Of course I wanted to spend a Saturday morning wandering through the stalls of a barn. Especially when the proprietor admitted he didn’t have a clue where to find certain books. I was here by invitation because my date knew I treasured all books. The hard to find and long out of print books are my favorite.
Somewhere in this would-be attic was a treasure waiting to be discovered. The problem was reading every title. I took the ladder to the hayloft and looked down at the stalls. From that height I couldn’t determine which stalls held which subjects.
My date sat in a rocking chair with an oversize book of photographs on his lap and one of those old fashioned viewers he could use to look at special postcards giving the illusion of three-dimensions. He looked up at me and grinned. I waved and blew him a kiss.
From somewhere one golden strand of hay fluttered into my hair and pricked me when I reached up to remove it. Back on the ground floor, I tripped on one of the loose planks and landed on my seat in front of a bookcase. Right there I saw a large brown cover with gold illuminated letters on the cover. The book was a complete works of Shakespeare and had been printed in the first decade of the twentieth century.
This was the treasure I couldn’t bear to put back on the shelf. While I didn’t have competition from other customers for this book, I decided to pay right away. The owner directed me to the back yard where his daughter had a lemonade stand. I bought two cups before joining my date. He’d brought me to the right place and the wrong place. I wanted to bring home every book. I praised the owner for rescuing so many books from becoming trash. I didn’t want to leave.
THE END
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