a little creepy
Once upon a time in a town made popular in more than one "Little House" book by Laura Ingalls Wilder, a handsome young woman with a tall figure and dark hair and eyes opened a dressmaking and millinery shop near the south end of Main Street, also known as Calumet. Across the street was the Bank, run by a mustachioed man who didn't keep track of his livestock and had been known to burn lumber at fifty dollars a thousand.

This banker had a younger brother, a capitalist who dabbled in banking but also ran a feed store, not the feed store run by the man with the brother who had a funny name, but a feed store run with the son of the owner of the red front grocery store in town. This younger brother had his eye on the milliner, and the milliner was interested right back at him.

One of the milliner's sisters (another sister later married the banker) was married to an undertaker who came to town to work with the bald-headed furniture man. The bald-headed furniture man not only sold furniture, but stoves, tin-ware, and (of all things) coffins.

The younger brother and the milliner used to keep their eyes turned towards the furniture store as they went about their respective businesses, and when the furniture men were out making deliveries, the younger brother and the milliner would find that it was exactly the right time to take a little walk to the north. They would sneak inside the furniture store, where they would soon become cosily conjoined in a coffin.

One fine day, they were too engaged in their illicit relations to realize that someone had forgotten something and had returned to the store, only to walk in on the lovers busy at their horizontal hanky-panky.

The Banker thought it a fine story to pass along, and so I have done so.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:22 PM