The Good Samaritan
J. Mayhall
WEN I
FIRST
ARRIVED in GuttervilJe to take up my newly
acquired position as librarian there, I found, after a careful
check-up that I had just one dress to my name, accompanied by a
pair of dilapidated skirts.
The dress was a mushy looking purple wool and had seen its
best days. The skirts were slightly better off. They had been
donated to me by a distant cousin who had sent them one Christmas
Eve marked "Collect." At first, feeling a little piqued, I had the
inclination to throw them away, but then moved by some prophetic
calculation and foreseeing a more rainy day than it was at the
time I put the skirts carefully away in an old suitcase and forgot
about them.
And I did not remember them again until the Gutterville job
turned up with only the mushy wool dress in which to make myself
acceptable in the eyes of the Gutterville Library inmates. So I
decided that I would try to patch up the old skirts and wear them.
But alas, the task was too much for me and after much rip–
ping and tearing of hems and plackets I came to the decision that
a dressmaker would be the more economical way of dealing with
the situation.
Upon which I began to inquire about town for names of
dressmakers.
Gutterville is a small and lovely New England town situated
somewhere inland. It is a place made up of zig-zag streets,
~;t
single
highway and a series of well-kept lawns. The inhabitants I had
seen only at a distance. They were usual iooking energetic people
and generally quite cheerful during library hours. From several
of them I learned the name of the dressmaker, for there was
only one.
I was told that she was a Miss Hotch and that she lived on the
edge of town and was a dear lovely lady. This comment was deliv–
ered by a dear lovely lady also, so I hastened to believe it.
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