it. In a
way, she was regarded as a public benefactor. Nobody else cared to
spend the money necessary to be a Smart Set, and since Mrs. Payley was
willing to fight and be bled, so to speak, to give our town tone and
inject a little excitement into our prairie lives now and then, we felt
that the least we could do was to regard her as a social colossus.

The Payleys were the only people in Homeburg who had lunch at noon, and
as early as 1900 they ate it from the bare table. She was the only woman
in Homeburg who could "look in" on an afternoon gabble of any kind for a
few minutes and get away with it without insulting the hostess. When she
shook hands with you, you always grabbed in the wrong place, no matter
how much thought you put into it, and while you were readjusting your
sights and clawing for her fingers and perspiring with mortification,
she was getting a start on you which kept you bashfully humble as long
as she was in sight. She was real goods, Mrs. Payley was--not arrogant,
but just naturally superior. People who called at the Payleys' evenings
were the social lights of Homeburg, and whenever some lady wanted to
discharge a few fireworks indicating her social position, she would form
a hollow square around Mrs. Payley in public and get intimate with her
in full view of everybody. Mrs. Payley ran the town, and everybody was
comfortable and content about it until the Singers arrived.

The Singers came from Cincinnati to cashier in the Farmers' State Bank:
Mrs. Singer was city bred and city heeled and when she met Mrs. Wert
Payley she didn't even blink. She put out her hand a little
nor'-nor'east of her chatelaine watch, when Mrs. Payley put out her hand
some four inches southwest by south, and waited calmly for Mrs. Payley
to correct herself. There was an awful moment of suspense, and when it
became evident that the only way to get Mrs. Singer's hand down to the
other level would be to excavate beneath her and change her foundations,
Mrs. Payley gave in and reached.

War was declared that minute, and I shudder now when I think of the
months which followed.

Mrs. Payley, having been on the ground a long time, had fortified it, of
course, and was president of all the clubs. But inside of a month Mrs.
Singer flanked her position. She declined to join most of the clubs on
the plea of being a busy woman, and organized a flower mission. Its
object was to distribute flowers to the sick and needy, who generally
co