A New England Nun and Other Stories/A Wayfaring Couple

A WAYFARING COUPLE.A long row of little cheap houses stretched on each side of the narrow, dusty street. There was not a tree in the whole length of it except in front of David May's house. A slim young maple, carefully boxed in around the trunk, stood close to his gate.
These poor little houses were all alike; they had been built expressly for the operatives in the Saunders Cotton Mills. There was a little square of ground fenced in before each cottage. Some were miniature vegetable gardens. Araminta May, David's wife, had hers all planted with flowers. They were coarse and gaudy, rather than delicate; her taste ran that way. The flower garden was divided into little fantastic beds edged with cobble-stones, and the narrow footpath leading through the midst of it to the door had on each side a fence of bent willow boughs.
Some morning-glory vines were climbing up on strings towards the two front windows; Araminta's great ambition was to have them thickly screened.
"Folks can't look in an' see us eat then," she said.
They could now. Passers-by might look directly in on the little table set between the windows for tea. The six-o'clock whistle had blown, and the men and girls were

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