Shifting Sands

Manufactured in the United States of America

Our lives are like the ever shifting sands
Which ocean currents whirl in the ebb and flow
Of their unresisting tides


[Chapter I]

The Widder lived on the spit of sand jutting out into Crocker's Cove.

Just why she should have been singled out by this significant sobriquet was a subtle psychological problem. There were other women in Belleport and in Wilton, too, who had lost husbands. Maria Eldridge was a widow and so was Susan Ann Beals. Indeed death had claimed the head of many a household in the community, for to follow the sea was a treacherous business.

Nevertheless, despite the various homes in which solitary women reigned, none of their owners was designated by the appellation allotted to Marcia Howe.