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just as Jake Spratt poked his head out of the curtain and said, “Which of you ladies is next?”
    Eudocia Flint was next, then Alice and Sallie. Next in line was Isabelle’s mother, Julia Gideon. Julia settled herself dreamily beside the carpeted table, remembering the itinerant photographer who had come to Nashoba in the summer of ’64, just before her new son-in-law had left to join his regiment. The new husband and wife had been taken together, James seated and Isabelle standing beside him with her hand on his shoulder. Julia had seen other photographs like it—anxious wives touching, clasping, leaning close to husbands who were about to endure the dangers of the battlefield.
    James had endured them and survived, and now he was home again, but the brothers Spratt would not be taking his picture. Not this day, nor any other. Only his wife would be recorded for all future time, for Jack Spratt’s “eternity”—Isabelle alone.
    â€œAll done, Jack,” said Jake, looking out at the empty green.
    â€œStill early, Jake,” said Jack.
    â€œThree plates left,” said Jake.
    â€œLet’s use ’em up,” said Jack.
    So they sat for each other—Jack looking one way, Jake the other. The last plate recorded a pretty view of the town green, and then, their day’s work done, they closed up shop.

NOW
    The First Steeple

Skeleton in the Closet

    H eads together, Homer and Mary bent over the old photograph of Concord’s Monument Square. Rising tall and pale in the foreground stood the Civil War memorial obelisk. In the middle distance, large and foursquare, was the Middlesex Hotel with horses and buggies drawn up in front of the porch. They could just make out the steeple of the First Parish Church high over the trees beyond the hotel.
    â€œPicture taken in 1868,” murmured Homer.
    â€œPhotographs are so haunting,” said Mary. “Monument Square must have looked just like this when my great-great-grandmother Ida was alive, and my great-grandfather must have been a small boy in 1868.”
    â€œAnd Ida’s brother Eben—remember Eben Flint? He would have been twenty-one in 1868. But her husband Seth was dead by then.”
    â€œOh, poor misunderstood Seth. Was Ida married again by 1868? Yes, I think she was. So her second husband, the doctor, he would have seen it like this. In 1868, Alexander must have been living with Ida in the house on Barrett’s Mill Road.” Mary stroked the photograph. “If only we could walk into the picture and see what it looked like then, the house I grew up in.” Mary sighed with longing. “Oh, if only the picture would open up and let us in.”
    â€œI know,” said Homer. “It’s too bad. But we can still walk into the church.” He tapped the dim bell tower in the picture. “It’s our first steeple. The photograph won’t open up, but maybe the church archivist will. Maybe he’ll tell us something scandalous about the history of the First Parish, so that I can satisfy the shameless curiosity of my editor. Luther keeps calling up, demanding skeletons in the closet, vice and corruption, screwing in the—”
    â€œOh, never mind what went on in the steeple.” Mary laughed. “Homer, what on earth has happened to Luther Stokes? How could such a distinguished doctor of philosophy and celebrated director of a university press turn into a Peeping Tom?”
    Homer shrugged. “Let’s hope this chap Henry Whipple knows about a few tasty scandals.”
    â€œOh, Homer, I doubt it. A scandal in Concord? In this upright old town? Surely none of those august old clergymen had skeletons in their closets. Nothing but old boots and dusty umbrellas.”
    Homer met Henry Whipple at the side door of the church, but at once Henry steered him elsewhere. “My house is right next door,” he said, heading for the road. “We’ll talk in my