There is one little thing more to tell. When the congratulations was most over, the dining-room door creaked a little bit, and Amos, that was standing by it, whirled around and see Mis’ Fire Chief Merriman peeking through the crack to her guests. And Amos swung open the door wide, and he grabbed her by the arm, and though she hung back with all her strength Amos pulled her right straight into the room and kissed her, there before them all. “_Aunt_ Hettie,” he says to her, ringing, “_Uncle_--Hettie’s uncle an’ mine an’ your husband,--wouldn’t want you stayin’ out there in the dinin’-room to-day on account o’ him!” And when we all crowded around her, greeting her like guests should greet a hostess and like dear friends should greet dear friends, Mis’ Fire Chief she wipes her eyes, and she left ’em shake her hands; and though she wasn’t all converted, it was her and not me that ask’ ’em please to walk out into the dining-room and eat the lunch that was part wedding and part in memory of the Chief. THE BIGGEST BUSINESS I donno whether you’ve ever lived in a town that’s having a boom? That’s being a boom town, as they call it? There ain’t any more boom to Friendship Village than there is to a robin building a nest. There ain’t any more boom to Friendship Village than there is to growth. We just go along and go along, and behave ourselves like the year does: Little spurt of Spring now and then, when two-three folks build new houses and we get a new side-walk or two or buy a new sprinkling cart. Little dead time, here and there, when the tobacco or pickle factory closes down to wait for more to grow, and when somebody gets most built and boards up the windows till something else comes in to go on with. But most of the time Friendship Village keeps on pretty even, like the year, or the potato patch, or any of them common, growing things. But now over to Red Barns it ain’t so. Red Barns is eight miles away, and from the beginning the two towns sort of set with their backs to each other, and each give out promiscuous that the other didn’t have a future. But, same time, the two towns looked out of the corners of their eyes enough to set quite a few things going for each other unconscious: Red Barns got a new depot, and Friendship Village instantly petitioned for one. Friendship Village set aside a little park, and Red Barns immediately appropriated for one, with a little edge more ground. Red Barns got a new post office, and Friendship Village started out for a new library. And so on. Just like a couple of boys seeing which could swim out farthest.