Produced by Doug Levy
by Ellen Glasgow
To my sister Cary Glasgow McCormack In loving acknowledgment of help and sympathy through the years
I. At Bottom's Ordinary
II. In Which Destiny Wears the Comic Mask
III. In Which Mr. Gay Arrives at His Journey's End
IV. The Revercombs
V. The Mill
VI. Treats of the Ladies' Sphere
VII. Gay Rushes Into a Quarrel and Secures a Kiss
VIII. Shows Two Sides of a Quarrel
IX. In Which Molly Flirts
X. The Reverend Orlando Mullen Preaches a Sermon
XI. A Flight and an Encounter
XII. The Dream and the Real
XIII. By the Mill-race
XIV. Shows the Weakness in Strength
XV. Shows the Tyranny of Weakness
XVI. The Coming of Spring
XVII. The Shade of Mr. Jonathan
XVIII. The Shade of Reuben
XIX. Treats of Contradictions
XX. Life's Ironies
XXI. In Which Pity Masquerades as Reason
I. In which Youth Shows a Little Seasoned
II. The Desire of the Moth
III Abel Hears Gossip and Sees a Vision
IV. His Day of Freedom
V. The Shaping of Molly
VI. In Which Hearts Go Astray
VII. A New Beginning to an Old Tragedy
VIII. A Great Passion in a Humble Place
IX. A Meeting in the Pasture
X. Tangled Threads
XI. The Ride to Piping Tree
XII. One of Love's Victims
XIII. What Life Teaches
XIV. The Turn of the Wheel
XV. Gay Discovers Himself
XVI. The End
Author's Note: The scene of this story is not the
place of the same name in Virginia.
It was past four o'clock on a sunny October day, when a stranger, whohad ridden over the "corduroy" road between Applegate and Old Church,dismounted near the cross-roads before the small public house known toits frequenters as Bottom's Ordinary. Standing where the three roadsmeet at the old turnpike-gate of the county, the square brick building,which had declined through several generations from a chapel into atavern, had grown at last to resemble the smeared face of a clown undera steeple hat which was worn slightly awry. Originally covered withstucco, the walls had peeled year by year until the dull red of thebricks showed like blotches of paint under a thick coating of powder.Over the wide door two little oblong windows, holding four damagedpanes, blinked rakishly from a mat of ivy, which spread from the rottingeaves to the shingled roof, where the slim wooden spire bent under theweight of creeper and innumerable nesting sparrows in spring. Afterpointing heavenward for half a century, the steeple appeared to haveswerved suddenly from its purpose, and to invite now the attention ofthe wayfarer to the bar