Sentence No. 160 · 3 September 2026
She thought of the coming of the Northern winter, when the unprotected houses would crouch together in terror of storms galloping out of that wild waste.
Sinclair Lewis, Main Street
Sinclair Lewis — Main Street (1920) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
Notice the comma after 'winter' — it signals that a subordinate clause beginning with 'when' follows and modifies it. That 'when' fragment cannot open the sentence; it must attach to the main clause it depends on.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A newcomer walks an unfamiliar prairie town, taking its measure. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
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