The Homemaker · Part I · Chapter 3 (2/2)

“Yes, indeed you do, Mrs. Knapp!” they all agreed fervently. Evangeline knew that this was their way of trying to make up to her for having a poor stick of a husband. She savored their compassion with a bittersweet mixture of humiliation over her need for it and of triumph that she had drawn this sympathy from them under the appearance of repelling it. “Nobody ever heard me complain!” she was saying to herself.

“Well, I’ll do what I can,” she said, standing up to go. “I’ll think of things. I’ve just thought of another. If we can provide the nurse with dinner every day, that ought to cut down on cash expenses. There are twenty-four members of the Guild. That’d hardly mean more than one dinner a month for each of us. And it would cut off fifteen dollars a month from the money we’d have to provide. And in that way we could keep in closer touch with her. Seeing her every day and hearing about her work, we’d be more apt to cooperate with her right along.”

“Splendid! Simply splendid!” cried Mr. Prouty. “We will be the only parish of our size in the State to have a visiting nurse of our own.” He saw himself at the next diocesan meeting the center of a group of envious clergymen, expounding to them the ingenious devices by which this remarkable result had been achieved. He had had a good deal of this sort of gratification since the Knapps had moved into his parish.