The story is a short story written by Jessamyn West. It is a clear-cut and vivid portrait of a selfish and malignant old woman, Mrs. Prosper and her relationship to nature, life, her daughter and Mr. Duun. She lives on irony and has her fill of it in the end.
It is Thursday, the day the fish waggon comes and so Mrs Prosper wants her daughter, Lily to get up. Mrs Prosper, watching the poor, foolish birds does not waste very much time wondering about who is at the helm of the world and who orders matters thus tamely. She rather acts herself like breaking from one of the sturdiest apricot trees every single bud and blossom. Then, when all trees have heavy fruits, her prepared tree looks like a perfect bower of greenness, but no fruit and she looks at it, full of power and accomplishment admires, that the tree turned in a direction quite opposite from what nature had intended.
Mrs. Prosper shouts for Lily again and leans out of the window into the morning air to notice, that the world is disappointing and that every child could draw it with the help of a half dollar and a matchbox.
Mrs. Prosper – looking smooth and shiny like a beetle – goes downstairs for freakfast, prepared by Lily and appreciates the scene, which must convey for a stranger the impression of a „sweet-home“, but she feels it in an other way. She has never been able to think of Lily as a daughter at all, Lily looks like Mrs. Prosper’s mother and sometimes Mrs. Prosper has the feeling that she spend her whole life with her mother. Mrs. Prosper wants to talk about Lily’s swedish friend Olav Duun, but Lily does not want to and even Hodge, the cat refuses Mrs. Prospers cream and catches a fly, what Mrs. Prosper makes laugh.
While having their breakfast – strawberries – Mrs. Prosper proudly tells a story about a hulk of a girl named Rose, who made everything she told her while picking berries, although she was twice her size. Lily knows the story, pushes her berries aside and looks at nothing.
At ten o’clock Olav Duun arrives and Mrs. Prosper decides to ride a ways with the good looking man, in his fish truck. She remarks, that Mr. Duun does not look like Swedish and that the Lord makes mistakes, but Mr. Duun does not contradict this. They further talk about Mr. Duuns lineage, because Mrs. Prosper finds a silver-inlaid leather circlet. She thinks it is a bracelet for a plump arm, but Mr. Duun enlightens her the story of the collar:
His father, a farmer, makes collars for the neighbours‘ dogs. One day, at the age of twelve, Mr. Duun makes a little collar for a monkey himself (his father helps him), because he wants to go to sea and every sailor who comes home to Göteborg, has his monkey with him.
Mr. Duun finds a monkey, but unfortunately a bitch of a monkey, a regular she-devil, the devil in monkey form. Back on sea, he tosses her into the sea, because she is vicious and has bad habits – the monkey drowns.
While hearing this, Mrs. Prosper’s heart beats faster. She wishes being there and she sees in Mr. Duuns eyes a glance of recognition, it takes her all in and misses nothing.
Back at home, Mr. Duun wants to take Lily for a ride, but Mrs. Prosper does not want her to go with him. She tells him, that Lily is in an age, thinking that every man has his eyes on her, it is all one to her, so he wears pants. One day she makes trouble and Mrs Prosper does not want Mr. Duun to be this man. She finds again this shock of recognition, for that reflection for her whole self in his eyes, but Mr. Duun climbs out of his truck, goes into the house and comes back with Lily. He gives Hodge something to eat and tosses the collar for the monkey at Mrs. Prosper’s feet, saying that this is a gift from the groom of her daughter and that she should perceive, who wore it, starts his eingine and drives on.
Mrs. Prosper stays alone behind, living on irony, laughs about the situation and tries to catch Hodge to make him wear the collar. Also the cat escapes Mrs. Prosper under an oleander and so she has to enter the house alone, empty-handed except for the monkey collar.