Porch Swings, Parlors & Pryin’ Eyes: Gossip, Gumption, and the Glories of Small-Town Life
"In the towns where the porch lights glow late, the screen doors creak often, and no secret stays secret for long, life unfolds with charm, chatter, and more than a touch of mischief.
Porch Swings, Parlors & Pryin’ Eyes invites you into parlors both prim and peculiar, where romances are whispered behind teacups, rivalries simmer at choir practice, and widows form committees with suspicious speed. Within these sixteen short stories, you’ll find aging sopranos and checker champions, tangled telegrams and moonlit deacons, poker parties gone sideways and gossip spun tighter than a handmade scarf.
Each tale captures the distinct rhythms of small-town American life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—with all its humor, heartbreak, and sly subversion of social norms. These are stories not just of people, but of places—of communities that cradle, confine, and sometimes surprise those who call them home.
Pull up a chair, pour something sweet, and don’t be surprised if someone starts talkin’ about you next.
Featuring the work of renowned authors and some hidden gems of classic American fiction, including:
The Gay Old Dog, by Edna Ferber
Melinda's Humorous Story, by May McHenry
Friends in San Rosario, by O. Henry
The Associated Widows, by Katharine M. Roof
The Tale of the Tangled Telegram, by Wilbur D. Nesbit
A Village Singer, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
A New England Nun, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Scarf, by Madeline Yale Wynne
The Champion Checker-Player of Ameriky, by James Whitcomb Riley
How The Widow Won The Deacon, by William James Lampton
Evan Anderson's Poker Party, by Benjamin Stevenson
A Rivermouth Romance, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Not According to Schedule, by Mary Stewart Cutting
A Reward of Merit, by Booth Tarkington
Sand Flat Shadows, by Carl Sandburg
Mrs. Lathrop's Love Affair, by Anne Warner"
Anne Warner, Benjamin Stevenson, Booth Tarkington, Carl Sandburg, Edna Ferber, James Riley, Katharine M. Roof, Madeline Yale Wynne, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Stewart Cutting, May McHenry, O. Henry, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Wilbur D. Nesbit, William James Lampton (Author), A.J. Schuck, Alex Picard, Emma Faye, John Hopkinson, Meghan Kelly, Rebecca Stern, Shannon Nicole Locke (Narrator)
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