14 Stories Read Online Free PDF

give a quarter. Here’s my address. And ten to fifteen cents for Galivanti’s handwritten first or pet names with or without the letters attached. Though to save postage you should scissor the signatures off, but leaving as much blank space around them as you can.”
    â€œAnybody ever ask you for your signature?”
    â€œAnother collector once. Young. Thought I’d be famous for what I do. I’m the best at this, but that doesn’t rate me, though he didn’t have the head to know. Want to sign up now for the future?”
    I sign.
    â€œDate too.”
    Today’s date.
    â€œAnd don’t go into my trade, you hear? You’ll kill me off.”
    â€œIt’ll be interesting to see what value my signature has for you in the next twenty years.”
    â€œYou’ll know.”
    I go. He stays.

MILK IS VERY GOOD FOR YOU
    It was getting fairly late in the evening for me so I asked my wife if she was ready to leave. “Just a few minutes, love,” she said, “I’m having such a good time.” I wasn’t. The party was a bore, as it had been from the start. Another drinking contest taking place in the kitchen, some teachers and their husbands or wives turning on in the john, Phil somebody making eyes at Joe who’s-it’s wife, Joe trying to get Mary Mrs. to take a breath of fresh air with him as he said while Mary’s husband was presently engaged with someone else’s sweetheart or wife for a look at the constellation she was born under, and I felt alone, didn’t want to turn on or drink another drink or walk another man’s wife through the fresh air for some fresh caressing. I wanted to return home and my wife didn’t as she was aching to turn on or drink with some other man but me and most especially to walk in the fresh air with Frank whatever his name was as Frank’s wife had just taken that same stroll with Joe after Joe had learned that Mary had promised herself tonight to the dentist friend accompanying her and her husband to this house, so I decided to leave.
    â€œGoodbye, Cindy,” I said.
    â€œLeaving now, love?”
    â€œLeaving now, yes, are you going to come?”
    â€œNot right this moment, Rick, though I’ll find some way home.”
    â€œTake your time getting there,” I said, “no need to rush. Even skip breakfast if that’s what you’ve mind to—I’ll see to the kids. Even pass up tomorrow’s lunch and dinner if you want—things will work out. In fact, spend the weekend or week away if you’d like to—I’ll take care of everything at home. Maybe two weeks or a month or even a year would be the time you need for a suitable vacation, it’s all okay with me, dear,” and I kissed her goodbye, drove home, relieved the babysitter who said “You needn’t have returned so early, Mr. Richardson, as the children never even made a peep. I like babysitting them so much it’s almost a crime taking money for the job.”
    â€œSo don’t,” I said, and Jane said “Well, that wasn’t exactly a statement of fact, Mr. Richardson,” and pocketed her earnings and started for the door.
    â€œGoodnight,” I said on the porch, “and I really hope you don’t mind my not walking you home tonight. I’m really too beat.”
    â€œIt’s only two blocks to the dorm, though I will miss those nice chats we have on the way.”
    Those nice chats. Those tedious six-to-seven minute monologues of Jane’s on her boyfriends’ inability to be mature enough for her or her inability to be unpretendingly immature for them or more likely she telling me about her schoolwork, no doubt thinking I’d be interested because I teach the same subject she’s majoring at in the same school she attends. “Tonight,” Jane said, “I especially wanted your advice on a term paper I’m writing on the father-son if not