ripping, 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, beautif