Summary

The story opens at a train station in a small town in Canada. Johanna Parry approaches the station agent and inquires about shipping several items of furniture to the town of Gdynia in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Johanna buys a passenger ticket for herself, also to Gdynia. She asks if there is a risk of the furniture being damaged in transit, and the station agent assures her that it will not be. The agent has never seen Johanna before, and he wonders if she is from somewhere rural. However, her confident, even brusque way of speaking and acting does not match his typical impression of someone from the countryside. Johanna leaves the train station and then goes to a dress shop called Milady’s to buy a dress. She thinks of the clothes she has inherited from her former employer, Mrs. Willets...