Read "Spellbinders" by Margaret Culkin Banning online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Freda met her father on the street three blocks from home. She saw him coming, laden as usual with books, a package of papers from the psychology class to correct -- and the meat. The collar of his ulster was turned up around his ears but Freda knew him even in the gathering twilight, a block away. There was a dependency about Eric Thorstad's figure -- about the meat -- that was part of her life.
"Liver or veal? " she asked gayly, taking the fat package from under his arm.
"It's a secret."
"Sausage," she said, "I can tell by the feel and the smell."
"Aren't you late, Freda?"
"I went to the movies."
"Again? I wish you wouldn't go so often. What do you get out of them?"
"Thrills, father dear."
"All unreal."
She skipped into a stride that matched his.
"A thrill is a shiver of romance," she declared, "it's never unreal."
"And what gives the shiver? The white sheet?"
"I'm open minded. Could be a well tailored garden, Nazimova's gown, a murder on a mountain."
He laughed and they went along briskly until they came to the third in a row of small yellow frame houses, and turned in at the scrap of cement walk which led up to the porch.
In the kitchen Mrs. Thorstad turned from the stove to kiss them both.
"How was your meeting? " asked her husband.
A kind of glow came over Adeline Thorstad's face.
"It was a lovely meeting. I am sure that it is significant that so many women, even women like old Mrs. Reece will come to hear a talk on their civic responsibilities. You should have managed to come, Freda."
Freda put an arm about her mother's shoulders.
"I couldn't," she said. "I'd have spoiled the circle of thought. I don't care whether women vote or not."