It was pleasant there in the kitchen. The sun shone into my bath-water
through the west half-window, and a big Maltese cat came up and rubbed
himself against the tub, watching me curiously. While I scrubbed, my
grandmother busied herself in the dining-room until I called anxiously,
`Grandmother, I'm afraid the cakes are burning!' Then she came laughing,
waving her apron before her as if she were shooing chickens.

She was a spare, tall woman, a little stooped, and she was apt to carry her
head thrust forward in an attitude of attention, as if she were looking at
something, or listening to something, far away. As I grew older, I came to
believe that it was only because she was so often thinking of things that
were far away. She was quick-footed and energetic in all her movements.
Her voice was high and rather shrill, and she often spoke with an anxious
inflection, for she was exceedingly desirous that everything should go with
due order and decorum. Her laugh, too, was high, and perhaps a little
strident, but there was a lively intelligence in it. She was then
fifty-five years old, a strong woman, of unusual endurance.

After I was dressed, I explored the long cellar next the kitchen. It was
dug out under the wing of the house, was plastered and cemented, with a
stairway and an outside door by which the men came and went. Under one of
the windows there was a place for them to wash when they came in from work.


While my grandmother was busy about supper, I settled myself on the wooden
bench behind the stove and got acquainted with the cat--he caught not only
rats and mice, but gophers, I was told. The patch of yellow sunlight on
the floor travelled back toward the stairway, and grandmother and I talked
about my journey, and about the arrival of the new Bohemian family; she
said they were to be our nearest neighbours. We did not talk about the