Summary

The story opens in a small, unnamed town in Indiana. It is positioned next to a field and has a population of about 1,200 people. The narrator describes the town as “outstandingly neat and shady” (172). There is a railroad at the center of town, and the narrator describes the pleasant sights and sounds of the trains. The narrator, who lives in the town, states, “I am in retirement from love” (173). The narrator states that it is winter as he writes, and it has been consistently cloudy. Behind the narrator’s house is a row of maple trees, the tops of which were removed to make room for an electrical power lines. The narrator dislikes the power lines. He sometimes climbs the tall stumps of the trees in order to look around. His closest neighbor is an old man named Billy Holsclaw, who lives in a...