"He slid the last roll off its plate, an' he laid somethin' in paper money on it, an' he started it down the table. An' every man of 'em done as he done. An' I tell you, when we see Mis' Hubbelthwait's bread plate pilin' with bills, an' knew what it was for, we couldn't help—the whole Sodality couldn't help—steppin' forwards, close to the table, an' standin' there an' holdin' our breaths. An' the men, back there in the kitchen, they hushed up when they see the money, an' they kep' hushed. Land, land, it was a great minute! I like to think about it.
"An' when the plate come back to the merry-seemin' man, he took it an' he come over towards us with it in his hand, an' we nudged Mis' Sykes to take the money. An' she just lifted up the glitter part of her skirt an' spread it out an' he dropped the whole rustlin' heap on to the spangles. An' the rest of us all clapped our hands, hard as we could, an' right while we was doin' it we heard somethin' else—deeper an' more manly than us. An' there was the men streamin' out o' the kitchen doors, an' Silas Sykes high in the servin' window—an' every one of 'em was clappin', too.
"I tell you, we was glad an' grateful. An' we was grateful, too, when afterwards they was plenty enough supper left for the men-folks. An' when we all set down together around that table, Mis' Sykes at the head an' the plate o' bills for a centrepiece, Mis' Toplady leaned back, hot an' tired, an' seein' if both her sleeves was still pinned in place, an' she says what we was all thinkin':—
"'Oh, ladies,' she says, 'we can pave streets an' dress in the light shades even if we ain't young, like the run o' the fashion-plates. Ain't it like comin' to life again?' she says."
XI UNDERN
I have a guest who is the best of the three kinds of welcome guests. Of these some are like a new rug which, however fine and unobtrusive it be, at first changes the character of your room so that when you enter you are less conscious of the room than of the rug. Some guests are like flowers on the table, leaving the room as it was save for their sweet, novel presence. And some guests are like a prized new book, unread, from which you simply cannot keep away. Of these last is my guest whom my neighbour calls the New Lady.
My neighbour and Elfa and Miggy and Little Child and I have all been busy preparing for her. Elfa has an almost pathetic fondness for "company,"—I think it is that she leads such a lonely life in the little kitchen-prison that she welcomes even the companionship of more-voices-in-the-next-room. I have tried to do what I can for Elfa, but you never help people very much when you only try to do what you can. It must lie nearer the heart than that. And I perfectly understand that the magazines and trifles of finery which I give to her, and the flowers I set on the kitchen clock shelf, and the talks which, since my neighbour's unconscious rebuke, I have contrived with her, are about as effectual as any merely ameliorative means of dealing with a social malady. For Elfa is suffering from a distinct form of the social malady, and not being able to fathom it, she knows merely that she is lonely. So she has borrowed fellowship from her anticipation of my guest and of those who next week will come down from the town; and I know, though she does not know, that her jars of fresh-fried cakes and cookies, her fine brown bread and her bowl of salad-dressing, are her utmost expression of longing to adjust the social balance and give to herself companionship, even a kind of household.
Little Child to-day came, bringing me a few first sweet peas and Bless-your-Heart, Bless-your-Heart being her kitten, and as nearly pink as a cat can be and be still a cat.