"I'm sorry," Amy said, with an air of dismissing the subject. "But I don't see that we can do anything for her."
"You don't think, do you," Peggy hesitated, "that we could give a little entertainment—"
"Oh, Peggy, people are bored to death with benefits and drives, and to try to raise money for a little girl nobody knows about would be hopeless, especially when she's no worse off than thousands of others."
"I suppose that's so," Peggy replied, and reluctantly dropped the subject. Under her submission was a persistent hope that something might happen to aid her in the matter she had so much at heart. But the last thing she or any one else would have thought was that such assistance would come from Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back.
Mr. Frost had been having an unusually hard time with help and was in an exceptionally bad humor. He was one of the men who, when out of sorts, invariable relieve their minds by criticism of the opposite sex. He had heard the girls chattering as they picked the lima beans, and doubtless that furnished the text for his ill-natured sermon.
"Women's tongues do beat all," he declared, as the girls came to the house to pay their reckoning. "It's small wonder they don't count much when it comes to work. They get themselves all wore out talking."
"I think we do some other things beside talking," declared Peggy, dimpling in a disarming fashion.
"And I can't see that we say any sillier things than men do," added Amy.
"O, men can talk or be quiet, just as they please, but a woman's got to talk or die. You couldn't pay her enough to get her to hold her tongue."
"You could pay me enough," said Peggy with spirit.