John Wicket was gone for three years, no one knew where.  At last Eben received news of him again.  His son, who had been living all this time in a nearby village, fell from a ladder and broke his neck.  “Just,” said Eben Wicket, “as I expected.”

No one, however, expected to see his widow come to live with her father-in-law.  The old man himself went to fetch her and her year-old child.  She proved to be a small, plain body, with an air of fright about her, as though life had surprised her.  Out of respect for Eben, as they put it, the gossips went to call.  They found her shy, and inclined to be silent; they drank their tea, and examined her with curiosity, while she, for her part, seemed to want to hide away.

“As who wouldn’t, in her place,” said Mrs. Ploughman.

It was agreed that, having married an out-and-out rascal, she ought to be willing to spend the remainder of her life quietly.  So she was left to herself, which seemed, on the face of it, to be about what she wanted.  She tended Eben’s house, drove the one cow to pasture, and sang to little Juliet from morning till night the songs she remembered from her own childhood.

During that time no one had any fault to find with her, excepting old Mrs. Crabbe, who thought she should have called her child Mary instead of Juliet.  “It’s not a proper name,” she said to Mrs. Tomkins.  “It isn’t in the Bible, Mrs. Tomkins.  You’d do as well to call the child Salomy.  Salomy’s in the Bible.”

When Eben Wicket died, early in 1917, he left his house and about an acre of land to his daughter-in-law.  She was poor; still, she had enough to get along on.  She was young, but every one thought of her as a woman whose life was over.  So when Noel Ploughman took to keeping company with her, the gossips were all aflitter.  It was June; the regulars were on their way to France; and what with the war, and Mrs. Wicket, the village had plenty to talk about.  Old Mrs. Ploughman said nothing, but regarded her friends with a gloomy and thoughtful air.  On the other hand, Miss Beal, the dressmaker, saw no reason to keep her opinions to herself.  “It’s a scandal,” she said to her friend Mrs. Grumble; “what with Eben Wicket scarcely cold in his grave, and John a thief, with his neck broke and heaven only knows what else besides.”

Nevertheless, that summer Noel Ploughman’s sober, honest face was often to be seen in Mrs. Wicket’s garden patch, among the beans and the lettuces.  Who can say what they found in one another to admire?  In his company she was both happy and regretful, while he, seeing her by turns quiet and gay, could not determine which he found more charming.  They talked over the weather together, and discussed the crops.  Love comes slowly in the north; there is time for every one to take a hand in it.  August passed without either having mentioned what was in their hearts.  Then Mrs. Ploughman made up her mind to put an end to it.  One day, when Noel was in Milford, she came to call on Mrs. Wicket.  One can imagine what she said to the young woman, who was already a mother and a widow.  The next day Mrs. Wicket appeared in her garden, pale and composed.  Those who had occasion to pass the little cottage at the edge of the village, remarked that she no longer hummed under her breath the gay tunes of her childhood.