Mrs. Fettley drew up to buttered toast, currant bread, stewed tea, bitter as leather, some home-preserved pears, and a cold boiled pig’s tail to help down the muffins. She paid all the proper compliments.
“Yes. I dunno as I’ve ever owed me belly much,” said Mrs. Ashcroft thoughtfully. “We only go through this world once.”
“But don’t it lay heavy on ye, sometimes?” her guest suggested.
“Nurse says I’m a sight liker to die o’ me indigestion than me leg.” For Mrs. Ashcroft had a long-standing ulcer on her shin, which needed regular care from the Village Nurse, who boasted (or others did, for her) that she had dressed it one hundred and three times already during her term of office.
“An’ you that was so able, too! It’s all come on ye before your full time, like. I’ve watched ye goin’.” Mrs. Fettley spoke with real affection.
“Somethin’s bound to find ye sometime. I’ve me ’eart left me still,” Mrs. Ashcroft returned.
“You was always big-hearted enough for three. That’s somethin’ to look back on at the day’s eend.”
“I reckon you’ve your back-lookin’s, too,” was Mrs. Ashcroft’s answer.
“You know it. But I don’t think much regardin’ such matters excep’ when I’m along with you, Gra’. ’Takes two sticks to make a fire.”
Mrs. Fettley stared, with jaw half-dropped, at the grocer’s bright calendar on the wall. The cottage shook again to the roar of the motor-traffic, and the crowded football-ground below the garden roared almost as loudly; for the village was well set to its Saturday leisure.