In the 3rd paragraph on page 1, a woman walks up the town road. What information is provided about where she has come from? What seems to have happened to the person/people who suddenly died?

The woman is returning to town.... back to a place she is known. The "dead" is someone whose gone and buried, and from the text, we can infer that it was a quick and unexpected death.... the woman left behind with nothing but to return.

So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from burying the dead. Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at the pillow and the feet. She had come back from the sodden and the bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment.

Janie (the woman) has been gone from Eatonville for a very long time, and it is dusk when she returns. As she walks through the center of town to her old home, all the people of the village stare at her and judge her. The townspeople are cruel and envious. They wonder why she is returning in improper overalls instead of a proper dress and where her husband is.