This year, for the first time, Maw had consented to the aid of a "hired girl." She refused to bring one of the maids or the cook from the big house, and engaged a woman from the village nearest at hand—and then tried to pretend the woman wasn't there. It hurt her to admit the triumph of age in her bones, but there was compensation in the privilege of hearing some one else faintly clattering over the dish-washing of evenings, while she sat on the porch with Paw and watched the sunset trail its gorgeous banners along the heavens and across the little toy sky of the pond.
It was pleasant in the mornings, too, to lie abed in criminal indolence, hearing from afar the racket of somebody else building the fire. After breakfast she made a brave beginning, only to turn the broom and the bedmaking over to Susan and dawdle about after Paw or celebrate matins in the green aisles of the garden. But mostly the old couple just pretended to do their chores, and sat on the porch and watched the clouds go by and the frogs flop into the pond.
"Susan's gone for it."
He glanced up the road to a sunbonneted figure blurred in the glare, and sniffed amiably. "Humph! Country's getting so citified the morning papers are here almost before breakfast's cleared off. Remember when we used to drive eleven mile to get the Weekly Tribune, Maw?"
"I remember. And it took you about a week to read it. Sometimes you got one number behind. Nowadays you finish your paper in about five minutes."
"Nothing much in the papers nowadays except murder trials and divorce cases. I guess Susan must have a mash on that mail-carrier."
"I wish she'd come on home and not gabble so much."
"Expectin' a letter from the boy?"
"Ought to be one this morning."