enson, what I think
is this: ain't everything movin' off nice?" Dear Doctor June, pastor
emeritus of Friendship, since he was so identified with all the village
interests that not many could tell from what church he had retired. (At
each of the three Friendship churches he rented a pew, and contributed
impartially to their beneficences; and, "seems to me the Lord would of,"
he sometimes apologized for this.) Photographer Jimmy Sturgis, who stood
about with one eye shut, and who drove the 'bus, took charge of the
mail-bags, conducted a photograph gallery, and painted portraits. ("The
Dead From Photos a specialty," was tacked on the risers of the stairs
leading to his studio.) And Mis' Photographer Sturgis, who was an
invalid and "very, very seldom got out." (Not, I was to learn, an
invalid because of ill health, but by nature. She was an invalid as
other people are blond or brunette, and no more to be said about it.)
Miss Liddy Ember, the village seamstress, and her beautiful sister
Ellen, who was "not quite right," and whom Miss Liddy took about and
treated like a child until the times when Ellen "come herself again,"
and then she quite overshadowed in personality little busy Miss Liddy.
Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, and Eppleby Holcomb, and the "Other"
Holcombs; Mis' Doctor Helman, the Gekerjecks, who "kept the drug store,"
and scented the world with musk and essences. ("Musk on one handkerchief
and some kind o' flower scent on your other one," Mis' Gekerjeck was
wont to say, "then you can suit everybody, say who who will.")--These
and the others Mrs. Ricker and Kitton and I received, standing before
the white carnation pillow. And I, who had come to Friendship to get
away from everywhere, found myself the one to whom they did honour, as
they were to have honoured Emerel.

When the hour for supper came, Mrs. Ricker and Kitton excused herself
because she must "see to gettin' it on to the plates," and Mis' Toplady,
Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, Calliope, and I "handed." We had all
lent silver and dishes--indeed, save at Mis' Sykes's (and of course at
the Proudfits' of Proudfit estate), there is rarely a Friendship party
at which the pantries of the guests are not represented, an arrangement
seeming almost to hold in anticipation certain social and political
ideals. (If the telephone yields us an invitation from those whom we
know best, we always answer: "Thank you. I will. What do you want me to
send over?" Is th