“The Chief,” says I, “was always careful of your health. You’ll make yourself sick taking on so, Mis’ Fire Chief,” I told her. “You go and put flowers in the chambers and leave the rest to me. Put your mind,” I told her, “on the surprise you’ve got for your guests that’s comin’--Maria Carpenter here and all! Besides,” I couldn’t help sticking in, “I donno as Amos is cold poison.” So we got her off up-stairs. Maria Carpenter’s train was due at 3:03, so she was just a-going to have the right time to get ready when the afternoon would begin, because in Friendship Village “sharp four” means four o’clock. I had left the sandwiches to make last thing, and I come back from my dinner towards three and tiptoes through the house so’s not to disturb Mis’ Fire Chief if she was resting, and I went into the pantry and begun cutting and spreading bread. I hadn’t been there but a little while before the stair door into the kitchen opened and I heard Hettie come down, humming a little. But before I could sing out to her, the woodshed door opened too, and in come Amos that had been out putting more salt in the freezer. “Hettie!” he says in a low voice, and I see she prob’ly hed on her white muslin and was looking like angels, and more. And--“I won’t,” says Amos, then--“I won’t--though I can hardly keep my hands off from you--dear.” “It don’t seem right even to have you call me ‘dear,’” says Hettie, sad. Amos burst right out. “It is right--it is _right_!” says he. “They can’t nobody make me feel ‘dear’ is wicked, not when it means as dear as you are to me. Hettie,” Amos says, “sit down here a minute.” “Not us. Not together,” says Hettie, nervous. “Yes!” says Amos, commanding, “I don’t know when I’ll see you again. Set down here, by me.” And by the little stillness, I judged she done so. And I says this: “Them poor things ain’t had ten minutes with each other in over a year, and if they know I’m here, that’ll spoil this time. I’d better stay where I am, still, with my thoughts on my sandwiches.” And that was what I done. But I couldn’t--I _couldn’t_--and neither could most anyone--of helped a word or two leaking through the pantry door _and_ the sandwich thoughts. “I just wanted to pretend--for a minute,” Amos said, “that this was our house. An’ our kitchen. An’ that we was settin’ here side of the stove an’ belonged.” “Oh, Amos,” said Hettie, “it don’t seem right to pretend that way with Aunt Hettie’s stove--an’ her feelin’ the way she does.” “Yes, it is right,” says Amos, stout. “Hettie! Don’t you see? She _don’t_ feel that way. She’s just nervous with grievin’, an’ it comes out like that. She don’t care--really. At least not anything like the way she thinks she does. Now don’t let’s think about her, Hettie--dearest! Think about now. An’ let’s just pretend for a minute it was then. You know--_then_!” “Well,” says Hettie, unwilling,--and yet, oh, so willing,--“if it _was_ then, what would you be sayin’?”