Friendship Village Love Stories

n doors, knowing that out-of-doors it is June, the urge to be out there with it is resistless. But though you wade in green, steep in sun, breast wind, and glory in them al

more and more, might not one

your youth and mine. Always the Book of Youth will open at a page like this. And occasiona

at almost startled me. It was as if I ought not to have been looking. And to turn away from out-of-doors was like leaving some one who was saying

condone for the sake of the positive motive. And this I conceive to be that we are wistful of more ample occupation than is commonly contrived by our fifty-feet village lots, and so we royally add to our "yards" the sidewalk and the planting space and the road and as much of our neighbour's lawn as our imagination can annex. There see

g

e fugitive moments when one almost knows ... what it is all about. And with this question the field of the idler becomes the field of the wise man; and, indeed, if one idles properly—or rather, if the proper person idles—the two fields are not always on opposite sides of the road. To idle is by no means merely to do nothing. It is an avocat

a great many Light Gowns; but My Neighbour. She was watering her garden. These water rules and regulations of the village are among its spells. To look at the members of the water commission one would never suspect them of romance. But if they have it not, why have they named from five until nine o'clock the only morning hours when one may use the city water for

he raises foxgloves and parsley, and the sun shines over all. I must note a strange impression which my neighbour gives me: she has always for me an air of personal impermanence. I have the fancy, amounting to a sensation, that she is where she is for just a moment, and that she must[Pg 19] rush back and be at it again. I do not know at what. But whether I see

ut the Not-quite-news, Not-quite-gossip shared with

only the pleasant occu

s which they themselves have somehow heard, but

" But this mind, as I believe, is not harsh, since n

ome for the Java entertainment, next week," my neighbour imparte

swoman more lonely than she, and until ill-health came, long forgetful of Calliope. But she is to come back now and again, to this and to t

and she looked her amazement that I did not know. It would be, it appeared, one of those grea

do, too. The Sodality meant to have one when they set out to pave Daphne Street, but it turned out it wasn't needed. W

ys with decision, "is a bad night." It is, in fact, I note, very difficult to find a free night in the village, save only Tuesday. Monday, because of its obvious duties and incident fatigue, is as [Pg 21]impossible as Sunday; Wednesday is club day; Thursday "

ou can send your girl down to get a book for you. But I have to be home to get

ook her from town I scrupulously added to the earnings of my little maid, I confess that it had not occurred to me to wonder whether or not she would like Friendship Village. We seem so weary-far from the conditions which we so facilely conceive. Especially, I seem far. I am afraid that I engaged Elfa in the first place with less attention to her economic fitness than[Pg 22] that she is so trim and still and wistful, with such a p

observed; "the ladies here say that's one trouble with trying

lage. For I myself have heard women complain of their servants marrying and establishing families, and deplore this shortsigh

id my neighbour, "have

new books," I t

ome of his writing up to show you. He took some to the new school principal, I heard, and to the invalid that was here from the city. He seems to be sort of lonesom

?" I h

iness of the world. Her elision reminds me of the delicate animism of the Japanese which says, "When the rice pot speaks with a human voice, then the d

nd it is difficult to conceive of him as the subject of a new sentence. When I hear of Liva Vesey I get her confused with a pink gingham apron and a pail of buttermilk which used sometimes to pass my house with Liva combined. Fancy that pi

he whole family, too. I've seen families that wouldn't ever have looked at each other come to be real friends and able to see the angels in each othe

den and I followed on the walk—these informal colloquies of no mean length are perfectly usual in the village and they do not carry the necessity for an invitation within the house or the implication of a call. The relations of hostess and guest seem simply to be suspended, and we talk with the freedom of spir

e what she meant. And then I heard what I had not before noted: a thin, wavering line of singing, that had begun in the str

ary, what you m

erry, very, but you

ed, undulatory,

nterrupting my neighbour's

iefly. "When he does that it's li

ance, and I said so, but tentatively, lest I shoul

fine, tribal reticence of hers. "Except for the drinking," she even said,[Pg 26] "he seems to be a quiet, nice man. But it's a

ld not bear to leave his father here, "this way," and has just returned. "He works hard, and plays the violin, and is maki

by here in a minute on his way to work—it's most quarter to. I set my husband down to his breakfast a

dess-like competence, these women. At any of these offices they arrive, lacking the cloud, it is[Pg 27] true, but magnificently equipped to settle the occasion. In crises of, say, deafness, they will clap a hot pancake on a friend's ear with an ?sculapian savoir faire, for their efficiencies combine those of lost generations with all that they hear of i

looked as, in another milieu, Shelley might have looked, but so it was. It was not the first time that I have seen in such an one the look, the eyes with the vision and the shadow. I have seen it in the face of a man who stood on a step-ladder, papering a wall; I have seen it in a mason who looked up from the foundation that he [Pg 28]mortared; I have seen it often and often in the faces of men who till the

g us both looking at him, realized the worst, blushed a man's bro

eter keeps it cut, my husband don't get hom

age than in any place I know. No grace of manner or dress or mind can deceive anybo

e morning. I often fall wondering how it is in[Pg 29] other places. Is it possible that men in general go away to work without the consciousness of family, of themselves as going forth on the common quest? Is it possible that women see them go and

ws and sun-patterns on their backs, my neighbour looked at me with a smile—or, say, with two-thirds

r," she said, as if she w

k with the precision with which certain simple people and nearly all great people discard the particularities and lay bare their tr

e, "it's been her with him

g

t the better of Mi

h Miggy?" I inquired

he turned off the water at the hydrant. I remember that a young robin tr

p with jokes in general and especially with robins. "It made Miggy's little sister laugh so the other day when

ff in the morning, when I wish I had a little young thing, runnin'

ing vainly among the green mulberries. I wish that I were of those wh

"now I'll bake up the rest

g

to put the three fringed pinks in my hand to palliate her

g, "do you think you are g

ed to me with her w

s another door, opened into another shut place

, not to say cosmic air of activity and coffee. All the little houses, set close together up and down the street, were like a friendly porch party, on a long, narrow veranda, where folk sit knee to knee with an avenue between for the ice-cream to be handed. All the little lawns and gardens were disposed like soft green skirts, delicately embroider

ch no less than daylight pervades, illumines, comes to meet me at a thousand poi