Read Online Rohn Federbush - Sally Bianco 02 - The Appropriate Way by Rohn Federbush - Free Book Online Page A

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    Watching Sally grumble through their scant bookshelves one Friday night, Mother reminded her the public library was only eighteen blocks away on the other side of town. Daddy needed the car in the morning but she could walk the short distance.
    Bright and early Saturday morning Sally headed for the library. The four blocks of Dean Street ended at the high-school hill, which was the highest point on the west side of town. Descending east toward the Fox River, she passed St. Patrick’s school, the priest house and the church where they attended seven o’clock Mass each Sunday. Regulars, her mother was pious, Daddy off-handed. Sally’s beliefs claimed the one constant and sanctioned toe-hold on life.
    Past the gas station and hardware store, she slowed her pace, gawking into the windows of Carson’s, the most expensive women’s clothing store in town. Across the street the shoe store beckoned. Daddy said she owned enough shoes to put soles on a caterpillar. The Hotel Baker’s Nelson’s jewelry-shop window held a few trinkets of interest, but the sound of the wide Fox River spilling over the north dam drew her down the hill to the bridge.
    She would check out the south dam on her return trip. Maybe all farmers’ daughters love to watch water flowing toward promised destinations. The past made sense standing next to the talking stream. But she was a house painter’s daughter now, making her weekend more pleasurable with a gallery of books. The steepest hill, thankfully on the way to the library, passed between twin peaks of the modest Methodist and the fancy Presbyterian churches. Planning to carry as many books as possible back from the library, she calculated each slight incline. She scheduled her trek early enough to arrive cool and un-rumpled as the main doors opened.
    The domed, modest brick structure boasted Ionic columns outside and mahogany paneling inside. If souls needed buildings, Sally’s spirit chose a library over a church, anytime. She breathed better among books. The promise of friends remaining constant on the shelves, their words of wisdom unchanged, their homes secure in idyllic sites, compelled her to appreciate each book’s binding, each category’s rightness, each hushed word appropriate to the hallowed air. The smells of leather, glue, and mildew rose as a heady incense in the diffuse light from the rim of high windows in the oval room.
    The librarian recognized her as a frequent patron; but never presumed on her privacy by asking about her family. Besides, Sally underwent the creation of a new personality each time she entered, transformed by the content of the latest, borrowed books written by Kafka, Maugham, Stevenson, and Emily Dickinson. It was a miracle her feet still reached the pavement because her mind rose another inch above reality. She brought a pillowcase to lug new books home. After two hours careful selection, Sally picked eight red books by Anatole France, a slim blue volume by Voltaire, a yellow one by Christopher Fry, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Othello , and three volumes of the History of the Jews . Trying to ignore the frowning librarian, Sally filled her cloth bag with the treasures.
    The summer heat of late June made the burden heavier than expected. Tempted to drag the bag, Sally rested at the bridge before hitching the load up onto the other shoulder.
    “Santa Claus.” Art Woods taunted as he slowly drove up in his father’s MG. “Need a lift?”
    Sally stopped to put down her load. “Is there room in that little thing for these and me?”
    He double-parked and came over, lifted the bag of books into the trunk. “Way too many. I thought you were too smart for summer school?”
    “Don’t you read?” She asked, trying not to sound snobbish as she stretched out her grateful legs in the little car.
    “Not in summer. College will come fast enough.”
    Sally wished she’d brought more Kleenex as she dabbed at her