short, stumpy bowl or jar, upon which curious protuberances of
all kinds clustered. The protuberances encircled the jar in something
like the way fungus circles a tree hole, in strange and various
patterns.

Mrs. Pawket, the light deepening in her eyes, took from her apron pocket
the screw; holding it very daintily in one work-worn hand, with the
other she dove into further recesses and produced, wrapped in an oily
bit of newspaper, a large lump of putty.

Now a solemn ritual began. Breaking off a bit of the putty, Mrs. Pawket
welded it on the jar near the other protuberances; while the putty was
soft she fixed in it the screw, arranging that implement by a method
best calculated to display its screw characteristics. Then Mrs. Pawket's
eyes grew darker, a flush came into her wrinkled cheeks; she wrung the
moisture from her brow in a sort of agony of creative pleasure. As one
who performs an action sacred in its heightened detachment and
mechanical efficiency, she rummaged with desperate insistence on another
and higher shelf of the cupboard, this time bringing forth a very small
vial of gilt varnish and an equally small paint-brush with which to
apply it. Mrs. Pawket then observed that her hand was shaking and chid
herself severely:

"Look at me! Soon as I see how pritty this here Everything Jar is
gettin' to be, I go and get excited. If I'm goosefleshed now, what'll I
be when the Everything is finished?"

But the Everything Jar was a long way from finished and the unsatisfied
ache of the creative artist made heavy Mrs. Pawket's breast. She
surveyed the ceramic, half-erupt with a medley of buttons, screws,
safety-pins, hooks, knobs, all covered with their transforming gilt, and
tried to imagine how it would seem to have it completed. Then the
ultimate anxiety beset her--when completed, should the Everything be
bestowed upon the minister's family or--this a recent and daring
inspiration--should it be conferred upon Willum's wife, the mistress of
the proposed vanilla? Mrs. Pawket was fairly tortured by uncertainty.
She shook the sleeping Mr. Pawket by the shoulder.

"Say, look at the Everything. I just now put on that last screw. Ain't
it handsome?"

As he blinked at the fantastic jar gleaming with golden excrescences, a
deep sense of beauty thrilled Mr. Pawket.

"Hey, Maw," he chuckled. "That's the best yet. My! ain't it pritty? It
beats that lamp-shade ye made out er the tinfoil. Now the question is,
who ye go