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There was an awful moment of suspense, and when it became evident that the only way to get Mrs. Singer's hand down to the other level would be to excavate beneath her and change her foundations, Mrs. Payley gave in and reached. War was declared that minute, and I shudder now when I think of the months which followed. Mrs.
And then that conversation spreads like a prairie fire, and the men knot up into a cluster, and hard words are used, and a lot more friendships go into the back shop for repairs. Five o'clock is coming fast. Mrs. Payley looks over her list. Young Ad Summers has refused to budge from his shop. Miss Ri Hawkes blushes a little and then goes away to a telephone. Pretty soon Ad appears.
That problem has been too much for her. Mrs. Payley, her rival, has had the same hired girl for sixteen years or more; but Mrs. Singer scorns a hired girl. She must have servants, two of them, and while she has a remarkable constitution and has stood up for years under the fight, I don't see how she can keep it up much longer. A hired girl in Homeburg is a very reasonable creature.
Outside of Mrs. Wert Payley and one or two school teachers, I don't suppose any Homeburg people have crossed the Atlantic. But half a dozen of our hired girls go every year.
Leisure is what they were created for. It is a talent with them, and their only talent. They have developed it to the best of their ability. DeLancey's is the saddest case, because so much money was wasted on him. Wert Payley is the richest man in our part of the country. He owns a bank and one or two counties out West.
People who called at the Payleys' evenings were the social lights of Homeburg, and whenever some lady wanted to discharge a few fireworks indicating her social position, she would form a hollow square around Mrs. Payley in public and get intimate with her in full view of everybody. Mrs. Payley ran the town, and everybody was comfortable and content about it until the Singers arrived.
Why, Sadie and I went skating the night you couldn't find your fat horse and sleigh." "Ya-a-a " yelled Payley, with a sudden shriek of laughter. "Never knew who took your rig, did you, Sim?" "You you " said Sim, glaring at Banks. "You confounded horse thief, I believe you took Sadie in my own sleigh." "Ain't he bright, Pudge," gasped Payley, "only took him thirty years to catch on."
Sally Singer can't afford to offend any one but the depositors in the Payley Bank, and if DeLancey caused any Homeburger to stalk down to his father's bank and extract a thousand-dollar savings deposit, old man Payley would thrash DeLancey and set him to work on his farm. They have to show their superiority over us so deftly and pleasantly that we don't mind it.
The Payleys' girl has been with them sixteen years, as I said before, and when she wants to go to the opera-house to an entertainment, Wert Payley makes young DeLancey Payley take her. It's the only use he's found for DeLancey as yet.
It's just like your bigger crowd. It doesn't have anything to do with us in particular. And we are just like you are. You open your Sunday papers and read reams about the plumbing and pajamas and pet dogs and love affairs of your first families, and I guess nothing that Sally Singer or Sarah Payley ever did got past the scornful but lynx-eyed Homeburgers.
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