Twogether on Tuesday

A pair of tree swallows check out the neighborhood.

I got down to some serious reading this past week. Not in the heavy subjects sense of the word, I mean I took the pastime of reading seriously.
I’ve let it lag these past few years. My eyes bothered me, I spent a great deal of time on the Internet (not like, those two are, like, related or anything) and time sped up and got filled in.
Last week I decided I’d had it with the excuses. I have many books on my to read list and I keep collecting more. The Town is hosting a week-long freecycle event. Books by the boxful are waiting, playful and anxious as a new kitten, to be taken to a new home to be loved and cherished. I’ve been twice already and the event goes until the 30th.

I finished two books I had going and am most of the way through a third. It’s a Zane Grey guns’n’moonshine book as old as I am.
I love it. Wonderful description, zipping story, and dialogue tags few would dare use today like “he ejaculated excitedly.”

For Twofer Tuesday from Zane Grey’s The Arizona Clan, (Pocket Books, Simon and Schuster Canada, 1966. Originally published by Harper & Row, 1958) I offer these two sentences and a bonus in which Dodge Mercer is introduced to the local moonshine, Arizona White Mule:

“A terrific shock, a vitriolic burn, a sudden blindness assailed him simultaneously. A torturing fire seemed to move slowly down inside and to explode. The impact of searing bullets had done less to him.”

As for mine, here’s something from A Fly on the Wall:

“Mrs. Ingetuckle certainly has her own way of expressing herself. What has she got against Norse vegetables?”
“I think she likes the way the words sound. And the image of a Viking eating a salad. She entertains easily.”

For more, or to find out how to participate, please see the Women of Mystery.