putterings       250   <   251   >   252       index

a baker’s dozen blue, sort of, to see
 

            1
warming sunlight on the damp, heaving
            raft, to putter in
a world of good, if you can only be happy here,
            puttering about with us

            2
here and there,
            but that’s puttering
the beginning of things
            if I had;
            don’t you suppose I’d be doing something instead of
            puttering away with just the

            3
Fire Extinguisher (Strickland Patent,
            over which the doctor had been puttering for years),
            sale of

            4
garden,
            puttering about the
cooking, cleaning, and packing, delightful afternoon of
            (loved puttering)
varied activities
            (of yard and garden, snipping marguerites, watering the flowers),
            puttering among
blue, sort of,
            to see him puttering around

            5
As you can see !
            shabby books outside the book-shop
            unrelieved blackness, turning the pages
            “I was puttering about in the back of the store, putting it in order, really”

            6
the old days when he used to be rich and important, very happy,
            puttering about with Audrey
            remembering

            7
life, a great deal about,
            indifferent acceptance of (including J’s incessant puttering)
a damp rag,
            she puttered about with

            8
twilight, perverse fantasy for,
            puttering about with straining eyes and inaccurate fingers
despair, driven to
            by Lizzie’s puttering about
            But she was so dreary
a careful message
            clumsily puttering about in his desire

            9
world, any other thing in,
            preference for puttering about this old place, to

            10
farm,
            putterin’ about, and feelin’ that you were a free man
day, delightful,
            his busy puttering

            11
kitchen,
            (hearing rain pattering on the porch roof, wood crackling in the stove)
            puttering about
changing things, puttering around —
            how would you like it?

            12
old place (ramshackle),
            to putter and garden and read books
            This is me.

            13
stove,
            puttering ineffectually about, pulling the wrong dampers,
            extinguishing what fire there was
dishpan,
            puttering away at.
            She laughed.
 


sources

all Kathleen Norris (1880-1966), all hathitrust or borrowable at archive.org

  1. ex Josselyn’s Wife (1918) : 76 and 287
  2. ex The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne (1919) : 119 and 291
  3. ex Sisters (1919) : 11
  4. ex Certain People of Importance (1922) : 11, 243, 410 and 468
    UC copy opens to show full family tree (minus that most important person, “the derelict young coloured woman named Carra”) : link
  5. ex Lucretia Lombard (1922) : 107
  6. ex Rose of the World (1924) : 163
  7. ex The Callahans and the Murphys (1924) : 32 and 42
  8. ex Little Ships (1925) : 293, 381 and 412
  9. ex The Black Flemings (1926; 1929 printing) : 274
  10. ex “Sinners,” in Baker’s Dozen (1938; Paperback Library, 1971) : 290 and 296
    also appeared in These I like best : the favorite novels and stories of Kathleen Norris, chosen by herself (1941) : link
    originally published (as “The Sinners”) in Hearst’s International-Cosmopolitan (July 1929) *
  11. ex Belle-Mère (1931) : 190 and 204 (borrowable at archive.org)
  12. ex Lost Sunrise (1939) : 249 (borrowable at archive.org)
  13. ex The Venables (1941) : 258 and 396 (borrowable at archive.org)

—

will provide (some) more, on Kathleen Norris and for each (some?) of these, in due course.
 

28 January 2023