Free The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder

life, your one life, had been a failure. The Christian religion, as delivered in Coaltown, established a bracing relation between God’s favor and money. Penury was not only a social misfortune; it was a visible sign of a fall from grace. God had promised that the just would never suffer want. The indigent were in an unhappy relation to both the earthly and heavenly orders.
    Goshen held a peculiar fascination and horror for children. Among Roger’s and Sophia’s schoolmates there were a number whose relatives were in the poorhouse. They bore the brunt of the other children’s cruelty. “Go to Go-shun, you!” All had heard the account of Mrs. Cavanaugh’s transference. She had lived in the big house next to the Masons’ Hall, mortgaged and remortgaged. No taxes had been paid for years. She had been fed by members of her Baptist church; turn and turn about, they had left packages at her back door. But the Day came. She fled upstairs and hid in the attic while a matron packed her bag. She was brought down to the street, protesting at every step, clutching at every doorpost. She was carried down the front steps, her feet not touching the ground. She was pushed into the buggy like a recalcitrant cow. It was June and the neighbors’ windows were open. Many a cheek turned pale as her cries filled the street. “Help me! Isn’t there anybody who’ll help me?” Mrs. Cavanaugh had once been proud, happy, and well-to-do. God had turned his face away from her. Roger and Sophia knew that their mother would walk toward Goshen’s buggy like a queen. They knew they were her only defense.
    Sophia went to work at once. It was midsummer. She bought a dozen lemons. She pushed the little cart on which she was accustomed to tote feed for her chickens to Bixbee’s ice house and bought five cents’ worth of ice. She made two signs: MINT LEMONADE 3 CENTS and BOOKS 10 CENTS . She set up a counter on an orange crate at the railroad station a quarter of an hour before the arrival and departure of all five daytime trains. She set a pail of water beside her in which she washed the glasses. She placed a vase of flowers beside the pitcher of lemonade. The station-master himself lent her a second table on which she ranged some books she had found in the attic and in old cupboards. They were Airlee MacGregor’s books and some old textbooks that her father had used at his engineering school. By the second day, she had found other objects and made signs for their sale: MUSIC BOX 20 CENTS, DOLL’S HOUSE 20 CENTS and BABY’S CRIB 40 CENTS . She waited, smiling brightly. Within hours the news of this enterprise was carried from house to house. The women were electrified. (“Did anybody buy anything?” “How much did she sell?”) Men were rendered uncomfortable. It was Sophia’s smile that had long offended and disconcerted. The child of shame and crime had the effrontery to smile. A spectacle of great misfortune, of happiness overthrown, of a desperate struggle for existence arouses conflicting emotions. Even those who are moved to sympathy find that their sympathy is touched with relief, even triumph; with fear or awe or repulsion. Often such reversals are called “judgments.”
    The crowd of loungers who made it a habit to meet the trains doubled in numbers. The little saleslady sat alone, like an actress on the stage. The first glass of lemonade was bought by Porky. He gave no sign of knowing Sophia, but stood for ten minutes beside her counter slowly enjoying his beverage. Others followed. A traveling salesman bought A First Year Calculus and Mr. Gregg, the stationmaster, bought Robertson’s Sermons. The second morning a group of boys set up a game of catch the length of the station platform. Their leader was Si Leyendecker. The ball flew back and forth over Sophia’s tables; it became clear that it was the boys’ intention to shatter the pitcher of