Samuel Reed Kept an Old Wooden Bat Behind the Pantry Door for Twenty Years

“The clerk put a red stamp on it.”

We left the courthouse lobby at half past three without seeing the magistrate.

The clerk told us the hearing had been moved to the magistrate’s morning docket on Thursday.

I drove down Main Street and parked in front of the Town Diner.

The windows were steamed over from the soup kettles inside.

“I’m not hungry, Dad,” Claire said.

“You need hot food,” I said.

We sat in a booth near the back, behind the pie display case.