CONTENTS
[I. The Side Door]
[II. The Début]
[III. Nobody Sick, Nobody Poor]
[IV. Covers for Seven]
[V. The Shadow of Good Things to Come]
[VI. Stock]
[VII. The Big Wind]
[VIII. The Grandma Ladies]
[IX. Not as the World Giveth]
[X. Lonesome—I]
[XI. Lonesome—II]
[XII. Of the Sky and Some Rosemary]
[XIII. Top Floor Back]
[XIV. An Epilogue]
[XV. The Tea Party]
[XVI. What is That in thine Hand?]
[XVII. Put on thy Beautiful Garments]
[XVIII. In the Wilderness a Cedar]
[XIX. Herself]
[XX. The Hidings of Power]
[Other Books from GROSSET & DUNLAP'S]
Friendship Village
I
THE SIDE DOOR
It is as if Friendship Village were to say:—
"There is no help for it. A telephone line, antique oak chairs, kitchen cabinets, a new doctor, and the like are upon us. But we shall be mediæval directly—we and our improvements. Really, we are so now, if you know how to look."
And are we not so? We are one long street, rambling from sun to sun, inheriting traits of the parent country roads which we unite. And we are cross streets, members of the same family, properly imitative, proving our ancestorship in a primeval genius for trees, or bursting out in inexplicable weaknesses of Court-House, Engine-House, Town Hall, and Telephone Office. Ultimately our stock dwindles out in a slaughter-yard and a few detached houses of milkmen. The cemetery is delicately put behind us, under a hill. There is nothing mediæval in all this, one would say. But then see how we wear our rue:—