Perelman Tonight: Finding a "country" identity -- Part 3 of "Acres and Pains"

"At sundown, when the day's loafing was done, I generally repaired to the village store with a quid of cut plug in my cheek, and spent the evening sullenly spitting on my bluchers and cursing the Administration."

-- from Chapter Five of Acres and Pains

by Ken

We've been reading Perelman's account of his time as a put-upon country squire, Acres and Pains -- the first chapter Tuesday night, the next two last night, recounting the horror of his discovery of just what sort of property he had acquired and the even greater horror of his discovery of the sorts of people he was now living amongst.

We left him last night in the company of the impeccable neighbor Grundy, owner of a flawless house ("thirty-five rooms and ten baths -- snug but adequate for his needs," with an attic "hand-hewn out of solid cherry, with burled walnut floors"), and for that matter a flawless life; his remodeling had been accomplished effortlessly at a cost of just a few dollars.

"Tell you what I'd do if I were you," he concluded. "I'd pitch a tent outside and use the dwelling for a cow stable. Only watch out where you camp; the grass is full of black widows." He left, whistling the "Dead March" from Saul, and I entered the house to find my wife in tears. She cried for six days and on the seventh created apple butter. It was good, but not like the woman's next door.

FOR PART 3 OF ACRES AND PAINS, CLICK HERE


SUNDAY IN PERELMAN TONIGHT: Part 1 of "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth"


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, JEAN SHEPHERD, and PERELMAN TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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