All instantaneously recollected— the reverend everly thomas
Suddenly, I remembered: the showing up at church, the sending of flowers, the baking of cakes to be brought over by Teddie, the arm around the shoulder, the donning of black, the waiting at the hospital for hours.
roger bevins iii
Leverworth giving Burmeister a kind word at the lowest moment of the bank scandal; Furbach drawing out his purse to donate generously to Dr. Pearl, for there had been a fire in the West District.
hans vollman
The handholding group of us wading into the surf to search for poor drowned Chauncey; the sound of coins falling into the canvas bag crudely labeled Our Poor; a group of us on our knees weeding the churchyard at dusk; the clanking of the huge green soup pot as my deacon and I lugged it out to those wretched women of the evening in the Sheep’s Grove.
the reverend everly thomas
The happy mob of us children gathered about a tremendous vat of boiling chocolate, and dear Miss Bent, stirring it, making fond noises at us, as if we were kittens.
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My God, what a thing! To find oneself thus expanded!
hans vollman
How had we forgotten? All of these happy occasions?
the reverend everly thomas
To stay, one must deeply and continuously dwell upon one’s primary reason for staying; even to the exclusion of all else.
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One must be constantly looking for opportunities to tell one’s story.
hans vollman
(If not permitted to tell it, one must think it and think it.) the reverend everly thomas
But this had cost us, we now saw.
We had forgotten so much, of all else we had been and known.
roger bevins iii
But now, through this serendipitous mass co-habitation— the reverend everly thomas
We found ourselves (like flowers from which placed rocks had just been removed) being restored somewhat to our natural fullness.
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As it were.
hans vollman
It felt good.
the reverend everly thomas
It did.
hans vollman
Very good.
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And seemed to be doing us good as well.
the reverend everly thomas
Looking over, I found Mr. Vollman suddenly clad, his member shrunk down to normal size. His clothes were, it is true, decidedly scruffy (printer’s apron, ink-dotted shoes, mismatched socks) but nevertheless: a miracle.
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Becoming aware of Mr. Bevins staring at me, I glanced over and found him no longer a difficult-to-look-at clustering of eyes, noses, hands, et al.—but a handsome young man, of eager and pleasing countenance: two eyes, one nose, two hands, ruddy cheeks, a beautiful head of black hair in that vicinity so previously overgrown with eyeballs as to make hair a redundancy.
An appealing young fellow, in other words, with the proper number of everything.
hans vollman
Excuse me, the Reverend said somewhat shyly. May I ask? How do I look?
Very well, I said. Quite at ease.
Not afraid at all, said Mr. Vollman.
Eyebrows at the proper height, I said. Eyes not overly wide.
Hair no longer sticking straight up, said Mr. Vollman.
Mouth no longer an O, I said.
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And we were not the only beneficiaries of this happy blessing.
the reverend everly thomas
For reasons unknown to us, Tim Midden had always gone about dogged by a larger version of himself, that was constantly leaning over to whisper discouragement to him; this behemoth was now gone.
hans vollman
Mr. DeCroix and Professor Bloomer had become unconjoined and, no matter how close together they walked, did not rejoin.
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Mr. Tadmill, disgraced clerk, who had misfiled an important document, causing the collapse of his firm, and had thereafter been unable to find other employment, and had begun to drink, and lost his home, and saw his wife placed into a sick-box due to excessive worry and their children dispersed to various orphanages in light of his ever-increasing dissipation, usually presented nearly bent to the ground with regret, shaped like one half of a set of parentheses topped with a sad sprig of white hair, quaking all over, moving with extreme caution, terrified of making even the smallest mistake.
But now we saw a spry young tow-headed fellow just embarking upon a new position, full of high hopes, flower in his lapel.
the reverend everly thomas
Mr. Longstreet discontinued his groping, burst into tears, begged Mrs. Crawford’s forgiveness.
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(It is just that I am lonely, dear girl.) sam “smooth-boy” longstreet
(If you wish, I can tell you the names of some of our wildwoods flowers.) mrs. elizabeth crawford
(It would be a pleasure to hear them.) sam “smooth-boy” longstreet
Verna Blow and her mother, Ella, who normally manifested as virtually identical hags (though both had died in childbirth, and had therefore never grown old in that previous place), now appeared (each pushing a baby carriage) youthful again, utterly ravishing.