September's round moon waned; Indian summer was over. One morning in October Miss Beal, the dressmaker, had taken her sewing to Mr. Jeminy's, in order to spend the day with Mrs. Grumble. There, as she sat rocking up and down in the kitchen, the fall wind brought to her nose the odor of grapes ripening in the sun. The corn stood gathered in the fields, and in the yellow barley stubble the grasshopper, old and brown, leaped full of love upon his neighbor. Mrs. Grumble, beside a pile of Mr. Jeminy's winter clothes, sorted, mended, and darned, while the sun fell through the window, bright and hot across her shoulders. She kept one eye on the oven where her biscuits were baking, counted stitches, and listened to Miss Beal, who tilted solemnly forward in her chair when she had anything to say, and moved solemnly back again when it was over. "Mrs. Stove," declared Miss Beal, leaning forward and looking up at Mrs. Grumble, "won't have a new dress this year. Well, she's right, material is dreadful to get. As I said to her: Mrs. Stove, your old dress will do; just let me fix it up a little. No, she says, she'll wear it as it is." "Look at me," said Mrs. Grumble. "Here's an old rag. But I get along." "Indeed you do," said Miss Beal. "Still," she added, speaking for herself, "one has to live." "Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Grumble airily. "Goodness," exclaimed the dressmaker. "Gracious, Mrs. Grumble." "I declare," avowed Mrs. Grumble, "what with things costing what they do, and every one so mean, I'd die as glad as not, out of spite." "I wouldn't want to die," said Miss Beal slowly. "It's too awful. I want to stay alive, looking around." "You're just as curious," said Mrs. Grumble. "Well, there, I'm not. Men are a bad lot. You can't trust a one of them. Not for long." "Yes," sighed Miss Beal, "there's a good deal I want to see. I'd like to see Niagara Falls, Mrs. Grumble." "Lor'," said Mrs. Grumble, "a lot of water." "All coming down," said the dressmaker, "crashing and falling." "I'd rather see a circus," declared Mrs. Grumble. "Would you now?" asked Miss Beal, and her fingers ran in and out, in and out, faster than ever, "would you, now? Well, then . . . there's a fair at Milford this blessed afternoon." "Would you go along?" asked Mrs. Grumble. "Glory," said Miss Beal. "I was going anyhow," said Mrs. Grumble. Then Miss Beal began to giggle. "Well, I declare," she remarked, "I feel that young." "Go away," said Mrs. Grumble; "to hear you talk . . ." She was in the best of humor. "All the young folks will be there," said Miss Beal. "I heard as how Alec Stove was going with Susie Ploughman. And there's Thomas Frye . . . and Anna Barly . . ." "Yes," said Mrs. Grumble. Miss Beal held up her thread against the light. "There's a queer thing," she admitted. "I can't make head nor tail of it. Do you think there's an understanding between them, Mrs. Grumble?"