I left the drugstore and walked slowly home. When you're eighty-three, a slow walk is about all you can manage. Yes, I limped a little, but was too vain to use a cane. I'd wait until I was home to opem my newspaper.

Green grass, trees and bushes leafed out, the smell of lilacs in the air. I loved this time of year when Mother Earth has awakened from her Winter sleep. Yes, the robins were here and already feeding their this year's crop of babies.

My neighbor, the Widow Mrs. Hardy, waved from her porch steps. "Good morning, Dennis, what's the news this morning?"

She's a good friend, but she's kind of pushy and always bringing over food that she's cooked too much of, or so she says. I think she's just lonely and wants somebody to talk to.

"Hi, Mrs. Hardy. It says right here that the price of rice in China has gone up like a helium filled balloon."

She laughed at my joke. "You always call me Mrs. Hardy. Why don't you call me by my given name, Marty?"

Yeah right, Marty Hardy. Marty being a nickname for Martha. She was a younger woman only in her sixties, but to me calling her Marty seemed to be too informal. I liked her, but thought she might get ideas too young for my age and condition, so I just kept her at arm's length, so to speak.

She did hold her age well, and was always out and about working in her yard, or flower garden. She was a tall woman. I'd guess about five feet nine inches tall and solid, and not a bit overweight. I walked up my steps one at a time and opened my front door. It was strange that Marty hadn't mentioned that a little girl had gone into my house. She always watched my home when I was away. Well, maybe she wasn't as alert as I had supposed.