I am not a bit of a political economist myself; but I have a shrewd suspicion that Luclarion Grapp was, besides having hit upon the initial, individual idea of a capital social and philanthropic enterprise.
This was all she tried to do at first; she began with bread; the Lord from heaven began with that; she fed as much of the multitude as she could reach; they gathered about her for the loaves; and they got, consciously or unconsciously, more than they came or asked for.
They saw her clean-swept floor; her netted windows that kept the flies out, the clean, coarse white cotton shades,--tacked up, and rolled and tied with cord, country-fashion, for Luclarion would not set any fashions that her poor neighbors might not follow if they would;--and her shelves kept always dusted down; they could see her way of doing that, as they happened in at different times, when she whisked about, lightly and nicely, behind and between her jars and boxes and parcels with the little feather duster that she kept hanging over her table where she made her change and sat at her sewing.
They grew ashamed by degrees,--those coarse women,--to come in in their frowsy rags, to buy her delicate muffins or her white loaves; they would fling on the cleanest shawl they had or could borrow, to "cut round to Old Maid Grapp's," after a cent's worth of yeast,--for her yeast, also, was like none other that could be got, and would _almost_ make her own beautiful bread of itself.
Back of the shop was her house-room; the cheapest and cleanest of carpet,--a square, bound round with bright-striped carpet-binding,--laid in the middle of a clean dark yellow floor; a plain pine table, scoured white, standing in the middle of that; on it, at tea-time, common blue and white crockery cups and plates, and a little black teapot; a napkin, coarse, but fresh from the fold, laid down to save, and at the same time to set off, with a touch of delicate neatness, the white table; a wooden settee, with a home-made calico-covered cushion and pillows, set at right angles with the large, black, speckless stove; a wooden rocking-chair, made comfortable in like manner, on the other side; the sink in the corner, clean, freshly rinsed, with the bright tin basin hung above it on a nail.