"'Well, sir,' she said, 'I donno but 'twould help us to work the pavin' of Daphne Street. Why, Silas Sykes, for one, is right down soft-hearted about clothes. He always notices which one of their waists the choir's got on. I heard him say once he wasn't goin' to church again till they bought somethin' new.'
"Mis' Holcomb nodded. 'Five years ago,' she said, 'I went up to the city with Eppleby. An' I saw him turn around to look after a woman. I'll never forget the sensation it give me—like I was married to a man that wasn't my husband. The woman had on a light pink dress. I know I come home an' bought a pink collar; I didn't think I could go any farther, because she was quite young. Do you s'pose....'
"Mis' Toplady pointed at Lyddy's fashion-plate. 'I should go,' she says, 'just as far as my money would let me go.'
"Mis' Uppers stood lookin' down to the walk. 'The mayor,' she says—she calls him 'the mayor' yet—'was terrible fond o' coloured neckties. He was rill partial to green ones. Mebbe I didn't think enough about what that meant....'
"Mis' Toplady came down off the step. 'Every man is alike,' says she, decided. 'Most of us Friendship ladies thinks if we give 'em a clean roller towel we've done enough towards makin' things pretty; an' I think it's time, as wives, we took advantage of the styles.'
"'An',' says Mis' Sykes, the president, rill dreamy for her, but firm, 'I think so, too.'
"I tell you, we all walked home feelin' like we'd hed a present—me too, though I knew very well I couldn't hev a light dress, an' I didn't hev any husband. You start out thinkin' them are the two principal things, but you get a-hold o' some others, if you pay attention. Still, I judged the ladies was on the right track, for men is men, say what who will. All but Threat Hubbelthwait. We passed the hotel an' heard him settin' in there by the bar scrapin' away on 'Can A Little Child Like Me?' We took shame to him, an' yet I know we all looked at each other sort of motherly, like he was some little shaver, same as he sung, an' performin' most fool.
"It don't take us ladies long to do things, when our minds is made. Especially it don't when Mis' Timothy Toplady is chairman of the Entertainment Committee, or the Doin' Committee of whatever happens, like she was that time. First, we found out they was plenty enough nun's veilin' in the post-office store, cheap an' wide an' in stock an' all the light shades; an' I bought all the dresses, noons, of the clerk, so Silas wouldn't suspect—me not hevin' any husband to inquire around, like they do. Then we hired the post-office hall, vague, without sayin' for what—an' that pleased Silas that gets the rent. An' then we give the invitations, spectacular, through the Friendship Daily to the Sodality's husbands, for the next Tuesday night. We could do it that quick, not bein' dependent on dressmakers same as some. The ladies was all goin' to make their dresses themselves, an' the dresses wa'n't much to do to make. Nobody bothered a very great deal about how we should make 'em, the principal thing bein' the colour; Mis' Toplady's was blue, like the fashion-plate; Mis' Holcomb's pink, like the woman in the city; Mis' Uppers' green, like the mayor's necktie, an' so on. I made me up a dress out o' the spare-room curtains—white, with a little blue flower in it, an' a new blue ribbon belt. But Mis' Sykes, she went to work an' rented a dress from the city, for that one night. That much she give out about it, an' would give out no more. That woman loves a surprise. She's got a rill pleasant mind, Mis' Sykes has, but one that does enjoy jerkin' other people's minds up, an most anything'll do for the string.
"For all we thought we hed so much time, an' it was so easy to do, the afternoon o' the party we went 'most crazy. We'd got up quite a nice little cold supper—Mis' Hubbelthwait had helped us, she bein' still at large, an' Threat fiddlin'. We planned meat loaf an' salad an' pickles an' jelly, an' scalloped potatoes for the hot dish, an' ice cream an' cake, enough in all for thirty folks: fifteen husbands an' fifteen Sodality, or approximatish. An' we planned to go to the hall in the afternoon an' take our dresses there, an' sly em' up and leave 'em, an' put 'em on after we'd got there that night, so's nobody's husbands should suspect. But when we all came in the afternoon, an' the decoratin' with greens an' festoons of cut paper an' all was to do, there Mis' Toplady, that was to make scalloped potatoes, hadn't got her sleeves in yet, an' she was down to the hall tryin' to do both; an' Mis' Holcomb, that was to make the salad dressing, had got so nervous over her collar that she couldn't tell which edge she'd cut for the top. But the rest of us was ready, an' Mis' Sykes's dress had come from the city, an' we all, Mis' Toplady an' Mame too, hed our dresses in boxes in the post-office hall kitchen cupboards. An' we done the decoratin', an' it looked rill lovely, with the long tables laid ready at each side, an' room for bein' a party left in between 'em.