Hello,

My name is Mastiff and I'll be reviewing your piece. These are just my thoughts and forgive me if I ramble, and realize I make just as many mistakes as anyone else. Thank you for sharing your writing.

Title: Sounds great to me! however, I figured you had something to say when I read the subtitle. It's probably why I gave it a first look. So, it worked!

Initial Reaction: I once had a professor tell me never to explain what I wrote. I can see why you did it, and for good reason, but consider something like that at the end. Just a thought.

Setting: Well done. You use very descriptive language in your scenes. The only advice I'd give, and I'm guilty of this, is to use all five or six senses. Smell and especially taste are too often an afterthought.

Character Development: We get to know you and Frank well, and it seems like that's what you wanted to accomplish. Mrs. Dalwhinnie, and Mrs. needs a period, kind of came out of nowhere, but that's fine. You wanted to let us know Frank knew everyone, and since it was a small town setting, you'd know her, too.

Plot: I think you might have more plot to give here. What you've written is nice, but it's almost like you've laid something out that you intend to paint later. It works as it stands, but even you say you might take it further!

Ending: It's not the newest, as it's been said for a long time that the most free people have nothing to lose. However, that doesn't make your version of it any less entertaining.

Line-by-line and Suggestions:
Para. 1 Ln. 6&7 - Not sure why you used a colon and not a period. Also, the question mark should be inside the apostrophe. There is also an extra period.
Para. 3 Ln. 1 - I don't think you need the first comma, and you probably want "a" after the second.
Para. 3 Ln. 2 - Almost sure you didn't want "there's was."
Para. 3 Ln. 4 - I think Bakers is a street, right? If so, no apostrophe.
Para. 3 Ln. 5 - You doubled up on "the."
Para. 3 Ln. 7 - Swing that second comma to the other side of "but" and you could probably reword the sentence a bit for flow.

Overall - Mia in the parenthetical sentence doesn't need to really be in your piece. One of my editing methods, and I don't like editing, is to try and remove parts and passages that don't have to be there. It may have significance to you, but does it to your reader? Just one person's idea.

Happy Writing!

Mastiff