Guess we're doin' our bit, ain't we?"

She's a wide, dumpy-built old girl, and dressed sort of freaky. Also her
line of talk is a kind of purry, throaty gush that's almost too soothin'
to be true. But anybody who makes only half a bluff at being interested
in our garden wins us. And not until she's inspected our first
string-beans through her gold lorgnette, and remarked twice more how
wonderful it was for us to raise anything like that, does it occur to
Vee to introduce me proper to both ladies.

The tall, stiff-necked dame turns out to be Mrs. Pemberton Foote.
Honest! Could you blame her for bein' jarred when I come bouncin' in
with garden truck?

Think of it! Why, she's one of the super-tax brigade and moves among the
smartest of the smart-setters. And Pemmy, he's on the polo team, you
know.

Oh, reg'lar people, the Pembroke Footes are. And the very fact that Mrs.
Foote is here callin' on Vee ought to have me thrilled to the bone.

Yet all I got sense enough to do is wave half-grown string-beans at her,
and then sit by gawpy, balancin' a cup of tea on my knee, and watch her
apply the refrigeratin' process to the dumpy old girl whose name I
didn't quite catch. Say, but she does it thorough and artistic. Only two
or three times did the dumpy one try to kick in on the chat, and when
she does, Mrs. Pemmy rolls them glittery eyes towards her slow, givin'
her the up-and-down like she was some kind of fat worm that had strayed
in from the cucumber bed.

Can't these women throw the harpoon into each other ruthless, though?
Why, you could see that old girl fairly squirm when she got one of them
assault-and-battery glances. Her under lip would quiver a bit, she'd
wink hard three or four times, and then she'd sort of collapse,
smotherin' a sigh and not finishin' what she'd started out to say. She
did want to be so folksy, too.

Course, she's an odd-lookin' party, with that bucket-shaped lid
decorated with pale green satin fruit, and the piles of thick blondine
hair that was turnin' gray, and her foolish big eyes with the puffy
rolls underneath and the crows'-feet in the corners. And of course
anybody with ankles suggestin' piano legs really shouldn't go in for
high-tide skirts and white silk stockin's with black butterflies worked
on 'em. Should they?

Still, she'd raved over our string-beans, so when she makes a last
fluttery try at jimmyin' her way into the conversation, and Mrs. Foote
squelches her prompt again, an