I was on the porch, scraping an acquaintance with the grandmother. She
held a baby in her lap. They sat in the crossing of the moonlight and
the lamplight.
There was no one to explain me. I explained myself. She eyed me
angrily. She did not want me to shake hands with the baby. She asked
concerning her daughter-in-law.
“And did she say you could stay?”
“She did.”
The grandmother brought a hard fist down on the arm of the chair: “I’d
like to break her neck. She’s no more backbone than a rabbit.”
I do not distinctly remember any bitter old man I have met in my
travels. She was the third bitter old woman. Probably with the same
general experiences as her husband, she had digested them differently.
She was on the shelf, but made for efficiency and she was not run down.
In her youth her hair was probably red. Though she was plainly an old
woman, it was the brown of middle age with only a few streaks of gray.
Under her roughness there were touches of a truly cultured accent and
manner. I would have said that in youth she had had what they call
opportunities.