ykes, comin' tearin' up on account o' Timothy leavin' him urgent word
to come, without explainin' why. An' when Silas see the inside o' the
church, all lit up an' chicken supper for the children an' the other two
elders there with the milk, he just rubs his hands an' beams like he see
his secunt term. I donno's it'd ever enter Silas Sykes's head't there
was anything wrong with anything, providin' somebody wasn't snappin' him
up for it. I guess it's like that in politics.

"We took the milk around an', bake' sweet potatoes forgot, Timothy stood
up by the stove, between Eppleby an' Silas, an' watched us--an' the
Jersey must 'a' picked her way home alone. An' Abel, he just set there
to the organ, gentlin' 'round soft on the keys so it made me think o'
God movin' on the face o' the waters. An' movin' on the face of
everything else too, dedicated or not. It was like we'd felt the big
wind, same as Eppleby said. An' somethin' in it kind o' hid, secret an'
holy."

VIII

THE GRANDMA LADIES

Two weeks before Christmas Friendship was thrown into a state of holiday
delight. Mrs. Proudfit and her daughter, Miss Clementina, issued
invitations to a reception to be given on Christmas Eve at Proudfit
House, on Friendship Hill. The Proudfits, who had rarely entertained
since Miss Linda went away, lived in Europe and New York and spent
little time in the village, but, for all that, they remained citizens in
absence, and Friendship always wrote out invitations for them whenever
it gave "companies." The invitations the postmaster duly forwarded to
some Manhattan bank, though I think the village had a secret conviction
that these were never received--"sent out wild to a bank in the City,
so." However, now that old courtesies were to be so magnificently
returned, every one believed and felt a greater respect for the whole
financial world.

The invitations enclosed the card of Mrs. Nita Ordway, and the name
sounded for me a note of other days when, before my coming to Friendship
Village, we two had, in the town, belonged to one happy circle of
friends.

"I thought at first mebbe the card'd got shoved in the envelope by
mistake," said Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. "I know once I got a
Christmas book from a cousin o' mine in the City, an' a strange man's
card fell out o' the leaves. I sent the card right straight back to her,
an' Cousin Jane seemed rill cut up, so I made up my mind I'd lay low
about this card. But I hear eve