Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/339

 "Well, the talk is that the town won't vote a cent toward repairs."

"They'll have to! You can't get along without a library!"

"No, they won't. The talk is that the men won't vote to have the town give a bit of money for shingles. No, nor to pay somebody to take the place of Ellen Monroe as librarian. She's got work in the print mill at Johnsonville and is going to move down there to be near her brother's family."

"Oh, talk!" said Miss Abigail with the easy contempt she had for things outside her garden hedge. "Haven't you heard men talk before?"

"But they say really they won't! They say nobody ever goes into it any more when the summer folks go away in the autumn."

Miss Abigail's gesture indicated that the thing was unthinkable. "What's the matter with young folks nowadays, anyhow? They always used to run there and chatter till you couldn't hear yourself think."

Miss Molly lowered her voice like a person coming to the frightening climax of a ghost story. "Miss Abigail, they ain't any young folks here any more!"

"What do you call the Pitkin girls!" demanded the other.

"They were the very last ones and they and their mother have decided they'll move to Johnsonville this fall."

Miss Abigail cried out in energetic disapproval, "What in the Lord's world are the Pitkinses going to move away from Greenford for! They belong here!"

Miss Molly marshaled the reasons with a sad