Time sped and efforts increased, but the
Dorcases were at length obliged to clip the wings of their desire and content
themselves with carpeting the pulpit and pulpit steps, the choir, and the two
aisles, leaving the floor in the pews until some future year.
How the women cut and contrived and matched that hardly-bought red ingrain
carpet, in the short December afternoons that ensued after its purchase; so
that, having failed to be ready for Thanksgiving, it could be finished for the
Christmas festivities!
They were sewing in the church, and as the last stitches were being taken,
Maria Sharp suddenly ejaculated in her impulsive fashion :--
"Would n't it have been just perfect if we could have had the pews repainted
before we laid the new carpet!"
"It would, indeed," the president answered; "but it will take us all winter to
pay for the present improvements, without any thought of fresh paint. If only
we had a few more men-folks to help along!"
"Or else none at all!" was Lobelia Brewster's suggestion. "It's havin' so few
that keeps us all stirred up. If there wa'n't any anywheres, we'd have women
deacons and carpenters and painters, and get along first rate; for somehow the
supply o' women always holds out, same as it does with caterpillars an' flies
an' grasshoppers!"
Everybody laughed, although Maria Sharp asserted that she for one was not
willing to be called a caterpillar simply because there were too many women in
the universe.
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