Frontier Earth 1 by Bruce Boxleitner

Author:Bruce Boxleitner [Boxleitner, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-03T15:41:13+00:00

She loaded the weapon in the store, placing rounds into four of the five chambers and leaving the fifth empty and under the hammer, as a safety. Her dress had one deep pocket which would carry the weapon, easily accessible.

"Thank you," she told the man. "I do know how to use this."

TWELVE

SARAH NEVERS HAD BEEN UPSTAIRS TIDYING UP SEVERAL OF her boarders' rooms, making their beds and straightening up. Some men, she thought, needed a woman around just to keep them from getting lost in their own garbage. Mr. Macklin, she noticed-John-lived very lightly, picking up after himself and even straightening up the bed.

She noticed the window was closed and opened it to air the place out. Funny, she thought. He seems like the sort who'd like the out-of-doors. Then she remembered his experience with riding and chuckled ... before remembering something else and blushing deeply. Had she really done what she'd remembered doing for him last night? And ...

what must he think of her? He hadn't seemed either upset or, well, lustful this morning. Maybe it was okay. Just so long as no one else ever found out! She was coming down the steps when she heard a peal of woman's laughter coming from the front parlor. Puzzled, she made her way to the room, then stopped in shock. It was that woman, Doris Macklin, so-called, and she was reading Dr. Benjamin Rush's book.

"Miss Macklin!" The woman looked up, and laughed again out loud. "Mrs. Nevers! This is hysterical!" "What are-"

"Listen!" She started reading. " 'Onanism produces seminal weakness, impotence, dysury, tabes dorsalis,' whatever that is, `pulmonary consumption, dyspepsia, dimness of sight, vertigo, epilepsy, hypochondriasis, loss of memory , manalgia, fatuity, and death!' " She looked up and laughed again. "Miss Macklin!" Sarah said, shocked and blushing.

Her face felt hot. "If you please!" If any of her boarders had heard ... "Is 'onanism' what I think it is?" She held up a hand, fingers in a circle, forefinger touching thumb, then rapidly moved her hand back and forth, her eyebrows rising to make the crude gesture a question. This time, Sarah was speechless. She clapped both hands to her mouth, horrified. "I'm so sorry!" Doris Macklin tossed Rush's book carelessly onto a tabletop. "I just picked it up and started reading at random when I came across that passage. Is there anything that man doesn't blame on the practice?" She laughed again, as something else struck her funny. "Maybe that's what Mr. Macklin's problem is! Loss of memory!"

"Miss Macklin," Sarah said, recovering, at least in part. "It isn't right to make fun of... of that. It's a well-known fact that the insane asylums are crowded with men, and women, too, who have succumbed to ... to that! Nor will I tolerate your making fun of that poor man. And ... and you shouldn't be reading such things out loud! Someone might hear! And ...

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