The Last Days Of Dogtown Quotes
"If she didn’t consider every step, she might end up as bad off as Abraham Wharf, who certainly had no need of her hurry."
"The cold seemed to add hours and miles to even the shortest journey through Dogtown."
"At least it isn’t windy, Judy consoled herself."
"Nobody spoke of suicide much, but Judy wondered if it might be a far more common escape than anyone suspected."
"With its rutted thoroughfares and ruined houses and the odd collection of souls who had washed up into the rocky hills of Cape Ann."
"Defending the Commons Settlement had been his mission, and anyone who’d let him talk for more than a minute got an earful of how it used to be the finest address on the North Shore."
"Remember how he’d say the word ‘shopkeeper’? Like he was speaking the worst sort of blasphemy."
"A man could go to sea or enlist in a war without book learning."
"Judy Rhines put Oliver in mind of a hen. It was not the most flattering picture, he knew, but it was comfortable enough to let him imagine her caring for him in return."
"As much as he hated Tammy, he had never been able to kill so much as a chicken; even fishing made him feel wrong with the world."
"He was a black-haired, dark-eyed rake accustomed to having women flutter at his attentions."
"Judy Rhines’s hair turned gray while Easter went entirely bald under her cap."
"The cold seemed to add hours and miles to even the shortest"
"But the summer of 1817 saw Dogtown’s stock rise briefly, at least in terms of gossip, thanks to a strange convergence of unusual sightings and odd visitations."
"Black Ruth made a rare appearance in town, too."
"Easter didn’t believe it at first. A twisted ankle and a string of rainy days had kept her from hearing it sooner."
"In Ah-frica, they see such quite common," Ruth went on.
"Well, I ain’t sure I got the whole story to tell."
"Mimba had been right about white people. The best thing was to treat them like ghosts and cannibals, not to be trusted."
"Ruth’s fortunes rose when the wife of the minister at Fourth Parish at Riverview sent word that she wished a pen for a newly plowed vegetable garden beside the parsonage."
"Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us."
"Ruth lay her cheek on that granite table and shivered. She was ashamed of herself for letting Brimfield go."
"Right cozy," she told Judy, who wondered if her friend hadn’t acted hastily in inviting such a peculiar stranger to live in her house.
"She succeeded in forgetting herself altogether until she found herself in Gloucester Harbor."
"Ruth had never felt weaker or more confused. This was the moment she’d been living for, but the only thought she could muster was that her mother had not been Phyllis, as she’d been told, but Phoebe."
"Sammy was most comfortable among old women, and it was they who gave him the idea about how the summer trade might be a safe ticket to a wealthy future."
"You never did tell me how she came to be here from Narragansett," said Judy.
"I will not take in another dog. I will move into Martha’s house. I will depend upon my friends, and if I’m fortunate I will die among them."
"I will not spend another winter here alone."
"Numbers were forthright, definite, and reassuring, entirely unlike words, which were slippery and sharp."
"We Christians cannot permit such misery, can we?"
"It felt good to finish something properly, even if it was something as inconsequential as piling rocks over the bones of a wild dog."
"I’d better be going. My auntie is waiting supper for me."
"If you see an elephant in my tea leaves, does it mean I’m going to India?"
"Tammy was seated at her table, facedown in a bowl of moldering stew."
"I’ve got to get you into town," he said, doubting that she understood.
"You’re not dead, are you?" said Cornelius, alarmed.
"How are you today, dearie?" she asked, without the slightest expectation of any response.
"Sometimes, when Easter was there, Ruth tried to speak."
"I don’t care," Judy announced, in a voice that was new for her.