A Proud Woman by Jane Barlow

Peter Mackey, the Carrickcrum Doctor's man, introduced me to Mrs Daly one early summer morning, when her table was flecked with small quivering shadows by the young beech-leaves. That such a ceremony was required argued me a stranger to the place, for "ould Anne Daly" at her stall had a speaking acquaintance with almost every passer-by. Her rickety deal board stood at the cross-roads under the beech-tree whose trunk was built into the wall behind the National School, where she had a view of Carrickcrum's street on either hand, and looked up the road to the bridge, and down the road to the police barracks as well. She was a picturesque figure in her black gown and bluish apron; for her hair made white light beneath broad cap frills hooded with a heavy grey shawl, and the brown eyes among their weather-worn wrinkles still glanced as brightly as the waters of a bog-stream. Her knitting-needles twinkled up at them, in and out of the dark, rough stocking-leg that lengthened in her hands, as she sat perched on a crippled chair, dexterously propped against the beech's roots. Upon the planks before her glowed a small heap of half-a-dozen oranges, and as many pink sugar-sticks protruded from a white Delft jam-pot. That was all her stock-in-trade, and even the golden dance over it of the spangling sunbeams could not give it an opulent aspect. What caught my eye at once, however, was a signboard nailed to the trunk just above her head, bearing on a brilliant ultramarine ground, in letters of fiery vermilion, the words: -

THE SENTRALL IMPOREOM.