Spring fire

Front matter

Reading edition

Sorority House

From far off Susan Mitchell could hear the sweet voices of a fraternity serenading another sorority house down the street.

Mitch turned the light on and looked at the face of the clock. It was eleven-thirty. She saw Leda’s half-full package of cigarettes on the desk, and she took one from the pack and lit it.

It was taking Leda a long time. Mitch was numb with torment, and the sheets on her bed were wrinkled and halfway off the mattress from her perpetual turning and moving as she waited. The ticking of the tin clock on the dresser sounded frantic and Mitch made the ticks come in three beats in her mind—Les-bi-an, Les-bi-an, tick-tick-tick. The thought foamed in Mitch’s brain and hurt her. She did not know why she felt dirty when Leda told her that she was a Lesbian. She thought she should have felt happy and glad that they were two. But she did not want to be one.

Tomorrow, she decided, she would move out of Tri Epsilon and into the dorm with Robin. If she and Leda weren’t put out of the sorority, she would leave anyway. But she knew she could not leave Leda. “I love Leda,” she said softly to the darkness, “even though we’re both that way. I wish she wasn’t that way.”

A GOLD MEDAL ORIGINAL

SPRING FIRE

Vin Packer

New York Gold Medal Books Fawcett Publications, Inc.

First Printing, February 1952 Second Printing, August 1952 Third Printing, May 1954 Fourth Printing, March 1956 Fifth Printing, July 1958

All characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.