The Andersons were desperately poor and it was not likely Mrs.
Anderson had anything to give. On the other hand, her husband, who was
an Englishman by birth and who had been working in Kingsport when the
war broke out, had promptly sailed for England to enlist there, without,
it may be said, coming home or sending much hard cash to represent him.
So possibly Mrs. Anderson might feel hurt if she were overlooked. Rilla
decided to call. There were times afterwards when she wished she hadn't,
but in the long run she was very thankful that she did.
The Anderson house was a small and tumbledown affair, crouching in a
grove of battered spruces near the shore as if rather ashamed of itself
and anxious to hide. Rilla tied her grey nag to the rickety fence and
went to the door. It was open; and the sight she saw bereft her
temporarily of the power of speech or motion.
Through the open door of the small bedroom opposite her, Rilla saw Mrs.
Anderson lying on the untidy bed; and Mrs. Anderson was dead. There was
no doubt of that; neither was there any doubt that the big, frowzy,
red-headed, red-faced, over-fat woman sitting near the door-way, smoking
a pipe quite comfortably, was very much alive. She rocked idly back and
forth amid her surroundings of squalid disorder, and paid no attention
whatever to the piercing wails proceeding from a cradle in the middle of
the room.
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