Miss Harriet, The Story Continues!

As wide around as she was tall, Harriet gathered her wits and returned lock, stock and barrel to the countryside right outside Paris. Having sold the Pizzeria bequeathed by her Father, she knew it's proceeds would just pay for a roof and a short supply of provisions. Beyond that, a quandary was posed, for the only skills she'd acquired since finishing school were those of a couch potato.

Left to her own devices Harriet took a waddle down the main street of the small country village which crossed by a highway. Ten or so buildings lined up along the sole thoroughfare housed the local merchants, the butcher, the grocer, the carpenter, the cobbler, the baker, the doctor and so on. In each case, the merchants lived in small second floor flats just above their respective places of business, not unlike her Father did, above the Pizzeria.

A church stood at the end of the street, surrounded by a narrow graveyard; and four enormous shade trees, planted in front of its portal, shaded the entire building. Beyond it, the countryside began, intersecting here and there by clumps of trees which hid the farms that stood near by.


As Harriet strolled, she began to enumerate the farms, the yield of their land, their livestock, and the role they each played in the lives of villagers near and far. She stopped short of entering the back road leading to a vineyard, a dairy farm, and of all things, a potato farm. But before she could turn to head back, she came face-to-face with a giant of a man with dirty hands and wearing a floppy hat. "Touring the countryside?" he asked. "Why yes" she answered, her eyes rushing the length of his torso. "Is this your vineyard?" "No" he said laughing, "I own the potato farm just here, my name is Edward Fingerling." To be continued.....

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