themselves by calling her. She just comes of her own accord,
forgetting the cruel snubbings. She fixes that stand-offish person as
comfortable as can be, makes them laugh even, and telephones to the
doctor. Then she rolls up her sleeves and without so much as an apron
has those strawberries scientifically canned and that messy kitchen
beautifully clean.

And the curious, the pitifully, laughably incomprehensible part of it
is that in her own house Fanny absolutely never can seem to take the
least interest. Her own dishes are always standing about unwashed.
Her kitchen is spoken of in horrified whispers; her children,
buttonless, garterless, mealless, stray about in all sorts of improper
places and weather. The whole town is home to them but they generally
feel happiest at Grandma Wentworth's. She sets them down in her
kitchen to a hot meal and then makes them sew on their buttons under
her watchful eye. Sooner or later, usually later, Fanny comes as
instinctively as her children to Grandma's door to report Green Valley
doings.

This particular spring things promised to be unusually lively. But the
rains, though gentle, had been persistent and Fanny was a full two
weeks behind with her news schedule. But if late, her report was
thorough. She dropped wearily into Grandma's soft cushioned kitchen
rocker, slipped her cold feet without ceremony into the warm stove oven
and began:

"Good land! I never see such a town and such people and such weather!
Jim Tumley's drunk again and as sick as death and Mary's crying over
him as usual and blaming the hotel crowd. She says he's a good man and
don't care for liquor at all and that their liking to hear him sing