"I don't even know what hominy grits are," Miriam giggled, they didn't exactly sound good. But if Arabella and her negress liked them, they must be fine. She valued their opinions.

"Oh, it's wonderful!" Arabella assured her "Kinda like sloppy, tasteless corn mush. It goes with anything, but I just eat it plain and then lick out the bowl!" she announced proudly. As a proud daughter of the South, she would have been ashamed not to have loved the stuff.

They talked of this and that and nothing in particular, until they got on to the subject of Miriam's co-worker at Pettigrew's.

"Say, how you gettin' on workin' with Jemima?"

Miriam blinked but then answered, "Umm, fine I suppose. We don't really talk. In fact I am not even sure she likes me very much. My getting the job has reduced her hours and she can't be happy about that."

"Oh, that's all right, she works about ten different jobs" exaggerated Arabella, waiving away that notion "She's funny." Arabella said, shaking her head. She meant funny-peculiar, not funny-ha-ha.

"When you started at Pettigrews, I was just so curious about you and asked her all sort of questions 'bout you." she giggled, admitting her interest in the shy Jewish girl from the first time she met her "But she wouldn't say nuthin' and I thought maybe she didn't cotton to you like I did. But today she said you could join our Young Unmarried Un-ladies Society. Just out the blue like that - 'Miss Kaufmann can join the Order'." grunted Arabella doing a spot -on impersonation of Jemima's flat voice and dead-eyed expression. "That means she must really like you!"

"Really? Wait....what is that? The Young Unmarried Un-ladies Society?" Miriam never heard of such a thing.

"Well, that's what we called ourselves at first, because that's what we are, but one day we was all standin' on the street a-loiterin' and such and smoking cigars: well, except I wasn't smokin' mine, I was bein' sick, and Bridget, that's the other girl that's in it, she was just kinda lookin' at hers, but ol’ Jemima, she was puffin' away at her cigar, she loves 'em. And if you'd been there it would ha' been good because I bet you'd ha' held my hair out my eyes while I was bein' sick. And this dog was there, he was jumpin' up at us all excited, and your Mister Pettigrew comes along, and he looks at us three and he says 'Good Lord' he says 'It's a meeting of the Grand Order of the Mopsies' and laughs and then walks off an we was quite took with that name so we kept it, but, yeah, we'uns is just a bunch of Young Unmarried Un-ladies." said Arabella, falling over herself in her explanations, as per usual.

"Un-ladies? You don't think you're ladies?" that seemed most strange to her.

"Oh sure! That's why I was surprised Jemima wanted you to join 'cause, well, you might not be a lady yet, but you're the beginnings of a lady, you being so pretty and nice and all: but the rest of us, we all got something wrong with us that means we ain't never gonna be proper ladies." she pointed out "Like, we ain't never likely to get married or nuthin', no feller'd ever want us 'cause of these little somethings we got wrong with us, that's a... oooh, what she call it? ... a pree-wreck-a-sit of joinin'."

She elucidated further.

"Do you know that there's a thing called The Kalispell's Ladies Society? That's fer real fancy ladies only. I went to one of their meetings onct to read a poem what I writ, but they kicked me out. And when Mrs Wigfall asked if 'Mima could go along, when she was 18 they said no, cause she was hoydenish, and good old Mrs Wigfall says 'Well, she might throw bricks and kick folk's shins, but she's still more of a lady than any of you dried up old..." she lowered her voice again and whispered in Miriam's ear "... bitches!' She looked at Miriam and opened her mouth in shock in memory of Mrs Wigfall's famous exeunt from the prestigious and snobby group.

"What is wrong with you, Arabella that you couldn't be married ever? You are pretty enough and smart too. You know lots of things too. You're funny and have a wonderful smile. I'm sure boys will be interested in you.......sooner rather than later," Miriam asserted.

Oh Lord, Arabella was so stupid! Of course she'd ask that. The Un-lady had been chattering on so carelessly about their little group, she had thought nothing of mentioning their secrets. She certainly wasn't going to tell Miriam about her little... foible. Not yet anyway: she was too much of a coward for that, too scared that it would drive away this girl whom she really, really liked.

And Miriam liked her, too, it seemed: 'Pretty'! 'Smart'! 'Knowledgeable'! 'Funny'! 'Wonderful Smile!' The fact that last one wasn't even true, her teeth were kinda wonky, made the compliments even more warming.

"Well, it's more lots o' little things really: bein' a orphan, an' workin' in a saloon, an' I can't write neat, an' er, oh!, and everybody says I talk too much!" she lied, and felt strangely awful about it. Usually when she told a fib, she felt quite clever about it, but now it felt low. But she couldn't tell Miriam, she couldn't let her dirty, filthy sickness spoil this for her. A real, live BOSOM FRIEND at last. Yes, she could do this, she could be Just Friends with her perfect little seamstress.

They reached Miriam's house and Arabella's face fell.

"Aw! We here already?!" she moped.

‘Well, it's more lots o' little things really: bein' a orphan, an' workin' in a saloon, an' I can't write neat, an' er, oh!, and everybody says I talk too much!"

"Orphans can get married, they do it all the time I'm certain. And I doubt most boys...errr men will care how your penmanship is. And...well............just maybe you might talk a wee bit much... please do not take offense," Miriam was trying to be supportive and yet honest too. One should be honest with friends after all.

“Oh! Miriam Kaufmann!” gasped Arabella in mock horror “You ain't meant to agree with me!” she giggled, as they walked on, arm in arm.

"It is kind of endearing though and you do have so much interesting to say, I am a ready listener you will find," she quickly added to sweeten her mild critique.

“Good!” grinned Arabella, resting her head on Miriam’s shoulder in a purely platonic display of girlish friendship “Endearing – I like that! Course, I did kiss a boy onct…” she raised her head again and looked sideways at Miriam, it would be well to convince her that she was normal. “His name was Billy. Oh, it was heavenly, of course, but it all didn’t work out in the end. What with the… err, penmanship and all…” she trailed off lamely. (If Billy’s ears were burning, somewhere, well, they wouldn’t be in a week’s time, unless it was in Hell.)

But the walk wasn't a long one and they were at Miriam's house, Arabella was disappointed, Miriam was too.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. I might need to help Mother with the supper. But it really was nice to talk to you again," Miriam smiled turning to her new friend.

“Oooh! I hope it’s Gefilte fish and bagels!” she yelped in an attempt to show off her knowledge of all things Jewish, little knowing it was pork chops and potatoes.

"Are we still going to spend some time together this coming Sunday?" They had discussed this their previous meeting at the modeling session.

“Oh yes!” cried Arabella excitedly, before closing her eyes and frowning “Oh NO!” she bawled “I forgot I said I’d take Bridget up to that Catholic place on the Lake this Sunday, oh darn and blast it!” she swore. For a microsecond she wondered if Miriam could come too, but she doubted the girl’s stern sounding father would allow it, and it would be an incredibly tight squeeze in Bridget’s little trap, which could barely seat two.

“How about the Sunday after?” she asked, finding the thought of having to wait an extra week for the tryst, er, meet up to be absolute torture.

“I am confident I can make it, if you just give a time to show up?” she was hopeful, it would be fun to spend some private time with her friend.

“Hmmm, well, by the time I collect up the hymn books it’s usually about Eleven. I can meet you outside the Church then, or by them tree stumps if you don’t want to come too near.” wondering if Miriam might be a little scared of coming close to the building, in case she got infected by Christianity. There was no fear the Jewish girl would catch it from her at the moment, though: Jesus seemed to have given up on her, He had certainly stopped talking to her and answering her prayers about these terrible unnatural feelings she had all the time.

The End