She looked up from the loaf she was cutting, the habitual wonder of her childish curved lashes accented by her sudden curving of eyebrows.
"Next Tuesday?" she said, "Why, that's Christmas eve!"
Abel explained, saying, "What of that?" and trying to speak indifferently but, in spite of himself, shining through.
"Well, that's kind of nice to do, ain't it?" she answered.
"My, yes," Abel said, emphatically, "It's a thing to do—that's the thing to do."
It was Mis' Mortimer Bates, the nonconformist by nature, in whom doubts came nearest to expression.
"I don't know," she said, "it kind of does seem like hedging."
"They ain't anybody for it to seem to," Mis' Winslow contended reasonably, "but us. And we understand."
"We was going to do entirely without a Christmas this year. Entirely without," Mis' Bates rehearsed.
"Was we going to do entirely without everyday, week-day, year-in-and-year-out milk of human kindness?" Mis' Winslow demanded. "Well, then, let's us use a little of it, same as we would on a Monday wash day."