Small Town

I: Starting Out From Roxborough

This was a week, a not unrepresentative week, in the autumn of 1945. Sunday was memorable because I finished reading Volume VI of Arnold Toynbee’s Study of History. That, however, was late in the evening, after a day that was for the most part spent out of doors. We got up moderately early for a Sunday, and after breakfast I did the chores; that is, I brought in a couple of baskets of wood for the kitchen stove, chopped a little kindling, and filled the water-storage tank. I listened to the news on the radio, and set out for the village. We live on a dirt road almost exactly a mile north of the highway , a road that is a pleasure six months of the year and a problem the other six. I passed the Cutters’ home, just out of sight from our house, and the new home of the younger Cutters across the road. I passed the rundown farmhouse where Wilbur North lived for so many years. I crossed the brook, drove along the flats, which are so often blocked with snow in winter, and eased the car down Allen’s Hill to the cement highway. From the corner one sees half a dozen houses. Three of the places were being actively farmed when we came to Roxborough in the summer of 1932. One of them has now been sold to city people. On the second most of the stock was disposed of and some fields taken out of cultivation when the young man of the family was drafted. The owner of the third went to work in a defense plant soon after Pearl Harbor, though he has managed to do a considerable amount of farming in his spare time. S t a r t i n g O u t F r o m Ro x b o r o u g h i It is a mile from the corner to the center of the village. At first the houses are spread out, but soon one comes to a little settlement —eight or ten neat but unpretentious houses close together —and then one is in the village proper. There are no beautiful old houses, such as one sees in so many New England towns, but most of the residences are substantial and well taken care of. One passes an abandoned store on the left, the town’s honor roll on the right, and one is at the four corners. Mark Betterton’s general store occupies the northeast corner, and diagonally opposite it is the Methodist church. Across from the church there is a pleasant little park, beyond which one sees the Baptist church and a white, one-room schoolhouse. Beyond the church there is Al Black’s store and grill. At the top of the hill, just visible from the four corners, is the town hall. There were two or three cars in front of each store and four or five behind the church. After I had bought my Sunday papers from Al Black, he followed me to the door, and I knew from the glow in his eyes that he had a piece of political gossip. His story, confirming and amplifying a rumor I had already heard, seemed to both of us to indicate that the Republican boss had made a first-rate blunder, and we were both pleased. In the soft, unseasonable warmth the village seemed comfortable and homelike—not dignified, not impressive, certainly not beautiful, but not unattractive. One saw few signs either of private wealth or of public spirit. Not only was there nothing ostentatious ; the whole look of the place was informal and a little unkempt—like the kitchen of an easy-going but really not slovenly housekeeper. A city person might even have found the scene rather sordid, but to me it suggested comfort and a certain indifference to appearances. As I came out of Al’s store, people were leaving the Methodist church—not many of them—and I spoke to them all and paused to talk with Lucy Sheldon about the library. I went into Mark Betterton’s store, not only to do some shopping but also to discuss the tax rolls with Mark, who was collector of School District 1, s m a l l t o w n 2 of which I was trustee. Mark was talking with Sergeant Higgins, who...