The short walk from the Mills to the old village skirted the river and
was overhung with a double row of willows which, on this wintry day,
cast long purple shadows. Robin, walking along it with Mrs. Lynch,
thought it lovely and solemn--like a cathedral aisle. But when they
stopped before a low cottage, one window nailed across with boards where
the panes were missing, the front door propped in place by a rotting
rail tie, tin cans and frozen refuse littering the strip of yard, and
Mrs. Lynch said "This is the house," she wanted to cry out in protest at
the ugliness. They had to pick their way around to a back door upon
which Mrs. Lynch knocked. Several moments elapsed before the door swung
back a little way, a round black eye peered at them cautiously, and a
shrill voice piped "whachy'want?"
"I s'pose that's Susy," thought Robin, her heart skipping a beat with a
terror of shyness.
Mrs. Lynch's pleasant: "We want to see Granny," admitted them. Robin,
blinded for the first moment of coming into the darkness of the room
from the bright sunshine outside, stumbled over a chair and in her
confusion mumbled some incoherent answer to the shrill cackle of welcome
that came from the shrunken bit of humanity bending over a small stove.
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