whisper to Rosy in a low still voice--it middlin calm, and Miss Gowdy
offered to be the one to carry it back to Jonesville, and change it that
very afternoon--for we could not afford to buy a new one, and we had the
testimony of as many as twenty-one or two pairs of eyes, that the handle
didn't come out by our own carelessness, but by its own inherient
weakness--so we spozed he would swap it, we spozed so. But it wuz
arrainged before we disbanded (the result of our conference), that the
next mornin' we would each one on us bring our offerin's to the fair,
and hand 'em in to the treasurer, so's she would know in time what to
depend on, and what she had to do with.

And we agreed (also the result of our conference) that we would, each
one on us, tell jest how we got the money and things to give to the
fair.

And then we disbanded and started off home but I'll bet that each one on
us, in a sort of secret unbeknown way, gin a look on that lofty ceilin',
them dangerus barells, and that pile of paper, and groaned a low
melancholy groan all to herself.

[Illustration: "THE HANDLE COME OUT."]

I know I did, and I know Submit Tewksbury did, for I stood close to her
and heard her. But then to be exactly jest, and not a mite underhanded,
I ort mebby to say, that her groan may be caused partly by the fact that
that aniversery of hern wuz a-drawin' so near. Yes, the very next day
wuz the day jest 20 years ago that Samuel Danker went away from Submit
Tewksbury to heathen lands. Yes, the next day wuz the one that she
always set the plate on for him--the gilt edged chiny with pink sprigs.