"And Pete Sweeney's not the only one that's down on the women. Andy Smiley cleaned up so much money on those new bungalows that he went to the city and came home with twenty-five dollars' worth of ostrich plumes for Nettie. He said he was bound that Nettie'd have a real hat once in her life, that he's tired of watching her making her own hats, even piecing out the shapes with bits of cardboard and trimming and retrimming. She got in the way of it the first ten years they were married, when Andy was having such poor luck and now, poor thing, I guess she can't get out of it, because the day after Andy brought the plumes Nettie went to the city and bought a thirty-nine-cent shape to put them on. And she's wearing it like that, looking worse than ever. They say Andy's swearing awful and that Mary Langely almost cried when she saw those lovely plumes and begged Nettie to come in and let her fix up her hat proper and without charge. But Nettie just smiled that happy little smile of hers and shook her head. "Andy Smiley ain't the only one that's doing well. Johnny Peters got a raise the other day and Claudie's treated herself to two dozen beautiful linen dish towels. She says she's used flour sacks to wipe dishes ever since she was six years old and she's always been hoping she'd be rich enough some day to have real linen dish towels. So she's got 'em. But they're so nice she hardly likes to use them, and the two weeks she was sick and had to have her washing done at the laundry she was mighty careful not to send them. She washed them herself right there beside her bed, and her sick with rheumatism. They say Doc Philipps used awful language, for he caught her right at it. But when she explained he just blew his nose and never said another word. But he talked to Johnny and Johnny went out and bought four dozen dish towels such as Green Valley has never seen. Why, Sadie Dundry says even the Ainslees haven't got dish towels like that. Doc says that if he can coax some man to get Dolly Beatty good woolen stockings and keep her from wearing those transparent things this winter he'll be almost happy; says if Dolly should marry that widower he'll talk to him. "All Elm Street's laughing at Alexander Sabin and Carrie and their pump. That pump of theirs has been out of order all summer and Carrie's been sick from nothing else but getting mad every time she'd go out for a pail of water. Alexander promised to fix it but instead of that he's repaired everybody else's all up and down Elm Street and just can't seem to get started on his own. Carrie's going on a strike to-morrow, ain't going to cook a mouthful of victuals, she says, until that pump is fixed. The neighbors, much as they like Alexander, are all on her side and have promised not to invite him in, even for a drink of water from the pumps he's fixed. And his mother's away at Barton, nursing her sick sister, so it looks as if Alexander will be starved into fixing that pump of his.