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AL-89
Alabama

HESTER FRYE

The old house was set back from the dirt road. Where the lawn
had been only dog fennel was growing. The picket fence was almost
down, a back chimney had fallen, and part of the roof was open to
the sky. There were no steps at the front. A tangle of wistaria
gripped the rotting gallery.

No one answered my "hello." I pulled myself up by one of the
rickety pillars and picked my way over sagging planks to the door.
I knocked, but no one answered. Wandering around the gallery
toward the back, I met an old Negro man who invited me to walk in
and "res' " my hat.

Through a side door, I entered a room with drawn and torn shades.
As my eyes became used to the dimness they picked out an old piano
stool covered with worn red plush and moth-eaten ball fringe. Scatter-
ed on top of a once lovely but now outmoded square piano, were several
daguerreotypes, a family album, and mildewed copies of old songs.

On the wall above were two charming hollow-cut silhouettes, one
an aristocratically high-nosed gentleman, the other a young and
engagingly pretty woman. On the mantel was a small figure which may
have been Derby Bisque, and whose mate no doubt had shared the fate
of other treasures, the spoils of many generations. The needle-point
of the cushion of an old wing chair was soiled and frayed, though
the chair was deep and hospitable. There was an old blue perfume
bottle holding a bunch of faded artificial flowers, and on a small
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