LITMIR.BIZ

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her work to explain. "It's this way, Thomas. Sometimes when I go into the store I catch sight of you before you see me, and maybe one of your cheeks will be all swollen up as if you had the toothache. Then you slip into the back room, and come out in quarter of a minute with both of 'em the same size. It's a woman's way, Thomas, to put two and two together."

      Thomas' face was radiant. That weight was off his conscience. He had a right to proceed to more agreeable disclosures, undeterred by the fear of practising deception on the noblest of God's creatures. It contributed to his joy that Persis had known of his weakness, and yet had not crushed him with her contempt. She had not even expressed agreement when he had called chewing tobacco a filthy habit.

      "Persis," he began in his deepest tones, "I was thinking as I came along—"

      The stairs creaked and Persis interrupted him. "There's Joel. It makes it hard for him when the days are getting longer all the time. He'll be glad when we have to light the lamps at five."

      Thomas was in a mood to wish that the village of Clematis basked in the rays of the midnight sun. He forced a smile to his reluctant lips as Persis' brother entered and magnanimously put the question, "How do you find yourself to-night, Joel?" though he knew only too well the consequences to which this exposed him. There was no surer passport to Joel's favor than to inquire about his health if one was also willing to listen to his answer. The people who said, "How do you do?" and immediately began to talk of something else were the objects of Joel's detestation, while his grateful affection went out to the select few willing to hear in detail his physical biography since their last meeting. Joel experienced the same satisfaction in describing the pains in his abdomen or an attack of palpitation that a bride feels in exhibiting her trousseau.

      "I've nothing to complain of, especially when you take into account that I'd have been six feet under the sod by now, if I hadn't discovered that sunshine was poison to my constitution. It sort of draws all the vitality out of me, same as it draws the oil out of goose feathers. I'd have improved a good ideal faster," Joel continued with sudden irritation, "if it hadn't been for Persis' carelessness in leaving the door open. You'd think that I had a good big life insurance in her favor, the way she acts. As the Frenchman said, 'Defend me from my friends, I can defend myself—'"

      "I've always understood that sunshine was about the healthiest of anything," interrupted Thomas, reddening angrily at the criticism of Persis. "And if you want my opinion, you look to me a good deal like a plant that's sprouted in the cellar."

      The last thing Joel wanted was another's opinion. He continued as though Thomas had not spoken.

      "And besides that, I've been eating too much meat. Science tells us that the human body is pretty near all water. Don't that show that most of the needs of the body can be supplied by drinking plenty of water?"

      Thomas shook his head. "I'd hate to try it. When I'm hungry, I wouldn't swap a good piece of beef-steak for a hogshead of water."

      "You eat too much meat." Joel, extending an almost transparent hand toward his sister's caller, shook a bony forefinger in warning. "You're undermining your constitution. You're shortening your days by your inordinate use of animal food."

      "Me! Why, bless you, Joel, I never was sick a day in my life."

      "Well, that don't prove that you never will be, does it? And anybody with half an eye can see that you're not in good shape. Flesh don't show nothing. A man who weighs two hundred is the first to go under when disease gets hold of him. Your color, as like as not, is due to fever. How many times a day do you eat meat?"

      "Well, always twice, and sometimes—"

      Joel groaned. "Rank suicide! Suicide just as much as if you put a revolver to your head. It sounds well to talk about prime cuts of beef and all that, but when you come down to cold facts, what's meat? Dead stuff, that's all. It ain't reasonable to talk of building up life out of death."

      Persis' quick ear had caught the sound of stealthy movements in the adjoining room. She wove her needle into the seam, a practise so habitual that probably she would have done the same if the lamp had exploded unexpectedly, and crossing to the kitchen door, opened it without warning. A small untidy woman, the shortcoming of her appearance partly concealed by the old plaid shawl that enveloped her person, dodged away from the key-hole with a celerity perhaps due to practise.

      "It just struck me that there was more voices than two," she explained with self-accusing haste. "And I didn't want to intrude if you was entertaining company. Sounded to me like Thomas Hardin's voice."

      "Yes, it's Mr. Hardin. Will you come in, Mis' Trotter?" Persis' invitation lacked its usual ring of cordiality.

      "Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude. But I says to Bartholomew this very day, 'I'm going to run over to Persis Dale's after supper,' says I, 'to see if she can't let me have some pieces of white goods left over from her dressmaking.' You're doing a good deal in white this time of the year, as a rule," concluded Mrs. Trotter, a greedy look coming into her eyes.

      "Mis' Trotter, I always send back the pieces, even if they're no bigger than a handkerchief. If anybody's going to make carpet rags out of the scraps, I don't know why it shouldn't be the people who bought and paid for the goods."

      "And that's where you're right," Mrs. Trotter agreed, with the adaptability that was one of her strong points. "There was Mattie Kendall, now, who kept up her dressmaking after she married Henry Beach. Well, she set out to dress her children on the left-overs, and it went all right while they was little. But Mamie got grasping. After her oldest girl was as long-legged as a colt, she'd send word to her customers and say that they needed another yard and a half or two yards to make their dresses in any kind of style. Of course it got out in time, and everybody who wanted sewing done went to a woman in South Rivers. I often say to Bartholomew that honesty's the best policy, even where it looks the other way round."

      During the progress of this moral tale, Persis' thoughts had been self-accusing. She reflected that curiosity is not among the seven deadly sins, and that if Mrs. Trotter found in listening at key-holes any compensation for the undeniable hardships of her lot, only a harsh nature would grudge her such solace. Moreover ingrained in Persis' disposition, was the inability to hold a grudge against one who asked her a favor.

      "I don't know, Mis' Trotter, but maybe I've got some white pieces of my own that aren't big enough for anything but baby clothes. I'll look over my piece-bag to-morrow. If there's anything you can use, you'll be welcome."

      Mrs. Trotter expressed her appreciation, "With all the sewing I done when Benny was expected, I did think I was pretty well fixed, come what might. I didn't reckon on the twins, you see. And then when little Tom died, they laid him out in the embroidered dress I'd counted on for the christening of the lot. Not that I grudged it to him," added the mother quickly, and sighed.

      This had the effect of dissipating Persis' sense of annoyance. "I'm pretty sure I can find you something, Mis' Trotter. And I'll speak to one or two of my customers. Some of 'em may have things put away that they're not likely to want again."

      Mrs. Trotter received the offer with a dignity untainted by servile gratitude.

      "Me and Bartholomew feel that in raising up a family the size of ourn, we're doing the community a service. So we ain't afraid to take a little help when we happen to need it. And by the way, if you should find some of the white pieces you was talking about, maybe you wouldn't mind cutting out the little slips and just stitching 'em up on your machine. The needle of mine's been broke this six months, and anyway, something's the matter with the wheels. They won't hardly turn."

      "Need oil, probably," commented Persis. She knew she was wasting her breath in making the suggestion. The shiftlessness which left the sewing-machine useless junk in a family of eight was a Trotter characteristic. If Bartholomew could have appreciated the value of machine oil, he would have been an entirely different man, and probably able to support his family. In view of this, Persis felt that she could do no less than add: "To be sure I'll stitch 'em up. 'Twon't take much of any time."

      "Now I'm not going to keep you a minute longer. I guess Thomas Hardin don't come here to talk

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