noon
She notes with suspicion the actions of the women who bring home webs of cloth from the store , instead of spinning them as their mothers did before them ; and she shakes her head at the wives who run to the village grocery store every fortnight , imitating the wasteful American women , who throw butter in the fire faster than it can be turned from the churn . She watches yet other things . All winter long the white snows reach across the gently rolling plains as far as the eye can behold . In the morning she sees them tinted pink at the east ; at noon she notes golden lights flashing across them ; when the sky is gray -- which is not often -- she notes that they grow as ashen as a face with the death shadow on it . Sometimes they glitter with silver-like tips of ocean waves . But at these things she looks only casually . It is when the blue shadows dance on the snow that she leaves her corner behind the iron stove , and stands before the window , resting her two hands on the stout bar of her cane , and gazing out across the waste with eyes which age has restored after four decades of decrepitude .