I don’t know if I ever saw gramma smile. She didn’t have anything nice or pretty around the house. The linoleum was so wore off it looked like tar paper on the floor. She had two dirty rag rugs on top of black grit. On the windows, she had shear lace curtains—they were plastic. Her quilts were all heavy and dark—made from cut up old men’s trousers and coats. No light floral cottons in a pretty pattern—just somber patch work squares of dull wool. The walls were blotched with coal soot belching from the stove and rain water leaking through the roof. Gramma spit in a Maxwell House coffee can—tobacco and snuff. She’d sit on the couch and peel taters in a pan resting on her lap. Wouldn’t even want to cut the lights on come evening. “Cain’t waste the juice” . . . just sittin’ peelin’ in the twilight. She had a few doilies here and there . . . nothin’ to sit on them—no house plants . . . no artificial arrangements. She never had flowers in the yard . . . “don’t need em” and if a stray kitten came onto the place and took to hangin’ around, she wouldn’t even give it a name—just cat.