City and town life -- Fiction; Romance fiction, American; Short stories, American
It has been a great regret to me that this summer Calliope is not in the
village. She has gone to the city to nurse some distant kinswoman 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 that, for the
village interests are all her own. I have never known any one in whom
the tribal sense is so persistently alive as in Calliope.
I asked my neighbour what this Java entertainment would be, which was to
give back Calliope, and she looked her amazement that I did not know. It
would be, it appeared, one of those great fairs which the missionary
society is always projecting and carrying magnificently forward.
"It's awful feet-aching work," said my neighbour, reflectively; "but
honestly, Calliope seems to like it. I donno but I do, too. The Sodality
meant to have one when they set out to pave Daphne Street, but it turned
out it wasn't needed. Well, big affairs like that makes it seem as if
we'd been born into the whole world and not just into Friendship
Village."
My neighbour told me that a new public library had been opened in a
corner of the post-office store, and that "a great crowd" was drawing
books, though for this she herself cannot vouch, since the library is
only open Saturday evenings, and "Saturday," she says 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 impossible as Sunday; Wednesday is
club day; Thursday "is prayer-meeting"; Friday is sacred to church
suppers and entertainments and the Ladies' Aid Society; and Saturday is
invariably denominated a bad night and omitted without question. We are
remote from society, but Tuesday is literally our only free evening.
"Of course it won't be the same with you about books," my neighbour
admits. "You can send your girl down to get a book for you. But I have
to be home to get out the clean clothes. How's your girl going to like
the country?" she asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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