring, the beautiful little green vans, complete with running water, small kitchens, electric lights run from storage batteries, even curtains at the windows. He went to sleep dreaming of Maxine, of sweet revenge, and of his trailers.