“I can crochet a couple of things to-morrow like lightning,” says Mis’ Holcomb. “You don’t want me to be done out of my share in Stubby’s Christmas, do you?” she asks ’em. And we all stood there, talking and laughing and going over it and clean forgetting all about the United States mails, till the man at the window called out: “‘Leven minutes and a quarter before the mail closes!” We all started back to the window, but nobody could remember just exactly where anybody was standing before, and they all wanted everybody to go up first and step in ahead of them. And the line, instead of being a line with some of ’em ahead of others and all trying to hurry, was just a little group, with each giving everybody their turn, peaceful and good-willing. And all of a sudden it was like Christmas had come, up through all the work and the stitches, and was right there in the Friendship Village post-office with us. “Goodness!” says Mis’ Holcomb in my ear, “I was wore to the bone getting ready my Christmas things. But now I’m real rested.” “So am I,” I says. And so was every one of us, I know, falling back into line there by the window. All rested, and not feeling hurried nor nothing: only human. THE HOME-COMING “Eighteen booths,” says Mis’ Timothy Toplady, sighing satisfied. “That’s enough to go round the whole Market Square, leaving breathin’ space between.” We sat looking at the diagram Mis’ Fire-Chief Merriman had made on the dining-room table, with bees-wax and stuff out of her work-basket, and we all sighed satisfied--but tired too. Because, though it looked like the Friendship Village Home-coming was going to be a success--and a peaceful success--yet we see in the same flash that it was going to be an awful back-aching, feet-burning business for us ladies. We were having our fourth committee meeting to Mis’ Sykes’s, and we weren’t more than begun on the thing; and the Home-coming was only six weeks away. “Just thinking about all the tracking round it means,” says Mis’ Sykes, “I can feel that sick feeling in the back of my throat _now_, that I feel when I’m over-tired, or got delegates, or have company pounce down on me.” Mis’ Hubbelthwait looked at her sympathetic. “I know,” she says. “So tired you can taste it. I donno,” she says, “whether home-comings are worth it or not.” Mis’ Sykes didn’t answer. She was up on her feet, peering out behind the Nottinghams. “My land o’ life,” she says, “that’s the stalkin’ image of ’Lisbeth Note.” “Lisbeth _Note_!” we all said. “Oh, it can’t be!” It struck me, even then, how united folks are on a piece of gossip. For the Home-coming some had thought have printed invitations and some had thought send out newspapers, some had wanted free supper and some had wanted pay, and so on, item by item of the afternoon. But the minute Lisbeth Note was mentioned, we all burst into one common, spontaneous fraternal horror: “_Oh, no._ It couldn’t be her.”