"The meeting that day all ought to have gone smooth enough, it being so nice that our paper had sold well and all, but I guess the most of us was too tired out to have tried to have a meeting so soon. Anyhow, we didn't seem to come together slippery and light-running, like we do some days; but instead I see the minute we begun to collect that we was all inclined to be heavy and, though not cross, yet frictionish. "For instance: Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss had come in a new red waist with black raspberry buttons. And it was too much for Mis' Fire Chief Merriman that's been turning her black poplin ever since the Fire Chief died. "'Dear me, Mis' Holcomb,' she says, 'I never see anybody have more dressy clothes. Did you put that on just for us?' "Mis' Holcomb shut her lips tight. "'This is for home wear,' she says short, when she opened them. "'Mean to say you get a cooked supper in that rig?' says Mis' Merriman. 'Fry meat in it, do you?' "'We don't eat as hearty as some,' says Mame. 'We don't insist on warm suppers. We feel at our house we have to keep our bills down.' "Mis' Merriman straightened up, real brittle. "'My gracious,' she says, 'I guess I live as cheap as the best does.' "'I see you buying _shelled_ nuts, just the same,' says Mis' Holcomb, 'when shellin' 'em with your fingers cost twenty cents off.' "'I ain't never had my store-buyin' criticised before,' says Mis' Merriman, elbows back. "'Nor,' says Mis' Holcomb, bitter, 'have I ever before, in my twenty-six years of married life, ever been called _dressy_.' "Then Mis' Toplady, she sort of shouldered into the minute, big and placid and nice-feeling. "'Mame,' she says, 'set over here where you can use the lead-pencil on my watch chain, and put down that crochet pattern I wanted, will you?' "Mame come over by her and took the pencil, Mis' Toplady leaning over so's she could use it; but before she put the crochet pattern down, Mame made one, experimental, on the stiff bottom of her work-bag, and Libby Liberty thought she'd make a little joking. "'S-sh-h,' says Libby, 'the authoress is takin' down notes.' "Mis' Holcomb has had two-three poems in the _Friendship Daily_, and she's real sensitive over it. "'I'd be polite if I couldn't be pleasant, Libby,' says Mame, acid. "'I'm pleasant enough to pleasant folks,' snaps Libby, up in arms in a minute. Nothing whatever makes anybody so mad as to have what was meant playful took plain. "'I,' says Mis' Holcomb, majestic, 'would pay some attention to my company manners, no matter what I was in the home.' "'That makes me think,' puts in Mis' Toplady, hasty, 'speaking of company so, who's heard anything about the evenin' company up to Proudfits'?' "It was something all our heads was full of, being half the village had just been invited in to the big evening affair that was to end up the house party, and we'd all of pitched in and talked fast anyhow to take our minds off the spat.