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.
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