"'No need to make an earthquake o' yourself,' Mis' Toplady points out to him, serene.
"And at that Rob adds a word intending to express a cussing idee, and he outs and down the stairs. And Mis' Toplady starts to take her article right in to Riddy. But in the door she met Riddy, hurrying into the office again. I never see anybody before that looked both red and haggard, but Riddy did. He come right to the point:—
"'Some of you ladies has got to quit handingin—news,' he says, scrabbling for a word to please Mis' Sykes. 'We're up to our eyes in here now. An' there ain't enough room in the paper, either, not without you get out eight pages or else run a supplement or else throw away the whole patent inside. An' those ways, we ain't got enough type even if we had time to burn.'
"Mis' Sykes pushed back her green shade, looking justchased.
"'What does he mean?' she says. 'Can't he tend to his type and things with us doing all the work?'
"Riddy took this real nettlish.
"'I mean,' s'he, clear but brutal, 'you got to cut your stuff somewheres to the tune of a couple o' columns.'
"Well, it's hard to pick out which colour you'll take when you have a new dress only once in every so seldom; or which of your hens you'll kill when you know your chickens like you know your own mind; but these are nothing to the time we had deciding on what to omit out of the paper that night. And the decision hurt us even more than the deciding, for what we left out was Mis' Sturgis's two women's columns.
"'Wecan'tleave out meat nor milk nor cleanliness nor the library,' says Mis' Toplady,reasonable, 'because them are the things we live by. An' so with the other write-ups we got planned. But receipts and patterns an' moth balls is only kind o' decorations, seems though. Besides, we all know about 'em, an' it's time we stopped talkin' about 'em, anyway.'
"Mis' Sturgis she cried a little on the corner of her shawl.
"'The receipts an' patterns an' moth balls is so w-womanly,' she says.
"Mis' Toplady whirled round at her.
"'If you know anything more womanly than conquerin' dirt an' disease an' the-dead-that-needn't-die,' s'she, 'I'll roll up my sleeves an' be into it. But it won't be eyelet embroidery nor yet boiled frostin'!'
"After that they wrote in hasty peace, though four o'clock come racing across the day like a runaway horse, and us not out of its way. And a few minutes past, when Riddy was waiting in the door for Mis' Sykes's last page, somebody most knocked him over, and there come Mis' Holcomb, our circulation editor, purple and white, like a ghost.
"'Lock the door—lock it!' she says. 'I've bolted the one to the foot of the stairs. Lock both outside ones an' lay yourselves low!' s'she.
"Riddy an' I done the locking, me wellknowing Mis' Holcomb couldn't give a false alarm no more than a map could.
"'What is it?' we says, pressing Mis' Holcomb to speak, that couldn't even breathe.
"'Oh, ladies,' says Mis' Holcomb, 'they've rejoined us, or whatever it is they do. I mean they're going to rejoin us from gettin' out to-night's paper. The sheriff or the coroner or whoever it is they have, is comin' with injunctions—isthat like handcuffs, do you know? An' it's Rob Henney's doin'. Eppleby told me. An' I run down the alley an' beat 'em to it. They're most here. Let's us slap into print what's wrote an' be ready with the papers the livin' minute we can.'
"Mis' Sykes had shoved her green shade onto the back of her head, and her crimping pins was all showing forth.
"'What good'll it do us to get the paperout?' says she, in a numb voice. 'We can't distribute 'em around to no one with the sheriff to the front door with them things to put on us.'
"Then Mis' Holcomb smiled, with her eyes shut, where she sat, breathing so hard it showed through.
"'I come in the coal door, at the alley,' s'she. 'They'll never think o' that. Besides, the crowd'll be in front an' the carrier boys too, an'they'll want to show off out there. An' Eppleby knows—he told me to come in that way—an' he'll keep 'em interested out in front. Le's us each take the papers, an' out the coal door, an' distribute 'em around, ourselves, without the boys, an' collect in the money same time.'
"And that was how we done. For when they come to the door and found it locked, they pounded a little to show who was who and who wan't and then they waited out there calm enough, thinking to stop us when the papers come down would be plenty time. They waited out there, calm and sure, while upstairs Bedlam went on, but noiseless. And after us ladies was done with our part, we sat huddled up in the office, soothing Mis' Sturgis and each other.
"'In one sentence,' Mis' Holcomb says, 'Eppleby says Rob Henney was going toputinjunctions on us. An' in the next he says he was goin' toserve'em. What did he mean by that, do you s'pose?'
"'I donno what he meant,' says Mis' Toplady, 'but I wouldn't have anything to do withanythingRob Henney served.'
"That made us think of Abagail's lunch, laying un-et in the basket. They wasn't none of us felt like eating, but Mis' Sturgis says she bet if we didn't eat it, Abagail would feel shehadn't had no part in writing the paper like us, and so we broke off a little something once around; but food didn't have much fun for us, not then. And nothing did up to the minute the paper was done, and we was all ready to sly out the alley door.
"With Sodality and Riddy Styles and the composing-room men we had above twenty carriers. Riddy and the men helped us, one and all, because of course the paper was a little theirs, too, and they was interested and liked the lark. Land, land, I ain't felt so young or so wicked as I done getting out that alley door. There's them I wish could see that there's just as much fun keeping secret about something that may be good as in being sly about something regular bad.
"When we finally got outside it was suppertime and summer seeming, and the hour was all sweet and frank, and the whole village was buried in its evening fried mush and potatoes, or else sprinkling their front yards. I donno how it was with the others, but I know I went along the streets seeing through them little houses like they was glass, and seeing the young folks eating their suppers and growing up and getting ready to live and tobe. And in us ladies' arms, in them heavy papers, it seemedto me we was carrying new life to them, in little ways—in little ways, but ways that was going to be big with meaning. And I felt as if something in me kind of snuggled up closer to the way things was meant to be.
"Us that went west got clear the whole length of Daphne Street without anybody seeing what we was doing, or else believing that we was doing it orderly and legitimate. And away out by the Pump pasture, we started in distributing, and we come working down town, handing out papers to the residence part like mad and taking in dimes like wild. They was so many of us, and theEvening Dailyoffice was so located, that by the time Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady and I come around the corner where the men and Rob Henney and the rejoiners and the carriers was loafing, waiting, smoking, and secure, we didn't have many papers left. And we three was the first ones back.
"'Evenin' paper?' says Mis' Toplady, casual. 'Friendship Village Evenin' Daily, Extra?All the news for a dime?'
"Never have I see a man so truly flabbergasted as Rob Henney, and he did look like death.
"'You're rejoined!' he yelled, or whatever it is they say—'you're rejoined by law fromprintin' your papers or from deestributin' the same.'
"'Why, Rob Henney,' says Mis' Toplady, 'no call to show fight like that. Half the town is readin' its papers by now. They've been out for three-quarters of an hour,' she says.
"Then soft and faint and acrost the street, we heard somebody laugh, and then kind of spat hands; and we all looked up. And there in the open upstairs window of the building opposite, we see leaning out Eppleby Holcomb and Timothy Toplady and Silas Sykes. And when we crossed eyes, they all made a little cheer like a theatre; and then they come clumping down stairs and acrost to where we was.
"'Won out, didn't you, by heck!' says Silas, that can only see that far.
"'Blisterin' Benson,' says Timothy, gleeful. 'Isay we ain't got no cause to regret our wifes' brains.'
"But Eppleby, he never said a word. He just smiled slow and a-looking past us. And we knew that from the beginning he had seen our whole plan, face to face.
"Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady and me, seeing how Rob Henney stood muttering and beat, and seeing how the day had gone, and seeing what was what in the world and in all outsideof it, we looked at each other, dead tired, and real happy, and then we just dragged along home to our kitchens and went to cooking supper. But oh, it wasn't our same old kitchens nor it wasn't our same old Friendship Village. We was in places newer and better and up higher, where we see how things are, and how life would get more particular about us if we'd get particular about some more of life.
"Well, of course then we had Sixty Dollars or so to spend, and Sodality never could rest a minute when it had money to do with if it wasn't doing it, any more than it could rest when it had something to do and no money to do with. It made a nice, active circle. Wishing for dreams to come true, and then, when they do come true, making the true things sprout more dreams, is another of them circles. I always think they're what keeps us a-going, not only immortal but busy.
"And then with us there's another reason for voting our money prompt. As soon as we've made any and the news has got out around, it's happened two-three times that somebody has put in an application for a headstone for somebody dead that can't afford one. The first time that was done the application was made by the wife of a harness maker that had a little shop in the back street and had been saving up his money for a good tombstone. 'I ain't had much of a position here in life,' he used to say. 'I never was pointed out as a leading citizen.But I'm goin' to fix it so's when I'm buried and folks come to the Cemetery, nobody'll get by my grave without noticin' my tombstone.' And then he took sick with inflammatory rheumatism, and if it didn't last him three years and et up his whole tombstone fund. He use' to worry about it considerable as the rheumatism kept reducing the granite inch after inch, and he died, thinking he wasn't going to have nothing but markers to him. So his old wife come and told Sodality, crying to think he wasn't going to seem no real true inhabitant of Cemetery, any more than he had of the village. And we felt so sorry for her we took part of the Thirty Dollars we'd made at the rummage sale and bought him a nice cement stone, and put the verse on to attract attention that he'd wrote himself:—
"'STOP. LOOK. LISTEN.HERE LAYS ME.MY GRAVE IS JUST AS BIGAS YOURS WILL BE.'
"Some was inclined to criticise Jeb for being so ambitious in death, and stopping to think how good a showing he could make. But I donno, I always sort of understood him. He wanted to be somebody. He'd used to try tohave a voice in public affairs, but somehow what he proposed wasn't ever practical and never could get itself adopted. His judgment wasn't much, and time and again he'd voted against the town's good, and he see it afterward. He missed being a real citizen of his town, and he knew it, and he hankered to be a citizen of his Cemetery. And wherever he is now, I bet that healthy hankering is strained and purified and helping him ahead.
"But our buying that stone for Jeb's widow's husband's grave let us in for perpetual applications for monuments; and so when we had any money we always went right to work and voted it for general Cemetery improvement, so there wasn't ever any money in the treasury for the applications. Anyway, we felt we'd ought to encourage self-made graves and not pauperize our corpses.
"So the very next afternoon after we got our paper out, we met at Mis' Sykes's; and the day being mild and gold, almost all of Sodality turned out, and Mis' Sykes used both her parlours. It was funny; but such times there fell on them that sat Front Parlour a sort of what-you-might-call-distinction over them that sat Back Parlour. It's the same to our parties. Them that are set down to the dining-room table always seem alittle more company than them that are served to the little sewing tables around in the open rooms, and we all feel it, though we all pretend not, as well-bred as we know how. I donno but there's something to it, too. Mis' Sykes, for instance, she always gets put to a dining table. Nobody would ever think of setting her down to a small one, no more than they would a Proudfit. But me, I generally get tucked down to a sewing table and in a rocking-chair, if there ain't enough cane seats to go around. Things often divide themselves true to themselves in this life, after all.
"This was the last regular meeting before our Annual. The Annual, at Insley's suggestion, was going to be in the schoolhouse, and it was going to be an open evening meeting, with the whole town invited in and ice-cream served after. Regular meetings Sodality gives just tea; special meetings we give hot chocolate or ice-lemonade, or both if the weather is unsettled; for entertainments we have cut-up fruit and little bakery cakes; but to our Annual we mount up to ice-cream and some of our best cake makers' layer cake. And us ladies always dress according: afternoon home dresses to regular meetings; second best to specials; Sunday silks to entertainments; and straight going-outclothes for the Annual. It makes it real nice. Nobody need to come dressed wrong, and nobody can go away disappointed at what they've been fed.
"The meeting that day all ought to have gone smooth enough, it being so nice that our paper had sold well and all, but I guess the most of us was too tired out to have tried to have a meeting so soon. Anyhow, we didn't seem to come together slippery and light-running, like we do some days; but instead I see the minute we begun to collect that we was all inclined to be heavy and, though not cross, yet frictionish.
"For instance: Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss had come in a new red waist with black raspberry buttons. And it was too much for Mis' Fire Chief Merriman that's been turning her black poplin ever since the Fire Chief died.
"'Dear me, Mis' Holcomb,' she says, 'I never see anybody have more dressy clothes. Did you put that on just for us?'
"Mis' Holcomb shut her lips tight.
"'This is for home wear,' she says short, when she opened them.
"'Mean to say you get a cooked supper in that rig?' says Mis' Merriman. 'Fry meat in it, do you?'
"'We don't eat as hearty as some,' says Mame. 'We don't insist on warm suppers. We feel at our house we have to keep our bills down.'
"Mis' Merriman straightened up, real brittle.
"'My gracious,' she says, 'I guess I live as cheap as the best does.'
"'I see you buyingshellednuts, just the same,' says Mis' Holcomb, 'when shellin' 'em with your fingers cost twenty cents off.'
"'I ain't never had my store-buyin' criticised before,' says Mis' Merriman, elbows back.
"'Nor,' says Mis' Holcomb, bitter, 'have I ever before, in my twenty-six years of married life, ever been calleddressy.'
"Then Mis' Toplady, she sort of shouldered into the minute, big and placid and nice-feeling.
"'Mame,' she says, 'set over here where you can use the lead-pencil on my watch chain, and put down that crochet pattern I wanted, will you?'
"Mame come over by her and took the pencil, Mis' Toplady leaning over so's she could use it; but before she put the crochet pattern down, Mame made one, experimental, on the stiff bottom of her work-bag, and Libby Liberty thought she'd make a little joking.
"'S-sh-h,' says Libby, 'the authoress is takin' down notes.'
"Mis' Holcomb has had two-three poems in theFriendship Daily, and she's real sensitive over it.
"'I'd be polite if I couldn't be pleasant, Libby,' says Mame, acid.
"'I'm pleasant enough to pleasant folks,' snaps Libby, up in arms in a minute. Nothing whatever makes anybody so mad as to have what was meant playful took plain.
"'I,' says Mis' Holcomb, majestic, 'would pay some attention to my company manners, no matter what I was in the home.'
"'That makes me think,' puts in Mis' Toplady, hasty, 'speaking of company so, who's heard anything about the evenin' company up to Proudfits'?'
"It was something all our heads was full of, being half the village had just been invited in to the big evening affair that was to end up the house party, and we'd all of pitched in and talked fast anyhow to take our minds off the spat.
"'Elbert's comin' home to go to it an' to stay Sunday an' as much as he can spare,' says Mis' Sykes. Elbert is her son and all Silas Sykes ought to of been, Elbert is.
"'Letty Ames is home for the party, too,' says Libby Liberty, speaking up in defence of their block, that Letty lives in. She's justgraduated at Indian Mound and has been visiting up the state.
"My niece that had come on for a few days would be gone before the party come off, so she didn't seem worth mentioning for real news value at a time when everything was centring in an evening company at Proudfit House. No doubt about it, Proudfit House does give distinction to Friendship Village, kind of like a finishing school would, or a circus wintering in us.
"'I heard,' says Mis' Jimmy Sturgis, 'that the hired help set up all night long cleanin' the silver. I shouldn't thinkthatwould of been necessary, with any kind of management behind 'em.'
"'You don't get much management now'-days,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, sighing. 'Things slap along awful haphazard.'
"'I know I ain't the system to myself that I use' to have,' says Abagail Arnold. 'Why, the other day I found my soda in one butt'ry an' my bakin' powder in the other.'
"'An' I heard,' says Mame Holcomb—that's one thing about Mame, you can't keep her mad. She'll flare up and be a tongue of flame one minute, and the next she's actin' like a friendly open fire on a family hearth. And I always trust that kind—I can't help it—'I heard,' she said, 'that for the party that night theice-cream is coming in forms, calla-lilies an' dogs an' like that.'
"'I heard,' says Mis' Uppers, 'that Emerel Daniel was invited up to help an' she set up nights and got her a new dress for helpin' in, and now little Otie's sick and she likely can't go near.'
"Mis' Toplady looks over her glasses.
"'Is Otie sick again?' says she. 'Well, if Emerel don't move out of Black Hollow, she'll lose him just like she done Abe. Can't she sell?'
"Black Hollow is the town's pet breeding place for typhoid, that the ladies has been at the council to clean up for a year now. And nobody will buy there, so Emerel's had to live in her house to save rent.
"'She's made her a nice dress an' she was so excited and pleased,' says Mis' Uppers, grieving. 'I do hope it was a dark shade so if bereavement follows—'
"'I suppose you'll have a new cloth, Mis' Sykes,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, 'you're so up-to-date.' It's always one trouble with Mis' Hubbelthwait: she will flatter the flatterable. But that time it didn't work. Mis' Sykes was up on a chair fixing a window-shade that had flew up, and I guess she must have pinched her finger, she was so crispy.
"'I thought Ihadthings that was full stylish enough to wear,' she says stiff.
"'I didn't mean harm,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, humble.
"Just then we all got up to see out the window, for the Proudfit automobile drew up to Mis' Sykes's gate. They was several folks in it, like they had been most of the time during the house party, with everybody flying hither and yon; and they was letting Mis' Emmons out. It was just exactly like her to remember to come right out of the midst of a house party to a meeting of Sodality. That woman was pure gold. When they was a lot of things to choose about, she always seemed to let the pleasant and the light and the easy-to-do slip right through her fingers, that would close up by and by on the big real thing that most folks would pretend to try to catchafterit had slipped through, and yet would be awful glad to see disappearing.
"We didn't talk clothes any more after Mis' Emmons come in. Some way her clothes was so professional seeming, in colour and cut, that beside of her the rest of us never said much about ours; though I will say Mis' Emmons always wore her clothes like she was no more thinking about them than she would be thinking about morning housework togs.
"'Well-said, how's the little boy, Mis' Emmons?' asks Mis' Toplady, hearty. 'I declare I couldn't go to sleep a night or two ago for thinkin' about the little soul. Heard any sound out of his folks?'
"'I'm going to tell you about that pretty soon,' Mis' Emmons answered—and it made my heart beat a little with wondering if she'd got her plans thought out, not only four-square, but tower-high. 'He is well—he wanted to come to the meeting. "I like ladies," he said, "when they look at me like loving, but not when they touch me much." Mr. Insley has him out walking.'
"'Little soul,' says Mis' Toplady, again.
"Out in the back parlour, some of us had been talking about Christopher already.
"'I heard,' Mis' Merriman says, that wasn't to the church the night Christopher come, 'I heard that he didn't have much of any clothes on. An' that nobody could understand what he said. An' that nobody could get him to speak a word.'
"'Pshaw,' Mis' Sturgis puts in, 'he was a nice-dressed little boy, though wet; an' quite conversational.'
"'Well, I think it's a great problem,' says Mis' Uppers. 'He's too young for the poorhouse andtoo old for the babies' home. Seems like they wasn't anythingtodo with him.'
"There come a lull when Mis' Postmaster Sykes, in a ruffled lawn that had shrunk too short for anything but house wear, stood up by the piano and called the meeting to order. And when we'd got on down to new business, the purpose of the meeting and a hint of the pleasure was stated formal by Mis' Sykes herself. 'One thing why I like to preside at Sodality,' I heard her tell once, 'is, you do get your say whenever you want it, and nobody can interrupt you when you're in the chair.'
"'Ladies,' she says, 'we've seen from the treasurer's report we've got some Sixty-odd Dollars on hand. The question is, where shall we vote it to. Let the discussion be free.'
"Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss spoke first, with a kind of a bright manner of having thought it all out over her dish pan and her bread pan. There is this about belonging to Sodality: We just live Sodality every day, around our work. We don't forget it except to meetings, same as some.
"'Well, I just tell you what,' Mame says, 'I think now is our time to get a big monument for the middle of Cemetery that'll do some credit to the Dead. All our little localheadstones is quite tasty and shows our interest in them that's gone before; but not one of them is real up-to-date. Let's buy a nice monument that'll show from the railroad track.'
"I spoke up short off from the back parlour, where I set 'scallopin' a bedspread about as big as the carpet.
"'Who to?' I says.
"'Oh, I donno's it makes much differ'nce,' Mis' Holcomb says, warming to her theme, 'so's it was some leadin' citizen. We might take a town vote on it.'
"Mis' Sturgis set up straight, eyebrows up. I donno how it is, but Mis' Sturgis's pompadour always seems so much higher as soon as she gets interested.
"'Why, my gracious,' she says, 'we might earn quite a lot o' money that way. We might have a regular votin' contest on who that's dead should get the monument—so much a vote an' the names of the successful ones run every night in theDaily—'
"'Well-a, why do it for anybody dead?' says Libby Liberty. 'Why not get the monument here and have it on view an' then have folks kind of bid on it for their own, real votin' style. In the cities now everybody picks out their own monuments ahead of time. That wouldbe doing for the Living, the way Mr. Insley said.'
"'Oh, there'd be hard feelin' that way,' spoke up Mis' Uppers, decided. 'Whoever got it, an' got buried under it, never could feel it was his own stone. Everybody that had bought votes for themselves could come out walking in the Cemetery Sunday afternoons and could point out the monument and tell how much of a money interest they had in it. Oh, no, I don't think that'd do at all.'
"'Well, stick to havin' it for the Dead, then,' Libby gives in. 'We've got to remember our constitution.'
"Mis' Amanda Toplady was always going down after something in the bottom of her pocket, set low in her full black skirt. She done this now, for a spool or a lozenger. And she says, meantime: 'Seems like that'd be awful irreverent, connectin' up the Dead with votes that way.'
"'Mynotion,' says Mis' Sykes, with her way of throwin' up one corner of her head, 'it ain't one-tenth part as irreverent as forgettin' all about 'em.'
"'Of course it ain't,' agreed Mis' Hubbelthwait. 'Real, true irreverence is made up of buryin' folks and leavin' 'em go their way.Why, I bet you there ain't any one of 'em that wouldn't be cheered up by bein' voted for.'
"I couldn't help piping up again from the back parlour. 'What about them that don't get no votes?' I asks. 'What about them that is beat in death like they may of been in life? What's there to cheer them up? If I was them,' says I, 'I'd ha'nt the whole Sodality.'
"'No need to be so sacrilegious in speakin' of the Dead as I know of, Calliope,' says Mis' Sykes that was in the chair and could rebuke at will.
"That made me kind o' mad, and I answered back, chair or no chair: 'A thing is sacrilegious,' says I, 'according to which side of the fence you're on. But the fence it don't change none.'
"Mis' Toplady looked over her glasses and out the window and like she see far away.
"'Land, land,' she says, 'I'd like to take that Sixty Dollars and hire some place to invite the young folks into evenings, that don't have no place to go on earth for fun. Friendship Village,' says she, 'is about as lively as Cemetery is for the young folks.'
"'Well, but, Mis' Toplady,' says Mis' Sykes, reprovin', 'the young folks is alive and able to see to themselves. They don't come inSodality's scope. Everything we do has got to be connect' with Cemetery.'
"'I can't help it,' Mis' Toplady answers, 'if it is. I'd like to invite 'em in for some good safe evenin's somewheres instead of leaving 'em trapse the streets. And if I had to have Cemetery in it somehow, I donno but I'd make it a lawn party and give it in Cemetery and have done with it.'
"We all laughed, but I knew that underneath, Mis' Toplady was kind of half-and-half in earnest.
"'The young folks,' says Mis' Sykes, mysterious, 'is going to be took care of by the proper means, very, very soon.'
"'I donno,' says Mis' Holcomb, obstinate. 'I think the monument is a real nice idea. Grandfather Holcomb, now, him that helped draft the town, or whatever it is they do, I bet he'd be real pleased to be voted for.'
"But Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, seems she couldn't forget the little way Mame had spoke to her before, and she leaned forward and cut her way into the talking.
"'Why, Mis' Holcomb,' she says, 'of course your Grandfather Holcomb can be voted on if he wants to and if he thinks he could get it. But dead though he is, what he done can'thold a candle to what Grandfather Merriman done. That man just about run this town for years on end.'
"'I heard he did,' said Mame, short. 'Those was the days before things was called by their true names in politics and in graft and like that.'
"'I'm sure,' says Mis' Merriman, her voice slipping, 'Grandfather Merriman was an angel in heaven to his family. And he started the very Cemetery by bein' buried in it first himself, and he took a front lot—'
"'Ladies, ladies,' says Mis' Sykes, stern, 'we ain't votin'yet. Has anybody got anything else to offer? Let the discussion be free.'
"'What do we get a monument for, anyway?' says Mis' Toplady, hemming peaceful. 'Why don't we stick the money onto the new iron fence for Cemetery, same as we've been trying to do for years?'
"'That's what I was thinking,' says Abagail Arnold, smiling. 'Whenever I make one of my layer cakes for Sodality Annual, and frost it white and make mounds of frosted nuts on top, I always wish Cemetery had a fence around so's I could make a frosting one on the edge of the cake, appropriate.'
"'Why, but my land, Abagail,' says Mis' Holcomb, 'can't you see the differ'nce betweenworkin' for a dead iron fence and working for the real, right down Dead that once was the living? Where's your humanity, I'd like to know, and your loyalty to Friendship Village inhabitants that was, that you set the old iron fence over against 'em. What's a fence beside folks?'
"All this time Mis' Emmons, there in the front parlour, had just sat still, stitching away on some little garment or other, but now she looked up quick, as if she was going to speak. She even begun to speak with a 'Madame President' that covered up several excited beginnings. But as she done so, I looked through the folding doors and see her catch sight of somebody out in the street. And I looked out the bay-window in the back parlour and I see who it was: it was a man, carefully guiding a little bit of a man who was walking on the flat board top of the Sykes's fence. So, instead of speaking formal, all Mis' Emmons done was to make a little motion towards the window, so that her contribution to the debating was nothing but—
"'Madame President—look.'
"We all looked, them in the out-of-range corners of the room getting up and holding their work in their aprons, and peering past;and us in the back parlour tried for glimpses out the side bay-window, past Mis' Sykes's big sword fern. And so the most of us see Insley walking with Christopher, who was footing it very delicate and grave, picking out his places to step as if a real lot depended on it.
"'That's Chris,' says Mis' Emmons, simple, 'that's come to us.' And you'd of said she hardly spoke the 'us' real conscious of herself. She looked round at us all. 'Let's have him in for a minute,' she says.
"'The little soul! Let's so do,' Mis' Amanda Toplady says, hearty.
"It was Mis' Emmons that went to the door and called them, and I guess Insley, when he see her, must of wondered what made her face seem like that. He went on up town, and the little chap come trotting up the walk.
"When Chris come in Mis' Sykes's front parlour among all the women, there run round that little murmuring sound that a crowd of women uses to greet the coming in their midst of any child. And I s'pose it was a little more so than ever for Chris, that they hadn't all seen yet—'count of so few being out the night he come and 'count of his having been up to Proudfit House 'most ever since. Us in the back parlour went crowding in the front, and somecome down to the hall door to be the nearer. Mis' Amanda Toplady, hunting in her deep pocket, this time for a lozenger, says fervent above the rest:—
"'The little soul.'
"And he did resemble one, standing there so shy and manly in his new little brown clothes.
"Mis' Emmons's eyes was bright, and I thought I see a kind of challenge in her way of drawing the child towards her.
"'Chris,' she says, 'tell them what you had in your paper bag when you came to the church the other night.'
"Chris remembered: Sugar rolls and cream-puffs and fruit-cake, he recites it grand. 'My supper,' he adds, no less grand. 'But that was 'cause I didn't have my dinner nor my breakfast,' he explains, so's we wouldn't think he'd had too much at once.
"'What was the matter with your foot?' Mis' Emmons goes on.
"Christopher had a little smile that just about won you—a sort of abashed little smile, that begun over by one side of his mouth, and when he was going to smile that way he always started in by turning away his head. He done this now; but we could all hear what he said. It was:—
"'My biggest toe went right through a hole, an' it choked me awful.'
"About a child's foot hurting, or a little sore heel, there is something that makes mothers out of everybody, for a minute or two. The women all twittered into a little ripple of understanding. Probably to every woman there come the picture of the little cold, wet foot and the choked toe. I know I could see it, and I can see it yet.
"'Lambin',' says Mis' Toplady, in more than two syllables, 'come here for a peppermint.'
"Chris went right over to her. 'I been thirsty for a drink of water since all day,' he says confidential. 'Have you got one?'
"Mis' Toplady went with the child, and then Mis' Emmons took something from her bag and held it up. It was Christopher's father's letter that he'd brought with him that night.
"She read the letter out loud, in everybody's perfectly breathless silence that was broken only by Christopher laughing out in the kitchen. 'My friends,' Mis' Emmons says when she'd got through, 'doesn't it seem to you as if our work had come to us? And that if it isn't Chris himself, at least it ought to be people, live people—and not an iron fence or even a monument that will show from the railroad track?'
"And with that, standing in the doorway with my arms full of bedspread, I piped right up, just like I'd been longing to pipe up ever since that night at Mis' Emmons's when I'd talked with Insley:—
"'Yes, sir,' I says emphatic, 'it does. Without meaning to be sacrilegious in the least,' I says toward Mis' Sykes, 'I believe that the Dead is a lot better prepared to take care of themselves than a good many of the Living is.'
"There was a kind of a little pause at this, all but Mis' Sykes. Mis' Sykes don't pause easy. She spoke right back, sort of elevating one temple:—
"'The object of this meeting as the chair understands it,' says she, 'is to discuss money spending,notidees.'
"But I didn't pay no more attention than as if I'd been a speaker in public life. And Mis' Toplady and Christopher, coming back to the room just then, I spoke to him and took a-hold of his little shoulder.
"'Chris,' I says, 'tell 'em what you're going to be when you grow up.'
"The little boy stood up with his back against the door-casing, and he spoke back between peppermints:—
"'I'm going to drive the loads of hay,' he declares himself.
"'A little bit ago,' I says to 'em, 'he was going to be a cream-puff man, and keep a church and manufacture black velvet for people's coffins. Think of all them futures—not to spend time on other possibilities. Don't it seem like we'd ought to keep him around here somewheres and help him decide? Don't it seem like what he's going to be is resting with us?'
"But now Mis' Sykes spoke out in her most presidential tone.
"'It would be perfectly impossible,' she says, 'for Sodality to spend its money on the child or on anybody else that's living. Our constitution says we shall work for Cemetery.'
"'Well,' says I, rebellish, 'then let's rip up our old constitution and buy ourselves a new pattern.'
"Mis' Sykes was getting to verge on mad.
"'But Sodality ain't an orphan asylum, Calliope,' says she, 'nor none of us is that.'
"'Ain't we—ain't we, Mis' Sykes?' I says. 'Sometimes I donno what we're for if we ain't that.'
"And then I just clear forgot myself, in one of them times that don't let you get to sleepthat night for thinking about, and that when you wake up is right there by the bed waiting for you, and that makes you feel sore when you think of afterwards—sore, but glad, too.
"'That's it,' I says, 'that's it. I've been thinking about that a good deal lately. I s'pose it's because I ain't any children of my own to be so busy for that I can't think about their real good. Seems to me there ain't a child living no matter how saucy or soiled or similar, but could look us each one in the face and say, "What you doing for me and the rest of us?" And what could we say to them? We could say: "I'm buying some of you ginghams that won't shrink nor fade. Some of you I'm cooking food for, and some of you I'm letting go without it. And some of you I'm buying school books and playthings and some of you I'm leaving without 'em. I'm making up some of your beds and teaching you your manners and I'm loving you—some of you. And the rest of you I'm leaving walk in town after dark with a hole in your stocking."Where's the line—where's the line?How do we know which is the ones to do for? I tell you I'm the orphan asylum to the whole lot of 'em. And so are you. And I move the Cemetery Improvement Sodality do something for thislittle boy. We'd adopt him if he was dead—an' keep his grave as nice and neat as wax. Let's us adopt him instead of his grave!'
"My bedspread had slipped down onto the floor, but I never knew when nor did I see it go. All I see was that some of them agreed with me—Mis' Emmons and Mis' Toplady and Mis' Hubbelthwait and Libby and even Mame that had proposed the monument. But some of the others was waiting as usual to see how Mis' Sykes was going to believe, and Mis' Sykes she was just standing there by the piano, her cheeks getting pinker and pinker up high on her face.
"'Calliope,' she said, making a gesture. 'Ladies! this is every bit of it out of order. This ain't the subject that we come together to discuss.'
"'It kind of seems to me,' says I, 'that it's a subject we was born to discuss.'
"Mis' Toplady sort of rolled over in her chair and looked across her glasses to Mis' Sykes.
"'Madame President,' says she, 'as I understand it this fits in all right. What we're proposing is to spend Sodality's money on this little boy just the same as though he was dead. I move we do so.'
"Two-three of 'em seconded it, but scairt and scattering.
"'Mis' Toplady,' says Mis' Sykes. 'Ladies! This is a good deal too headlong. A committee'd ought—'
"'Question—question,' demands Mis' Emmons, serene, and she met my eye and smiled some, in that littlewe-understand look that can pierce through a roomful of people like the wind.
"'Mis' Emmons,' says Mis' Sykes, wildish. 'Ladies! Sodality has been organized over twenty years, doing the same thing. You can't change so offhand—' You can't help admiring Mis' Sykes, for she simply don't know when she's beat. But this time she had a point with her, too. 'If we want to vote to amend the constitution,' she said, 'you've got to lay down your wishes on the table for one week.'
"'I daresay you have,' says Mis' Emmons, looking grave. 'Well, I move that we amend the constitution of this society, and I move that we do it next week at the open annual meeting of the Sodality.'
"'Second the motion,' says I, with my feet on my white bedspread.
"And somehow the phrase caught Christopher's ear, like a tune might to march by.
"'Second a motion—second a motion!' he chants to himself, standing by Mis' Toplady's knee.
"I had promised Insley to run in the Cadozas' after the meeting, and see the little boy; and Mis' Emmons having to go home before she started back to the Proudfits', Christopher walked along with me. When we got out to the end of Daphne Street, Insley overtook us on his way out to the Cadozas', too.
"His shoes were some muddy, and I guessed that he had been where of late he'd spent as much time as he could spare, both when he was in the village and when he was over to Indian Mound. Without digging down into his eyes, the same as some do to folks that's in trouble, I had sensed that there had come down on him everybody's hour of cutting something out of life, which is as elemental a thing to do as dying is, and I donno but it's the same kind as dying is besides. And he had been taking his hour in the elemental way, wanting to be alone and to kind of get near to the earth. I mean tramping the hills, ploughing along the narrow paths close to the barb' wire fences, plunging into the little groves. The littlegroves have such an' I-know look of understanding all about any difficulty till you walk inside of them, when all to once they stop seeming to know about your special trouble and begin another kind of slow soothing, same as summing things up will soothe you, now and then.
"Chris chattered to him, lovable.
"'I had some peppermenges,' he says, 'and I like hot ice-cream, too. Don't you? Can you make that?' he inquires, slipping his hand in Insley's.
"Of course this made a pang—when you're hurt, 'most everything makes a pang. And this must of brought back that one evening with Robin that he would have to remember, and all the little stupid jokes they'd had that night must of rose up and hit at him, with the awful power of the little things that don't matter one bit and yet that matter everything.
"'What canyoumake, Chris?' Insley says to him. 'Can you make candy? And pull it—like this?'
"'Once a lady stirred me some an' cut it up in squares,' Chris explained, 'but I never did make any. My mama couldn't make candy, I guess, but she could make all other things—pancakes an' mittens an' nice stove fires my mama could make. The bag we got the saltin—she made me two handkerchiefs out of that bag,' he ended proudly.
"'Did she—did she?' Insley tempted him on.
"'Yes,' Chris went on, hopping beside him, 'but now I've got to hurry an' be a man, 'cause litty boys ain't very good things. Can you make po'try?' he wound up.
"'Why, Chris—can you?' Insley asked.
"'Well, when I was comin' along with my daddy that night I made one,' the child says. And when Insley questions him a little he got this much more out of him. 'It started, "Look at the trees so green an' fair,"' he says, 'but I forget the rest.'
"'Do you want to be a poet when you grow up?' Insley ask' him.
"'Yes, I do,' the child says ready. 'I think I'll be that first an' then I'll be the President, too. But what I'd rather be is the sprinkler-cart man, wouldn't you?'
"'Conceivably,' Insley says, and by the look on his face I bet his hand tightened up on the child's hand.
"'At Sodality,' I says, 'he just told them he was going to drive loads of hay. He's made several selections.'
"He looked at me over the child's head, andI guess we was both thinking the same thing: Trust nature to work this out alone? 'Conceivably,' again. But all of a sudden I know we both burned to help to do it. And as Insley talked to the child, I think some touch of his enterprise come back and breathed on him. In them few last days I shouldn't wonder if his work hadn't stopped soaring to the meaning of spirit and sunk down again to be just body drudgery. He couldn't ever help having his old possessing love of men, and his man's strong resolution to keep a-going, but I shouldn't wonder if the wings of the thing he meant to do had got folded up. And Christopher, here, was sort of releasing them out again.
"'How's the little Cadoza boy?' I ask' him pretty soon.
"'He's getting on,' he says. 'Dr. Barrows was down yesterday—he wants him for a fortnight or so at the hospital in town, where he can have good care and food. His mother doesn't want him to go. I hoped you'd talk with her.'
"Before we got to the Cadoza house Insley looked over to me, enigmatish. 'Want to see something?' he says, and he handed me a letter. I read it, and some of it I knew what it meant and some of it I didn't. It was fromAlex Proudfit, asking him up to Proudfit House to the house party.
" ... Ain't it astonishing how awful festive the word 'house party' sounds. 'Party' sounds festive, though not much more so than 'company' or 'gathering' that we use more common. 'Ball,' of course, is real glittering, and paints the inside of your head into pictures, instantaneous. But a house party—maybe it's because I never was to one; maybe it's because I never heard of one till late in life; maybe it's because nobody ever had one before in Friendship Village—but that word give me all the sensation that 'her golden coach' and 'his silver armour' and 'good fairy' used to have for me when I was a little girl. 'House party!' Anything shiny might happen to one of them. It's like you'd took something vanishin', like a party, and just seized onto it and made it stay longer than Time and the World ever intended. It's like making a business of the short-lived.
"Well, some of Alex's letter went about like this:—
"'Join us for the whole time, do,' it says, and it went on about there being rather an interesting group,—'a jolly individualist,' I recollect he says, 'for your special benefit.He'll convert you where I couldn't, because he's kept his love for men and I haven't. And of course I've some women—pretty, bless them, and thank the Lord not one of them troubling whether she loves mankind or not, so long as men love her. And there you have Nature uncovered at her task! I shall expect you for every moment that you can spare....' I remember the wording because it struck me it was all so like Alex that I could pretty near talk to it and have it answer back.
"'Tell me,' Insley says, when I handed the letter back to him, 'you know—him. Alex Proudfit. Does he put all that on? Is it his mask? Does he feel differently and do differently when folks don't know?'
"'Well,' I says, slow, 'I donno. He gives the Cadozas their rent, but when Mis' Cadoza went to thank him, once, he sent down word for her to go and see his agent.'
"He nodded, and I'd never heard him speak bitter before. 'That's it,' he says, 'that's it. That's the way we bungle things....'
"We'd got almost to the Cadozas' when we heard an automobile coming behind us, and as we stood aside to let it go by, Robin's face flashed past us at the window. Mis' Emmonswas with her, that Robin had come down after. Right off the car stopped and Robin jumped out and come hurrying back towards us. I'll never forget the minute. We met right in front of the old tumble-down Cadoza house with the lilacs so high in the front yard that the place looked pretty near nice, like the rest of the world. It was a splendid afternoon, one that had got it's gold persuaded to burst through a gray morning, like colour from a bunch of silver buds; and now the air was all full of lovely things, light and little wind and late sun and I donno but things we didn't know about. And everyone of them seemed in Robin's face as she came towards us, and more, too, that we couldn't name or place.
"I think the mere exquisite girlishness of her come home to Insley as even her strength and her womanliness, that night he talked with her, had not moved him. I donno but in the big field of his man's dream, he had pretty near forgot how obvious her charm was. I'm pretty sure that in those days when he was tramping the hills alone, the thing that he was fighting with was that he was going to lose her companioning in the life they both dreamed. But now her hurrying so and her little faint agitation made her appeal a new thing, fifty times aslovely, fifty times as feminine, and sort of filling in the picture of herself with all the different kinds of women she was in one.
"So now, as he stood there with her, looking down in her face, touching her friendly hand, I think that was the first real, overhauling minute when he was just swept by the understanding that his loss was so many times what he'd thought it was going to be. For it was her that he wanted, it was her that he would miss for herself and not for any dear plans of work-fellowship alone. She understood his dream, but there was other things she understood about, too. A man can love a woman for a whole collection of little dear things—and he can lose her and grieve; he can love her for her big way of looking at things, and he can lose her and grieve; he can love her because she is his work-fellow, and he can lose her and grieve. But if, on top of one of these, he loves her because she is she, the woman that knows about life and is capable of sharing all of life with him and of being tender about it, why then if he loses her, his grieving is going to be something that there ain't rightly no name for. And I think it was that minute there in the road that it first come to Insley that Robin was Robin, that of all the many women that shewas, first and most she was the woman that was capable of sharing with him all sides of living.
"'I wanted ...' she says to him, uncertain. 'Oh, I wish very much that you would accept the invitation to some of the house party. I wanted to tell you.'
"'I can't do that,' he answers, short and almost gruff. 'Really I can't do that.'
"But it seemed there was even a sort of nice childishness about her that you wouldn't have guessed. I always think it's a wonderful moment when a woman knows a man well enough to show some of her childishness to him. But a woman that shows right off, close on the heels of an introduction, how childish she can be, it always sort o' makes me mad—like she'd told her first name without being asked about it.
"'Please,' Robin says, 'I'm asking it because I wish it very much. I want those people up there to know you. I want—'
"He shook his head, looking at her, eyes, mouth, and fresh cheeks, like he wished he was able to look at her faceall at once.
"'At least, at least,' she says to him rapid, then, 'you must come to the party at the end. You know I want to keep you for my friend—I want to make you our friend. That night Aunt Eleanor is going to announce my engagement, and I want my friends to be there.'
"That surprised me as much as it did him. Nobody in the village knew about the engagement yet except us two that knew it from that night at Mis' Emmons's. I wondered what on earth Insley was going to say and I remember how I hoped, pretty near fierce, that he wasn't going to smile and bow and wish her happiness and do the thing the world would have wanted of him. It may make things run smoother to do that way, but smoothness isn't the only thing the love of folks for folks knows about. I do like a man that now and then speaks out with the breath in his lungs and not just with the breath of his nostrils. And that's what Insley done—that's what he done, only I'm bound to say that I do think he spoke out before he knew he was going to.
"'That would be precisely why I couldn't come,' he said. 'Thank you, you know—but please don't ask me.'
"As for Robin, at this her eyes widened, and beautiful colour swept her face. And she didn't at once turn away from him, but I see how she stood looking at him with a kind of a sharp intentness, less of wonder than of stopping short.
"Christopher had run to the automobile and now he come a-hopping back.
"'Robin!' he called. 'Aunt Eleanor says you haf to be in a dress by dinner, and it'snow.'
"'Do come for dinner, Mr. Insley,' Mis' Emmons calls, as Robin and Christopher went to join him. 'We've got up a tableau or two for afterward. Come and help me be a tableau.'
"He smiled and shook his head and answered her. And that reminded me that I'd got to hurry like wild, as usual. It was most six o'clock then,—it alwaysiseither most six o'clock or most noon when I get nearest to being interested,—and that night great things was going to be going on. Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady and the School Board and I was going to have a tableau of our own.
"But for all that I couldn't help standing still a minute and looking after the automobile. It seemed as bad as some kind of a planet, carrying Robin off for forever and ever. And I wasn't so clear that I fancied its orbit.
"'I've got a whole string of minds not to go to that party myself,' I says, meditative.
"But Insley never answered. He just come on around the Cadozas' house.
"I never speak much about my relations, because I haven't got many. If I did have, I suppose I should be telling about how peculiar they take their tea and coffee, and what they died of, and showing samples of their clothes and acting like my own immediate family made up life, just like most folks does. But I haven't got much of any relatives, nor no ancestors to brag about. 'Nothing for kin but the world,' I always say.
"But back in the middle of June I had got a letter from a cousin, like a bow from the blue. And the morning I got it, and with it yet unopened in my hand, Silas Sykes come out from behind the post-office window and tapped me on the arm.
"'Calliope,' he says, 'we've about made up our minds—the School Board an' some o' the leadin' citizens has—to appoint a Women's Evenin' Vigilance Committee, secret. An' we want you an' Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Sykes should be it.'
"'Vigilance,' I says, thoughtful. 'I recollect missin' on the meanin' of that word in school. I recollect I called it "viligance" an' said it meant a 'bus. I donno if I rightly know what it means now, Silas.'
"Silas cleared his throat an' whispered hoarse, in a way he's got: 'Women don't have no call, much for the word,' he says. 'It means when you sic your notice onto some one thing. We want a committee of you women should do it.'
"'Noticewhat?' I says, some mystified. 'What the men had ought to be up to an' ain't?'
"But customers come streaming into the post-office store then, and some folks for their mail, and Silas set a time a couple o' days later in the afternoon for Mis' Toplady and Mis' Sykes and me to come down to the store and talk it over.
"'An' you be here,' says Silas, beatin' it off with his finger. 'It's somethin' we got to do to protect our own public decency.'
"'Publicdecency,' I says over, thoughtful, and went out fingerin' my letter that was in a strange handwriting and that I was dying to read.
"It was a couple of days later that I what-you-might-say finished that letter, and between times I had it on the clock-shelf and give everyspare minute to making it out. Minerva Beach the letter was from—my cousin Minnie Beach's girl. Minnie had died awhile before, and Minerva, her daughter, was on her way West to look for a position, and should she spend a few days with me? That was what I made out, though I donno how I done it, for her writing was so big and so up-and-down that every letter looked like it had on corsets and high heels. I never see such a mess! It was like picking out a crochet pattern to try to read it.
"I recollect that I was just finishing composing my letter telling her to come along, and hurrying so's to take it to mail as I went down to the Vigilance Committee meeting, when the new photographer in town come to my door, with his horse and buggy tied to the gate. J. Horace Myers was his name, and he said he was a friend of the Topladys, and he was staying with them while he made choice art photographs of the whole section; and he wanted to take a picture of my house. He was a dapper little man, but awful tired-seeming, so I told him to take the picture and welcome, and I put the stone dog on the front porch and looped the parlour curtains over again and started off for the meeting.
"'I'll be up to show you the proofs in a few days,' he says as I was leaving. He was fixing the black cloth over his head, kind of listless and patient.
"'Land!' I says, before I knew it, 'don't you get awful sick of takin' pictures of humbly houses you don't care nothin' about?'
"He peeked out from under the black cloth sort of grateful. 'I do,' he says, simple,—'sick enough to bust the camera.'
"'Well, I should think you would,' I says hearty; and I went down Daphne Street with the afternoon kind of feeling tarnished. I was wondering how on earth folks go on at all that dislikes their work like that. There was Abe Luck, just fixing the Sykes's eaves-trough—what was there tolikeabout fixing eaves-troughs and about the whole hardware business? Jimmy Sturgis coming driving the 'bus, Eppleby Holcomb over there registering deeds, Mis' Sykes's girl Em'ly washing windows,—what was there about any of it tolikedoing? I looked at Mis' Sykes's Em'ly real pitying, polishing panes outside, when Abe Luck come climbing down the ladder from the roof; and all of a sudden I see Abe stick his head through the rungs, and quick as a flash kiss Mis' Sykes's Em'ly.
"'My land!' I started to think, 'Mis' Sykes had ought to discharge—' and then I just stopped short off, sudden. Her hating windows, and him hating eaves-troughs, and what else did either of them have? Nothing. I could sense their lives like I could sense my own—level and even anddarn. And all at once I had all I could do to keep from being glad that Abe Luck had kissed Em'ly. And I walked like lightning to keep back the feeling.
"Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady was to the post-office store before me. It was a slack time of day, and Silas set down on a mail-bag and begun outlining the situation that he meant about.
"'The School Board,' says Silas, important, 'has got some women's work they want done. It's a thing,' s'he, 'that women can do the best—I mean it's the girls an' boys, hangin' round evenin's—you know we've all talked about it. But somebody's got to get after 'em in earnest, an' see they don't disgrace us with their carryin' on in the streets, evenin's.'
"'Why don't the men do it?' I ask' him, wonderin', 'or is it 'count of offending some?'
"'No such thing!' says Silas, touchy. 'Where's your delicate feelin's, Calliope? Women can do these things better than men.This is somethin' delicate, that had ought to be seen to quiet. It ain't a matter for the authorities. It's women's work,' says he. 'It's women that's the mothers—it ain't the men,' says Silas, convincing.
"But still I looked at him, real meditative. 'What started you men off on that tack at this time?' I ask' him, blunt—because young folks had been flooding the streets evenings since I could remember, and no Friendship Village man had ever acted like this about it.
"'Well,' says Silas, 'don't you women tell it out around. But the thing that's got us desperate is the schoolhouse. The entry to it—they've used it shameful. Peanut shucks, down-trod popcorn, paper bags, fruit peelin's—every mornin' the stone to the top o' the steps, under the archway, is full of 'em. An' last week the Board went up there early mornin' to do a little tinkerin', an' there set three beer bottles, all empty. So we've figgered on puttin' some iron gates up to the schoolhouse entry an' appointin' you women a Vigilance Committee to help us out.'
"We felt real indignant about the schoolhouse. It stands up a little slope, and you can see it from 'most anywheres daytimes, and we all felt kind of an interest—thoughof course the School Board seemed to own it special.
"Mis' Toplady looked warm and worried. 'But what is it you want we should do, Silas?' she ask', some irritable. 'I've got my hands so full o' my own family it don't seem as if I could vigilance for nobody.'
"'S-h-h, Mis' Toplady.Ithink it's a great trust,' says Mis' Silas Sykes.
"'It is a great trust,' says Silas, warm, 'to get these young folks to stop gallivantin' an' set home where they belong.'
"'How you going to get them to set home, Silas?' I ask', some puzzled.
"'Well,' says Silas, 'that's where they ought to be, ain't it?'
"'Why,' I says thoughtful, 'I donno's they had.'
"'What?' says Silas, with horns on the word. 'What say, Calliope?'
"'How much settin' home evenings did you do when you was young, Silas?' I says.
"'I'd 'a' been a long sight better off if I'd 'a' done more of it,' says Silas.
"'However that is, youdidn'tset home,' I says back at him. 'Neither will young folks set there now, I don't believe.'
"'Well,' says Silas, 'anyhow, they've got toget off'n the streets. We've made up our minds to that. They can't set on steps nor in stairways down town, nor in entries, nor to the schoolhouse. We've got to look out for public decency.'
"'Publicdecency,' says I, again. 'They can do what they like, so's public decency ain't injured, I s'pose, Silas?'
"'No such thing!' shouts Silas. 'Calliope, take shame! Ain't we doin' our best to start 'em right?'
"'That's what I donno,' I answers him, troubled. 'Driving folks around don't never seem to me to be a real good start towards nowheres.'
"Mis' Amanda Toplady hitched forward in her chair and spoke for the first time—ponderous and decided, but real sweet, too. 'What I think is this,' she says. 'They won't set home, as Calliope says. And when we've vigilanced 'em off the streets, where are we goin' to vigilance 'emto?'
"'That ain't our lookout,' says Silas.
"'Ain't it?' says Mis' Toplady. 'Ain't it?' She set thinking for a minute and then her face smoothed. 'Anyhow,' she says, comfortable, 'us ladies'll vigilance awhile. It ain't clear in my mind yet what to do. But we'll do it, I guess.'
"We made up that we three should come down town one night that week and look around and see what we see. We all knew—every woman in Friendship Village knew—how evenings, the streets was full of young folks, loud talking and loud laughing and carrying on. We'd all said to each other, helpless, that wewishtsomething could be done, but that was as far as anybody'd got. So we made it up that we three should be down town in a night or two, so's to get our ideas started, and Silas was to have Timothy Toplady and Eppleby Holcomb, that's on the School Board, down to the store so we could all talk it over together afterwards. But still I guess we all felt sort of vague as to what we was to driveat.
"'It seems like Silas wanted us to unwind a ball o' string from the middle out,' says Mis' Toplady, uneasy, when we'd left the store.
"A few days after that Minerva come. I went down to the depot to meet her, and I would of reco'nized her anywheres, she looked so much like her handwriting. She was dressed sort of tawdry swell. She had on a good deal. But out from under her big hat with its cheap plume that was goin' to shed itself all over the house, I see her face was little and young and some pretty and excited. Excited about lifeand new things and moving around. I liked her right off. 'Land!' thinks I, 'you'll try me to death. But, you poor, nice little thing, you can if you want to.'
"I took her home to supper. She talked along natural enough, and seemed to like everything she et, and then she wiped the dishes for me, and looked at herself in the clock looking-glass all the while she was doing it. Then, when I'd put out the milk bottles, we locked up the back part of the house and went and set in the parlour.
"I'd always thought pretty well of my parlour. It hasn't anything but a plush four-piece set and an ingrain and Nottinghams, but it's theparlour, and I'd liked it. But when we'd been setting there a little while, and I'd asked her about everybody, and showed her their pictures in the album, all of a sudden it seemed as if they wasn't anything todoin the parlour. Setting there and talking was nice, but I missed something. And I thought of this first when Minerva got up and walked kind of aimless to the window.