Summer at Nana Putnam’s Place

Rural living bored the girl.
Hours ached along like days, ever unchanging.
By and by and at long last, perhaps by her conjuring,
a visitor came to call, armed with a carpet cleaner, asking, “Is the
lady of the house at home?” Suddenly blushing and
red-throated, Millicent stammered on the stoop. “No, she’s away…”
Humming, the man studied her a moment, then handed her a card.
Endicott’s Cleaning Company, brushes of every kind, Samuel Endicott she read.
Bird after bird twittered eloquently, she stood dumbstruck, and he repacked his car.
New York, she read his license plate aloud,
                as he slowly turned onto the road with a whirl of dust,
                as her loneliness loudly crescendoed in pitiful cries,
                as the frightened birds took refuge in the brush
                alarmed at the upset of their happy rural living.