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Show Andrew Carnegie had intended all his free public libraries to become community centers, and had equipped the one in Canaan with an indoor swimming pool, an auditorium, showers for people who didn't have plumbing in their homes, and a billiards room to keep the young men off the streets, all in addition to the books. During the first week that Karl had deceived his mother by pretending to go after Kathleen at the nickelodeon, he'd hung around the library's billiards room each evening between 8:45 and 9:15, for lack of anything better to do. After Miss Petrov gave him the book of Shakespearean sonnets, he'd begun spending those half hours in the library's reading room, paging through the book with a despair that grew deeper each night. He'd never much liked reading, anyway, and the sonnets were moldy, unintelligible bunk. How could anyone make up a tune, for lines like, "And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er the sad account of fore-bemoaned moan," or "More than that tongue that more hath more expressed." After twelve evenings spent raking through the mire of verse that made no sense, Karl decided to tell Miss Petrov that he couldn't do it, that the job was too much for him. He'd stay after school the following afternoon, a Tuesday, and explain it to her. She might be disappointed, but she'd have to accept the fact that Karl wasn't an honor student like Fred. By that time they'd gone past the Shakespearean sonnets in class, and were reading Antony and Cleopatra, which was as bad as the sonnets. That Tuesday, after lunch, Miss Petrov called on Karl |
