“I s’pose it’s all right,” Mis’ Toplady says. “I s’pose it is. But I feel like we’d made a nice, new apron to tie on to Friendship Village, and hadn’t done a thing about its underclothes.” “I’m sure,” says Mis’ Sykes, looking hurt for Silas that had cut out the apron, “I’m sure I don’t see what you mean. Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the greatest of these is Charity. Does that mean what it says, or don’t it?” “Oh, I s’pose it does,” says Mis’ Toplady. “But what I think is this: Ain’t there things that’s greater than the whole three as most folks mean ’em?” Mis’ Sykes, she sort of gasped, in three hitches. “Will you tell me _what_?” she says, as mad as if she’d been faith, hope, and charity personally. “I dunno ...” says Mis’ Toplady, dreamy, “I dunno the name of it. But ladies, it’s something. And I can feel it, just as plain as plain.” * * * * * It was three-four weeks before the new Charity Association got really to running, and had collected in enough clothes and groceries so’s we could start distributing. On the day before the next monthly meeting, that was to be in Post-Office Hall again, we started out with the things, so’s to make our report to the meeting. Mis’ Toplady and I was together, and the first place we went to was Absalom Ricker’s. Gertie, Absalom’s wife, was washing, and he was turning the wringer with his well hand, and his mother was finishing vests by the stove, and singing a tune that was all on a straight line and quite loud. And the children, one and all, was crying, in their leisure from fighting each other. “Well,” says Mis’ Toplady, “how you getting on _now_? Got many washings to do?” Gertie Ricker, she set down on the wood-box all of a sudden and begun to cry. She was a pretty little woman, but sickly, and with one of them folding spines that don’t hold their folks up very good. “I’ve got three a week,” she says. “I can earn the rent all right.” “I tell her,” says Absalom, “if she didn’t have no washings, then there’d be something to cry for.” But he said it sort of lack-luster, and like it come a word at a time. “Do you get out any?” says Mis’ Toplady, to improve the topic. “Out where?” says Gertie. “We ain’t no place to go. I went down for the yeast last night.” It kind of come over me: Washing all day and her half sick; Absalom by the stove tending fire and turning wringer; his old mother humming on one note; the children yelling when they wasn’t shouting. I thought of their cupboard and I could see what it must hold--cold boiled potatoes and beans, I bet. I thought of their supper-table ... of early mornings before the fire was built. And I see the kind of a life they had.