Proper places for gossip

Dan & Whit’s general store, in Norwich. Vt. It’s one of the rural area’s best known meeting places.

“I see no truth at all in the myth that rural New Englanders are taciturn — they love gossip as well as anyone I ever knew — the talk takes place mostly on neutral ground: in stores and barnyards, at auctions and church suppers. Your home is private”

— From The Amateur Sugar Maker (1973), by Noel Perrin