Turnpike Grocery

New England, November 1915. Alice Priest, a grocery clerk at her father’s store, has a long conversation with Mrs. Hiram Hiller, an old widow who is leaving town the next day for Chicago. Mrs. Hiller has sold her property, including a cherry orchard, because of what she found there not long after her husband’s death: a severed hand, without a body. The widow buried the hand but it still haunts her, chiefly because, when she returned to the mini-grave site and dug up the hole, there was no hand present: no bones were there, either. As Mrs. Hiller leaves the grocery, she encounters Leon Handy, Alice Priest’s boyfriend, who is entering the store. Leon has one hand in a pants pocket and the other behind his back—something that arouses the suspicion of the widow. The unemployed Leon proceeds to mooch two cigars off Alice, which sparks her ire and leads her to tell him that she going to Boston for the Christmas holidays. Alice may in fact be leaving town for good, she declares, chiefly because Leon has not made good on his promise to marry her. This ne’er-do-well of a man then whines, makes excuses, and tries to get Alice Priest to stay and make up with him, but she refuses—all the more so since, as she tells it, Leon Handy has compromised her honor. As Alice starts to the store and, with it, Leon, she encounters Mrs. Hiller, who did not depart and now stands in the doorway. The widow continues to look intently at Leon’s hands—one of which is again in a pants pocket, the other behind his back. No one says anything; no one moves; and nothing more is revealed.