The Field of Mustard (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: A. E. Coppard
- First Published: 1926
- Type of Plot: Realism
- Time of Work: The 1920's
- Setting: Rural England
- Principal Characters: Dinah Lock, Rose Olliver
- Genres: Realism, Short fiction
- Subjects: Children, Emotions, Women, Loneliness, Isolation
- Locales: England
The Story
On a November afternoon, three “sere disvirgined women” are gathering kindling at the edge of a gloomy forest bordered by a field of mustard plants. Dinah Lock, a “vivacious woman full of shrill laughter, with a bosom as massive as her haunches,” teases an old man about a watch that was given to his uncle for “doing his duty”; Dinah says that she “never got no watch for doing that a-much.”
Dinah and Rose Olliver, a tall, angular woman, leave the woods while the third, Amy Hardwick, remains behind, slowly bundling up her collection of kindling....
[The entire page is 1381 words long]
