It was about time then. In a few minutes she should be here. Gainah chuckled a little, remembering that she had purposely neglected to send the trap to the station. All the men were at harvest, and she had wanted old Chalcraft to trim the vine. She sat down by the door again, looking out blankly at the warmth and life. There were thick parchment-like mushrooms dotted over the meadow beyond the quickset hedge, and in the orchard fruit kept thudding softly from the trees. It was the beginning of rich autumn, when one makes provision for winter. She was always so busy through August and September; on her feet until late at night--late for Folly Corner--straining and boiling, and pulping and stirring; scolding the two maids and tyrannizing over Jethro. Those mushrooms had been in salt too long; the wind-fall apples were almost past preserving. It was washing-day, too--they had washed on the first Monday in the month for thirty years. The soapy smell floated into the dining-parlor; she could hear the rasping sound of the brush and the gurgling swill of suds. She heard also the cackle of the two maids and the mellow voice of the elderly washerwoman. They were wasting their time. Yet she didn’t move. Her eyes fell to the letter which she had taken out of her pocket again. Her lips mumbled the signature--“PAMELA CRISP.” After thirty-three years! And she had served his father before him! It was very hard! She wouldn’t give up her keys--he wouldn’t expect that. She smiled dryly. He wouldn’t expect that--he was a Jayne and he knew when he was well off. He would never get anyone else to slave so. Even the green tomatoes were pickled--with onions and apples and mysterious spices. She was the only woman for miles round who had the recipe, and before she died she meant to burn it, having no daughter to bequeath it to. And scarlet runners put down every year for winter eating. Her butter had never been known to have a twang. She could make cakes without fat and used snow for puddings when eggs were scarce. The bed in the best room had been made under her eye from the feathers of birds killed on the farm. Birds! It was not many henwives who could manage to hatch a full sitting. She never thought fifteen eggs too many to put under a hen; the Dorking might manage even more. The gray-and-white hen--didn’t it steal a nest of twenty-two and come clucking home at the end of three weeks with nineteen chicks, most of them pullets, too! A young, flighty woman would have spoilt everything by poking about and interfering with the bird. She had known all along that it was sitting in the barn, but she wasn’t going to let it know she knew. Young women spoilt their lives by haste. They spoilt the lives of other people too. Her eye dropped again to the dashing signature--“PAMELA CRISP.”