Word: townsfolk
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About this inward theme of guilt and redemption rages the outward action of the book. In 1348 the Black Death tore through Bedesford like a cyclone; fewer than a third of the townsfolk survived. Then came the plague of the fallow deer and the flood of the Wode. Yet Edwin and Jeanne, Jack and Joan, Alfred and Juliana went on working and breeding, and soon the fields were up to mark again and the population almost normal...
...thrifty townsfolk are quick to keep pace with the changing season. Even as the first buds peep from the ashen skin of the lofty Ginkgoes, so too do hints of color invade the once-barren display cases of the tiny shops and marts. Bright-hued apparel and shiny trinklets bedeck the shelves and counters. A holocaust impends, but all is yet serene waiting, waiting...
...days passed, events took a turn for the better. Townsfolk began rummaging through their own attics and libraries, and six found that they owned copies of Ten Nights. The Wilkes-Barre Little Theatre Group, which had performed a play version of the book in 1933, discovered that it still had three copies lying around. Other copies came from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana. Though some owners wanted as much as $1,000 for their copies, there were plenty of others willing to hand theirs over free. Finally, last week, Miss Bender was able to announce that she had collected...
...Englishman living in California sent a clipping of the letter to the Newmarket Journal, which printed it without comment last week. Newmarket (pop. 9,767) exploded. "Damned cheek!" snorted outraged townsfolk in bus queues and pubs. Growled George Goult, chairman of the urban district council: "I and the rest of the town take a very poor view of it... We shall refute it officially." London tabloids stirred up a fuss...
...Force public relations officers rushed around trying to soothe the townsfolk; at an Anglo-American garden party they talked hands across the sea and dismissed Joan Stocker as an impulsive youngster. At week's end, under their prodding eye, she issued a formal statement: "I would like to emphasize very strongly that I was not referring to the town of Newmarket . . . Our rent is just . . . The neighbors . . . have all been swell ... I am proud to live in Newmarket." Newmarket calmed down a bit again...