By dusk the felt-tip shop on Maple Street has a second row of roofs, none of them taller than a thumbnail. The caps are going home.
We asked at the kiosk. A woman with a grocery list said she used to leave hers sitting open on the counter. "It has an address now," she told us. "I sleep better about the shopping list."
The seller keeps a drawer of matchbox porches and will not close a color in a hurry. The cap knocks, the nib answers, the paper on the desk nods once, and only then does the little door shut for a single night. Morning finds every tip ready, and the blotting pad looking faintly proud.
The next day a schoolteacher came back for the same green. The house was still warm. She bought a second pad of paper, just so there would be someone left to nod to at closing time.