The Gift Houses From Devil Make A Third 

 from page 262 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD: "He looked critically at the small white house set neatly in the angle of the corner lot on which they had planted the shrub, then his eyes wandered back and forth to the the other two corners where houses exactly like the nearest centered corner lots that were each one-fourth of the block. He could see Jeanie Bannon's home-the first house he'd ever built- still reared two stories above the fourth corner and in his mind's eye he could see the barn and the meat house and the chicken runs and the cow lot all sprawling back to the strict edge of the parcel of land that went with the house behind her. His eyes squinted along the precise white shine of smooth sidewalk that bordered the block. He frowned at the roots of the sycamores growing between the sidewalk and curb, where already big roots had pried up slabs at the foot of each tree. He followed with satisfaction, though, the same type of slabs formed wide walkways leading up to the four green steps of each house. His upper lip curled a little as he thought about those walkways, and he hoped nobody would notice that they were made out the same stuff and laid just exactly like those the city had used for sidewalk. He leaned  over suddenly and spat for luck at the trunk of the small shrub as his mother pushed back, sighing."

from the October 30, 1922 DOTHAN EAGLE

 

from the March 27, 1953 DOTHAN EAGLE