"'It's a French word,' Mis' Holcomb told her, superior. 'Seems to me I've heard it means a failure. It's a funny way to put it, ain't it? I bet, though, that's what it'll be.'
"But the men, my, the men thought they was doing things right. The Committee on Orator, with Silas for rudder, had voted itself Fifty Dollars to squander on the speech, and they had engaged the Honourable Thaddeus Hyslop, that they'd hoped to, and that was formerly in our legislature, to be the orator of the day; they put up a platform and seats on the 'common'—that wan't nothing but the market where loads of wood stood to be sold; they was a-going to cut evergreens and plant them there for the day; the Committee on Fireworks was a-going to buy set pieces for the evening; they was a-going to raise Ned. Somebody that was onone of the committees wanted to have some sort of historic scenes, but the men wouldn't hear to it, because that would take away them that had to do the business in the stores; no caluthumpians, no grand basket dinner—just the garden party, real sweet, with Miss Beryl Sessions and a marquee full of ice-cream that the ladies was to make.
"'It sounds sort of sacrilegious to me,' says Mis' Holcomb, 'connectin' the Fourth up with society and secular doin's. When I was young, my understandin' of a garden party would of been somethin' worldly. Now it seems it's patriotic. Well, I wonder how it's believed to be in the sight of the Lord?'
"But whether it was right or whether it was wrong, none of it rung like it had ought to of rang. They wan't noglowto it. We all went around like getting supper on wash-day, and not like getting up a meal for folks that meant a lot to us. It wan't going to be any such Fourth as I'd meant about and wanted to have come back. The day come on a pacing, and the nearer it come, the worse all us ladies felt. And by a few days before it, when our final committee meeting come off in Abagail Arnold's home bakery, back room, 'count of being central, we was all blue as the grave, and I donno butbluer. We set waiting for Silas that was having a long-distance call, and Abagail was putting in the time frosting dark cakes in the same room. We was most all there but the niece Miss Beryl Sessions. She had gone home, but she was coming back on the Fourth in an automobile full o' city folks.
"'Themarquee'scome,' says Mis' Holcomb, throwing out the word clickish.
"Nobody said anything. Seems itwasa tent all along.
"'Silas has got in an extra boy for the day,' says Mis' Sykes, complacent. 'It's the littlest Cadoza boy, Spudge. He's goin' to walk up an' down Daphne Street all day, with a Prize Coffee board on his back.'
"'Where's Spudge's Fourth comin' in?' I couldn't help askin'.
"Mis' Sykes stared. She always could look you down, but she's got a much flatter, thicker stare since her niece come. 'What's them kind o' folksforbut such work?' says she, puckering.
"'Oh, I donno, I donno,' says I. 'I thought mebbe they was partly made to thank the Lord for bein' born free.'
"'How unpractical you talk, Calliope,' she says.
"'I donno that word,' says I, reckless from being pent up. 'But it seems like a liberty-lovin' people had ought to hevoneday to love liberty on an' not tote groceries and boards and such.'
"'Don't it!' says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, explosive.
"'What you talking?' says Mis' Sykes, cold. 'Don't you know the Fourth of July can be made one of the best days of the year for your own town's good? What's that if it ain't patriotic?'
"'It's Yankee shrewd,' says I, snapping some, 'that's what it is. It ain't Yankee spirited, by a long shot.'
"'"By a long shot,"' quotes Mis' Sykes, withering. She always was death on wording, and she was far more death after her niece come. But I always thought, and I think now, that correcting your advisary's grammar is like telling him there's a smooch on his nose, and they ain't either of them parliamentalordecent.
"Mis' Uppers sighed. 'The whole thing,' says she, candid, 'sounds to me like Fourth o' July in Europe or somewheres. No get-up-an'-get anywheres to it. What do they do in Europe on the Fourth o' July, anyway?' she wondered. 'I donno's I ever read.'
"'I donno, either,' says Mis' Holcomb, dark, 'but I bet you it's one of these All Frost celebrations—or whatever it is they say.'
"Mis' Toplady set drying her feet by Abagail's stove, and she looked regular down in the mouth. 'Well, sir,' she said, 'a Fourth o' July all rosettes an' ribbins so don't sound to me one bit like the regular Fourth at all. It don't sound to me no more'n the third—or the fifth.'
"I was getting that same homesick feeling that I'd had off and on all through the getting ready, that hankering for the old kinds of Fourths of Julys when I was a little girl. When us girls had a quarter apiece to spend, and father'd cover the quarter with his hands on the gate-post for us to guess them; and when the boys picked up scrap-iron and sold old rubbers to get their Fourth money. It wan't so much what we used to do that I wanted back as it was thefeeling. Why, none of our spines use' to be laid down good and flat in our backs once all day long. And I wisht what I'd wisht more than once since the mass-meeting, that some of us ladies had of took hold of that Fourth and had run it so's 'twould of been like you mean 'way inside when you say 'The Fourth of July'—and that death and distance and long-ago-ness is awful in the way of.
"'We'd ought to of had a grand basket dinner in the Depot Woods,' I says, restless.
"'An' a p'rade,' says Mis' Toplady. 'I donno nothin' that makes me feel more patriotic than the minute before the p'rade comes by.'
"'An' children in the Fourth somehow,' Mis' Uppers says. 'Land, children is who it's for, anyhow,' she says, like I'd been thinking; 'an' all we've ever done for 'em about it is to leave 'em kill 'emselves with it.'
"Well, it was there, just there, and before Mis' Sykes could dicker a reply that in come tearing her husband from his long-distance telephoning, and raced into the room like he hadn't a manner in his kit.
"'We're all over with,' Silas shouts. 'It's all done for! Thaddeus Hyslop is smashed an' bleedin'. He can't come. We ain't got no speech. His automobile's turned over on top of his last speakin' place. Everybody else that ain't one-horse is sure to be got for somewheres else. Our Fourth of July is rooned. We're done for. The editor's gettin' it in theWeeklyso's to warn the county. We'll be the Laughing Stock. Dang the luck!' says Silas; 'why don't some o' you say somethin'?'
"But it wasn't all because Silas was doing it all that the men didn't talk, because when he'dstopped, they all stood there with their mouths open and never said a word. Seems to me I did hear Timothy Toplady bring out, 'Blisterin' Benson,' but nobody offered nothing more fertile. That is, nobody of the men did. But 'most before I got my thoughts together I heard two feet of a chair come down onto the floor, and Mis' Amanda Toplady stood up there by Abagail's cook stove, and she took the griddle lifter and struck light on the side of the pipe.
"'Hurrah!' she says. 'Now we can have a real Fourth. A Fourth that does as a Fourth is.'
"'What you talkin', Amanda Toplady?' says Silas, crisp; and ''Mandy, what the blazes do you mean?' says Timothy, her lawful lord. But Mis' Toplady didn't mind them, nor mind Mis' Sykes, that was staring at her flat and thick.
"'I mean,' says Mis' Toplady, reckless, 'I been sick to death of the idea of a Fourth with no spirit to it. I mean I been sick to death of a Fourth that's all starched white dresses an' company manners an' no hurrahs anywheres about it. An' us ladies, most all of us, feels the same. We didn't like to press in, bein' you men done the original plannin', an' so not one of us has said "P'rade," nor nothin' else to you. But now that your orator has fell through on himself, you men just leave us ladies in on thisthing to do more'n take orders, an' you needn't be the Laughin' Stock o' nothin' an' nobody. I guess you'll all stand by me. What say, ladies?'
"Well, sir, you'd ought to of heard us. We joined in like a patch of grasshoppers singing. They wasn't one of us that hadn't been dying to get our hands on that Fourth and make it a Fourth full of unction and oil of joy, like the Bible said, and must of meant what we meant.
"'Oh, ladies,' I remember I says, fervent, 'I feel like we could make a Fourth o' July just like stirrin' up a white cake, so be we was let.'
"'What d' you know about managin' a Fourth?' snarls Silas. 'You'll have us all in the hole. You'll have us shellin' out of our own pockets to make up—'
"Mis' Toplady whirled on him. 'Would you druther have Red Barns an' Indian Mound a-jumpin' on you through the weekly press for bein' bluffers, an' callin' us cheap an' like that, or would you druther not?' she put it to him.
"'Dang it,' says Silas, 'I never tried to do a thing for this town that it didn't lay down an' roll all over me. I wish I was dead.'
"'You wan't tryin' to do this thing for this town,' says Mis' Toplady back at him, like the wind. 'You was tryin' to do it for thestoresofthis town, an' you know it. You was tryin' to ride the Fourth for a horse to the waterin' trough o' good business, an' you know it, Silas Sykes,' says she, 'an' so was Jimmy and Threat an' all of you. The hull country tries to get behind the Fourth of July an' make money over its back like a counter. It ain't what was meant, an' us ladies felt it all along. An' neither was it meant for a garden party day alone, thoughthat,' says Mis' Toplady, gracious, 'is a real sweet side idea. An' Mis' Sykes an' Mis' Sessions had ought to go on an' run that part of it, bein' the—tent's here,' she couldnotbring herself to use that other word. 'But,' she says, 'that ain't all of a real Fourth, nor yet a speech ain't, though he did use to be in the legislature. Them things alone don't make a real flag, liberty-praisin' Fourth, to me nor to none of us.'
"'Well,' says Silas, sour, 'what you goin' todoif the men decides to let you try this?'
"'That ain't the way,' says Mis' Toplady, like a flash; 'it ain't for the men tolet us donothin'. It's for us all to do it together, yoke to yoke, just like everything else ought to be done by us both, an' no talk o' "runnin'" by either side.'
"'But what's the idee—what's the idee?'says Silas. 'Dang it all, somebody's got to hev an idee.'
"'Us ladies has got 'em,' says Mis' Toplady, calm. 'An',' says she, 'one o' the first of 'em is that if we have anything to do with runnin' the Fourth of our forefathers, then after 10A.M., all day on that day, every business house in town has got to shut down.'
"'What?' says Silas, his voice slippin'. 'Gone crazy-headed, hev ye?'
"'No, Silas,' says Mis' Toplady, 'nor yet hev we gone so graspin' that we can't give up a day's trade to take notice of our country.'
"'Lord Harry,' says Silas, 'you can't get a dealer in town to do it, an' you know it.'
"'Oh, yes, you can, Silas,' says somebody, brisk. And it was Abagail, frosting dark cakes over by the side of the room. 'I was goin' to shut up shop, anyway, all day on the Fourth,' Abagail says.
"'An' lose the country trade in lunches?' yells Silas. 'Why, woman, you'd be Ten Dollars out o' pocket.'
"'I wan't never one to spend the mornin' thankin' God an' the afternoon dippin' oysters,' says Abagail. And Silas scrunched. He done that one year when his Thanksgiving oysters come late, and he knew he done it.
"Well, they went over it and over it and tried to think of some other way, and tried to hatch up some other speaker without eating up the whole Fifty Dollars in telephone tolls, and tried most other things. And then we told them what we'd thought of different times, amongst us as being features fit for a Fourth in the sight of the Lord and the sight of men. And they hemmed and they hawed and they give in about as graceful as a clothes-line winds up when you've left it out in the sleet, but they did give in and see reason. Timothy last—that's quite vain of being firm.
"'If we come out with a one-horse doin's, seems like it'd be worse than sittin' down flat-foot failed,' he mourns, grieving.
"Amanda, his wife, give him one of her looks. 'Timothy,' says she, 'when, since you was married to me, did I ever fail to stodge up a company dinner or a spare bed or a shroud when it was needed sudden? When did any of us ladies ever fail that's here? Do you sp'ose we're any more scant of idees about our own nation?'
"And Timothy had to keep his silence. He knew what she said was the Old Testament truth. But I think what really swung them all round was the thought of Red Barns andIndian Mound. Imagination of what them two weekly papers would say, so be we petered out on our speech and didn't offer nothing else, was too much for flesh and blood to bear. And the men ended by agreeing to seeing to shutting every business house in Friendship Village and they went off to do it,—resolved, but groaning some, like men will.
"Mis' Sykes, she made some excuse and went, too. 'I'll run the garden party part,' says she. 'My niece an' I'll do that, an' try our best to get some novelty into your Fourth. An' we'll preside on the marquee, like we'd agreed. More I don't say.'
"But the rest of us, we stayed on there at Abagail's, and we planned like mad.
"We didn't look in no journal nor on no woman's page for something new. We didn't rush to our City relations for novelties. We didn't try for this and that nor grasp at no agony whatever. We just went down deep into the inside of our understanding and thought what the Fourth was and how them that made it would of wanted it kept. No fingers blowed off nor clothes scorched up, no houses burned down, no ear-drums busted out—none of them would of been intheirprogramme, and they wan't in ours. Some of the things thatwas in ours we'd got by hearing Insley tell what they was doin' other places. Some o' the things he suggested to us. Some o' the things we got by just going back and back down the years an'remembering—not so much what we'd done as the way we use' to feel, long ago, when the Fourth was the Fourth and acted like it knew it. Some of the things we got by just reaching forward and forward, and seeing what the Fourth is going to mean to them a hundred years from now—so be we do our part. And some of the things we got through sheer make-shift woman intelligence, that put its heads together and used everything it had, that had anything to do with the nation, or the town, or with really living at all the way that first Fourth of July meant about, 'way down inside.
"Before it was light on the morning of the Fourth, I woke up, feeling all happy and like I wanted to hurry. I was up and dressed before the sun was up, and when I opened my front door, I declare it was just like the glory of the Lord was out there waiting for me. The street was laying all still and simple, like it was ready and waiting for the light. Early as it was, Mis' Holcomb was just shaking her breakfast table-cloth on her side stoop, and she waved it to me, big and billowy and white,like a banner. And I offs with my apron and waved it back, and it couldn't of meant no more to either of us if we had been shaking out the folds of flags. It was too early for the country wagons to be rattling in yet, and they wan't no other sounds—except a little bit of a pop now and then over to where Bennie Uppers and little Nick Toplady was up and out, throwing torpedoes onto the bricks; and then the birds that was trilling an' shouting like mad, till every tree all up and down Daphne Street and all up and down the town and the valley was just one living singing. And all over everything, like a kind of a weave to it, was that something that makes a Sunday morning and some holiday mornings better and sweeter andgoldenerthan any other day. I ain't got much of a garden, not having any real time to fuss in it, but I walked out into the middle of the little patch of pinks and parsley that I have got, and I says 'way deep in me, deeper than thinking: 'It don't make no manner of differ'nce how much of a fizzle the day ends up with, this, here and now, is the way it had ought to start.'
"Never, not if I live till beyond always, will I forget how us ladies' hearts was in our mouths when, along about 'leven o'clock, we heard theFriendship Village Stonehenge band coming fifing along, and we knew the parade was begun. We was all on the market square—hundreds of us, seems though. Red Barns and Indian Mound had turned out from side to side of themselves, mingling the same as though ploughshares was pruning-hooks—or whatever that quotation time is—both towns looking for flaws in the day, like enough, but both shutting up about it, biblical. Even the marquee, with its red and white stripes, showing through the trees, made me feel good. 'Land, land,' Mis' Toplady says, 'it looks kind of homey and old-fashioned, after all, don't it? I mean the—tent,' she says—she wouldnotsay the other word; but then I guess it made her kind of mad seeing Mis' Sykes bobbing around in there in white duck an' white shoes—her that ain't a grandmother sole because of Nature and not at all through any lack of her own years. Everything was all seeming light and confident—but I tell you we didn't feel so confident as we'd meant to when we heard the band a-coming to the tune o' 'Hail, Columbia! Happy Land.' And yet now, when I look back on that Independence Day procession, it seems like regular floats is no more than toy doings beside of it.
"What do you guess us ladies had thought up for our procession,—with Insley back of us, letting us think we thought it up alone? Mebbe you'll laugh, because it wan't expensive to do; but oh; I think it was nice. We'd took everything in the town that done the town's work, and we'd run them all together. We headed off with the fire-engine, 'count of the glitter—and we'd loaded it down with flags and flowers, and the hook and ladder and hose-carts the same, wheels and sides; and flags in the rubber caps of the firemen up top. Then we had the two big sprinkling carts, wound with bunting, and five-foot flags flying from the seats. Then come all the city teams drawn by the city horses—nice, plump horses they was, and rosettes on them, and each man had decorated his wagon and was driving it in his best clothes. Then come the steam roller that Friendship Village and Red Barns and Indian Mound owns together and scraps over some, though that didn't appear in its appearance, puffing along, with posies on it. Then there was the city electric light repair wagon, with a big paper globe for an umbrella, and the electric men riding with their leggings on and their spurs, like they climb the poles; and behind them the telephone men was riding—because the town owns its own telephone, too—and then the four Centrals, in pretty shirtwaists, in a double-seated buggy loaded with flowers—the telephone office we'd see to it was closed down, too, to have its Fourth, like a human being. And marching behind them was the city waterworks men, best bib and tucker apiece. And then we hed out the galvanized garbage wagon that us ladies hed bought ourselves a year ago, and that wasn't being used this year count of the city pleading too poison poor; and it was all scrubbed up and garnished and filled with ferns and drove by its own driver and the boy that had use' to go along to empty the cans. And then of course they was more things—some of them with day fireworks shooting up from them—but not the hearse, though we had all we could do to keep Timothy Toplady from having it in, 'count of its common public office.
"Well, and then we'd done an innovation—an' this was all Insley's idea, and it was him that made us believe we could do it. Coming next, in carriages and on foot, was the mayor and the city council and every last man or woman that had anything to do with running the city life. They was all there—city treasurer, clerk of the court, register of deeds, sheriffs, marshals,night-watchmen, health officer, postmaster, janitor of the city hall, clerks, secretaries, stenographers, school board, city teachers, and every one of the rest—they was all there, just like they had belonged in the p'rade the way them framers of the first Fourth of July had meant they should fit in: Conscience and all. But some of them servants of the town had made money off'n its good roads, and some off'n its saloons, and some off'n getting ordinances repealed, and some off'n inspecting buildings and sidewalks that they didn't know nothing about, and some was making it even then by paving out into the marsh; and some in yet other ways that wasn't either real elbow work nor clean head work. What else could they do? We'd ask' them to march because they represented the town, and rather'n own theydidn'trepresent the town, there they was marching; but if some of them didn't step down Daphne Street feeling green and sick and sore and right down schoolboy ashamed of themselves, then they ain't got the human thrill in them that somehow Icannotbelieve ever dies clear out of nobody. They was a lump in my throat for them that had sold themselves, and they was a lump for them that hadn't—but oh, the differ'nce in the lumps.
"'Land, land,' I says to Mis' Toplady, 'if we ain't done another thing, we've made 'em remember they're servants to Friendship Village—like they often forget.'
"'Ain't we?' she says, solemn. 'Ain't we?'
"And then next behind begun the farm things: the threshin' machines and reapers and binders and mowers and like that, all drawn by the farm horses and drove by their owners and decorated by them, jolly and gay; and, too, all the farm horses for miles around—we was going to give a donated surprise prize for the best kep' and fed amongst them. And last, except for the other two bands sprinkled along, come the leading citizens, and who do you guesstheywas? Not Silas nor Timothy nor Eppleby nor even Doctor June, nor our other leading business men and our three or four professionals—no, not them; but the real, true, leading citizens of Friendship Village and Indian Mound and Red Barns and other towns and the farms between—thechildren, over two hundred of them, dressed in white if they had it and in dark if they didn't, with or without shoes, in rags or out of them, village-tough descended or with pew-renting fathers, all the same and together, and carrying a flag and singing to the tops of their voices 'Hail, Columbia,'that the bands kept a-playing, some out of plumb as to time, but all fervent and joyous. It was us women alone that got up that part. My, I like to think about it.
"They swung the length of Daphne Street and twice around the market square, and they come to a halt in front of the platform. And Doctor June stood up before them all, and he prayed like this:—
"'Lord God, that let us start free an' think we was equal, give us to help one another to be free an' to get equal, in deed an' in truth.'
"And who do you s'pose we hed to read the Declaration of Independence? Little Spudge Cadoza, that Silas had been a-going to hev walk up and down Daphne Street with a board on his back—Insley thought of him, and we picked him out a-purpose. And though he didn't read it so thrilling as Silas would of, it made me feel the way no reading of it has ever made me feel before—oh, because it was kind of like we'd snapped up the little kid and set him free all over again, even though he wasn't it but one day in the year. And it sort of seemed to me that all inside the words he read was trumpets and horns telling how much them words wasgoingto mean to him and his kind before he'd had time to die. And then theGlee Club struck into 'America,' and the whole crowd joined in without being expected, and the three bands that was laying over in the shade hopped up and struck in, too—and I bet they could of heard us to Indian Mound. Leastways to Red Barns, that we can see from Friendship Village when it's clear.
"The grand basket dinner in the Depot Woods stays in my head as one picture, all full of veal loaf and 'scalloped potato and fruit salad and nut-bread and deviled eggs and bake' beans and pickle' peaches and layer cake and drop sponge-cake and hot coffee—the kind of a dinner that comes crowding to your thought whenever you think 'Dinner' at your hungriest. And after we'd took care of everybody's baskets and set them under a tree for a lunch towards six, us ladies went back to the market square. And over by the marquee we see the men gathered—all but Insley, that had slipped away as quick as we begun telling him how much of it was due to him. Miss Beryl Sessions had just arrived, in a automobile, covered with veils, and she was introducing the other men to her City friends. Us ladies sort of kittered around back of them, not wanting to press ourselves forward none, and we went up to the door of the marquee where, behind therefreshment table, Mis' Sykes was a-standing in her white duck.
"'My,' says Mis' Holcomb to her, 'it's all going off nice so far, ain't it?'
"'They ain't a great deal the matter with it,' says Mis' Sykes, snappy.
"'Why, Mis' Sykes,' says Mis' Uppers, grieving, 'the parade an' the basket dinner seemed to me both just perfect.'
"'The parade done well enough,' says Mis' Sykes, not looking at her. 'I donno much about the dinner.'
"And all of a sudden we recollected that she hadn't been over to the grand basket dinner at all.
"'Why, Mis' Sykes,' says Mis' Toplady, blank, 'ain't you et nothin'?'
"'My niece,' says Mis' Sykes, dignified, 'didn't get here till now. Who was I to leave in thetent? I've et,' says she, cold, 'two dishes of ice-cream an' two chocolate nut-cakes.'
"Mis' Toplady just swoops over towards her. 'Why, my land,' she says, hearty, 'they's stuff an' to spare packed over there under the trees. You go right on over and get your dinner. Poke right into any of our baskets—ours is grouped around mine that's tied witha red bandanna to the handle. And leave us tend the marquee. What say, ladies?'
"And I don't think she even sensed she used that name.
"When she'd gone, I stood a minute in the marquee door looking off acrost the market square, hearing Miss Beryl Sessions and the men congratulating each other on the glorious Fourth they was a-having, and the City folks praising them both sky high.
"'Real nice idee it was,' says Silas, with his hands under his best coat tails. 'Nice, tastey, up-to-date Fourth. And cheap to do.'
"'Yes, we all hung out for a good Fourth this year,' says Timothy, complacent.
"'It's a simply lovely idea,' says Miss Beryl Sessions, all sweet and chirpy and interested, 'this making the Fourth a county party and getting everybody in town, so. But tell me: Whatever made you close your shops? I thought the Fourth could always be made to pay for itself over and over, if the business houses went about it right.'
"'Oh, well,' says Silas, lame but genial, 'we closed up to-day. We kind o' thought we would.'
"But I stood looking off acrost the market square, where the children was playing, andquoits was being pitched, and the ball game was going to commence, and the calathumpians was capering, and most of Red Barns and Indian Mound and Friendship Village was mingling, lion and lamb; and I looked on along Daphne Street, where little Spudge Cadoza wasn't walking with a Prize Coffee board on his back,—and all of a sudden I felt just the way I'd wanted to feel, in spite of all the distance and long-ago-ness. And I turned and says to the other women inside the marquee:—
"'Seems to me,' I says, 'as if the Fourth of Julyhadpaid for itself, over and over. Oh, don't it to you?'
"The new editor of theFriendship Village Evening Dailygive a fine write-up of the celebration. He printed it on the night after the Fourth, not getting out any paper at all on the day that was the day; but on the night after that, the news columns of his paper fell flat and dead. In a village the day following a holiday is like the hush after a noise. The whole town seems like it was either asleep or on tiptoe. And in Friendship Village this hush was worse than the hush of other years. Other years they'd usually been accidents to keep track of, and mebbe even an amputation or two to report. But this Fourth there was no misfortunes whatever, nor nothing to make good reading for the night of July 6.
"So the editor thought over his friends and run right down the news column, telling what therewasn't. Like this:—
"'Supper Table Jottings"'Postmaster Silas Sykes is well."'Timothy Toplady has not had a cold since before Christmas. Prudent Timothy."'Jimmy Sturgis has not broken his leg yet this year as he did last. Keep it up, Jimmy."'Eppleby Holcomb has not been out of town for quite a while."'None of the Friendship ladies has given a party all season."'The First Church is not burnt down nor damaged nor repaired. Insurance $750."'Nothing local is in much of any trouble."'Nobody is dead here to-day except the usual ones."'Nobody that's got a telephone in has any company at the present writing. Where is the old-time hospitality?"'Subscriptions payable in advance."'Subscriptions payable in advance."'Subscriptions payable in advance.'
"'Supper Table Jottings
"'Postmaster Silas Sykes is well.
"'Timothy Toplady has not had a cold since before Christmas. Prudent Timothy.
"'Jimmy Sturgis has not broken his leg yet this year as he did last. Keep it up, Jimmy.
"'Eppleby Holcomb has not been out of town for quite a while.
"'None of the Friendship ladies has given a party all season.
"'The First Church is not burnt down nor damaged nor repaired. Insurance $750.
"'Nothing local is in much of any trouble.
"'Nobody is dead here to-day except the usual ones.
"'Nobody that's got a telephone in has any company at the present writing. Where is the old-time hospitality?
"'Subscriptions payable in advance.
"'Subscriptions payable in advance.
"'Subscriptions payable in advance.'
"It made quite some fun for us, two or three of us happening in the post-office store when the paper come out—Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady and me. But we took it some to heart, too, because to live in a town where they ain't nothing active happening all the time is a kind of running account of everybody that's in the town. And us ladies wan't that kind.
"All them locals done to Silas Sykes, though, was to set him fussing over nothing ever happening to him. Silas is real particular abouthis life, and I guess he gets to thinking how life ain't so over-particular about him.
"'My dum,' he says that night, 'that's just the way with this town. I always calculated my life was goin' to be quite some pleasure to me. But I don't see as it is. If I thought I was going to get sold in my death like I've been in my life, I swan I'd lose my interest in dyin'.'
"Mis' Timothy Toplady was over in behind the counter picking out her butter, and she whirled around from sampling the jars, and she says to Mis' Sykes and me:—
"'Ladies,' she says, 'le's us propose it to the editor that seems to have such a hard job, that us members of Sodality take a hold of his paper for a day and get it out for him and put some news in it, and sell it to everybody, subscribers and all, that one night, for ten cents.'
"Mis' Silas Sykes looks up and stopped winking and breathing, in a way she has when she sights some distant money for Sodality.
"'Land, land,' she says, 'I bet they'd go like hot cakes.'
"But Silas he snorts, scorching.
"'Will you ladies tell me,' he says, 'where you going togetyour news to put in your paper? The Fourth don't come along every day. Or less you commit murder and arson andrunaways, there won't be any more in your paper than they is in its editor's.'
"That hit a tender town-point, and I couldn't stand it no longer. I spoke right up.
"'Oh, I donno, I donno, Silas,' I says. 'They's those in this town that's doin' the murderin' for us, neat an' nice, right along,' I told him.
"'Mean to say?' snapped Silas.
"'Mean to say,' says I, 'most every grocery store in this town an' most every milkman an' the meat market as well is doin' their best to drag the health out o' people's systems for 'em. Us ladies is more or less well read an' knowledgeable of what is goin' on in the world outside,' I says to Silas that ain't, 'an' we know a thing or two about what ought to be clean.'
"Since Insley come, we had talked a good deal more about these things and what was and what shouldn't be; and especially we had talked it in Sodality, on account of our town stores and social ways and such being so inviting to disease and death. But we hadn't talked it official, 'count of Sodality being for Cemetery use, and talking it scattering we hadn't been able to make the other men even listen to us.
"'Pack o' women!' says Silas, now, and went off to find black molasses for somebody.
"Mis' Toplady sampled her butter, dreamy.
"'Rob Henny's butter here,' she says, 'is made out of cow sheds that I can't bear to think about. An' Silas knows it. Honest,' she says, 'I'm gettin' so I spleen against the flowers in the fields for fear Rob Henny's cows'll get holt of 'em. I should think theDailycould write about that.'
"I remember how us three women looked at each other then, like our brains was experimenting with our ideas. And when Mis' Toplady got her butter, we slipped out and spoke together for a few minutes up past the Town Pump. And it was there the plan come to a head and legs and arms. And we see that we had a way of picking purses right off of every day, so be the editor would leave us go ahead—and of doing other things.
"The very next morning we three went to see the editor and get his consent.
"'What's your circulation, same as City papers print to the top of the page?' Mis' Toplady asks him, practical.
"'Paid circulation or got-out circulation?' says the editor.
"'Paid,' says Mis' Toplady, in silver-dollar tones.
"'Ah, well,paid foror subscribed for?' asks the editor.
"'Paid for,' says Mis' Toplady, still more financial.
"'Six hundred and eighty paid for,' the editor says, 'an' fifty-two that—mean to pay.'
"'My!' says Mis' Toplady, shuddering. 'What business is! Well, us ladies of the Sodality want to run your paper for one day and charge all your subscribers ten cents extra for that day's paper. Will you?'
"The editor, he laughed quite a little, and then he looked thoughtful. He was new and from the City and young and real nervous—he used to pop onto his feet whenever a woman so much as come in the room.
"'Who would collect the ten cents?' says he.
"'Sodality,' says Mis' Toplady, firm. 'Ourself, cash an'in advance.'
"The editor nodded, still smiling.
"'Jove,' he said, 'this fits in remarkably well with the fishing I've been thinking about. I confess I need a day. I suppose you wouldn't want to do it this week?'
"Mis' Toplady looked at me with her eyebrows. But I nodded. I always rather hurry up than not.
"'So be we had a couple o' hours to get the news to happenin',' says she, 'that had ought to do us.'
"The editor looked startled.
"'News!' said he. 'Oh, I say now, you mustn't expect too much. I ought to warn you that running a paper in this town is like trying to raise cream on a cistern.'
"Mis' Toplady smiled at him motherly.
"'You ain't ever tried pouring the cream into the cistern, I guess,' she says.
"So we settled it into a bargain, except that, after we had planned it all out with him and just as we was going out the door, Mis' Toplady thought to say to him:—
"'You know, Sodality don't know anything about it yet, so you'd best not mention it out around till this afternoon when we vote to do it. We'll be up at eight o'clock Thursday morning, rain or shine.'
"There wasn't ever any doubt about Sodality when it see Sixty Dollars ahead—which we would get if everybody bought a paper, and we was determined that everybody should buy. Sodality members scraps among themselves personal, but when it comes to raising money we unite yoke to yoke, and all differences forgot. It's funny sometimes at the meetings, funny and disgraceful, to hear how we object to each other, especially when we're tired, and then how we all unite together on something forthe good of the town. I tell you, it makes me feel sometimes that the way ain't so much to try to love each other,—which other folks' peculiarities is awful in the way of,—but for us all to pitch in and love something altogether, your town or your young folks, or your cemetery or keeping something clean or making somethin' look nice—and before you know it you're loving the folks you work with, no matter how peculiar, or even more so. It's been so nice since we've been working for Cemetery. Folks that make each other mad every time they try to talk can sell side by side at the same bazaar and count the money mutual. There's quite a few disagreements in Sodality, so we have to be real careful who sets next to who to church suppers. But when we pitch in to work for something, we sew rags and 'scallop oysters in the same pan with our enemies. Don't it seem as if that must mean something? Something big?
"Sodality voted to publish the paper, all right, and elected the officers for the day: Editor, Mis' Postmaster Sykes, 'count of her always expecting to take the lead in everything; assistant editor, me, 'count of being well and able to work like a dog; business manager and circulation man, Mis'Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, 'count of no dime ever getting away from her unexpected. And the reporters was to be most of the rest of the Sodality: Mis' Timothy Toplady, the three Liberty girls, Mis' Mayor Uppers, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, Mis' Threat Hubbelthwait, an' Abagail Arnold, that keeps the home bakery. It was hard for Abagail to get away from her cook stove and her counter, so we fixed it that she was to be let off any other literary work along of her furnishing us our sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs that day noon. It was quite a little for Abagail to do, but she's always real willing, and we didn't ask coffee of her. Mis' Sturgis, her that is the village invalid, we arranged should have charge of the Woman's Column, and bring down her rocking chair and make her beef broth right there on the office wood-stove.
"I guess we was all glad to go down early in the morning that day, 'count of not meeting the men. One and all and with one voice the Friendship men had railed at us hearty.
"'Pack o' women!' says Silas Sykes, over and over.
"'You act like bein' a woman an' a wife was some kind o' nonsense,' says Mis' Sykes back at him, majestic. 'Well, I guess bein' yours is.'
"'Land, Amandy,' says Timothy Toplady, 'you women earn money sonervous. Why don't you do it regular an' manly?'
"Only Eppleby Holcomb had kept his silence. Eppleby sees things that the run of men don't see, or, if they did see them, they would be bound to stick them in their ledgers where they would never, never belong. Eppleby was our friend, and Sodality never had truer.
"So though we went ahead, the men had made us real anxious. And most of us slipped down to the office by half past seven so's not to meet too many. The editor had had a column in the paper about what we was goin' to do—'Loyal to our Local Dead' he headed it, and of course full half the town was kicking at the extra ten cents, like full half of any town can and will kick when it's asked to pay out for its own good, dead or alive. But we was leaving all that to Mis' Holcomb, that knows a thing or two about the human in us, and similar.
"Extra-paper morning, when we all come in, Mis' Sykes she was sitting at the editor's desk with her big apron on and a green shade to cover up her crimping kids, and her list that her and Mis' Toplady and I had made out, in front of her.
"'Now then, let's get right to work,' she says brisk. 'We ain't any too much time, I can tell you. It ain't like bakin' bread or gettin' the vegetables ready. We've all got to use muscles this day we ain't used to usin',' she says, 'an' we'd best be spry.'
"So then she begun giving out who was to do what—assignments, the editor named it when he told us what to do. And I skipped back an' hung over the files, well knowing what was to come.
"Mis' Sykes stood up in her most society way, an'—
"'Anybody want to back out?' says she, gracious.
"'Land!' says everyone in a No-I-don't tone.
"'Very well,' says Mis' Sykes. 'Mis' Toplady, you go out to Rob Henney's place, an' you go through his cow sheds from one end to the other an' take down notes so's he sees you doin' it. You go into his kitchen an' don't you let a can get by you. Open his churn. Rub your finger round the inside of his pans. An' if he won't tell you, the neighbours will. Explain to him you're goin' to give him a nice, full printed description in to-night'sDaily, just the way things are. If he wants it changedany, he can clean all up, an' we'll write up the clean-up like a compliment.'
"Just for one second them assembled women was dumb. But it hardly took them that instant to sense what was what. And all of a sudden, Mame Holcomb, I guess it was, bursted out in a little understanding giggle, and after a minute everybody joined in, too. For we'd got the whole world of Friendship Village where we wanted it, and every one of them women see we had, so be we wasn't scared.
"'Mis' Uppers,' Mis' Sykes was going on, 'you go down to Betts's meat market. You poke right through into the back room. An' you tell Joe Betts that you're goin' to do a write-up of that room an' the alley back of it for the paper to-night, showin' just what's what. If so be he wants to turn in an' red it up this mornin', tell him you'll wait till noon an' describe it then,providin'he keeps it that way. An' you might let him know you're goin' to run over to his slaughterhouse an' look around while you're waitin', an' put that in your write-up, too.'
"'Miss Hubbelthwait,' Mis' Sykes went on, 'you go over to the Calaboose. They won't anybody be in the office—Dick's saloon is that. Skip right through in the back part, an' turndown the blankets on both beds an' give a thorough look. If it's true they's no sheets an' pillow-cases on the calaboose beds, an' that the blankets is only washed three times a year so's to save launderin', we can make a real interestin' column about that.'
"'Miss Merriman,' says Mis' Sykes to Mis' Fire Chief, 'I've give you a real hard thing because you do things so delicate. Will you take a walk along the residence part of town an' go into every house an' ask 'em to let you see their back door an' their garbage pail. Tell 'em you're goin' to write a couple of columns on how folks manage this. Ask 'em their idees on the best way. Give 'em to understand if there's a real good way they're thinkin' of tryin' that you'll put that in, providin' they begin tryin' right off. An' tell 'em they can get it carted off for ten cents a week if enough go in on it. An' be your most delicate, Mis' Fire Chief, for we don't want to offend a soul.'
"Libby an' Viney Liberty Mis' Sykes sent round to take a straw vote in every business house in town to see how much they'd give towards starting a shelf library in the corner of the post-office store, a full list to be printed in order with the amount or else 'Not a cent'after each name. And the rest of Sodality she give urrants similar or even more so.
"'An' all o' you,' says Mis' Sykes, 'pick up what you can on the way. And if anybody starts in to object, you tell 'em you have instructions to make an interview out of any of the interestin' things they say. And you might tell 'em you don't want they should be buried in a nice cemetery if they don't want to be.'
"Well, sir, they started off—some scairt, but some real brave, too. And the way they went, we see every one of them meant business.
"'But oh,' says Mis' Sturgis, fixing her medicine bottles outside on the window-sill, 'supposin'they can't do it.Supposin'folks ain't nice to 'em. What'll we put in the paper then?'
"Mis' Sykes drew herself up like she does sometimes in society.
"'Well,' she says, 'supposin'. Are we runnin' this paper or ain't we? There's nothin' to prevent our writin' editorials about these things, as I see. Our husbands can't very well sue us for libel, because they'd hev to pay it themselves. Nor they can't put us in prison for debt, because who'd get their three meals? I can't see but we're sure of an interestin' paper, anyway.'
"Then she looked over at me sort of sad.
"'Go on, Calliope,' says she, 'you know what you've got to do. Do it,' she says, 'to the bitter end.'
"I knew, and I started out, and I made straight for Silas Sykes, and the post-office store. Silas wan't in the store, it was so early; but he had the floor all sprinkled nice, and the vegetables set out, all uncovered, close to the sidewalk; and everything real tasty and according to grocery-store etiquette. The boy was gone that day. And Silas himself was in the back room, sortin' over prunes.
"'Hello, Calliope,' s'he. 'How's literchoor?'
"'Honest as ever,' I says. 'Same with food?'
"'Who says I ain't honest?' says Silas, straightening up, an' holding all his fingers stiff 'count of being sticky.
"'Why, I donno who,' says I. 'Had anybody ought to? How's business, Silas?'
"'Well,' says he, 'for us that keeps ourselves up with the modern business methods, it's pretty good, I guess.'
"'Do you mean pretty good, Silas, or do you mean pretty paying?' I ask' him.
"Silas put on his best official manner. 'Look at here,' s'e, 'what can I do for you? Did you want to buy somethin' or did you want your mail?'
"'Oh, neither,' I says. 'I want some help from you, Silas, about the paper to-day.'
"My, that give Silas a nice minute. He fairly weltered in satisfaction.
"'Huh,' he says, elegant, 'didn't I tell you you was bitin' off more'n you could chew? Want some assistance from me, do you, in editin' this paper o' yours? Well, I suppose I can help you out a little. What is it you want me to do for you?'
"'We thought we'd like to write you up,' I told him.
"Silas just swelled. For a man in public office, Silas Sykes feels about as presidential as anybody I ever see. If they was to come out from the City and put him on the front page of the morning paper, he's the kind that would wonder why they hadn't done it before.
"'Sketch of my life?' s'e, genial. 'Little outline of my boyhood? Main points in my career?'
"'Well,' I says, 'no. We thought the present'd be about all we'd hev room for. We want to write up your business, Silas,' I says, 'in an advertising way.'
"'Oh!' says Silas, snappy. 'You want me to pay to be wrote up, is that it?'
"'Well,' I says, 'no; not if you don't want to.Of course everybody'll be buried in the Cemetery whether they give anything towards the fund for keeping it kep' up or not.'
"'Lord Heavens,' says Silas, 'I've had that Cemetery fund rammed down my throat till I'm sick o' the thought o' dyin'.'
"That almost made me mad, seeing we was having the disadvantage of doing the work and Silas going to get all the advantages of burial.
"'Feel the same way about some of the Ten Commandments, don't you, Silas?' I says, before I knew it.
"Silas just rared.
"'The Ten Commandments!' says he, 'the Ten Commandments! Who can show me one I ain't a-keepin' like an old sheep. Didn't I honour my father an' mother as long as I had 'em? Did they ever buy anything of me at more than cost? Didn't I give 'em new clothes an' send 'em boxes of oranges an' keep up their life insurance? Do I ever come down to the store on the Sabbath Day? Do I ever distribute the mail then, even if I'm expectin' a letter myself? The Sabbath I locked the cat in, didn't I send the boy down to let it out, for fear I'd be misjudged if I done it? Who do I ever bear false witness against unless I know they've done what I say they've done? Ican't kill a fly—an' I'm that tender-hearted that I make the hired girl take the mice out o' the trap because I can't bring myself to do it. So you might go through the whole list an' just find me workin' at 'em an' a-keepin' 'em. What do you mean about the Ten Commandments?' he ends up, ready to burst.
"'Don't ask me,' I says. 'I ain't that familiar with 'em. I didn't know anybody was. Go on about 'em. Take stealing—you hadn't got to that one.'
"'Stealing,' says Silas, pompous. 'I don't know what it is.'
"And with that I was up on my feet.
"'I thought you didn't,' says I. 'Us ladies of Sodality have all thought it over an' over again: That you don't know stealing when you see it. No, nor not even when you've done it. Come here, Silas Sykes!' I says.
"I whipped by him into the store, and he followed me, sheer through being dazed, and keeping still through being knocked dumb.
"'Look here,' I says, 'here's your counter of bakery stuff—put in to take from Abagail, but no matter about that now. Where do you get it? From the City, with the label stuck on. What's the bakery like where you buy it? It's under a sidewalk and dust dirty, and Ihappen to know you know it. And look at the bread—not a thing over it, flies promenadin' on the crust, and you counting out change on an apple-pie the other day—I see you do it. Look at your dates, all uncovered and dirt from the street sticking to them like the pattern. Look at your fly-paper, hugged up against your dried-fruit box that's standing wide open. Look at you keeping fish and preserved fruit and canned stuff that you know is against the law—going to start keeping the law quick as you get these sold out, ain't you, Silas? Look at your stuff out there in front, full of street dirt and flies and ready to feed folks. And you keepin' the Ten Commandments like an old sheep—and being a church elder, and you might better climb porches and bust open safes. I s'pose you wonder what I'm sayin' all this to you for?'
"'No, ma'am,' says Silas, like the edge o' something, 'I don't wonder at your sayin'anythingto anybody.'
"'I've got more to say,' I says, dry. 'I've only give you a sample. An' the place I'm goin' to say it isThe Friendship Village Evening Daily,Extra, to-night, in a descriptive write-up of you and your store. I thought it might interest you to know.'
"'It's libel—it's libel!' says Silas, arms waving.
"'All right,' says I, liberating a fly accidentally caught on a date. 'Who you going to sue? Your wife, that's the editor? And everybody else's wife, that's doing the same thing to every behind-the-times dealer in town?'
"Silas hung on to that straw.
"'Be they doin' it to the others, too?' he asks.
"Then I told him.
"'Yes,' I says, 'Silas, only—they ain't goin' to start writing up the descriptions till noon. And if you—and they all—want to clean up the temples where you do business and make them fit for the Lord to look down on and a human being to come into, you've got your chance. And seeing your boy is gone to-day, if you'll do it, I'll stay and help you with it—and mebbe make room for some of the main points in your career as well,' says I, sly.
"Silas looked out the door, his arms folded and his beard almost pointing up, he'd made his chin so firm. And just in that minute when I was feeling that all the law and the prophets, and the health of Friendship Village, and the life of people not born, was hanging around that man's neck—or the principle of them,anyway—Silas's eye and mine fell on a strange sight. Across the street, from out Joe Betts's meat market come Joe Betts, and behind him his boy. And Joe begun pointing, and the boy begun taking down quarters of beef hung over the sidewalk. Joe pointed consid'able. And then he clim' up on his meat wagon that stood by the door, and out of the shop I see Mis' Mayor Uppers come, looking ready to drop. And she clim' up to the seat beside him—he reaching down real gentlemanly to help her up. And he headed his horse around on what I guessed was a bee-line for the slaughterhouse.
"Well, sir, at that, Silas Sykes put his hands on his knees and bent over and begun laughing. And he laughed like I ain't seen him since he's got old and begun to believe that life ain't cut after his own plan that he made. And I laughed a little, too, out of sheer being glad that a laugh can settle so many things right in the world. And when he sobered down a little, I says gentle:—
"'Silas, I'll throw out the dates and the dusty lettuce. And we'll hev it done in no time. I'll be glad to get an early start on the write-up. I don't compose very ready,' I told him.
"He was awful funny while we done the work. He was awful still, too. Once when I lit on apiece of salt pork that I knew, first look, was rusty, 'Them folks down on the flats buys it,' he says. 'They like it just as good as new-killed.' 'All right,' s'I, careless, 'I'll make a note of that to shine in my article. It needs humour some,' s'I. Then Silas swore, soft and under his breath, as an elder should, but quite vital. And he took the pork out to the alley barrel, an' I sprinkled ashes on it so's he shouldn't slip out and save it afterwards.
"It was 'leven o'clock when we got done, me having swept out behind the counters myself, and Silas he mopped his face and stood hauling at his collar.
"'I'll get on my white kids now,' s'e, dry. 'I can't go pourin' kerosene an' slicin' cheese in this place barehanded any more. Gosh,' he says, 'I bet when they see it, they'll want to have church in here this comin' Sunday.'
"'No need to be sacrilegious, as I know of, Silas,' s'I, sharp.
"'No need to be livin' at all, as I see,' says Silas, morbid; 'just lay low an' other folks'll step in an' do it for you, real capable.'
"I give him the last word. I thought it was his man's due.
"When I got back to the office, Libby Liberty an' Mis' Toplady was there before me.They was both setting on high stools up to the file shelf, with their feet tucked up, an' the reason was that Viney Liberty was mopping the floor. She had a big pail of suds and her skirt pinned up, and she was just lathering them boards. Mis' Sykes at the main desk was still labouring over her editorials, breathing hard, the boards steaming soap all around her.
"'I couldn't stand it,' Viney says. 'How a man can mould public opinion in a place where the floor is pot-black gets me. My land, my ash house is a dinin' room side of this room, an' the window was a regular gray frost with dust. Ain't men the funniest lot of folks?' she says.
"'Funny,' says I, 'but awful amiable if you kind of sing their key-note to 'em.'
"Mis' Sykes pulled my skirt.
"'How was he?' she asks in a pale voice.
"'He was crusty,' says I, triumphant, 'but he's beat.'
"She never smiled. 'Calliope Marsh,' says she, cold, 'if you've sassed my husband, I'll never forgive you.'
"I tell you, men may be some funny, and often are. But women is odd as Dick's hatband and I don't know but odder.
"'How'd you get on?' I says to Mis' Toplady and the Libertys. The Libertys they handedout a list on two sheets, both sides with sums ranging from ten to fifty cents towards a shelf library for public use; but Mis' Toplady, the tears was near streaming down her cheeks.
"'Rob Henney,' she says, mournful, 'gimme to understand he'd see me in—some place he hadn't ought to of spoke of to me, nor to no one—before I could get in his milk sheds.'
"'What did you say to him?' I ask', sympathetic.
"'I t-told him,' says Mis' Toplady, 'that lookin' for me wouldn't be the only reason he'd hev for goin' there. And then he said some more. He said he'd be in here this afternoon to stop his subscription off.'
"'So you didn't get a thing?' I says, grieving for her, but Mis' Toplady, she bridled through her tears.
"'I got a column!' she flashed out. 'I put in about the sheds, that the whole town knows, anyway, an' I put in what he said to me. An' I'm goin' to read it to him when he comes in. An' after that he can take his pick about havin' it published, or else cleanin' up an' allowin' Sodality to inspect him reg'lar.'
"By just before twelve o'clock we was all back in the office, Mis' Fire Chief, Mis' Uppers, fresh from the slaughterhouse, and so on, allbut Mame Holcomb that was out seeing to the circulation. And I tell you we set to work in earnest, some of us to the desks, and some of us working on their laps, and everybody hurrying hectic. The office was awful hot—Mis' Sturgis had built up a little light fire to heat up her beef broth, and she was stirring it, her shawl folded about her, in between writing receipts. But it made it real confusing, all of us doing our best so hard, and wanting to tell each other what had happened, and seeing about spelling and all.
"'Land, land,' says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, 'you'd ought toseethe Carters' back door. They wan't nobody to home there, so I just took a look, anyway, bein' it was for Sodality, so. They ain't no real garbage pail—'
"'Who said, "Give me Liberty or give me Death?"' ask' Mis' Sykes, looking up kind o' glassy. 'Was it Daniel Webster or Daniel Boone?'
"'Ladies,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, when we'd settled down on Daniel Boone, 'if I ever do a crime, I won't stop short at stealin' somebody's cow an' goin' to calaboose. I'll do a whole beef corner, or some real United States sin, an' get put in a place that's clean. Why over to the calaboose—'
"'Ugh!' says Mis' Uppers, 'don't say "beef" when I'm where I can hear. I donno what I'll do without my steak, but do it I will. Ladies, the cleanest of us is soundin' brass an' tinklin' cannibals. Why do they call 'emtinklin'cannibals?' she wondered to us all.
"'Oh—,' wailed Mis' Sturgis in the rocking-chair, 'some of you ladies give me your salad dressing receipt. Mine is real good on salad, but on paper it don't sound fit to eat. I don't seem to have no book-style about me to-day.'
"'How do you spellembarrass?' asked Libby Liberty. 'Is it anran' twos's or twor's and ans?'
"'It's twos's at the end, so it must be oner,' volunteers Mis' Sykes. 'That used to mix me up some, too.'
"Just then up come Abagail Arnold bringing the noon lunch, and she had the sandwiches and the eggs not only, but a pot of hot coffee thrown in, and a basket of doughnuts, sugared. She set them out on Mis' Sykes's desk, and we all laid down our pencils and drew up on our high stools and swing chairs, Mis' Sturgis and all, and nothing in the line of food had ever looked so welcoming.
"'Oh, the eatableness of nice refreshments!' says Mis' Toplady, sighing.
"'This is when it ain't victuals, its viands,' says Mis' Sykes, showing pleased.
"But well do I remember, we wasn't started to eat, and Abagail still doing the pouring, when the composing room door opened—I donnowhythey called it that, for we done the composing in the office, and they only got out the paper in there—and in come the foreman, with an apron of bed-ticking. He was Riddy Styles, that we all knew him.
"'Excuse me,' he says, hesitating, 'but us fellows thought we'd ought to mention that we can't get no paper out by quittin' time if we don't get a-hold of some copy pretty quick.'
"'Copy o' what?' says Mis' Sykes, our editor.
"'Why, copy,' says Riddy. 'Stuff for the paper.'
"Mis' Sykes looked at him, majestic.
"'Stuff,' she says. 'You will please to speak,' she says, 'more respectfully than that to us ladies, Mr. Styles.'
"'It was meant right,' says Riddy, stubborn. 'It's the word we always use.'
"'It ain't the word you use, not with us,' says Mis' Sykes, womanly.
"'Well,' says Riddy, 'we'd ought to get to settin' upsomethin'by half past twelve, if we start in on the dictionary.'
"Then he went off to his dinner, and the other men with him, and Mis' Sykes leaned back limp.
"'I been writin' steady,' she says, 'since half past eight o'clock this mornin', an' I've only got one page an' one-half composed.'
"We ask' each other around, and none of us was no more then started, let be it was Mis' Toplady, that had got in first.
"'Le's us leave our lunch,' says Mis' Sykes, then. 'Le's us leave it un-et. Abagail, you put it back in the basket an' pour the coffee into the pot. An' le's uswrite. Wouldn't we all rather hev one of our sick headaches,' she says, firm, 'than mebbe make ourselves the Laughing Stock? Ladies, I ask you.'
"An' we woulded, one and all. Sick headaches don't last long, but laughed-at has regular right down eternal life.
"Ain't it strange how slow the writing muscles and such is, that you don't use often? Pitting cherries, splitting squash, peeling potatoes, slicing apples, making change at church suppers,—us ladies is lightning at 'em all. But getting idees down on paper—I declare if it ain't more like waiting around for your bread to raise on a cold morning. Still when you're worried, you can press forward more than normal, andamong us we had quite some material ready for Riddy and the men when they came back. But not Mis' Sykes. She wan't getting on at all.
"'If I could onlytalkit,' she says, grieving, 'or I donno if I could even do that. What I want to say is in me, rarin' around my head like life, an' yet I can't get it out no more'n money out of a tin bank. I shall disgrace Sodality,' she says, wild.
"'Cheer up,' says Libby Liberty, soothing. 'Nobody ever reads the editorials, anyway. I ain't read one in years.'
"'You tend to your article,' snaps Mis' Sykes.
"I had got my write-up of Silas all turned in to Riddy, and I was looking longing at Abagail's basket, when, banging the door, in come somebody breathing like raging, and it was Rob Henney, that I guess we'd all forgot about except it was Mis' Toplady that was waiting for him.
"Rob Henney always talks like he was long distance.
"'I come in,' he says, blustering, 'I come in to quit off my subscription to this fool paper, that a lot o' fool women—'
"Mis' Sykes looks up at him out from under her hand that her head was resting on.
"'Go on out o' here, Mr. Henney,' she sayssharp to him, 'an' quit your subscription quiet. Can't you see you're disturbing us?' she says.
"With that Mis' Toplady wheeled around on her high stool and looked at him, calm as a clock.
"'Rob Henney,' says she, 'you come over here. I'll read you what I've wrote about you,' she told him.
"The piece begun like this:—
"'Rob Henney, our esteemed fellow-townsman and milkman, was talked with this morning on his cow sheds. The reporter said to same that what was wanting would be visiting the stables, churn, cans, pans, and like that, being death is milked out of most cows if they are not kept clean and inspected regular for signs of consumption. Mr. Henney replied as follows:
"'First: That his cows had never been inspected because nothing of that kind had ever been necessary.
"'Second: That he was in the milk business for a living, and did the town expect him to keep it in milk for its health?
"'Third: That folks had been drinking milk since milk begun, and if the Lord saw fit to call them home, why not through milk, or even through consumption, as well as through pneumonia and others?
"'Fourth: That he would see the reporter—a lady—in the lake-that-burneth-with-fire before his sheds and churn and pans and cans should be put in the paper.
"'Below is how the sheds, churn, pans, and cans look to-day....' And I tell you, Mis' Toplady, she didn't spare no words. When she meant What, she said What, elaborate.
"I didn't know for a minute but we'd hev to mop Rob up off the clean floor. But Mis' Toplady she never forgot who she was.
"'Either that goes in the paper to-night,' she says, 'or you'll clean up your milk surroundin's—pick your choice. An' Sodality's through with you if you don't, besides.'
"'Put it in print! Put it in print, if you dast!' yells Rob, wind-milling his arms some.