And then I looked over to the two loaves of bread and the can of fruit and the dozen eggs and the old coat of Timothy’s that we’d brought, and it seemed to me these touched the spot of what was the trouble in that house about as much as the smoke that oozed into the room from the chimney. And I glanced over to Mis’ Toplady and there she set, with ideas filterin’ back of her eyes. “We’ve brought you a few things, being you’re sick--” she begun, sort of embarrassed; but Absalom, he cut in short, shorter than I ever knew him to speak. “Who’s _we_?” he says. “Why-a,” says Mis’ Toplady, stumbling some over her words, “the new society.” Absalom flushed up to the roots of his hair. “What society?” says he, sharp. Mis’ Toplady showed scairt for just a minute, and then she met his eyes brave. “Why,” she says, “us--and you. You belong to it. We had it in the paper, and met to the Post-Office Hall the other night. It’s for everybody to come to.” “To do what?” says Absalom. “Why-a,” says Mis’ Toplady, some put to it, “to--to do nice things for--for each other.” “The town?” says Absalom. “The town,” agrees Mis’ Toplady--and pressed ahead almost like she was finding something to explain with. “We meet again to-morrow night,” says she. “Couldn’t you come--you and Gertie? Come--and mebbe belong?” Absalom’s mad cooled down some. First he looked sheepish and then he showed pleased. “Why, I dunno--could we, Gertie?” he says. “Is it dress-up?” says Gertie. “Mercy, no,” says Mis’ Toplady, “it’s every-day. Or not so much so. You’ll come, won’t you?” “Mebbe,” says Gertie. When we got outside, I looked at Mis’ Toplady, kind of took aback; and it was so that she looked at me. “Silas’ll talk charity his way to that meeting, you know,” I says. “I’m afraid he’ll hurt Absalom and Gertie. I’m afraid....” Mis’ Toplady looked kind of scairt herself. “I done that before I meant to do it no more’n nothing in this world,” she says, “but I dunno--when I begun handin’ ’em out stuff I was ashamed to do it without putting it like I done.” “I know,” I says, “I know.” And know I did. I’ve give things to poor folks lots of times and glowed up my spine with a virtuous feeling--but something big was always setting somewhere inside me making me feel ashamed of the glow and ashamed of the giving. Who am I that I should be the giver, and somebody else the givee? We went to the Bettses’ and caught Mis’ Betts washing up two days’ of dishes at four o’clock in the afternoon, and we heard about Joe’s losing his job, and we talked to the canary. “We’d ought not to afford him,” Mis’ Betts says, apologetic. “I always hate to take the money to get him another package of seed--and we ain’t much of any crumbs.”