Other people besides the Gordons sent in things to eat. Elliott thought she had never known such a stream of generosity as set toward the white house at the end of the road--intelligent generosity, too. There seemed a definite plan and some consultation behind it. Mr. Blair brought a roast of beef already cooked, from Mrs. Blair, and hoped for both of them that there would soon be good news of the boy. The Blisses sent in pies enough for two days and asked Elliott to let them know when she was ready for more. People she knew and people she didn't know brought rolls and cookies and doughnuts and gelatines and even roast chickens, and asked, with real anxiety in their voices, for the latest news from Camp Devens. They didn't bring their offerings all at once; they brought them continuously and steadily and with truly remarkable appropriateness. Just when Elliott was thinking that she must begin to cook, something was sure to rattle up to the door in a wagon, or roll up in an automobile, or travel on foot in a basket. It was the extreme timeliness of the gifts that proved the guiding intelligence behind them. "They couldn't all happen so," was Henry's conclusion. "Now, could they? Gee! and I've thought some of those folks were pokes!" "So have I," said Elliott, feeling very much ashamed of her hasty judgments. "You never know till you get into trouble how good people are," was Father Bob's verdict. Gertrude fingered a doughnut ruefully. "I want it, but I'm almost ashamed to eat it. I've thought such horrid things of that old Mrs. Gadsby that made 'em." "They're good," said Tom. "Mrs. Gadsby knows how to make doughnuts, if she _has_ got a tongue in her head! Say, but I'd as soon have thought old Allen would send us doughnuts as the Gadsby." "Mr. Allen brought us a tongue this morning," Elliott remarked; "said his housekeeper boiled it; hoped it wasn't too tough to eat. You couldn't 'git nothin' good, these days!'" "_Enoch_ Allen?" demanded Henry; "the old fellow that lives at the foot of the hill? Go tell that to the marines!" "I don't know where he lives," said Elliott, "but he certainly said his name was Enoch Allen." Bruce chuckled. "Mother Jess's chickens have come home to roost, all right." "What did she ever do for Enoch Allen?" asked Tom. "Oh, don't you remember," cried Gertrude, "the time his old dog died? Mother found the dog one day, dying in the woods. I was along and she sent me to call Mr. Allen, while she stayed with the dog. I was just a little girl and kind of scared, but Mother said Mr. Allen wasn't anybody to be afraid of; he was just a lonely old man. I heard him tell her it wasn't every woman would have stayed with his dog. It was dead when he got there."