Youth Shows But Half

From where I’d sit on the porch nights, I could see everything. They’d move from room to room like cats. One would retreat, the other would follow, then they’d switch – arms waving, faces turning red.  Pretty soon I’d hear their voices, loud enough to carry through the windows and clear across the street.  Then, if it was a real bad one, things would start flying: lamps and glasses and the like.  Somehow with all the broken windows they replaced, they never did manage to put up curtains. 

I used to call them the Richters.  Nan said it wasn’t right to make light of other people’s troubles.  But it just happened to come out one night, what must have been three or four months after they moved in. . .