" Joel said. "I can't eat now, thank you.
We are just beginning to help the men."

"Well, you can't wait on me," John blurted out. The situation was
becoming tense and awkward, when Tilly half playfully reached out, took
the plate, and gave it to John.

"Take it," she said, firmly. "Joel is in a hurry. The others are
waiting."

John obeyed, but failed to thank Eperson. He was vaguely conscious that
Tilly was smoothly performing the duty for him and that Joel was bowing
himself away. Then they sat in silence. Others near by were boisterously
laughing, beating time with their feet and singing with the band, but
neither Tilly nor John had aught to say. It was as if the subject which
was at once burning and soothing their souls was too vast and sacred to
be touched upon in the neighborhood of others less profoundly stirred.

"Give me your plate. I'll take it in," John heard a young farmer saying
to the girl he sat with. "You don't want to hold it all night. We'll be
dancing again in a minute."

The girl obeyed, and the young man left with two plates in his hands.
John noticed that Tilly had finished, and he offered to take her plate.
She gave it to him. "Be careful," she warned him. "Sally borrowed most
of them from the neighbors and wants to return them in good order."

John chafed under the admonition as he rose with his plate and Tilly's
in either hand. He had, however, scarcely reached the door when, in
trying quickly to step out of the way of two girls who were approaching,
one of the plates and the goblet on it fell to the floor. John stood as
if paralyzed. Then he softly swore. Every one on the veranda stopped
talking and stared. What he would have done next John never knew, for
Tilly suddenly approached.

"Never mind," she said, calmly. "Take the other one to the kitchen."

Furious at himself and all the swirling, clattering, and chattering
company, John managed to make his way into the kitchen, where he
delivered the plate to a buxom negro woman at a big dish-pan full of hot
water. He saw Joel putting down some plates and glasses on a table near
at hand. Joel smiled in a friendly way.

"I saw your little accident," he said. "I barely escaped the same thing
just now. A fellow has to be a regular bareback rider or a tight-rope
walker to get through this crowd with his arms full of glassware and
crockery."

"No, I couldn't help it." John was conscious of a hot flow of blood to
his face, and a vague sense o