Characters in It Grows on You

… next to one advertising an appearance of “Country” Ken Corriveau at the 1984 Castle County Fair. The light and heat of almost ten summers has fallen on this latter poster, and now Ken Corriveau (who has been out of the country-music business for at least half of those ten years …

It was a hard, brilliant day and the only person from Castle Rock to attend the service was Alvin Coy, who drove the Hay & Peabody funeral hack. Alvin reported that one of the spectators was a young, shapely woman in a raccoon coat and a black cloche hat.

Benny Ellis claimed that Joe had gouged out his daughter’s one eye and kept it in a jar of what Benny called “fubbledehyde” on the kitchen table, along with the amputated fingers which had …

He continued to buy out of town and would have nothing to do with Bill “Brownie” McKissick’s store. He also never crossed the threshold of the Bend Methodist Church.

The millworkers called him Firing Joe, because if you missed a single shift you were sent down the road, no excuses accepted or even listened to. He married Cora Leonard, niece of Carl Stowe, in 1914.

Mostly it was the house of which they spoke; it was considered to be an affront to the sensibilities and an offense to the eye. “But it grows on you,” Clayton Clutterbuck (father of John) sometimes remarked. There was never any answer to this.

While he was getting it, a large van drove up past the howling moron and to the barn. When Clem Upshaw returned with his order, only one cow remained, gazing at him with black eyes which had grown dull and distant beneath their covering of hay chaff.

The smell of sap in the fresh wood was still strong. He was found by Cleveland Torbutt, the assistant manager of Gates Mills and Joe’s partner (or so it was rumored) in a number of Wall Street ventures that were now not worth the puke of a tubercular cocker spaniel.

… wild roses, Queen Anne’s lace, ladyslipper, paintbrush—in the field beyond the buildings, after all that time, Cora Leonard Newall had Kindled. She never shopped at Brownie’s. Cora did her marketing at the Kitty Korner Store over in Gates Center every Thursday afternoon. In January of 1921, Cora gave birth to …

… ribs have never really healed, and asks Gary when they are going to have services for Dana Roy. “Tomorrow,” Gary says, “down Gorham. That’s where his wife is laid to rest.” Lucy Roy died in 1968; Dana, who was until 1979 an electrician for U.S. Gypsum over in Gates Falls …

The news that just the two of them were soon to become just the three of them trickled in from Gates Falls, the source most likely being Doris Gingercroft, who was Dr. Robertson’s nurse in those days. So the added wing was in the nature of a celebration, it seemed.

The news that just the two of them were soon to become just the three of them trickled in from Gates Falls, the source most likely being Doris Gingercroft, who was Dr. Robertson’s nurse in those days. So the added wing was in the nature of a celebration, it seemed.

It was around 1916 that he got that sucker, because it was in ’16 that Eddie Roy wired the house. He was never up there again. Frank—the middle boy, he’s been dead ten or twelve year now—he would have been six or eight then, maybe.

Frank—the middle boy, he’s been dead ten or twelve year now—he would have been six or eight then, maybe. Frank seen what Cora done to the little one, that much I know, but not when he told Will. It don’t matter. Finally Will decided to do somethin about it.

On August 14, 1923, while driving by the Newall house in his father’s farm truck, thirteen-year-old Gary Martin Paulson happened to observe Cora Leonard Newall turning away from her mailbox at the end of the driveway. She had the newspaper in one hand.

They consider it a matter of some importance, and thus nothing to hurry over. More time passes—Harley McKissick has reflected more than once that if time was pulpwood, they’d all be rich. Paul goes to the old water-cooled soft-drink chest and gets an Orange Crush.

… ” “Good,” said Joe Newall, “because it’s as close as you’ll get.” The county health officer threw the Gates Falls vet’s paper down and stamped one of his boots on it. He looked at Joe Newall, his face flushed so bright that the burst squiggles of veins on the sides …

The old men watch the children and speak in low, desultory tones. John Clutterbuck, whose grandson, Andy, is busy drinking himself to death this fall, has been talking about the town landfill. The landfill stinks like a bugger in the summertime, he says.

“Tomorrow,” Gary says, “down Gorham. That’s where his wife is laid to rest.” Lucy Roy died in 1968; Dana, who was until 1979 an electrician for U.S. Gypsum over in Gates Falls (these men routinely and with no prejudice refer to the company as U.S.

The bank got it from Phil Budreau in a foreclosure assisted by County Sheriff Nickerson Campbell. Phil Budreau, well-liked but considered something of a fool by his neighbors, slunk away to Kittery and spent the next twelve years or so tinkering with cars and motorcycles.

The body was cut down by the county coroner, who happened to be Clem Upshaw’s brother Noble. Joe was buried next to his wife and child on the last day of November.

Where does anybody get nice maple like that in this day n age?” No one answers. No one knows. At last, very tentatively, Paul Corliss says, “Sure you’re not thinking of another house, Gary? Could be you—” “Could be shit,” Gary says, just as quietly but even more forcefully.

The bank got it from Phil Budreau in a foreclosure assisted by County Sheriff Nickerson Campbell. Phil Budreau, well-liked but considered something of a fool by his neighbors, slunk away to Kittery and spent the next twelve years or so tinkering with cars and motorcycles.

In the years since, he has made love to a good many women, beginning with Sally Ouelette underneath the Tin Bridge back in ’26, and every time he has neared the moment of orgasm—every single one—he has seen Cora Leonard Newall: has seen her standing beside her mailbox …

The inscription on the tiny headstone read SARAH TAMSON TABITHA FRANCINE NEWALL JANUARY 14, 1921 GOD GRANT SHE LIE STILL.

“It was Dana Roy’s big brother, Will, who throwed that skunk at the side of the house that time. I’m almost sure ’twas.” “Will?” Lenny raises his eyebrows. “Will Roy was too steady to do a thing like that, I would have said.”