“She means a corduroy road, I guess,” said Gladys, and they all shouted with laughter.
“Ho-ho-ho!” chuckled Slim, “that’s pretty good. Velvetine road! Would there be any binnacles on it, do you suppose?” he added teasingly.
“That’s right, everybody insult a poor old woman what ain’t never had a chance to get an eddication!” sobbed Katherine, shedding mock tears into her handkerchief. “What’s the difference? Doesn’t velvetine sound just as good as corduroy? And, anyhow, it’s better style this year than corduroy.”
“Hear the poor, ignorant, old lady talk about style,” jeered Sahwah. “I didn’t think you ever came out of your abstraction long enough to know what was in style.”
“Even in her absentmindedness she seems to have a preference for fine things, though,” said Gladys, beginning to giggle reminiscently. “Do you remember 182 the time she walked out of Osterland’s with a thirty-dollar hat on her head?”
Katherine rose as if to forcibly silence her, but Sahwah held her back and Gladys proceeded for the edification of the boys. “You see,” said Gladys, “she was in there trying on hats all by herself because the saleswomen were busy with other people. She had put on a mink hat and was roaming around looking for a handglass to see how it looked from the back, when she suddenly got an idea for a story she was to write for that month’s club meeting. She forgot all about having the hat on her head and started for home as fast as she could. Out on the sidewalk she met Nyoda, who admired the hat. Then she came to.”
“Mercy!” said Aunt Clara to Katherine, “weren’t you frightened when you discovered it?”
“Not she,” said Gladys. “She walked right back inside, big as life, hunted around until she found her own hat, and handed the mink one to the saleswoman, who had just sent a store detective out after her. The detective escorted her to the door that time, but it didn’t worry her in the least. She went right back into the store the next day and tried the same hat on again and couldn’t imagine why the saleswoman left another customer and was so attentive to her. The simplicity of some people is perfectly touching.”
“I won’t stay and be made fun of,” said Katherine, 183 and marched up the hill with an injured air, calling back over her shoulder, “all people who ordered fudge today might as well cancel their orders, because I’m not going to make any, so there!”
“Oh, I say, don’t get mad,” said Slim in alarm, whereat everybody laughed. He was the one for whom Katherine’s words were intended, nobody else having “ordered” any fudge.