"Well, I suppose maybe not," said Mrs. Wiley, and sighed again.
"Well, thank Heaven," said Mrs. Ray, "I'm never short of two things,—work and talk." She began to finger the key as she spoke, and all ears were at once strained to listen for the sound of the feet of the bearer of the mail-bag.
Deathly silence reigned. In a few seconds the footsteps did approach, the gate creaked and then banged. Mrs. Ray stepped with majestic haste to the window and called out:
"Wipe your feet!"
The obedience that ensued whetted curiosity to more ravenous desire than ever. People had lost sight of the main issue and were all riveted to the single question—would Mrs. Lathbun get her letter?
The door opened and Clay Wright Benton came in with the bag.
"Lay it here," commanded Mrs. Ray, and Clay Wright Benton laid it there and fell back into the crowd behind. Mrs. Ray put on her spectacles and adjusted her shawl. In the intense excitement of the moment, nobody said a word. The room was as full as it would hold, and people who had apparently been secreted in other portions of the house now came pouring in through the doors connecting therewith. The one window facing the porch had turned into a mere honey-comb of faces.
Mrs. Ray took up the key. A thrill went around as she inserted it in the padlock and slowly turned it. Then she took it out of the padlock and the padlock out of the lock. She laid key and padlock carefully aside. "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note," as she slowly drew the lengthwise iron from the rings and laid that aside. A sort of fresh intenseness pervaded the atmosphere as she opened the mouth of the bag and inserted her arm. While her arm was in and her hand was feeling for the mail, a boy sneezed and every one turned and looked at him witheringly. This little incident was taken in the same light as the inter-mission between two numbers of a concert, for all who were at the doors at once took advantage of it to squeeze inside. The small room, which had been unpleasantly full before, was now packed to suffocation. Mrs. Ray drew out her arm. The interest was mounting each second. She laid two packages, tied each with United States Government twine, upon the counter, turned the bag upside down and shook it. If a pin had fallen out, any one could have heard it, but nothing fell out. Mrs. Ray folded the bag carefully and laid it on the floor behind her. The atmosphere was breathless in every sense of the word. Mrs. Ray untied the first package, taking a full minute to pick out the knot. She hung up the string. The string fell off from where she hung it, and she picked it up and hung it up a second time, this time more slowly and carefully. Then she took out the postmarking machine. A sudden sigh went around; every one had forgotten the necessity of the postmark. Mrs. Ray turned the package face down and post-marked every piece carefully without reading a single address. Then she turned them over, gave her shawl a fresh and most careful adjustment, and proceeded to sort the mail. When it was sorted, she called the roll of names amidst a hush that was awe-inspiring. The few who had letters crowded to the fore, received them and stayed there, greatly to the aggravation of those who had none, and got shoved to the rear accordingly.
Mrs. Ray now untied the second package, and hung up that string. Both strings fell off together. She took up both strings at once, smoothed them out and hung them up again. They stayed hung this time. Then she post-marked the second package. It was a never-to-be-forgotten scene,—the wrought-up faces, the fixed calm of Mrs. Ray herself. Then she called the roll for the second batch. Each time a name was read off, a wave of psychic emotion swept the room. One has to get into the real true life of the country to appreciate the tremendous tumulus which gossip had erected upon which to rear the monument of this moment. One by one the names were all called; one by one the pile of letters in Mrs. Ray's hand diminished. When it came to the last one, and the last one was for Joey Beall, Joey received it almost as if it were some species of sacrament.
"Is that all?" some one in the back asked.