At that time, she thought rural life was romantic – sitting before a roaring fire in the big stone fireplace, lighting the kerosene lamps at night, cooking the fish Mike had caught. After their hectic weekday round of activities, it was great being alone together, and when they got back to Boston, all their friends used to exclaim enviously over their rustic experiences.
It was just after their second wedding anniversary when the blow fell. Mike's company was moving south, and Mike decided to resign. Sandra was glad about that, shuddering at the thought of moving to a small town in South Carolina, and had naturally assumed that Mike would take up another position with a similar company. But her husband had other ideas. His uncle had willed his rundown old farm in New Hampshire to Mike, and he had always had a stronge urge to try his hand at farming. He had looked upon his company's removal from Boston as an act of fate, and had felt that he had enough saved to enable them to give farming a try. Dividends would keep them going for a while and the capital would be sunk into the renovation and working of the farm.
Even now, six years later, Sandra still shuddered at the memory of that appalling first year on the farm. The cold draughty house, the constant presence of the builders, with their clouds of cement dust, ceaseless hammering and banging, cooking and washing and existing in the most primitive conditions – Sandra thought that she would never survive.