Green Valley

arpeted with spring's frail and dainty blossoms, but no one dreams of letting the furnace go out or their base burner get cold until they see Fanny Fos

Martin's drug store to buy moth balls and talks about how it's going to paint its kitc

ngs to be gone over. All the doctor cases have to be discussed critically and the winter invalids, strong once again, come out to visit one another and compare notes. Letter

t to repeat the things they only half heard strange and weird tales are at times the result. And from these spring still more fantastic rumors and versions th

anced and touched up in color and form as to sound almost new. Then they are sent out again to begin life all over.

ial work as Fanny Foster. There are some Green Valley folks who attribute Fanny's up and down thinness to this wearing industry ye

h people break an arm or a leg right in the midst of strawberry canning maybe and it so happens that nobody sees them do this but Fanny. And when this does happen they don't even have to mortify themselves by calling her. She just comes of her own accord, forgetting the cru

of in horrified whispers; her children, buttonless, garterless, mealless, stray about in all sorts of improper places and weather. The whole town is home to them but they generally feel happiest at Grandma Wentworth's. She sets

Fanny was a full two weeks behind with her news schedule. But if late, her report was thorough. She dropped wearily i

s he's a good man and don't care for liquor at all and that their liking to hear him sing ain't no reason for getting him drunk and a poor way of showing their thanks and appreciation, and

f course Seth paid for it like he always does-right away. But you know how forgetful Uncle Tony is getting. Well, it seems he clean forgot

e that he was cheated out of. But Mert Hagley was the worst. Of course, everybody knows Mert's just dying to hog Uncle Tony's business along with his shop, as if the stingy thing wasn't rich enough already. Well, when Mert heard about that ten-cent mistake he said it was about time there were a few business changes in Green Valley, that a few business funerals would help a lot and freshen up things; that Uncle Tony was no bus

he corner of the middle row of shelves and there was that poor old man sitting as still as death in his cashier's cage and looking sick to death. You know he wouldn't cheat a soul, and as for that store, h

the whole thing. She was as hurt about it as Uncle Tony and kept holding on to Simpson's garden fence and saying,

anything. He was kind of white and miserable about the mouth and his eyes looked out kind of blind. But he smiled when Mrs. Jerry Dustin said, 'Good morning, Tony.' I w

ttention and time. She bought and bought, being real careful of course to ask only for the things she knew he had; and to top it all she bought four quarts of robin's-egg blue paint. You know that's Uncle Tony's favor-ite w

I nearly fell dead, and as for them old he-gossips they were about paralyzed, I guess. Why even you, Grandma, couldn't h

way of hers, 'you won't refuse, will you?' And I declare the lovely way she looked at him and he at her I come near believing Sadie might be right by accident. But,

. Everybody most but Dell Parsons. Dell felt sick when she heard it because she and Nanny have been such friends and Dell just knew that no matter how they'd both try to keep things the same there'd always be that eighteen-thousand-dollar difference between them whe

t wasn't so, that she and Will wouldn't thank anybody for

ught that uppish Mrs. Brownlee that's moved into that stylish new bungalow next to Will Turner's to time and sociability. Though the daughter isn't uppish a bit, so Nanny and Dell says, and visits right over the fence and just loves the children. But she don't know anything seeming

e which though was a good one. And the widow having no money didn't want to stay amongst her rich city friends and so she's come here. They say she hates Green Valley like poison but that the girl Jocelyn

ng wife of his and went off to California. Why, they say she nearly died giving him a ten-cent piece every week for spending money and that he used to work on the sly unbeknownst to her to get money for his tobac

r love or money. And Sam's beginning to think as they do, seems like. For they say he was awful mad when he heard about Jim Tumley getting so full he was sick. Sam was out that afternoon and he says Curley Watson, his barkeeper, is a danged chucklehead. And that ain't all. They're saying that Sam told George H

their first fight this year over their chickens. Mr. Pelly swears she lets them out a-purpose before he's awake in the morning and Mr

d and gone to raising mushrooms down in his cellar. Simpson's gray horse is dead, the lame one, and one of the White twins cut his head pretty bad on a toy engine and Benny Smith's wife is giving strawberry sets away. Jessups are al

left after the thing blows over. My land, ain't some folks ignorant! And-what was I going to say-oh, yes, of course Robinson ain't expected to live-and well-what was it I was going to say-something that begin

them to Sunday School looking half respectable. John never says a word scarcely to any one, from one week's end to the other. He never spends a free hour away from home, he never invites a man to his house, and he seldom smiles

. Then she put fresh wood on her fire and poked at the stove gr

Now we'll have a wedding and some

sed to be in the springs of long ago. Of the days when Roger Allan was a young, strength-mad fellow and Richard Wentworth was his chum and her love

ause they were so exactly alike they would most surely marry. But life, that wisely and for posterity's sake mates not the like but the unlike, brought Jerry Dustin on the scene,-good, practical, stay-at-home Jer

ternoons. But now he doesn't sit on the bench but perches on th

, boyish wistfulness and sweet pain, unmarred dreams and unstained, unbroken illusions,-that Rollins wanted to paint. Rollins knew

were almost finished, seemed right and just enough but that at the time were cruel and hard to bear. There was Roger Allan and

the wood fire sang of them sadly, sweetly and s

een Valley kind of minister, I do believe; a straightforward chap to tell us of life, its miracles and mysteries; of God and eternity as he honestly thinks, but mostly of love and the little happy ways of earthly living. A man who won't be always dividing us into sheep and goats b

and found David Allan laug

to do things right and that maybe you wouldn't want to know her. She's mighty lonely and strange about Green Valley ways of doing things. I most wished to-day that I was a woman so I could help her. Her mother's been sick more or less since they come here and she's looking af

course, I'll see about that little girl. You tell her I'm coming to call on her the day after tomorrow. Tell he

biscuit, rolled them up in a crisp li

stopped and b

n but now I feel-well, spring mad or something. I do believe