In "The chrysanthemums," the interaction between thirty-five year old Elisa Allen and the traveling repairman is basically a very short and subtle one; he is a random tinker that happened upon a pretty woman outside working in her garden (on her chrysanthemums), in which he stops to have a chat with her and maybe see if she has work for him to do for food or money. This interaction helps to develop the story's theme of "taking risks" because he is a completely strange man whom she does not know and she opens up to him and wants to help him, of which anything could have happened to her.