“Indeed I won’t! I am through!... Well, as I say, I left my Christmas work while the rest of you were doing yours, and came down here to pack this barrel—simply because I had promised the president, in a weak moment, that I would do it. I was in a great hurry, and when I saw all these boxes and neat-looking packages I put them in without undoing anything. It was not my business to pass judgment on the things you had sent in.” Then in answer to numerous disclaimers: “You didn’t send them in? Well, somebody did! Who it was I don’t know and nobody else does. The sexton doesn’t, for I asked him.” There was a settling down from strained positions in various parts of the room. “When I sent off the barrel I considered that my part was done.”
“As it certainly was,” said the president. “Our thanks are due Mrs. Hall for her work, at any rate. I feel this particularly, since I induced her, much against her will, to undertake it. But the thing that I most deeply deplore, and cannot at all understand, is that this barrel should have been sent out with freight unpaid. We never do that. It is a cardinal point with Missionary Societies that all boxes must be prepaid. I gave my personal check—a blank one to be filled out as was necessary—for this very purpose. That was my contribution.”
“And I have just returned it to you,” said Mrs. Hall. “It is in that envelope on the table. The truth of the matter is that I forgot I had the check until after the barrel was gone. Anyway, it seemed to me (being new to the work as I am) that they ought to be willing to pay freight on a valuable box such as I supposed this was.”
“Do you send off your own Christmas gifts that way?” asked the plain-spoken treasurer.
Mrs. Hall sat down indignantly.
“We’ll have to get another treasurer,” whispered one missionary worker to another. “Mrs. Outcault is too blunt for any use.”
“She always hits the nail on the head, though.”
“Yes, but she splits the wood in doing it! I am going to Mrs. Hall’s relief.... Madam President, I think the lady who did our packing has entirely vindicated herself. We may as well own up to the truth. We were so full of our own selfish concerns that we gave no heed to the call for this missionary barrel in any intelligent way. I, for one, never thought of it once.”
The lady who had forgotten to send in the description of the minister’s family rose with elaboration.
“I should like to call the lady’s attention to the fact that