A novella and two short stories. In The Pensioner, Harold Mims is a bitter old man, denied a Confederate pension because of the circumstances surrounding his surrender. When the opportunity arises for him to gain a pension in exchange for a paper marriage, he jumps at the chance. But then he discovers the union carries more responsibilities than he anticipated. In Christmas Eve off Main Street, two lost souls with vastly different lives come to grips with their past. And in Plagiarizing Turgenev (Or Was it Gogol?), a young man comes up with a novel way to rediscover a story he read long ago.