Read Peyton Place for Free Online

equipment once in a while. The taxes a shackowner pays in ten years wouldn't pay to send his kids to school for one year.
    “You know damned well that Doc's right, Leslie,” said Seth.
    “Without the shacks,” said Harrington, “the land that they stand on now would be idle. How many tax dollars would you collect then? Not only that, but you can't raise taxes on the shacks unless you raise everybody's taxes. Rezone the shack areas, and you've got to rezone the whole damned town and everybody'll be madder than hell. No, fellers, I don't like paying to educate a woodchopper's kids any better than you do, but I still say, leave the shacks alone.”
    “For Christ's sake!” shouted Dr. Swain, forgetting himself and losing his temper in a way that he and Seth had agreed privately beforehand not to do. “It's not only a matter of taxes and the fact that those places are eyesores. They're cesspools, as filthy as sewers and as unhealthy as an African swamp. I was out to another shack just last week. No toilet, no septic tank, no running water, eight people in one room and no refrigeration. It's a wonder that any of those kids ever live long enough to go to school.”
    “So that's the boil on your ass, is it?” laughed Harrington. “You're damned right it's not the taxes that are bothering you and Seth. It's the idea that some squalid little urchin might catch cold running to the outhouse in his bare feet.”
    “You're a fool, Leslie,” said Dr. Swain. “I'm not thinking of colds.
    I'm thinking of typhoid and polio. Let one of those get a toehold around the shacks and it wouldn't be long before the whole town was in danger.”
    “What are you talking about?” asked Harrington. “We've never had anything like that around here before. You're an old woman, Doc, and so is Seth.”
    Seth's face colored angrily, but before he could say anything, Partridge intervened quickly and quietly.
    “How in hell did you plan to get the owners out of their shacks if they refused to abide by these zoning laws of yours, Seth?” asked the lawyer.
    “I don't think that many of them would choose to leave,” said Seth. “Most of them can well afford to make improvements on their property. They could use some of the money they drink up to install toilets and tanks and water.”
    “What are you trying to do, Seth?” asked Harrington, laughing. “Make Peyton Place into a police state?”
    “I agree with Doc,” said Seth. “You are a fool, Leslie.”
    Harrington's face darkened. “Maybe so,” he said, “but I say that when you start telling a man he's got to do this, that or the other thing, you're coming pretty damned close to infringing on a citizen's rights.”
    “Oh, God,” moaned Seth.
    “Go ahead and accuse me of being a fool if you want,” said Harrington righteously, “but you'll never get me to vote for passing a law that dictates what kind of home a man must have.”
    Seth and Dr. Swain regarded Harrington with utter disbelief when he spoke this sanctimonious sentence, but before they could speak, Partridge, who was a born pacifist, picked up the deck of cards and began to shuffle them.
    “We came here to play poker,” he said. “Let's play.”
    The subject of the tar paper shacks of Peyton Place was not mentioned again, and at eleven-thirty when one of the men suggested playing a last hand, Dr. Swain picked up the cards to deal.
    “I'll open,” said Harrington, holding his cards close to his chest and peering at them frowningly.
    “I'll raise,” said Seth, who held his cards one on top of the other in one hand.
    Partridge and Dr. Swain dropped out and Harrington raised Seth.
    “Again,” said the newspaper editor pushing more money into the center of the table.
    “All right,” said Harrington irritably. “And raise again.”
    Dr. Swain noticed with distaste that Harrington had begun to sweat.
    Greedy bastard, thought the doctor. With his dough, he's worried over a measly hand of five-and-ten