At home she got out the two dollars and fifty cents from a secret place in which she kept such money as she could manage, by various roundabout methods, to get out of Luke's hands, and dropped it into a jar on the clock shelf ready to buy a money order when she met the rural mail carrier next day. But by the next day her ardor had cooled to such an extent that the money looked too good to part with. She put it carefully back into the secret place.
After the second revival meeting she arrived at the conclusion that it was her duty to give a party to make the strangers feel at home.
"It looks like it's up agin me," she said to Judith, with something of the air of a martyr, "seein' nobody else hain't come forrard. O' course the fixin' an' bakin'll come kinder heavy on me, bein' as haow it's terbaccer choppin' time. So I wouldn't mind a bit if you brung along a little cake or sumpin like that to he'p me aout."
She must have thrown out the same subtle suggestion to all the invited guests, for few of the women came without a package in their hands.
The party, as seemed fitting, opened with prayer and a hymn and partook throughout of the nature of a prayer meeting. Out of respect for the preachers there was no dancing, neither were there any boisterous kissing games. The men lounged in the kitchen handy to the stove and woodbox and talked about the war. The women sat about in little groups in Hat's best room and from time to time broke the heavy silence by isolated remarks about babies, sicknesses, and the best ways of rendering out hog fat. Even the men talked in subdued tones; and over everything there was a hushed atmosphere of restraint and respectful decorum. Nothing disturbed the decent calm but occasional giggles and titters from the young and unmarried who had a tendency to disappear in couples.
Hat, who entertained her guests with several songs, accompanying herself on the violin, avoided the more jaunty and jiglike airs of her repertoire and sang instead a doleful ballad of many stanzas, the gist of which is contained in the following two:
Just one year ago to-night, love,
I became your happy bride,
Changed a mansion for a cottage
To dwell by the waterside.