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Beginning in 2018 "Ruth's Neighborhood" entries were also posted on Ruth's FACEBOOK page where her entries (usually weekly, on Sunday mornings) lead to lively conversations.

This Page: October - December 2025

GET UP AND GO

November 30 2025

          At a recent routine appointment with my primary care physician I burst into song. To her amusement.
         Well, it just seemed that Pete Seeger could express my feelings much better than I could with his “Get Up and Go” song. And I only sang the chorus.
         Don and I had listened to our many Pete Seeger LP records over and over, singing along, and this was one of our favorite songs, Pete’s rollicking banjo ringing out, his voice emphasizing the humor in the rhymes. When I got home from the appointment I checked my memory of the verses in my copy of PETE SEEGER: WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE: A Musical Autobiography. The footnote to “Get Up and Go” is: “Words collected and set to original music by Pete Seeger (1960).”

Chorus and after each verse:
How do I know my youth is all spent?
My get up and go has got up and went.
But in spite of it all I’m able to grin
And think of the places my get up has been.

Verse 1.
Old age is golden so I’ve heard said
But sometimes I wonder as I crawl into bed
With my ears in a drawer, my teeth in a cup
My eyes on the table until I wake up.
As sleep dims my vision I say to myself:
Is there anything else I should lay on the shelf?
But though nations are warring and business is vexed
I’ll still stick around to see what happens next.

Verse 2.
When I was young my slippers were red,
I could kick up my heels right over my head.
When I was older my slippers were blue,
But still I could dance the whole night through.
Now I am older my slippers are black,
I huff to the store and I puff my way back.
But never you laugh; I don’t mind at all,
I’d rather be huffing than not puff at all.

(Sing to the melody of the last 4 lines of the verse:)
Verse 3.
I get up each morning and dust off my wits,
Open the paper and read the obits.
If I’m not there I know I’m not dead
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

This is Ruth, now humming. All together now, let’s sing the rousing chorus!

How do I know my youth is all spent?
My get up and go has got up and went.
But in spite of it all I’m able to grin
And think of the places my get up has been.

   © 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved  

THANKSGIVING 2025

November 23 2025

            Earlier this month after grocery-shopping at Heath’s Supermarket and a stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for two glazed doughnuts, Wanda and I had one of our car picnics at the Center Harbor town docks. The morning was cloudy but there was a glow behind the clouds that turned Lake Winnipesaukee and the mountains silvery. Beside us the town beach was empty; as I’ve written about, we’ve seen it in springtime crowded with geese and ducks arriving and crowded again during their autumn flight south.
            Now as we sat and looked at the quiet silvery scenery I thought: November is really here. Not Thanksgiving scenery yet but definitely November.
            Since then we’ve had some snow, which filigreed the mornings before melting, and the Food Network is full of “Holiday Wars” and “Holiday Baking Championship,” etc.             One day Maine’s WCSH-TV Channel 6’s Morning Report’s “Daily Stumper” question was: “What is the favorite Thanksgiving side dish?”
            Multiple choice:
                        (a) Stuffing;
                       (b) Green Bean Casserole
                       (c) Mac and Cheese
                       (d) Mashed Potatoes

            I immediately guessed stuffing. Mashed potatoes are ordinary fare; stuffing is special for Thanksgiving. Sharon and Lee, the show’s anchors, and Tod, the meteorologist, after some debate all guessed stuffing too. We were correct!
            Last year I wrote about Thanksgiving:

“What are nowadays called ‘home cooks’ have to cook like professional chefs at Thanksgiving without the help of a professional setting.

Growing up, I watched my mother or grandmother create Thanksgiving dinners  [in my grandparents’ home in Lexington, Massachusetts, in the early years; it had a dining room, which we didn’t in our Laconia apartment. Later in our Gilford Avenue house my parents had turned the dining room into the living room and the living room into ‘the front room’ with recreation: the piano, record player, and newfangled television set; a dining-room table lived in the living room, folded, and was opened for Thanksgiving and Christmas.]

In their kitchens the only true counter space was in the pantries and there it was diminished by canisters and cookbooks and clutter.

        “When Penny and I were old enough we helped in the hectic scene. Penny became the gravy expert. I put boiled potatoes through the ricer and to my anxious surprise all this seemingly confused work always produced the feast.
       “The ‘sides’ were mashed potatoes, mashed squash, sometimes boiled onions, definitely homemade cranberry sauce, sometimes store-bought dinner rolls. And of course stuffing. And gravy.
       “In later years as I began to hear about more ‘sides’—green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese—I was intrigued, wondering how there was time to add them to the work. Not to mention full tummies getting fuller! Full? After the dinner Penny and I had a supper we’d been anticipating, ‘bread and gravy,’ leftover gravy poured onto buttered slices of white bread.

   © 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved  

AGATHA, AGAIN"

November 16 2025

          Ernie, my mother, once remarked, “My mother and I had only one thing in common: we couldn’t remember the endings of books.”
Although I hadn’t completely inherited this trait, I knew what she meant.
         I thought of this last week when I started listening for the umpteenth time to an audiobook Penny gave me years ago, Agatha Christie’s MURDER AT THE VICARAGE. I’d also read it umpteen times; it’s my favorite along with THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY. As I’ve written about here, Agatha Christie became my transition from children’s and YA books to adult books when I picked up off a coffee table Ernie’s paperback of THREE BLIND MICE AND OTHER STORIES.
         Would I remember whodunnit at the Vicarage?
         I got the urge to re-listen to Aggie (as Penny and Don and I took the liberty of calling her) after reading the October 27th issue of PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. On the first page of the nonfiction section was a black-and-white photo of a woman in an old-fashioned bathing suit and bathing cap kneeling on a surfboard in an ocean. The caption: “A photo of Agatha Christie surfing in Hawaii, as seen in TRAVELS WITH AGATHA CHRISTIE, a travelogue based on a 1922 trip undertaken by the crime writer (reviewed on page 67).”
         Aggie surfing?!!! I rode a wave to page 67:
         “TRAVELS WITH AGATHA CHRISTIE. David Suchet. Mobius, $28 [To be published in] Jan. In this winsome travelogue, actor Suchet (POIROT AND ME), who played Hercule Poirot on the British TV show AGATHA CHRISTIE’S POIROT, recaps his journey to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Canada on a 57-day itinerary modeled after a trip Christie took in 1922. At the time, Christie’s husband’s boss asked the couple to source ‘extravagant pavilions representing each of the territories in the British Empire’ for a 1924 exhibition.
         “A century later, Suchet set off to learn new things about the woman whose most famous character he’s spent 25 years playing. He quickly found that Christie ‘was very different to the figure I had formed in my head,’ less stoic and more playful than he’d imagined; for example, she sang and danced with the ship crew during her journey to South Africa, and became known for entertaining her fellow passengers.
         “But it’s not all hero worship. Suchet frankly reckons with the legacy of British colonialism while visiting the home of former Cape Colony prime minister and apartheid engineer Cecil Rhodes, and discusses lingering racial tensions in several of the places he visits.
“Supplemented by an extensive selection of photos, Suchet’s musings are at once edifying, entertaining, and likely to induce wanderlust. This will delight Christie fans of all stripes.”
         I can proudly report that soon after I started listening to THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE I remembered whodunnit. I continued listening and instead of playing detective I simply admired Aggie’s sleight of hand.

   © 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved  

MENUS, 1989

November 9 2025

          My organizing-papers project continues and the other day I discovered a box labeled “Menus.” I assumed I’d saved some restaurant menus.
         Then I opened the box and remembered that for several years I’d jotted down my plans for each week’s lunches and suppers. I looked at the date on the top piece of paper and saw: 1982. I lifted out approximately a ton of paper and saw: 1989.
         Ah, 1989. Don and I had begun our little caretaking business the year before and we were having fun working together at summer homes year-round. I packed our lunches, which in spring and summer were private picnics at the homes we looked after, some lakeside; we listened to loons. Off-season when the homes were empty we had our sandwiches and salads indoors at the kitchen tables.
         I wanted to sample the 1989 menus. But, I wondered, which month?
         Well, it’s now November so how about November 1989? Some of these menus must’ve included hardy vegetables from our garden. Happy caretaking memories; happy gardening memories.
 
Nov. 1. Wednesday. Lunch: At Dan and Marjorie’s [my father and stepmother’s house] in Jefferson [northern New Hampshire]. Turkey sandwiches; salad; black-cherry yogurt ice cream. Supper [at home]: Pizza.

Nov. 2, Thursday. Lunch. At a caretaking customer’s. Don: turkey sandwich. Ruth: cottage cheese salad, green pepper strips. Supper: steamed rutabagas, Brown & Serve Sausages, carrot sticks.

Nov. 3. Friday. Lunch: bulgar pilaf; cottage cheese; carrot sticks. Supper:  linguine; salad.

Nov. 4. Saturday. Lunch: linguine pancakes [a favorite, leftover pasta tossed with an egg and fried like pancakes; I’d seen this in Jane Brody’s NEW YORK TIMES column]; cottage cheese, green pepper strips. Supper: steamed rutabagas, Turkey Italian Sausages, carrot sticks.

Nov. 5. Sunday. Lunch: At a caretaking customer’s. Turkey-bologna sandwiches; carrot sticks. Supper: Creamed chicken on toast. Salad.

Nov. 6. Monday. Lunch at Bartelli’s Restaurant in Hanover: Don, lasagna; Ruth, Eggplant Parmesan. Supper: chicken-orzo soup, coleslaw, sourdough bread.
         Nov. 7. Tuesday. Lunch: At a caretaking customer’s. Chicken-orzo soup; turkey-bologna sandwiches; coleslaw; green pepper strips. Supper: thin spaghetti with clam sauce; kale salad.
         Nov. 8. Wednesday. Lunch at The Mug [restaurant]: hamburgers; French fries. Supper after [neighbor] Lib here: spaghetti pancakes; curried pea soup.

         Nov. 9. Thursday. Lunch at a caretaking customer’s: Don, tuna sandwich; Ruth, tuna salad; celery sticks.
Nov. 10. Friday. Lunch at a caretaking customer’s: Don, beet sandwich; Ruth, beet-and-cottage-cheese salad; carrot sticks. Supper after a visit [at friends’ house]: Egg Beaters omelette with onion and green pepper; toasted sourdough bread.
         Nov. 11. Saturday. Lunch: couscous; green pepper strips. Supper at Smitty’s Place [restaurant]: Don, fried clams and shrimp; Ruth, roast lamb.
         Nov. 12. Sunday. Lunch: curried zucchini soup; cottage cheese salad; sourdough bread. Supper: Jotul-baked potatoes [that is, potatoes baked in our woodstove]; Brown & Serve sausages; salad.

         And onward through November 1989.
         In recent years I look forward to the Meals on Wheels monthly menus. Today: Hawaiian Pulled Pork; brown rice; coleslaw; dinner roll.

   © 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved  

AUSTENTATIOUSLY YOURS

November 2 2025

         Two dear friends have brought me a thick stack of beautiful British magazines, COTSWOLD LIFE and DISCOVER BRITAIN. The cover of the February 2025  COTSWOLD LIFE told me that the city of Bath is celebrating Jane Austen’s 250th birthday so of course that’s where I started my reading. The article by Tracy Spiers is titled “Austentatiously Yours” so I also started laughing.
         As I read I remembered how Don and I stopped in Bath to see the Roman Baths on a road trip early in our two years in England when we were still dazed by actually being in this country we’d read and read about—and now here we were in Bath with Jane Austen’s heroines!
         Tracy Spiers wrote, “Throughout this year, festivals, events, performances and exhibitions with connections to Austen and her novels will take place in various venues throughout Bath, a city she lived and worked in during her lifetime. Her own relationship with Bath is an interesting one—and there are conflicting reports about her thoughts about it—but perhaps any negatives relate more to her own personal sense of grief at losing her dear father suddenly, which left herself, mother, and sister destitute, and the fact she missed her life in the country.
“ . . . The Roman Baths and The Pump Room Restaurant.
“‘Every creature in Bath . . . was to be seen in the room at different periods of the fashionable hours,’ so wrote Jane in NORTHANGER ABBEY. The Pump Room was a meeting place for fashionable people . . .”
         Tracy Spiers continued, “In 2025 you can still take the waters, as we do. It is rather warm and a little taste-less to be honest, but we try it all the same. We taste it in the Roman Baths, but it is also served in the luxurious Pump Room Restaurant, where the rich and fashionable of Austen’s day would have enjoyed lavish entertainment. Still a favourite for high tea, this elegant room with most of its Georgian features still unchanged was used as a filming location for both NORTHANGER ABBEY and PERSUASIAN. Bath may have been Jane Austen’s home for just five years, but it’s clear it inspired and influenced her writing long after she left. She penned the last of her six novels, PERSUASION—which shows Bath through the eyes of a heroine, Anne Elliot—nine years after leaving the city. Jane’s own parents married here, her father is buried here, and the city gets a mention in every one of her books.”
         The article has a list of “Jane Austen 250th Anniversary Events at a Glance.” The tour that Penny (my sister) and I would’ve chosen is “Garden Trail: Sydney Gardens Jane Austen Trail. Explore Jane Austen’s relationship with the Georgian Pleasure Gardens. Jane lived just across the road at 4 Sydney Place between 1808 and 1804 and wrote of Sydney Gardens both in letters and several of her novels (PERSUASIAN and NORTHANGER ABBEY).”
         Penny and I didn’t go to Bath during our 1990 trip to visit gardens in the Cotswolds. I’ve written here about how we did make a pilgrimage to visit Jane’s house in Chawton. What I remember most is the small round table at which Jane wrote. It was bare but it looked hardly big enough to hold two pieces of paper and pen-and-ink equipment.
         Another 250th anniversary guided tour includes “lunch and a cream tea.” After Penny and I finished our visit to the Chawton house we went across the road to a tea-and-gifts shop, Cassandra’s Cup (Cassandra was Jane’s sister), for our tea; that is, sparkling water and chocolate cake.   

   © 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved  

A RERUN OF "REMEMBER THE READER"

October 26 2025

           Earlier this month I wrote here about my life correcting galley proofs and “my life in words.” Last week I saw in my five-year diary that five years ago on October 18th I’d posted a piece about “Remember the reader!” It included my “advice” about writing.
           I can’t resist rerunning the piece. I wrote:

           Back in the 1950s Don and I became intrigued by Kingsley Amis after reading LUCKY JIM and we continued reading his novels for a while. Since then I’ve read one novel by Martin Amis, his son, but I didn’t continue. However, a couple of months ago as I was skimming a PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY “Author Profile” of Martin Amis on the occasion of the publication of his latest novel, INSIDE STORY, I was suddenly riveted by this:
           “One of the best qualities [of INSIDE STORY] is its regard for the reader. Amis acknowledges this . . . ‘You have to love the reader,’ he says. ‘ . . . A book is nothing without a reader. The relationship between writer and reader is very mysterious and fascinating and not terribly well explained.’”
           The reader! When I’m asked for advice about writing, the first thing I’m apt to say is “Remember the reader!”
           Thinking about this, I went through notes I made for talks I gave. Here are some of the things I talked about:
           • My father’s slogan was: “Apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair and write.” That is, don’t wait for inspiration.
           • Write every day, even if it’s only a sentence.
           • Write first; do everything else second. Don’t say, “I’ll write when I get such-and-such finished.” Make it part of your daily schedule.

           My trick for jump-starting the act of writing, for inducing the trance in which you enter into your imagination—sometimes called “the artistic coma”; Stephen King calls it “being in the zone”—is just to start writing. Don’t dither or fret, searching for the perfect phrasing. The physical act of writing will set off the mental and you’ll be on your way.
           Keep notepads and pens/pencils everywhere, around the house, in the car, etc.
           Before I start a novel I sit down with accumulated scribbled notes and a legal pad and a pencil and work on a shape, an outline. This is the hardest part for me. As Trollope said, “To think of a story is much harder than writing it.” My sister, a landscape designer, has joked that she does the design AFTER she puts in the garden. That’s what I do with an outline! Sort of. After I’ve finished the first draft of the book, I write a much better outline for the second draft.
           And sometimes I ended my talks with an excerpt from “Fifty Thoughts from Fifty Years,” a piece that Dan, my father, wrote for his fiftieth Dartmouth reunion in 1986. He concluded it with an observation he’d made in the 1950s in the journal he kept all his life:
           “This thought emerges: Successful or not, the years devoted to the art, craft, trade, or hobby of writing may be looked upon as having been spent in a great tradition and enterprise. What did you do with your life? I tried to learn to write.”

Thank you, dear readers.

   © 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved  

SANDWICH FAIR 2025

October 19 2025

           The Sandwich Fair was last weekend. I didn’t go but I’ve been chatting with friends who did. We recalled other Sandwich Fairs and even the weather, the years it snowed, the years it was sweltering, the years it was perfect. And I remembered various vivid scenes, many of which I’ve written about here after the Fairs, such as a young man primping a patient steer with a hairdryer. Of course I remembered fair food, such as finally in 2006 trying a funnel cake and being very surprised that it was like fried dough, not like cake. Somehow Don and I never got to the Women’s Skillet Tossing event.

           This year I enjoyed reading on the Sandwich Board how to practice. The Fair weekend actually starts on Friday, 4-9 p.m. with free admission—so Don and I usually went then and sometimes also during the weekend. I didn’t realize that on Friday we could’ve seen the practice.

           Lianne Prentice posted:

October 6. Practice tossing a skillet or keg before next Monday’s Sandwich Fair events! We will once again be hosting the annual women’s skillet and men’s keg toss practice at Quimby Field in Sandwich from 5–6 p.m., [Friday,] October 10. Join us for some throws to warm you up for Monday’s legendary fair events. Monday’s events are open to all adults 18+ and throws are arranged in age brackets. Friday night will be much more gentle without the roar of the crowd; get a feel for the weight, practice your form, measure your distance, get a few pointers. After you’re done psyching yourself up for a ribbon-winning toss, head on into the fair for the classic night of rides and your first fried dough of the season.

           In this year’s wonderful 136-page Sandwich Fair booklet, I read the Women’s Skillet Toss rules:

Skillet used will be provided by the fair and will be custom-made of steel (3.3 lbs.) Toss will be straight down the line. Distance off the center line will be subtracted from the distance thrown. No practice throws allowed. One (1) toss per competitor. Crossing the foul line will result in disqualification.

Grand Championship Round will consist of two tosses per competitor and with the final measurement being the better of the two.

           The other Sandwich Fair item that got my attention on the Sandwich Board was this, posted by Catherine Crooker:

October 9. Support 4H!! Sheep to Shawl Hello, friends and neighbors, Almost fair time! Friends and Fiber, a local group of addicted—oops, I mean DEDICATED fiber artists, invites you to join us at the Hodge Building this weekend for our annual Fleece to Shawl. Come see how a shawl goes from being just a fleece off a sheep to a finished garment. And be sure to check out all the amazing knitting, weaving, spinning, crocheting, and needle felting projects on display in the Natural Fiber Arts division.

           Such talent in our region! The thought of sheep reminded me of how one year Don and I went to a dogs’ agility event at the Fair and naturally we rooted for the border collie.

           © 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved  

AUTUMN SUPPERS

October 12 2025

In last week’s post I quoted from Keats’s “Eve of St. Agnes.” This being the right season, I then went on to read his “To Autumn,” which begins:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees.
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
     To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
 With a sweet kernel . . .

As I’ve written about before, my favorite season is spring and I used to dread autumn but my dear friend Winifred’s favorite season is autumn and she has helped what I called my “autumn anxiety.” Last October I quoted here her list of fall foods to look forward to: “Chowders with brown bread, minestrone with garden vegetables, beef stew with dumplings, and pot roast with vegetables. And then there are the pies, meat pies and cottage and chicken and apple and pumpkin. And apples themselves, fried and stewed
and in applesauce. I won’t even begin on Thanksgiving dinner.” I asked her for one of her favorite recipes to post and she gave us “Hamburg Rice One Pan Meal.”
I’ve now asked Winifred for another. I’m sure Keats with his gourd would be as delighted as I am with her “Acorn Squash Stuffed with Sausage” which she thinks of as more a method than a recipe.

Cut an acorn squash in half, scoop out seeds.
Prepare six small balls of pork sausage.
Brown the sausage briefly and arrange three of the balls in each half.
Place squash cut side up in a shallow baking pan with a little water.
Bake the squash at 350 until squash is done; sausage should be cooked. The time depends on the size of the squash. A higher temperature works too but needs more overseeing.
Brush the squash with drippings from the sausage during cooking. Rearrange the sausage balls to keep tops from drying out.
Flavor the sausage with spices if you want.
The squash can be brushed with maple syrup before cooking for a little extra flavor.

In last October’s post I gave a recipe for “Apple Muffins.” Here this year is “Autumn Soup,” which I used to make every autumn after Don and I were served it by Terry and Bill Brodrick, friends since our Keene Teachers’ College years.

1 lb. ground beef
1 c. chopped onion
4 c. water or beef stock
1 c. cut-up carrots
1 c. diced celery or shredded cabbage
1 c. cubed pared potatoes
2 t. salt
1 t. bottled brown bouquet sauce (optional)
¼ t. pepper
1 bay leaf
1/8 t. basil
6 tomatoes, quartered (or canned tomatoes)
In large saucepan, cook and stir meat until brown. Drain off fat.
Cook and stir chopped onion with meat until onions are tender, about 5 minutes.
Stir in remaining ingredients except tomatoes. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 minutes.
Add tomatoes; cover and simmer 10 minutes longer or until vegetables are tender.
6 servings.

Keats concludes:

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
   And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

© 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

 

PROOFS AND WORDS 

October 5 2025

               While continuing with the project of organizing papers I recently came upon a printout of an email I’d sent to an editor in 2011 when I was correcting the proofs of A BORN MANIAC on my computer screen and longing for the paper proofs of yore. 

I wrote her, “Just to let you know that so far I’m managing with the little magnifying glass and little hand! Thank you very much for guiding me through this. It’s got me remembering my life in proofs, so to speak. My father was a writer too, and I first worked on proofs at about age thirteen, helping him correct the proofs of his first novel. The method then was reading aloud, one person reading, one person checking, and whenever my mother’s voice gave out I took over. When I was twenty-six Don and I tried this method on my first novel but I found I could concentrate better if I proofed on my own. And this I’ve done through my next novels—now, with the little magnifying glass and little hand. Best, Ruth” 

I didn’t add that while I was helping my father proof one of his magazine stories I had made the discovery that a character’s eyes were blue on one page and brown several pages later. Eek, my first experience of copy-editing horror and then the thrill of relief about having caught this mistake! 

And onward I went through a life of looking at words as carefully as I could. A life in proofs, yes; a life in words. 

The other night I was awakened by an owl hooting in the woods. Immediately into my mind came the words of the opening lines of a Keats poem: “St. Agnes’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!/The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.” Then I was remembering how a teacher had talked about Keats’s luxurious words describing the heroine’s bedroom and the feast the hero brought her. Being a foodie (a new word!), I’ll quote from the latter: 

And still she slept in azure-lidded sleep,
In blanched linen, smooth and lavender’d,
While he forth from the closet brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
With jellies soother than the creamy curd.
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transfer’d
From Fez, and spiced dainties, every one
From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.

This led me in memory to another teacher who talked about the luxurious words Fitzgerald used when in Gatsby’s bedroom Gatsby showed Daisy and Nick his shirts:

“Recovering himself in a minute he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his massed suits and dressing-gowns and ties, and his shirts, piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high.

“‘I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.’

“He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher —shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.

“‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.’”

I’m imagining Keats and Fitzgerald checking their proofs.

© 2025 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

 

 

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