Sarah as the latter came from the chicken yard.

"She was grease from head to foot," pronounced Winnie, while Sarah sat
down on the rug and looked innocent. "You'd have thought, to look at
her, that Mrs. Hildreth had been greasing her and not the chickens;
there were feathers in her hair and dirt ground into her face and
hands, and she must have been sitting in the dust pile where the
chickens scratch. I had to give her a bath and change every stitch of
her clothes, because I was afraid you wouldn't know her. And if dinner
is late to-night, you can thank Sarah Baton Willis."

"I'll come set the table." offered Rosemary, jumping up.

As she laid the knives and forks, she told Winnie about her visit to
Miss Clinton.

"I know her," declared Winnie, slicing bread--she had fastened back the
communicating door between the kitchen and the dining-room. "At least
I know of her; Mrs. Hildreth was telling me the other day. She's a
woman who likes company--that's all she wants and all she doesn't get,
summer times at least. I never saw a neighborhood like this one--I
don't believe any of the farmers dare die in July or August for fear
their friends couldn't stop farming long enough to come to the funeral."

Rosemary giggled.

"Is she poor, Winnie?" she asked with frank curiosity.

"My, no, not that I have heard tell of," answered Winnie. "She has an
income of her own and plenty of relatives, scattered hereabouts. I
believe a niece comes and stays with her during the winter months--her
brother's daughter. Mrs. Hildreth was telling me that she writes
hundreds of letters--though I guess she can't write as many as
that--and she wheels herself out to the mail box and back in that chair
and washes dishes and everything, sitting in it. But summers she gets
fearfully lonesome. The neighbors run in a good deal in the winter and
hold sewing-circle meetings there, but they haven't time to bother in
the growing season."

"She had toys in a cabinet--Shirley played with them and she said she'd
get her some more if she tired of those," said Rosemary, placing the
chairs. "Do many children go see her, Winnie?"

"Mrs. Hildreth told me she keeps those toys to amuse the children who
may come visiting with their mothers," explained Winnie. "Miss Clinton
figured that if the children had something to play with they wouldn't
be in a hurry to go home. Downright pathetic, I call it, to be so
hungry for someone to talk to that you tr