The View from Castle Rock

that he did not know what other way to manage. He could hardly afford-or wish-to make the place look like the hotel. He made do, for the present, with the discards placed in the barn. A chair with two rungs missing, some rough shelving, a table that chickens had been plucked on, a cot with horse blankets laid on it for a mattress. All this was set up in the same room as the stove, the other rooms being left entirely bare.

    Susan had decreed, when they all lived together, that Maggie should take care of Sandy’s clothing, Lizzie of Forrest’s, Annie of Simon’s, she herself of John’s. This meant ironing and mending and darning socks, and knitting scarves and vests and making new shirts as might be needed. Lizzie was not supposed to continue looking after Forrest-or to have anything at all to do with him-after he moved out. But a time came-five or six years after his house had been finished-when she took it upon herself to see how he was getting on. Susan was ill by this time, greatly weakened by pernicious anemia, so that her rules were not always enforced.
    Forrest had quit his job at the planing mill. The reason being, so people said, that he could not bear the razzing he got all the time about marrying. Stories circulated, about his going to Toronto on the train, and sitting in Union Station all day long, looking for a woman who would fill the bill but not finding her. Also a story of his writing to an agency in the United States, then hiding in his cellar when some hefty female came knocking on his door. The younger fellows at the mill were particularly hard on him, with their preposterous advice.
    He got a job as a janitor at the Presbyterian church, where he did not have to see anybody except the minister or an occasional officious Member of the Session-neither of these being the sort to make crude or personal remarks.

    Lizzie crossed the field on a spring afternoon and knocked on his door. No answer. It was not locked, however, and she went in.
    Forrest was not asleep. He was lying fully dressed on the cot, with his arms behind his head.
    “Are you sick?” said Lizzie. None of them ever lay down in the daytime unless they were sick.
    Forrest said no. He did not reproach her for coming in without being asked, but he did not welcome her either.
    The place smelled bad. No wallpaper had ever been put up and there was still some whiff of raw plaster. Also the smell of horse blankets and of other clothing not washed for a long time, if ever. And of ancient grease in the frying pan and bitter tea leaves in the pot (Forrest had taken up the fancy habit of drinking tea instead of just hot water). The windows were bleary in the spring sunlight and dead flies lay on their sills.
    “Did Susan send you?” Forrest said.
    “No,” said Lizzie. “She’s not herself.”
    He didn’t have anything to say to that. “Did Simon?”
    “I came on my own.” Lizzie put down the parcel she was carrying and looked about for a broom. “We are all well at the house,” she said, just as if he had asked. “Except for Susan.”
    In the parcel was a new shirt of blue cotton, and half a loaf of bread and a fresh chunk of butter. All bread that the sisters made was excellent, and the butter tasty, being made from the milk of Jersey cows. Lizzie had taken these things without permission.
    This was the beginning of a new disposition of the family. Susan did rouse herself when Lizzie got home, enough to tell her she must go or stay. Lizzie said she would go, but to Susan’s surprise, and everybody’s, she asked for her share of household goods. Simon separated out what she should have, with severe justice, and in that way Forrest’s house was, eventually, sparsely furnished. No wallpaper was put up or curtains hung, but everything was scrubbed and gleaming. Lizzie had asked for a cow and a half dozen hens and a pig to raise, and Forrest set to work as a carpenter again, to build a barn with two stalls and a haymow. When Susan died it was discovered that she had put by a surprising nest egg, and a share of that was meted out as well. A horse was bought, and a buggy, around the first time that cars were becoming a usual thing on these roads. Forrest gave up walking to his job, and on Saturday nights he and Lizzie rode to town to shop. Lizzie reigned in her own house, like any married woman.
    On one Halloween night-Halloween in those days being more of a time for serious tricks than an occasion for handouts-a bundle was left at