folding of
bandages which The Woman characterised as tomfoolery. The President
was for keeping the rules. She believed in system, she stated in her
address to the Society, but Mrs. Johnnie Dunn believed only in her own
system, and told every one to go ahead and do things the way they had
always done and they'd be all right.

Then there was the knitting! Granny Minns, who could turn out her sock
a day, and not omit a tittle of Mitty's scolding, said the Kitchener
Toe was all humbug. She had knit for her son Tom all his life and her
husband too, and was now knitting for Burke. And Burke said her socks
were Just right, and what was good enough for Burke was good enough for
the other soldiers!

She had an army of followers who were ready to second all she said.
Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls and Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s
mother were all superexcellent knitters, and Mrs. Brown who was no more
afraid of Mrs. Sutherland than The Woman was, said right out in the
meeting that the Kitchener Toe was jist some norms got up by the women
in the town who hadn't enough to do, and had never learned to knit,
anyhow! And Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s wife took to walking home
together after the meetings, just to discuss the foolish fashions of
some women like Mrs. Sutherland!

Mrs. Sinclair asked for one of the leaders to come out from town and
tell about the Kitchener Toe. The lady came and they had an extra
meeting in the basement of the Methodist church, and passed around tea
and cake and pie afterward. The lady spoke of the horrors of Trench
Feet, and showed how the wrong sort of knitting would be sure to
produce it. But as Granny Minns never went anywhere, and Mrs. Lindsay
and the Grant Girls went only to church, and Mrs. Brown was too deaf to
hear, and Mrs. Tremendous K. told her it was just all dishwater anyway,
the talk had very little effect.

So a secret society was formed, of which Joanna and Mrs. Sutherland
were the leaders. They met at night with drawn blinds and locked
doors, and ripped out the uneven and condemned knitting and knit it up
again. And before long Orchard Glen was mentioned in the Algonquin
papers as the one place that always sent in perfect socks. And a
photographer came out from town and took a picture of Granny Minns, as
the oldest knitter of faultless socks, and it was put in the paper and
Orchard Glen was held up as an example for the countryside and was the
envy of the whole knit