Well, well, let Old Lady Lloyd keep herself and her money
to herself if she wants to. If she doesn't want our company,
she doesn't have to suffer it, that's all. Reckon she isn't
none too happy for all her money and pride."
No, the Old Lady was none too happy, that was unfortunately true.
It is not easy to be happy when your life is eaten up with loneliness
and emptiness on the spiritual side, and when, on the material side,
all you have between you and starvation is the little money your hens
bring you in.
The Old Lady lived "away back at the old Lloyd place," as it was
always called. It was a quaint, low-eaved house, with big chimneys
and square windows and with spruces growing thickly all around it.
The Old Lady lived there all alone and there were weeks at a time
when she never saw a human being except Crooked Jack. What the
Old Lady did with herself and how she put in her time was a puzzle
the Spencervale people could not solve. The children believed she
amused herself counting the gold in the big black box under her bed.
Spencervale children held the Old Lady in mortal terror;
some of them--the "Spencer Road" fry--believed she was a witch;
all of them would run if, when wandering about the woods in search
of berries or spruce gum, they saw at a distance the spare,
upright form of the Old Lady, gathering sticks for her fire.
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