Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

Oct 31, 1920 –; Late Autumn sunlight falls aslant the side of an old house, making the putty along the window ledge glittering white; it is an afternoon of interminable length, one of those after-noons that typify the whole of human existence, when it seems as if the blessed night of oblivion would never come.; One of the inmates, a young man came out; it proved to me Gardner, formerly a grocery-delivery boy; he has a whining complaining tone, that compels pity inspite of its monotony. As long as I remember he had the same tone. His mother, he told me, had died so he went to live with his father, from whom his mother has gotten a divorce some time before. “We’re batshin bachin’ it in there” he said. They raced horses in the summer & hunt fox and groundhog in the winter. He proudly asserted that they were “in” on the money in every race they entered.