The short story "The Painted Door" by Sinclair Ross is much like all of his other short stories. It is about a man and a woman in a non-communicational marriage. They are poor farmers who work harder and harder every year just to have a storm come along and ruin everything. Although it has the same plot line, this story is his best work. It shows a very interesting end, one that is unlikely in those days.

Anne and John lived somewhere remote and isolated such as Saskatchewan or Alberta. "Even the distant farmsteads she could see served only to intensify a sense of isolation. Scattered across the face of so vast and bleak a wilderness it was difficult to conceive them as a testimony of human hardihood and endurance." They lived on a farm, with neighbors at least two miles away. Their farm consists of a house...