"An' that was what they done, somebody takin' one o' the cars back for the other car, an' the rest of us fair breakin' into a run toward post-office hall.
"'My land,' says Mis' Toplady, almost like a groan, 'what hev we done?'
"It was a funny thing to do, we see it afterward. But I tell you, you can't appreciate the influence o' that forty-eight dollars unless you've tried to earn money in a town the size o' Friendship Village. Sodality hardly ever made more than five dollars to its ten-cent entertainments—an' that for a big turn-out on a dry night. An' here was the price of about nine such entertainments give us outright, an' no extra work, an' rill feet-achin' weather. I say it was more than flesh an' blood or wives could stand. We done it automatic, like you contradict when it's necessary.
"But there was the men to reckon with.
"'What'll Timothy—an' Silas—an' Eppleby....' Mis' Toplady says, an' stops, some bothered an' some rill pained.
"I judged, not havin' any husband to be doin' the inquirin', it wasn't polite for me to laugh. But I couldn't hardly help it, thinkin' o' them fifteen hungry men an' the supper et away from 'em, just William Nilly.
"Mis' Sykes, we remembered afterwards, never said a word, but only kep' up with us back to the hall.
"Back to the hall, where the rest o' the Sodality was, we told 'em what we'd done—beginnin' with the forty-eight dollars, like some kind o' weapon. But I tell you, we hadn't reckoned without knowin' our hostesses, head an' heart. An' they went in pell mell, pleased an' glad as we was, an' plannin' like mad.
"The first need was more food to make up that supper to somewheres near two dollars' worth—feedin' your husband is one thing an' gettin' up a two-dollar meal is another. But we collected that all in pretty sudden: leg o' lamb, left from the Holcombs' dinner an' only cut off of one side; the Sykes's roast o' veal, the same; three chickens for soup the Libertys hed just dressed for next day company dinner; big platter of devilled eggs chipped in from Mis' Toplady; a jar o' doughnuts, a steamer o' cookies, a fruit-cake a year old—we just made out our list an' scattered to empty out all our pantries.
"By six o'clock we was back in the hall, an' all the food with us. But nobody hed met nobody's husband yet, an' nobody wanted to. We didn't quite know how we was goin' to do, I guess—but done is done, an' to do takes care of itself.