I'm looking for the text of the short story "The Light in the Window."
 I first thought it was by Jim Kjelgaard but it's the wrong story.  It
MAY be in a collection of short stories by Cornell Woolrich.  It is a
story of an Italian shoemaker who gives a young girl some good advice
about having a prideful tradition.  The first line of the story may be
"I met him first on a hot summer day in 1936."  The story includes the
phrase "la luce alla finestra" which means the light in the window. 
Any help would be appreciated.
Don Stamm

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Request for Question Clarification by juggler-ga on 18 Jan 2003 11:50 PST

On web page containing a mixture of Chinese and English, there appears
to be an excerpt from your story:
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:WPdtgk1ZwDMC:www.hhjy.net/bjsz6/g3/24-28/g3yy0124.htm&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet

My guess is that it's NOT the Cornell Woolrich story, since Woolrich's
"The Light in the Window" is apparently a detective/mystery story.

Where did you first encounter this story? Magazine? School book? Do
you have any estimate of when it was written?

I'm something of a Cornell Woolrich aficionado and this really doesn't
sound like one of his stories. From what I can tell this particular
story (if it is his) would have been published under the William Irish
pseudonym.

http://hem.passagen.se/orange/woolrich.htm

Did you read the story you described in an anthology? If so, any
recollection of other stories that might have been in the same book?

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

I found it.  The following is the WorldCat library catalog entry for
the book.  Check your local library for which libraries own the item. 
It is available on Amazon.com:

Title:  Rear window /  Cornell Woolrich;  Maxim Jakubowski; 
                                     Richard Rayner
                                     2001 
                                     English  Book : Fiction 307 p. ;
21 cm.
                                     New York : ibooks ; ISBN:
0743423712 :

                            Title:
                                 Rear window /
                       Author(s):
                                 Woolrich, Cornell, 1903-1968. ;
Jakubowski, Maxim. ;
                                 Rayner, Richard,; 1914. 
                       Publication:
                                 New York : ibooks ;Year:
                                 2001
                                         Contents
                                 Rear window -- I won't take a minute
-- Speak to me of
                                 death -- The dancng detective -- The
light in the window --
                                 The corpse next door -- You'll never
see me again -- The
                                 screaming laugh -- Dead on her feet
-- Waltz -- The book
                                 that squealed -- Death escapes the
eye -- For the rest of
                                 her life.
                      Standard No:
                                 ISBN: 0743423712 :
                                 SUBJECT(S) 
                       Descriptor:
                                 Detective and mystery stories,
American.
                         Note(s):
                                 Includes bibliographical references
(p. [308])
                    Responsibility:
                                 Cornell Woolrich ; selected by Maxim
Jakubowski ;
                                 introduction by Richard Rayner.
                     Material Type:
                                 Fiction (fic)
                   Document Type:
                                 Book
                                 Database:
                                 WorldCat

Sorry about the quality of the post.  It looked good when I posted it.
 Anyway, the entry states that in the collection of stories there is a
story called "The light in the Window".  By the way, there are other
versions of this book available at amazon.com also.

Just to verify that it was Cornell Woolrich check out the following:

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22light+in+the+window%22+woolrich

Bowler:
While it's clear that Woolrich wrote a story with the same title, do
you have any reason to believe that it's the right story?
Husker is looking for a story about the importance of tradition as
taught to a girl by an Italian shoemaker.

Hi,
Thanks for your prompt reply.  I also found the source that was as
mixture of Chinese/English.  The story came from a student and I
suspect that it was plagizrized, so I don't know when it was
originally written or by whom.  I can give you more info from the
story I have, but I don't know if that will help or not.  Let me
know...P.S. I also saw the pseudonym reference to William Irish.
Don

I am an English major and never heard the story before.
It's very informative
thank you