Lord meant
you should turn your hand over to find out what's in it, anyway."

I think that then we tried our woman's way of all talking at once, but I
remember how the shrill voice of Abigail Arnold, of the home bakery,
rose above the others:--

"Cream puffs!" she cried. "I got a rush demand for my cream puffs every
Sat'day, an' I ain't been makin' 'em sole-because I hate to run after
the milk an' set it. An' I was goin' to get out o' this by givin' fifty
cents out o' the bakery till. An' me with my hands full o' cream
puffs...."

"Hens--hens is what mine is," Libbie Liberty was saying. "My grief, I
got both hands full o' hens. I wouldn't sell 'em because I can't bear to
hev any of 'em killed--they're tame as a bag o' feathers, all of 'em. I
guess I ben settin' the hens o' my hand over against the heathen an' the
orphans. An' now I'm goin' to sell spring chickens...."

Mis' Sturgis in the rocking-chair was waving a corner of her shawl.

"C-canaries!" she cried. "I can rise canary-birds an' sell 'em a dollar
apiece in the city. I m-meant to slide out account o' my health, but it
was just because I hate to muss 'round b-boilin' eggs for the little
ones. I'll raise a couple or two--mebbe more."

"My good land!" came Miss Liddy Ember's piping falsetto; "to think o' my
sittin' up, hesitatin', when new dresses just falls off the ends o' my
fingers. An' me in my right mind, too."

Dear Doctor June stood up among us, his face shining.

"Bless us," he said. "Didn't I have some spiraea in my hand right while I
stood talking to you the other afternoon in my garden? And haven't I got
some tricolored Barbary varieties of chrysanthemums, and some hardy
roses and one thing and another to make men marvel? And can't I sell 'em
in the city at a pretty profit? What I've got in my hand is seeds and
slips--I see that plain enough. And my stars, out they go!"

Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, Mis' Mayor Uppers, even Mis'
Postmaster Sykes--ah, they all knew what to do, knew it as if somebody
had been saying it over and over, and as if they now first listened.

But Ellen Ember sat crying, her face buried in her hands. And I think
that she cannot have understood, even when Doctor June touched her hair
and said something of the little leaven which leaveneth the whole lump.

Last, the Reverend Arthur Bliss arose, and there was a sudden hush among
us, for it was as if a new spirit shone in his strong young face.

"Dear friends," he