The yard is nicely maintained: the lawn is mowed, the shrubs roundly trimmed. On the porch steps,

[struggle4progress]

there are several fragile cast porcelain sculptures. It's all clean and in good order

The doorbell is behind several layers of spiderweb. Beyond the webbing, white fuzz of cobweb criss-crosses the button itself. It's the real stuff, not Halloween decoration

I've knocked several hundred doors in the last ten days, and I don't know how many over the years -- must be thousands. This seems new: I really don't remember ever seeing a doorbell covered with spiderwebs before

Maybe that bell doesn't get much use. Maybe their visitors come to the side door

I push my hand through the silk strands and touch the button. Inside, there's melodic chiming

Nobody comes to the door, so I finally slide my lit under the mat. There's no car in the drive, but I expect they probably have one. I guess they're just out and about

The doorbell sticks in my mind later. It's not my neighborhood. But how hard is it to find an excuse to ring the neighbors' doorbells now and again, to drop off a package of Christmas cookies or such? I'm trying to remember when I last did that