Laugh from the past

”They have only to look at each other to laugh —
no one knows why, not even they:
something back in the lives they've lived ….’’

— From “The Old Gray Couple,’’ by Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), poet, playwright, political speechwriter, lawyer and diplomat. He spent much of his life at the old farm he and his wife bought in Conway, Mass., in 1929. Conway is one of western Massachusetts’s “Hill Towns.’’

The Field Memorial Library in Conway. Mr. MacLeish was a big supporter of this institution, which is pretty impressive for a town of fewer than 1,900 residents.