"Butcher day is Thursday," said Enoch. "You've lost count."

"My land!" responded Amelia. "Well, I guess we can put up with some
fried pork an' apples." There came a long, insistent knock at the outer
door. "Good heavens! Who's there! Rosie, you run to the side-light, an'
peek. It can't be a neighbor. They'd come right in. I hope my soul it
ain't company, a day like this."

Rosie got on her fat legs with difficulty. She held her pinafore full
of buttons, but disaster lies in doing too many things at once; there
came a slip, a despairing clutch, and the buttons fell over the floor.
There were a great, many round ones, and they rolled very fast. Amelia
washed the sand from her parboiled fingers, and drew a nervous breath.
She had a presentiment of coming ill, painfully heightened by her
consciousness that the kitchen was "riding out," and that she and her
family rode with it. Rosie came running back from her peephole, husky
with importance. The errant buttons did not trouble her. She had an
eternity of time wherein to pick them up; and, indeed, the chances were
that some tall, benevolent being would do it for her.

"It's a man," she said. "He's got on a light coat with bright buttons,
and a fuzzy hat. He's got a big nose."

Now, indeed, despair entered into Amelia, and sat enthroned. She sank
down on a straight-backed chair, and put her hands on her knees, while
the knock came again, a little querulously.

"Enoch," said she, "do you know what's happened? That's cousin Josiah
Pease out there." Her voice bore the tragedy of a thousand past
encounters; but that Enoch could not know.