After all, history is a bunch of reading history books. Still, the pace was ridiculous. I was reading the equivalent of a history book a week, and the... giving a critique on each book, as well as preparing a major term paper at the end of the class. Then multiply by two! Add in some preparation time for my eventual dissertation.It was too much. I felt I was barely keeping my head above water. I would just get a chapter started when the kids would race through, or Boxie needed to be walked, or. There was also the ever present potential danger and excitement of deadly differences over the cards, a cheater exposed, or simply bad blood.Also unlike their larger city counterparts, these rural saloons tended to be fairly small, long and narrow affairs. Generally, they were not much larger than 80 feet by 24 feet with a single bar of about twenty feet. Plenty of spittoons were scattered about the floor by the bar and around the tables for the many inveterate chewers of the day. If present at. .. Don't worry,” she said with the sweetest smile. “I'm only nineteen. Most people I meet think I am in my mid-twenties or something.”She paused before suddenly thrusting her hand towards me.“I am Ediline but you can call me Eddie if you want to.”“I am Harriet,” I replied with a bright smile. “And if you want to, you can call me Hattie!”For some odd reason, this sweet young woman made me feel twenty years younger and suddenly, I wanted to know more about her but she said she had been home for. I furrowed my brow and tried to figure out why, as if it was puzzle or a mystery. The logical part of my brain stated the obvious - “it’s probably been some time since you last had sex, or you're just feeling horny again, or both”. But then, that dark part of my mind kicks in, and not in some loud, flagrant way. No, it gives just the smallest whisper: “you were thinking about her…” And then, she becomes all I can think about. I don’t even know if she was ever the root cause or not, but the idea.