title: Keeping Warm: Essays and Stories
author: First Last
description: Following the Reflections of a StorytellerEssays and Stories by Max Schott
zlib_text: 
  
  
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  Ghost Story
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [I
  
  
  The Chowder Society: The October Stories
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _America's first fictional heroes were old men._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  —Robert Ferguson
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Milburn Observed Through Nostalgia
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  One day early in October Frederick Hawthorne, a seventy-year-old lawyer who
  had lost very little to the years, left his house on Melrose Avenue in
  Milburn, New York, to walk across town to his offices on Wheat Row, just
  beside the square. The temperature was a little colder than Milburn expected
  so early in its autumn, but Ricky wore his winter uniform of tweed topcoat,
  cashmere muffler and gray, no-nonsense hat. He walked a little briskly down
  Melrose Avenue to warm up his blood, moving beneath huge oaks and smaller
  maples already colored heart-wrenching shades of orange and red—another
  unseasonal touch. He was susceptible to colds, and if the temperature dropped
  another five degrees, he'd have to drive.
  
  But in the meantime, as long as he could keep the win