Page:So Big (1924).djvu/92

 “They ain’t all High Prairie. Some of ’em's from Low Prairie way. New Haarlem, even.”

Really!”

A pause. Another effort.

“How goes it school teaching?”

“Oh—it goes pretty well.”

“You are little to be school teacher, anyway, ain’t you?”

“Little!” She drew herself up from her vantage point of the soap-box. “I’m bigger than you are.”

They laughed at that as at an exquisite piece of repartee.

Adam Oom’s gavel (a wooden potato masher) crashed for silence. “Ladies!” [Crash!] “And gents!” [Crash!] “Gents! Look what basket we've got here!”

Look indeed. A great hamper, grown so plethoric that it could no longer wear its cover. Its contents bellied into a mound smoothly covered with a fine white cloth whose glistening surface proclaimed it damask. A Himalaya among hampers. You knew that under that snowy crust lay gold that was fowl done crisply, succulently; emeralds in the form of gherkins; rubies that melted into strawberry preserves; cakes frosted like diamonds; to say nothing of such semi-precious jewels as potato salad; cheeses; sour cream to be spread on rye bread and butter; coffee cakes; crullers.

Crash! “The Widow Paarlenberg’s basket, ladies—and gents! The Widow Paarlenberg! I don’t know what’s in it. You don’t know what’s in it. We