Death in the Woods, by Sherwood Anderson

The story “Death in the Woods”, written by Sherwood Anderson, is a story told by a man who has told it one to many times. As a young boy in a small town he notices an older women named Grimes, who he will tell us the story about. She was the type of person that nobody noticed in town. She led a quite life and never really talked to anyone other then the butcher.

The narrator then goes on to describe how she meets her husband Jack Grimes. He was a tough guy that she meets while working for an abusive German farmer. The narrator tells you a long story about how he helps her from getting way from the abusive German. They bonded after a few incidents and then got married. They had a few boys and started their own farm where just like before she fed the animals, just as she did for the German. Her husband tried to socialize with the town people but it did not work out. He then rebelled by stealing their horses. He even threatened to fight them after they would not make conversation with him. This maybe a good reason why one of his sons had been put in jail already, setting a real good example. Their family, the Grimes used to own a saw mill but, it fell through in the last couple of years so all of their money was gone which forced them to all to have to work hard.

The young man narrating then tells us about his encounter with the elderly woman. One cold winter day she made her way to town to go the store. She went to butcher, ironically she and the butcher were social with each other and he gave her some extra food. On her way back through the woods she stopped for a minute to rest due the heavy bag. She feels asleep and did not wake up. She froze to death. Her dogs did find here and eat their food from her bag. This is very ironic because all she did was feed animals all her life. She did at the German’s farm, her farm/family and the dogs and now she is dead because of it.

In story the young man describes how he arrived with the other men from town when they found her. He saw her frozen and dead.