Mrs. Parker produced a nosegay from her purse and silently held it out. "I shall endeavor not to resort to this, since I'm sure Mrs. Sue will do her utmost to be polite."
"It's not the oil, it's the incense that will choke me," said Mrs. Lyman. She was the doctor's wife and she was beautiful and young, with red hair. Aunty Em made a point of chuckling. Mrs. Lyman was from St. George, just across the river from the Gulch farm. Aunty Em always made a point of saying how enchanting she found her. "Just a good, plain-speaking Kansas beauty," Aunty Em would say, again and again.
"Well," said a woman whose name Dorothy did not know. "My tablecloth came back cleaner than the gravel by the river."
Dorothy did not know much about the Chinaman herself, but she could see that the adults were frightened of him.
The seven ladies, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, Lutheran, wrapped themselves in scarves and pinned on hats and were helped into coats that nearly reached the ground. They walked unsteadily on the boardwalk of South Juliette, north toward Poyntz, the main avenue. They walked past one Methodist church and Mrs. Elliott's house. They walked across Houston, past the Bowers' and the Buells'. On the corner of Poyntz and Juliette was Aunty Em's own church, white limestone, small. They turned right and swept down the broad main avenue.
Poyntz was lined with wooden-frame buildings, with wooden awnings that stretched out over the wooden sidewalks. The ladies passed another Methodist church, with a tall, graceful spire, and an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian. They passed the Manhattan Institute, which was a hospital built of brick. There was Huntress's Dry Goods, a two-story building of stone. On Poyntz Avenue alone, there were four banks, three land offices, three drugstores, a lumberyard, several general stores, clothing stores, hotels and two county offices. There were many businesses, with many owners, but amid those many names, a favored few kept reappearing: Higinbotham, Stingley, Elliott, Purcell.
The street was shuttered and closed, peaceful and safe. An old black man everyone called Uncle was sweeping the ice that covered the boardwalk. Someone Mrs. Elliott knew passed them, tipping his hat, breathing out vapor into the sunlight, nodding "Good morning, ladies," as he passed.
Mr. Sue's shop stood near the corner of Humboldt and Second, opposite the Wagon Shop.
There was a wide space around it, a market garden that was the town's only source of sorrel and green peppers. The laundry hissed out back, white steam rising up even on New Year's Day. Dorothy took hold of Aunty Em's hand, afraid.
The store was dark. Mrs. Purcell took it on herself to try the door. It opened with a clinking of bits of metal hung across the doorway. They peered inside, into scented shadow.
"Mr. Sue?" called Mrs. Purcell. Dorothy began to wish she hadn't come.
Mr. Sue emerged from some inner recess, smiling, smiling.
"Good morning, ladies. So kind to come. I hope you are not cold. Thank you, thank you."
He looked funny. Dorothy wasn't sure how. He was small and quick, wearing perfectly normal clothes and a bowler hat. Dorothy was miffed. Didn't he know it was impolite to wear a hat indoors? Then she saw him take it off, over and over, once for each of the ladies.
Inside the store, the air smelled a bit like soap, nice soap, and there were things in pretty boxes, nice colors, very pale and gentle. There were bolts of shiny cloth and little cups and teapots. There were china people, white with pink cheeks, frozen forever, looking shy and a bit afraid.
Dorothy began to be afraid for Mr. Sue. China was made of clay and so, said the Preacher, were people. China could fall and break. Maybe that's why the adults were frightened. They were frightened that they could shatter him. They walked so carefully around him as he smiled and smiled. He pulled back a curtain and held out his hat to show them the way they should go.
They went into a room, and Dorothy wondered if China people lived in tents like Indians. The wall seemed to be made of blue cloth. Dorothy pushed the cloth. There was a solid wall behind it. Perhaps wood or stone was too rough for China people.
There were cushions everywhere, with cloth flowers sewn on them, and the little room was hot as a stove, and full of the soap smell.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Purcell, looking around the tiny place in surprise. She looked large and clumsy, as if she would knock something over. But Dorothy felt at home. Everything was the right size for her.
Then Mrs. Sue came in and Dorothy knew she was right. China people could be broken.
Mrs. Sue walked in with breathless child steps, small and very quick, and her eyes and her face were lowered from shyness and she smiled shyly. She wore blue trousers and a blue top, very shiny, and she was painted like the frozen people outside. Pink on her cheeks, black around the eyes, red on her lips.
"Da doh, da doh," she seemed to be saying, unable to look at the ladies, bowing to them. She held out her hands.
The ladies looked at each other.
"She doesn't speak English, and she wants to take our coats," said Aunty Em, crisply. "Dorothy, please to help Mrs. Sue with all these coats. Mind you take them where she shows you."
Aunty Em passed her own thick, black, worn coat to her. "Thank you, thank you, Mrs. Sue," she said loudly, very plainly, smiling with her leaky gray teeth.
Mrs. Sue averted her face and bowed, again, and said something with the gentleness of the wind.
"May I help you?" Dorothy asked, looking up at her.
Mrs. Sue could bear to look at Dorothy but not at the adults. She looked at Dorothy and smiled. Dorothy strode boldly among the ladies, taking coats. She knew she would not knock anything over.
"We are to sit on the cushions," announced Aunty Em.
The ladies raised their eyebrows. This would be indelicate. Dorothy wanted to see how plump Mrs. Purcell and bony old Mrs. Elliott would manage it. Mrs, Sue, in a soft and singsong voice, was trying to tell her something, so Dorothy turned and saw she was to follow through another curtain, into an alcove. There was a white statue in the alcove, of a fat and naked smiling man. There were pipe cleaners all around it, burning. Did Mrs. Sue think you were supposed to smoke the cleaners and not the pipe? Mrs. Sue reached and hung up the coats. She folded and smoothed down the ladies' scarves. They looked beautiful, the scarves, folded so tidily. Mrs. Sue smiled her gentle, withdrawn smile, and Dorothy knew she was to go back to the adults.
Back in the hot room, the ladies were sitting, backs straight. Mrs. Purcell and Aunty Em had adopted the side saddle position they had learned as young ladies. Mrs. Elliott was thrashing, trying to fight her way upright. She kept slipping off the cushion.
"Knees under you, Emeline," said Mrs. Purcell.
Mrs. Sue came toddling in, carrying something that was neither a tray nor a table. It was made of beautiful brown wood and carved in funny shapes, and there was a teapot with red and blue crisscrosses on it. The tray was placed on the floor. There was tea and little pink cakes. Mrs. Sue lowered her head and held out her arms with a sweep over the tea and cakes.
"Isn't it exquisite," announced Aunty Em, determined they would all feel the right thing. "And so charmingly presented." She inclined forward, with her broken and horsey smile. Mrs. Sue tried to look pleased, but she could not bear the huge, coarse visage and had to look away, lest the distaste show.