noon
The driver 's eyes never left the road , as became a good driver , but they seemed to be turned inward , too , and to see more -- or less -- than that empty road offered to the ordinary sight . One would have said that something other than the present unrolled before those absorbed brown eyes under the straight , dark brows , but whether it was the past or the future was not shown . Either was full enough , probably , in the case of Mrs. Stranger . Shortly after noon she began to study the roadside more carefully and soon , pausing by a particularly lush , green spot , she dismounted , led the horse off from the road and quickly traced the green area back to a tiny bubbling spring . Unharnessing the horse deftly , she fastened him to a pointed iron picket she took from the cart and drove firmly into the ground , lifted out a little portable tin oven which she propped between two rocks , kindled a fire from some dried fagots tied below the axle-tree , and taking a slice of fresh beef from a stone crock on the seat , cut it slowly into small pieces with an onion and a yellow turnip from the crock . She filled a small iron pot at the spring , dropped in the meat and vegetables , set a potato to bake in the ashes and measured out a little coffee from a cannister . While the stew simmered , she watered and fed the horse , threw a bone to the dog , and then spread her red cloak on the ground , sat on it , and resumed her inward contemplation .