Chapter 13
Lettie's Story

Lettie said she saw the house when she was going around with St. Vincent de Paul's Society. The windows were boarded up. There were three kinds of brown paint on the front, but none reached the roof. It was as if the person could never reach as high as the last time he had tried to paint it. Robins were eating the few dogberries on a bush at the back.

Lettie thought nobody lived there. One morning she saw smoke coming from the chimney.

Some people would have been afraid to knock. Lettie was never afraid. There were two doors. A man opened them slowly. She told him her name, Lettie Duggan. She asked did he mind a visit.

He smiled. He said he could not see her too well. He sat on a chair. There was one more chair. Lettie sat too.

She saw a barrel of water, and bottles of water on a shelf. He did not want to have to go out to get water. He had a little stove, and a good heat. He wore two sweaters and gloves and a wool hat. Lettie could just make things out in the shadows.

He never asked why she came. He had a small voice like a bird's whistle. White hair stuck out under his cap. He had whiskers. Lettie let him talk. She was trying to figure out if St. Vincent de Paul could help him.

He said he had lived there all his life with his mother. She had died seventeen years ago. Lettie pictured him sitting there in the dark with those sweaters on all that time. He told her he never went upstairs now. There was one room off the kitchen. His bed was in it, covered in old quilts.

She asked him, "What do you eat?"

"Soup," he said. "I boil up a bit of soup in that pan on the stove."