"Mis' Toplady put her arm right around Emerel and kind of poored her shoulder in that big, mother way she's got--and it was her that went with her, like it's always Mis' Toplady that does everything. And us ladies turned around and all begun to talk at once. "'Let's plan out right here about taking things in to Emerel,' says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. 'I've got some fresh bread out of the oven. I'll carry her a couple of loaves, and another couple next baking or two.' "'I'll take her in a hen,' says Libby Liberty, 'so be she'll kill it herself.' "Somebody else said a ham, and somebody some butter, and Libby threw in some fresh eggs, if she got any. Mis' Hubbelthwait didn't have much to do with, but she said she would take turns setting up with Otie. Mis' Sykes give a quarter--she don't like to bake for folks, but she's real generous with money. And Silas pipes in:-- "'Emerel can have credit to the store till Otie begins to get better,' he said. 'I ain't been lettin' her have it. She's looked so peaked I been afraid she wan't a-goin' to be able to work, an' I didn't want she should be all stacked up with debts.' "But me, I set there a-thinking. And all of a sudden I says out what I thought: 'Ladies,' I says, 'and all of you: What to Emerel is hens and hams and credit? They ain't,' I says, 'nothing but patches and poultices on what's the trouble up to her house.' "Eppleby Holcomb, that hadn't been saying much, spoke up:-- "'I know,' he says, 'I know. You mean what good do they do to the boy.' "'I mean just that,' I says. 'What good is all that to Otie that's lying over by Black Hollow? And how does it keep the rest of the town safe?' "'Well,' says Silas, eager, 'let's us get out the zinc wagon you ladies bought, and let's us go to collectin' the garbage again so that won't all be dumped in Black Hollow. And leave the ladies keep on payin' for it. It's real ladies' work, I think, bein' as it's no more'n a general scrapin' up of ladies' kitchens.' "Then Letty Ames, that hadn't been saying anything, spoke up, to nobody in particular:-- "'Otie's a dear little soul,' she said, 'a dear little soul!' "'Ain't he?' says Marne Holcomb. 'Eppleby 'most always has a nut or somethin' in his pocket to give him as he goes by. He takes it like a little squirrel an' like a little gentleman.' "'He's awful nice when he comes in the shop,' said Abagail. 'He looks at the penny-apiece kind and then buys the two-for-a-cent, so's to give his mother one.' "'He knows how to behave in a store,' Silas admitted. 'I 'most always give him a coffee-berry, just to see him thank me.' "'He come into the hotel one day,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, 'an' stood by me when I was bakin'. I give him a little wad of dough to roll.' "'I let him drive the 'bus one day, settin' on my knee,' says Jimmy Sturgis. 'He was a nice, careful, complete little cuss.' "Eppleby Holcomb nodded with his eyes shut.