They wasn’t any need to explain to Mis’ Fire Chief. She was so excited she didn’t know whether she was a-foot or a-horseback. When Amos got back with the things I’d sent for she didn’t seem half to sense it was him I was sending out in the woodshed to chop ice. She didn’t hev her collar on nor her shoes buttoned, and she wasn’t no more use in that kitchen than a dictionary.
“Oh, Calliope,” she says, in a sort of wail, “I’m so nervous!”
“You go and set down, Mis’ Fire Chief,” says I, “and button up your shoes. I’ve got every move of the morning planned out,” says I, “so be you don’t interrupt me.”
Of course it was her party and all, but they’s some hostesses you hev to lay a firm holt of, if you’re the helper and expect the party to come off at all. And I never see any living hostess more upset than was Mis’ Fire Chief. She give all the symptoms—not of a company, but of coming down with something.
“Oh, Calliope,” says she, “everything’s against me. I donno,” she says, “but it’s a sign from the Chief in his grave that I’m actin’ against his wishes an’ opposite to what widows should. The wood is green—hear it siss an’ sizzle in that stove an’ hold back its heat from me. The cistern is dry—we’ve hed to pump water to the neighbors. Not a hen has cackled this livelong mornin’ in the coop. The milkman couldn’t only leave me three quarts instead of four, though ordered ahead. An’ I feel like death—I feel like death,” says she, “part on account of the Chief—ain’t it like he was speakin’ his disapprovin’ in all these little minor ways?—an’ part because I know I’m comin’ down with a hard cold an’ I’d ought to be in bed all lard an’ pepper this livin’ minute. Oh, dear me! An’ Maria all but upon me. I don’t know how I’ll ever get through this day.”
“Mis’ Fire Chief,” says I, “you go and lay down and try to get some rest.”
“No, Calliope,” says she, “the beds is all ready for the company to lay their hats off, an’ the lounge pillows has been beat light on the line.”
“Well,” says I, “go off an’ take a walk.”
“Not without I walk to the cemetery,” says she, “an’ that I couldn’t bear. Not to-day.”
“Well,” says I, “then you let me put a wet cloth over your head and eyes, and you set still and stop talkin’. You’ll be wore to a thread,” says I.