| ON THE ROAD to Chestnut Mound just beyond the Buffalo Valley train station stood the Sewall place. Built in the 1870s by Walter Sewall for his two maiden sisters Miss Kitty and Miss Jo Sewall, the house was the most imposing building in Buffalo Valley. Two bulging bay windows overlooked the road while two others faced across fields toward Gentry. Above the windows tall gables ran to points like the ends of pencils, and around the roof lattices were carved into clubs, diamonds, and spades. By nature retiring, Miss Kitty and Miss Jo became reclusive as they grew old, so much so that by the turn of the century, the only person who saw them regularly was Comfort Shoaff, a grocer and meatman who twice a week made rounds from Carthage across Chestnut Mound and then down through Buffalo Valley to Middleton and New Middleton. Partly because their house was the biggest building in town and partly because they lived to great ages and were objects of curiosity, the sisters became landmarks on the Buffalo Valley road. Neighbors talked about them familiarly and never failed to point out their house to visitors. Thus when Miss Kitty died at ninety-six, it seemed as if part of the country had passed from sight, and people felt obliged to visit Miss Jo. In truth some folks behaved poorly and visited more to gratify curiosity about the inside of the house than to express condolences. Old Dr. Sollows, however, was not one of these. He didn't go by until after the funeral, and then he took a deep-dish peach pie, baked by Mammie, his cook. "I am so sorry, Miss Jo," he said. "I know how lonely you must be now that Miss Kitty is gone." ''Lonely," Miss Jo exclaimed, "I am not lonely, and I'm not unhappy. This is the first time in my life I have had coffee made right. Kitty was four years older than me, and, until last week, we always had it her way." |
| Like Miss Jo, I think about changing the flavor of some things in life. Unlike her, though, no Kitty with a wisdom begot by longer experience blocks me. What stops me from altering the recipe for daily living is custom and her handmaiden anxiety. My ways have hardened, and, in- |
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