"'I heard,' says Mis' Jimmy Sturgis, 'that the hired help set up all night long cleanin' the silver. I shouldn't think that would of been necessary, with any kind of management behind 'em.'
"'You don't get much management now'-days,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, sighing. 'Things slap along awful haphazard.'
"'I know I ain't the system to myself that I use' to have,' says Abagail Arnold. 'Why, the other day I found my soda in one butt'ry an' my bakin' powder in the other.'
"'An' I heard,' says Mame Holcomb—that's one thing about Mame, you can't keep her mad. She'll flare up and be a tongue of flame one minute, and the next she's actin' like a friendly open fire on a family hearth. And I always trust that kind—I can't help it—'I heard,' she said, 'that for the party that night the ice-cream is coming in forms, calla-lilies an' dogs an' like that.'
"'I heard,' says Mis' Uppers, 'that Emerel Daniel was invited up to help an' she set up nights and got her a new dress for helpin' in, and now little Otie's sick and she likely can't go near.'
"Mis' Toplady looks over her glasses.
"'Is Otie sick again?' says she. 'Well, if Emerel don't move out of Black Hollow, she'll lose him just like she done Abe. Can't she sell?'
"Black Hollow is the town's pet breeding place for typhoid, that the ladies has been at the council to clean up for a year now. And nobody will buy there, so Emerel's had to live in her house to save rent.
"'She's made her a nice dress an' she was so excited and pleased,' says Mis' Uppers, grieving. 'I do hope it was a dark shade so if bereavement follows—'
"'I suppose you'll have a new cloth, Mis' Sykes,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, 'you're so up-to-date.' It's always one trouble with Mis' Hubbelthwait: she will flatter the flatterable. But that time it didn't work. Mis' Sykes was up on a chair fixing a window-shade that had flew up, and I guess she must have pinched her finger, she was so crispy.