Whiter Than Snow Read Online Free PDF Page A

he?”
    “He’s probably never heard of the pictures.”
    “Then how about it?”
    “Maybe,” Lucy said, knowing her father would be boiling mad if he learned she had disobeyed him. But how would he find out? She’d tell her aunt she was busy at school. “I could try. But you’ll understand if I don’t show up, won’t you?”
    “Not one bit. And I’ll be mighty disappointed.”
    They agreed on a time, and Lucy fretted all week, wondering if Aunt Alice would somehow discover what she was up to and tell her father. The old woman would have a vexation about it. But by the weekend, Lucy decided to chance it. And Ted, it seemed, decided to take no chances at all, for when Lucy left work on Saturday to catch the trolley downtown, he was waiting for her outside the drugstore.
     
    Lucy did not know that life could hold so much joy for her as it did in that third year of college. She had her classes, and she had Ted. She did not let herself think that it would all end. Because their schools were at far sides of the city—Lucy’s in the south end of Denver and Ted’s in Golden, a town to the west, they did not see each other as often as they would have liked. Besides, since Aunt Alice did not know about him, Ted could not call at the house, so they had to plan their meetings in public places. Sometimes he brought his books and studied at a table near the soda fountain or dropped by at the end of Lucy’s shift so that the two of them could walk to the corner near her aunt’s house. Ted would leave her there and take the trolley and then the interurban back to Golden. In the late autumn, when the leaves fell, they walked in Washington Park and around the lake, and after cold weather came, they continued to walk. Lucy was used to mountain cold, so the low temperature in Denver did not bother her. Nor did it affect Ted, who loved the brisk weather.
    Neither one had much money—Ted’s parents had died, and his small inheritance barely covered tuition and living expenses—so they did not go to the movies often or to restaurants for dinner. Ted invited her to a dance once, but Lucy turned him down, because there was no way she could keep such an outing secret from her aunt. Mostly, they talked, sometimes stopping in drugstores for coffee. And talking seemed to satisfy both of them. Ted told Lucy, “I can talk to you about anything. You’re as smart as a fellow.”
    One day as they sat on a bench in Washington Park, feeding stale buns from the drugstore to the ducks, Ted remarked, “God put gold in the ground for us to find, and I intend to do it. I can just imagine how those old fellows felt fifty years ago when they discovered gold. I guess they’re all living the life of Riley now.”
    “Not so’s you’d notice,” Lucy told him. “Most of them sold out cheap and spent the money. It was the finding of it that mattered.”
    “I guess I understand that.” He sat back on the bench and grinned. “I never thought I’d meet a girl who knew so much about mining.”
    “There’s not much else to know about in Swandyke. Some of those old prospectors are still around, you know.”
    “I’d like to meet them.”
    “You’d be disappointed. Oh, they tromped around mighty for a while, but today, they’re no better than ragpickers, living off other folks’ leavings. Most people think they’re no account for nothing,” Lucy told him.
    “Well, I wish I’d grown up hearing their stories.”
    “I wish I hadn’t.”
    Ted turned to stare at Lucy. “If you dislike Swandyke so much, how come you’re going back?”
    “I don’t have a choice. I promised my father I would.” She thought a minute. “It’s not all bad up in the high country. There’s nothing prettier than a mountain summer. And in the fall, when the leaves turn, you’d swear you were inside a gold vug.” She added, “That’s one of those little pockets filled with pure gold. Every prospector in the world hopes to find one.”
    “I know what a