"'You,' I says, 'are some bigger an' some stronger'n me. What you goin' to give me?'
"Well, sir, the way she dropped her arms down sort o' hit at me, it was so kitten helpless. I took that in rather than her silly, sort o' insultin' laugh.
"'I can't do nothin',' she told me—an' all to once I saw how it was, an' that that was what ailed her. I didn't stop to think no more'n as if I didn't hev a brain to my name. 'Well,' I says, 'I'll give you a nickel. Leastways, I'll spend one on you. You take this car,' I says, 'an' come on over to Friendship with me. An' we'll see.'
"She come without a word, like goin' or stayin' was all of a piece to her, an' her relations all dead. When I got her on the car I begun to see what a fool thing I'd done, seemin'ly. An' yet, I donno. I wouldn't 'a' left a month-old baby there on the corner. I'd 'a' bed to 'a' done for that, like you do—I s'pose to keep the world goin'. An' that woman was just as helpless as a month-old. Some are. I s'pose likely," Calliope said thoughtfully, "we got more door-steps than we think, if we get 'em all located.
"When we got to my house I pumped her a pitcher o' water an' pointed to the back bedroom door. 'First thing,' s'I, blunt, 'clean up'—bein' as I was too tired to be very delicate. 'An',' s'I, 'you'll see a clean wrapper in the closet. Put it on.' Then I went to spread supper—warmed-up potatoes an' bread an' butter an' pickles an' sauce an' some cocoanut layer cake. It looked rill good, with the linen clean, though common.
"I donno how I done it, excep' I was so ramfeezled. But I clear forgot Jennie Crapwell's shroud, layin' ready on the back bedroom bed. An' land, land, when the woman come out, if she didn't hev it on.
"I tell you, when I see her come walkin' out towards the supper table with them fresh-ironed ruffles framin' in her face, I felt sort o' kitterin'-headed—like my i-dees had fell over each other to get away from me. The shroud fit her pretty good, too, barrin' it was a mite long-skirted. An' somehow, it give her a look almost like dignity. Come to think of it, I donno but a shroud does become most folks—like they was rilly well-dressed at last.
"She come an' set down to table, quiet as you please—an' differ'nt. Your clothes don't make you, by any means, but they just do sort o' hem your edges, or rhyme the ends of you, or give a nice, even bake to your crust—I donno. They do somethin'. An' the shroud hed done it to that girl. She looked rill leaved out.
"How she did eat. It give me some excuse not to say anything to her till she was through with the first violence. I did try to say grace, but she says: 'Who you speakin' to? Me?' An' I didn't let on. I thought I wouldn't start in on her moral manners. I just set still an' kep' thinkin': You poor thing. Why, you poor thing. You're nothin' but a piece o' God's work that wants doin' over—like a back yard or a poor piece o' road or a rubbish place, or sim'lar. An' this tidyin' up is what we're for, as I see it—only some of us lays a-holt of our own settin' rooms an' butt'ry cupboards an' sullars an' cleans away on them for dear life, over an' over, an' forgets the rest. I ain't objectin' to good housekeepin' at all, but what I say is: Get your dust-rag big enough to wipe up somethin' besides your own dust. The Lord, He's a-housekeepin' too.
"So, with that i-dee, I got above the shroud an' I begun on the woman some like she was my kitchen closet in the spring o' the year.