Milt ranged up to the short lunch counter, in front of the pool table
where two brick-necked farm youngsters were furiously slamming balls and
attacking cigarettes. Loose-jointedly Milt climbed a loose-jointed high
stool and to the proprietor, Bill McGolwey, his best friend, he yawned,
"You might poison me with a hamburger and a slab of apple, Mac."
"I'll just do that little thing. Look kind of grouchy tonight, Milt."
"Too much excitement in this burg. Saw three people on the streets all
simultaneously to-once."
"What's been eatin' you lately?"
"Me? Nothing. Only I do get tired of this metropolis. One of these days
I'm going to buck some bigger place."
"Try Gopher Prairie maybe?" suggested Mac, through the hiss and steam of
the frying hamburger sandwich.
"Rats. Too small."
"Small? Why, there's darn near five thousand people there!"
"I know, but--I want to tackle some sure-nuff city. Like Duluth or New
York."
"But what'd you do?"
"That's the devil of it. I don't know just what I do want to do. I could
always land soft in a garage, but that's nothing new. Might hit Detroit,
and learn the motor-factory end."
"Aw, you're the limit, Milt. Always looking for something new."
"That's the way to get on. The rest of this town is afraid of new
things. 'Member when I suggested we all chip in on a dynamo with a gas
engine and have electric lights? The hicks almost died of nervousness."
"Yuh, that's true, but---- You stick here, Milt. You and me will just
nachly run this burg."
"I'll say! Only---- Gosh, Mac, I would like to go to a real show, once.
And find out how radio works. And see 'em put in a big suspension
bridge!"
Milt left the Old Home rather aimlessly. He told himself that he
positively would not go back and help Ben Sittka get out the prof's car.
So he went back and helped Ben get out the prof's car, and drove the
same to the prof's. The prof, otherwise professor, otherwise mister,
James Martin Jones, B.A., and Mrs. James Martin Jones welcomed him
almost as noisily as had Mac. They begged him to come in. With Mr.
Jones he discussed--no, ye Claires of Brooklyn Heights, this garage man
and this threadbare young superintendent of a paintbare school, talking
in a town that was only a comma on the line, did not discuss
corn-growing, nor did they reckon to guess that by heck the constabule
was carryin' on with the Widdy Perkins. They spoke of fish-culture,
Elihu Root, the spiritualistic evidences of immortality, government
ownership, self-starters for flivvers, and the stories of Irvin Cobb.
Milt went home earlier than he wanted to. Because Mr. Jones was the only
man in town besides the priest who read books, because Mrs. Jones was
the only woman who laughed about any topics other than children and
family sickness, because he wanted to go to their house every night,
Milt treasured his welcome as a sacred thing, and kept himself from
calling on them more than once a week.