east she'll
stop at."

But I think that, in the wish to do honour to so distinguished an
occasion, the temper of Mis' Sykes, and perhaps of Ellen Ember too, was
the secret temper of all the village.

IX

"NOT AS THE WORLD GIVETH"

I daresay that excitement followed excitement when news of Calliope's
party got abroad. But of this I knew little, for I spent those next days
at the Proudfits' with Nita Ordway and little Viola, and though I
thought often of Calliope, I chanced not to see her again until the
holidays were almost upon us. In the late afternoon, two days before
Christmas, I dropped in at her cottage to learn how pleasantly the plans
for her party matured.

To my amazement I found her all dejection.

"Why, Calliope," I said, "can't the grandma ladies come, after all?"

Yes, they could come; they were coming.

"You are never sorry you asked them?" I pressed her.

No. Oh, no; she was glad she had asked them.

"Something is wrong, though," I said sadly--thinking what a blessed
thing it is to be so joyous a spirit that one's dejections are bound to
be taken seriously.

"Well," said Calliope, then, "it's the children. No it ain't, it's
Friendship. The town's about as broad as a broom straw an' most as deep.
Anything differ'nt scares 'em like something wore out'd ought to.
Friendship's got an i-dee that Christmas begins in a stocking an' ends
off in a candle. It thinks the rest o' the days are reg'lar,
self-respecting days, but it looks on Christmas like an extry thing,
thrown in to please 'em. It acts as if the rest o' the year was plain
cake an' the holidays was the frostin' to be et, an' everybody grab the
best themselves, give or take."

"Calliope!" I cried--for this was as if the moon had objected to the
heavens.

"Oh, I know I'd ought not to," she said sadly; "but don't folks act as
if time was give to 'em to run around wild with, as best suits 'em?
Three hundred an' 'leven days a year to use for themselves, an' Sundays
an' Christmas an' Thanksgivin' to give away looks to me a rill fair
division. But, no. Some folks act like Sundays an' holidays was not only
the frostin', but the nuts an' candy an' ice-cream o' things--_their_
ice-cream, to eat an' pass to their own, an' scrape the freezer."

And then came the heart of the matter.

"'T seems," said Calliope, "there's that children's Christmas tree at
the new minister's on Christmas Eve. But that ain't till ha'-past seven,
an' I done