Neighborhood Stories

now and it’s

brother” a

er” whenever a

rible toll

the silent d

noffens

here and it’s “

rother” onc

er” whenever an

of the com

he days that

ch of the r

you know anyhow one, because if you don’t they’s t

kfast fire smoke coming out of the kitchen chimney and hearing everybody’s little boy splitting wood and whistling out in the chip pile, and smelling {125}ev

myself, “sitting down to breakfa

the big whistle up to the round-house blew strong and hoarse and like it knew it all and could tell you more about the time of day then you’d ever guessed if it want

ace curtain to one of the front windows—though they was two front windows to the room. “I’ve always hankered for a pair o’ lace curtains,” she said{126} to me when I went up to see her one day, “but when I’d get the money together to buy ’em, it seems like some

, “who’s keeping stor

, like he usually does.

g it very long,” he said.

it was paying y

see me run no store down there and take away his trade from the Flats. He begun under

’ down everything for, from prunes upwards,”

n’ on; “I’ve come up this mornin’ to see abou

and. And Silas in the Council—and on t

nned a li

treet, holding his hands heavy, and kind of letting his feet fall i

cks for folks’s barns, and Timothy Toplady, that’s interested in the cement works over to Red Barns, got Zachariah Roper, that’s to the head of the Red Barns plant, to come over and buy Ben Dole’s house and come up on his rent—two different times he done that. It wasn’t new. But it all kind of baffled me. It seemed so legal that I couldn’t put down my finger on what was the m

would you mind me lett

little, and let ’em kin

you’re thinkin’ of saying anyth

e Street with a Determination sitting up in the air just ah

missed his train because some of us had told him to keep straight on till he turned the corner{129} by the Ellsworth House, and he kept hunting for it and trusting in it till he struck the swamp. But you know how it is—you get to saying one thing, and you keep on uttering it after the thing is dead and gone and another has come in its place, and when somebody takes you up on it, like as not you’l

s! Or,” says I, flattering, “is it a

looked over her shoulder, and then she went right on setting them out, hard as she could dig. “Glad you

g of her husband having been Fire Chief for eleven years and more, and she might have influence with ’em. I’d of known that too, if I’d thought of it—but you know how it is when they pitch on to you to appoint a committee from the chair? All your i-dees and your tact and your memory and your sense takes hold of hands and exits out of you, and you’re left up there on the platform, unoccupied by any of ’em—and ten to one you’ll appoint the woman with the thing in her hat that first attracts your attention. Mebbe it ain’t that way with some, but I’

ps is all right——” bringing my fu

imple and grave and direct and patient and—wounded again. And I felt kind of sick, along up and down my chest. And the back of my hea

creatin’ ’em as fast as we’ll get our meannesses ou

told me wh

the canary. I waved my hand acrost to her, and she whips off her big apron and{132} shake

e while I do an erra

leared off yet,”

just as fond of the sun in heaven as you

r hair to make sure, and we went down the street together. And the first thing I done was to burst out with my thoughts all ove

es when its most strawberry time. I could even understand his sales on canned stuff he’s had in the store till the labels is all fly-specked. But when he begun to cut on new pot

dy. It ain’t as if the courts could get after him and some more and make them be fair to their little competitors,

made her lips bo

nd I see my Determination was crooki

s’ Sykes was just coming out their gate with a pla

ou know? I heard it was.” The whole town always watches for Mis’ Sykes’s night-blooming

ver looked at

think it will, Calliope. Won’t you come in t

ld; and when

on to what she said like that, I wonder? I feel like I’

Holcomb’s eyes w

” she says. “She done that so’s to k

t say, she sort of suc

way,” she says miserable, “and it

es ain’t the one to ever forgive a thing like that. I s’pose

“You know how Mis’ Sykes is. From now on, if I s

t ought to be so in a village family, but then sometimes it is. I s’pose in cities it’s different—they always sa

going down street than she would in darning—I mention darning because I defy anybody to pick out anything uninteresti

n’s quarrel is catching in a family. And a potato bread

f she shouldn’t say a word,

Pure” to go over his confectionery counter. He had his coat off, and his hair had been br

s,” says he,

ver,” I says.

the devil take the hindmost in most everything now

it out. That’s why,” I adds serene, “we been so moved by your generous cost

ait trade

else?” I

me folks uses instead of wit, “to push the store, o

s. “I thought it was k

an—game?” says

brief. “You the cat and

straight and ju

earing now?” he

much. Only that you’ve been underselling Bitty so’s to

ever sq

ave? Ain’t I got a right to p

im square

ays, “not

his head and la

been following very close the b

you,” I says simple. And I might have added, “And

kind of got behind being legal and grinned out at folks and said: “Do your worst. You can’t stop us.” But now I see, like a blast of light, that it was no such thing; but that most of them was probably good husbands and fathers

aying, “what you go

mb standing, nervous, over b

llage to do the same—unless it is your wife that can’t help herself like lots of women can’t: Unless you get your foot off B

mes that you ain’t ever looked upon as particu

ge that would stand that kind of dealing, if they only

row over on to the sugar barrel, and made a

men swarming over the world like different kinds of—o

al, “because there wouldn’t b

—all of you,” and disappeared out again, and we heard him running down the street. Then we saw two-three more go running by the door, and we heard some shouting. And Silas, that must have guessed at what th

getting excited because nothing ever happens here. They a

the loose board walk with that special clump and thud that boots ge

an tell that some portraits of total strangers is the portraits of somebody that’s dead. They look dead. And them groups looked trouble. And then I see Timothy Toplady come tearing{140

“what’s the matte

, and threw out his h

ys, “get in here

come out to her gate with Mis’ Sykes, and they was both out on the st

ust telephoned everybody. The Flats’ll be flooded.

agon, him reaching down to help us, courteous, and we set down on the bottom of the wagon—Mis’

lways flows over into the road when anything happens. And men and women kept coming out of houses, and calling to know what was the matter, and everybody shouted it back at them so’s they couldn’t understand, but they come out and jo

ver and over too, “that’s built high and dry. But the whole Flats’

t the washings was of them that didn’t do them themselves. The garden truck of them that didn’t have gardens, the home grown vegetables for Silas’s store, the hired girls’ homes of them that had hired girls, the rag man, the scissors grinder, Lowry that canes chairs and was always trying to sell us tomato plants—you know how that part of a town is populationed? And then there was a few that worked in Silas’s factory, and an outlaying m

few we see was busy loading their things up on to the second floor, but most of ’em didn’t have any second floors, so they was either running up the hill or getting a few things{143} on to the roof. I

est housekeeper, “and I ’spose it’s so late

that,” says Mis’

ir winter vegetables et out of their sullars,” say

Merriman,” I remember I say

t it, together, till we got down into

of Elephant Hill and{144} dump ’em there by appointment, and come back for another load, everybody sorting their own out of the pile later, as best they could. While he was gone we done things up for folks like wild and I donno but like mad, and had a regular mountain of ’em out on the walk when he come driving back; but when we got that all loaded on, out come Mis’ Ben Dole, running w

b, all frantic as she was, a

I says, to be sure we meant the same thing. “Just as

he very day to a froth?” and she went on emptyi

than one was saying we’d ought to begin to make tracks for high ground, because likely when it come, it’d come with a rush. And some of us had stepped out on the street and was asking Sil

hall. He wasn’t home. And where’s h

hed together up the stairs of Bitty’s little grocery, to where he lived, and into the back room. And there set Bessie Marshall in the back room, puttin

ne what we could, and it wasn’t any time at all till we was going down the stairs carrying what few things they’d most need for the next few days. When we stepped out in the street, the wa

oop of little chickens and their mother

he baby and Mis’ Merriman was seated in it, and me, he come running with the coopful of little y

such a little bit of the rescuing. Oh, when it’s a flood or a fire or a

of flabby. But when{147} we got up on top of Elephant Hill, where was everybody—folks from the Flats, and a good deal of what they owned put into a pile, and the folks from Friendship “proper” come to watch—

we can manage among us, but the other two meals is going to be some of a trick. So be Silas would leave

that. He’ll say it’ll set a precedent, and what he does

m set a precedent for himself for flo

a change of heart. Let’s ask him,” I says, and I adds low to Mis’ Toplady that I’d asked Silas for so many things

y come by, each estimating how fast the ri

t how we’re going to feed these

lly does, about us women being frantic to assume respons

women would cook the stuff, us men would chip in and buy the material. And wouldn’t it be some

say another word. And it was the rest of ’em let

sensed that?” says Mis

“but I can see to i

got seven dozen fresh eggs in the house, and

’em,” says I,

p with ’em, and mentioned eggs and

just been telling Silas

hem decanter men that the glass stopper can’t hardly be got out. But it wasn’t the

lliope,” he says, “in our stores or o

e one secunt to

? Because if it’s true—won’t you let it last after the

s just then, and was just falling on its nose when he caught it—I s’pose{150} bill is more biologic, but it

“a flood’s a flood. Can’t

an’t. Nor I don’t belie

utes that two things happened: The first was that a boy came riding over on his wheel from the telegraph office

ed the news over to Red Barns and listen at this: ‘Put me down for

er to Timot

wns the cement plant that some of

l. “The idear,” says he, “of bringin’

a little pinch of a smile on his face. Just for a minute he met my eyes. Then he looked down

p in front of me come running little Mrs. Bi

off and left my lace curtain. I took it down first thing and pi

say a word Sila

e bit. But,” says he, “if anything does happen to it, Mis’ Marshall, I’ll tell you now you can hav

we walked the whole thing kind of begun to take hold of me, what it{152} meant, and things that had been coming to me all the morning ca

l young, that we’ve lived neighbor to all our lives, and yet we do

verybody; for twelve years he’s moved my refrigerator out and my cook stove in, and vicious verses, as regular as Spring come and Autumn arrived; and there all the time he had a wife, with a cameo pin,

s they hang straight and not like a waterfall with its expression blowing sideways, same as mine do—there’s Mamie wi

y was engaged ... and we knew she was married, but not one of us had thought of her as human enough ever to have been engaged. And Mis’ Haskitt with her new black dress

tting us see them, and all

olks that we’ve never thought so very much about, we’re glad to get the feeling that I had when I heard our grocery-boy knew how to hand-ca

p that feeling,

of the fullness of

so much more folks tha

that was near

“they’re in trouble. Ain’t

n come from? It didn’t just grow up now, did it?—li

’s in us all,{154} of course. But

es a minute to get us all going, with our hands in our pockets and lumps in our throats and our sympathy just as busy as it ever was for our little family in-four-walls affairs. Now,” I says, “that

I said

eep things from happening as we work wh

revent floods,” says Mis’ Merr

about comets—we’d show you. And do you think it’s any harder to bank in a river t

g along on Daphne Street. And all of a sudden Mis’ Merriman looked over to me and smiled, and so I done to her, and I saw that our morning together and our feeli

ee enough pretty things to miss one when I can get to it. And there, sitting on Mis’ Sykes’s

d forgot,” says Mame, “and the Marshalls is all down town in

s!” says I. “

and Bitty’ve been looking over grocery stock ca

ut whether the flood done it, o

I says. “I thought you—I

day, there we was peeling potatoes together in the same pan, and we don

wns and calling to each other across the streets, and a little smell of bon-fire smoke coming from somewheres? It was like that. And when Mis’ Sykes co