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.
Dorothy felt she was having some kind of revenge. The adults all looked wrong, like pigs or straggly plants. The only beautiful person in the room was Mrs. Sue.
She began to pour the tea, and to pass the cakes, looking up hopefully to make sure that everything was all right, that she had done nothing wrong. And Dorothy knew, just from looking, that Mrs. Sue was alone in Kansas, and that she was trying as hard as she could, but that she and these women would never be friends, no matter how correct they all were, no matter how polite. It was all done in hopefulness and was doomed to failure.
'The cakes,' said Mrs. Purcell, in horror. 'I think they're made out of fish.'
