The Farmer’s Wife was not home when neighbor Todd came to the door. At first the dogs barked. Each year he knocks, stands back politely and asks permission to hunt deer on those forest ledges sloping down towards the Deerfield River. In his hand, a gift of 3 beautiful wooden spoons he’d carved during solitary evenings. Todd works at the hospital. He cleans things up. He is a calm man with a slow, affectionate smile but he notices everything. Each day this man on the sidelines, doing his job, sees what falls off the edges of life itself, of hope, or even credibility. That is why, each year, when Todd arrives at the several doorways here in the hill towns, family dogs only bark once or twice. Volume 8 No 1 - Page 19
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