The House of Pioneers in our northern town was located in a gorgeous, late-nineteenth-century villa of Swiss inspiration, situated on an alley overlooking Youth Field, the Municipal Stadium, the Summer Theatre, and the hills behind it. 

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The library was on the first floor, and it boasted as its guardian a tall, middle-aged walkirie endowed with a big, hawkish nose, veiny hands, varnished nails that looked like so many blood stains, and a bulky fur hat on her head for draught protection.

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The day I walked in I was ten, thus in the prime and glory of my youth, and was wearing my new hooded jacket. I felt well-dressed, superior, and a subtle literary connoisseur, but the Guardian of the Books looked so imposing and so definitely in command as she peeked over her reading glasses that my self-assurance turned to dust and ashes, and I instantly knew for a fact that I was nothing but a dumb foot soldier, the scum of the earth.

 

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