Mary glanced indifferently at it. "It's from Lily's boy, out West," she said, and laid the letter on the shelf. "I meant, what's the news about you?"
Jenny's eyes widened swiftly. "News about me?" she said. "Who said there was any news about me?"
"Nobody," Mary said evenly; "but you've been gone most a year, ain't you?"
"Oh," Jenny said, "yes...."
For really, when Old Trail Town stopped to think of it, Jenny Wing was Mrs. Bruce Rule, and had been so for a year. But no one thought of calling her that. It always takes Old Trail Town several years to adopt its marriages. They would graduate first to "Jenny Wing that was," and then to "Jenny Wing What's-name," and then to "Mis' Rule that was Jenny Wing...."
"... You tell me some news," Jenny added. "Mother don't ever write much but the necessaries."
"That's all there's been," Mary Chavah told her; "we ain't had no luxuries for news in forever."
"But there's that notice in the post office," cried Jenny. "I come home to spend Christmas, and there's that notice in the post office. Mother wrote nobody was going to do anything for Christmas, but she never wrote me that. I've brought home some little things I made——"
"Oh—Christmas!" Mary said. "Yes, they all got together and concluded best not have any. You know, since the failure—"
Mary hesitated—Ebenezer Rule was Bruce Rule's uncle.