A Christmas Accident and Other Stories

Two matching brick houses conceal a sharp divide between their occupants. The comfortable Giltons live beside the Biltons and their five children, with a disputed fence, misdirected groceries and a troublesome dog feeding the quarrel. As Christmas approaches, Mrs. Gilton watches the snow and wishes she could send presents next door. Annie Eliot Trumbull builds the opening story from these small domestic grievances, showing how pride and unequal means can turn ordinary neighbors into opponents.

The collection also looks at the distance between remembered places and present experience. In another excerpt, Lucy Eastman and Mary Leonard return to Englefield after thirty-five years and find busy streets, altered houses and familiar views that still move them. Across these scenes, conversational humor sits close to disappointment and longing. Readers interested in nineteenth-century American social life will find stories attentive to household comforts, awkward encounters and the feelings that everyday routines can hide.