Keeping One's Place 



of my earlier desire. Seclusion had grown moldy 

 and by many shades too somber. I could not 

 live so furtively. Arrogance now seemed austere. 

 Surely there was something more approachable, 

 more gracious even in this openness of manner 

 that let the whole world in. Thus I accounted 

 later for my quick siu-render and the hurried cer- 

 emony necessary to the seahng of our bond. 



In our first summer, still so happy to remem- 

 ber, it was I who claimed indulgence. Ours was, 

 in fact, a poor one-sided bargain in which I 

 shirked my part. I was no housewife. What's 

 more I was wayward ; and the sober ritual set me 

 I made no attempt to learn. That New England 

 ancestor of mine who in virtuous reproof wrote 

 the word "Slut" upon her neighbor's dusty table 

 would have called my easy going by a harsher 

 name than "slicking up." It was much simpler 

 than the lazy efforts of a slattern, for I raised 

 the windows high to a sea gale that raked the 

 place from end to end. A more sweetening pro- 

 cess to my way of thinking, this that smacked of 

 salt and bayberries, than the stir of dust from mop 

 or broom. I had, too, my own bhthe ideas about 



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