The Business of Naming Things by Michael Coffey

Author:Michael Coffey [Coffey, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781934137871
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press

Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to his own grave mien (What’s a mien? Tommy: means how a person looks.); but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for a word. When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the speaker’s face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.

“It was a pretty bad smash-up?” I questioned Harmon, looking after Frome’s retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong shoulders before they were bent out of shape.

“Wust kind,” my informant assented. “More’n enough to kill most men. But the Fromes are tough. Ethan’ll likely touch a hundred.”

“Good God!” I exclaimed. At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden box—also with a druggist’s label on it—which he had placed in the back of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought himself alone. “That man touch a hundred? He looks as if he was dead and in hell now!”

Harmon drew a slab of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a wedge and pressed it into the leather pouch of his cheek. “Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away.”

“Can’t blame ’em,” said Tommy. And they both laughed for a bit. And then it wasn’t so funny.

Mrs. Newman brought up the cookies and seemed to have been crying, even though she was smiling her bright smile. It’s just that Michael noticed her lashes looked dark, wet.

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