The Porch Story Hour

What it cost, and what it did not

The weekly paper sent a photographer. It ran on the front page the next Wednesday, above the fold: sixty children on the grass, Mr. Wilkins in his swing, and in the center a little boy in overalls with a rabbit under his chin, mid-hum, handing a book to a girl in a cast.

The caption said, in full: “Thursday story hour, Branch Library lawn. Everybody welcome.”

Beatrice had written that herself. She told Josh she would fire anybody who changed a word.

Josh heard the rest the way you hear everything in a town this size, secondhand and a little at a time. Cora told her father-in-law, and Mr. Wilkins told Josh, and Josh told me at the sink with a dish towel over his shoulder.

The director had met with the board in the second week of November. She brought the headcount, two children against sixty-one, and a copy of the paper. She did not raise her voice, Cora said. She did not have to.

The board voted five to two to add a line to the branch’s story hour policy. Every child is welcome at story hour, whatever sound or movement they bring with them.

Cheryl Dunlap voted against it. In January she did not stand for another term on the board, and nobody asked her why.

Nancy was moved off the Thursday children’s program. Beatrice put her in the back room for the winter, cataloging, with a note in her file and no public desk. It was not a punishment, Beatrice told Josh. It was a pause.

“She will be back out front by spring,” Beatrice said. “If she wants it. I would like her to want it.”

I did not take any pleasure in that. I want to say so plainly, because this is the part where a woman is supposed to tell you she did.

I took no pleasure, and I did not feel sorry for her either. I felt, mostly, tired and clear, the way you feel after a long drive when you finally see your own mailbox.

Josh came home from Sunday dinner at his sister’s looking worn through. He took off his boots by the door, one and then the other.

“How is she?” I asked.

“She buttered a roll for about ten minutes,” he said. “She asked how Truman was.”

“What did you say?”

“I said he was handing out books to sixty kids.” He hung his coat on the nail. “She said, ‘I know. I watched.’ And then she passed the potatoes.”

That was all of it. That is all I have ever gotten, and I have decided it is enough to be going on with.