A few quiet women, busy with household affairs. No
one to have to talk to. No one to ask him questions. There was but
one other visitor in the village, Grandma Baker told him, a young
widow,--"a nice common sort of a woman," who was staying up the
street with Mis' Thatcher.
Mr. Johnston, as the gentleman called himself, hadn't seen the "nice
common sort of a woman" yet, though he had been here a whole week,
and he wasn't in the least curious about her. He didn't know that
when you're a "nice common sort of a woman" to these Maine folk,
you're receiving high praise from sturdy democrats. The phrase, to
him, called up a good, homely creature, amiably innocuous, placidly
cow-like.
Mr. Johnston slept in a four-poster, under a patchwork quilt that
aroused poignant memories. At his own request he ate in a corner of
the big kitchen, near the window opening upon the herb garden.
Already he had struck up a firm friendship with his brisk, strong
old landlady.
"Fit in the war, didn't ye?" asked the old lady, genially.
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