This short story is set in rural Colorado in the late 19th century, a time when women did not have many of the rights that they possess today. During this period, women typically managed household duties and were mostly obligated to depend financially on male family members. This was especially true of widows, who were expected to fade into the margins of society after the deaths of their husbands. Unless they were financially independent, widows were often forced to rely on the resources of their children or other family to survive. Society often viewed them primarily as caregivers or nuisances, limiting their participation in the economic and social arenas. These conventions explain why Mrs. McPherson’s children presume she will depend on them when they return to the ranch after their father’s funeral. This setting introduces the cultural expectations around the duty to care for their elderly mother: although they don’t really want to, the McPherson siblings think they must.
However, when Mrs. McPherson makes her revelation about her financial independence, she overturns both her children’s assumptions and the reader's expectations. When they thought she was destitute and lonely, the McPherson siblings thought the ranch was also hardscrabble and uninviting.
However, because of how she’s made the place work for her as a hospital, Mrs. McPherson’s rural ranch is actually going to give her the freedom she’s always desired. Rather than having to join one of her children’s households as an unwanted addition, she decides that she’ll travel and see the world. The McPherson siblings all live in relative comfort in urban settings, and this initially seems preferable to the lonely life they believe their mother to have on the ranch. However, rather than being caged in rural Colorado, Mrs. McPherson plans to visit places from “Australia [...] to Tierra Del Fuego.” Instead of staying at the ranch or being a second-class member of one of her children's households, she plans to explore the world for herself. This shift from a restrictive to an expansive setting, highly unusual for its time period and the gender of its protagonist, blows open the horizons of the short story's physical world.
