The Peculiar Case of Judson Small (A Short Story, WWI)

One morning, Lilly Ann Small, moved her chair up to the living room window for a long peaceful morning, gloating , not at the empty yard, since her husband had died in WWI, a year or so ago, it was now 1919, but on her new suitor, James Jason, who worked at the Huntsville, courthouse, he was an old boyfriend, one that didn't make the grade she had felt, one that was now contriving to ease her grieving pain by asking her to marry him. She watched the chickens in the coop over by the large oak tree, and beyond that the orchard her and Judson were going to cultivate through the many years of marriage they had planned together, clutching the windowsill in front of her, she saw a man walking up the lane, she rushed to lock the door, out of some unknown panic, he didn't look like James Jason, and she was several miles out of town, on her little farm of twenty acres. And strangers usually did not come so boldly up the lane at 9:00 AM in the morning.