"I've unstarched it, and unstarched it, and seems as if it got stiffer."

"Boiling water," breathed Miss Theodosia, too spent with her struggles
not to laugh, to admit of further speech.

"Wait! Don't anybody dass to pour boilin' water on till I get Elly
Precious out! Come to Evangeline this minute, darlin' dear--no, they
shan't boil him!"

Elly Precious emerged, crowing. The deaf-but-not-dumb little Flagg
appeared, to swell the number around the Terrible Shirt. Stefana dried
her tears. Miss Theodosia had the sense of being looked up to--relied
upon. She rose to the occasion buoyantly. As unused as Stefana to men's
bosoms, she yet stepped into the breach. Unused to issuing orders, she
issued them.

"Evangeline, you and Carruthers see to the baby. Stefana, come with me.
Bring--it."

They went back to the big house, she with that new and intoxicating
sense of importance, and Stefana with the Terrible Shirt.

"Whose is it--that?" she asked, indicating the creaking white garment.
"What were you doing with it?"

"Starching it," mumbled poor Stefana. "It took most a package. He said
he liked his stiff. 'Put in plenty o' starch,' he said to Mother, and
she always did. So I did. I thought if he said--"

"If who said?" It took a long time to establish the identity of the