I spend a lovely evening with Miss Pickthorn and Mr. Hare

Miss Pickthorn and Mr. Hare ****
By May Sarton

I love novellas. They give you an evening's worth of entertainment without keeping you up past your bedtime, and "Miss Pickthorn and Mr. Hare: A Fable" is a wonderful read just before falling asleep.

Sarton is better known for her poetry, which she talks about in "Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing," a novel I didn't much like (reviewed here). But "Miss P and Mr. H" is as unpretentious and natural as "Mrs. Stevens" is awkward and contrived.

It's a simple story: Old Miss Pickthorn is enjoying retirement in solitude, translating Horace and eating crispy apples when the elusive Mr. Hare takes up residence in an old henhouse across the road.

Mr. Hare's residence annoys Miss Pickthorn; his shack is barely habitable, it poses a fire hazard, the noise of his repairs bugs her. She puts on her kid gloves--gauntlets--and heads off to the village selectmen's meeting to demand that they take action. They do. They contemplate adding to the village coffers by taxing it as a residence if Mr. Hare can make the place livable. But they don't tell Miss Pickthorn that. They're too afraid of her.

Gradually, Miss Pickthorn begins to grow accustomed to Mr. Hare, even to find comfort in the nearness of someone else. She begins to have neighborly feelings about him. To worry about him. Even to protect him.

The names "Pickthorn" and "Hare" capture the essence of each character's personality and remind one that briar patches provide friendly if prickly cover for rabbits. But otherwise, there's nothing remotely contrived or "literary" about the story. It's full of commonplace objects--an empty Altoids tin pulls the final threads of the story together--that turn into elegant little emblems for the characters' inner lives.

Delightful.