The thatch was about gone. When it rained the water poured in to the one room cottage. The woman crouched over the fire and tried to keep her bones from freezing. She looked up at the winter sky and she cursed the Lady Abbess and the Reeve who had brought her to this state.
She picked rocks from the Abbey's fields all winter. Gathered wood for the Abbey kitchens. Helped milk the Abbey cows when they freshened, gleaned wheat for the Abbey in late summer. And all this in rent for a cottage with no roof.
And then they dared to tell her she must rethatch the roof or she must leave. Seventy years she had worked for the Ladies Abbess. Seventy years and no roof over her head!
The Reeve stood laughing in her door.
``You've turned your hand to any work in your time - why not mend it yourself?'' he walked off laughing loud.
That got her thinking.
When she asked the Lady Abbess for straw she was told she must pay for it like any one else.
``I have no money,'' she said.
``Then you must leave.''
``Rot in Hell!'' the old woman said.
The Lady Abbess murmured a quick prayer to fend off such evil words. The old woman walked home through the tall weeds and a thought came to her. She would cut the roadside weeds and thatch her roof!
And so when she wasn't weeding and planting for the Lady she was gathering tall weeds and drying them and tying them in bundles.
The first winter storm was tearing the leaves from the trees when she pegged down the last bundle. It was a sorry job. The men of the village had jeered at her all summer as she clambered precariously on the roof. Once she fell, but the cottage was small, the walls not six feet high. She landed soft and sprang up so quickly that some thought she had supernatural powers when all she had was anger. It took all her extra time to keep the ragged thatch from blowing away.
For the next ten years she patched and re-thatched, and if she hadn't been blind by then she might have improved her technique.
The last year of her life the fox glove tea no longer kept the dropsy down. She could hardly move. That year some village children came and tried to mend the thatch. A boy of eight fell through into the room below and jumped quickly to his feet. That was the last time the old lady laughed.
When she could no longer eat the Lady Abbess kindly sent a dish of curds. The old woman gave them to the children.
When she was dead they threw out her rags and tore off the dreadful thatch and replaced it with perfect golden straw. A man and woman, young and strong, moved in to work for the Lady Abbess. They were glad to have the security of a good cottage in which to spend their lives.