“I kin see you think I’m a sight to behold,” she laughed, merrily. “Sally fixed me up this-a-way: She fluted my hair with a hot curlin’ fork, an’ combed it like the New York women’s. She hain’t done one thing sence I come but haul out dresses an’ fixin’s that used to belong to ‘er dead mother, an’ try ’em on me, an’ they’ve kept me on the move tell I’d give a sight fer jest one little nap whar thar wasn’t so much clatter. Last night they give me a old woman’s party. Joel, jest think of a person o’ my age a-settin’ up tell ‘leven o’clock talkin’ to a gang o’ gray-haired women like a passel o’ hens jest off the’r nests! An’ jest when I ‘lowed they was all goin’ home, Sally passed around things to eat an’ drink.” “They wanted to make you have a good time,” ventured the storekeeper. The widow lowered her voice, and threw a furtive glance toward the dining-room. “But it ain’t the way to make a woman o’ my raisin’ enjoy a visit,” she said, cautiously. “I don’t dare to say a word, fer Amos seems tickled to death over all that Sally gits up; but, Joel, I’m mighty nigh dead. Like a born idiot, I told ’em in my last letter that I’d stay three months, an’ now, as the Lord is my help an’ stay, I don’t believe I can make out another week.” Her voice faltered. Moisture glistened in her eyes. “I hope it ain’t as bad as that,” remarked Joel, in a tone of vast sympathy. “It’s jest awful,” whimpered the widow. “I make so many fool blunders. ‘Tother day they wanted me to go to Brooklyn with ‘em, an’ I jest lied out o’ goin’; an’ as they wanted to take the hired gal along to watch the baby, I agreed to stay at home an’ ‘tend to the house. My Lord, Joel, ef you’ve never been alone in one o’ these contraptions, don’t you ever try it. The hired gal showed me all the different arrangements, an’ what I was to do. When the bell in the back rings you must press the button in the kitchen, an’ when the bell in the front rings, it’s somebody at the side door in the hall. An’ when you hear a shrill whistle out ’n the talkin’-tube in the kitchen, you have to open the end an’ blow an’ then holler through an’ ax what’s wanted. Then ef it’s groceries, ur milk, ur peddlers’ stuff, ur what not, you have to go to the dumb-waiter that fetches things up through a hole in the wall like a well-bucket an’ take the things off. I had a lots o’ trouble. I was busy all the while the family was off at that dumb-waiter. Like a born fool, I didn’t know it tuk stuff to other folks, too, an’ I thought it would save time to set at the dumb-waiter with the door open, an’ take off the things without waitin’ fer ’em to whistle. You never seed the like in all yore life! Before I’d been thar a hour, the kitchen was liter’ly filled with all manner o’ stuff, beer, bad-smellin’ cheese, and oodlin’s an’ oodlin’s o’ milk in bottles. After a while I heerd a fearful racket inside the dumb-waiter. People all the way to the top was a-yellin’ out