Jigsaw Puzzle

Doris lived in a small cottage on the edge of a village in the Cotswolds. She had spent all of her life there and when she was younger she had worked for a dairy farmer but now she was retired.

Her pride and joy was her cottage. There was a small garden at the front where she grew her flowers and herbs. She had painted the front garden gate and fence green and there was a low privet hedge behind it. The cottage had Virginia Creeper growing up the wall and around her brown coloured front door she had a trellis with roses and honey suckle. The inside of the cottage was simply furnished and carpeted and it was a very comfortable home.

But for Doris her real delight was her back garden. It was half an acre and here she grew her fruit and vegetables. Also there were apple and pear trees and in the autumn Doris would make cider and perry. Doris was a friendly person and would often chat with her neighbours over the garden fence.

Doris would listen to the Home Service for the news and current affairs and to the Light Service for the music. Her other great interest was jigsaw puzzles. She loved nothing better than to settle down in the evening with a glass of cider, a piece of her homemade cake and a good jigsaw puzzle on the table with the radio on in the background. When she’d finished one of her jigsaw puzzles she would paste it onto a board and sometimes, if it was one of her favourites, she would frame it and hang it on the wall.

Now Doris would order Blue Ribbon jigsaws by post. She had an arrangement with the village post office and general store that when she picked up her pension and her groceries the postmaster would have her latest jigsaw puzzle waiting for her. Now those Blue Ribbon Jigsaw Puzzles were magnificent, they each had five thousand pieces and there was always a picture on the box. Now those pictures would show cottages and castles, mountains, rivers and woods and sometimes a town or village

Now one day Doris had gone to the village post office and she was talking to her friends as they waited in the queue for their pensions. The postmaster cashed her pension.

She was just going out the door.

She went back and took the box off the postmaster. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and bound with string. She shook the box and it certainly sounded like a jigsaw puzzle.

That evening Doris sat at the table and carefully undid the string and removed the plain brown paper. Inside was a brown cardboard box with no picture on it. She opened the box and sure enough inside was a jigsaw puzzle and it looked as if there were five thousand pieces. But there was no picture and no invoice, so she had no way of knowing who had sent it. Now the idea of doing a large jigsaw puzzle with no picture would have been daunting to most people but Doris regarded it as a challenge.

Doris sorted out all the straight pieces and slowly put together the frame. Over the next few nights she started to put the jigsaw puzzle together. She could see it was a cottage and gradually she could see the front garden with its green gate and fence and it’s low privet hedge. The garden was full of flowers and herbs, somehow it all seemed familiar. She could see Virginia Creeper growing up the wall and around the brown front door was a trellis with roses and honey suckle.

And then she saw a figure looking out of the window. There was just one more piece to be put in place and she would be able to see the face in the window. But Doris couldn’t find the last piece, she looked on the table and in the box but no luck. Then she looked on the floor and finally she started to look round the room. Finally with a sigh of relief she found the missing piece down the side of the settee. With a sense of triumph she put the last piece in place and then she recognised the face in the window.

After that Doris wasn’t seen by her neighbours nor was she seen at the post office. But people were not concerned for every so often Doris would be seen in the window. But as time passed eventual the village policeman decided to give Doris a visit. He opened the green front gate and walked up to the front door, he knocked on the door but Doris didn’t answer so he turned the doorknob and entered the cottage. For of course Doris saw no reason to keep it locked. The constable looked everywhere in the cottage and in the back garden but there was no trace of Doris to be found. And then he saw the jigsaw puzzle hanging on the wall. He recognised the cottage straight away and as he looked closer he saw a figure in the window. And there was Doris smiling out at him.