Main Street (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales")

A narrator steps onto the stage, inviting listeners to sit before an imagined curtain and watch a living tableau of a town’s long‑ago beginnings. Using the metaphor of a finely tuned puppet show, the story promises a panoramic sweep of two centuries, each scene turning like a crank to reveal fashions, lights, and moods that have shaped the street. The tone is both scholarly and whimsical, offering a guide who blends observation with a gentle sense of wonder at how history unfolds.

The first act opens not on bustling sidewalks but in the primeval forest that will become Main Street. Here a faint trail winds through ancient trees, while the regal figures of Squaw Sachem and her husband Wappacowet discuss their world, unaware of the white‑settlers who will later dominate the landscape. Birds, squirrels, and a lurking wolf animate the scene, reminding listeners that before any building rose, nature and native life held sway over the land that would one day pulse with commerce and memory.