center of the community.

"Why, the sisters all think the sun rises an' sets in him," Angy would
whisper to herself sometimes, awed by the glorious wonder of it all.

The sisters fairly vied with one another to see how much each could do
for the one man among them. Their own preferences and prejudices were
magnanimously thrust aside. In a body they besought their guest to smoke
as freely in the house as out of doors. Miss Abigail even traded some of
her garden produce for tobacco, while Miss Ellie made the old gentleman
a tobacco-pouch of red flannel so generous in its proportions that on a
pinch it could be used as a chest-protector.

Then Ruby Lee, not to be outdone by anybody, produced, from no one ever
discovered where, a mother-of-pearl manicure set for the delight and
mystification of the hero; and even Lazy Daisy went so far as to cut
some red and yellow tissue-paper into squares under the delusion that
some time, somehow, she would find the energy to roll these into spills
for the lighting of Abe's pipe. And each and every sister from time to
time contributed some gift or suggestion to her "brother's" comfort.

It "plagued" the others, however, to see that none of them could get
ahead of Blossy in their noble endeavors to make Abraham feel himself a
light and welcome burden. She it was who discovered that Abe's
contentment could not be absolute without griddle-cakes for breakfast
three hundred and sixty-five times a year; she it was who first baked
him little saucer-cakes and pies because he was partial to edges; and
Blossy it was who made out a list of "Don'ts" for the sisters to follow
in their treatment of this grown-up, young-old boy.