hed been burnt. She went off without
any hat an' stayed most all the afternoon. I didn't worry, though,
because I thought I knew where she'd gone. But I wouldn't 'a' asked
her,--I'd as soon slap anybody as quiz 'em,--an' besides I knew't
somebody'd tell me if I kep' still. Friendship'll tell you everything
you want to know, if you lay low long enough. An' sure as the world,
'bout five o'clock in come Mis' Postmaster Sykes, lookin' troubled.
Folks always looks that way when they come to interfere. Seems't she'd
just walked past the poorhouse ruins, an' she'd see Elspie settin' there
side of 'em, all alone--

"'--_singin'_,' says Mis' Sykes, impressive,--like the evil was in the
music,--'sittin' there singin', like she was all possessed. An' I come
up behind her an' plumped out at her to know _what_ she was a-doin'. An'
she says: "I'm makin' a call,"--just like that; "I'm makin' a call,"
s'she, smilin', an' not another word to be got out of her. '_An'_,' says
Mis' Sykes, 'let me tell you, I scud down that hill, _one goose
pimple_.'

"'Let her alone,' says I, philosophic. 'Leave her be.'

"But inside I ached like the toothache for the poor thing--for Elspie.
An' I says to her, when she come home:--

"'Elspie,' I says, 'why don't you go out 'round some an' see folks here
in the village? The minister's wife'd be rill glad to hev you come,' I
says.

"'Oh, I hate to hev 'em sit thinkin' about me in behind their eyes,'
s'she, ready.

"'What?' says I, blank.

"'It comes out through their eyes,' she says. 'They keep thinkin': Poor,
poor, poor Elspie. If they was somebody dead't I could go to see,' she
told me, smilin', 'I'd do that. A grave can't _poor_ you,' she told me,
'an' everybody that's company to you does.'

"'Well!' says I, an' couldn't, in logic, say no more.

"That evenin' Eb come in an' set down on the edge of a chair,
experimental, like he was testin' the cane.

"'Miss Cally,' s'e, when Elspie was out o' the room, 'you goin' t' let
_her_ go with them folks to the Alice County poorhouse?'

"I guess I dissembulated some under my eyelids--bein' I see t' Eb's mind
was givin' itself little lurches.

"'Well,' s'I, 'I don't see what that's wise I can do besides.'

"He mulled that rill thorough, seein' to the back o' one hand with the
other.

"'Would you take her to board an' me pay for her board?' s'e, like he'd
sneezed the _i_-dea an' couldn't help it comin'.

"'Goodness!' s'I, neutral.

"Eb sighed, l