Early fog has been meeting the evening errands. The lamps will answer first.
The Harbour Board of Vesperhaven agreed on Tuesday evening to kindle the quay lamps at four o’clock rather than five, beginning Monday next. Pilots, fish-sellers, and the keepers of the steps at Fisher Stairs had described the same quiet trouble: for a fortnight the fog has come in while baskets were still being carried, and while the clerks were still finishing their sums. The earlier lamps, the Board said, are a practical answer and not a celebration.
The expense will come from the winter lamp fund already set aside for wicks, globes, and the lamplighters’ coats, and not from any fresh rate. Councillor Ada Pell, who keeps the chandlery on Wren Lane, called the change a small courtesy to anyone walking home with parcels, and asked that the lighters be paid for the extra portion of the hour on days they begin before dusk has properly settled.
A trial will run through October. Should the fog thin, the old hour may be restored. Should it remain, the Board will print a card of lighting times and pin it beside the parish notice board, where it can be read without squinting. No voice was raised against the motion. The vote was unanimous, and the clerk poured tea before the minutes were signed.
The quay at four
sketch withheld
Chapel Row
The municipal library on Chapel Row will keep two tables lit until half past eight on weeknights, so that apprentices who leave their shops at six may read without hurrying the librarian toward the latch.
The plan is a modest one. Mr. Ivo Grant will sit the later hour on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and two volunteers from the typing class will mind the room on Tuesday and Thursday. Books of account, pattern-drafting, and coastal navigation are to rest on a trolley of their own, so they need not be hunted for among the novels.
Quiet will still be asked, though Mr. Grant says the kettle at the back sink may be filled by anyone who needs it. Schoolchildren are welcome with a grown person, or with a note from a teacher. The later hour begins on the first of October and will be considered again near Christmas, when the dark is longest and the walk home wants a sure step.
The Surveyor
The surveyor gives notice that Wren Street, from the chandlery to the parish hall, will be closed to carts from Monday week. Worn stones will be lifted, the sand beneath them renewed, and each cobble set back in its former place. Householders have been asked to leave the chalk marks where the children can see them and not improve upon the numbering.
People on foot may still reach their own doors. A temporary walk of boards will run along the chapel side, wide enough for a basket and a careful neighbour. The piano promised to the parish hall is to be brought in before the closure, so that no one is asked to roll it over loose sand or stacked timber.
The work should take six days if the weather is kind. Dust will be watered at midday. Children are asked not to carry off the numbered stones, which have been chalked so that each may return beside its old neighbour. Notes of thanks, and of inconvenience, may be left in the book at the town clerk’s window.
Editorial
This is a small city, and it is learning, somewhat late in the day, that hurry is not the same thing as care. The lamps will come earlier. The library will stay open a little longer. The stones will be put back where they were, which is a kind of patience in itself.
These are not grand decisions, and this paper will not pretend they are. They are the ordinary work of a town that intends to remain a town: a light on slick steps, a table where a young person may copy a figure slowly, a street that does not discard its own stones. None of it will stand as a monument. All of it will be used.
If a moral is required, let it be a quiet one. Leave room for the person who is not first at the counter. Print the notice where it can be read in a hurry or without one. Pour the tea before the minutes are signed. The Evening Moth will go on preferring news of this kind, and setting it before the fog has quite decided.
Classified Advertisements
Rooms. Two quiet rooms above the chandlery, Wren Lane. A grate, a table, and a window on the yard. Inquire of Mrs. Pell after four, when the day’s lamps are being talked over.
Lost dog. Small tan dog, answers to Bramble, collar of green braid. Last seen by the lamp at Fisher Stairs on Monday evening. A reward in kind, not in coin, is gladly offered at the quay office.
Piano. Upright, honey-coloured case, tuned enough for hymns and not quite enough for pride. Collect it from the parish hall before the cobbles rise. Ask for the verger.
Situation wanted. situation wanted: patient person, used to queues, letters, kettles, and the sorting of notices. Seeks steady civic work in Vesperhaven. Address P. Harrow, care of this paper.
Printed at the Moth office, Lamp Court, Vesperhaven. Set by hand. No later edition is promised unless the fog misbehaves.