An old woman answers an interviewer's questions about her life, and she tells it in short, flat sentences. She stayed in her grandmother's house, married young, lost her husband Arthur to blood poisoning from a nail, and never wanted anyone else. Her sister left and, she hears, has died. What stays with us is how plainly she says all this. Death, loneliness and a childless life come out as simple facts, with no complaint.
The speaker seems proud of her routine. She keeps the hens, flowers, pumpkins and beans, just as Gram did, and she tries to do what Gram would have wanted. Yet the mood shifts at the end. In winter the house feels "cramped" because of "the imps and all," a casual mention that hints at something odd or unsettling. The poem suggests loyalty and stubborn independence, but also isolation, and a house that holds more than she admits.