Chapter Six
An excerpt from Chapter 4 of Alvin Burgmeier’s as-yet-untitled history of Toulouse, Missouri:
Mechanics Street is the main east-west thoroughfare that splits Toulouse down the middle. In olden days it was a wide dirt road, muddy as hell from March through May after the winter snows melt away. Spring storms follow, blowing in hard and fast as they race across Kansas. June and July the grass grows green and tall. August through mid-September the grass turns brown, and the dust from the road coats the brick exteriors of the big houses along Mechanics Street. The spider webs up high in the corners of those broad front porches get as thick as fishing line from the dust. Then the fall rains bring rumors of the coming winter and it starts all over again.
Around the turn of the cent
