"Regular clock performance," Mis' Postmaster Sykes assented. "We've ticked hard all day long an' ain't got a thing out of it. I often think it's that way with my housework, but I did think the Ladies' Missionary could tick, when it did tick, for eternity. I'm tuckered to the bone."
"Nobody knows," said Mis' Holcomb-that-was Mame-Bliss, "how my poor neck aches. It's there I suffer first an' most."
Mis' Amanda Toplady, who was walking behind the rest, took three great steps and caught us up and spoke, a little breathlessly:—
"Land, land," she said, "I guess I'll go home an' pop some corn. Seems to me it'd smell sort of cosy an' homelike an' soothin' down. It's a grand thing to smell when you're feelin' far off from yourself."
Calliope laughed a little then.
"Well," she said, "anyhow I ain't got my silk waist to get into—and I didn't hev a nice one to put on anyway. I was wishin' I had, and now my wish has come true by bein' took away from me, bodily—like they will. But just the same—"
She turned on the walk and faced us, and hugged her thin little arms.
"A while ago," she said, "I give that little woman there six months to get herself the cold shoulder all around. Well, the time ain't up yet—but both my shoulders feels stone cold!"