e when we had left Mrs. Ricker and Kitton,
tired but triumphant. ("Land," the hostess said, "now it's turned out so
nice, I donno but I'm rill pleased Emerel's married. I'd hate to think
o' borrowin' all them things over again for a weddin'.") And in the dark
street Calliope said to me:--

"You see what I done, I guess. I told you Mis' Sykes was reg'lar
up-in-arms about usin' your house--though I think the rill reason is she
wants to get upstairs in it. You know how some are. So I marched myself
up there before the party, an' I told her you wasn't goin' to hev
Sodality sole because you thought she'd been so mean to Mis' Ricker. An'
I give her to understand sharp off 't she'd better do what she did do if
she wanted you in the Sodality at all. 'An',' s'I, 'I donno what she'll
think o' you anyway, not knowin' enough to go to two companies in one
evenin', like the City, even if one is your own.' She see reason. You
know, Mis' Sykes an' I are kind o' connections, but you can make even
your relations see sense if you go at 'em right. I donno," Calliope
ended doubtfully, "but I done wrong. An' yet I feel good friends with my
backbone too, like I'd done right!"

And it was so that having come to Friendship Village to get away from
everywhere, I yet found myself abruptly launched in its society,
committed to its Sodality, and, best of all, friends with Calliope
Marsh.

III

NOBODY SICK, NOBODY POOR

Two days before Thanksgiving the air was already filled with white
turkey feathers, and I stood at a window and watched until the
loneliness of my still house seemed like something pointing a mocking
finger at me. When I could bear it no longer I went out in the snow, and
through the soft drifts I fought my way up the Plank Road toward the
village.

I had almost passed the little bundled figure before I recognized
Calliope. She was walking in the middle of the road, as in Friendship we
all walk in winter; and neither of us had umbrellas. I think that I
distrust people who put up umbrellas on a country road in a fall of
friendly flakes.

Instead of inquiring perfunctorily how I did, she greeted me with a
fragment of what she had been thinking--which is always as if one were
to open a door of his mind to you instead of signing you greeting from a
closed window.

"I just been tellin' myself," she looked up to say without preface,
"that if I could see one more good old-fashion' Thanksgivin', life'd
sort o' smooth out.