CHAPTER XXXIV
THE Ridgefield town-hall was an ugly building. Its narrow dimension faced the street, and the front door, cut in the middle a good twelve feet above the sidewalk, was approached by two curving flights of steps, meeting at the top, and forming a half-circle. Over these steps there traveled daily now, morning and afternoon, and evening too sometimes, the feet of at least half of the women of Ridgefield.
It was half-past five in the afternoon now, and for the past hour the steps had recorded only departures. In Ridgefield supper was at six o'clock, and in very few of the kitchens were there servants to prepare the evening meal.
There was only one woman left in the town-hall assembly-room at this hour. She looked very small in the big empty space, standing alone behind the long white oil-cloth-covered table, extending in front of the platform. Piles of compresses, dressings, and rolls of bandages surrounded her. She was inspecting them evidently, reaching forward now, drawing a pile of them toward her, next leaning close above it a moment, her body straightening itself afterward, her arm flashing to left or right as she accepted or discarded.
This woman was always the last one to leave the assembly-hall at night before the janitor appeared with broom, long-handled brushes, dustpan and huge scrap-basket. She was always the first one to appear at
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