f:--

"'Oh, glory, glory, glory.'

"For I tell you, when you see a livin' soul born in somebody's eyes, it
makes you feel pretty sure you can hev one o' your own, if you try."

XII

OF THE SKY AND SOME ROSEMARY

When the Friendship Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement Sodality had
its Evening Benefit at my house, Delia More came to help in the kitchen.
She steadfastly refused to be a guest. "I'd love bein' 'round there,"
she said, "over the stove, or that way. But I can't--_can't_ be
company--yet. When I think of it, it's like a high swing."

So she stayed in the kitchen, and it was characteristic of Friendship
that when its women learned that she was there, they all went--either
deliberately or for a drink of water--to speak with her. And they all
did learn that she was there. "Who you got in the kitchen?" was a part
of the small talk from guest to hostess. The men stayed "in the other
part of the house," Doctor June and Eppleby Holcomb sending by me some
cordial word to Delia. I think that they cannot do these things anywhere
else with such beautiful delicacy.

When my other guests had taken leave, Calliope stayed to help in the
search for Mis' Postmaster Sykes's pickle fork and two of Mis' Helman's
napkins (the latter marked with L because the store had been out of
_papier-mache_ H's, and it didn't matter what letter so long as you knew
it meant you) and all the other borrowed articles whose mislaying made
any Sodality gathering a kind of panic. Moreover, Calliope had been
helping and we, and Delia, had been far too busy to taste supper.

We would have said that the true life of the evening was done instead of
just beginning. But when we entered the kitchen, we found Delia More
serving the supper on an end of the baking table, while warming his
hands at the range stood Abel Halsey.

"I came in across the track, from the hills," Abel explained to me. "I
didn't know you had doings till I tied and blanketed--an' I came on in
anyhow, back way. I'm in luck too. I haven't had supper."

We four sat down in that homely cheer, and before us was the Sodality's
exquisite cookery. It was good to have Abel there. Since my coming to
Friendship I had seen him often, and my wonder at him had deepened. He
was alive to the finger-tips and by nature equipped to conquer through
sheer mentality, but he seemed deliberately to have fore-gone the prizes
for the tasks of the lower places. Not only so, but he who understood