The Jamesons

m the episode of the hygienic biscuits at the picnic, but we did not. We were not fairly aware of it unt

body to send her clothes; she would be thankful for the excuse of poverty to go without them. But Mrs. Sim White would not hear to having the meeting put off; she said that a cyclone might come up any minute in Minnesota and cool the air, and then think of all those poor children with nothing to cover them. Flora Clark had the audacity to say that after the cyclone there might not be any ch

and, besides, we wondered that she should feel interested in our sewing circle. Her daughter Harriet came with her; Madam Cobb, as

g. She had a look of desperation and defiance which I had seen on her face before. Thinks I to my

Mrs. Liscom went around the room with her, introducing her to the ladies whom she had not met before. I could see th

nd Mrs. Liscom, and spoke very pre

a white satin ribbon at the waist and throat. I understood afterward that Mrs. Jameson did not allow her daughters to wear their best clothes generally to our village festivities, but kept them for occasions in the city, since their fortu

d to have some work given her; but, as it happened, there was nothing cut out except a blac

r brisk manner; "I have come here to be us

aid there was a little pair of gingham trousers needed for the missionary's five-year-old boy, and Mrs. Jameson, without a quiver of

rtively, but she went slashing away with as much confidence as if she had served an apprenticeship with a tailor in her youth. We began to think that possibly she knew better how to cut out tro

asked for some thread and a needle, and Flora Clark started to get some, and got thereby an excuse t

ront, and they are large enough for a boy of twelve." She spok

me next, and poor Mrs. White clutched my arm hard.

t resentment, that she had made them so on purpose, so that the boy would not outgrow them, and she always thought it

said she; "I shouldn't think those trousers would wear out any faster on a five-year-

, and we concluded that she must be good-tempered. As for F

about her skill. She sewed with incredible swiftness; I did not time her exactly, but it did not seem to me that she was more than an hour in

over the other and made a bag of them. They were certainly a comical sight. I don't know whether Flora's sense of humor got the better of her wrath, or whether Mrs. White's expostulation influenced her, but she did not say one word, only stood there holding the trousers, her mouth twit

know that Mrs. White sat up nearly all night ripping them, and cutting them over, and

s if it were true that Dora Peckham was going to marry Thomas Wells and had bought her wedding dress, and before Mrs

d she. "Ladie

n. Of course she should have been introduced by our President, who should herself have done the rapping with the scissors. F

of ladies' societies were. "Ladies," said she, "I am sure that you will all prefer having your minds improved and your spheres enlarged by the study and

to feel that Browning was actually there in our sewing circle. She made a little pause, too, which seemed to indicate just that. It was b

little and strive to appreciate him, but we have been quite sure that some other author would interest a larger proportion of the ladies. I don't suppose that more than three of us had ever read or even heard of the se

r. I heard afterward that she had begged her mother not to take the Browning book, saying that she did not believe the ladies would like it; and Mrs. Jameson had replied that sh

on she read another. At half-past four o'clock, Mrs. White, who had

aking her biscuits for her that she need not heat her house u

aintain interest that one could see the anxiety underneath. I knew what worried her before she told me, as she did prese

rs. White. She whispered to me again that her table wa

saw Mrs. White begin to brighten as she evidently drew near the end. Bu

rriet Jameson looked more and more distressed. I was sure she saw Mrs. White holding back Flora, and knew just what it meant. Harriet was sitting quite idle with her little hands in her lap; we had set her to hemming a ruffle for the missi

ny peace. When Mrs. Jameson finally closed her book there was a murmur which might have been considered expressive of relief or applause, according to the amount of self-complacency of the reader. Mrs. Jameson evidently considered it applause, for she bowed in

e at the prospect of the future reading, or the respite fr

ought the cake and pie, and Mrs. White furnished the bread and tea. However, that night it was so very warm we had decided to have lemonade instead of tea. Mrs. White had put it to vote among the ladies when they first came, and we had all decided in favor of lemonade. There was another reason for Mrs.

ng the last things on the table, when my sister-in-law, L

the matte

it came out: Mrs. Jameson must have some hot water to prepare her health f

she turned on poor Louisa as if she were the offender. "Let her go h

gony. "Oh, Flora! don't, don't!" said she. But

ircle: her mother, in the next town, was ill, and she had gone to see her. So the Bemis house was locked up, and the fire no doubt out. Mrs. White lives on an outlying farm, and there was not another neighbor within a

e began to put kindlings into the stove that she stalked off into the other room. Mrs. White begged me to follow her and try to keep her quiet, but I was so indignant myself that I

ight. It was haying-time, and we had decided, since we held the meeting principally because of the extra work, that we would not have them. We o

son, without her being aware of it, into the seat directly in front of the stove. I knew it was not befitting my age and Christian character, but I was glad to see her there. The heat that night was something terrific, and the fire in the stove, although we had

the health food, which she had brought, in her cup of hot water; but suddenly she looked around, saw the stove at he

r her mother's thoughtlessness fell. She jumped up at

id. So Mrs. Jameson and her daughter exchanged

o be thankful that Mrs. Jameson did not beseech us to eat health food a

ext meeting. Mrs. Jameson came, and she not only read selections from Browning, but she started us in that mad problem of Shakespeare and Bacon. Most of the ladies in our society had not an i

r Mrs. Sim White was so exercised over the probable deception of either Bacon or Shakespeare, in any case, t

ecca Snow did not speak to each other for weeks because Mrs. Root believed that Shakespeare was Bacon, a

dified at our interest, and said she consider

r, since Shakespeare and Bacon were both dead and gone, and we were too much concerned with those plays which were written anyhow, and no question about it, to bother about anything e

must be very instructive, only as few of us ever went to the theatre, or even knew the name of a modern playwright, it was almost like a lecture in an unknown tongue. Mrs. Ketchum went to sleep and snored, and tol

s around the bottoms, for wear when engaged in domestic pursuits, and she tried to induce mothers to take off the shoes and stockings of their small children, and let them run barefoot. Children of a larger growth in our village quite generally go barefoot in the summer, but the little ones are always, as a rule, well shod. Mrs. Jameson said that it was much better for them also to go without shoes and stockings, and Louisa and I were inclined to think she might be right-it d

s seemingly devoting all her energies to the improvement of Harry Liscom, or to the improvement o

of it, but people began to say that Harry Liscom

opped at the old Wray house. Nobody lived there then; it had been shut up for many a year. I thought I would sit down on the old doorstep and rest, and I had barely settled myself when I heard voices.

said a boy's voice which

h, Harry, it is you who are so far above me.

after all, it was only love which could set people upon immeasurable heights in each ot