1
In the Brailsford Junction Public Library where the youth of
the town came to make love, look at classic nudes, peruse the
stimulating success stories to be found in the Alger books, explore
the jungles with Livingstone and Stanley, sigh and weep with the
Victorian poets, wallow in Cooper, Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Louisa May Alcott and General Lew Wallace, and if special favorites
of the Librarian to visit the restricted shelves where such
infamous authors as Lord Byron, Walt Whitman, Anatole France and
Theodore Dreiser languished in sin....
In this den of vicarious iniquity Peter Brailsford found companions
more in harmony with his spirit than in the town itself, which just
now was banking around its houses with manure, putting up storm
doors, and getting out long underwear, fur caps, and mackinaws.
Here were Hamlets who wandered brooding and mourning even as Peter
brooded and mourned. Here were flaming young women who spoke
in well-rounded phrases to dashing, intelligent young men who
really got somewhere in life. Here were Poetic heroes off on their
tremendous Odysseys through wine-dark seas. Soldiers of Fortune
easily subduing whole South American Republics.
Reading had been something of a chore while he was still in high
school. Now he read for the joy of reading, everything he could
get his hands on from Dumas to Ibsen and from Rider Haggard to
Shakespeare.
Haggard's terrific tales curdled his blood and started him off on
the chain of episodes in his own life which bothered his dreams.
The great men who had stood beside his bed at night bringing their
huge faces closer and closer until he awoke in a cold sweat; the
fear of God which had made his childhood miserable, the early fear
of railroad trains which during his fourth and fifth years had sent
him terrified into the cellar whenever he heard the distant whistle
and the clanging of the bell; night fears as when he had gone down
into the woods to find a calf and had heard the stealthy whisper of
some unseen thing passing through the deep grass; the fear of death
and the absolute finality of damnation.
Other authors started other trains of thought in his mind:
nostalgic, wistful, lonely thoughts of the time when he had been
lost and his mother and father had come hunting him with a lantern.
He had heard them calling far off through the rain-wet woods. They
had wrapped him in a blanket and they had driven for miles in the
horse and buggy until at last they were at home again; thoughts of
his mother coming to tuck him in at night and how desperately he
wanted her to come and how fearful he was that she might forget;
thoughts of the picnic to which he was not invited and how he had
lain beneath the lilac bush watching the other children going by
with their picnic baskets. (Often he was homesick for the farm.)
But some of the things he read made him fighting mad, and others
made him ambitious. This evening, waiting for Maxine Larabee, he
had picked up a book on the Gypsies. A young Gypsy woman stepping
from her van had given him what he thought was a tremendous idea....
Why not a camp trailer fitted up with every convenience for a
traveling home? If Gypsies could live in vans so could a world of
roving motorists. Here was the idea which would make him famous and
which would cinch his progressive rise at the "Trailer." He wanted
to shout his discovery to everyone in the room. He wanted most
desperately to find Maxine Larabee and pour out his hopes and plans.
He could see just how the camp trailer would look. It would be
mounted on a one-ton chassis. There would be two small windows on
each side and one at the front end fitted out with screens and
bright curtains. There would be a door at the back with steps which
would let down. Inside there would be one bunk on either side which
would fold up against the wall; a folding table; built-in, narrow
cupboards and clothes press; a small coal-oil stove for cooking.
He felt somewhat at a loss in designing the tiny kitchen. He would
have to ask Maxine to help him with that.
It suddenly came over him that after he and Maxine were married
they could take their honeymoon in one of his own camp trailers. He
was sure that she would be an awfully good sport. He could see her
helping to catch their dinner and cooking it over the camp fire. He
took a pencil and paper from his pocket, began to sketch rapidly.
Despite two years of mechanical drawing at the high school his
fingers lagged behind his racing mind.
And now the sketch was finished. But where was Maxine? He was
afraid that she would not come.
At eight forty-seven, however, there was a stir near the door. In
a new fall ensemble with a hobble skirt that not one of the girls
in the room had seen before, and which must have been purchased
at some exclusive shop like Bostwick's in Janesville, the Belle
of Brailsford Junction made her majestic entry. Cleopatra, or
Helen of Troy, or Marie Antoinette could not have slain them more
effectively. And, _mirabile dictu_, she was headed for Peter's
table. She sat down directly across from the boy, who, despite
his delight, experienced as always an empty feeling in his solar
plexus, blurred vision, and cold sweat in the palms of his hands.
"Whatcha reading?" asked Maxine, sticking her gum on the under
surface of the library table already plastered with dried chicle in
geological strata running back half a decade.
"Uh ... uh ... a book on Gypsies."
"The dirty things," squealed Maxine. "Ee-magine going out in the
woods like that with spiders and snakes and everything. They steal
and have things in their hair."
"Aw, you're always spoiling everything," said Peter.
"Well, if I'm spoiling everything I'll just run along," said the
girl.
"No, don't. Please stay," said Peter.
"You can walk me home," the girl said, smiling archly, "if you
don't talk about Gypsies and horrid things like that."
"Can I walk you home?" Peter asked, his disappointment forgotten,
his whole being an ecstasy of expectation.
"Sure, you can walk me home," Maxine said. "Walking a girl home
don't mean anything. I let lots of fellows walk me home."
"Gee, Maxine. Gee, you're beautiful tonight."
"Did you notice the hobble skirt?"
"Did I notice it! How could I help but notice it?"
"I just coaxed and teased till Mamma had to get it for me."
"Gee, Maxine. You sure look swell in it. I guess you're the
prettiest girl in Rock County."
"In Rock County?" asked Maxine, regarding him through large,
offended eyes from beneath her coyly-tilted hat brim.
"In the world, I mean," said Peter, feeling his Adam's apple
pressing uncomfortably against his high, stiff collar.
"Well, it's nine o'clock," said the girl, as the Librarian began
banging Webster's Dictionary on her desk,--the usual signal for
closing time.
They walked home together through the fall evening talking of
everything except what was near their hearts. She took his arm
at the crossing, and the small place where her hand rested was
burning hot beneath his coat. There was a big harvest moon rising
out of the elm trees from which the leaves were drifting down like
large yellow petals. Their breath was white on the frosty air. Far
overhead they could hear the honk of the wild geese flying south
and the whistle of wings cutting the air.
They stood for a long time at the gate of the Larabee home whose
windows gleamed invitingly. A smell of wood-smoke came from the
chimney of the fireplace. The wind stirred in the trees.
"Well, ain't you going to kiss me goodnight," Maxine pouted,
putting up her lips.
He thought she couldn't have said it. Nothing so wonderful could
happen to a country boy. He hesitated, looking down at her
loveliness, her lips a trifle apart, her eyes closed, waiting. His
blood was singing a chorus through his temples and his ears rang
with a strange music.
"Well," she said.
But he had waited too long. From the front door of the Larabee
domicile came the booming voice of Mr. Larabee:
"Maxine! You come right in the house, young lady. It's after nine
o'clock."
* * * * *
The clock had struck eleven before Peter Brailsford, tossing on
his bed, remembered the camp trailer which was to revolutionize
motoring, the beautiful little green vans, complete with running
water, small kitchens, electric lights run from storage batteries,
even curtains at the windows. He went to sleep dreaming of Maxine,
of sweet revenge, and of his trailers.
2
A Hallowe'en party at the Methodist Episcopal church in Brailsford
Junction was a social event of the first magnitude. The Epworth
Leaguers excelled Salem witch-burners in striking terror into one
another's hearts and upsetting usually sturdy stomachs. They put
skinned grapes in one another's hands in lieu of cats' eyes, poured
thick red fluid down each other's necks after having realistically
cut the jugular vein with rubber daggers, they removed boards on
the dark stairs to the organ loft so that one fell ten feet into
a pile of leaves in the woodshed, burned each other with red hot
pokers which were in reality slivers of ice, and in general proved
themselves worthy disciples of Torquemada. Unholy shrieks from
belfry, organ loft, and song-book cupboard kept the girls mildly
hysterical. No good young Methodist would have thought of missing
the fun.
For days the entertainment committee had been decorating and
ripping up the church. Half a cornfield and a wagon load of
pumpkins had been transported to the basement and arranged
realistically around the pillars and in the corners. Red leaves,
jack-o'-lanterns, miles of orange tissue paper, black cats,
witches, and tubs for apple bobbing completed the effect in the
dimly lit cavern where early on Hallowe'en the young people began
to gather.
Peter arrived at seven-thirty wearing a cardboard pumpkin head but
otherwise uncostumed. He wanted to parade his stylish new green
suit, his tie which would have enraged a bull, and his oxfords
with exaggerated bows. Young Brailsford was celebrating his
two-dollar-and-a-half raise at the "Trailer" where he had gained
the ear of Mike O'Casey with his invention and had been promoted to
the role of super office boy in charge of making blue prints for
the draftsmen.
Radiating pride and self-assurance he strode across the room
toward the knot of Epworth Leaguers in the far corner. But as he
approached he felt an electric discharge of uncordiality which
could mean but one thing. Bud Spillman, who was holding forth to
his coterie of pretty girls and local scions, had been jeering at
his expense. Peter was a farm boy and definitely an outsider.
"My, my! Ain't you stylish!" said the erstwhile football hero,
dressed for the occasion in Roman toga and laurel wreath.
"Take that back or I'll give you a poke," warned Peter, forgetting
that he stood on sacred ground.
"All right, hayseed. You look like you was all dressed up for
greasing trailers."
"Come on out in back and I'll show you."
"You might get your new pants all dirty," said Bud.
The crowd sniggered.
"What about your nightshirt?"
"Don't get funny or I'll make you laugh out of the other side of
your mouth."
"I'll give you a leave," Peter said.
"I wouldn't dirty my hands fighting a clodhopper. Go clean your
cowbarns."
"What about you?" Peter said. "Your old man runs a livery stable."
"Kick in his box car," the boys shouted to Bud, "poke him in the
breadbasket."
"Anybody busted in your new shoes?" Bud asked, stamping on one of
Peter's toes and spitting on the crushed leather.
Unwanted tears were welling up in Peter's eyes but his voice was
brave and scornful. "I dare you. I double-dare you. You yellow
Brailsford Junction smart Aleck!"
Then a minor miracle occurred. Maxine Larabee squealed, "Punch him
in the nose, Peter. Knock his block off."
That was all the encouragement Peter needed. Dumbfounded but
deliriously happy and filled with a soul-satisfying desire to beat
Bud Spillman to a pulp he waded into the big fellow while the girls
scattered screeching to view the fight from piano-top or chair, and
the boys formed a yelling circle about the young battlers.
"Knock him for a gool ... cave in his shanty ... kick him in the
belly," advised Bud Spillman's supporters. They also suggested
that he beat Peter's ears off, flatten his beezer and knock all
his teeth down his throat. Forgetting the fact that they were in
the presence of ladies and the Methodist Deity, these same young
Christians remembered and used effectively all the forbidden
four-letter Anglo-Saxon words.
More agile than his big opponent, lighter on his feet and faster
with his punches, Peter slipped in and out with sharp slashing
blows which bruised and cut the big football player but did not
stop him. Bud's haymakers seldom connected, but when they did they
carried the weight of a pile driver behind them.
They clinched, broke apart, flayed the air, drew a little blood,
maneuvered about the basement knocking over shocks of corn and
stumbling on pumpkins. Bud began to tire while Peter was still as
fresh as a daisy. This change in probabilities did not go unnoticed
by the ringside who one by one shifted their loyalties to the farm
boy. Maxine in particular was cheering for Peter. Now they were all
engrossed in telling their new hero just how to mutilate the winded
Spillman.
Peter was slipping through the guard of the big fellow time after
time. He gave him a final clip to the chin followed by a clout
which sent Bud spinning and by accident landed him squarely in a
tub filled with water for apple bobbing....
"Boys, boys! In the House of God?" cried the Reverend Mr. Tooton,
who had entered at that moment. "Is that Christian? Is that the way
Jesus teaches us to treat one another?"
"He started it," blubbered Bud Spillman who was struggling to get
out of the icy water.
"Yes, and I finished it," said Peter. He walked over to where the
Bully stood crestfallen and dripping, and added in an undertone,
"Any more funny stuff at the 'Trailer' and I'll give you a real
licking."
"I'm your friend," said Bud. "I always was your friend."
With the ice very thoroughly broken, and everyone at his hilarious
ease, the fun began. Peter, a somewhat disheveled but happy
ringleader, promoted charades, Blind Man's Bluff, Drop the
Handkerchief, Skip-Come-a-Lou, and a version of the Virginia Reel
which included elements of the Tango and the Bunny Hug. They
splashed and shrieked while bobbing for apples, giggled as they
stole kisses in the Den of Horrors and behind the piano, sang at
the top of their lungs while playing Four in a Boat and Going to
Jerusalem, and ended a perfectly wonderful evening with pumpkin pie
and coffee.
Bud Spillman left early.
And that night, for the second time in their lives, Peter and
Maxine walked together under the bright autumn stars. They watched,
with the superior amusement of teen-age individuals the Hallowe'en
antics of the younger hellions who were taking out a year's
grievances on Old Man Ottoson who always spoiled the ice on his
hill by spreading ashes, Aunt Nellie Fitch who was stingy with her
apples, and Grandpa Green who had once peppered with rock salt a
boy who was stealing one of his watermelons. It was only tit for
tat if the kids now ripped up their board sidewalks, pulled down
their gates, and tipped over their backhouses.
Peter lent a hand hoisting a particularly obstreperous billy goat
onto the porch roof of Old Lady Perkins' general store, then,
with his girl on his arm, strolled leisurely to the Tobacco City
Ice Cream Parlor, where beneath pink and green lights reflected
in gilt-framed mirrors they lingered long over a concoction known
as "Lover's Delight" while the nickel-in-the-slot piano played
"Everybody's Doing It."
Feeling deliciously extravagant, he bought her a three pound box
of bon bons adorned with large red roses, and they made their way
through the crisp cold to Maxine's home on the hill where the girl
discovered with joy that her parents were not yet home from their
evening of bridge in Janesville, wherefore Peter must come in for a
cup of hot cocoa.
Unbelievable delight! To be invited into her house. To be near her,
allowed to touch her, and perhaps even to kiss her if he chose.
The very air seemed different in the house where his love ate and
slept and bathed and dressed. He was sure that never before had he
seen anything so exquisite as the sofa pillows she had made out of
cigarette flags, or the pictures she had burned on wood.
She had a little alcove off the sitting room which was all her own
hung with school pennants and drawings of the Charles Dana Gibson
variety. She had a cupboard full of bon bon boxes, dance programs,
comic postcards inscribed with "Oh, You Girl!" and a whole album of
snapshots.
Peter was awed. He had never before seen an alcohol burner nor a
chafing dish. He watched the glowing girl as she prepared cocoa and
Welsh rarebit, was delighted with every movement she made and every
word she spoke.
"I got a raise," Peter said. "I'm a draftsman's assistant now. Mike
O'Casey says he might build one of my camp trailers when I get it
designed."
"Gee, could I meet Mr. O'Casey sometime?" Maxine asked.
"Well, gosh, Maxine. I dunno. That's pretty hard to arrange."
"Oh, all right, smarty. You think he's too good for a little girl
like me."
"But, darling...." He could have bitten his tongue for having said
a thing like that. Calling her "darling"! Who did he think he was?
She stood perfectly still, waiting.
"You're an awful pretty girl," he said at last. He watched her as
she turned to the chafing dish again. Her movements were deft and
very feminine.
"I ... I wish you would let me kiss you like you said that night."
"Why not?" said Maxine. She turned up her face for the first kiss
Peter had given a girl in his life.
To Peter the world was non-existent for that moment. Maxine broke
away to keep the cocoa from boiling over.
Afterwards she turned out the lights and they sat on the sofa
looking out into the starlight. They could see across the creek
and across mysterious miles of frozen brown marshland beyond the
town to where lights twinkled in distant farmhouses. She put his
hand down the neck of her dress and he was surprised and almost
frightened by the soft delicacy of her breasts.
"Well," said Maxine from the depths of her pillows. "Are you just
going to sit there all night?"
She put her arms around him and kissed him again and again. She
drew him down toward her and he found himself strangely wishing to
be free.
"No, no, Maxine," he said humbly. "I couldn't. Why, Maxine, you're
just an angel to me. I never even thought of you like that."
3
Throughout the rest of her days Temperance Crandall measured time
as before or after 1913. Often in later Novembers when the leaves
hurried across her lawn and the hickory nuts tumbled down from the
shagbark hickory she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
It was of little interest to her that Mrs. Sean McGinty died of
cancer of the uterus after bearing thirteen children in eighteen
years, or that Father O'Malley in laying her away spoke of her as
an outstanding example of motherhood. She scarcely bothered to
learn the details of the scandalous conduct of the Reverend Charles
MacArthur of the Congregational church who had been caught in a
compromising situation with his soprano soloist, thus confirming
the worst suspicions of the Methodists. And although Gerty
MacDougal, 18, entered the bonds of holy matrimony with Cornelius
Vandenheim, 82, just in time to inherit a Civil War pension for
life, Temperance all but forgot to pass on the information to
Sister Dickenson.
For Temperance Crandall was discovering that when tragedy and
scandal touch one's own household the salt has lost its savor.
In the first place her mother was definitely sinking. Doctor
Whitehead doubted that the old heart could stand the strain of
another winter. Secondly Temperance's own Peter Brailsford was
being seen so often with that wanton hussy Maxine Larabee that
Temperance could have wept. Now, as she waited for Peter to come to
breakfast, the harsh whisper of calloused fingers on hard knuckles
filled the room.
Peter Brailsford, awaking from a sound sleep, was instantly aware
that this was no usual day. He jumped out of bed with a shout,
threw his flannel nightgown into a corner, dashed half a pitcher
of icy water into the wash bowl, and with chattering teeth sponged
his warm skin with a washcloth and rubbed dry with a rough towel.
He danced around on his toes throwing a flurry of effective punches
into some large, tough adversary, burst into a baritone solo which
suddenly went soprano, pulled on long scratchy underwear, corduroy
trousers, stiff cowhide boots, and a rough woolen shirt and hurried
to the kitchen.
"Um! Pancakes!"
"Put on plenty of butter and mmaple syrup," said Temperance. "I
ain't going to let any boy starve under my roof."
It was a bright, cold Saturday morning. Peter had begged the day
off. Now he ran shouting with exuberance to join the crowd gathered
on the Library steps. Maxine, the English teacher for chaperon, and
nearly a dozen others were headed for Lake Koshkonong and a day in
the woods.
They piled into an ancient Ford three deep and several on the
running boards, chugged and steamed up hills and through valleys
bright with maple and sumac until at last they came to Charley's
Bluff where they unloaded and built a fire of driftwood on the
beach between huge granite boulders. They raced, wrestled and shot
at targets with a twenty-two, buried each other in the leaves and
shook down hickory nuts.
At noon they gathered about the fire to roast wieners on sticks and
to drink black coffee.
All went well until the couples paired off and Maxine decided to
sing songs to the accompaniment of Thomas Carlyle's five-string
banjo. Who did that half-witted son of a horse-doctor think he
was, Peter wondered. They were making outrageous love, Peter
thought. Starting off with such comparatively innocuous ditties as
"Moonlight Bay" and "You're a Great Big Blue-Eyed Baby," they were
soon harmonizing on "Cuddle Up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine," and
"Every Little Movement Has a Meaning All Its Own." Peter began to
wonder what sort of a girl Maxine was.
Then he was remorseful.
He was ashamed that he had let himself question Maxine's character.
Certainly she had never let another boy kiss her or touch her
breasts. She was sitting beside Thomas Carlyle singing songs
because he had a banjo; but very soon now she would come over to
Peter and they would wander off together. He mustn't let himself be
jealous like this. Peter didn't think that he could trust himself
if he should find that Maxine was in any way unfaithful. He thought
that he would kill her and then himself, and that people would find
them locked in each other's arms.
He would write a verse for their common gravestone which would be
inscribed beneath twin turtle doves on pure white marble.
He told himself that he was talking nonsense, that no boy should
keep his girl from singing songs and flirting a little. But he lay
among the leaves, looking up at the sky and brooding over the loss
of this precious day which was to mean so much to them. He had
intended to ask her to marry him and had thought out just what he
was going to say. He had intended to tell her that first love like
theirs was always true love, and how their marriage wouldn't turn
out like so many marriages. Their life together was going to be
different.
He had envisioned the whole scene over and over. They would be
cozily sitting in deep leaves in some protected ravine with nothing
but the trees and sky to hear what they were saying. He would pour
out his heart, and she would listen with rapt attention and turn up
her lips for kisses.
He would tell her of his progress at the factory, and of the house
they would have on Shannon's hill. They would talk about their
children, and about life together after they were married. It was
to have been an idyllic day.
And now, a gaunt, freckle-faced, banjo-strumming young fool had
spoiled it all. Peter felt like going over and pushing the boy in
the face and picking up Maxine as he might a child and carrying her
away. It would be easy to do. She was as light as a feather and
always tripped along as though she were made of thistle down. Her
flesh was like thistle down too. It made his head whirr to think of
her soft flesh.
Always, always something came between Peter and happiness. He had
been brooding and miserable for as long as he could remember, with
only now and then a moment of intense happiness to repay him for
his misery.
All his life he had worried about good and evil, about God and
hell, about his features, his clothes, what people were thinking of
him, and whether he would ever amount to anything. And now that he
was in love he was experiencing a deeper and more exquisite misery
than he could have imagined possible.
Maxine! Maxine!
But here she came at last, all radiant and smiling, her cheeks as
red as apples. His heart leapt up in a moment and all his doubts
left him. They walked along the beach, skipped stones on the thin
ice and on the open stretches of water, dug a bird's nest out of
the high, black banks of peat which skirt the beach to the south
of Charley's Bluff. They discovered a little stream and followed
its course back through the willows to a clearing where they
explored a deserted cabin and a barn still filled with timothy and
clover. From the wide door of the loft they could see across the
lake to Lake House Point and to the Brailsford farm with its bright
red barns and to the great cottonwood tree on Cottonwood Hill.
"You see that big tree," Peter said. "Not a man in the country can
climb it, not even my father. But I'm going to climb it some day."
"Uh huh," said Maxine comfortably.
"I'm going to do lots of things in my life. Great things. I'm
learning a heap about draftsmanship at the Trailer factory. I'm
almost finished with my blue prints for that camp trailer. Maybe
some day when I get to be famous...."
"Don't talk shop," Maxine said.
"Well, what shall we talk about?"
"Don't let's talk, beautiful boy."
She stopped his mouth with kisses and unashamed gave him his first
lesson in love.
* * * * *
As was usual in Brailsford Junction death came before the doctor.
Temperance was alone in the house when her mother died. She went
up the stairs at six o'clock bringing the old lady a bite of
supper and found her breathing heavily and rather chilled. She
tried to reach Doctor Whitehead by telephone, but no one answered
at the house or the office. She called out the upstairs window to
a passing boy and told him to look for the doctor in front of the
pool hall, then turned back to the stricken woman who opened her
eyes once and smiled at Temperance feebly.
Temperance thought that the poor old thing was humming a hymn but
when she leaned closer she realized that it was "Daisy Bell,"
a great favorite of her mother's. Thinking about it later she
realized that her mother had never been what Brailsford Junction
usually termed a Christian.
Even before the death rattle began, the thin face turned blue and
the small hands clutching the counterpane were as cold as ice.
Temperance did not break down until she had pulled the sheet up
over the face of the dead. Then a great flood of loneliness and
grief came over her and she ran down the street in her house dress
with her hair stringing out behind. Hardly knowing what she was
doing she hurried up the stairs leading to the offices of Timothy
Halleck and incidentally to the fly-blown waiting-room of Doctor
Whitehead.
Brailsford Junction's leading physician was hanging up his
prevaricating gilt placard, "Back in Half an Hour."
"Well, well, I was just heading for your home," he said. "I hope it
ain't anything serious. How is your mother?"
"As well as could be expected with you on the case," cried
Temperance, bitterly. "She died fifteen minutes ago."
"Now ain't that too bad," said Doctor Whitehead, squirting a stream
of tobacco juice into a convenient corner. "I suppose you'll want a
death certificate, eh?"
Temperance burst in upon Timothy Halleck who during that day had
met a delegation of indignant mothers complaining about the oldest
son of Crazy Jack Bailey, a young wife whose drunken husband beat
her up every Saturday night with the stove poker, and the president
of the bank who threatened to cut off his credit if he cancelled
his mortgage against the Widow Morrison. For once his patience was
tried beyond endurance.
"No, Miss Crandall, this time I will not listen to your gossip.
I've heard all that I can stand for one day. Why can't you leave
people alone? Let them live their lives and you live yours.
For twenty years I've been wanting to tell you that you're
a meddlesome, tale-bearing.... There, there now. Don't cry,
Temperance. I realize I was a bit thoughtless. Why ... why, what is
it?"
"I didn't know who else to tell," Temperance said, hiding her face
in her hands. "Mother's dead, Timothy."
Temperance Crandall was to remember to her dying day that Timothy
Halleck came around the desk and put his arm across her shoulders
and told her that he would take care of the funeral arrangements.