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Tides of Barnegat by Francis Hopkinson Smith
page 90 of 451 (19%)
the calico curtain framing the sash and beckoned
to her.

This perch of Ann Gossaway's was the eyrie from
which she swept the village street, bordered with a
double row of wide-spreading elms and fringed with
sloping grassy banks spaced at short intervals by
hitching-posts and horse-blocks. Her own cottage
stood somewhat nearer the flagged street path than
the others, and as the garden fences were low and
her lookout flanked by two windows, one on each
end of her corner, she could not only note what went
on about the fronts of her neighbors' houses, but
much of what took place in their back yards. From
this angle, too, she could see quite easily, and without
more than twisting her attenuated neck, the whole
village street from the Cromartins' gate to the spire
of the village church, as well as everything that
passed up and down the shadow-flecked road: which
child, for instance, was late for school, and how
often, and what it wore and whether its clothes
were new or inherited from an elder sister; who
came to the Bronsons' next door, and how long they
stayed, and whether they brought anything with
them or carried anything away; the peddler with
his pack; the gunner on his way to the marshes, his
two dogs following at his heels in a leash; Dr. John
Cavendish's gig, and whether it was about to stop
at Uncle Ephraim Tipple's or keep on, as usual,
and whirl into the open gate of Cobden Manor; Billy
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