“Oh, I guess there ain't no thanks necessary,” said the farmer. “I guess you won't find it much. I just brought it along because I promised I would. It's from a shanty-boatman down my way—Lane 's his name—Peter Lane.”
“Oh,” said the woman, her voice losing much of its enthusiasm. “Yes, I know who he is. He's the jack-knife man. Tell him Mrs. Vandyne thanks him; it is very kind of him to think of us.”
“All right! Gedap!”
Mrs. Vandyne carried the sack into the Sunday school room and snipped the twine with her scissors, which hung from her belt on a pink ribbon. She was a charming little woman, with bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and she was the more excited this afternoon because she had been able to bring her friend and visitor, Mrs. Montgomery, and Mrs. Montgomery was making a real impression. Mrs. Montgomery was from New York, and just how wealthy and socially important she was at home every one knew, and yet she mingled with the ladies quite as if she was one of them. And not only that, but she had ideas. Her manner of arranging the apron table, as she had once arranged one for the Actors' Fair, was enough to show she was no common person. Already her ideas had quite changed the old cut and dried arrangements. At her request ladies were constantly running out to buy rolls of crêpe paper and other inexpensive decorative accessories, and the dull gray room was blossoming into a fairy garden.
“And when you come to-night, I want each of you to wear a huge bow of crêpe paper on your hair, and—what have you there, Jane?”
Mrs. Montgomery, although beyond her fortieth year, had the fresh and youthfully bright face of a girl of eighteen. She was one of those splendidly large women who retain a vivid interest in life and all its details, and Mrs. Vandyne, who was smaller and lesser in every way, was her Riverbank counterpart.
“Nothing much,” Mrs. Vandyne answered, dipping her hand into the sack. “But it was kind of the man to send what he could. Wooden spoons, I suppose. Well, will you look at this, Anna?”
It was one of the “funny cats.” Mrs. Vandyne held it up, that all the ladies might see.
“How perfectly ridiculous!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilcox. “What do you suppose it was meant to be? Do you suppose it is a bear?”
“Or an otter, or something?” asked Mrs. Ferguson. “Oh, I know! It's a squirrel. Did you ever see anything so—so ridiculous!”