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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da2c0ae --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #52410 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52410) diff --git a/old/52410-8.txt b/old/52410-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 587d137..0000000 --- a/old/52410-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9012 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peace in Friendship Village, by Zona Gale - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Peace in Friendship Village - -Author: Zona Gale - -Release Date: June 25, 2016 [EBook #52410] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE *** - - - - -Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE - - -[Illustration: Logo] - -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY -NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS -ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO - -MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED -LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA -MELBOURNE - -THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. -TORONTO - - - - -PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE - -BY -ZONA GALE -AUTHOR OF "FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE," "FRIENDSHIP -VILLAGE LOVE STORIES," ETC. - -NEW YORK -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY -1919 - -_All rights reserved_ - - -COPYRIGHT, 1919 -BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - -Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1919. - - -"Whatever comes of it after this [in Russia] every one in the world -should be plainly told of what took place in those first weeks. For it -was a dazzling revelation of the deep, deep powers for brotherhood and -friendliness that lie buried in mankind. I was no dreamer; I was a -chemist, a scientist, used to dealing with facts. All my life I had -smiled at social dreams as nothing but Utopias. But in those days I was -wholly changed, for I could feel beneath my feet this brotherhood like -solid ground. There is no end to what men can do--for there is no limit -to their good will, if only they can be shown the way." - -TARASOV, in Ernest Poole's "The Village." - - -"I am the way ..." - -JESUS CHRIST. - - - - -NOTE - - -These stories are told in the words of Calliope Marsh. Wherever I have -myself intruded a word, it is with apology to her. I chronicle her -stories as faithfully as I am able, faults and all, and, through her, -the affairs of the village, reflecting in its small pool the people and -the stars. - -And always I hear most clearly as her conclusion: - -"Life is something other than that which we believe it to be." - -ZONA GALE. - -Portage, Wisconsin, 1919. - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER PAGE - I THE FEAST OF NATIONS 1 - - II PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE 20 - - III THE STORY OF JEFFRO 45 - - IV WHEN NICK NORDMAN CAME BACK HOME 75 - - V BEING GOOD TO LETTY 98 - - VI SOMETHING PLUS 104 - - VII THE ART AND LOAN DRESS EXHIBIT 130 - -VIII ROSE PINK 154 - - IX PEACE 185 - - X DREAM 205 - - XI THE BROTHER-MAN 232 - - XII THE CABLE 256 - -XIII WHEN THE HERO CAME HOME 273 - - XIV "FOLKS" 293 - - - - -PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE - - - - -THE FEAST OF NATIONS[1] - - -Three-four of us older ones were down winding up Red Cross, and -eight-ten of our daughters were helping; not my daughter--I ain't -connect'--but Friendship Village daughters in general. Or I don't know -but it was us older ones that were helping them. Anyway, Red Cross was -being wound up from being active, and the rooms were going to be rented -to a sewing-machine man. And that night we were to have our final -entertainment in the Friendship Village Opera House, and we were all -going to be in it. - -There was a sound from the stairs like something walking with six feet, -and little Achilles Poulaki came in. He always stumbled even when there -was nothing in sight but the floor--he was that age. He was the Sykeses' -grocery delivery boy, that Mis' Sykes thinks is her social secretary as -well, and he'd been errand boy for us all day. - -"Anything else, Mis' Sykes?" he says. - -"I wonder," says Mis' Sykes, "if Killy can't take that basket of cotton -pieces down to old Mis' Herman, for her woolen rugs?" - -We all thought he could, and some of the girls went to work to find the -basket for him. - -"Killy," I says, "I hear you can speak a nice Greek piece." - -He didn't say anything. He hardly ever did say anything. - -"Can you?" I pressed him, because somebody had been telling me that he -could speak a piece his Greek grandfather had taught him. - -"Yes'm," he says. - -"Will you?" I took it further. - -"No'm," he says, in exactly the same tone. - -"You ought to speak it for me," I said. "I'm going to be Greece in the -show to-night." - -But they brought the basket then, and he went off with it. He was a -little thin-legged chap--such awful thin legs he had, and a pale neck, -and cropped hair, and high eyebrows and big, chapped hands. - -"Don't you drop it, now!" says Mis' Sykes, that always uses a club when -a sliver would do it. - -Achilles straightened up his thin little shoulders and threw out his -thin little chest, and says he: - -"My grandfather was in the gover'ment." - -"Go _on_!" says Mis' Sykes. "In Greece?" - -"Sure," he says--which wasn't Greek talk, though I bet Greek boys have -got something like it. - -Then Achilles was scared to think he'd spoke, and he run off, still -stumbling. His father had been killed in a strike in the Friendship -mills, and his mother was sick and tried to sew some; and she hadn't -nothing left that wasn't married, only Achilles. - -The work went on among us as before, only I always waste a lot of time -watching the girls work. I love to see girls working together--they seem -to touch at things with the tips of their fingers. They remind me of -butterflies washing out their own wings. And yet what a lot they could -get done, and how capable they got to be. Ina Clare and Irene Ayres and -Ruth Holcomb and some more--they were packing up and making a regular -lark of it. Seemed like they were so big and strong and young they could -do 'most anything. Seemed like it was a shame to close down Red Cross -and send them back to their separate church choirs and such, to operate -in, exclusive. - -That was what I was thinking when Mis' Silas Sykes broke in--her that's -the leading woman of the Friendship Village caste of folks. - -"I don't know," says Mis' Sykes, "I don't know but pride is wicked. But -I can_not_ help feeling pride that I've lived in Friendship Village for -three generations of us, unbroken. And for three generations back of -that we were American, on American soil, under the American flag--as -soon as ever it got here." - -"_Was_ you?" I says. "Well, a strain of me is English, and a touch of me -way back was Scotch-Irish; and I've got a little Welsh. And I'd like to -find some Indian, but I haven't ever done it. And I'm proud of all them, -Mis' Sykes." - -Mis' Hubbelthwait spoke up--her that's never been able to get a plate -really to fit her, and when she talks it bothers out loud. - -"I got some of nearly all the Allies in me," she says, complacent. - -"_What?_" says Mis' Sykes. - -"Yes, sir," says Mis' Hubbelthwait. "I was counting up, and there ain't -hardly any of 'em I ain't." - -"Japanese?" says Mis' Sykes, withering. "How interesting, Mis' -Hubbelthwait," says she. - -"Oh, I mean Europe," says Mis' Hubbelthwait, cross. "Of course you can't -descend from different continents. There's English--I've got that. And -French--I've got that. And I-talian is in me--I know that by my eyes. -And folks that come from County Galway has Spanish--" - -"Spain ain't ally," says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, majestic. "It's -neuter." - -"Well, there's that much more credit--to be allies _and_ neuter," says -Mis' Hubbelthwait triumphant. - -"Well, sir," says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. "I ain't got -anything in me but sheer American--you can't beat that." - -"How'd you manage that, Mame?" I ask her. "Kind of a trick, wasn't it?" - -"I don't know what you mean," she says. And went right on over my head, -like she does. "Ain't it nice, ladies," she says, "to be living in the -very tip-top nation of this world?" - -"Except of course England," says Mis' Jimmy Sturgis. - -"Why except England?" snaps Mame Holcomb. - -"Oh well, we all know England's the grandest nation," says Mis' Sturgis. -"Don't the sun never set on her possessions? Don't she rule the wave? -Ain't she got the largest city? And all like that?" - -Mame looked mad. - -"Well, I'm sure I don't know," she says. "But from the time I studied -g'ography I always understood that no nation could touch us Americans." - -"Why," says Mis' Sturgis, "I _love_ America best. But I never had any -doubts that England that my folks came from was the most important -country." - -Mis' Holcomb made her mouth both tight and firm. - -"Their gover'ment beats ours, I s'pose?" she says. "You know very well -you can't beat our gover'ment." - -Berta, Mis' Sykes's little Switzerland maid, spoke up. - -"Oh," she says, "I guess Sweetzerland has got the nicest gover'ment. -Everybody speaks so nice of that." - -Mame looked over at me, behind Berta. But of course we wouldn't say a -word to hurt the poor little thing's feelings. - -Up spoke that new Mis' Antonio, whose husband has the fluff rug store. - -"Of course," she says, "nothing has Rome but Italy." - -We kep' still for a minute. Nobody could contradict that. - -"I feel bad," said Mis' Antonio, "for the new countries--America, -England--that have not so much old history in them. And no old -sceneries." - -Berta spoke up again. "Yes, but then who's got part of the Alps?" she -wanted to know, kind of self-conscious. - -Mame Holcomb looked around, sort of puzzled. - -"Rome used to be nice," she admitted, "and of course the Alps is high. -But everybody knows they can't hold a candle to the United States, all -in all." - -After that we worked on without saying anything. It seemed like pretty -near everything had been said. - -Pretty soon the girls had their part all done. And they stood up, -looking like rainbows in their pretty furs and flowers. - -"Miss Calliope," Ina Clare said to me, "come on with us to get some -things for to-night." - -"Go with you and get out of doing any more work?" says I, joyful. "Well, -won't I!" - -"But we are working," cried Ruth. "We've got oceans of things to -collect." - -"Well," says I, "come along. Sometimes I can't tell work from play and -this is one of the times." - -I thought that more than once while I went round with them in Ruth's big -car late that afternoon. How do you tell work from play when both are -the right kind? How do we know that some day play won't be only just the -happiest kind of work, done joyful and together? - -"I guess you're going to miss this kind of work when Red Cross stops," I -said to them. - -Ruth is tall and powerful and sure, and she drives as if it was only one -of the things she knows about. - -"Miss it?" she said. "We'll be _lost_--simply. What we're going to do I -don't know." - -"We've been some use in the world," said Clare, "and now we've got to go -back to being nothing but happy." - -"We'll have to play bridge five nights a week to keep from being bored -to tears," says Irene--that is pretty but she thinks with her scalp and -no more. - -Ruth, that's the prettiest of them all, she shook her head. - -"We can't go back to that," she said. "At least, I _won't_ go back to -that. But what I'm going on to do I don't know." - -What were they going on to do? That was what I kept wondering all the -while we gathered up the finishing touches of what we wanted for the -stage that night. - -"Now the Greek flag," said Ruth finally. "Mis' Sykes said we could get -that at Mis' Poulaki's." - -That was Achilles' mother, and none of us had ever met her. We went in, -real interested. And there in the middle of the floor sat Mis' Poulaki -looking over the basket of cotton rags that the Red Cross had sent down -by Achilles to old Mis' Herman. - -"Oh," says little Mis' Poulaki, "you sent me such grand clothes for my -rags. Thank you--thank you!" - -She had tears in her eyes, and there wasn't one of us would tell her -Achilles had just plain stole them for her. - -"It is everything," she said to us in her broken talk. "Achilles, he had -each week two dollar from Mr. Sykes. But it is not enough. I have hard -time. Hard." - -Over the lamp shelf I saw, just then, the picture of a big, handsome -man; and out of being kind of embarrassed, I asked who he was. - -"Oh," says Mis' Poulaki, "he's Achilles' grandfather--the father of my -boy's father. He was officer of the Greek gover'ment," she added, -proud. "He taught my boy a piece to speak--something all the Greek boys -learn." - -I told her I'd heard about that piece; and then we asked for the Greek -flag, and Mis' Poulaki got it for us, but she said: - -"Would you leave Achilles carry it for you? He like that." - -We said "yes," and got out as soon as possible--it seemed so sad, love -of a country and stealing all mixed up promiscuous in one little boy. - -Out by the car there was a whole band of little folks hanging round -examining it. They were all going to be in the drill at the -entertainment that night, and they all came running to Ruth that had -trained them. - -"Listen," she said to us, and then she held up her hand to them. "All -say 'God bless you' in your own language." - -They shouted it--a Bedlam, a Babylon. It seems there were about fourteen -different nations of them, more or less, living around down there--it -wasn't a neighborhood we'd known much about. They were cute little bits, -all of them; and I felt better about taking part in the performance, at -my age, for the children were so cute nobody would need to look at us. - -Just as we got in the car, Achilles Poulaki came running home to his -supper--one of the kind of suppers, I suppose, that would be all right, -what there was of it; and enough of it, such as it was. When he see us, -his eyes got wide and dark and scared--it was terrible to see that look -in that little boy's face, that had stole to help his mother. We told -him about the Greek flag, and his face lit, and he said he'd bring it. -But he stood there staring at us, when we drove away. - -His look was haunting me still when I went into the Friendship Village -Opera House that night for the Red Cross final entertainment. "The Feast -of Nations," it was going to be, and us ladies had worked at it hard and -long, and using recipes we were not accustomed to using. - -There's many different kinds of excitement in this vale of tears, but -for the sheer, top-notch variety give me the last few minutes before the -curtain goes up on a home-talent entertainment in a little town. All the -different kinds of anxiety, apprehension and amateur agony are there -together, and gasping for utterance. - -For instance, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman was booked to represent a -Jugo-Slav. None of us ladies knew how it ought to be done, so we had -fixed up kind of a neutral costume of red, white and blue that couldn't -be so very far out of the way. But the last minute Mis' Merriman got -nervous for fear there'd be a Jugo-Slav in the audience, and she balked -out on going on, and it took all we could do to persuade her. And then -the Balkans got nervous--we weren't any of us real clear about the -Balkans. And we didn't know whether the Dolomites was states or -mountains, so we left them out altogether. But we'd been bound the -little nations were going to be represented whether anybody else was or -not--and there we were, nations of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the -Americas and the provinces, and somebody for every one of them. And for -a curtain we'd sewed all the flags of every nation together because we -were so sick and tired of the advertisements and the pink lady on the -old Opera House curtain. - -It's no part of my purpose, as the orators say, to tell about the -Friendship Village "Feast of Nations" entire. It would take sheets. To -mention the mere mistakes and misadventures of that evening would be -Arabian Nights long. Us ladies were the nations, and the young girls -were the spirits--Liberty, Democracy, To-morrow, Humanity, Raw -Materials, Trade Routes, the High Seas, Disputed Territory, Commerce, -Peace, and like that. There ought to have been one more, and she did -come all dressed up and ready, in white with gold and silver on her; and -then she sat flat down on a scaffold, and she says: - -"I _can_ not do it. I _can_ not pronounce me. I shall get," she says -wild, "nothing said out loud but a whisper. And what _is_ the use?" - -We gathered round her, and we understood. None of us could pronounce -her easy, especially when scared. She was Reciprocity. - -"Make a sign," says somebody, "make a sign with her name on it, and hold -it over her head." - -But that was no better, because nobody could spell her, either, -including her herself. So we give it up, and she went down in the -audience and looked on. - -"It's all right," says Mis' Sykes. "Nobody knows what it means, anyway." - -"No," says I, "but think of the work her mother's put on her dress." - -And we all knew what that meant, anyway; and we all felt bad, and -thought mebbe the word would be more in use by the next show we give, if -any. - -About in the middle of the program, just after Commerce and Raw -Materials and Disputed Territory tried to raise a row, and had got held -in place by Humanity, Mis' Sykes came to me behind the scenes. She was -Columbia, of course, and she was dressed in the United States flag, and -she carried an armful of all the other flags. We had had all we could do -to keep her from wearing a crown--she'd been bound and determined to -wear a crown, though we explained to her that crowns was going out of -fashion and getting to be very little worn. - -"But they're so regal!" she kept saying, grieving. - -"Crowns are all right," we had agreed with her. "It's the regal part -that we object to. Not on Columbia you don't put no crown!" - -And we made her wear a wreath of stars. But the wreath was near over -one eye when she came to me there, between the acts. - -"Killy Poulaki," she says, "he stole that whole basket of stuff we sent -down to old Mis' Herman by him. Mis' Herman found it out." - -"For his ma, though," I says pitiful. - -"Ma or no ma, stole is stole," says Mis' Sykes. "We're going to make an -example of him." - -And I thought: "First we starve Achilles on two dollars a week, and then -when he steals for his ma, we make an example of him. Ain't there -anything else for him...." - -There wasn't time to figure it out, because the flag curtain was parting -for the children--the children that came capering up to do their drill, -all proud and pleased and important. They didn't represent anything only -themselves--the children of all the world. And Ruth Holcomb stood up to -drill them, and she was the _Spirit of To-morrow_. - -The curtains had parted on the empty stage, and _To-morrow_ had stepped -out alone and given a short, sharp word. And all over the house, where -they were sitting with their families, they hopped up, boys and girls, -and flashed into the aisles. And the orchestra started them, and they -began to sing and march to the stage, and went through what Ruth had -taught them. - -Nothing military. Nothing with swords or anything of that. But instead, -a little singing dance as they came up to meet _To-morrow_. And she gave -them a star, a bird, a little pretend animal, a flower, a lyre, a green -branch, a seed, and she told them to go out and make the world more -beautiful and glad. They were willing! That was something they knew -about already. They lined up at the footlights and held out their gifts -to the audience. And it made it by far the more wonderful that we knew -the children had really come from so many different nations, every one -with its good gift to give to the world. - -You know how they looked--how all children look when you give them -something like that to do. Dear and small and themselves, so that you -swallow your whole throat while you watch. Because they _are_ To-morrow, -and they want life to be nice, and they think it's going to be--but we -haven't got it fixed up quite right for them yet. We're late. - -As they stood there, young and fine and ready, Ruth, that was -_To-morrow_, said: - -"Now!" - -They began speaking together, clear and strong and sweet. My heart did -more things to my throat while I looked at them. - -"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands, -one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." - -Somebody punched at me, violent. - -"Ain't it magnificent to hear 'em say it?" says Mis' Sykes. "Ain't it -truly magnificent?" - -But I was looking at Achilles and thinking of her being willing to make -an example of him instead of helping him, and thinking, too, of his two -dollars a week. - -"It is if it is," says I, cryptic. - -_To-morrow_ was speaking again. - -"Those of you whose fathers come from Europe, hold up your hands." - -Up shot maybe twenty hands--scraggy and plump, and Achilles' little thin -arm in the first row among them. - -And at the same minute, out came us ladies, marching from the wings--all -those of us that represented the different countries of the world; and -we formed back of the children, and the stage was full of the nations of -Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, the islands and all. - -And _To-morrow_ asked: - -"What is it that your fathers have sworn to, so that you now all belong -to one nation?" - -Then we all said it with the children--waveringly at first, swelling, -mounting to full chorus, the little bodies of the children waving from -side to side as we all recited it: - -"I absolutely and entirely renounce and adjure all allegiance and -fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, and -particularly to--" - -Here was a blur of sound as all the children named the ruler of the -state from which their fathers had come. - -"--of whom I have heretofore been subject ... that I will support and -defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, -foreign or domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same, so -help me God...." - -Before they had finished, I began to notice something. I stood on the -end, and Achilles was just near me. He had looked up and smiled at me, -and at his Greek flag that I was carrying. But now, while the children -recited together, Achilles stood there with them saying not one word. -And then, when the names of the rulers all blurred together, Achilles -scared me, for he put up the back of his hand as if to rub tears from -his eyes. And when they all stopped speaking, only his sobbing broke the -stillness of the hall. - -I don't know how it came to me, save that things do come in shafts of -light and splendor that no one can name; but in that second I knew what -ailed him. Maybe I knew because I remembered the picture of his -grandfather on the wall over the lamp shelf. Anyway, the big pang came -to me to speak out, like it does sometimes, when you have to say what's -in you or die. - -"_To-morrow!_" I cried out to Ruth, and I was glad she had her back to -the audience so they couldn't see how scared she looked at me speaking -what wasn't in my part. "_To-morrow!_ I am Greece! I ask that this -little Greek boy here say the words that his Greek grandfather taught -him!" - -Ruth looked at Achilles and nodded, and I saw his face brighten all of a -sudden through his tears; and I knew he was going to speak it, right out -of his heart. - -Achilles began to speak, indistinct at first, then getting clearer, and -at last his voice went over the hall loud and strong and like he meant -it: - -"'We will never bring disgrace to this our city by any act of dishonor -or cowardice, nor ever desert our suffering comrades in the ranks. We -will revere and obey the city's laws, and do our best to incite a like -respect and reverence in those above us who are prone to annul them or -set them at naught. We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public -sense of civic duty. Thus in all these ways, we will transmit this city -not less but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted -to us.'" - -It was the Athenian boy's creed of citizenship, that Achilles' father -had learned in Greece, and that Achilles' grandfather, that officer in -the Greek government, had taught to them both. - -The whole hall cheered him--how could they help that? And right out of -the fullness of the lump in my throat, I spoke out again. And I says: - -"_To-morrow! To-morrow!_ You're going to give us a world, please God, -where we can be true to our own nation and true to all others, for we -shall all belong to the League of the World." - -Oh, and they cheered that! They knew--they knew. Just like every hamlet -and cross-roads in this country and in this world is getting to -know--that a great new idea is waiting, for us to catch the throb of its -new life. To-morrow, the League of the World is going to teach us how to -be alive. If only we can make it the League of the World indeed. - -Right then came beating out the first chords of the piece we were to -close with. And as it was playing they brought out the great world flag -that us ladies had made from the design that we had thought up and made -ourselves: A white world and white stars on a blue field. - -It floated over the heads of all of us that were dressed as the nations -of the earth, and not one of us ladies was trying to tell which was the -best one, like we had that afternoon; and that flag floated over the -children, and over _To-morrow_ and _Democracy_ and _Liberty_ and -_Humanity_ and _Peace_ and like that. And then we sang, and the hall -sang with us: - - - "The crest and crowning of all good, - Life's common goal is brotherhood." - - -And when the curtains swept together--the curtains made of everybody's -flags--I tell you, it left us all feeling like we ain't felt in I don't -know when. - - -Within about a minute afterward Ruth and Ina and Irene were around me. - -"Miss Calliope," they said, "the Red Cross isn't going to stop." - -"No?" I said. - -"We're going to start in with these foreign-born boys and girls--" Ina -said. - -"We're going to teach them all the things _To-morrow_ was pretending to -teach them," Ruth said. - -"And we're going to learn a thing or two they can teach us," I says, -"beginning with Achilles." - -They knew what I meant, and they nodded. - -And the flag of the white world and white stars on a blue field was all -ready-made to lead us--a kind of picture of God's universe. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] Copyright, _Red Cross Magazine_, April, 1919. - - - - -PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE[2] - - -Post-office Hall, where the Peace celebration was to be held, was filled -with flags, both bought and borrowed, and some made up by us ladies, -part guessed at but most of them real accurate out of the back of the -dictionary. - -Two days before the celebration us ladies were all down working in the -hall, and all pretty tired, so that we were liable to take exception, -and object, and I don't know but what you might say contradict. - -"My feet," says Mis' Toplady, "ache like the headache, and my head aches -as if I'd stood on it." - -"Do they?" says Mis' Postmaster Sykes, with her little society pucker. -"Why, I feel just as fresh. I've got a wonderful constitution." - -"Oh, anybody's constitution feels fresh if they don't work it too hard," -says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, having been down to the Hall all -day long, as Mis' Sykes hadn't. - -Then Mis' Toplady, that is always the one to pour oil and balm and myrrh -and milk onto any troubled situation, she brought out her question more -to reduce down the minute than anything else: - -"Ladies," she says, holding up one foot to rest the aching sole of it, -"Ladies, what under the sun are we going to do now that our war work's -done?" - -"What indeed?" says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. - -"What indeed?" says I. - -"True for you," says Mis' Sykes, that always has to sound different, -even though she means the same. - -Of course we were all going to do what we could to help all Europe, but -saving food is a kind of negative activity, and besides us ladies had -always done it. Whereabouts was the novelty of that? - -And we'd took over an orphan each and were going to skin it out of the -egg-money and such--that is, not the orphan but its keep--and still -these actions weren't quite what we meant, either. - -"The mornings," says Mis' Toplady dreamy, "when I use' to wake up crazy -to get through with my work and get with you ladies to sew--where's all -that gone?" - -"The meetings," says Mame Holcomb, "when Baptists and Catholics and -young folks and Elks met promiscuous and sung and heard talking--where's -them?" - -And somebody brought out the thing we'd all thought most about. - -"The days," she says, "when we worked next to our old enemies--both -church and family enemies--and all bad feelings forgot--where's them -times?" - -"What we going to do about it?" I says. "And when?" - -Mis' Sykes had a suggestion. She always does have a suggestion, being -she loves to have folks disciple after her. "Why, ladies," she says, -"there's some talking more military preparedness right off, I hear. That -means for another war. Why not us start in and knit for it _now_?" And -she beamed around triumphant. - -"Well," says Mame Holcomb, reasonable, "if the men are going to prepare -in any way, it does seem like women had ought to be getting ready too. -Why _not_ knit? And have a big box all setting ready, all knit up, to -match the other preparednesses?" - -It was on to this peaceful assemblage that Berta, Mis' Sykes's little -Switzerland maid, came rushing. And her face was pale and white. "Oh, -Mis' Sykes," she says, "oh, what jew s'pose? I found a little boy -setting on the front stoop." - -Mis' Sykes is always calm--not so much because calm is Christian as -because calm is grand lady, I always think. "On whose stoop, Berta?" she -ask' her kind. - -"On your own stoop, ma'am," cried Berta excitable. - -"And whose little boy is it, Berta?" she ask', still more calm and -kind. - -"That's what I donno, ma'am," says Berta. "Nor they don't no one seem to -know." - -We all ask' her then, so that I don't know, I'm sure, how she managed to -say a word on her own hook. It seems that she'd come around the house -and see him setting there, still as a mouse. When he see her, he looked -up and smiled, and got up like he'd been waiting for somebody. Berta had -taken him in the kitchen. - -"And he's wearing all different clothes than I ever see before in my -life," said Berta, "and he don't know who he is, nor nothing. Nor he -don't talk right." - -Mis' Sykes got up in her grand, deliberate way. "Undoubtedly it's -wandered away from its ma," says she, and goes out with the girl that -was still talking excitable without getting a great deal said. - -The rest of us finished setting the hall in shape. It looked real nice, -with the Friendship Village booth on one side and the Foreign booth on -the other. Of course the Friendship Village booth was considerably the -biggest, being that was the one we knew the most about. - -Then us ladies started home, and we were rounding the corner by Mis' -Sykes's, when we met her a-running out. - -"Ladies," she says, "if this is anybody's child that lives in -Friendship Village, I wish you'd tell me whose. Come along in." - -She was awful excited, and I don't blame her. Sitting on the foot of the -lounge in her dining-room was the funniest little dud ever I see. He was -about four years old, and he had on a little dress that was all gold -braid, and animals, and pictures, and biscuits, and shells, looked like. -But his face was like any--black eyes he had, and a nice skin, and -plain, brown hair, and no hat. - -"For the land," we all says, "where _did_ he come from?" - -"Now listen at this," says Mis' Sykes, and she squatted down in front of -him that was eating his cracker so pretty, and she says, "What's your -name?" - -It stumped him. He only stared. - -Mis' Sykes rolled her eyes, and she pressed him. "Where d'you live?" - -That stumped him too. He only stared on. - -"What's your papa's name?" - -That was a worse poser. So was everything else we asked him. Pretty soon -he begun to cry, and that was a language we could all understand. But -when we ask' him, frantic, what it was he wanted, he said words that -sounded like soup with the alphabet stirred in. - -"Heavens!" says Mis' Sykes. "He ain't English." - -And that's what we all concluded. He wore what we'd never seen, he -spoke what we couldn't speak, he come from nobody knew where. - -But while we were a-staring at each other, the Switzerland maid come -a-racing back. Seems she'd been up to the depot, a block away, and -Copper, the baggageman, had noticed a queer-looking kid on the platform -when some folks got off Number 16 that had gone through west an hour or -so back. Copper thought the kid was with them, but he didn't notice it -special. Where the folks went to, nobody knew. - -"Down on the Flats somewhere, that's where its folks went," says Mis' -Sykes. "Sure to. Well, then, they'll be looking for it. We must get it -in the papers." - -We raced around and advertised that little boy in the _Daily_. The -Friendship Village _Evening Daily_ goes to press almost any time, so if -you happen to hit it right, you can get things in most up to seven -o'clock. Quite often the _Evening Daily_ comes after we're all in bed, -and we get up and read it to go to sleep by. We told the sheriff, and he -come up that evening and clucked at the little boy, without getting a -word out of him, no more than we could. The news flew round town, and -lots of folks come up to see him. It was more exciting than a -night-blooming cereus night. - -But not a soul come to claim him. He might have dropped down from inside -the air. - -"Well," says Mis' Sykes, "if some of them foreigners down on the Flats -_has_ lost him, it'll be us that'll have to find him. They ain't capable -of nothing." - -That was how Mis' Sykes, and Mis' Toplady, and Mame Holcomb and I -hitched up and went down to the Flats and took the baby with us, right -after breakfast next morning, to try our best to locate him. - -The Flats are where the Friendship Village ex-foreigners live--ain't it -scandalous the way we keep on calling ex-foreigners foreigners? And -then, of course, nobody's so very foreign after you get acquainted. -Americans, even, ain't so very foreign to Europeans after they get to -know us, they say. I'd been down there often enough to see my -wash-woman, or dicker for a load of wood, or buy new garden truck, or -get somebody to houseclean, but I didn't know anybody down there to -visit--and none of us ladies did. The Flats were like that. The Flats -didn't seem ever to count real regular in real Friendship Village -doings. For instance, the town was just getting in sewerage, but it -wasn't to go in down on the Flats, and nobody seemed surprised. The only -share the Flats seemed to have in sewerage was to house the long, red -line of bunk cars, where the men lived, drawn up on a spur of track by -the gas house. - -It was a heavenly day, warm and cool and bright, with a little whiff of -wind, like a sachet bag, thrown in. We had the Sykeses' surrey and old -white horse, and Mis' Toplady and Mame and me squoze on the back seat -so's to let Mis' Sykes, that was driving, have sitting beside her in -plain sight that little boy in his blazing red dress. - -We went first to see some folks named Amachi--her husband was up in the -pineries, she said, and so she run their little home-made rug business. -She was a wonderful, motherly soul, and she poored the little boy with -her big, thick hand and listened, with her face up and her hair low in -her neck like some kind of a picture with big, sad eyes. But she hadn't -heard of anybody lost. - -"One trouble with these folks," Mis' Sykes says as we drove away, "they -never know anything but their own affairs." - -Then we went to some folks named Cardell. They tended the bridge and let -the gypsies camp in their pasture whenever they wanted. She was cutting -the grass with a blunt pair of shears; and she had lots of flowers and -vines and the nicest way of talking off the tip of her tongue. She give -the little boy a cup of warm milk, but she hadn't heard anything about -anybody being lost anywheres. - -"Real superior for a foreigner," says Mis' Sykes, so quick after she'd -clucked to her horse I was afraid Mis' Cardell heard her. - -Then we saw an old lady named Marchant, that her ancestors had settled -up Friendship Village, but she was so poor now that everybody had kind -of forgot about that, and some folks named Swenson that lived in the -toll-gate house and had a regular hennery of homeless cats. And though -they give the little boy a flower or two and left him stroke a kitty or -more, they hadn't any of them either seen or heard of anybody that was -out trying to locate a son. - -It was just a little while after we started that Mis' Sykes had her -great idea. I remember we were just coming out at Mis' Swenson's when -she thought of it, and all the homeless cats were following along behind -us with all their tails sticking up straight. - -"Ladies," says Mis' Sykes, "why in under the canopy don't we get some -work out of some of these folks for the peace meeting to-morrow night?" - -"I was thinking of that," says Mame Holcomb. - -"Some of them would wash the dishes and not charge anything, being it's -for the peace." - -"And help clean up next day," says Mis' Sykes. "That's when the -backaching, feet-burning work comes in." - -"Costs a sight to pay by the hour," says Mame, "and this way we could -get the whole thing free, for patriotism." - -"Mop the hall floor, too," says Mis' Sykes. "Land," she adds, only about -half soft enough, "look at them children! Did you ever see such skinny -sights?" - -Awful pindling-looking children, the Swensons were, and there were most -as many of them as there were cats. - -When she got to the gate, Mis' Sykes turned round in her grand-lady way, -and she says, "Mis' Swenson, why don't you and your husband come up to -the peace meetin' to-morrow night and help us?" - -Mis' Swenson was a peaked little thing, with too much throat in length -and not enough in thickness. "I never heard of it," she says. - -Mis' Sykes explained in her commanding way. "Peace, you know," she says, -"is to be celebrated between the different countries. And, of course, -this is your country, too," Mis' Sykes assured her, "and we'd like to -hev you come up and help with the dishes, or like that." - -"Is it dress-up?" says Mis' Swenson, not very loud. - -"My, no!" we told her, and decided to stick to the usual hooks in our -closets. - -"I'd like to," says Mis' Swenson, "if I can get Pete to change his -clothes." - -"So do," says Mis' Sykes gracious and clucked her horse along. "My -goodness," she says, "what awful stuff these folks must feed their -children! And how they must bungle 'em when they're sick. And they won't -hardly any of 'em come to-morrow night," she says. "You can not," she -says, "get these folks to take part in nothing." - -We went to twenty or thirty houses, and every one of them Mis' Sykes -invited to come and help. But not one of the twenty or thirty houses had -heard of any foreigner whatever having just arrived in Friendship -Village, nor had ever seen or heard of that little boy before. He was -awful good, the little soul, waving his hands so nice that I begun to be -afraid everybody we met would claim foreign and ask for him. - -By noon we begun to get pretty excited. And the sheriff, he was excited -too, and he was hunting just as wild as any of us, being arrests was -light. He was hanging on the canal bridge when we crossed it, going home -along toward noon. - -"They never had a case of lost child in Friendship Village in twenty -years," he said. "I looked it up." - -"Lost child nothing!" I told him. "The child ain't lost. Here he is. -It's the parents," I said, "that's lost on us." - -The noon whistle blew just then, and the men that were working on the -sewer threw down their shovels. - -"Look at their faces," says Mis' Sykes. "Did you ever see anything so -terrible foreign?" - -"Foreign ain't poison," says Mis' Toplady on the back seat. - -"I'm going to have Silas put a button on the cellar window," says Mis' -Sykes. - -"Shucks, they ain't shaved, that's all," says Mis' Toplady. - -Mis' Sykes leaned over to the sheriff. "You better be up around the -peace celebration to-morrow night," she says. "We've been giving out -invitations pretty miscellaneous, and we might need you." - -"I'll drop up," says the sheriff. "But I like to watch them bunk cars -pretty close, where the men live." - -"Is there much lawlessness?" Mis' Sykes asks, fearful. - -Mis' Toplady sings out, laughing, that there would be if she didn't get -home to get Timothy's dinner, and Mis' Sykes come to herself and -groaned. - -"But oh, my land," she says, "we ain't found no ma nor pa for this -child. What in time are we going to do? I'm too stiff," she says, "to -adopt one personally." - -But the little boy, he just smelled of the flowers the folks on the -Flats had give him, and waved his hand to the sheriff, cute. - -Late the next afternoon, us ladies that weren't tending to the supper -were trying to get the Foreign booth to look like something. The Foreign -booth looked kind of slimpsey. We hadn't got enough in it. We just had a -few dishes that come from the old country, and a Swiss dress of Berta's -mother's and a Japanese dress, and like that. But we couldn't seem to -connect up much of Europe with Friendship Village. - -At five o'clock the door opened, and in walked Mis' Amachi and Mis' -Swenson from the Flats, with nice black dresses on and big aprons pinned -up in newspapers. Pretty soon in come old Mis' Marchant, that had rode -up on a grocery delivery wagon, she said. Close behind these come some -more of them we had asked. And Mis' Sykes, acting like the personal -hostess to everything, took them around and showed them things, the -Friendship Village booth that was loaded with stuff, and the Foreign -booth that wasn't. - -And Mis' Poulaki, one of the Greek women, she looked for a while and -then she says, "We got two nice musics from old country." - -She made her hands go like playing strings, and we made out that she -meant two musical instruments. - -"Good land!" says Mis' Sykes. "Post right straight home and get them. -Got anything else?" - -"A little boy's suit from Norway," says Mis' Swenson. "And my marriage -dress." - -"Get it up here!" cries Mis' Sykes. "Ladies, why do you s'pose we never -thought of this before?" - -There wasn't hardly one of them that couldn't think of something--a -dish, or a candlestick, or wooden shoes, or an old box, or a kerchief. -Old Mis' Marchant had come wearing a shoulder shawl that come from -Lombardy years back, and we jerked it off her and hung it up, hole and -all. - -It made quite some fun for all of us. And all the time our little -strange boy was running around the floor, playing with papers, and when -we weren't talking of anything else, we were talking about him. - -"Say," says Mis' Sykes, that never means to say "say" but gets it said -unbeknownst when excited, "I guess he's the foreignest thing we've got." - -But by six o'clock she was ready to take that back, about him being the -foreignest. The women from the Flats had all come back, bringing all -they had, and by the time we put it up the Foreign booth looked like -Europe personified. And that wasn't all. Full three quarters of the -folks that we'd asked from down there had showed up, and most of them -says they'd got their husbands to come too. So we held off the supper a -little bit for them--a fifteen-cent supper it was, coffee and sandwiches -and baked beans and doughnuts--and it was funny, when you think of it, -for us to be waiting for them, for most of us had never spoken to any of -these folks before. The women weren't planning to eat, they said; they'd -help, but their men would buy the fifteen-cent supper, they added, -proud. Isn't it kind of sad and dear and _motherly_, the way, whenever -there isn't food enough, it's always the woman who manages to go -without and not let on, just exactly like her husband was her little -boy? - -By and by in they all come, dressed up clean but awful heavy-handed and -big-footed and kind of wishing they hadn't come. But I liked to see them -with our little lost red boy. They all picked him up and played with him -like here was something they knew how to do. - -The supper was to come first, and the peace part afterward, in some set -speeches by the town orators; and we were just ready to pour out the -coffee, I recollect, when the fire-bell rang. Us ladies didn't think -much of that. Compared with getting supper onto the table, what was a -fire? But the men all jumped up excitable, being fires are more in their -line. - -Then there was a scramble and rush and push outside, and the door of the -hall was shoved open, and there stood a man I'd never seen before, white -and shaking and shouting. - -"The bunk cars!" he cried. "They're burning. Come!" - -The bunk cars--the ten or twelve cars drawn up on a spur track below the -gas house.... - -All of us ran out of the hall. It didn't occur to us till afterward that -of course the man at the door was calling the men from the Flats, some -of whom worked on the sewer too. I don't suppose it would ever have -entered his head to come up to call us if the Flat folks hadn't been -there. And it was they who rushed to the door first, and then the rest -of us followed. - -It was still dusk, with a smell of the ground in the air. And a little -new moon was dropping down to bed. It didn't seem as if there ought to -be a fire on such a night. Everything seemed too usual and casual. - -But there was. When we got in sight of the gas house, we could see the -red glare on the round wall. When we got nearer, we could see the -raggedy flames eating up into the black air. - -The men that lived in the cars were trying to scrabble out their poor -belongings. They were shouting queer, throaty cries that we didn't -understand, but some of the folks from the Flats were answering them. I -think that it seemed queer to some of us that those men of the bunk cars -should be having a fire right there in our town. - -"Don't let's get too near," says somebody. "They might have small-pox or -something." - -It was Mis' Sykes, with Silas, her husband, and him carrying that bright -red little boy. And the baby, kind of scared at all the noise and the -difference, was beginning to straighten out and cry words in that -heathen tongue of his. - -"Mercy," says Mis' Sykes, "I can't find Berta. He's going," she says, -"to yell." - -Just then I saw something that excited me more than the baby. There was -one car near the middle that was burning hard when the stream of water -struck it. And I saw that car had a little rag of lace curtain at its -window, and a tin can with a flower in it. And when the blaze died for a -minute, and the roof showed all burned, but not the lower part of the -car or the steps, I saw somebody in blue overalls jump up the steps, and -then an arm tearing down that rag of lace curtain and catching up the -tin can. - -"Well," I says pitiful, "ain't that funny? Some man down there in a bunk -car, with a lace curtain and a posy." - -I started down that way, and Mis' Toplady, Mis' Holcomb and the Sykeses -come too, the Sykeses more to see if walking wouldn't keep the baby -still. It wouldn't. That baby yelled louder than I'd ever heard one, -which is saying lots but not too much. - -When we all got down nearer, we came on Mis' Swenson and Mis' Amachi, -counting up. - -"We can take in two," says Mis' Swenson, "by four of the children -sleeping on the floor that'll never wake up to know it." - -"One can sleep on our lounge," says Mis' Amachi. - -"We can put a couple or two in our barn," says a Flats man. "Oh, we'll -find 'em room--no trouble to that." - -Mis' Toplady and me looked at each other. Always before, in a Friendship -Village catastrophe, her and me had been among the planners. But here -we were, it seemed, left out, and the whole thing being seen to by the -Flats. - -"Say," says Mis' Toplady all of a sudden, "it's a woman!" - -We were down in front by now, and I saw her too. The blue overalls, as I -had called them, were a blue dress. And the woman, a little dark thing -with earrings, stood there with her poor, torn lace curtain and her tin -can with a geranium all wilted down. - -"Mercy!" says Mis' Sykes, shuddering. "A woman down here!" - -But I was looking at that woman. And I saw she wasn't listening to what -some of the Flat women were saying to her. She had her head up and back -as if she was listening to something else. And now she began moving -through the crowd, and now she began running, straight to where all of -us stood and Mis' Sykes was trying to hush the crying child. - -The next second Mis' Sykes was near knocked down by the wildness and the -strength of that little dark thing who threw herself on her and grabbed -the baby. - -Speaking Greek, speaking Hebrew, and Hittite, and Amalekite, and the -tongues of Babylon at the confusion and the last day--for all we knew, -these were what that woman was speaking. We couldn't make more head nor -tail out of what she was saying than we had of the baby. But we could -understand without understanding. It was in her throat, it was in her -tears, it was in her heart. She cried, she sunk down to the ground, -kissing that baby. He put out his hands and went right to her, laughing -in the midst of the crying--oh, I've heard a baby laugh in its tears -when it saw its mother, but this one was the best. And he snuggled up -close, while she poured all over him them barbarous accents. But he knew -what she said, and he said them back. Like before our eyes the alphabet -of vermicelli had begun spelling words. - -Then a man come running--I can see now that open collar, that face -covered with stubble, those great eyes under their mass of tangled hair, -the huge, rough hands that he laid about the baby's shoulders. And they -both began talking to us, first one and then both, asking, looking, -waiting for us to reply. Nobody replied. We all looked to Mis' Sykes to -see what she could think of, as we always do in a village emergency. - -But it wasn't Mis' Sykes that could help us now. It was the Flat folks. -It was them that could understand. Half a dozen of them began telling us -what it was they said. It seemed so wonderful to see the folks that we -had never paid attention to, or thought they knew anything, take those -tangled sounds and unravel them for us, easy, into regular, right-down -words. - -It seems the family had got to Friendship Village night before last, -him to work on the sewer and his wife to cook for the men in the bunk -cars. There were five other little folks with them--sure enough, there -they were now, all flocking about her--and the oldest girl had somehow -lost the baby. Poor souls, they had tried to ask. But he knew that he -must dig and she must cook, and there was not much time for asking, and -eight weeks in this country was all that they had and hardly three words -of English. As for asking the law, they knew the law only as something -that arrests you. - -We were all there in a bunch by that time, everybody making signs to -everybody, whether anybody could understand or not. There was something -about those two, with our little chap in the midst of them, that sort of -loosened us all up. We all of us understood so thorough that we pretty -near forgot the fire. - -By then it had most died down anyhow, and somebody started to move back -up-town. - -"The hall, the hall!" says Mis' Toplady to us. "Have 'em all go up to -the Post-office Hall. Spread it, spread it!" - -We did spread it, to go up there and see what we could do for the -burned-out folks, and incidentally finish the peace celebration. - -Up there in Post-office Hall the lights were all on, just as we'd left -them, and there was kind of a cozy feel of supper in the air. - -"Look here," says Mis' Toplady, "there's quarts of coffee hot on the -back of the stove and a whole mountain of sandwiches--" - -"Let's," I says. And we all begun to do so. - -We all begun to do so, and I begun to do something more. I'd learned -quite a little from seeing them there in the hall and kitchen that -afternoon, the Swensons and Poulakis and Amachis and the rest. And now -here were these others, from the bunk cars,--big, beautiful eyes they -had, and patient looks, and little bobbing curtsies, and white teeth -when they smiled. I saw them now, trying to eat and behave the best they -knew how, and back of them the Foreign booth, under the Foreign flag. -And what I begun to have to do, was to get in over behind that Foreign -Booth and wipe up my eyes a little. - -Once I peeked out. And I happened to see the sheriff going by. He was -needed, like Mis' Sykes told him he might be, but not the same, either. -He was passing the sugar and cream. - -What brought me out finally was what I heard Mis' Sykes saying: - -"Ladies," says she, "let's us set her up there in the middle of the -Foreign Booth, with her little boy in her lap. That'll be just the -finishing foreign touch," says she, "to our booth." - -So we covered a chair with foreign flags, promiscuous, and set her -there. Awful pretty and serious she looked. - -"If only we could talk to her," says Mis' Sykes, grieving. "Ladies, any -of you know any foreign sentences?" - -All any of us could get together was terra cotton and delirium tremens. -So we left it go, and just stood and looked at her, and smiled at her, -and clucked at the little boy, and at all her little folks that come -around her in the booth, under the different flags. - -"We'll call her Democracy!" says Marne Holcomb, that often blazes up -before the match is lit. "Why not call her the Spirit of Democracy, in -the newspaper write-up?" - -With that Mis' Sykes kind of stopped winking and breathing, in a way she -has. - -"My land," she says, "but _s'pose he's an enemy baby and she's his enemy -ma_?" - -There hadn't one of us thought of that. For all we had made out, they -might be anything. We got hold of Mis' Poulaki and Mis' Amachi, hot -foot. - -"Ast her what she is," we told them. "Ast her what country it is she -comes from." - -"Oh," says Mis' Poulaki, "that we know already. They're -Lithuanians--that is what they are." - -Lithuanians. Where was it? Us ladies drew together still more close. -Was Lithuanians central power or was it ally? Us ladies ain't so very -geographical, and not one of us knew or could make out. - -"Say," says Mis' Toplady finally, "shut up, all of us. If it gets around -for folks to wonder at--Why, my land," she says, "their bunk car's -burned up anyhow, ain't it? Let's us shut up." - -And so we done. And everybody was up around the Foreign Booth. And the -Friendship Village booth was most forgot. - -All of a sudden, somebody started up "America." I don't know where -they'd learned it. There aren't so very many chances for such as these -to learn it very good. Some of them couldn't say a word of it, but they -could all keep in tune. I saw the side faces of the Flats folks and the -bunk car folks, while they hummed away, broken, at that tune that they -knew about. Oh, if you want to know what to do next with your life, go -somewhere and look at a foreigner in this country singing "America," -when he doesn't know you're looking. I don't see how we rest till we get -our land a little more like what he thinks it is. And while I was -listening, it seemed as if Europe was there in the room. - -It was while they were singing that the magic began to work in us all. I -remember how it started. - -"Oh," says Mis' Toplady, "ladies! Think of that little boy, and the -other folks, living in those bunk cars. Don't it seem as if, while -they're here, us ladies could--" - -"Don't it?" I says. - -"And the little skinny ones down on the Flats," Mis' Toplady whispers -pretty soon. "Can't some of us teach them women how to feed them better -and cost no more?" - -"And take care of them when they're sick," says Mame Holcomb. "I -shouldn't wonder if they die when they don't need to, all day long." - -We see ideas gathering back of one another's eyes. And all of a sudden I -thought of something else. "Ladies," I says, "and get sewerage down -there on the Flats! Don't it belong there just exactly as much as in the -residence part?" - -Us ladies all looked at each other. We'd just taken it for granted the -Flats shouldn't have sewerage and should have the skeptic tank. - -"Say," says Mis' Toplady, "it don't look to me like we'd have a very -hard time knowing what to do with ourselves, now this war is over." - -"The mornings," says Mame Holcomb, "when we use' to wake up, crazy to -start in on something--it looks to me like they ain't all through with -yet!" - -"The meetings," says Mis' Toplady, "when Baptists and Catholics and -Elks--" - -Mis' Sykes was listening. It ain't very often that she comes down off -her high horse, but when she does, I tell you she lands hard. - -"Ladies!" she says. "It was me that was talking about beginning to knit -for another war. Why didn't you shut me up and bolt the door?" - -FOOTNOTE: - -[2] Copyright, _Good Housekeeping_, June, 1919. - - - - -THE STORY OF JEFFRO[3] - - -_When I have told this story of Jeffro, the alien, some one has always -said:_ - -"_Yes, but there's another side to that. They aren't all Jeffros._" - -_When stories are told of American gentleness, childlike faith, -sensitiveness to duty, love of freedom, I do not remember to have heard -any one rejoin:_ - -"_Yes, but Americans are not all like that._" - -_So I wonder why this comment should be made about Jeffro._ - - -I - -When Jeffro first came knocking at my door that Spring morning, he said -that which surprised me more than anything that had been said to me in -years. He said: - -"Madam, if you have a house for rent--a house for rent. Have you?" - -For years nobody had said that to me; and the little house which I own -on the Red Barns road, not far from the schoolhouse, was falling in -pieces because I never could get enough ahead to mend it up. In the -road in front of it there was a big hole that had never been filled in. -And the house only had two rooms anyway--and a piece of ground about as -big as a rug; and the house was pretty near as old as the ground was. - -"Land," I says, "man, you don't want to rent that house?" - -He smiled, nice and wrinkled and gentle, and said yes, he did; and -nothing that I, as my own real estate agent, could say discouraged him. -Even when I'd whipped off my kitchen apron and found the key to the -little house in my button-box, and had gone down the road with him to -look the house over, and let him see what it was like, he insisted that -he wanted to rent it. And so in the end he done: at four dollars a -month, which wasn't much more than, by rights, the sale price should -have been. - -"I do little things to this house," said Jeffro. "I make little change -for good. I have some handy with a hammer." - -I remember turning back a ways from the house, and seeing him standing -there, with his hands behind him, looking at the house as if it _was_ -something, and something of his. - -When I got home and was up in the garret hunting up the three green -paper shades for his windows, it come to me that I hadn't asked him for -any references, and that for all I knew he might be going to counterfeit -money or whisky or something there on the premises. But anybody'd known -better than that just to look at Jeffro's face. A wonderful surprised -face he had; surprised, but believing it all too, and trusting the good. -A brown face, with big, brown eyes, and that wrinkled smile of his. I -like to think about him. - -After a few days I went over with the shades, and he'd got a few pieces -of furniture there, setting round, loose and unattached. And on a big -basket of stuff was sitting a little boy, about eight years old. - -"That's Joseph," says Jeffro, simple. "We are the two that came." - -Then he told me. In "the old country" his wife and two little ones were -waiting till he could earn money to send back for them. - -"I thought when I had thes' little follow here," he said, "I could work -then more easy. He don't eat but little," he added. - -"But how," says I, "are you expecting to earn all that money out of -Friendship Village--where folks saves for years to put on a new stoop?" - -At this he smiled, sort of knowing. And he pointed to a poster over his -wood-box. It was printed in Yiddish, all but the words "United States"; -but the picture--that was plain enough. It showed a mill on one side of -the street, and a bank on the other. And from the mill a stream of -workingmen, with bags of money on their backs, were streaming over -toward the bank. - -"That was put up on my cow-shed at home," said Jeffro. "I have brought -it. But I have no trade--I can not earn money fast like those. I make -the toys." - -He threw open the door into the only other room of the house. In it was -piled dozens of boxes, and some broad shelves to be put up, and a table -was covered with colored stuff. "Then I go up to the city and sell," -said he. "It is only five miles. But I can not live there--not with -thes' boy. I say, 'I vill find some little cheap place out in the -country for us two.' So then I come here. I am now in America five -weeks," he added, proud. - -"Five weeks!" says I. "Then where'd you learn to talk American?" - -"I have study and save' for six-seven years, to be ready," said Jeffro, -simple. "Now I come. Next year I think I send for them." - -All day long those words of his kept coming and ringing in my ears. And -it kind of seemed to me that in them was a great chorus--a chorus of -thousands going up that minute, and this minute, and all the time, all -over America: - -"Now I come. Next year I think I send for them." - -And I says to myself: "What's America going to do for him? What's -America going to do to him? What are we going to do to him? And what is -he going to do for us?" - -Well, the story of the first few weeks of Jeffro's in Friendship -Village is for me a kind of window set in the side-wall of the way -things are. - -One morning, a little before nine o'clock, I had to go to the -schoolhouse to see Miss Mayhew. When I went by Jeffro's I didn't see -anything of him, but when I got along by the schoolhouse grounds, there -I saw him, leaning on the fence under the locust-tree. - -"Good morning, Mr. Jeffro," I says. "Do the children bother you down to -your house with their noise? That's one reason my house used to be so -hard to rent, it was so close by the schoolhouse." - -His face, when he turned to me, startled me. - -"Bother me!" he said, slow. "Every day I come across to look at them -near. To see them--it is a vonder. Thes' big building, thes' big yard, -thes' children that do no vork, only learn, learn. And see--Joseph is -there. Over by the swing--you see him? He learn, too--my Joseph--I do -not even buy his books. It is free--all free. I am always vatching them -in thes' place. It is a vonder." - -Then one night, when he had been there about two weeks, Jeffro's house -caught fire. A candle that he used for melting his wax tipped over on -his toy shavings and blazed up. Timothy Toplady, driving by, heard him -shout, and galloped into town for the department, and they went tearing -out Red Barns way soon after Jeffro had the fire put out. He was making -toys again when the fire-engine drew up at his gate, and the men came -trampling up to his porch, wanting the blaze pointed out to them. Bud -Miles, that's in the department, told me how Jeffro stood in the door -bowing to them and regretting the trouble he'd made, and apologizing to -them for not having any fire ready for them to put out. - -And the next day Jeffro walked into the engine house and asked the men -sitting round with their heels up how much he owed them. - -"For what?" says they. - -"For putting down my fire," Jeffro says. "That is, for coming to put it -down if I had one." - -The men stared at him and burst out laughing. "Why nothing," they said. -"That don't cost anything. That's free." - -Jeffro just stood and looked at them. "Free?" he said. "But the big -engine and the wagons and the men and the horses--does nobody pay them -to come and put down fires?" - -"Why, the town does," they told him. "The town pays them." - -He said eagerly: "No, no--you have not understood. I pay no taxes--I do -not help that way with taxes. Then I must pay instead--no?" - -They could hardly make him understand. All these big things put at his -service, even the town fire-bell rung, and nothing to pay for it. His -experience with cities was slight, in any case. He went off, looking -all dazed, and left the men shouting. It seemed such a joke to the men -that it shouldn't be all free. It seemed so wonderful to Jeffro that it -should. - -He hadn't gone half a block from the engine-house when he turned round -and went back. - -"The gentlemen have not understood," he said. "I am not yet a citizen. I -have apply for my first papers, but I am not yet a citizen. Whoever is -not citizen must pay for this fire attention. Is it not so?" - -Then they shouted again. Think of stopping to find out whether a man was -a citizen before they put his fire out! Everybody in Friendship Village -was telling that to each other for weeks, and splitting their sides over -it. - -Less than a couple of weeks afterward Jeffro got a letter from home, -from his wife. Postmaster Silas Sykes handed it out to him when Jeffro -come in the post-office store for some groceries, and when he started to -pay for the groceries Jeffro says: - -"How much on the letter?" - -"Why, they's nothing due on that," says Silas, squinting at it over the -sugar-barrel. - -"But thes' is only old country stamp on here," said Jeffro. "It is not -enough for all this way in America too?" - -Silas waved his hand at him like the representative of the gover'ment -he was. "Your Uncle Sam pays for all that," says he. - -Jeffro looks at him a minute, then he says: "Uncle Sam--is that, then, a -person? I see the pictures--" - -"Sure, sure," says Silas, winking to Timothy Toplady that stood by. -"Uncle Sam takes grand care of us, you bet." - -"I am not yet a citizen," Jeffro insisted. "I have apply for my first -papers--" - -"Go 'long," says Silas, magnificent. "Do you s'pose Uncle Sam bothers -himself about that? You belong to his family as soon as you strike -shore." - -Timothy Toplady told me about it. "And," says he, "do you know that man -went out of the store looking perfectly queer! And kind of solemn." - -All these things begun to open my eyes. Here, all my life, I'd been -taking things for granted. My school-days, the fire-engine, -postage-stamps, and all the rest, I'd took for granted, just like this -generation is taking for granted aëroplanes. And all of a sudden now, I -see how they were: not gifts to me, but powers of the big land. I'd -always thought of a village as a person. But a Big Land--that had powers -too! And was developing more as fast as its folks would let it. - -And it was wonderful consoling. It helped me over more than I can tell. -When Silas Sykes give light measure on my sugar and oatmeal, thinks I: - -"Well, you're just a little piece of the Big Land's power of -business--and it ain't grown yet. It's only just growing." - -And when the Friendship Village Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement -Sodality--that's just the name of it and it works at more things than -just cemetery--when it had spent five years studying our gover'ment, and -then turned around and created an executive board whose reports to the -Society of Forty had to be made unanimous--I says to myself: - -"Well, the club's just a little piece of the Big Land's power of -democracy, and it ain't grown yet. It's only just growing." - -And when the Friendship Village chapter of the Daughters of the American -Revolution refused to leave us ladies borrow their copy of the American -flag because they reverenced it so hard they were afraid it would get -tore, I says to myself: - -"But it's just a little scrap of the Big Land's power of patriotism to -the universe, and it ain't grown yet only just to one country--and not -entirely to that." - -And it made me see things intimate and tender. And it was Jeffro that -did that for me. - -That summer he come to kind of belong to the town, the way a hill or a -tree does, only lots more so. At first, folks used to call him "that Jew -peddler," and circus day I heard Mis' Sykes saying we better lock up our -doors during the parade, because we didn't know what "that foreigner" -might take it in his head to do. - -"Mis' Sykes," says I, "where were your mother and father born?" - -"New York state," says she, like the right answer. - -"And their folks?" I went on. - -"Massachusetts," says she, like she was going to the head now sure. - -"And _their_ folks?" I continued, smooth. "Where'd _they_ come from?" - -Mis' Sykes began to wobble. "Well," says she, "there was three brothers -come over together--" - -"Yes," I says, "I know. There always is. Well, where'd they come from? -And where'd their folks come from? Were they immigrants to America, too? -Or did they just stay foreigners in England or Germany or Scandinavia or -Russia, maybe?" says I. "Which was it?" - -Mis' Sykes put on her most ancestral look. "You can ask the most -personal questions, Calliope," she began. - -"Personal," says I. "Why, I dunno. I thought that question was real -universal. For all we know, it takes in a dozen nations with their blood -flowing, sociable, in with yours. It's awful hard for any of us," I -says, "to find a real race to be foreign to. I wouldn't bet I was -foreign to no one," says I, "nor that no one was foreign, for certain, -to me." - -"I shall lock my door circus day, just the same," says Mis' Sykes. - -"Do," says I. "Circuses is likely to be followed up by hoodlums. And -I've known them to be native-born, now and again." - -But after a while, in spite of his being a foreigner, most everybody got -to like Jeffro. You couldn't help it--he was so patient and ready to -believe. And the children--the children that like your heart--they all -loved him. They would follow him along the curb, and he'd set down and -show them his pack--time and again I've come on him in a shady -side-street opening his pack for them. And sometimes when he had a new -toy made, he'd walk up to the schoolhouse a-purpose to show it to them, -and they'd all crowd round him, at recess. - -On account of that, the children's folks took to noticing him and -speaking to him. And folks done little things for him and for Joseph. -Abigail Arnold, that keeps the home bakery, she had him make a wooden -bridal pair for the top of the wedding-cake she keeps permanent in her -show window; Mis' Timothy Toplady had him do little odd jobs around -their place, and she'd pay him with a cooked chicken. He'd show most all -of us the picture of his little young wife and the two children-- - -"I declare," says Mis' Toplady, kind of wondering, "since I've seen the -picture of his wife and babies he don't seem to me much more foreign -than anybody else." - -I happened over to Jeffro's one morning with a loaf of my brown bread -and a half a johnny-cake. He seemed to know how to cook pretty well, but -still I felt more or less sorry for him and the little boy, and I used -to take them in a thing or two less than half occasionally. When I -stepped up to the door that night I heard him singing--he used to sing -low, funny songs while he worked. And when he opened the door for me, -all of a sudden he blushed to the top of his face. And he bowed his -funny, stiff way, and says: - -"Vell, I see I blush like boys. It is because I was singing a -little--vat-you-call, lull'by. Ven I make the toys I am always thinking -how little children vill go to sleep holding vat I make, and sometimes I -put in lull'bies, in case there is no mother to sing them." - -That was like Jeffro. I mention it because Jeffro was just like that. - -I'd set down the bread and the johnny-cake, and he'd thanked me--Jeffro -always thanked folks like he'd just been give a piece of new life with -every kindness--and I dunno but he had--I dunno but we all have; and I'd -started to go, when he says hesitating: - -"I have vanted to ask you thes': If I vork at that bad place in the road -in front--if I bring sand from the hill behind, what I can, and fill in -that hole, slow, you know--but some every day--you would not mind?" - -"Mind?" says I. "Why, my, no. But it's part the village's business to do -that. You're in the village limits, you know. It'd ought to been done -long ago." - -"The village?" said he. "But it is your place. Why should the village -fix that hole?" - -"It's the village's business," I told him, "to keep the streets good. -Most of them do it pretty lackadaisical, but it's their business to do -it." - -His face lit up like turning up the wick. "_Nu!_" he cried. "So I vill -do. I thought it vould be you I am doing it for, and I vas glad. But if -it is the village, then I am many times more glad of that." - -It wasn't much of a compliment to a lady, but I thought I see what he -meant. - -"Why are you glad, Mr. Jeffro," I says, to make sure, "that it's the -village?" - -"It does all the things for me," he says, simple. "The fire-engine, the -post-office--even the telephone is free to me in the village. So it is -America doing this for me; for thes' village, it belongs to America. -There is no army that I go in or pay to keep out of--there are no -soldiers that are jostling me in the streets--they do not even make me -buy and put up any flag. And my little Joseph, all day long he is -learning. And the people--here they call me 'Mr.' All is free--free. For -all thes' I pay nothing. And now you tell me here is a hole that it is -the village business to fill up. It is the business of America to fill -up that hole! Vell, I can make that my business, for a -little--what-you-say--_pay-back_." - -It was awful hard to know what to say. I wonder what you'd have said? I -just stood still and kept still. Because, if I'd known what to say, it -would have been pretty hard, just then, to say it anyway. - -"It is a luck for the folks," he said, "that their own vork lets them -make some paying back. My toys, they don't pay back, not very much. I -must find another vay." - -He followed me out on the stoop. - -"There is von thing they vill let me do after a vile, though," he said, -with a smile. "In America, I hear everybody make von long, strong -groaning about their taxes. Those taxes, ven vill they come? And are -they so very big, then? They must be very big to pay for all the free -things." - -"Why, Mr. Jeffro," I said, "but you won't have any taxes." - -"But I am to be a citizen!" he cried. "Every citizen pays his taxes." - -"No," I told him. "No, they don't. And unless you own property or--or -something," says I, stumbling as delicate as I could, "you don't pay -any taxes at all, Mr. Jeffro." - -When I made him know that sure, he lifted his arms and let them drop; -and he come on down the path with me, and he stood there by the syringa -bush at the gate, looking off down the little swelling hill to where the -village nestled at the foot. School was just out, and the children were -flooding down the road, and the whole time was peaceful and spacious and -close-up-to, like a friend. We stood still for a minute, while I was -thinking that; and when I turned to Jeffro, he stood with the tears -running down his cheeks. - -"To think there is such a place," he said reverently. "And me in it. And -them going to be here." Then he looked at me like he was seeing more -than his words were saying. "I keep thinking," he said, "how hard God is -vorking, all over the earth--and how good He's succeeded here." - -Up to the gate run little Joseph, his school-books in his arms. Jeffro -put both hands on the boy. - -"Little citizen, little citizen," his father said. And it was like one -way of being baptized. - - -II - -When I was a little girl, a cardinal bird came one summer and nested in -our yard. They almost never come so far north, and I loved him like a -friend. When autumn came, the other birds all went, but he didn't go. -And one day, in the first snow and high wind, he was storm-beaten into -our little porch, and we caught him. We dare not let him go, in the -cold. So we kept him until he died. I shall never forget the change that -the days made. I cannot bear to tell or to think about the change in him -that the days made. That is why I will never have about me a caged -thing, bird or beast or spirit. The cardinal helped me to understand. I -wonder if the death of any beauty or any life is as much Nature's will -as we still think it is.... - -This is why I shrink from telling what next happened to Jeffro--what I -knew must happen to him if he came here and lived the life of his -kind--of my kind. Lived it, I mean, with his eyes open. There are plenty -who live it and never know anything about it, after all. But Jeffro -would know. He had seeing eyes, and his heart was the heart of a child, -and his face was always surprised--surprised, but believing it all too, -and trusting the good. He trusted the good just as you and I did, in the -beginning. Just as you and I do, in the end. But in between the two -trusts there comes a black time; and if it hasn't come to you, then you -don't know the Big Land; and you don't see what's going on in it; and -you haven't questioned where it's all going to lead. As, after a while, -Jeffro questioned it. - -All summer he worked at his toys, and all the autumn. But when winter -began to come, the little house was hard to heat. The roof was decayed, -the windows were shrunken, the floor was in a draft from all four -directions; and I didn't have the money to make the house over--which -was just about what it needed. I offered to rent him and the little boy -a room in my house, and to let him do his work there; but it was far for -the little fellow to go to school. And just then came the Offer. - -A man from a mining town in the next state gave Jeffro a chance to go -there with him, and he'd give him work in the mines all winter. Jeffro -listened, and heard about the good pay, and the plain, hearty food, and -the chance to get ahead; and Miss Mayhew said she'd keep the little boy; -and Jeffro thought about the cold little house, and feeding himself all -winter, and about standing on street corners with his pack; and there -was Miss Mayhew's nice, warm house and woman-care for the little boy. -And in the end Jeffro went. I told him to leave his things in the little -house and I wouldn't charge him rent, which it wasn't worth it. - -The night before he started he come round to my house to say good-by. He -thanked me, so nice, for what I'd done, off and on. And then he pulled -something out of his pocket. - -"Look!" he said. "It is from the National Bank. It is my bank-book--the -proofs that I have money there. Here is my checker book," said he. "You -know how these things go. See that!" His eyes got big and deep. "They -give me credit--and thes' two books," he said. "And they vill give me -interest on thes' little money. It vill make money for me vile I am -gone. It is a vonder. I ask' them vat there is to pay for this chance, -and the man laughed. And see--all the vile I am gone, Joseph vill be -learning free. I pay no more than his little board. It is a vonder." - -He showed me the entry, thirty-seven dollars, his summer's savings. He -had had to keep back the amount of his fare. - -"The ticket is much," he said, "but thes' vay I can save enough by -spring so they can come. They can live in your little house--oh, it is a -plenty room. Ve shall have a little garden--as big as Joseph's plate! -She vill keep a little coop of chickens--" - -So he ran on with his happy planning. I remember how he looked when he -left my house that night--his two books tightly clasped, his shoulders -back, his head full of dreams, his face sort of held up to the stars. I -never saw him that way again. - -It was a long winter. It's strange how the calendar sets down winter as -just being three months when everybody that's lived through one knows -how it's either long or short and never, never clipped right off at the -three months, same as the almanac would have you believe. This one was -long, and it was white, and it was deep. It kept me shoveling coal and -splitting kindling and paying for stove-wood and warming my feet, and -it seemed to me that was pretty near all I did do those months. It's -surprising and it's discouraging how much of our lives goes along just -doing the little fussy things necessary to keep a-going, that you can't -count in on just pure, sheer living. - -"Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for -exercise," they used to tell me; and I used to think: "Yes, but what -about just messing-round?" That don't get itself counted in at all, and -that just eats up time by the dialful. And I think, if you look close, -that one of the things we've got to learn is how to do less of the -little hectoring, wearing messing-round, and to do more of the big, -plain, real, true, unvarnished living--like real work, and real play, -and real talk, and real thinking. And fewer little jobs--fewer little -jobs. - -But after a while the winter got done, and early April came--a little -faint green down below, a little fine gold up above, and a great wide -wash of pale blue at the top; Spring in three layers. - -I'd been often to see Joseph, and he was well, and in the reader ahead -of the reader a boy of his age would naturally have been in. He had had -several short letters from his father, and I was looking to have one of -them say when we might expect him, but none of them did. - -Then in April no letter came. We thought it meant that he'd be home. -I'd been over and cleaned the little house. And then when April was -almost to a close, and he hadn't come yet, I saw it would be too late -for his garden, so I planted that--a few vegetables, and a few flowers, -and a morning-glory or two over the stoop. And I laid in a few canned -things in his cupboard, so's he would have something to start in on. - -May came, and we wondered. Then one day there was a letter in a strange -writing. Jeffro was in the hospital, it said, and he wanted to send word -that he was all right and would send a letter himself in a little while. -That was all that it told us. - -Everybody in Friendship Village remembers that spring, because it was -the year the bank closed down. Nobody knew the reason. Some day, when -the world gets really to going, one of the things they'll read about in -musty books and marvel over will be the things we call panics. They'll -know then that, put simple, it's just another name for somebody's greed, -dressed up becoming as Conditions. We're beginning now to look at the -quality of the clothes Conditions dress in, and we're finding them -pretty poor quality sometimes, and cut awful old-fashioned, and the dye -rubs off. But in those days, all we knew was that the bank had -"suspended payment." - -"But what's that mean--'suspended payment?'" I says to Silas Sykes that -told me. "You can't suspend your debts, can you? I never could." - -"It means," Silas says, "that they'll never pay a cent on the dollar. -That's what it means." - -"But," I says, "I don't understand. If I owe you ten dollars, I can't -put down my curtain and suspend _that_ payment, _can_ I?" - -"Well, you ain't banks," says Silas. "And banks is." - -I was walking away and thinking it over, when I stopped stock-still in -the street. The National Bank--it was the National Bank that Jeffro had -his thirty-seven dollars in. - -I felt as if I had to do something for him, then and there. And that -afternoon I took my trowel and went up to his little place, and thought -I'd dig round some in the garden that was coming up, gay as a button. - -When I stepped inside the gate, I looked up at the house, and I saw the -front door was open. "Land," I thought, "I hope they haven't stole what -little he had in there, too." And I stepped up to the door. - -In the wooden chair in the middle of the floor sat Jeffro. His hat was -pulled down over his eyes, his legs were thrust out in front of him, one -of his arms was hanging down, and the other one was in a white sling. - -"Mr. Jeffro--Mr. Jeffro!" I says. "Oh--what's the matter?" - -He looked up, and his face never changed at sight of me, nor he never -got up or moved. And his look--well, it wasn't the look of Jeffro any -more than feathers have the look of a bird. But one thing I knew about -that look--he was hungry. I could tell that look anywhere, because I've -been hungry myself, with no food coming from anywheres. - -I flew to the cupboard where I'd put in the few things, and in a jiffy I -had some soup heating and a box of crackers opened. I brought the bowl -to the table, all steaming and good-smelling, and he drew up there -without a word and ate with his hat on--ate like I never saw a man eat -before. - -When he got through: "Tell me about it, Mr. Jeffro," I says. And he told -me. - -It wasn't anything very new. Jeffro had been in the mines since the -first of November, and the first of January the strike had begun--the -strike against a situation that Jeffro drew for me that afternoon, -telling it without any particular heat, but just plain and quiet. He -told me how he had gone with some of the men to the house of one of the -owners to talk of settlement. - -"I spoke out to him once," said Jeffro. "I said: 'Will _you_ tell me how -this is? They can not make me understand. America gives me free all the -things that I did not expect: The fire-engine, it takes no pay. My -little boy's school costs me not anything. When I come to this state I -have no passport to get, and they did not search me at the frontier. All -this is very free. But when we want more bread, and we are willing to -work for it all day long with our hands, you will not let us have more, -even then. Even when we pay with work. Will you tell me how this is?'" - -Of all that the man had said to him, kindly enough, Jeffro understood -nothing. And he could speak the language, while many of the men in the -mines could not say one word of English. - -"But they could strike in Russian and Polish and Lithuanian," Jeffro -said, "and they did." - -Then came the soldiers. Jeffro told me about that. - -"Ve vere standing there outside the Angel mine," he said, "to see that -nobody vent to vork and spoiled our hopes, ven somebody cried out: 'The -soldiers!' Many of the men ran--I did not know vy. Here was some of the -United States army. I had never seen any of the army before. I hurried -toward them, my cap in my hand. I saw their fine uniforms, their fine -horses, this army that was kept to protect me, a citizen, and vich I did -not have to pay. I stood bowing. My heart felt good. They had come to -help us then--free! And then somebody cried. 'He's one of the damned, -disorderly picketers. Arrest him!' And they did; and nothing I could say -vould make them understand. I vas in jail four days, but all those days -I thought it vas a mistake. I smiled to think how sorry they vould be -ven they found out they had arrested von they were paid to -protect--free." - -He told me how there went on the days, the weeks, of the strike; hunger, -cold; the militia everywhere. The little that Jeffro had earned was -spent, dime by dime. He stayed on, hoping for the settlement, certain -that it would all be right as soon as everybody "understood." - -"It vas this vay," he said laboriously. "Mine-owners and money and -militia vere here. Over here vere the men. Vrong vas done on both -sides--different kinds of vrong. The sides could not speak together -clear. No von understood no von." - -Then a miner had resisted an officer who tried to arrest him, the -officer fired, and Jeffro had the bullet in his shoulder, and had been -locked up for being "implicated"--"I don't know yet vat they mean by -that long vord," Jeffro said--and had been taken to the courthouse and -later to the hospital. On his discharge, eight days ago, he had started -to walk home to Friendship Village. - -"To-morrow," Jeffro said, "I vill get out from the bank my money--I have -not touched that--and send to her vat I have. It may be she has saved a -little bit. Somehow she vill come. To-morrow I vill get it, as soon as -the bank is open." - -I knew I had to tell him--I knew I had to tell him right then. "Mr. -Jeffro--Mr. Jeffro," I said, "you can't. You can't get your money. The -bank's failed." - -He looked at me, not understanding. - -"Vat is that?" he said. "'Failed'--for a bank?" - -"I don't know what it is," I told him. "It's something banks can do. You -never can tell when. And this one has done it." - -"But," he cried, "vat do you mean? It vas the _National_ Bank! This -nation can not fail!" - -"This much of it has," I says. "The bank's shut up tight. Everybody that -had money in it has lost it--unless maybe they pay back to each one just -a little bit." - -He stood up then and looked at me as if I were strange. "Then this too," -he says, "can happen in America. And the things I see all winter--the -soldiers to shoot you down?" - -"No, no," I says. "You mustn't think--" - -"I do not think," says Jeffro. "I know. I have seen. I am there ven it -happens. And more that I did not tell. In March a man came to me ven I -was hungry, and tried to buy my vote. Ven I understood, I struck him in -his face, just the same as if I have von. But I saw men sell their vote, -and laugh at it. And now I understand. You throw dust in our eyes, free -fire-engines, free letter-carriers, free this and free that, and all the -time somebody must be laughing somewhere at how it makes us fools. I -hate America. Being free here, it is a lie!" - -And me, I set still, trying to think. I set looking at the -bright-colored poster that Jeffro had found on his cow-shed in the old -country, and I was trying to think. I knew that a great deal of what -he'd said was true. I knew that folks all over the country were waking -up and getting to know that it was true. And yet I knew that it wasn't -all the truth. That there was more, and that something had got to make -him know. But what was going to do that? - -Faint and high and quite a ways off, I heard a little call. It wasn't -much of a call, but when another came and then another, it set my heart -to beating and the blood to rushing through me as though it was trying -to tell me something. - -I stood up and looked. And up the street I saw them--running and -jumping, shouting little songs and laughing all the way--the children, -coming out of the Friendship Village schoolhouse, there at the top of -the hill. And in a minute it came over me that even if I couldn't help -him, there was something to do that mebbe might comfort him some, just -now, when he was needing it. - -I stepped to the door, and up by the locust-tree I see Joseph coming. I -could pick out his little black head and his bobbed hair and his red -cheeks. And I called to him. - -"Joseph, Joseph!" I says. "You come over here--and have the rest come -too!" - -He came running, his eyes beginning to shine. And the others came -running and followed him, eager to know what was what. And up the road a -piece I see some more coming, and they all begun to run too. - -Joseph ran in the gate ahead of everybody, and past me, and in at the -door that was close to the road. And he threw away his book, and ran to -his father, and flung both arms around his neck. And the rest all came -pressing up around the door, and when they see inside, they set up a -shout: - -"It's the Present-man! It's the Present-man! He's back a'ready!" - -Because I guess 'most every one of them there had had something or other -of Jeffro's making for Christmas. But I'd never known till that minute, -and neither had he, that they'd ever called him that. When he heard it, -he looked up from Joseph, where he stood holding him in his arms almost -fierce, and he come over to the door. And the children pressed up close -to the door, shouting like children will, and the nearest ones shook his -hand over Joseph's shoulder. - -And me, all of a sudden I shouted louder'n they did: "Who you glad to -see come home?" - -And they all shouted together, loud as their lungs: "_The Present-man! -The Present-man!_" - -And then they caught sight of Miss Mayhew, coming from the school, and -they all ran for her, to tell her the news. And she came in the gate to -shake hands with him. And then in a minute they all trooped off down the -road together, around Miss Mayhew, one or two of them waving back at -him. - -Then I turned round and looked at Jeffro. - -"Why, they have felt--felt glad to see me!" he says, breathless. And -back to his face came creeping some of the old Jeffro look. - -"Why, they are glad," says I. "We all are. We've missed you like -everything--trudging along with your toys." - -Joseph wasn't saying a word. He was just snuggling up, nosing his -father's elbow, like a young puppy. Jeffro stood patting him with his -cracked, chapped hand. And Jeffro was looking down the road, far as he -could watch, after the children. - -"I've got a little canned stuff there in the cupboard for your suppers," -I says, not knowing what else to say. "And I stuck a few things in the -ground for you out there, that are coming up real nice--potatoes and -onions and a cabbage or two. And they's a little patch of corn that'll -be along by and by." - -All of a sudden Jeffro turned his back to me and walked a few steps -away. "A garden?" he says, not looking round. "A little garden?" - -"Kind of a one," I told him. "Such as it is, it's all right--what there -is of it. And Abigail Arnold," I says, "wants you should make her -another wooden bridal pair for the cake in the window--the groom to the -other one is all specked up. And I heard her say you could set some of -your toys there in her front case. Oh yes, and Mis' Timothy Toplady's -got a clucking hen she's been trying to hold back for you, and she says -you can pay her in eggs--" - -I stopped, because Jeffro frightened me. He wheeled round and stood -looking out the door across the pasture opposite, and his lips were -moving. I thought maybe he was figuring something with them, and I kept -still. But he wasn't--he was thinking with them. In a minute he -straightened up. And his face--it wasn't brave or confident the way it -had been once, but it was saying a thing for him--a nice thing, even -before he spoke. - -He came and put out his hand to me, round Joseph. "My friend," he says, -"I vill tell you what it is. Thes' is what I thought America was like." - -Wasn't that queer, when I understood all he had hoped from America, and -all he hadn't found? A lump come in my throat--not a sad one though! But -a glad one. And oh, the difference in them lumps! - - -He went back to work at his toys again, and he began at the bottom, a -whole year after his first coming, to save up money to bring over his -wife and the little ones. And it wasn't two weeks later that I went -there one night and saw him out working on the hole in the road again. - -"I work for you this time, though," he said, when he see I noticed. -"Thes' I do not for America--no! I do it for you and for thes' village. -No one else." - -And I thought, while I watched him pounding away at the dirt: - -"Anybody might think Friendship Village knows things America hasn't -found out yet--but of course that can't be so." - -FOOTNOTE: - -[3] Copyright, _Everybody's Magazine_, 1915. - - - - -WHEN NICK NORDMAN CAME BACK HOME - - -I was awful nervous about going up to meet Nick Nordman. It had been -near thirty years since I'd seen him, and he'd got so rich that one -house and one automobile weren't anything. He had about three of each, -and he frisked the world in between occupying them. Still, when he wrote -to me that he was coming back to visit the village, I made up my mind -that I'd be there to welcome him, being as we were boys and girls in -school together. - -It was a nice October evening when I started out. When I came down -through town, I saw the council chamber all lit up, being it was the -regular meeting night. And sitting in there I saw Silas Sykes and -Timothy Toplady and Eppleby Holcomb and some more, smoking to heaven and -talking to each other while the mayor addressed them. I wondered, as I -went along, which of the thirteen hundred things we needed in the -village they were talking about. I concluded they were talking about how -to raise the money to do any one of them--some years away. - -In the middle of town I came on Lucy Hackett. She was down buying her -vegetables; she always bought them at night, because then they give her -a good deal for her money and some cheaper. Lucy was forty-odd, with -long brown hair, braided round and round her head, crown after crown. -She was tall and thin, with long arms, but a slow, graceful way of -walking and of picking her way, holding up her old work skirt, that made -you think of a grand lady moving around. And she had lovely dark eyes -that made you like her anyway. - -"Oh, Lucy," I says, "guess who I'm up here to meet--Nick Nordman." - -She just stared at me. "Nick Nordman?" she says. "Coming _here_?" - -"First time in twenty years," I says, and went off, with her face -a-following me, and me a-chiding myself energetic: What was the matter -with me to spring that onto her all of a sudden that way, and clean -forget that her and Nick used to keep company for a year or more before -he went off to town? - -"Paper? Paper, Miss Marsh? As soon's we get 'em off the train?" says -somebody. And there I saw from four to six little boys, getting orders -for the city paper before the train had come in. But it was just -whistling down by the gas works, and I was so excited I dunno if I -answered them. - -My gracious, what do you s'pose? On the back of the Dick Dasher -accommodation train--we called it that because Dick Dasher was the -conductor--came rolling in a special car, and a black porter bounced -off and set down a step, and out of the car got one lonely, solitary -man. - -"Is that a show car hitched on there, or what?" I says to Mis' Sturgis, -that got off the train. - -"That's what we was wondering," says she. - -Dick Dasher, he was lifting off bundles of laundry and stuff that's -intrusted to him to bring home all along the line, and he heard me. "If -you're to meet somebody, that's the man-you're-looking-for's private -car," says he. "He's the only other one off here." - -Land, there he was! As soon as I faced the man the porter had bowed off -the step, I knew him. Stockier, redder in the face, with blunt gray hair -and blunt gray mustache, and clothes that fit him like a label round a -bottle--sure as could be, it was him! - -"Well, Nick!" I'd been going to say; but instead of it what I did say -was, "Is this Mr. Nordman?" - -He lifted his hat in the hand with his glove on. "It's Calliope Marsh, -isn't it?" says he. "_I am_ glad to see you. Mighty good of you to meet -me, you know." - -I don't know how it was, but the way he was and the way he spoke shut me -up tighter than a clamshell. It had never entered my head to feel -embarrassed or stiff with him until I saw him, and heard him being so -formal. My land, he looked rich and acted rich! The other women stood -there, so I managed to introduce them. "You meet Mis' Arnet. You meet -Mis' Sturgis. You meet Mis' Hubbelthwait," I says. "Them that was Hetty -Parker and Mamie Bain and Cassie White--I guess you remember them, don't -you?" - -"Perfectly! Perfectly!" says he; and he done his heartiest, it seemed to -me. But to bow quite low, and lift his hat higher and higher to each -one--well, I dunno. It wasn't the way I thought it'd be. - -"I thought we'd walk down," I says. "I thought mebbe you'd like to see -the town--" But I kind of wavered off. All of a sudden the town didn't -seem so much to me as it had. - -"By all means," says he. - -But just then there was above six-seven of them little boys found him. -They'd got their papers now and they were bound to make a sale. "Paper? -Buy a paper? Buy a newspaper, mister?" they says, most of them running -backward in their bare feet right in front of him. - -"Sure," he says, "I'll buy a paper. Give me one of _all_ your papers. - -"Now let's see," he says then. "Where's the pop-corn wagon?" - -There wasn't any. None of the boys had ever heard of one. - -"No pop-corn wagon? Bless me," he says, "you don't mean to say you don't -have a circus every year--with pop-corn wagons and--" - -A groan broke out from every boy. "No!" they says in chorus. "Aw, it -ain't comin'. Pitcairn's wanted to show here. But the town struck 'em -for high license." - -Mr. Nordman looked at the boys a minute. Then he rapped his cane down -hard on the platform. "It's a burning shame!" he says out, indignant and -human. "Ain't they even any ice-cream cones in this town?" he cries. - -Oh, yes, there was them. The boys set up a shout. Mr. Nordman--he give -them a nickel apiece, and the next instant the platform was swept clean -of every boy of them. And him and me begun walking down the street. - -"Bless me," he says. "What a nice little town it's grown! What a _very_ -nice little town!" And the way he said it shut me right up again. - -I dunno how it was, but this was no more the way I'd imagined showing -Nick Nordman over the village than anything on earth. I'd been going to -tell him about old Harvey Myers' hanging himself in the garret we were -then passing, but I hadn't the heart nor the interest. - -Just as we got along down to the main block of Daphne Street, the -council meeting was out and Silas and Eppleby and Timothy Toplady and -the rest came streaming out of the engine house. Mis' Toplady and Mame -Holcomb were sitting outside, waiting for their husbands, and so of -course I marched Mr. Nicholas Nordman right up to the lot of them and -named them to him. Every one of them had known him over twenty years -before. - -Off came the gray hat, and to each one of the ladies he bowed low, and -he says: "Delighted--_delighted_ to see you again. Indeed we remember, -don't we? And Timothy! Eppleby! Silas! I _am_ delighted." - -Then there was a long pause. We all just stood there. - -Then Silas, as the chief leading citizen, he clears his throat and he -says: "Do you--ah--remain long?" I don't know a better sample of what -Mr. Nicholas Nordman's manner done to us all. "_Remain!_" Silas never -said "remain" in his life before. Always, always he would, under any -real other circumstances, have said "stay." - -The whole few minutes was like that, while we just stood there. And -perhaps it was like that most of all in the minute when it ought to have -been like that the least. This was when Mr. Nordman told a plan he had. -"I want you all," he said, "and a few more whom I well remember, to do -me the honor to lunch with me to-morrow in my car. We can have a fine -time to talk over the--ah--old days." - -There was a dead pause. I guess everybody was figgering on the same -thing; finally Eppleby asked about it. "Much obliged," says he. "What -car?" - -"My private car," says Mr. Nordman, "somewhere on the siding. You'll -recognize her. She's gray." - -"Much obliged," "Pleased, I'm sure," "Pleased to come," says everybody. - -And we broke up and he walked along with me. Halfway down the block, who -should I see ahead of me but Lucy Hackett. I never said anything till we -overtook her. When I spoke she wheeled and flushed up like a girl, and -put out her hand so nice and eager, and with her pretty way that was a -glad way and was a grand lady way too. - -I says: "Mr. Nordman, you meet Miss Lucy Hackett, that I guess you can -remember each other." - -He took off his hat and bowed. "Ah, Miss Lucy," says he, "this _is_ a -pleasure. How _good_ to see you again!" - -"I'm glad to see you, too, Nick," she says, and walked along on the -inside of the walk with us, just _drooping_! - -Yes, you might as well have tried to greet a fountain in full play as to -greet him. He invited her to come to his luncheon next day. She said she -would, with a nice little catch of pleasure in her tone; and he left her -at her gate, him bowing tremendous. And it was the same gate he used to -take her to when they were boy and girl.... - -He said the same kind of a formal good night to me at my gate; and I was -just going to go into my house, feeling sick and lonesome all rolled -into one, because there wasn't a mite of Nick Nordman about him at all; -but all of a sudden, like an explosion out of a clear sky and all points -of the earth, there came down onto us the most tremendous, outrageous -racket that ever blasted a body's ears. It seemed to come from sky, -earth, air and sea, at one and the same instants. And it went like this: - - - S----s----s! - Yow! Yow! Yow! - Who's----all----right? - Mr. N----o----rdm----a----n! - - -And then there was a great burst of yelling, and the whole seven boys -came dropping out of trees and scrambling up from under the fence, and -they ran off down the street, still yelling about him. Seems the -ice-cream cones had made a hit. - -Then--just for one little minute--I saw the real Nick Nordman that I -remembered. His face broke into a broad, pleased grin, and he shoved his -hat onto the back of his head, and he slapped his leg so that you could -hear it. "Why," says he, "the durn little kids!" - - -We all dressed up in the best we had for the luncheon. Lucy Hackett come -for me. She had on a clean, pretty print dress, and she looked awful -nice. - -"Oh, Lucy," I says to her right off, "ain't it too bad about Nick? He -ain't no more like he use' to be than a motor is like a mule." - -Lucy, she flushed up instant. "I thought," says she, "he was real -improved." - -"Land, yes, improved!" I says. "Improved out of all recognizing him." - -She staggered me some by giving a superior smile. "Of course," she says, -"he's all city ways now. Of course he is." - -Yes, of course he was. I thought of her words over and over again during -that lunch. His private car had a little table fitted in most every seat -and laid, all white, with pretty dishes and silver and flowers. Electric -fans were going here and there. The lights were lighted, though it was -broad day and broader. The porter, in a white coat, was frisking round -with ice and glasses. But, most magnificent of all, was Mr. Nicholas -Nordman, standing in the middle of the aisle in pure white serge. - -"So pleased," says he. "So very pleased. Now this _is_ good of you all -to come." - -I s'pose what we done was to chat; that, I figger, would be the name of -it. But when he set us all down to the little tables, four and four, a -deathlike silence fell on the whole car. It was hard enough to talk -anyhow. Add to that the interestingness of all this novelty, and not one -of us could work up a thing to say. - -Mr. Nordman took the minister and Lucy Hackett and me to his table, -being we were all odd ones, and begun to talk benevolent about the -improvements that a little town of this size ought to have. - -"I s'pose they have grand parks and buildings in the cities, Nick?" says -Lucy. - -"Haven't you ever been to see them?" says he--oh, so kind! - -"Never," says she. "But I've heard about them." - -He sat staring out the car window across the Pump pasture, where the -shadows were all laying nice. "City life is intensely interesting," says -he. "Intensely so." - -"As interesting as the time you stole Grandpa Toplady's grapes?" I says. -I couldn't help it. - -He tapped on the table. "Let us be in order for a few minutes," he says. -He needn't of. We were in order already; we hadn't been anything else. -Nobody was speaking a word hardly. But everybody twisted round and -looked at him as he got onto his feet. - -"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, and looked at us once round. "I have -summoned you here for a purpose. On this, the occasion of my first visit -back to my boyhood's home, I feel that I should--and, indeed, I most -earnestly desire to--mark the time by some small token. Therefore, after -some conversation about the matter during the forenoon, and much thought -before my coming, I have decided to set aside ten thousand dollars from -to-day to be used for your town in a way which a committee--of which I -hope that you, my guests of the day, will be appointed members--may -decide. For park purposes, playgrounds, pavements--what you will; I -desire to make this little acknowledgment to my native town, to this the -home of my boyhood. I thank you." - -He set down and, after a minute, everybody burst out and spatted their -hands. - -And then Silas Sykes, that is our professional leading citizen, got to -his feet and accepted in the name of the town. Some of the other men -said a little about the needs of the town; and Eppleby Holcomb, he got -up and proposed a toast to the host. And by that time, the sun had got -around considerable and it was blazing hot there on the side track, and -us ladies in our black silks begun to think, longing, of our side -piazzas and our palm-leaf fans. - -We filed down the aisle and shook the hand of Mr. Nicholas Nordman and -thanked him, individual and formal, both for the lunch and the big gift, -and got out. But Lucy Hackett burst out talking, with the tears in her -eyes. "Nick!" she says. "Oh, Nick, it was wonderful! Oh, it was the most -wonderful time I ever had in my life--the luncheon with everything so -pretty--prettier'n I ever saw things before; and then the present to the -town. Ten thousand dollars! Oh, none of us can be happy and grateful -enough. And to think it's you that's done it, Nick--to think it's you!" - -"Thank you, Miss Lucy," says he, "thank you; you are very good, I'm -sure." - -But I noticed that he wasn't so much formal now as he was lifeless; and -I was wondering if he hadn't had a good time to his own luncheon party -or what, when I heard something out on the platform, and then there come -a-walking in a regular procession. It was all seven of the small boys -again, and from seven to fourteen more besides, done up clean, with -shoes on and here and there a collar. - -"Is it time?" they says. - -Nick Nordman stood with his hands in his pockets and grinned down on -them. And it came to me to be kind of jealous of the boys, because he -was with them just the way he ought to have been with us--and wasn't. -But he was going off that night, with his car to be hitched onto the -Through; and there wasn't any time for anybody to say any more, or be -any different. So Lucy and I said good-by to him and left him there with -the boys, dragging out together an ice-cream freezer into the middle of -the gray private car. - -I'd just got the door locked up that night about nine o'clock, and was -seeing to the window catches before I went upstairs, when there come a -rap to my front door. - -"Who's there?" says I, with my hand on the bolt. - -"It's Nick Nordman, Calliope." - -"Land!" says I, letting him in. "I thought you'd gone off hitched to the -Through." - -"I was," he says, "but I ain't. I'm going to wait till five in the -morning. And I'm going to talk over something with you." - -Sheer through being flabbergasted, I led him past the parlor and out -into the dining room and lit the lamp there. I'd been sewing there and -things were spread on every chair. Think of receiving a millionaire in a -place like that! But he never seemed to notice. He dropped right down on -the machine cover that was standing up on end. And he put his elbow on -the machine, and his head on his hand. - -"Calliope," he says, "it ain't the way I thought it'd be. I wanted to -come back here," he says. "I been thinking about it and planning on it -for years. But it ain't like what I thought." - -"Well," I says, soothing, "of course that's always the way when anybody -comes back. They's changes. Things ain't the same. Folks has gone -away--" - -He cut me short off. "Oh," he says, "it ain't that. I expected that. -There were enough folks here. It's something else. When I went away from -here twenty years ago, I had just thirty-six dollars to go on. Now I've -come back, and I don't mind telling you that I've got not far from six -hundred thousand invested. Well, from the time I went off, I used to -plan how I'd come back some day, just about like I have come back, and -see folks, and give something to the town, and give a lunch like I did -to-day. I've laid awake nights planning it. And I liked to think about -it." - -"Well," I says, "and you've done it." - -He didn't pay attention. "You remember," he says, "how I used to live -over on the Slew with my uncle in the house that wasn't painted? He'd -got together a cow somehow, and I use' to carry the milk. I never owned -a pair of shoes till I was fifteen and earned them, and I never went to -school after I was twelve. And when I went to the city I begun at the -bottom and lived on nothing and went to night school and got through the -whole works up to pardner for them I used to sweep out for. When I got -my first ten thousand I thought: 'That's what I'm going to give that -little old town--when I get enough more.' Well, I've done it, and I -ain't got no more satisfaction out of it than if I'd thrown it in the -gutter. And that"--he looked at me solemn--"was," says he, "the -durndest, stiffest luncheon I ever et at." - -"Well," I says, "of course--" - -"When I think," he says, "of the way I planned it--with the men all -coming around me, and slapping me on the back, and being glad to see -me--" - -"Oh, Nick!" I says. "Nick Nordman! _Was_ that what you wanted?" - -He looked at me in perfect astonishment. "Why," says he, "ain't that -what anybody wants?" - -I rose right up on my feet and I went over and put out my hand to him. -"Why, Nick," I says, "don't you see? We was afraid of you. _I_ was -afraid of you. I froze right up and give up telling you about folks -hanging themselves and all sorts of interesting things because I thought -you wouldn't care. Why, they don't know you care!" - -"Don't know I care?" says he. "But ain't I showed 'em--ten thousand -dollars' worth?" - -"Oh," I says, "that way! Yes, they know that way. In dollars they know; -but they don't know in feelings. It's them," I says, "that counts." I -set down by him, right on a pile of my new sewing. "Look here," I says, -"Nick Nordman, if that's the way you feel about coming back and about -the village, let's you and me fix up some way to make folks know you -feel that way." - -His face lit up. "How?" says he, doubting. - -I thought a minute. I don't know why it was, but all at once there -flashed into my head the way he had been with the boys, and the way the -boys had been to him; that was what he was wanting, and that was what -had been lacking, and that was what he didn't know how to make come. And -he was lonesome for it. - -"It ought to be," says I, feeling my way in my own head, "some way -that'll make folks--Oh, Nick," I says, jumping up, "I know the very -thing!" - - -Pitcairn's Circus that wintered not twenty miles from us, and that had -got so big and successful that it hadn't been to Friendship Village -before in twenty years! And this year, when they'd wanted to come, the -council had put the license so high that they refused it. And yet, one -morning, we woke up to find the town plastered up and down with the big -flaming bill posters of Pitcairn's Circus itself. The town had all it -could do to believe in its own good luck. But there was no room to -doubt. There they were: - - - BALLET OF TWELVE HUNDRED - - TREMENDOUS PAGEANT AND SPECTACLE OF - ESTHER, THE BEAUTIFUL QUEEN - MAGNIFICENT COSTUMES, REGAL WOMEN, - GORGEOUS JEWELS, DIVERTING DANCERS, - SOLOS AND ENSEMBLES - - * * * * * - - A HUNDRED TRAINED RIDERS, - A HUNDRED ACROBATS, A HUNDRED - ANIMALS FROM THE HEART OF THE - WILD HILLS - - ANIMALS TRAINED--ANIMALS SAVAGE-- - ANIMALS WONDERFUL - - GIGANTIC STREET PARADE - - FREE! FREE! FREE! - - -The whole town planned to turn out. There was to be no evening -performance, and I schemed to have us all take our lunch--a whole crowd -of us--and go over to the Pump pasture right from the parade, and -spread it under the big maple, and see the sights while we et. I -broached it to Mis' Toplady and Timothy and Eppleby and Marne Holcomb -and Postmaster and Mis' Sykes, and some more--Mis' Arnet and Mis' -Sturgis and Mis' Hubbelthwait; and they, all of them, and Lucy and me, -fell to planning on who'd take what, and running over to each other's -houses about sweet pickles and things we hadn't thought of, and we had a -real nice old-fashioned time. - -I'll never forget the day. It was one of the regular circus days, bright -and blue and hot. Lucy Hackett and I went down to see the parade -together; and we watched it, as a matter of course, from the window -where I'd watched circus parades when I was a little girl. The horses, -the elephants, the cages closed and the cages opened, the riders, the -bands, the clowns, the calliope--that I was named for, because a circus -with one come to town the day I was born--had all passed when, to crown -and close the whole, we saw coming a wagon of the size and like we had -not often beheld before. - -It was red, it had flags, pennons, streamers, festoons, balloons. -Continually up from it went daylight firecrackers. From the sides of it -fell colored confetti. And it was filled, not with circus folks, dressed -gorgeous, but with boys. And we knew them! Laughing, jigging, frantic -with joy--we saw upward of a hundred Friendship Village boys. As the -wagon passed us and we stared after it, suddenly the clamor of shouting -inside it took a kind of form. We begun, Lucy and I, to recognize -something. And what was borne back to us perfectly clamorous was: - - - S----s----s! - Yow! Yow! Yow! - Who's----all----right? - Mr. N----o----rdm----a----n! - - -"What in time are they yelling?" says a woman at the next window. - -"Some stuff," says somebody else. - -Lucy and I just looked at each other. Lucy was looking wild. "Calliope," -says she, "how'd they come to yell that--that that they said?" - -"Oh, I dunno," I says serene; "I could yell that too--on general -principles. Couldn't you?" I says to her. - -And Lucy blushed burning, rosy, fire red--on general principles, I -suppose. - -We were all to meet at the courthouse with our lunches and go right out -to the Pump pasture. The tents were up already, flags were flying every -which way, and folks were running all over, busy. - -"Like somebody was giving a party," I says. - -Lucy never said a word. She'd gone along, kind of breathless, all the -way down. All us that know each other best were there. And we were dying -to get into each other's lunches and see what each other had brought. -So Jimmy Sturgis went to building fire for the coffee, and Eppleby went -off for water, and Silas Sykes, that don't like to do much work, he -says: - -"Timothy, supposing we go along down and buy all our tickets and avoid -the rush?" - -We let them go, and occupied ourselves spreading down the cloth, and -cutting up cake and veal loaf, and opening up pickles and jell. The -maple shade came down nice on the cloth, and appetizing little picnic -smells of potato salad and other things begun getting out around, and -the whole time was cozy and close up to. We were just disposing the -deviled eggs in a mound in the middle, when Silas Sykes and Timothy come -fair running up the slope. - -"My dum!" says Silas. "They won't leave us buy no tickets. They say the -show is free." - -"_Free!_" says most everybody but me in chorus. - -"They say they ain't no ticket wagon, and they ain't going to be," says -Silas. "What you going to make out that?" - -"Blisterin' Benson!" says Timothy Toplady. "What I think is this, -they're kidding us." - -Lucy stood opening up a little bag she had. - -"Here's one of the slips they threw round this morning," she says; "I -dunno--" - -She had it out and we studied it. We'd all seen them blowing round the -streets, but nobody had paid any attention. She held it out and they -all stared at it: - - - FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE - IS INVITED TO COME TO THE CIRCUS - THIS AFTERNOON - FREE - NO TICKETS ON SALE - FREE ADMISSION - FOR - FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE - - -"My gracious," says Mis' Sykes, "I never heard of such a thing since the -world began." - -"Land, land!" says Mis' Toplady. "But what does it _mean_?" - -"What _does_ it mean?" says Silas Sykes. "What are we all being a party -to?" - -"I guess it's _who_ are we being a party to, Silas," I says, mild. - -They all looked at me. And then they looked where I was looking, and I -was looking at something hard. Coming out of the main tent was a mass of -struggling, wriggling, dancing humanity--little humanity--in short, the -boys that had rode in the big wagon. And walking in the midst of them -was a man. - -At first not even I recognized him. He had his coat off, and his collar -was turned in, his hat was on the back of his head, and he was smiling -throughout his whole face, which was red. - -"Look-at!" says I. "I guess that's who we're the party to--all of us." - -"What do you _mean_?" Silas says again. - -"I mean," says I, "that Nick Nordman's had this whole circus come here -to the village and give it to us free. And I say, let's us rush down -there and drag him up here to eat with us!" - -It came to them so sudden that they all moved off like one man, and, as -we started together, not caring who stole the whole lunch that we left -laying idle under the tree, I turned and took a look at Lucy. - -Land, she looked as I haven't seen her look in twenty years! Her head -was back, her eyes were bright, her face was bright, and she didn't know -one of us was there. She just went down the slope, running. - -We came on him as he was distributing nickels destined for the peanut -man that had just got his wagon going, savory. Nick didn't see us till -we were right there, and then the nicest shamefaced look come over him, -and he threw the rest of the nickels among the boys and left them -scrambling, and met us. - -"Nick Nordman! _Is_ this your doings?" Silas plumped it at him, -accusing. - -"Gosh, no!" says Nick, grinning like a schoolboy. "It's the kids' -doin's." - -And when a millionaire can say "Gosh" like he said it, you can't feel -remote from him. Nobody could. Oh, how we talked at him, all round, a -good many at a time. And I think everything there was to say, we said -it. Anyway, I can't think of any exclamation to speak of that we left -unexclaimed. - -We all streamed up the slope, Silas near walking backward most of the -way to take in the full magnitude of it. We sat down round the potato -salad and the deviled eggs and the veal loaf, beaming. And it made a -real nice minute. - -Oh, and it was no time till we got to living over the old days. And it -was no time till Timothy and Eppleby were rolling over, recalling this -and bringing back that. It was no time at all till every one of us was -back twenty-five to thirty years, and telling about it. And Lucy, that -I'd maneuvered should sit by Nick, I caught her looking across at me -kind of superior, and as if she could have told me, all the while, that -something or other was so! - -"Let's us drink him a toast," says Timothy Toplady when we got through. -"Look-at here: To Nicholas Nordman, the big man of Friendship Village." - -"Yes, sir!" says Silas Sykes. "And to Nicholas Nordman, that's give us -ten thousand dollars _and_ a circus!" - -"No, sir!" says Eppleby Holcomb, sudden. "None of them things. Let's us -drink just to Nick Nordman, that's come back home!" He up with his hand, -and it came down on Nick Nordman's shoulder with a sound you could have -heard all acrost the grounds. - -And as he did that, just for a fraction of nothing, Nick Nordman met my -eyes. And we both knew what we both knew. - -Just then the band struck up, and the people were already pouring in the -pasture, so we scrabbled things up and all started for the tent. Nick -was walking with Lucy. - -"Lucy," I heard him say, "you look near enough like you used to, for you -to be you!" - -She looked like a girl as she answered him. "You _are_ you, Nick," she -says, simple and neat and direct. - -And me--I walked along, feeling grand. I kind of felt what all of us was -feeling, and what everybody was going to feel down there in the big -tent, when they knew. But far, far more, I sensed the thing that Nick -Nordman, walking there with us, with about a hundred and fifty boys all -waiting to sit down side of him at his circus--the thing that Nick -Nordman had found out. - -"God bless you, Calliope," says he, when he got a chance. - -"Oh!" I says. "He has. He has! He's made folks so awful nice--when they -just let it show through!" - - - - -BEING GOOD TO LETTY[4] - - -"The poor little thing," says I. "Well, mustn't we be good to her?" - -"Mustn't we?" says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, wiping her eyes. - -"Must we not?" says Mis' Silas Sykes--that would correct your grammar if -the house was on fire. - -My niece's daughter Letty had lost her father and her mother within a -year, and she was coming to spend the summer with me. - -"She's going to pick out the style monument she wants here in town," I -says, "and maybe buy it." - -"Poor thing! That'll give her something to put her mind on," says Mis' -Sykes. - -George Fred come in just then to fill my wood-box--his father was bound -he should be named George and his mother hung out for Fred, so he got -both onto him permanent. He was going to business college, and choring -it for near the whole town. He used to swallow his supper and rush like -mad from wood-box to cow all over the village. Nights when I heard a -noise, I never thought it was a burglar any more. I turned over again -and thought: "That's George Fred cutting somebody's grass." I never see -a man more bent on getting himself educated. - -"George Fred," I says, "my grandniece Letty is coming to live with me. -She's lost her folks. I thought we'd kind of try to be good to her." - -"Trust me," says George Fred. "My cousin Jed, he lost his folks too. I -can tell her about him." - -The next day Letty came. I hadn't seen her for years. My land! when she -got off the train, I never saw plainer. She was a nice little thing, but -plain eyes, plain nose, plain mouth, and her hair--that was less than -plain. But she was so smiling and so gentle that the plain part never -bothered me a minute. - -"Letty," says I, "welcome home." Mis' Merriman and Mis' Sykes had gone -to the depot with me. - -"Welcome home, child," says Mis' Merriman, and wiped her eyes! Mis' -Merriman is human, but tactless. - -"Welcome home, you poor thing," says Mis' Sykes, and she sniffed. -Everything Mis' Sykes does she ought to have picked out to do the way -she didn't. - -But Letty, she took it serene enough. While we were getting her trunk, -Mis' Sykes whispered to me: - -"Are you sure she's the right niece? She ain't got on a stitch of -mourning." - -Sure enough, she hadn't. She wore a little blue dress. - -"Like enough she couldn't afford it," says Mis' Merriman. And we -thought that must be it. - -They were both to stay for supper, and they'd each brought a little -present for my niece. When she opened them, one was a black-edged -handkerchief and the other was a package of mixed flower-seeds to plant -next spring in her cemetery lot. Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman were both -ready to cry all the while she untied them. But Letty smiled, serene, -and thanked them, serene too, and put a pink aster from the table in her -dress, and said, couldn't we go out and look at my flowers? And we went, -Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman folding up their handkerchiefs and -exchanging surprised eyebrows. - -At the back door we came, plain in the face, on George Fred, whittling -up my shavings. - -"Two baskets of shavings, Miss Marsh, or one?" - -"I guess," says I, "you'll earn your education better if you bring me in -two." - -George Fred never smiled. "I ain't earning my education any more, Miss -Marsh," he says. "I've give it up. I can't make it go--not and chore -it." - -"Then you can't be a bookkeeper, George Fred?" I says. - -"I've took a job delivering for the post-office store." - -"Tell me about it, won't you?" says Letty. - -George Fred told her a little about it, whittling my shavings. - -"There ain't enough cows and grass and wood-boxes in the village to -make it go, seems though," he ends up. - -Then he rushed into the house with my stuff, and headed for the Sykes's -cow that we could hear lowing. - -We talked about George Fred while we looked at the flowers, Letty all -interested in both of them, and then we came back and sat on the front -porch. - -"Dear child," says Mis' Sykes, "wouldn't it be a comfort to you, now -that you're among friends, to talk about your folks? What was it they -died of? Was they sick long?" - -Letty looked over to her, sweet and serene. - -"Beautiful things happened while they were sick," she said. "A little -child across the street used to come every morning with a flower or a -fresh egg. Then there was an old man who picked every rose in his garden -and sent them in. And a club there hired a singer who was at the theater -to come and serenade them, just a few days before. Oh, so many beautiful -things happened!" - -Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman sat still. This isn't the way we talk about -sickness in the village. We always tell symptoms and treatments and pain -and last words and funeral preparations, right up to the time the hearse -backs up to the door. - -"She acts the queerest, to me, for a mourner," says Mis' Sykes, when she -went for her shawl. - -Next morning we went down, Letty and me, to pick out the monument. -Letty, she priced them, and then she figured some on a card. Then she -walked over and priced some more things, and then she came out. I -s'posed she was going to think about it. - -"Didn't she cry when she picked out the monument?" says Mis' Sykes to me -over the telephone that noon. - -"I didn't see her," says I, truthful. - -That night, after he got the last cow milked, I see George Fred, in his -best clothes, coming in our front gate. He was coming, I see, to do what -I said--help be good to Letty and cheer her up. - -"Miss Letty," says he, "I know just how you feel. My cousin Jed, he lost -his folks a year ago. They took down with the typhoid, and they suffered -frightful--" - -"I'm so sorry, Mr. Fred," says Letty. - -I explained. "Fred," says I, "is his other front name. His final name is -Backus." - -She colored up pretty, and went right on--it was curious: she hadn't -been with me twenty-four hours hardly, and yet she didn't look a bit -plain to me now. - -"Mr. Backus," Letty says, "I've been thinking. Miss Marsh and I have got -a little money we're not using. Don't you want to borrow it, and keep on -at business college, and pay us back when you can?" - -"Gosh!" says George Fred. - -If I hadn't been aiming to be a lady, I dunno what I might have said -similar. - -They talked about it, and then George Fred went off, walking some on the -ground and some in the air. "Letty!" says I, then, "where in this -world--" - -"Why," says Letty, "I'm going to get just headstones instead of a -monument--and leave that boy be a bookkeeper instead of a delivery boy. -Father and mother--" it was the only time I heard her catch her breath -sharp--"would both rather. I know it." - -Before breakfast next morning, I ran over to Mis' Sykes's and Mis' -Merriman's, and told them. - -"Like enough she done something better than buy mourning, too," says -Mis' Merriman. - -It was the first and only time in my life I ever see Mis' Silas Sykes's -eyes fill up with tears. - -"Why, my land," she says, "she's _using_ her sorrow." - -And all of a sudden, the morning and the world meant something more. And -Letty, that we were going to be so good to, had brought us something -like a present. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[4] Copyright, 1914, _Woman's Home Companion_. - - - - -SOMETHING PLUS[5] - - -I laid the letter up on the clock-shelf where I could see it while I did -my dishes. I needed it there to steady me. I didn't have to write my -answer till after dinner, because it wouldn't go out until the four -o'clock mail anyway. I kind of left the situation lie around me all the -morning so I could sense it and taste it and, you might say, be steeped -in it, and get so I could believe. - -Me--a kind of guest housekeeper for six months in a beautiful flat in -the city--with two young married folks and a little baby to amuse myself -with, and the whole world sitting around me, expansive, and waiting for -me to enjoy it. It seemed as if the Golden Plan folks always think is -going to open up for them had really opened now for me. - -How I kept from baking my doughnuts and frying my sponge-cakes in lard, -I dunno, but I did--sheer through instinct, I guess. And then I wrote my -letter and took it down to the post-office. Go? Wouldn't I go? My letter -just said: - - - "Ellen dear, you ridiculous child, did you think I could wobble for - a single second? I'd made up my mind before I got down the first - page. I'll be there Monday night. Do you care if I wear your - table-spread for dress-up, when I get there? All I've got is - everyday--or not so much so. And for your wanting me, I'll say - thank you when I get there. - - CALLIOPE." - - -On my way to mail my letter I came on Mis' Toplady and Mis' -Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, downtown to get something for supper. And I -told them all about it. - -Mis' Toplady hunched her shawl farther up her back and sighed abundant. - -"Ain't that just grand, Calliope?" says she. "To think you're going to -do something you ain't been doing all your days." - -That was the point, and she knew it. - -"I says to Timothy the other night," she went on, "I says, 'Don't you -wish I had something to tell you about, or you had something to tell me -about, that we both of us didn't know by heart, forward and back?'" - -"Eppleby and me, too," says Mis' Holcomb, "I wish to the land we could -do something--or be something--that would give a body something to kind -of--relate to each other." - -"I know," I says. "Husbands and wives _is_ awful simultaneous, I always -think." - -But I didn't say anything more, being I wasn't married to one; and they -didn't say anything more, being they was. - -Mis' Holcomb waved her cheese at me, cheerful. - -"Be gay for us!" says she, and then went home to cook supper for her -hungry family. - -And so did I, wishing with all my heart that the two of them--that -hadn't seen over the rim of home in thirty years--could have had my -chance. - -When I got to the city that night it was raining--rather, it was past -raining and on up to pouring. So I got in a taxi to go up to Ellen's--a -taxi that was nothing but an automobile after all, in spite of its -foreign name, ending in a letter that no civilized name ought to end in. -And never, never, not if I live till after my dying day, will I forget -my first look at that living-room of theirs--in the apartment building, -as big as a ship, and as lighted up as our church at Christmas-time, -which was where Ellen and Russell lived. - -A pretty maid let me in. I remember I went in by her with my eyes on her -white embroidery cap, perked up on her head and all ironed up, saucy as -a blue jay's crest. - -"Excuse me," I says to her over my shoulder, "I've read about them, but -yours is the first one I ever saw. My dear, you look like a queen in a -new starched crown." - -She was an awful stiff little thing--'most as stiff as her head-piece. -She never smiled. - -"What name?" she says, though--and I see she was friendlier than I'd -thought. - -"Why, mine's Calliope Marsh," I says, hearty. "What's yours?" - -She looked so funny--I guess not many paid her much attention. - -"Delia," she says. "You're expected," she says, and opened the inside -door. - -The room was long and soft and wine-colored, with a fire burning in the -fireplace, and more lamps than was necessary, but that altogether didn't -make much more light than one, only spread it out more. The piano was -open, and there was a vase of roses--in Winter! They seemed to have -them, I found out later, as casual as if there was a combined wedding -and funeral in the house all the time. But they certainly made a -beautiful picture. - -But all this I sort of took in out of my eyes' four corners, while the -rest of me looked at what was before the fire. - -A big, low-backed chair was there, as fat and soft as a sofa. And in it -was Ellen, in a white dress--in Winter! She wore them, I saw after a -while, as casual as if she was at a party, perpetual. But there was -something else there in a white dress, too, sitting on her lap, with his -pink, bare feet stretched out to the blaze. And he was laughing, and -Ellen was, too, at Russell, her husband, sitting on the floor, and -aiming his head right at the baby's stomach, to hear him laugh out -like--oh, like bluebells must be doing in the Spring. - -"Pretty enough to paint," says I--which was the first they knew I was -there. - -It was a shame to spoil it, but Ellen and Russell sprang up, and tried -to shake hands with me, though I wasn't taking the slightest notice of -them. It was the baby I was engaged in. I'd never seen him before. In -fact, I'd never seen Ellen and Russell since they were married two years -before and went off to Europe, and lived on a peak of the Alps where the -baby was born. - -They took me to a gray little room that was to be mine, and I put on a -fresh lace collar and my cameo pin and my best back comb. And then -dinner was ready--a little, round white table with not one living thing -on it but lace and roses and glass and silver. - -"Why," says I, before I got through with my melon that came first, "why, -you two must be perfectly happy, ain't you?" - -And Ellen says, looking over to him: - -"Perfectly, absolutely, radiantly happy. Yes, I am." - -And this is what Russell done. He broke his bread, and nodded to both of -us promiscuous, and he says: - -"Considerable happier than any decent man has a right to be, I'm -thinking." - -I noticed that incident particular. And when I look back on it now, I -know that that very first evening I begun noticing other things. I -remember the talk went on about like this: - -"Ellen," says Russell, "the dog show opened yesterday. They've got some -great little pups, I hear. Aren't you going in?" - -"Why--I am if you are," says Ellen. - -"Nonsense," says Russell, "I can run in any time, but I can't very well -meet you there in the middle of the day. You go in yourself." - -"Well, I only enjoy it about a third as much to go alone," says she. - -"The dogs don't differ when I'm along, you know, lady," says he, -smiling. - -"You know that isn't what I mean," she says. - -And she looked over at him, and smiled at his eyes with her eyes. But I -saw that he looked away first, sort of troubled. And I thought: - -"Why, she acts as if not enjoying things when he ain't along is a kind -of joyful sacrifice, that would please any man. I wonder if it does." - -It happened two-three times through dinner. She hadn't been over to see -some kind of a collection, and couldn't he come home some night early -and take her? He couldn't promise--why didn't she go herself and tell -him about it? - -"You wouldn't have said that three years ago," she says, half fun, half -earnest, and waited for him to deny it. But he didn't seem to sense what -was expected of him, and he just et on. - -Ain't it funny how you can sort of see things through the pores of your -skin? By the time dinner was over, I knew most as much about those two -as if I had lived in the house with them a week. - -He was wonderful tender with her, though. I don't mean just in little -loverlike ways, saying things and calling her things and looking at her -gentle. I mean in ways that don't have to be said or called or looked, -but that just are. To my mind they mean a thousand times more. But I -thought that in her heart she sort of hankered for the said and called -and looked kind. And of course they _are_ nice. Nice, but not vital like -the other sort. If you had to get along without one, you know which one -would be the one. - -When we went into the other room, Ellen took me to look at the baby, in -bed, asleep, same as a kitten and a rosebud and a little yellow chicken, -and all the things that you love even the names of. And when we went -back, Ellen went to the piano and begun to play rambley things but low -so's you could hardly hear them across the room, on account of the baby. -I sank down and was listening, contented, and thinking of the most -thinkable things I knew, when she looked over her shoulder. - -"Russell," she says, "if you'll come and turn the music, I'll do that -new Serenade." - -Russell was on a couch, stretched out with a newspaper and his pipe, and -I dunno if I ever seen a man look more luxurious. But he got up, sort -of a one-joint-at-a-time fashion, and came slumping over, with his hair -sticking out at the back. He stood and turned the music, with his pipe -behind him. And when she'd got through, he says: - -"Very pretty, indeed. Now I'll just finish my article, I guess, dear." - -He went back to his couch. And she got up, kind of quick, and walked -over and stared into the fire. And I got up and went over and stared out -the window. It seemed kind of indelicate to be looking, when I knew so -well what was happening in that room. - -_For she'd forgot he was a person. She was thinking that he was just -another one of her. And that seems to me a terrible thing for any human -being to get to thinking about another, married to them or not though -they be._ - -When I looked out the window, I needed new words. I hadn't realized the -elevator had skimmed up so high with me--and done it in the time it -would have taken the Emporium elevator, home, to go the two stories. But -we were up ten, I found afterward. And there I was looking the city -plain in the face. Rows and rows and fields of little lights from -windows that were homes--and homes--and homes. I'd never seen so many -homes in my life before, at any one time. And it came over me, as I -looked, that in all the hundreds of them I was looking at, and in the -thousands that lay stretched out beyond, the same kind of thing must -have gone on at some time or other, or be going to go on, or be going on -now, like I saw clear as clear was going on with Ellen and Russell. - -It was the third night I was there that the thing happened. I was -getting along fine. I did the ordering and the managing and took part -care of the baby and mended up clothes and did the dozens of things that -Ellen wasn't strong enough to do. Delia and I had got to be real good -friends by the second day. - -Russell came home that third night looking fagged out. He was never -nervous or impatient--I noticed that about him. I'd never once seen him -take it out in his conversation with his wife merely because he had had -a hard day. We'd just gone in from the dining-room when Russell, instead -of lighting his pipe and taking his paper, turned round on the rug, and -says: - -"Dear, I think I'll go over to Beldon's a while to-night." - -She was crossing the floor, and I remember how she turned and looked at -him. - -"Beldon's?" she said. "Have--have you some business?" - -"No," Russell says. "He wanted me to come in and have a game of -billiards." - -"Very well," she says only, and she went and sat down by the fire. - -He got into his coat, humming a little under his breath, and then he -came over and stooped down and kissed her. She kissed him, but she -hardly turned her head. And she didn't turn her head at all as he went -out. - -When he'd gone and she heard the apartment door shut, Ellen fairly -frightened me. She sank down in the big chair where I had first seen -her, and put her head on its arm, and cried--cried till her little -shoulders shook, and I could hear her sobs. "Ellen," I says, "what is -it?" Though, mind you, I knew well enough. - -She put her arms round my neck as I kneeled down beside her. "Oh, -Calliope, Calliope!" she says. "It's the end of things." - -"End," says I, "of what?" - -She looked in my face, with the tears streaming down hers. "Didn't you -realize," she says, "that that is the first time my husband ever has -left me in the evening--when he didn't have to?" - -I saw that I had to be as wise as ten folks and as harmless as none, if -I was to help her--and help him. And all at once I felt as if I _was_ -ten folks, and as if I'd got to live up to them all. - -Because I didn't underestimate the minute. No woman can underestimate -that minute when it comes to any other woman. For out of it there are -likely to come down onto her the issues of either life or death; and the -worst of it is that, ten to one, she never once sees that it's in her -power, maybe, to say whether it shall be life or death that comes. - -"What of it?" I says, as calm as if I didn't see anything at all, -instead of seeing more than she saw, as I know I did. - -She stared at me. "Don't you understand," she says, "what it means?" - -"Why, it means," says I, "that he wants a game of billiards, the way any -other man does, once in a while." - -She shook her head, mournful. - -"Three years ago this Winter," says she, "only three short years ago, -every minute of the world that Russell had free, he wanted to spend with -me. That Winter before we were married, do you suppose that -anybody--_any_body could have got him to play billiards with him if he -could have been with me?" - -I thought it over. "Well," I says, "no. Likely not. But then, you see, -he couldn't be with you every evening--and that just naturally give him -some nights off." - -"'Some nights off,'" she says. "Oh, if you think _that_ is the way he -looks at it--There is no way in this world that I would rather spend my -evenings," she says, "than to sit here with my husband." - -"Yes," I says, "I s'pose that's true. I s'pose that's true of most -wives. And it's something they've got to get over thinking is so -important." - -She gasped. "Get over--" she says. "Then," says she, "they'll have to -get over loving their husbands." - -"Oh, dear, no, they won't--no, they won't," says I. "But they'll have to -get over thinking that selfishness is love--for one thing. Most folks -get them awful mixed--I've noticed that." - -But she broke down again, and was sobbing on the arm of the chair. "To -think," she says over, "that now it'll never, never be the same again. -From now on we're going to be just like other married folks!" - -That seemed to me a real amazing thing to say, but I saw there wasn't -any use talking to her, so I just let her cry till it was time to go and -feed the baby. And then she sat nursing him, and breathing long, sobbing -breaths--and once I heard her say, "Poor, poor little Mother's boy!" -with all the accent on the relationship. - -I walked back into the middle of the long, soft, wine-colored room, -trying to think if I s'posed I'd got so old that I couldn't help in a -thing like this, for I have a notion that there is nothing whatever that -gets the matter that you can't help some way if you're in the -neighborhood of it. - -Delia was just shutting the outside door of the apartment. And she came -trotting in with her little, formal, front-door air. - -"Two ladies to see you, Miss Marsh," she says. "Mis' Toplady and Mis' -Holcomb." - -No sooner said than heard, and I flew to the door, all of a tremble. - -"For the land and forevermore," says I. "Where from and what for?" - -There they stood in the doorway, dressed, I see at first glance, in the -very best they'd got. Mis' Holcomb, that is the most backward-feeling of -any of our women, was a step behind Mis' Toplady, and had hold of her -arm. And Mis' Toplady was kind of tiptoeing and looking round cautious, -to see if something not named yet was all right. - -"There ain't any company, is there?" she says, in a part-whisper. - -"No," says I, "not a soul. Come on in." - -"Well," says she, relaxing up on her bones, "I asked the girl, and she -says she'd see. What's the use of _being_ a hired girl if you don't know -who you've let in?" - -"Sit down," says I, "and tell me what you're doing here, and why you've -come. Is anything the matter? I see there ain't, though--with you in -your best clothes. Throw off your things." - -"Calliope," says Mis' Holcomb, "you'd never guess." She leaned forward -in her chair. "We ain't come up for a single thing," says she, "not a -thing!" - -Mis' Toplady leaned forward, too. "And the fare a dollar and ninety-six -cents each way," says she, "and us a-staying at a hotel!" - -"Go on," says I. "How long you going to be here?" - -"Oh, mercy, only to-night," Mis' Holcomb says. "Why, the room is -two-fifty just for us to sleep in it. I told him we shouldn't be setting -in it a minute, but I guess he didn't believe me." - -"Well, go on," says I. "Tell me what you've come for?" - -Mis' Toplady leaned back and looked round her and sighed--and anybody -could of told that her sigh was pleased and happy. - -"Calliope," says she, "we've run away to stay overnight and one day on -our chicken money, because we got so dead tired of home." - -Mis' Holcomb just giggled out. - -"It's a fact," she says. "We thought we'd come while you was here, for -an excuse. But we were just sick of home, and that's the truth." - -I looked at them, stupefied, or part that. Mis' Toplady and Mame, that's -been examples of married contentment for thirty years on end, -hand-running! It begun to dawn on me, slow, what this meant, as Mis' -Toplady begun to tell me about it. - -"You know, Calliope," she says, "the very best home in the world gets--" - -Then I jumped up. "Hold on," I says. "You wait a minute. I'll be -straight back again." - -I run down the hall to the bedroom where Ellen was. She was just laying -the baby down--even in my hurry I stopped to think what a heavenly and -eternal picture that makes--a mother laying a baby down. There's -something in the stooping of her shoulders and the sweep of her skirt -and the tender drooping of her face, with the lamp-light on her hair, -that makes a picture out of every time a baby is laid in his bed. The -very fact that Ellen looked so lovely that way made me all the more -anxious to save her. - -"Ellen," I says, "come out here, please." - -I pulled her along, with her hair all loose and lovely about her -face--Ellen was a perfect picture of somebody's wife and a little baby's -mother. You never in the world would have thought of her as a human -being besides. - -So then I introduced them, and I sat down there with them--the two I -knew so well, and the one I'd got to know so well so sudden. And two of -them were nearly sixty, and one was not much past twenty; but the three -of them had so much in common that they were almost like one person -sitting there with me, before the fire. - -"Now," says I, "Mis' Toplady, go ahead. You needn't mind Ellen. She'll -understand." - -After a little bit, Mis' Toplady did go ahead. - -"Well, sir," Mis' Toplady said, "I dunno what you'll think of us, but -this is the way it was. I was sitting home by the dining-room table -with Timothy night before last. We had a real good wood fire in the -stove, and a tin of apples baking in the top, that smelled good. And the -lamp had been filled that day, so the light was extra bright. And there -was a little green wood in the fire that sort of sung--and Timothy set -with his shoes off, as he so often does evenings, reading his newspaper -and warming his stocking feet on the nickel of the stove. And all of a -sudden I looked around at my dining-room, the way I'd looked at it -evenings for thirty years or more, ever since we went to housekeeping, -and I says to myself, 'I hate the sight of you, and I wish't I was -somewheres else.' Not that I do hate it, you know, of course--but it -just come over me, like it has before. And as soon as my tin of apples -was done and I took them into the kitchen, I grabbed my shawl down off -the hook, and run over to Mis' Holcomb's. And when I shut her gate, I -near jumped back, because there, poking round her garden in the snow in -the dark, was Mame! - -"So," Mis' Toplady continued, "we hung over the gate and talked about -it. And we came to the solemn conclusion that we'd just up and light out -for twenty-four hours. We told our husbands, and they took it -philosophic. Men understand a whole lot more than you give them credit -for. They know--if they're any _real_ good--that it ain't that you ain't -fond of them, or that you ain't thankful you're their wife, but that -you've just got to have things that's different and interesting and--and -tellable. Anyhow, that's the way Mame and I figgered it out. And we got -into our good clothes, and we came up to the city, and went to the -hotel, and got us a bowl of hot oyster soup apiece. And then we had the -street-car ride out here, and we'll have another going back. And we've -seen you. And we'll have a walk past the store windows in the morning -before train-time. And I bet when we get home, 'long towards night, our -two dining-rooms'll look real good to us again--don't you, Mame?" - -"Yes, sir!" Mame says, with her little laugh again. "And our husbands, -too!" - -I'd been listening to them--but I'd been watching Ellen. Ellen was one -of the women that aren't deceived by outside appearances, same as some. -Mis' Toplady and Mis' Holcomb didn't look any more like her city friends -than a cat's tail looks like a plume, but just the same Ellen saw what -they were and what they were worth. And when they got done: - -"Do you mean you are going back to-morrow?" she says. - -"Noon train," says Mame, "and be home in time to cook supper as natural -as life and as good as new." - -Ellen kept looking at them, and I guessed what she was thinking: A -hundred miles they'd come for a change, and all they'd got was two -street-car rides and a bowl of oyster soup apiece and this call, and -they were going home satisfied. - -All of a sudden Ellen sat up straight in her chair. - -"See," she says, "it's only eight o'clock. Why can't the four of us go -to the theater?" - -The two women sort of gasped, in two hitches. - -"Us?" they says. - -Ellen jumped up. "Quick, Calliope," she says. "Get your things on. Delia -can stay with the baby. I'll telephone for a taxi. We can decide what to -see on the way down. You'll go, won't you?" she asks 'em. - -"Go!" says they, in one breath. "Oh--yes, _sir_!" - -In no time, or thereabouts, we found ourselves down-stairs packing into -the taxicab. I was just as much excited as anybody--I hadn't been to a -play in years. Ellen told us what there was as we went down, but they -might have been the names of French cooking for all they meant to us, -and we left it to her to pick out where we were to go. - -When we followed her down the aisle of the one she picked out, just -after the curtain went up, where do you think she took us? _Into a box!_ -It was so dark that Mis' Toplady and Mame never noticed until the -curtain went down, and the lights came up, and we looked round. - -As for me, I could hardly listen to the play. I was thinking of these -two dear women from the village, and what it meant to them to have -something different to do. But even more, I was watching Ellen, that had -set out to make them have a good time, and was doing her best at it, -getting them to talk and making them laugh, when the curtain was down. -But when the curtain was up, it seemed to me that Ellen wasn't listening -to the play so very much, either. - -Before the last act, Ellen had to get back to the baby, so we left the -two of them there and went home. - -"Alone in the box!" says Mame Holcomb, as we were leaving. "My land, and -my hat's trimmed on the wrong side for the audience!" - -"Do we have to go when it's out?" says Mis' Toplady. "Won't they just -leave us set here, on--and on--and on?" - -I remember them as I looked back and saw them, sitting there together. -And something, I dunno whether it was the wedding-trip poplin dress, or -the thought of the two dining-rooms where they'd set for so long, or of -the little lark they'd planned, sort of made a lump come and meet a word -I was trying to say. - -We'd got out to the entry of the box, when somebody came after us, and -it was little bit of Mame Holcomb, looking up with eyes bright as a blue -jay's at the feed-dish. - -"Oh," she says to Ellen, "I ain't half told you--neither of us has--what -this means to us. And I wanted you to know--we both of us do--that the -best part is, you so sort of _understood_." - -Ellen just bent over and kissed her. And when we came out in the hall, -all light and red carpet, I see Ellen's eyes were full of tears. - -And when we got in the taxicab: "Ellen," I says, "I thank you, too--ever -so much. You did understand. So did I." - -"I don't know--I don't know," she says "But, Calliope, how in the world -do you understand that kind of thing?" - -So I said it, right out plain: - -"Oh," I says, "I guess sheer because I've seen so much unhappiness, and -on up to divorce, come about sole because married folks _will_ hunt in -couples perpetual, and not let themselves be just folks." - -When we got home--and we hadn't said much more all the way there--as we -opened the living-room door, I saw that we'd got there first, before -Russell. I was glad of that. Ellen ran right down the hall to the baby's -room, and I took off my things and went down to the end of the room -where the couch was, to lay down till she came back. - -I must have dozed off, because I didn't hear Russell come in. The first -I knew, he was standing with his back to the fire, filling his pipe. So -I looked in his face, when he didn't know anybody was looking. - -He had evidently walked home, and had come in fresh and glowing and -full of frosty air, and his cheeks were ruddy. He was smiling a little -at something or other, and altogether he looked not a bit like the tired -man that had come home that night to dinner. - -Then I heard the farther door click, and Ellen's step in the hall. - -He looked toward the door, and I saw the queerest expression come in his -face. Now, there was Russell, a man of twenty-seven or eight, a grown -man that had lived his independent life for years before he had married -Ellen. And yet, honestly, when he looked up then, his face and his eyes -were like those of a boy that had done something that he had been -scolded for. He looked kind of apologetic and explanatory--a look no man -ought to be required to look unless for a real reason. It seems -so--ignominious for a human being to have to look like that when they -hadn't done a thing wrong. - -My heart sank some. I thought of the way Ellen had been all slumped down -in that easy chair, crying and taking on. And I waited for her to come -in, feeling as if all the law and the prophets hung on the next few -minutes--and I guess they did. - -She'd put on a little, soft house-dress, made you-couldn't-tell-how, of -lace, with blue showing through, kind of like clouds and the sky. But it -was her face I looked at, because I remembered the set look it had when -she'd told Russell good-by. And when I see her face now there in all -that sky-and-clouds effect, honest, it was like a star. - -"Hello, dear," she says, kind of sweet and casual, "put a stick of wood -on the fire and tell me all about it." - -I tell you, my heart jumped up then as much as it would of if I'd heard -her say "I will" when they were married. For this was their new minute. - -"Sit here," he says, and pulled her down to the big chair, and sat on -the low chair beside her, where I'd seen him first. Only now, the baby -wasn't there--it was just the two of them. - -"Did you beat them all to pieces?" she asks, still with that blessed, -casual, natural way of hers. - -He smiled, sort of pleased and proud and humble. "I did," he owns up. -"You're my wife, and I can brag to you if I want to. I walloped 'em." - -He told her about the game, saying a lot of things that didn't mean a -thing to me, but that must have meant to her what they meant to him, -because she laughed out, pleased. - -"Good!" she says. "You play a corking game, if I do say it. Do you know, -you look a lot better than you did when you came home to dinner? I hate -to see you look tired like that." - -"I feel fit as a fish now," says he. "There's something about an evening -like that with half a dozen of 'em--it isn't the game. It's the--oh, I -don't know. But it kind of--" - -He petered off, and she didn't make the mistake of agreeing too hard or -talking about it too long. She just nodded, and pretty soon she told him -some little thing about the baby. When he emptied his pipe, she said she -thought she'd go to bed. - -But when she got up, he reached up and pulled her back in the chair -again, and moved so that he set with his cheek against hers. And he -says: - -"I've got something to tell you." - -She picked up his hand to lean her head on, and says, "What? Me?"--which -I'd noticed was one of the little family jokes, that no family should be -without a set of. - -"Do you know, Ellen," he said, "to-night, when I went out to go over to -Beldon's, I thought you didn't like my going." - -"You did?" she says. "What made you think that?" - -"The way you spoke--or looked--or kissed me. I don't know. I imagined -it, I guess," says he. "And--I've got something to own up." - -She just waited; and he said it out, blunt: - -"It made me not want to come home," says he. - -"Not want to come home?" she says over, startled. - -He nodded. "Lacy and Bright both left Beldon's before I did," he says. -"I thought probably--I don't know. I imagined you were going to be -polite as the deuce, the way I thought you were when I went out." - -"Oh," she says, "was I that?" - -"So when Lacy and Bright made jokes about what their wives'd say if they -didn't get home, I joined in with them, and laughed at the 'apron -strings.' That's what we called it." - -She moved a little away. "Did you do that?" she said. "Oh, Russell, I -should hate that. I should think any woman would hate it." - -"I know," he says. "I'm dead sorry. But I wanted you to know. And, -dear--" - -He got up and stood before her, with her hands crushed up in his. - -"I want you to know," he says, kind of solemn, "that the way you are -about this makes me--gladder than the dickens. Not for the reason you -might think--because it's going to make it easy to be away when I want -to. But because--" - -He didn't say things very easy. Most men don't, except for their little -bit of courting time. - -"Well, thunder," he said, "don't you see? It makes me so sure you're my -_wife_--and not just married to me." - -She smiled up at him without saying anything, but I knew how balm and -oil were curing the hurt that she thought she'd had that night when he -went out. - -"I've always thought of our each doing things--and coming home and -telling each other about them," he says, vague. - -"Of _my_ doing things, too?" she asks, quick. - -"Why, yes--sure. You, of course," he says, emphatic. "Haven't you seen -that I want you to do things sometimes, without me tagging on?" - -"Is that the way you look at it?" she says, slow. - -He gave her two hands a gay little jerk, and pulled her to her feet. - -"Why," he said, "you're a person. And I'm a person. If we really love -each other, being married isn't only something _instead_. It's something -_plus_." - -"Russell," she says, "how did you find that out?" - -"I don't know," he says. "How does anybody find out anything?" - -I'll never forget the way Ellen looked when she went close to him. - -"By loving somebody enough, I think," she says. - -That made him stop short to wonder about something. - -"How did you find out, if it comes to that?" he asks. - -"What? Me?" she says. "Oh, I found out--by special messenger!" - -Think of Mis' Toplady and Mame being that, unbeknownst! - -They turned away together, and walked down the room. The fire had burned -down, and everything acted like eleven-o'clock-at-night. It made a nice -minute. I like to think about it. - -"To-morrow morning," she told him, "I'm going to take Calliope and two -friends of hers to the dog show. And you--don't--have--to--come. But -you're invited, you know." - -He laughed like a boy. - -"Well, now, maybe I _can_ drop in!" says he. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[5] Copyright, 1916, _Pictorial Review_. - - - - -THE ART AND LOAN DRESS EXHIBIT[6] - - -"We could have a baking sale. Or a general cooking sale. Or a bazaar. Or -a twenty-five-cent supper," says I. - -Mis' Toplady tore off a strip of white cloth so smart it sounded saucy. - -"I'm sick to death," she said, "of the whole kit of them. I hate a -baking sale like I hate wash-day. We've had them till we can taste them. -I know just what every human one of us would bring. Bazaars is death on -your feet. And if I sit down to another twenty-five-cent supper--beef -loaf, bake' beans, pickles, cabbage salad, piece o' cake--it seems as -though I should scream." - -"Me too," agrees Mis' Holcomb. - -"Me too," I says myself. "Still," I says, "we want a park--and we want -to name it Hewitt Park for them that's done so much for the town -a'ready. And if we ever have a park, we've got to raise some money. -That's flat, ain't it?" - -We all allowed that this was flat, and acrost the certainty we faced one -another, rocking and sewing in my nice cool sitting-room. The blinds -were open, the muslin curtains were blowing, bees were humming in the -yellow-rose bush over the window, and the street lay all empty, except -for a load of hay that lumbered by and brushed the low branches of the -maples. And somewheres down the block a lawn-mower was going, sleepy. - -"Who's that rackin' around so up-stairs?" ask' Mis' Toplady, pretty -soon. - -Just when she spoke, the little light footstep that had been padding -overhead came out in the hall and down my stair. - -"It's Miss Mayhew," I told them, just before Miss Mayhew tapped on the -open door. - -"Come right in--what you knocking for when the door sets ajar?" says I -to her. - -Miss Mayhew stood in the doorway, her rough short skirt and stout boots -and red sweater all saying "I'm going for a walk," even before she did. -Only she adds: "I wanted to let you know I don't think I'll get back for -supper." - -"Such a boarder I never saw," I says. "You don't eat enough for a bird -when you're here. And when you ain't, you're off gallivanting over the -hills with nothing whatever to eat. And me with a fresh spice-cake just -out of the oven for your supper." - -"I'm so sorry," Miss Mayhew says, penitent to see. - -I laid down my work. "You let me put you up a couple o' pieces to nibble -on," says I. - -"You're so good. May I come too?" Miss Mayhew asks, and smiled bright -at the other two women, who smiled back broad and almost tender--Miss -Mayhew's smile made you do that. - -"I s'pose them writing folks can't stop to think of food," Mis' Toplady -says as we went out. - -"Look at her lugging a book. What's she want to be bothered with that -for?" Mis' Holcomb says. - -But that kind of fault-finding don't necessarily mean unkindness. With -us it was as natural as a glance. - -Out in the kitchen, I, having wrapped two nice slices of spice cake and -put them in Miss Mayhew's hand, looked up at her and was shook up -considerable to see that her eyes were filled with tears. - -I know I'm real blunt when I'm embarrassed or trying to be funny, but -when it comes to tears I'm more to home. So I just put my hand on the -girl's shoulder and waited for her to speak. - -"It's nothing," Miss Mayhew says back to the question I didn't ask. -"I--I--" she sobbed out quite open. "I'm all right," she ends, and put -up her head like a banner. - -To the two women in my sitting-room I didn't say a word of that moment, -when I went back to them. But what I did say acted kind of electric. - -"Now," says I, "day before yesterday was my sweeping day for the -chambers. But I hated to disturb her, she set there scribbling so hard -when I stuck my head in. She ain't been out of the house since. If -you'll excuse me, I'll whisk right up there and sweep out now." - -The women begun folding their work. - -"Why, don't hurry yourselves!" I says. "Sit and visit till I get -through, why don't you?" - -"Go!" says Mis' Toplady. "We ain't a-going. We're going to help." - -"I been dying to get up-stairs in that room ever since I see her fix it -up," Miss Holcomb lets out, candid. - -Miss Mayhew's room--she'd been renting my front chamber for a month -now--was little and bare, but her daintiness was there, like her saying -something. And the two women began looking things over--the books, the -pictures--"prints," Miss Mayhew called them--the china tea-cups, the -silver-topped bottles, and the silver and ivory toilet stuff. - -"My, what a homely picture!" Mis' Holcomb says, looking at a scene of a -Japanese lady and a mountain. - -"What in the world is these forceps for?" says Mis' Toplady, balancing -an ivory glove-stretcher with Miss Mayhew's initials on. I knew that it -was, because I'd asked her. - -"What she wants of a dust-cap I dunno," Mis' Holcomb contributes, -pointing to the little lace and ribbon cap hanging beside the -toilet-table. - -And I'd wondered that myself. She put it on for breakfast, like she was -going to do some work; then she never done a thing the whole morning, -only wrote. - -Then all of a sudden was when I come out with something surprising. - -"Why," says I, "it's gone!" - -"What's gone?" they says. And I was looking so hard I couldn't -answer--bureau, chest of drawers, bookshelves, I looked on all of them. -"It ain't here anywhere," says I, "and he was _that_ handsome--" - -I told them about the photograph, as well as I could. It was always -standing on the bureau, right close up by the glass--a man's picture -that always made me want to say: "Well, you look just exactly the way -you _ought_ to look. And I believe you are it." He looked like what you -mean when you say "man" when you're young--big and dark and frank and -boyish and manly, with eyes that give their truth to you and count on -having yours back again. That kind. - -"Land," I says. "I'd leave a picture like that up in my room no matter -what occurred between me and the one the picture was the picture of. I -_couldn't_ take it down." - -But now it was down, though I remembered seeing it stand there every -time I'd dusted ever since Miss Mayhew had come, up till this day. And -when I'd told the women all about it, they couldn't recover from -looking. They looked so energetic that finally Mis' Toplady pulled out -the wardrobe a little mite and peeked behind it. - -"I thought mebbe it'd got itself stuck in here," she explains, bringing -her head back with a great streak of dust on her cheek--and I didn't -take it as any reflection whatever on my housekeeping. I've always -believed that there's some furniture that the dust just rises out of, in -the night, like cream--and of those the backs of wardrobes are chief. - -Then she shoved the wardrobe in place, and the door that I'd fixed at -the top with a little wob of newspaper so it would stay shut, all of a -sudden swung open, and the other one followed suit. We three stood -staring at what was inside. For my wardrobe, that had never had anything -in it better than my best black silk, was hung full of pink and blue and -rose and white and lavender clothes. Dresses they were, some with little -scraps of shining trimming on, and all of them not like anything any of -us had ever seen, outside of fashion books--if any. - -"My land!" says I, sitting down on the edge of the fresh-made bed--a -thing I never do in my right senses. - -"Party clothes!" says Mis' Holcomb, kind of awelike. "Ball-gowns," she -says it over, to make them sound as grand as they looked. - -"Why, mercy me," Mis' Toplady says, standing close up and staring. -"She's an actress, that's what she is. Them's stage clothes." - -"Actress nothing," I says, "nor they ain't ball dresses--not all anyway. -They're just light colors, for afternoon wear, the most of them--but -like we don't wear here in this town, 'long of being so durable-minded." - -"Have you ever seen her wear any of 'em?" demands Mis' Toplady. - -"I can't say I ever have," I says, "but she likely ain't done so because -she don't want to do different from us. That," says I, "is the lady of -it." - -Mis' Holcomb leaned close and looked at the things through her glasses. - -"I think she'd ought to wear them here," she says. "I'd dearly love to -look at things like that. Nobody ever wore things here like that since -the Hewitts went away. We'd all love to see them. We don't see things -like that any too often. I s'pose--I s'pose, ladies," says she, -hesitating, "I s'pose it wouldn't do for us to look at them any closer -up to, would it?" - -We knew it wouldn't--not, that is, to the point of touching. But we all -came and stood by the wardrobe door and looked as close up to as we -durst. - -"My," says Mis' Toplady, "how Mis' Sykes would admire to see these. And -Mis' Hubbelthwait. And Mis' Sturgis. And Mis' Merriman." - -And then she went on, real low: - -"Why, ladies," she says, "why couldn't we have an exhibit--a loan -exhibit? And put all those clothes on dress-makers' forms in somebody's -parlor--" - -"And charge admission!" says I. "Instead of a bazaar or a supper or a -baking sale--" - -"And get each lady that's got them to put up her best dress too," says -Mis' Holcomb. "Mis' Sykes has never had a chance to wear her navy-blue -velvet in this town once, and she's had it three years. I presume she'd -be glad to get a chance to show it off that way." - -"And Mis' Sturgis her black silk that she had dressmaker made in the -city," says I, "when she went to her relation's funeral. She's never had -it on her back but the once--it had too much jet on it for anything but -formal--and that once was to the funeral, and then it was so cold in the -church she had to keep her coat on over it. She's often told me about -it, and she's real bitter about it, for her." - -Mis' Toplady flushed up. "I've got," she said, "that lavender silk -dressing gown my nephew sent me from Japan. It's never been out of its -box since it come, nine years ago, except when I've took somebody -up-chamber to show it to them. Do you think--" - -"Of course we'll have it," I said, "and, Mis' Toplady, your -wedding-dress that you've saved, with the white raspberry buttons. And -there's Mis' Merriman's silk-embroidered long-shawl--oh, ladies," I -says, "won't it be nice to see some elegant clothes wore for once here -in the village, even if it's only on dressmaker's forms?" - -"So be Miss Mayhew'll only let us take hers," says Mis' Holcomb, -longing. - -We planned the whole thing out, sitting up there till plump six o'clock -when the whistle blew, and not a scratch of sweeping done in the chamber -yet. The ladies both flew for home then, and I went at the sweeping, -being I was too excited to eat anyway, and I planned like lightning the -whole time. And I made up my mind to arrange with Miss Mayhew that -night. - -I'd had my supper and was rocking on the front porch when she came home. -The moon was shining up the street, and the maple leaves were all moving -pleasant, and their shadows were moving pleasant, too, as if they were -independent. Everybody's windows were open, and somewhere down the block -some young folks were singing an old-fashioned love-song--I saw Miss -Mayhew stand at the gate and listen after she had come inside. Then she -came up the walk slow. - -"Good evening and glad you're back," said I. "_Ain't_ this a night?" - -She stood on the bottom step, looking the moon in the face. The air was -sweet with my yellow roses--it was almost as if the moonlight and they -were the same color and both sweet-smelling. And her a picture in that -yellow frame. - -"Oh, it is--it is," she says, and she sighs. - -"This," I says, "isn't a night to sigh on." - -"No," she says, "it isn't--is it? I won't do it again." - -"Sit down," I says, "I want to ask you something." - -So then I told her how her wardrobe door had happened to swing open, and -what we wanted to do. - -"--we don't see any too many pretty things here in the village," I said, -"and I'd kind of like to do it, even if we didn't make a cent of money -out of it for the park." - -She didn't say anything--she just sat with her head turned away from me, -looking down the street. - -"--us ladies," I said, "we don't dress very much. We can't. We've all -had a hard time to get together just what we've had to have. But we all -like pretty things. I s'pose most all of us used to think we were going -to have them, and these things of yours kind of make me think of the way -I use' to think, when I was a girl, I'd have things some day. Of course -now I know it don't make a mite of difference whether anybody ever had -them or not--there's other things and more of them. But still, now and -then you kind of hanker. You kind of hanker," I told her. - -Still she didn't say anything. I thought mebbe I'd offended her. - -"We wouldn't touch them, you know," I said. "We'd only just come and -look. But if you'd mind it any--" - -Then she looked up at me, and I saw that her eyes were brimming over -with tears. - -"Mind!" she said. "Why, no--no! If you can really use those things of -mine. But they're not nice things, you know." - -"Well," I says, "I dunno as us ladies would know that. But you do love -_light_ things when you've had to go around dressed dark, either 'count -of economy or 'count of being afraid of getting talked about. Or both." - -She got up and leaned and kissed me, light. Wasn't that a funny thing to -do? But I loved her for it. - -"Anything I own," she says, "is yours to use just the way you want to -use it." - -"You're just as sweet as you are pretty," I told her, "and more I dunno -who could say about no one." - -I lay awake most all night planning it, like you will. I spent most of -the next day tracking round seeing folks about it. And everybody pitched -in to work, both on account of needing the money for the little park us -ladies had set our hearts on, and on account of being glad to have some -place, at last, to show what clothes we'd got to some one, even if it -was nobody but each other. - -"Oh," says Mis' Holcomb, "I was thinking only the other day if only -somebody'd get married. You know we ain't had an evening party in this -town in years--not since the Hewitts went away. But I couldn't think of -a soul likely to have a big evening wedding for their daughter but the -Mortons, and little Abbie Morton, she's only 'leven. It'd take another -good six years before we could get asked to that. And I did want to get -a real chance to wear my dress before I made it over." - -"The Prices might have a wedding for Mamie," says Mis' Toplady, -reflective. "Like enough with a catyier and all that. But I dunno's -Mamie's ever had a beau in her life." - -We were to have the exhibit--the Art and Loan Dress Exhibit, we called -it--at my house, and I tell you it was fun getting ready for it. But it -was hard work, too, as most fun is. - -The morning of the day that was the day, everybody came bringing their -stuff over in their arms. We had dress-forms from all the dress-makers -and all the stores in town, and they were all set up around the rim of -my parlor. Mis' Sturgis had just got her black silk put up and was -trying to make out whether side view to show the three quarters train -or front view to show the jet ornament was most becoming to the dress, -when Miss Mayhew brought in her things and began helping us. - -"How the dead speaks in clothes," Mis' Sturgis says. "This jet ornament -was on my mother's bonnet for twelve years when I was a little girl." - -"The Irish crochet medallion in the front of my basque," says Mis' -Merriman, "was on a scarf of my mother's that come from the old country. -It got old, and I took the best of it and appliqued it on a crazy quilt -and slept under it for years. Then when I see Irish crochet beginning to -be wore in the magazines again, I ripped it off and ragged out in it." - -"Oh," says Miss Mayhew, all of a sudden. "What a lovely shawl! What you -going to put that on?" - -"Where?" says we. - -"Why this," she says--but still we didn't see, for she didn't have -anything but the shawl Mis' Hubbelthwait had worn in over her head. -"This Paisley shawl," Miss Mayhew says. - -"My land!" says Mis' Hubbelthwait, "I put that on me to go through the -cold hall and bring in the kindling, and run out for a panful of chips, -and like that." - -Miss Mayhew smiled. "You must put that on a figure," she says. "Why, -it's beautiful. Look at those colors." - -"All faded out," says Mis' Hubbelthwait, and thought Miss Mayhew was -making fun of her. But she wasn't. And she insisted on draping it and -putting it near the front. Miss Mayhew was nice, but she was queer in -some things. I'd upholstered my kitchen rocker with part of my Paisley -shawl, and covered the ironing-board under the cloth with the rest of -it--and nothing would do but that old chair must be toted up in her -room! And yet I'd spent four dollars for a new golden-oak rocker when -she'd engaged the rooms.... But me, I urged them to let her do as she -pleased with Mis' Hubbelthwait's shawl that morning; because I -remembered that what had been the matter in my kitchen the afternoon -before was probably still the matter. And moreover, I'd looked when I -made the bed, and I see that the picture hadn't been set back on the -bureau. - -Well, then we began putting up Miss Mayhew's own things--and I tell you -they were pretty. There wasn't much to them--little slimpsey soft silk -things, made real inexpensive with no lining, and not fussed up at -all--but they had an air to them that you can hardly ever get into a -dress, no matter how close you follow your paper pattern. She had a pink -and a blue and a white and a lavender--and one lovely rose gown that I -took and held up before her. - -"I'd dearly love to see you in this," says I. "I bet you look like a -rose in it--or more so." - -Her face, that was usually bright and soft all in one, sort of fell, -like a cloud had blown over it. - -"I always liked to wear that dress," she says. "I had--there were folks -that liked it." - -"Put it on to-night," I says, "and take charge of this room for us." - -But she kind of shrunk back, and shook her head. - -And I thought, like lightning, "It was the Picture Man that was on the -bureau that liked to see you in that dress--or I miss my guess." - -But I never said a word, and went on putting a dress-form together. - -The room looked real pretty when we got all the things up. There were -fourteen dresses in all, around the room. In the very middle was Mis' -Toplady's wedding-dress--white silk, made real full, with the white -raspberry buttons. - -"For twenty years," she said, "it's been in the bottom drawer of the -spare room. It's nice to see it wore." - -And we all thought it was so nice that we borrowed the wax figure from -the White House Emporium, and put the dress on. It looked real funny, -though, to see that smirking, red-cheeked figure with lots of light hair -and its head on one side, coming up out of Mis' Toplady's wedding-dress. - -Us ladies were all ready and on hand early that night, dressed in our -black alpacas and wearing white aprons, most of us; and Miss Mayhew had -on a little white dimity, and she insisted on helping in the kitchen--we -were going to give them only lemonade and sandwiches, for we were -expecting the whole town, and the admission was only fifteen cents -apiece. - -Then--I remember it was just after the clock struck seven--my telephone -rang. And it was a man's voice--which is exciting in itself, no man ever -calling me up without it's the grocery-man to try to get rid of some of -his fruit that's going to spoil, or the flour and feed man to say he -can't send up the corn-meal till to-morrow, after all. And this Voice -wasn't like either one of them. - -He asked if this was my number, brisk and strong and deep and sure, and -as if he was used to everything there is. - -"Is Miss Marjorie Mayhew there?" says he. - -"Miss _Marjorie_ Mayhew," says I, thoughtful. "Why, I dunno's I ever -heard her front name." - -"Whose front name?" says he. - -"Why," says I, "Miss Mayhew's. That's who we're talking about, ain't -it?" - -"Oh," says he, "then there _is_ a Miss Mayhew staying there?" - -"No, sir," says I short, "there ain't. She's _the_ Miss Mayhew--the one -I mean--and anybody that's ever seen her would tell you the same thing." - -He was still at that, just for a second. And when he spoke again, his -voice had somehow got a little different--I couldn't tell how. - -"I see," says he, "that you and I understand each other perfectly. May I -speak to the Miss Mayhew?" - -"Why, sure," says I hearty. "Sure you can." - -So I went in the kitchen and found her where she was stirring -lemon-juice in my big stone crock. And when I told her, first she turned -red-rose red, and then she turned white-rose white. - -"Me?" she says. "Who can want me? Who knows I'm here?" - -"You go on and answer the 'phone, child," I says to her. "Him and me, we -understand each other perfectly." - -So she went. I couldn't help hearing what she said. - -"Yes." - -"Yes." - -"You are?" - -"It doesn't matter in the least." - -"If you wish." - -"Two automobiles?" - -"Very well. Any time." - -"Oh, not at all, I assure you." - ---all in a cool, don't-care little voice that I never in this wide world -would have recognized as Miss Mayhew's voice. Then she hung up. And I -stepped out of the cloak-closet. I took hold of her two shoulders and -looked in her eyes. And I saw she was palpitating and trembling and -breathless and pink. - -"Marjorie Mayhew," I says, "I never knew that was your name, till just -now when that Nice Voice asked for you. But stranger though you are to -me--or more so--I want to say something to you: _If_ you ever love--I -don't say That Nice Voice, but Any Nice Voice, don't you never, never -speak cold to it like you just done. No matter what--" - -She looked at me, kind of sweet and kind of still, and long and deep. -And I saw that we both knew what we both knew. - -"I know," she says. "Folks are so foolish--oh, so foolish! I know it -now. And yet--" - -"And yet you young folks hurt love for pride all the time," I says. "And -love is gold, and pride is clay. And some of you never find it out till -too late." - -"I know," she says in a whisper, "I know--" Then she looked up. "Twelve -folks are coming here in two automobiles in about half an hour. The -telephone was from Prescott--that's about ten miles, isn't it? It's the -Hewitts. From the city--and some guests of theirs--" - -"The Hewitts?" I says over. "From the city?" - -She nodded. - -"The Hewitts," I pressed on, "that give us our library? And that we -want to name the park for?" - -Yes. It was them. - -"Why, my land," I says, "my land--let me tell the ladies." - -I rushed in on them, where they were walking 'round the parlor peaceful, -each lady looking over her own dress and giving little twitches to it -here and there to make the set right. - -"The Hewitts," I says, "that we've all wanted to meet for years on end. -And now look at us--dressed up in every-day, or not so much so, when -we'd like to do them honor." - -Mis' Toplady, standing by her wedding dress on the wax form, waved both -her arms. - -"Ladies!" she says. "S'posing we ain't any of us dressed up. Can't we -dress up, I'd like to know? Here's all our best bib and tucker present -with us. What's to prevent us putting it on?" - -"But the exhibit!" says Mis' Holcomb most into a wail. "The exhibit that -they was to pay fifteen cents apiece for?" - -"Well," says Mis' Toplady majestic, "they'll have it, won't they? We'll -tell them which is which--only we'll all be wearing our own!" - -Like lightning we decided. Each lady ripped her own dress off its wire -form and scuttled for up-stairs. I took mine too, and headed with them; -and at the turn I met Marjorie Mayhew, running down the stairs. - -"Oh!" she says, kind of excited and kind of ashamed. "_Do_ you think -it'd spoil your exhibit if I took--if I wore--that rose dress--" - -"No, child," I says. "Go right down and get it. That won't spoil the -exhibit. The exhibit," I says, "is going to be exhibited _on_." - -We were into our clothes in no time, hooking each other up, laughing -like girls. - -The first of us was just beginning to appear, when the two big cars came -breathing up to the gate. - -In came the Hewitts, and land--in one glance I saw there was nothing -about them that was like what we'd always imagined--nothing grand or -sweeping or rustling or cold. I guess that kind of city folks has gone -out of fashion, never to come back. The Hewitts didn't seem like city -folks at all--they seemed just like folks. It made a real nice surprise. -And we all got to be folks, short off. For when I ushered them into my -parlor, there were all the wire dress-forms setting around with nothing -whatever on. - -"My land," I says, "we might as well own right up to what we done," I -says. And I told them, frank. And I dunno which enjoyed it the most, -them or us. - -The minute I saw him, I knew him. I mean The Nice Voice. I'd have known -him by his voice if I hadn't been acquainted with his face, but I was. -He was the picture that wasn't on Miss Marjorie Mayhew's dresser any -longer--and, even more than the picture, he looked like what you mean -when you say "man." When I was introduced to him I wanted to say: "How -do you do. Oh! I'm _glad_ you look like that. She deserves it!" - -But even if I could, I'd have been struck too dumb to do it. For I -caught his name--and he was the only son of the Hewitts, and -heir-evident to all his folks. - -The only fault I could lay to his door was that he didn't have any eyes. -Not for us. He was looking every-which-way, and I knew for who. So as -soon as I could, I slips up to him and I says merely: - -"This way." - -He was right there with me, in a second. I took him up the stairs, and -tapped at my front chamber door. - -She was setting in there on her couch, red as a red rose this time. And -when she see who was with me, she looked more so than ever. But she -spoke gentle and self-possessed, as women can that's been trained that -way all their days. - -"How do you do?" says she, and gave him her hand, stranger-cool. - -That man--he pays no more attention to me than if I hadn't been there. -He just naturally walked across the room, put his hands on her -shoulders, looked deep into her eyes for long enough to read what she -couldn't help being there, and then he took her in his arms. - -I slipped out and pulled the door to. And in the hall I met from six to -seven folks coming up to take their things off, and heading straight for -the front chamber. I stood myself up in front of the door. - -"Walk right into my room," says I--though I knew full well that it -looked like Bedlam, and that I was letting good housekeepers in to see -it. And so they done. And, more heads appearing on the stairs about -then, I see that what I had to do was to stand where I was--if they were -to have their Great Five Minutes in peace. - -Could anybody have helped doing that? And could anybody have helped -hearing that little murmur that came to me from that room? - -"Dearest," he said, "how could you--how could you do like this? I've -looked everywhere--" - -"I thought," she said, "that you'd never come. I thought you weren't -looking." - -"You owe me," he told her solemnly, "six solid weeks of my life. I've -done nothing since you left." - -"When a month went by," she owned up, "and you hadn't come, I--I took -your picture off my bureau." - -"Where'd you put it?" he asks, stern. - -She laughed out, kind of light and joyous. - -"In my hand-bag," says she. - -Then they were still a minute. - -"Walk right to the left, and left your things right on my bed...." I -heard myself saying over, crazy, to some folks. But then of course you -always do expect your hostess to be more or less crazy-headed, and -nobody thought anything of it, I guess. - -They came out in just a minute, and we went down the stairs together. -And on the way down he says to her: - -"Remember, you're going back with us to-night. And I'm never going to -let you out of my sight again--ever." - -And she said: "But I know why. Because it'd be hard work to make me -go...." - -At the foot of the stairs Mis' Holcomb met me, her silk dress's collar -under one ear. - -"Have you heard?" she says. "We didn't have much exhibit, but the -Hewitts have give us enough for the park--outright." - -I'd wanted that park like I'd wanted nothing else for the town. But I -hardly sensed what she said. I was looking acrost to where those two -stood, and pretty soon I walked over to them. - -"Is this the Miss Mayhew you were referring to?" I ask' him, demure. - -"This," says he, his nice eyes twinkling, "is the only Miss Mayhew -there is." - -"You may say that now," says I then, bold. "But--I see you won't call -her that long." - -He looked at me, and she looked at me, and they both put out their hands -to me. - -"I see," says he, "that we three understand one another perfectly." - -FOOTNOTE: - -[6] Copyright, 1914, _The Delineator_. - - - - -ROSE PINK[7] - - -_The Art and Loan Dress Exhibit recalls a story of my early association -with Calliope Marsh in Friendship Village, when yet she was not well -known to me--her humanity, her habit of self-giving, her joy in life -other than her own._ - -_Afterward I knew that I had never seen a woman more keenly and -constantly a participant in the lives of others. She was hardly -individuated at all. She suffered and joyed with others, literally, more -than she did in her "own" affairs. I now feel certain that before we can -reach the individualism which we crave--and have tried to claim too -soon--we must first know such participation as hers in all conscious -life--in all life, conscious or unconscious._ - -_This is that early story, as I then wrote it down:_ - -Calliope Marsh had been having a "small company." Though nominally she -was hostess to twenty of us, invited there for six o'clock supper, yet -we did not see Calliope until supper was done. Mis' Postmaster Sykes had -opened the door for us, had told us to "walk up-stairs to the right an' -lay aside your things," and had marshaled us to the dining-room and so -to chairs outlining the room. And there the daughters of most of the -guests had served us while Calliope stayed in the kitchen, with Hannah -Hager to help her, seasoning and stirring and "getting it onto the -plates." Afterward, flushed and, I thought, lovably nervous, Calliope -came in to receive our congratulations and presently to hear -good-nights. But I, who should have hurried home to Madame Josephine, -the modiste from town who that week called my soul her own, waited for a -little to talk it over--partly, I confess, because a fine, driving rain -had begun to fall. - -We sat in the kitchen while Calliope ate her own belated supper on a -corner of the kitchen table; and on another corner, thin, tired little -Hannah Hager ate hers. And, as is our way in Friendship, Hannah talked -it over, too--that little maid-of-all-work, who was nowhere attached in -service, but lived in a corner of Grandma Hawley's cottage and went -tirelessly about the village ministering to the needs of us all. - -"Everything you hed was lovely, Miss Marsh," Hannah said with shining -content and a tired sigh. "You didn't hev a single set-back, did you?" - -"Well, I dunno," Calliope doubted; "it all tastes like so much chips to -me, even now. I was kind o' nervous over my pressed ham, too. I noticed -two o' the plates didn't eat all theirs, but the girls couldn't rec'lect -whose they was. Did you notice?" - -"No, sir, I didn't," Hannah confessed with a shake of the head at -herself. "I did notice," she amended brightly, "that Mis' Postmaster -Sykes didn't make way with all her cream, but I guess ice-cream don't -agree with her. She's got a kind o' peculiar stomach." - -"Well-a, anybody hev on anything new?" Calliope asked with interest. "I -couldn't tell a stitch anybody hed on. I don't seem to sense things when -I hev company." - -There was no need for me to give evidence. - -"Oh!" Hannah said, as we say when we mean a thing very much, "didn't you -see Lyddy Eider?" - -"Seems to me I did take it in she hed on something pink," Calliope -remembered. - -Little Hannah stood up in her excitement. - -"Pink, Miss Marsh!" she said. "I should say it was. Pink with cloth, -w'ite. The w'ite," Hannah illustrated it, "went here an' so, in points. -In between was lace an' little ribbon, pink too. An' all up so was -buttons. An' it all rustled w'en she stirred 'round. An' it laid smooth -down, like it was starched an' ironed, an' then all to once it'd slimpse -into folds, soft as soft. An' every way she stood it looked nice--it -didn't pucker nor skew nor hang wrong. It was dressmaker-made, ma'am," -Hannah concluded impressively. "An' it looked like the pictures in -libr'ry books. My! You'd ought 'a' seen Gramma Hawley. She fair et Lydia -up with lookin' at her." - -I, who was not yet acquainted with every one in Friendship, had already -observed the two that day--brown, bent Grandma Hawley and the -elaborately self-possessed Miss Eider, with a conspicuously high-pitched -voice, who lived in the city and was occasionally a guest in the -village. The girl, who I gathered had once lived in Friendship, was like -a living proof that all village maids may become princesses; and the -brooding tenderness of the old woman had impressed me as might a -mourning dove mothering some sprightly tanager. - -"Gramma Hawley brought her up from a little thing," Calliope explained -to me now, "and a rich Mis' Eider, from the city, she adopted her, and -Gramma let her go. I guess it near killed Gramma to do it--but she'd -always been one to like nice things herself, and she couldn't get them, -so she see what it'd mean to Lyddy. Lyddy's got pretty proud, she's hed -so much to do with, but she comes back to see Gramma sometimes, I'll say -that for her. Didn't anybody else hev on anything new?" - -"No," Hannah knew positively, "they all come out in the same old togs. -When the finger-bowl started I run up in the hall an' peeked down the -register, so's to see 'em pass out o' the room. Comp'ny clo'es don't -change much here in Friendship. Mis' Postmaster Sykes says yest'day, -when we was ironin': 'Folks,' she says, 'don't dress as much here in -Friendship as I wish't we did. Land knows,' Mis' Sykes says, '_I_ don't -dress, neither. But I like to see it done.'" - -Calliope, who is sixty and has a rosy, wrinkled face, looked sidewise -down the long vista of the cooking-stove coals. - -"Like to see it done!" she repeated. "Why, I get so raving hungry to see -some colored dress-goods on somebody seem's though I'd fly. Black and -brown and gray--gray and brown and black hung on to every woman in -Friendship. Every one of us has our clo'es picked out so everlastin' -_durable_." - -Hannah sympathetically giggled with, "Don't they, though?" - -"My grief!" Calliope exclaimed. "It reminds me, I got my mother's -calicoes down to pass 'round and I never thought to take them in." - -She went to her new golden oak kitchen cabinet--a birthday gift to -Calliope from the Friendship church for her services at its organ--and -brought us her mother's "calicoes"--a huge box of pieces left from every -wool and lawn and "morning housework dress" worn by the Marshes, quick -and passed, and by their friends. Calliope knew them all; and I listened -idly while the procession went by us in sad-colored fabrics--"black and -brown and gray--gray and brown and black." - -I think that my attention may have wandered a little, for I was recalled -by some slight stir made by Hannah Hager. She had risen and was bending -toward Calliope, with such leaping wistfulness in her eyes that I -followed her look. And I saw among the pieces, like a bright breast in -sober plumage, a square of chambray in an exquisite color of rose. - -"Oh--" said little Hannah softly, "hain't that just _beauti_-ful?" - -"Like it, Hannah?" Calliope asked. - -"My!" said the little maid fervently. - -"It was a dress Gramma Hawley made for Lyddy Eider when she was a little -girl," Calliope explained. "I dunno but what it was the last one she -made for her. Pretty, ain't it? Lyddy always seemed to hanker some after -pink. Gramma mostly always got her pink." Calliope glanced at Hannah, -over-shoulder. "Why don't you get a pink one for _then_?" she asked -abruptly; and, "When is it to be, Hannah?" she challenged her, -teasingly, as we tease for only one cause. - -On which I had pleasure in the sudden rose-pink of Hannah's face, and -she sank back in her seat at the table corner in the particular, -delicious anguish that comes but once. - -"There, there," said Calliope soothingly, "no need to turn any more -colors, 's I know of. Land, if they ain't enough sandwiches left to fry -for my dinner." - -When, presently, Calliope and I were in the dining-room and I was -watching her "redd up" the table while Hannah clattered dishes in the -kitchen, I asked her who Hannah's prince might be. Calliope told me -with a manner of triumph. For was he not Henry Austin, that great, -good-looking giant who helped in the post-office store, whose baritone -voice was the making of the church choir and on whom many Friendship -daughters would not have looked unkindly? - -"I'm so glad for her," Calliope said. "She ain't hed many to love -besides Gramma Hawley--and Gramma's so wrapped up in Lyddy Eider. And -yet I feel bad for Hannah, too. All their lives folks here'll likely -say: 'How'd he come to marry _her_?' It's hard to be that kind of woman. -I wish't Hannah could hev a wedding that would show 'em she _is_ -somebody. I wish't she could hev a wedding dress that would show them -how pretty she is--a dress all nice, slim lines and folds laid in in the -right places and little unexpected trimmings like you wouldn't think of -having if you weren't real up in dress," Calliope explained. "A dress -like Lyddy Eider always has on." - -"Calliope!" I said then, laughing. "I believe you would be a regular -fashion plate, if you could afford it." - -"I would," she gravely admitted, "I'm afraid I would. I love nice -clothes and I just worship colors." She hesitated, looking at me with a -manner of shyness. "Sit still a minute, will you?" she said, "I'd like -to show you something." - -She went upstairs and I listened to Hannah Hager, clattering kitchen -things and singing: - - - "He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons, - To tie up my bonny brown ha--ir." - - -Pink chambray and the love of blue ribbons and Miss Lydia Eider in her -dress that was "dressmaker-made." These I turned in my mind, and I found -myself thinking of my visit to the town in the next week, for which -Madame Josephine was preparing; and of how certain elegancies are there -officially recognized instead of being merely divined by the wistful -amateur in color and textile. How Calliope and Hannah would have -delighted, I thought idly, in the town's way of pretty things to wear, -such as Josephine could make; the way that Lydia Eider knew, in her -frocks that were "dressmaker-made." Indeed, Calliope and Hannah and -Lydia Eider had been physically cast in the same mold of prettiness and -of proportion, but only Lydia had come into her own. - -And then Calliope came down, and she was bringing a long, white box. She -sat before me with the box on her knee and I saw that she was flushing -like a girl. - -"I expect," she said, "you'll think I'm real worldly-minded. I dunno. -Mebbe I am. But when I get out in company and see everybody wearing the -dark shades like they do here in Friendship so's their dresses won't -show dirt, I declare I want to stand up and tell 'em: 'Colors! Colors! -What'd the Lord put colors in the world for? Burn up your black and -brown and gray and get into somethin' _happy_-colored, and see the -difference it'll make in the way you feel inside.' I get so," Calliope -said solemnly, "that when I put on my best black taffeta with the white -turnovers, I declare I could slit it up the back seam. And I've felt -that way a long time. And that's what made me--" - -She fingered the white box and lifted the cover from a mass of -tissue-paper. - -"When Uncle Ezra Marsh died sixteen years ago last Summer," she said, -"he left me a little bit of money--just a little dab, but enough to mend -the wood-shed roof or buy a new cook-stove or do any of the useful -things that's always staring you in the face. And I turned my back flat -on every one of them. And I put the money in my pocket and went into the -city. And there," said Calliope breathlessly, "I bought this." - -She unwrapped it from its tissues, and it was yards and yards of -lustrous, exquisite soft silk, colored rose-pink, and responding in -folds almost tenderly to the hand that touched it. - -"It's mine," Calliope said, "mine. My dress. And I haven't ever hed the -sheer, moral courage to get it made up." - -And that I could well understand. For though Calliope's delicacy of -figure and feature would have been well enough become by the soft pink, -Friendship would have lifted its hands to see her so and she would -instantly have been "talked about." - -"Seems to me," Calliope said, smoothing the silk, "that if I could have -on a dress like this I'd feel another kind of being--sort o' free and -liberty-like. Of course," she added hurriedly, "I know well enough a -pink dress ain't what-you-might-say important. But land, land, how I'd -like one on me in company! Ain't it funny," she added, "in the city -nobody'd think anything of my wearing it. In the city they sort of seem -to know colors ain't wicked, so's they look nice. I use' to think," -Calliope added, laughing a little, "I'd hev it made up and go to town -and wear it on the street. All alone. Even if it was a black street. I -guess you'll think I'm terrible foolish." - -But with that the idea which had come to me vaguely and as an -impossibility, took shape; and I poured it out to Calliope as a thing -possible, desirable, inevitable. - -"Calliope!" I said. "Bring the silk to my house. Let Madame Josephine -make it up. And next week come with me to the city--for the opera. We -will have a box--and afterward supper--and you shall wear the pink -gown--and a long, black silk coat of mine--" - -"You're fooling--you're _fooling_!" Calliope cried, trembling. - -But I made her know how in earnest I was; for, indeed, on the instant my -mind was made up that the thing must be, that the lonely pink dress must -see the light and with it Calliope's shy hopes, long cherished. And so, -before I left her, it was arranged. She had agreed to come next morning -to my house, if Madame Josephine were willing, bringing the rose-pink -silk. - -"Me!" she said at last. "Why, me! Why, it's enough to make all the -_me's_ I've been turn over in their graves. And I guess they hev turned -and come trooping out, young again." - -Then, as she stood up, letting the soft stuff unwind and fall in shining -abandon, we heard a little noise--tapping, insistent. It was very near -to us--quite in the little passage; and as Calliope turned with the silk -still in her arms the door swung back and there stood Grandma Hawley. -She was leaning on her thick stick, and her gray lace cap was all awry -and a mist of the fine, driving rain was on her gray hair. - -"I got m' feet wet," she said querulously. "M' feet are wet. Lyddy's -gone to Mis' Sykes's. I comeback to stay a spell till it dries off -some--" - -"Grandma!" Calliope cried, hurrying to her, "I didn't hear you come in. -I never heard you. Come out by the kitchen fire and set your feet in -the oven." - -Calliope had tossed the silk on the table and had run to the old woman -with outstretched hand; but the outstretched hand Grandma Hawley did not -see. She stood still, looking by Calliope with a manner rather than an -expression of questioning. - -"What is't?" she asked, nodding direction. - -Calliope understood, and she slightly lifted her brows and her thin -shoulders, and seemed to glance at me. - -"It's some pink for a dress, gramma," she said. - -Grandma Hawley came a little nearer, and stood, a neat, bent figure in -rusty black, looking, down at the sumptuous, shining lengths. Then she -laid her brown, veined hand upon the silk--and I remember now her -fingers, being pricked and roughened by her constant needle, caught and -rubbed on the soft stuff. - -"My soul," she said, "it's pink silk." - -She lifted her face to Calliope, the perpetual trembling of her head -making her voice come tremulously. - -"That's what Abe Hawley was always talkin' when I married him," she -said. "'A pink silk dress fer ye, Minnie. A fine pink silk to set ye -off,' s' 'e over an' over. I thought I was a-goin' to hev it. I hed the -style all picked out in my head. I know I use' to lay awake nights an' -cut it out. But, time the cookin' things was paid for, the first baby -come--an' then the other three to do for. An' Abe he didn't say pink -silk after the fourth. But I use' to cut it out in the night, fer all -that. I dunno but I cut it out yet, when I can't get to sleep an' my -head feels bad. My head ain't right. It bothers me some, hummin' and -ringin'. Las' night m' head--" - -"There, there, gramma," said Calliope, and took her arm. "You come along -with me and set your feet in the oven." - -I had her other arm, and we turned toward the kitchen. And we were -hushed as if we had heard some futile, unfulfilled wish of the dead -still beating impotent wings. - -In the kitchen doorway Hannah Hager was standing. She must have seen -that glowing, heaped-up silk on the table, but it did not even hold her -glance. For she had heard what Grandma Hawley had been saying, and it -had touched her, who was so jealously devoted to the old woman, perhaps -even more than it had touched Calliope and me. - -"Miss Marsh, now," Hannah tried to say, "shall I put the butter that's -left in the cookin'-butter jar?" And then her little features were -caught here and there in the puckers of a very child's weeping, and she -stood before us as a child might stand, crying softly without covering -her face. She held out a hand to the old woman, and Calliope and I let -her lead her to the stove. My heart went out to the little maid for her -tears and to Calliope for the sympathy in her eyes. - -Grandma Hawley was talking on. - -"I must 'a' got a little cold," she said plaintively. "It always settles -in my head. My head's real bad. An' now I got m' feet wet--" - - -II - -To Madame Josephine, the modiste who sometimes comes to me with her -magic touch, transforming this and that, I confided something of my -plans for Calliope, asked her if she would do what she could. Her -kindly, emotional nature responded to the situation as to a kind of -challenge. - -"_Bien!_" she cried. "We shall see. You say she is slim--_petite_--with -some little grace? _Bien!_" - -So when, next day, Calliope arrived at my house with her parcel brought -forth for the first time in sixteen years, she found madame and me both -tip-toe with excitement. And from some bewildering plates madame -explained how she would cut and suit and "correct" mademoiselle. - -"The effect shall be long, slim, excellent. Soft folds from one's -waist--so. From one's shoulder--so. A line of velvet here and here and -down. _Bien!_ Mademoiselle will look younger than everyone! _If_ -mademoiselle would wave ze hair back a ver' little--so?" the French -woman delicately advanced. - -"Ma'moiselle," returned Calliope recklessly, "will do anything you want -her to, short of a pink rose over one ear. My land, I never hed a dress -before that I didn't hev to skimp the pattern and make it up less -according to my taste than according to my cloth." - -That day I sent to the city for a box at the opera. I chose "Faust," and -smiled as I planned to sing the Jewel Song for Calliope before we went, -and to laugh at her in her surprising rôle of Butterfly. "_Ah, je ris de -me voir si belle._" A lower proscenium box, a modest suite at a -comfortable hotel, a little supper, a cab--I planned it all for the -pleasure of watching her; and all this would, I knew, be given its -significance by the wearing of the anomalous, rosy gown. And I loved -Calliope for her weakness as we love the whip-poor-will for his little -catching of the breath. - -On the day that our tickets came Calliope appeared before me in some -anxiety. - -"Calliope," I said, without observing this, "our opera box is, so to -speak, here." - -But instead of the light in her face that I had expected: - -"What night?" she abruptly demanded. - -"For 'Faust,' on Wednesday," I told her. - -And instead of her delight of which I had made sure: - -"Will the six-ten express get us in the city too late?" she wanted to -know. - -And when I had agreed to the six-ten express: - -"It's all right then," she said in relief. "They can hev it a little -earlier and take the six-ten themselves instead of the accommodation. -Hannah and Henry's going to get married a' Wednesday," she explained. "I -hev to be here for that." - -Then she told me of the simple plan for Hannah Hager's marriage to her -good-looking giant. Naturally, Grandma Hawley could not think of "giving -Hannah a wedding," so these poor little plans had been for some time -wandering about unparented. - -"_I_ wanted," Calliope said, "she should be married in the church with -Virginia creeper on the pew arms, civilized. But Hannah said that'd be -putting on airs and she'd be so scairt she couldn't be solemn. Mis' -Postmaster Sykes, she invited her real cordial to be married in her -sitting-room, but Hannah spunked up and wouldn't. 'A sitting-room -weddin',' s' she to me, private, ''d be like bein' baptized in the -pantry. A parlor,' s' she, ''s the only true place for a wedding. And I -haven't no parlor, so we'll go to the minister's and stand up in _his_ -parlor. Do you think,' s' she to me, real pitiful, 'Henry can respec' me -with no place to set m' foot in to be married but jus' the public -parsonage?' Poor little thing! Her wedding-dress is nothing but a last -year's mull with a sprig in, either. And her traveling-dress to go to -the city is her reg'lar brown Sunday suit." - -"And they are going to the minister's?" I asked. - -"Well, no," Calliope answered apologetically. "I asked them to be -married at my house. I never thought about the opera when I done it. I -never thought about anything but that poor child. I guess you'll think -I'm real flighty. But I always think when two's married in the parsonage -and the man pays the minister, it's like the bride is just the groom's -guest at the cer'mony. And it ain't real dignified for her, seems -though." - -I knew well what this meant: That Calliope would have "asked in a few" -and "stirred up" this and that delectable, and gone to no end of trouble -and an expense which she could ill afford. Unless, as she was wont to -say: "When it comes to doing for other people there ain't such a word as -'afford.' You just go ahead and do it and keep some rational yourself, -and the _afford_ 'll sort o' bloom out right, same's a rose." - -So for Hannah, Calliope had caused things to "bloom right, same's a -rose," as one knew by Hannah's happy face. On Tuesday she was helping at -my house ("Brides always like extry money," Calliope had advanced when -I had questioned the propriety of asking her to iron on the day before -her marriage) and, on going unexpectedly to the kitchen I came on Hannah -with a patent flat-iron in one hand and a piece of beeswax in the other, -and Henry, her good-looking giant, was there also and was frankly -holding her in his arms. I liked him for his manly way when he saw me -and most of all that he did not wholly release her but, with one arm -about her, contrived a kind of bow to me. But it was Hannah who spoke. - -"Oh, ma'am," she said shyly, "I _hope_ you'll overlook. We've hed an -awful time findin' any place to keep company, only walkin' 'round the -high-school yard!" - -My heart was still warm within me at the little scene as I went upstairs -to see Calliope in her final fitting of the rose-pink gown, the work on -which had gone on apace. And I own that, as I saw her standing before my -long triple mirrors, I was amazed. The rosy gown suited the little body -wonderfully and with her gray hair and delicate brightness of cheeks, -she looked like some figure on a fan, exquisitely and picturesquely -painted. The gown was, as Calliope had said that a gown should be, "all -nice, slim lines and folds laid in in the right places, and little -unexpected trimmings like you wouldn't think of having them if you -wasn't real up in dress." It was a triumph for skillful madame, who had -wrought with her impressionable French heart as well as with her -scissors. - -Calliope laughed as she looked over-shoulder in the mirrors. - -"My soul," she said, "I feel like a sparrow with a new pink tail! I -declare, the dress looks more like Lyddy Eider herself than it looks -like me. Do you think I look enough like me so's you'd sense it _was_ -me?" - -"Mademoiselle," said Madame Josephine simply, "has a look of another -world." - -"I wish't I could see it on somebody," Calliope said wistfully; and -since I was far too tall and madame not sufficiently "slendaire," -Calliope cried: - -"There's Hannah! She's downstairs helping, ain't she? Couldn't Hannah -come upstairs a minute and put it on? We're most of a size!" - -And indeed they were, as I had noted, cast in the same mold of -proportion and prettiness. - -So, with madame just leaving for the city, and I obliged to go down to -the village, Calliope and Hannah Hager were left alone with the -rose-pink silk gown, which fitted them both. Ought I not to have known -what would happen? - -And yet it came as a shock to me when, an hour later, as I passed -Calliope's gate on my way home, she ran out and stood before me in some -unusual excitement. - -"Do they take back your opera boxes?" she demanded. - -"No," I assured her, "they do not. Nor," I added suspiciously, "do folk -take back their promises, you know, Calliope!" - -"Well," she said miserably, "I expec' I've done wrong by you. The -righter you try to do by some folks seems 's though the wronger it comes -down on others. Oh," she cried, "I wish't I always knew what was right! -But I can't go to the opera and I can't sit in the box. Yes, sir--I -guess you'll think I'm real flighty and I dunno but what I am. But I've -give my pink silk dress to Hannah Hager for her wedding. And I've lied -some. I've said I meant she should hev it all along!" - - -III - -The news that Calliope was to "give Hannah Hager a wedding" was received -in Friendship with unaffected pleasure. Every one liked the tireless -little thing, and those who could do so sent something to Calliope's -house for a wedding-gift. These things Calliope jealously kept secret, -intending not to let Hannah see them until the very hour of the -ceremony. But when on Wednesday, some while before the appointed time, I -went to the house, Calliope took me to the dining-room where the gifts -were displayed. - -"Some of 'em's real peculiar," she confided; "some of 'em's what I call -pick-up presents--things from 'round the house, you know. Mis' -Postmaster Sykes she sent over the rug with the running dog on, and -she's hed it in her parlor in a dark corner for years an' Hannah must -have cleaned it many's the time. Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss sent -her old drop-leaf mahogany table, being she's got a new oak. The Liberty -girls sent two of their chickens, live, for the wedding lunch, and I -dassent to kill them--I'm real queer like that--so I hed to send for the -groom, and he run up noon-hour and done it. And so on. But quite a few -things are new--the granite iron and the drip coffee-pot and the -sweeper's all new. And did you hear what Gramma Hawley done? Drew five -dollars of her burial money out of the savings bank and give it to -Hannah right out. You know how Gramma fixed it--she had Zittelhof figger -up her funeral expenses and she banked the sum, high and dry, and left -herself just bare enough to live on coming in. But now she drew the five -out and give Zittelhof to understand he'd hev to skimp some on her -coffin. Hannah told me, crying like a child at the i-dee." - -Calliope paused impressively, and shook her head at space. - -"But wouldn't you have thought," she demanded, "that Lyddy Eider might -have give Hannah a little something to wear? One of her old dresses for -street would have sent Hannah cloud-high, and over. I s'pose you heard -what she did send? Mis' Postmaster Sykes run over to tell me. A man from -the city come up by trolley sense noon to-day, bringing a rug from -Lyddy. Well, of course a rug's a rug," Calliope admitted, "but it ain't -a dress, seem's though. Hannah knows about Gramma's an' Lyddy's, but she -don't know a word about the other presents. I do admire a surprise." - -As for me, I, too, love a surprise. And that was why I had sent to the -station a bag packed for both Calliope and me; and I meant, when the -wedding guests should have gone, to take no denial, but to hurry -Calliope into her "black grosgrain with the white turnovers," and with -her to catch the six-ten express as we had planned aforetime. For pink -silk might appear and disappear, but "Faust" would still be "Faust." - -There were ten guests at Hannah's wedding, friends of hers and of -Henry's, pleasantly excited, pleasantly abashed. - -"And not one word do they know about the pink silk," Calliope whispered -me. "Hannah's going to come with it on--I let her take my tan ulster to -wear over her, walking through the streets, so. Do you know," she said -earnestly, "if it wasn't for disappointing you I wouldn't feel anything -but good about that dress?" - -"Ah, well, I won't be disappointed," I prophesied confidently. - -Grandma Hawley was last to arrive. And the little old woman was in some -stress of excitement, talking incessantly and disconnectedly; but this -we charged to the occasion. - -"My head ain't right," she said. "It ain't been right for a while -back--it hums and rings some. When I went in the room I thought it was -my head the matter. I thought I didn't see right. But I did--I did, -Hannah said I did. My head felt some better this mornin', an' that was -there, just the same. I thought I'd be down flat on my back when I got -m' feet wet, but I'd be all right if m' head wa'n't so bad. I must tell -Hannah what I done. Why don't Hannah come?" - -Hannah was, as a matter of fact, somewhat late at her wedding. We were -all in some suspense when we saw her at last, hurrying up the street -with Henry, who had gallantly called to escort her; and Calliope and I -went to the door to meet her. - -But when Hannah entered in Calliope's tan ulster buttoned closely about -her throat, she was strangely quiet and somewhat pale and her eyes, I -was certain, were red with weeping. - -"Is Gramma here?" she asked at once, and, at our answer, merely turned -to hurry upstairs where Calliope and I were to adjust the secret -wedding-gown and fasten a pink rose in her hair. And, as we went, Henry -added still further to our anxiety by calling from the gay little crowd -about him a distinctly soothing: - -"Now, then. Now, then, Hannah!" - -Up in Calliope's tiny chamber Hannah turned and faced us, still with -that manner of suppressed and escaping excitement. And when we would -have helped with the ulster she caught at its collar and held it about -her throat as if, after all, she were half minded to depart from the -place and let her good-looking giant be married alone. - -"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, trembling, "oh, Miss Marsh. I can't -dare tell you what I done." - -With that she broke down and cried, and Calliope promptly took her in -her arms, as I think that she would have liked to take the whole -grieving world. And now, as she soothed her, she began gently to -unbutton the tan ulster, and Hannah let her take it off. But even the -poor child's tears had not prepared us for what was revealed. - -Hannah had come to her wedding wearing, not the rose-pink silk, but the -last year's mull "with the sprig in." - -"Well, sir!" cried Calliope blankly. "Well, Hannah Hager--" - -The little maid sat on the foot of the bed, sobbing. - -"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, "you know--don't you know, -ma'am?--how I was so glad about the dress you give me't I was as weak -as a cat all over me. All las' night in the evenin' I was like a trance -an' couldn't get my supper down, an' all. An' Gramma, she was over to -Mis' Sykes's to supper an' hadn't seen it. An' Gramma an' I sleep -together, an' I went an' spread the dress on the bed, an' I set side of -it till Henry come. An' I l-left it there to hev him go in an' l-look at -it. An' we was in the kitchen a minute or two first. An' nex' we knew, -Gramma, she stood in the inside door. An' I thought she was out of her -head she was so wild-like an' laughin' an' cryin'. An' she set down on a -chair, an' s' she: 'He's done it. He's done it. He's kep' his word. -Look--look on my bed,' s' she, 'an' see if I ain't seen it right. Abe -Hawley,' s' she, 'he's sent me my pink silk dress he wanted to, out o' -the grave!'" - -Hannah's thin, rough little hands were clinched on her knee and her eyes -searched Calliope's face. - -"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, "she was like one possessed, beggin' -me to look at it an' tell her if it wasn't so. She thought mebbe it -might be her head. So I went an' told her the dress was hers," the -little maid sobbed. "I was scairt she'd make herself sick takin' on so. -An' after_wards_ I couldn't a-bear to tell her any different. Ma'am, if -you could 'a' seen her! She took her rocker an' set by the bed all -hours, kind o' gentlin' the silk with her hands. An' she wouldn't go to -bed an' disturb it off, an' I slep' on the dinin'-room lounge with the -shawl over me. An' this m-mornin' she went on just the same. An' after -dinner Lyddy sent a man from town with a rug for me, an' I set on the -back stoop so's not to see him, I was cryin' so. An' when I come in -Gramma hed shut the bedroom door an' gone. I couldn't trust me even to -l-look in the bedroom for fear I'd put it on. An' I couldn't take it -away from her--I couldn't. Not with all she's done for me, an' the five -dollars an' all. Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am--" Hannah ended helplessly. - -It seemed to me that I had never known Calliope until that moment. - -"Gracious," she said to Hannah calmly, "crying that way for a little -pink silk dress, and Henry waiting for you downstairs! Wipe up your eyes -this instant minute, Hannah, and get to 'I will'!" - -I think that this attitude of Calliope's must have tranquillized the -wildest. In spite of the reality of the tragedy, it was no time at all -until, having put the pink rose in Hannah's hair, anyway, Calliope and I -led the little bride downstairs. For was there not a reality of -happiness down there? - -"After all, Henry was marrying you and not the dress, you know," -Calliope reminded her on the landing. - -"That's what he keeps a-sayin'," consented Hannah with a wan little -smile, "but oh, ma'am--" she added, for Hannah was all feminine. - -And when the "I will" had been said, I loved the little creature for -taking Grandma Hawley in her arms. - -"Did they tell you what I done?" the old woman questioned anxiously when -Hannah kissed her. "I was savin' it to tell you, an' it went out o' my -head. An' I dunno--did you know what I done?" she persisted. - -But the others crowded forward with congratulation and, as was their -fashion, with teasing; and presently I think that even the rosy gown was -forgotten in Hannah's delight over her unexpected gifts. The -graniteware, the sweeper, the rug with the running dog--after all, was -ever any one so blessed? - -And as I watched them--Hannah and her great, good-looking adoring -giant--I who, like Calliope, love a surprise, caught a certain plan by -its shining wings and held it close. They say that when one does this -such wings bear one away--and so it proved. - -I found my chance and whispered my plan to Hannah, half for the pastime -of seeing the quickening color in her cheek and the light in her eyes. -Then I told the giant, chiefly for the sake of noting how some -mischievous god smote him with a plague of blushes. And they both -consented--and that is the way when one clings to the wings of a plan. - -So it came about that in the happy bustle of the parting, as Hannah in -her "regular brown Sunday suit" went away on Henry's arm, they two and -I exchanged glances of pleasant significance. Then, when every one had -gone, I turned to Calliope with authority. - -"Put on," I bade her, "your black grosgrain silk with the white -turnovers--and mind you don't slit it up the back seam!" - -"I'm a-goin' to do my dishes up," said Calliope. "Can't you set a spell -and talk it over?" - -"Hurry," I commanded, "or we shall miss the six-ten express!" - -"What do you mean?" she asked in alarm. - -"Leave everything," said I. "There's a box waiting for us at the opera -to-night. And supper afterward." - -"You ain't--" she said tremulously. - -"I am," I assured her firmly, "and so are you. And Hannah and Henry are -going with us. Hurry!" - - -IV - - "He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons" - - -is, in effect, the spirit of the "_Ah, je ris de me voir si belle_" of -"Marguerite" when she opens the casket of jewels. As we sat, the four of -us, in the dimness of the opera box--Calliope in her black silk with the -white turnovers, Hannah in her "regular brown Sunday suit," and Henry -and I, it seemed to me that Marguerite's song was really concerning the -delight of rose-pink silk. And I found myself grieving anew for the -innocent hopes that had been dissolved, immaterial as Abe Hawley's -message from the grave. - -Then the curtain fell on the third act and the soft thunder of applause -spent itself and the lights leaped up. And immediately I was aware of a -conspicuously high-pitched voice at the door of the box, a voice which -carried with it some consciousness of elaborate self-possession. - -"Really!" said the voice. "Of all people! My dear Hannah--and Calliope -Marsh! You butterflies--" - -I looked up, and at first all that I saw was a gown which "laid smooth -down--and then all to once it'd slimpse into folds, soft as soft--and -didn't pucker nor skew nor hang wrong"; a gown that was "dressmaker -made"; a gown, in short, such as Lydia Eider "always hed on." And there -beside us stood Lydia Eider herself, wearing some exquisite, priceless -thing of pink chiffon and old lace, with a floating, glittering scarf on -her arms. - -I remember that she seemed some splendid, tropic bird alight among our -nun-like raiment. A man or two, idling attendance, were rapidly and -perfunctorily presented to us--one, who was Lydia's adopted brother, -showing an amused cordiality to Henry. And I saw how the glasses were -instantly turned from pit and boxes toward her--this girl who, with -Calliope and Hannah, had been cast in one mold of prettiness and -proportion and who alone of the three, as I thought, had come into her -own. - -And Lydia said: - -"_Will_ you tell me how on earth Grandma Hawley came to send me a pink -silk dress to-day? You didn't know! But she did--on my honor. It came -this afternoon by the man I sent out to you, Hannah. And so decently -made--how can it have happened? Made for me too--positively I can wear -it--though nearly everything I have is pink. But how did Grandma come to -do it? And _where_ did she get it? And why--" - -She talked on for a little, elaborating, wondering. But I fancy that she -must have thought us uncommonly stupid, for none of us had the faintest -suggestion to offer. We listened, and murmured a bit about the health of -Grandma Hawley, and Henry said some hesitating thanks, in which Hannah -barely joined, for the wedding gift of the rug, but none of us gave -evidence. And at last, with some gracious word, Lydia Eider left the -box, trailing her pink chiffon skirts and saying the slight good-by -which utterly forgets one. - -But when she had gone, Calliope laughed, softly and ambiguously and -wholly contagiously, so that Hannah, whose face had begun to pucker like -a child's, unwillingly joined her. And then, partly because of Henry's -reassuring, "Now then, now then, Hannah," and partly at the touch of -his big hand and in the particular, delicious embarrassment which comes -but once, Hannah tremulously spoke her conclusion: - -"I don't care," she said, "I don't care! I'm _glad_--for Gramma." - -Calliope sat smiling, looking, in her delicate color and frailty and the -black and white of her dress, like some one on a fan, exquisitely and -appropriately painted. - -"I was thinking," she said brightly to Hannah, "going without a thing is -some like a jumping tooth. It hurts you before-hand, but when it's gone -for good all the hurt sort of eases down and peters out and can't do you -any more harm." - -But I think they both knew that this was not all. For some way, outside -the errantry of prettiness and proportion, Calliope and Hannah too had -come into their own. - -I looked at Calliope, her face faintly flushed by the unwonted hour; at -Hannah, rosy little bride; and at her adoring giant over whom some god -had cast the usual spell of wedding blushes. - -Verily, I thought, would not one say there is rose pink enough in the -world for us all? - -As the curtain rose again Calliope leaned toward me. "I don't believe -any dress," she said, "pink silk or any other kind, ever dressed up so -many folks's souls!" - -FOOTNOTE: - -[7] Copyright, 1913, The Delineator. - - - - -PEACE[8] - - -When they went to South America for six months, the Henslows, that live -across the street from me, wanted to rent their cottage. And of course, -being a neighbor, I wanted them to get the fifteen dollars a month. -But--being the cottage was my neighbor--I couldn't help, deep down in my -inner head, feeling kind of selfish pleased that it stood vacant a -while. It's a chore to have a new neighbor in the summer. They always -want to borrow your rubber fruit-rings, and they forget to return some; -and they come in and sit in the mornings when you want to get your work -out of the way before the hot part of a hot day crashes down on you. I -can neighbor agreeable when the snow flies, but summers I want my porch -and my rocker and my wrapper and my palm-leaf fan, and nobody to call -on. And--I don't want to sound less neighborly than I mean to sound--I -don't want any real danger of being what you might say called-on--not -till the cool of the day. - -Then, on a glorious summer morning, right out of a clear blue sky, what -did I see but two trunks plopped down on the Henslows' porch! I knew -they were never back so soon. I knew the two trunks meant renters, and -nothing but renters. - -"I'll bet ten hundred thousand dollars one of them plays the flute and -practices evenings," I says. - -I didn't catch sight of them till the next morning, and then I saw him -head for the early train into the city, and her stand at the gate and -watch him. And, my land, she was in a white dress and she didn't look -twenty years old. - -So I went right straight over. - -"My dear," I says, "I dunno what your name is, but I'm your neighbor, -and I dunno what more we need than that." - -She put out her hand--just exactly as if she was glad. She had a -wonderful sweet, loving smile--and she smiled with that. - -So I says: "I thought moving in here with trunks, so, you might want -something. And if I can let you have anything--jars or jelly-glasses or -rubber rings or whatever, why, just you--" - -"Thank you, Miss Marsh," she says. "I know you're Miss Marsh--Mrs. -Henslow told me about you." - -"The same," says I, neat. - -"I'm Mrs. Harry Beecher," she says. "I--we were just married last week," -she says, neat as a biography. - -"So you was!" I says. "Well, now, you just let me be to you what your -folks would want me to be, won't you?" says I. "Feel," I says, "just -like you could run in over to my house any time, morning, noon or night. -Call on me for anything. Come on over and sit with me if you feel -lonesome--or if you don't. My side porch is real nice and cool and shady -all the afternoon--" - -And so on. And wasn't that nice to happen to me, right in the middle of -the dead of summer, with nothing going on? - -If you have lived in the immediate neighborhood of a bride and groom, -you know what I am going to tell about. - -But if you haven't, try to rent your next house--if you rent--or try to -buy your next home--if you buy--somewhere in the more-or-less -neighborhood of a bride and groom. Because it's an education. It's an -education in living. No--I don't believe I mean that the way you think I -mean it at all. I mean it another way. - -To be sure, there were the mornings, when I saw them come out from -breakfast and steal a minute or two hanging round the veranda before he -had to start off. That was as nice as a picture, and nicer. I got so I -timed my breakfast so's I could be watering my flower-beds when this -happened, and not miss it. He usually pulled the vines over better, or -weeded a little near the step, or tinkered with the hinge of the screen, -or fussed with the bricks where the roots had pushed them up. And she -sat on the steps and talked with him, and laughed now and then with her -little pretty laugh. (Not many women can laugh as pretty as she did--and -we all ought to be able to do it. Sometimes I wish somebody would start -a school to teach pretty laughing, and somebody else would make us all -go to it.) And I knew how they were pretending that this was really -their own home, and playing proprietor and householder, just like -everybody else. And of course that was pleasurable to me to see--but -that wasn't what I meant. - -Nor I didn't mean times when she'd be out in the garden during the day, -and the telephone bell would ring, and she would throw things and head -for the house, running, because she thought it might be him calling her -up from the city. Most usually it was. I always knew it had been him -when she came back singing. - -And then there were the late afternoons, say, almost an hour before the -first train that he could possibly come on and that now and then he -caught. Always before it was time for that she would open her front door -that she'd had closed all day to keep her house cool, and she'd bring -her book or her sewing out on the porch, and never pay a bit of -attention to either, because she sat looking up the street. There was -only a little bit of shade on her porch that time in the afternoon, and -I used to want to ask her to come over on my cool, shady side porch, -but I had the sense not to. I sort of understood how she liked to sit -out there where she was, on their own porch, waiting for him. Then he'd -come, and she'd sit out in the garden and read to him while he dug in -the beds, or she'd sew on the porch while he cut the grass--well, now, -it don't sound like much as I tell it, does it?--and yet it used to look -wonderful sweet to me, looking across the street. - -But as I said, it wasn't any of these times, nor yet the long summer -evenings when I could just see the glimmer of her white dress on the -porch or in the garden, or their shadows on the curtain, rainy evenings; -no, it wasn't these times that made me wish for everybody in the world -that they lived next door to a bride and groom. But the thing I mean -came to me all of a sudden, when they hadn't been my neighbors for a -week. And it came to me like this: - -One night I'd had them over for supper. It had been a hot day, and -ordinarily I'm opposed to company on a hot day; but some way having -_them_ was different. And then I didn't imagine she was so very used to -cooking, and I got to thinking maybe a meal away from home would be a -rest. - -And after supper we'd been walking around my yard, looking at my late -cosmos and wondering whether it would get around to bloom before the -frost. And they had been telling me how they meant to plant their -garden when they got one of their own. I liked to keep them talking -about it, because his face lit up so young and boyish, and hers got all -soft and bright; and they looked at each other like they could see that -garden planted and up and growing and pretty near paid for. So I kept -egging them on, asking this and that, just to hear them plan. - -"One whole side of the wall," said he, "we'll have lilacs and -forsythia." - -She looked at him. "I thought we said hollyhocks there," she said. - -"Well, don't you remember," he said, "we changed that when you said -you'd planned, ever since you were a little girl to have lilacs and -forsythia on the edge of your garden?" - -"Well--so I did," she remembered. "But I thought you said you liked -hollyhocks best?" - -"Maybe I did," says he. "I forget. I don't know but I did for a while. -But I think of it this way now." - -She laughed. "Why," she said, "I was getting to _prefer_ hollyhocks." - -I noticed that particular. Then we came round the corner of the house. -And the street looked so peaceful and lovely that I knew just how he -felt when he said: - -"Let's us three go and take a drive in the country. Can't we? We could -get a carriage somewhere, couldn't we?" - -And she says like a little girl, "Oh, yes, let's. But don't you s'pose -we could rent a car here from somebody?" - -I liked to look at his look when he looked at her. He done it now. - -"A car?" he said. "But you're nervous when I drive. Wouldn't you rather -have a horse?" - -"Well, but you'd rather have a car," she said. "And I'd like to know you -were liking that best! And, truly, I don't think I'd care much--now." - -Then I took a hand. "You look here," I says. "I'd really ought to step -down to Mis' Merriman's to a committee meeting. I've been trying to make -myself believe I didn't need to go, but I know I ought to. And you two -take your drive." - -They fussed a little, but that was the way we arranged it. I went off to -my meeting before I saw which they did get to go in. But that didn't -make any difference. All the way to the meeting I kept thinking about -lilacs and hollyhocks and horses and cars. And I saw what had happened -to those two: they loved each other so much that they'd kind of lost -track of the little things that they thought had mattered so much, and -neither could very well remember which they had really had a leaning -towards of all the things. - -"It's a kind of _each-otherness_!" I says to myself. "It's a new thing. -That ain't giving-upness. Giving-upness is when you still want what you -give up. This is something else. It's each-otherness. And you can't get -it till you _care_." - -But then I thought of something else. It wasn't only them--it was me! It -was like I had caught something from them. For of course I'd rather have -gone driving with those two than to have gone to any committee meeting, -necessary or not. But I knew now that I'd been feeling inside me that of -course they didn't want an old thing like me along, and that of course -they'd rather have their drive alone, horse _or_ automobile. And so I'd -kind of backed out according. Being with them had made me feel a sort of -each-otherness too. It was wonderful. I thought about it a good deal. - -And when I came home and see that they'd got back first, and were -sitting on the porch with no lights in the house yet, except the one -burning dim in the hall, I sat upstairs by my window quite a while. And -I says to myself: - -"If only there was a bride and groom in every single house all up and -down the streets of the village--" - -And I could almost think how it would be with everybody being decent to -each other and to the rest, just sheer because they were all happy. - -Picture how I felt, then, when not six weeks later, on a morning all -yellow and blue and green, and tied onto itself with flowers, little -Mrs. Bride came standing at my side door, knocking on the screen, and -her face all tear-stained. - -"Gracious, now," I says, "did breakfast burn?" - -She came in. She always wore white dresses and little doll caps in the -morning, and she sit down at the end of my dining-room table, looking -like a rosebud in trouble. - -"Oh, Miss Marsh," she says, "it isn't any laughing matter. Something's -happened between us. We've spoke cross to each other." - -"Well, well," I says, "what was that for?" - -I s'posed maybe he'd criticized the popovers, or something equally -universal had occurred. - -"_That_ was it," she says. "We've spoke cross to each other, Miss -Marsh." - -And then it came to me that it didn't seem to be bothering her at all -what it was about. The only thing that stuck out for her was that they'd -spoke cross to each other. - -"So!" I says. "And you've got to wait all day long before you can patch -it up. Why don't you call him up?" I ask her. "It's only twenty cents -for the three minutes--and you can get it all in that." - -She shook her head. "That's the worst of it," she says. "I can't do it. -Neither can he. I'm not that sort--to be able to give in after I've been -mad and spoke harsh. I'm--I'm afraid neither of us will, even when he -gets home." - -Then I sat up straight. This, I see, was serious--most as serious as -she thought. - -"What's the reason?" says I. - -"I dunno," she says. "We're like that--both of us. We're awful proud--no -matter how much we want to give in, we can't." - -I sat looking at her. - -"Call him up," I says. - -She shook her head again and made her pretty mouth all tight. - -"I couldn't," she says. "I couldn't." - -She seemed to like to sit and talk it over, kind of luxurious. She told -me how it began--some twopenny thing about screens in the parlor window. -She told me how one thing led to another. I let her talk and I sat there -thinking. Pretty soon she went home and she never sung once all day. It -didn't seem as if anybody's screens were worth that. - -I'm not one that's ashamed of looking at anything I'm interested in. -When it came time for the folks from the afternoon local, I sat down in -my parlor behind the Nottinghams. I saw she never came out to the gate. -And when he came home I could see her white dress out in the back garden -where she was pretending to work. - -He sat down on the front porch and smoked, and seemed to read the paper. -She came in the house after a while, and finally she appeared in the -front door for three-fourths of a second. - -"Your supper's ready for you," I heard her say. And then I knew, -certain sure, how they were both sitting there at their table not -speaking a word. - -I ate my own supper, and I felt like a funeral was going on. It kills -something in me to have young folks, or any folks, act like that. And -when I went back in the parlor I saw him on the front porch again, -smoking, and her on the side porch playing with the kitten. - -"It's the first death," I says. "It's their first kind of death. And I -can't stand it a minute longer." - -So when I saw him start out pretty soon to go downtown alone--I went to -my front gate and I called to him to come over. He came--a fine, -close-knit chap he was, with the young not rubbed out of his face yet, -and his eyes window-clear. - -"The catch on my closet-door don't act right," I says. "I wonder if -you'll fix it for me?" - -He went up and done it, and I ran for the tools for him and tried to get -my courage up. When he got through and came down I was sitting on my -hall-tree. - -"Mr. Groom," I says--that was my name for him--"I hope you won't think -I'm interfering _too_ much, but I want to speak to you serious about -your wife." - -"Yes," he says, short. - -I went on, never noticing: "I dunno whether you've took it in, but -there seems to be something wrong with her." - -"Wrong with her?" he says. - -"Yes, sir," I says. "And I dunno but awfully wrong. I've been noticing -lately." (I didn't say _how_ lately.) - -"What do you mean?" says he, and sat down on the bottom step. - -"Don't you see," I says, "that she don't look well? She don't act no -more like herself than I do. She hasn't," says I, truthful, "half the -spirit to her to-day that she had when you first came here to the -village." - -"Why--no," he says, "I hadn't noticed--" - -"You wouldn't," says I. "You wouldn't be likely to. But it seems to me -that you ought to be warned--and be on your guard." - -"_Warned!_" he says, and I saw him get pale--I tell you I saw him get -pale. - -"I'm not easy alarmed," I told him. "And when I see anything serious, it -ain't in my power to stand aside and not say anything." - -"Serious," he says over. "Serious? But, Miss Marsh, can you give me any -idea--" - -"I've give you a hint," says I, "that it's something you'd ought to be -mighty careful about. I dunno's I can do much more; I dunno's I ought to -do that. But if anything should happen--" - -"Good heavens!" he says. "You don't think she's that bad off?" - -"--if anything should happen," I went on, calm, "I didn't want to have -myself to blame for not having spoke up in time. Now," says I, brisk, -"you were just going downtown. And I've got a taste of jell I want to -take over to her. So I won't keep you." - -He got up, looking so near like a tree that's had its roots hacked at -that I 'most could have told him that I didn't mean the kind of death he -was thinking of at all. But I didn't say anything more. And he thanked -me, humble and grateful and scared, and went off downtown. He looked -over to the cottage, though, when he shut my gate--I noticed that. She -wasn't anywhere in sight. Nor she wasn't when I stepped up onto her -porch in a minute or two with a cup-plate of my new quince jell that I -wanted her to try. - -"Hello," I says in the passage. "Anybody home?" - -There was a little shuffle and she came out of the dining-room. There -was a mark all acrost her cheek, and I judged she'd been lying on the -couch out there crying. - -"Get a teaspoon," says I, "and come taste my new receipt." - -She came, lack-luster, and like jell didn't make much more difference -than anything else. We sat down, cozy, in the hammock, me acting like -I'd forgot everything in the world about what had gone before. I rattled -on about the new way to make my jell and then I set the sample on the -sill behind the shutter and I says: - -"I just had Mr. Groom come over to fix the latch on my closet-door. I -dunno what was wrong with it--when I shut it tight it went off like a -gun in the middle of the night. Mr. Groom fixed it in just a minute." - -"Oh, he did," says she, about like that. - -"He's awful handy with tools," I says. And she didn't say anything. And -then says I: - -"Mrs. Bride, we're old friends by now, ain't we?" - -"Why, yes," says she, "and good friends, I hope." - -"That's what I hope," I says. "And now," I went on, "I hope you won't -think I'm interfering too much, but I want to speak to you serious about -your husband." - -"My husband?" says she, short. - -I went on, never noticing. "I don't know whether you've took it in, but -there seems to be something wrong with him." - -"What do you mean?" she says, looking at me. - -"Well, sir," I says, "I ain't sure. I can't tell just how wrong it is. -But something is ailing him." - -"Why, I haven't noticed anything," she says, and come over to a chair -nearer to me. - -"You don't mean," I says, "that you don't notice the change there's been -in him?"--I didn't say in how long--"the lines in his face and how -different he acts?" - -"Oh, no," she says. "Why, surely not!" - -"Surely _yes_," says I. "It strikes me--it struck me over there -to-night--that something is the matter--_serious_." - -"Oh, don't say that," she says. "You frighten me." - -"I'm sorry for that," says I. "But it's better to be frightened too soon -than too late. And if anything should happen I wouldn't want to think--" - -"Oh!" she says, sharp, "what do you think could happen?" - -"--I wouldn't want to think," I went on, "that I had suspicioned and -hadn't warned you." - -"But what can I do--" she began. - -"You can watch out," I says, "now that you know. Folks get careless -about their near and dear--that's all. They don't notice that anything's -the matter till it's too late." - -"Oh, dear!" she says. "Oh, if anything should happen to Harry, why, Miss -Marsh--" - -"Exactly," says I. - -We talked on a little while till I heard what I was waiting for--him -coming up the street. I noticed that he hadn't been gone downtown long -enough to buy a match. - -"I'm going over to Miss Matey's for some pie-plant," I says. "Her second -crop is on. Can I go through your back gate? Maybe I'll come back this -way." - -When I went around their house I saw that she was still standing on the -porch and he was coming in the gate. And I never looked back at all--bad -as I wanted to. - -It was deep dusk when I came back. The air was as gentle as somebody -that likes you when they're liking you most. - -When I came by the end of the porch I heard voices, so I knew that they -were talking. And then I caught just one sentence. You'd think I could -have been contented to slip through the front yard and leave them to -work it out. But I wasn't. In fact I'd only just got the stage set ready -for what I meant to do. - -I walked up the steps and laid my pie-plant on the stoop. - -"I'm coming in," I says. - -They got up and said the different things usual. And I went and sat -down. - -"You'll think in a minute," says I, "that I owe you both an apology. But -I don't." - -"What for, dear?" Mrs. Bride says, and took my hand. - -I'm an old woman and I felt like their mother and their grandmother. -But I felt a little frightened too. - -"Is either of you sick?" I says. - -Both of them says: "No, _I_ ain't." And both of them looked furtive and -quick at the other. - -"Well," I says, "mebbe you don't know it. But to-day both of you has had -the symptoms of coming down with something. Something serious." - -They looked at me, puzzled. - -"I noticed it in Mrs. Bride this morning," I says, "when she came over -to my house. She looked white, and like all the life had gone out of -her. And she didn't sing once all day, nor do any work. Then I noticed -it in you to-night," I says to him, "when you walked looking down, and -came acrost the street lack-luster, and like nothing mattered so much as -it might have if it had mattered more. And so I done the natural thing. -I told each of you about something being the matter with the other one. -Something serious." - -I stood up in front of them, and I dunno but I felt like a fairy -godmother that had something to give them--something priceless. - -"When two folks," I says, "speak cross to each other and can't give in, -it's just as sure a disease as--as quinsy. And it'll be fatal, same as a -fever can be. You can hate the sight of me if you want to, but that's -why I spoke out like I done." - -I didn't dare look at them. I began just there to see what an awful -thing I _had_ done, and how they were perfectly bound to take it. But I -thought I'd get in as much as I could before they ordered me off the -porch. - -"I've loved seeing you over here," I says. "It's made me young again. -I've loved watching you say good-by in the mornings, and meet again -evenings. I've loved looking out over here to the light when you sat -reading, and I could see your shadows go acrost the curtains sometimes, -when I sat rocking in my house by myself. It's all been something I've -liked to know was happening. It seemed as if a beautiful, new thing was -beginning in the world--and you were it." - -All at once I got kind of mad at the two of them. - -"And here for a little tinkering matter about screens for the parlor, -you go and spoil all my fun by not speaking to each other!" I scolded, -sharp. - -It was that, I think, that turned the tide and made them laugh. They -both did laugh, hearty--and they looked at each other and laughed--I -noticed that. For two folks can _not_ look at each other and laugh and -stay mad same time. They can _not_ do it. - -I went right on: "So," I says, "I told you each the truth, that the -other one was sick. So you were, both of you. Sick at heart. And you -know it." - -He put out his hand to her. - -"I know it," he says. - -"I know too," says she. - -"Land!" says I, "you done that awful pretty. If I could give in that -graceful about anything I'd go round giving in whether I'd said anything -to be sorry for or not. I'd do it for a parlor trick." - -"Was it hard, dear?" he says to her. And she put up her face to him just -as if I hadn't been there. I liked that. And it made me feel as much at -home as the clock. - -He looked hard at me. - -"Truly," he says, "didn't you mean she looked bad?" - -"I meant just what I said," says I. "She did look bad. But she don't -now." - -"And you made it all up," she says, "about something serious being the -matter with him--" - -"Made it up!" says I. "No! But what ailed him this morning doesn't ail -him now. That's all. I s'pose you're both mad at me," I says, mournful. - -He took a deep breath. "Not when I'm as thankful as this," he says. - -"And me," she says. "And me." - -I looked around the little garden of the Henslows' cottage, with the -moon behaving as if everything was going as smooth as glass--don't you -always notice that about the moon? What grand manners it's got? It -never lets on that anything is the matter. - -He threw his arm across her shoulder in that gesture of comradeship that -is most the sweetest thing they do. - -They got up and came over to me quick. - -"We can't thank you--" she says. - -"Shucks," I says. "I been wishing I had something to give you. I -couldn't think of anything but vegetables. Now mebbe I've give you -something after all--providing you don't go and forget it the very next -time," I says, wanting to scold them again. - -They walked to the gate with me. The night was black and pale gold, like -a great soft drowsy bee. - -"You know," I says, when I left them, "peace that we talk so much -about--that isn't going to come just by governments getting it. If -people like you and me can't keep it--and be it--what hope is there for -the nations? We _are_ 'em!" - -I'd never thought of it before. I went home saying it over. When I'd put -my pie-plant down cellar I went in my dark little parlor and sat down by -the window and rocked. I could see their light for a little while. Then -it went out. The cottage lay in that hush of peace of a hot summer -night. I could feel the peacefulness of the village. - -"If only we can get enough of it," I says. "If only we can get enough of -it--" - -FOOTNOTE: - -[8] Copyright, 1917, _Woman's Home Companion_. - - - - -DREAM - - -When a house in the neighborhood has been vacant for two years, and all -of a sudden the neighborhood sees furniture being moved into that house, -excitement, as Silas Sykes says, reigns supreme and more than supreme. - -And so it did in Friendship Village when the Oldmoxon House got a new -tenant, unbeknownst. The excitement was specially strained because the -reason Oldmoxon House had stood vacant so long was the rent. And whoever -had agreed to the Twenty Dollars was going to be, we all felt, and as -Mis' Sykes herself put it, "a distinct addition to Friendship Village -society." - -It was she gave me the news, being the Sykeses are the Oldmoxon House's -nearest neighbors. I hurried right over to her house--it was summer-warm -and you just ached for an excuse to be out in it, anyway. We drew some -rockers onto her front porch where we could get a good view. The -Oldmoxon double front doors stood open, and the things were being set -inside. - -"Serves me right not to know who it is," says Mis' Sykes. "I see men -working there yesterday, and I never went over to inquire what they -were doing." - -"A body can't do everything that's expected of them," says I, soothing. - -"Won't it be nice," says Mis' Sykes, dreamy, "to have that house open -again, and folks going and coming, and maybe parties?" It was then the -piano came out of the van, and she gave her ultimatum. "Whoever it is," -she says, pointing eloquent, "will be a distinct addition to Friendship -Village society." - -There wasn't a soul in sight that seemed to be doing the directing, so -pretty soon Mis' Sykes says, uneasy: - -"I don't know--would it seem--how would it be--well, wouldn't it be -taking a neighborly interest to step over and question the vans a -little?" - -And we both of us thought it would be in order, so we did step right -over to inquire. - -Being the vans had come out from the City, we didn't find out much -except our new neighbor's name: Burton Fernandez. - -"The Burton Fernandezes," says Mis' Sykes, as we picked our way back. "I -guess when we write that name to our friends in our letters, they won't -think we live in the woods any more. Calliope," she says, "it come to me -this: Don't you think it would be real nice to get them up a -reception-surprise, and all go there some night as soon as they get -settled, and take our own refreshments, and get acquainted all at once, -instead of using up time to call, individual?" - -"Land, yes," I says, "I'd like to do that to every neighbor that comes -into town. But you--" says I, hesitating, to her that was usually so -exclusive she counted folks's grand-folks on her fingers before she -would go to call on them, "what makes you--" - -"Oh," says Mis' Sykes, "you can't tell me. Folks's individualities is -expressed in folks's furniture. You can't tell me that, with those -belongings, we can go wrong in our judgment." - -"Well," I says, "_I_ can't go wrong, because I can't think of anything -that'd make me give them the cold shoulder. That's another comfort about -being friends to everybody--you don't have to decide which ones you want -to know." - -"You're so queer, Calliope," says Mis' Sykes, tolerant. "You miss all -the satisfaction of being exclusive. And you can't _afford_ not to be." - -"Mebbe not," says I, "mebbe not. But I'm willing to try it. Hang the -expense!" says I. - -Mis' Sykes didn't waste a day on her reception-surprise. I heard of it -right off from Mis' Holcomb and Mis' Toplady and two-three more. They -were all willing enough, not only because any excitement in the village -is like a personal present to all of us, but because Mis' Sykes was -interested. She's got a real gift for making folks think her way is the -way. She's a real leader. Everybody wears a straw hat contented till, -somewheres near November, Mis' Sykes flams out in felt, and then you -begin right off to feel shabby in your straw, though new from the store -that Spring. - -"It does seem like rushing things a little, though," says Mis' Holcomb -to me, very confidential, the next day. - -"Not for me," I says. "I been vaccinated." - -"What do you mean?" says she. - -"Not even the small-pox can make me snub them," I explains. - -"Yes, but Calliope," says Mis' Toplady in a whisper, "suppose it should -turn out to be one of them awful places we read about. They have good -furniture." - -"Well," says I, "in that case, if thirty to forty of us went in with our -baskets, real friendly, and done it often enough, I bet we'd either -drive them out or turn them into better neighbors. Where's the harm?" - -"Calliope," says Mame Holcomb, "don't you draw the line _nowheres_?" - -"Yes," I says, mournful. "Them on Mars won't speak to me--yet. But short -of Mars--no. I have no lines up." - -We heard from the servant that came down on Tuesday and began cleaning -and settling, that the family would arrive on Friday. We didn't get much -out of him--a respectable-seeming colored man but reticent, very. The -fact that the family servant was a man finished Mis' Sykes. She had had -a strong leaning, but now she was bent, visible. And with an item that -appeared Thursday night in the Friendship Village _Evening Daily_, she -toppled complete. - -"Professor and Mrs. Burton Fernandez," the _Supper Table Jottings_ said, -"are expected Friday to take possession of Oldmoxon House, 506 Daphne -street. Professor Fernandez is to be engaged for some time in some -academic and scholastic work in the City. Welcome, Neighbors." - -"Let's have our reception-surprise for them Saturday night," says Mis' -Sykes, as soon as she had read the item. "Then we can make them right at -home, first thing, and they won't need to tramp into church, feeling -strange, Next-day morning." - -"Go on--do it," says I, affable. - -Mis' Sykes ain't one to initiate civic, but she's the one to initiate -festive, every time. - -Mis' Holcomb and Mis' Toplady and me agreed to bake the cakes, and Mis' -Sykes was to furnish the lemonade, being her husband keeps the -Post-office store, and what she gets, she gets wholesale. And Mis' Sykes -let it be known around that on Saturday night we were all to drop into -her house, and go across the street together, with our baskets, to put -in a couple of hours at our new neighbors', and make them feel at home. -And everybody was looking forward to it. - -I've got some hyacinth bulbs along by my side fence that get up and -come out, late April and early May, and all but speak to you. And it -happened when I woke up Friday morning they looked so lovely, I couldn't -resist them. I had to take some of them up, and set them out in pots and -carry them around to a few. About noon I was going along the street with -one to take to an old colored washerwoman I know, that never does see -much that's beautiful but the sky; but when I got in front of Oldmoxon -House, a thought met me. - -"To-day's the day they come," I said to myself. "Be kind of nice to have -a sprig of something there to welcome them." - -So my feet turned me right in, like your feet do sometimes, and I rang -the front bell. - -"Here," says I, to that colored servant that opened the door, "is a posy -I thought your folks might like to see waiting for them." - -He started to speak, but somebody else spoke first. - -"How friendly!" said a nice-soft voice--I noticed the voice particular. -"Let me thank her." - -There came out from the shadow of the hall, a woman--the one with the -lovely voice. - -"I am Mrs. Fernandez--this is good of you," she said, and put out her -hands for the plant. - -I gave it to her, and I don't believe I looked surprised, any more than -when I first saw the pictures of the Disciples, that the artist had -painted their skin dark, like it must have been. Mrs. Fernandez was dark -too. But her people had come, not from Asia, but from Africa. - -Like a flash, I saw what this was going to mean in the village. And in -the second that I stood there, without time to think it through, -something told me to go in, and try to get some idea of what was going -to be what. - -"May I come inside now I'm here?" I says. - -She took me into the room that was the most settled of any. The piano -was there, and a good many books on their shelves. As I remember back -now, I must just have stood and stared at them, for impressions were -chasing each other across my head like waves on a heaving sea. No less -than that, and mebbe more. - -"I was trying to decide where to put the pictures," she said. "Then we -shall have everything settled before my husband gets home to-morrow." - -We talked about the pictures--they were photographs of Venice and of -Spain. Then we talked about the garden, and whether it was too late for -her to plant much, and I promised her some aster plants. Then I saw a -photograph of a young girl--it was her daughter, in Chicago University, -who would be coming home to spend the Summer. Her son had been studying -to be a surgeon, she said. - -"My husband," she told me, "has some work to do in the library in the -City. We tried to live there--but we couldn't bear it." - -"I'm glad you came here," I told her. "It's as nice a little place as -any." - -"I suppose so," she says only. "As nice as--any." - -I don't think I stayed half an hour. But when I came out of there I -walked away from Oldmoxon House not sensing much of anything except a -kind of singing thanksgiving. I had never known anything of her people -except the kind like our colored wash-woman. I knew about the negro -colleges and all, but I guess I never thought about the folks that must -be graduating from them. I'd always thought that there might be somebody -like Mis' Fernandez, sometime, a long way off, when the Lord and us his -helpers got around to it. And here already it was true of some of them. -It was like seeing the future come true right in my face. - -When I shut the gate of Oldmoxon House, I see Mis' Sykes peeking out her -front door, and motioning to me. And at the sight of her, that I hadn't -thought of since I went into that house, I had all I could do to keep -from laughing and crying together, till the street rang with me. I -crossed over and went in her gate; and her eye-brows were all cocked -inquiring to take in the news. - -"Go on," she says, "and tell me all there is to tell. Is it all so--the -name--and her husband--and all?" - -"Yes," I says, "it's all so." - -"I knew it when I see her come," says Mis' Sykes. "Her hat and her veil -and her simple, good-cut black clothes--you can't fool me on a lady." - -"No," I says. "You can't fool me, either." - -"Well now," says Mis' Sykes, "there's nothing to hinder our banging -right ahead with our plan for to-morrow night, is there?" - -"Nothing whatever," I says, "to hinder me." - -Mis' Sykes jerked herself around and looked at me irritable. - -"Why don't you volunteer?" says she. "I hate to dig the news out of -anybody with the can-opener." - -I'd have given a good deal to feel that I didn't have to tell her, but -just let her go ahead with the reception surprise. I knew, though, that -I ought to tell her, not only because I knew her through and through, -but because I couldn't count on the village. We're real democratic in -the things we know about, but let a new situation stick up its head and -we bound to the other side, automatic. - -"Mis' Sykes," I says, "everything that we'd thought of our new neighbor -is true. _Also_, she's going to be a new experience for us in a way we -hadn't thought of. She's dark-skinned." - -"A brunette," says Mis' Sykes. "I see that through her veil--what of -it?" - -"Nothing--nothing at all," says I. "You noticed then, that she's -colored?" - -I want to laugh yet, every time I think how Mis' Postmaster Sykes looked -at me. - -"_Colored!_" she says. "You mean--you can't mean--" - -"No," I says, "nothing dangerous. It's going to give us a chance to see -that what we've always said could be true sometime, away far off, is -true of some of them now." - -Mis' Sykes sprang up and began walking the floor. - -"A family like that in Oldmoxon House--and my nearest neighbors," says -she, wild. "It's outrageious--outrageious." - -I don't use my words very good, but I know better than to say -"outrageious." I don't know but it was her pronouncing it that way, in -such a cause, that made me so mad. - -"Mis' Sykes," I says, "Mis' Fernandez has got a better education than -either you or I. She's a graduate of a Southern college, and her two -children have been to colleges that you and I have never seen the inside -of and never will. And her husband is a college professor, up here to -study for a degree that I don't even know what the letters stands for. -In what," says I, "consists your and my superiority to that woman?" - -"My gracious," says Mis' Sykes, "ain't you got no sense of fitness to -you. Ain't she black?" - -"Her skin ain't the same color as ours, you're saying," I says. "Don't -it seem to you that that reason had ought to make a cat laugh?" - -Mis' Sykes fair wheeled on me. "Calliope Marsh," says she, "the way you -set your opinions against established notions is an insult to your -kind." - -"Established notions," I says over after her. "'Established notions.' -That's just it. And who is it, of us two, that's being insulting to -their kind now, Mis' Sykes?" - -She was looking out the window, with her lips close-pressed and a -thought between her narrowed eye-lids. - -"I'll rejoin 'em--or whatever it is you call it," she says. "I'll rejoin -'em from living in that house next to me." - -"Mis' Sykes!" says I. "But their piano and their book-cases and their -name are just the same as yesterday. You know yourself how you said -folks's furniture expressed them. And it does--so be they ain't using -left-overs the way I am. I tell you, I've talked with her, and I know. -Or rather I kept still while she told me things about Venice and -Granada where she'd been and I hadn't. You've got all you thought you -had in that house, and education besides. Are you the Christian woman, -Mis' Sykes, to turn your nose up at them?" - -"Don't throw my faith in my face," says she, irritable. - -"Well," I says, "I won't twit on facts. But anybody'd think the Golden -Rule's fitted neat onto some folks to deal with, and is left flap at -loose ends for them that don't match our skins. Is that sense, or ain't -it?" - -"It ain't the skin," she says. "Don't keep harping on that. It's them. -They're different by nature." - -Then she says the great, grand motto of the little thin slice of the -human race that's been changed into superiority. - -"You can't change human nature!" says she, ticking it out like a clock. - -"Can't you?" says I. "_Can't_ you? I'm interested. If that was true, you -and I would be swinging by our tails, this minute, sociable, from your -clothes-line." - -By this time she didn't hear anything anybody said back--she'd got to -that point in the argument. - -"If," she says, positive, "if the Lord had intended dark-skinned folks -to be different from what they are, he'd have seen to it by now." - -I shifted with her obliging. - -"Then," says I, "take the Fernandez family, in the Oldmoxon House. -They're different. They're more different than you and I are. What you -going to do about it?" - -Mis' Sykes stamped her foot. "How do you know," she says, "that the Lord -intended them to be educated? Tell me that!" - -I sat looking down at her three-ply Ingrain carpet for a minute or two. -Then I got up, and asked her for her chocolate frosting receipt. - -"I'm going to use that on my cake for to-morrow night," I says. "And do -you want me to help with the rest of the telephoning?" - -"What do you mean?" she says, frigid. "You don't think for a minute I'm -going on with that, I hope?" - -"On with it?" I says. "Didn't you tell me you had the arrangements about -all made?" - -She sunk back, loose in her chair. "I shall be the Laughing Stock,--the -Laughing Stock," she says, looking wild and glazed. - -"Yes," says I, deliberate, determined and serene, "they'll say you were -going to dance around and cater to this family because they've moved -into the Oldmoxon House. They'll say you wanted to make sure, right -away, to get in with them. They'll repeat what you've been saying about -the elegant furniture, in good taste. And about the academic and -scholastic work being done. And about these folks being a distinct -addition to Friendship Village society--" - -"Don't, Calliope--oh, don't!" said Mis' Sykes, faint. - -"Well, then," I says, getting up to leave, "go on ahead and act -neighborly to them, the once, and decide later about keeping it up, as -you would with anybody else." - -It kind of swept over me--here we were, standing there, bickering and -haggling, when out there on the planet that lay around Daphne Street -were loose ends of creation to catch up and knit in. - -"My gracious," I says, "I ain't saying they're all all right, am I? But -I'm saying that as fast as those that try to grow, stick up their heads, -it's the business of us that tootle for democracy, and for evolution, to -help them on." - -She looked at me, pitying. - -"It's all so much bigger than that, Calliope," she says. - -"True," says I, "for if some of them stick up their heads, it proves -that more of them could--if we didn't stomp 'em down." - -I got out in the air of the great, gold May day, that was like another -way of life, leading up from our way. I took in a long breath of it--and -that always helps me to see things big. - -"One Spring," I says, "One world--one God--one life--one future. -Wouldn't you think we could match ourselves up?" - -But when I got in my little house, I looked around on the homely inside -of it--that always helps me to think how much better things can be, when -we really know how. And I says: - -"Oh, God, we here in America got up a terrible question for you to help -us settle, didn't we? Well, _help_ us! And help us to see, whatever's -the way to settle anything, that giving the cold shoulder and the -uplifted nose to any of the creatures you've made ain't the way to -settle _nothing_. Amen." - - -Next morning I was standing in my door-way, breathing in the fresh, gold -air, when in at the gate came that colored man of Mis' Fernandez's, and -he had a big bouquet of roses. Not roses like we in the village often -see. They were green-house bred. - -"Mis' Fernandez's son done come home las' night and brung 'em," says the -man. - -"Her son," I says, "from college?" - -"No'm," says the man. "F'om the war." - -"From the what?" I says. - -"F'om the war," he says over. "F'om U'pe." - -He must have thought I was crazy. For a minute I stared at him, then I -says "Glory be!" and I began to laugh. Then I told him to tell Mis' -Fernandez that I'd be over in half an hour to thank her myself for the -flowers, and in half an hour I was going up to her front door. I had to -make sure. - -"Your son," I says, forgetting all about the roses, "he's in the -American army?" - -"He was," she said. "He fought in France for eighteen months. Now he has -been discharged." - -"Oh," I says to myself, "that arranges everything. It must." - -"Perhaps you will let me tell you," she said. "He comes back to us -wearing the cross of war." - -"The cross of war!" I cried. "That they give when folks save folks in -battle?" I said it just like saving folks is the principal business of -it all. - -"My son did save a wounded officer in No-man's land," she told me. "The -officer--he was a white man." - -"Oh," I says, and I couldn't say another word till I managed to ask her -if her son had been in the draft. - -"No," she said. "He volunteered April 7, 1917." - -It wasn't until I got out in the street that I remembered I hadn't -thanked her for the roses at all. But there wasn't time to think of -that. - -I headed straight for Mis' Silas Sykes. She looked awful bad, and I -don't think probably she'd slept a wink all night. I ask' her casual how -the reception was coming on, and she kind of began to cry. - -"I don't know what you hector me for like this," she says. "Ain't it -enough that I've got to call folks up to-day and tell them I've made a -fool of myself?" - -"Not yet," I says. "Not yet you ain't made one of yourself, Mis' Sykes. -That's to come, if any. It is hard," I says, "to do the particular thing -you'll have to do. There's them," I says crafty, "as'll gloat." - -"I thought about them all night long," she says, her breath showing -through her words. - -"Then think no more, Mis' Sykes," I says, "because there's a reason over -there in that house why we should go ahead with our plan--and it's a -reason you can't get around." - -She looked at me, like one looking with no hope. And then I told her. - -I never saw a woman so checkered in her mind. Her head was all reversed, -and where had been one notion, another bobbed up to take its place, and -where the other one had been previous, a new one was dancing. - -"But do they do that?" she ask'. "Do they give war-crosses to -_negroes_?" - -"Why not?" I says. "France don't care because the fore-fathers of these -soldiers were made slaves by us. She don't lay it up against _them_. -That don't touch their bravery. England never has minded dark -skins--look at her East Indians and Egyptians that they say are -everywhere in London. Nobody cares but us. Of course France gives -negroes crosses of war when they're brave--why shouldn't she?" - -"My gracious," Mis' Sykes says, "but what'll folks say here if we do go -ahead and recognize them?" - -"Recognize _him_!" I cried. "Mis' Sykes--are you going to let him offer -up his life, and go over to Europe and have his bravery recognized -there, and then come back here and get the cold shoulder from you--are -you? Then shame on us all!" I says. - -Then Mis' Sykes said the things folks always say: "But if we recognize -them, what about marriage?" - -"See here," says I, "there's thousands and thousands of tuberculosis -cases in this country to-day. And more hundreds of thousands with other -diseases. Do we set the whole lot of them apart, and refuse to be decent -to them, or do business with them, because they ought not to marry our -girls and boys? Don't you see how that argument is just an excuse?" - -"All the same," said Mis' Sykes, "it might happen." - -"Then make a law against inter-marriage," I says. "That's easy. Nothing -comes handier than making a new law. But don't snub the whole -race--especially those that have risked their lives for you, Mis' -Sykes!" - -She stared at me, her face looking all triangular. - -"It's for you to show them what to do," I pressed her. "They'll do what -you do." - -Mis' Sykes kind of stopped winking and breathing. - -"I could make them do it, I bet you," she says, proud. - -"Of course you could," I egged her on. "You could just take for granted -everybody meant to be decent, and carry it off, matter-of-fact." - -She stood up and walked around the room, her curl-papers setting strange -on her proud ways. - -"Don't figger on it, Mis' Sykes," I says. "Just think how much easier it -is to be leading folks into something they ain't used to than to have -them all laughing at you behind your back for getting come up with." - -It wasn't the highest motive--but then, I only used it for a finishing -touch. And for a tassel I says, moving off rapid: - -"Now I'm going home to stir up my cake for the party." - -She didn't say anything, and I went off up the street. - -I remember it was one of the times when it came to me, strong, that -there's something big and near working away through us, to get us to -grow in spite of us. In spite of us. - -And when I had my chocolate cake baked, I lay down on the lounge in my -dining-room, and planned out how nice it was going to be, that night.... - - -There was a little shower, and then the sun came back again; so by the -time we all began to move toward Mis' Sykes's, between seven and eight, -everything was fresh and earth-smelling and wet-sweet green. And there -was a lovely, flowing light, like in a dream. - -Whenever I have a hard thing to do, be it housecleaning or be it -quenching down my pride, I always think of the way I see Mis' Sykes do -hers. Dressed in her best gray poplin with a white lace yoke, and hair -crimped front _and_ back, Mis' Sykes received us all, reserved and -formal--not with her real society pucker, but with her most leader-like -look. - -Everybody was there--nobody was lacking. There must have been above -fifty. I couldn't talk for trying to reckon how each of them would act, -as soon as they knew. - -"Blistering Benson," says Timothy Toplady, that his wife had got him -into his frock-tail coat that he keeps to be pall-bearer in, "--kind of -nice to welcome in another first family, ain't it?" - -Mis' Sykes heard him. "Timothy Toplady, you ain't enough democracy to -shake a stick at," she says, regal; and left him squenched, but with his -lips moving. - -"I'm just crazy to get upstairs in the Oldmoxon House," says Mis' -Hubbelthwait. "How do you s'pose they've got it furnished?" - -"They're thinking more about the furniture of their heads than of their -upstairs chambers," snaps back Mis' Sykes. And I see anew that whatever -Mis' Sykes goes into, she goes into up to her eyes, thorough and firm. - -"Calliope," she says, "you might run over now and see how they're -situated. And be there with them when we come." - -I knew that Mis' Sykes couldn't quite bear to make her speech with me -looking at her, so I waited out in the entry and heard her do it--I -couldn't help that. And honest, I think my respect for her rose while -she done so, almost as much as if she'd meant what she said. Mis' Sykes -is awful convincing. She can make you wish you'd worn gloves or went -without, according to the way she's done herself; and so it was that -night, in the cause she'd taken up with, unbeknownst. - -She rapped on the table with the blue-glass paper weight. - -"Friends," she says, distinct and serene, and everybody's buzzing -simmered down. "Before we go over, I must tell you a little about our -new--neighbors. The name as you know is Fernandez--Burton Fernandez. The -father is a college professor, now in the City doing academic and -scholastic work to a degree, as they say. The daughter is in one of our -great universities. The mother, a graduate of a Southern college, has -traveled extensive in Venice and--and otherwise. I can't believe--" here -her voice wobbled just for an instant, "I can't believe that there is -one here who will not understand the significance of our party when I -add that the family happens to be colored. I am sure that you will agree -with me--with _me_--that these elegant educations merit our -approbation." - -She made a little pause to let it sink in. Then she topped it off. She -told them about the returned soldier and the cross of war. - -"If there is anybody," said she--and I knew how she was glancing round -among them; "if there is anybody who can't appreciate _that_, we'll -gladly excuse them from the room." - -Yes, she done it magnificent. Mis' Sykes carried the day, high-handed. I -couldn't but remember, as I slipped out, how in Winter she wears -ear-muffs till we've all come to consider going without them is -affected. - -I ran across the street, still in that golden, pouring light. In the -Oldmoxon House was a surprise. Sitting with Mrs. Fernandez before the -little light May fire, was her husband, and a slim, tall girl in a smoky -brown dress, that was their daughter, home from her school to see her -brother. Then the soldier boy came in. Even yet I can't talk much about -him: A slight, silent youth, that had left his senior year at college -to volunteer in the army, and had come home now to take up his life as -best he could; and on the breast of his uniform shone the little cross, -won by saving his white captain, under fire. - -I sat with them before their hearth, but I didn't half hear what they -said. I was looking at the room, and at the four quiet folks that had -done so much for themselves--more than any of us in the village, in -proportion--and done it on paths none of us had ever had to walk. And -the things I was thinking made such a noise I couldn't pay attention to -just the talk. Over and over it kept going through my head: In fifty -years. _In fifty years!_ - -At last came the stir and shuffle I'd been waiting for and the door-bell -rang. - -"Don't go," they said, when I sprang up; and they followed me into the -hall. So there we were when the door opened, and everybody came crowding -in. - -Mis' Sykes was ahead, and it came to me, when I saw how deathly pale she -was, that a prejudice is a living thing, after all--not a dead thing; -and that to them that are in its grasp, your heart has got to go out -just as much as to them that suffer from it. - -I waved my hand to them all, promiscuous, crowding in with their -baskets. - -"Neighbors," I says, "here's our new neighbors. Name yourselves -gradual." - -They set their baskets in the hall, and came into the big room where -the fire was. And I was kind of nervous, because our men are no good on -earth at breaking the ice, except with a pick; and our women, when they -get in a strange room, are awful apt to be so taken up looking round -them that they forget to work up anything to say. - -But I needn't have worried. No sooner had we sat down than somebody -spoke out, deep and full. Standing in the midst of us was Burton -Fernandez, and it was him. And his voice went as a voice goes when it's -got more to carry than just words, or just thoughts. - -"My friends," he said, "I cannot bear to have you put yourselves in a -false position. When you came, perhaps you didn't know. I mean--did you -think, perhaps, that we were of your race?" - -It was Mis' Sykes who answered him, grand and positive, and as if she -was already thinking up her answer when she was born. - -"Certainly not," she says. "We were informed--all of us." Then I saw her -get herself together for something tremenjus, that should leave no doubt -in anybody's mind. "What of that?" says she. - -He stood still for a minute. He had deep-set eyes and a tired face that -didn't do anything to itself when he talked. But his voice--that did. -And when he began to speak again, it seemed to me that the voice of his -whole race was coming through him. - -"My friends," he said, "how can we talk of other things when our minds -are filled with just what this means to us?" - -We all kept still. None of us would have known how to say it, even if we -had known what to say. - -He said: "I'm not speaking of the difficulties--they don't so much -matter. Nothing matters--except that even when we have made the -struggle, then we're despised no less. We don't often talk to you about -it--it's the surprise of this--you must forgive me. But I want you to -know that from the time I began my school life, there have been many who -despised, and a few who helped, but never until to-night have there been -any of your people with the look and word of neighbor--never once in our -lives until to-night." - -In the silence that fell when he'd finished, I sat there knowing that -even now it wasn't like he thought it was--and I wished that it had been -so. - -He put his hand on his boy's shoulder. - -"It's for his sake," he said, "that I thank you most." - -Mis' Sykes was equal to that, too. - -"In the name of our whole town," she says to that young soldier, "we -thank _you_ for what you've done." - -He just nodded a little, and nobody said anything more. And it came to -me that most everything is more so than we most always suppose it to be. - -When Mis' Toplady don't know quite what to do with a minute, she always -brings her hands together in a sort of spontaneous-sounding clap, and -kind of bustles her shoulders. She done that now. - -"I motion I'll take charge of the refreshments," she says. "Who'll -volunteer? I'm crazy to see what-all we've brought." - -Everybody laughed, and rustled, easy. And I slipped over to the -daughter, standing by herself by the fire-place. - -"You take, don't you?" I ask' her. - -"'Take?'" she says, puzzled. - -"Music, I mean," I told her. (We always mean music when we say "take" in -Friendship Village.) - -"No," she says, "but my brother plays, sometimes." - -The soldier sat down to the piano, when I asked him, and he played, soft -and strong, and something beautiful. His cross shone on his breast when -he moved. And me, I stood by the piano, and I heard the soul of the -music come gentling through his soul, just like it didn't make any -difference to the music, one way or the other.... - -Music. Music that spoke. Music that sounded like laughing voices.... No, -for it was laughing voices.... - - -I opened my eyes, and there in my dining-room, by the lounge, stood Mis' -Toplady and Mis' Holcomb, laughing at me for being asleep. Then they -sat down by me, and they didn't laugh any more. - -"Calliope," Mis' Toplady says, "Mis' Sykes has been round to everybody, -and told them about the Oldmoxon House folks." - -"And she took a vote on what to do to-night," says Mame Holcomb. - -"Giving a little advice of her own, by the wayside," Mis' Toplady adds. - -I sat up and looked at them. With the soldier's music still in my ears, -I couldn't take it in. - -"You don't mean--" I tried to ask them. - -"That's it," says Mis' Toplady. "Everybody voted to have a public -meeting to honor the soldiers--the colored soldier with the rest. But -that's as far as it will go." - -"But he don't want to be honored!" I cried. "He wants to be -neighbored--the way anybody does when they're worth it." - -"Mis' Sykes says," says Mis' Toplady, "that we mustn't forget what is -fitting and what isn't." - -And Mis' Holcomb added: "She carried it off grand. Everybody thinks just -the way she does." - -My reception-surprise cake stood ready on the table. After a while, we -three sat down around it, and cut it for ourselves. But all the while we -ate, that soldier's music was still playing for me; and what hadn't -happened was more real for me than the things that were true. - - - - -THE BROTHER-MAN[9] - - -_When the New Race comes--those whom Hudson calls "that blameless, -spiritualized race that is to follow"--surely they will look back with -some sense of actual romance upon the faint tapers which we now light, -both individual and social tapers. They will make their allowance for -us, as do we for the ambiguous knights of chivalry. And while the New -Race will shudder at us--at our disorganization with its war, its -poverty and its other crime--yet I think that they will love us a little -for our ineffectual ministries, as already we love them for exceeding -our utmost dream._ - -Don't you love a love-story; starting right before your eyes as casual -as if it was preserves getting cooked or parsley coming up? It doesn't -often happen to me to see one start, but once it did. It didn't start -like anything at all that was going to be anything, but just still and -quiet, same as the stars come out. I guess that's the way most great -things move, isn't it? Still and quiet, like stars coming out. Or -similar to stars. - -It was the time of the Proudfits' big what-they-called week-end -parties, and it was the Saturday of the biggest of them, when a dozen -city people came down to Friendship Village for the lark. And with them -was to come a Piano Lady and a Violin Man--and a man I'd known about in -the magazines, a Novel-and-Poem Man that writes the kind of things that -gets through all the walls between you and the world, so's you can talk -to everything there is. I was crazy to see the Novel-and-Poem Man--from -behind somewheres, though, so's he wouldn't see me and look down on me. -And when Miss Clementina Proudfit asked me to bring her out some things -from the city Saturday night, chocolate peppermints and red candles and -like that, and said she'd send the automobile to the train for me to -fetch up the things and see the decorations, I was real pleased. But I -was the most excited about maybe seeing the Poem-and-Novel Man. - -"What's he like, Miss Clementina?" I ask' her. "When I hear his name I -feel like when I hear the President's. Or even more that way." - -"I've never met him," she says. "Mother knows him--he's her lion, not -mine." - -"He writes lovely things," I says, "things that makes you feel like -everybody's way of doing is only lukewarm, and like you could just bring -yourself to a boil to do good and straighten things out in the world, no -matter what the lukewarm-way folks thought." - -Miss Clementina looked over to me with a wonderful way she -had--beautiful face and beautiful eyes softening to Summer. - -"I know--know," she says; "I dread meeting him, for fear he doesn't mean -it." - -I knew what she meant. You can mean a thing you write in a book, or that -you say in talk, or for other folks to do. But meaning it for _living_ -it--that's different. - -I came out from the city that night on the accommodation, tired to death -and loaded down with bundles for everybody in Friendship Village. Folks -used to send into town by me for everything _but_ stoves and wagons, -though I wouldn't buy anything there except what you can't buy in the -village: lamb's-wool for comforters, and cut-glass and baby-pushers, and -shrimps--that Silas won't keep in the post-office store, because they -don't agree with his stomach. Well, I was all packages that night, and -it was through dropping one in the seat in front of me that I first saw -the little boy. - -He was laying down, getting to sleep if he could and pulling his eyes -open occasional to see what was going on around him. His mother had had -the seat turned, and she sat there beyond him, facing me, and I noticed -her--flat red cheeks, an ostrich feather broke in the middle, blue and -red stone rings on three fingers, and giving a good deal of attention to -studying the folks around her. She was the kind of woman you see and -don't look back to, 'count of other things interesting you more. - -But the little boy, he was different. He wasn't more than a year old, -and he didn't look that--and his cheeks were flushed and his eyelashes -and mouth made you think "My!" I remember feeling I didn't see how the -woman could keep from waking him up, just to prove he was hers and she -could if she wanted to. - -Instead of that, all she did was continually to get up and go out of the -car. Every station we stopped at--and the accommodation acts like it was -made for the stations and not the stations for it--she was up and out, -as if the town was something swimming up to the car-door to speak to -her. She'd leave the baby asleep in the seat, and I wondered what would -happen if he woke up while she was gone, and started to roll. She stayed -every time up till after the train started--I didn't wonder it made her -cold, and that after a bit she put on her coat before she went. And once -or twice she carried out her valise with her, as if she might have -expected somebody to be there to get it. "Mebbe she's got somebody's -laundry," thinks I, "and mebbe a stranger has asked her to bring it out -on the train and she can't remember what station it's to be put off at." -They send things to stations along the way a lot on the -accommodation--everybody being neighbors, so. - -Well, when we got to the Junction, out she went again, cloak and valise -and all. But I didn't think much about her then, because at the Junction -it's always all excitement, being that's where they switch the parlor -car off the train, and whoever is in it for Friendship Village has to -come back in the day coach for the rest of the way, and be just folks. -And among those that came back that night was the Brother-man. - -I dunno if you'll know what I mean by that name for him. Some men are -just men, like they thought God made them just for the pleasure of -making them. And some men are flying around like they wanted to prove -that the Almighty didn't make a mistake when He created them. But there -are some men that just live like God hadn't made them so much as that -they're a piece of Him, and they haven't forgotten it and they feel -kindly toward all the other pieces. Well, this man was one of the -Brother-men. I knew it the minute I saw him. - -By the time he came in the car, moving leisurely and like getting a seat -wasn't so interesting as most other things, there wasn't a seat left, -excepting only the turned one in front of the little chap asleep. The -man looked around idle for a minute and see that they wasn't cloak or -valise keeping that seat, and he sat down and opened the book he'd had -his finger in the place all the time, and allowed to read. - -There's consid'rable switching to do at the Junction, time we get -started; and the jolts and bounces did just exactly what I thought they -would do--woke the little chap up. From before the train started he -begun stirring and whimpering--that way a baby does when it wants -nothing in the world but a hand to be laid on it. Isn't it as if its -mother's hand was a kind of healing that big folks forget about needing? -By the time the train was out on the road in earnest, the little chap, -he was in earnest, too. And he just what-you-might-say yelled. But no -mother came. They wasn't a mother's hand with big red and blue rings on -three fingers to lay on the little boy's back. And there wasn't a mother -of him anywhere's in sight. - -In a minute or two the Brother-man looked up. He hadn't seemed to see -the baby before or to sense that he _was_ a baby. And he looked at him -crying and he laid his book down and he looked all around him, -perplexish, and then he looked over to me that was looking at him -perplexish, too. And being he was a man and I wasn't, I got right up and -went round there and picked the little chap up in my arms and sat down -with him. - -"His ma went out of the car somewheres," I explained it. - -He had lifted his hat and jumped up, polite as if he was the one I'd -picked up. And he stood looking down at me. - -"I wonder if I couldn't fetch her," he says--and his voice was one of -the voices that most says an idea all alone. I mean you'd most have -known what he meant if he'd just spoke along without using any -words--oh, well, I dunno if that sounds like anything, but I guess you -know the kind I mean. The Novel-and-Poem Man's stories are the same -kind, being they say so much that never does get set up in type. - -The baby didn't stop crying at all--seems as though your hands don't -have the right healing unless--unless--well, it didn't stop nor even -halt. And so I says, hesitating, I says: "You wouldn't know her," I -says. "I been watching her. I could find her better--if so be you -wouldn't mind taking the baby." - -The Brother-man put out his arms. I remember I looked up in his face -then, and he was smiling--and his smile talked the same as his voice. -And his face was all full of what he meant. He had one of those Summer -faces like Miss Clementina's--just a general liking of the minute and a -special liking for all the world. And what he said made me think of -Summer, too: - -"_Mind?_" says he. "Why it's like putting your cap over a butterfly." - -He took the little fellow in his arms, and it was then that I first -sensed how beautiful the Brother-man was--strong and fine and quiet, -like he done whatever he done, and said whatever he said, _all over -him_, soul and all, and didn't just speak with his muscles, same as -some. And the baby, he was beautiful, too, big and fine and healthy and -a boy, only not still a minute nor didn't know what quiet meant. But he -stopped crying the instant the man took him, and they both looked at -each other like--oh, like they were more alike than the years between -them wanted to let them think. Isn't it pitiful and isn't it -wonderful--when two folks meet? Big or little, nice or horrid, pleasant -or cross, famous or ragged or talking or scairt--it don't make any -differ'nce. They're just brother-pieces, broke off the same way. That -was how the Brother-man looked down at the little chap, and I dunno but -that was how the little chap looked up at him. Because the little thing -threw out his arms toward him, and we both see the letter under his -blanket pinned to his chest. - -All of a sudden, I understood what had happened--almost without the use -of my brain, as you do sometimes. - -"Sit down a minute," I said to the Brother-man. "I guess mebbe this -letter tells where she is." - -And so it did. It was written in pencil, spelled irregular and addressed -uphill, and the direction told the story even before the letter did. "To -Anybody," the direction was. And the inside of the letter said: - - - "Take care of my Baby. I ain't fit and never was and now don't - think to be anywheres long. Don't look for me. The baby would be - best off with anybody but me, and don't think to be anywheres long - and so would be orphant quite soon sure. He ain't no name so best - not put mine except. - - MOTHER. - - P. S. If he puts out his hand he means you should kiss his hand - then he won't cry. Don't forget, then he won't cry. - - P. S. When he can't get to sleep he can get to sleep if you rub the - back of his neck." - - -I remember how the Brother-man looked at me when we'd got it spelled -out. - -"Oh," he said--and then he said a name that sounded like somebody -calling to its Father from inside the dark. - -I hate to think of what I said. I said it kind of mechanical and wooden, -the way we get to be from shifting the burdens off our own backs where -they belong, onto somebody else's back--and doing it second-nature, and -as if we were constructed slanting so that burdens could slip off. What -I said was: - -"I suppose we'd better tell the conductor." - -"Tell the conductor!" said he, wondering. "What on earth for?" - -"I dunno," says I, some taken back. I suppose I'd had some far notion of -telling him because he wore a uniform. - -"What do we want to tell him for?" this Brother-man repeated. "_We_ -know." - -Oh, but that's come back to me, time and time again, when I've thought -I needed help in taking care of somebody, or settling something, or -doing the best way for folks. "What do we want to tell the conductor or -anybody else for? _We_ know." And ten to one we are the one who can do -the thing ourselves. - -"But what are we going to do?" I said. I think that his eyes were the -kind of eyes that just make you say "What are _we_ going to do?" and not -"What are _you_ going to do?" or "What are _they_ going to do?"--same as -most folks start to say, same as I had started. - -For the first time the Brother-man looked helpless--but he spoke real -firm. - -"Keep him," he says, simple. - -"Keep him!" I said over--since I had lived quite a while in a world -where those words are not common. - -He looked down thoughtful at the little chap who was lying there, -contented, going here and there with his fists, and looking up at the -lights as if he was reflecting over the matter some himself. - -"The conductor," said the Brother-man, "would telegraph, and most likely -find the mother. If he was efficient enough, he might even get her -arrested. And what earthly good would that do to the child? Our concern -is with this little old man here, with his life hanging on his shoulders -waiting to be lived. Isn't it?" he asked, simple. And in a minute, he -added: "I always hoped that this would never happen to me--because when -it does happen, there's only one thing to do: Keep them." And he added -in another minute: "I don't know--I ought to look at it that I've been -saved the trouble of going out and finding a way to help--" only you -understand, his words came all glossy and real different from mine. - -I tell you, anybody like that makes all the soul in you get up and -recognize itself as _being_ you; and your body and what it wants and -what it is afraid of is no more able to run you then than a pinch of -dirt would be, sprinkled on your wings. Before I knew it, my body was -keeping quiet, like a child that's been brought up well. And my soul was -saying whatever it pleased. - -"I'm a woman," I said, "and alone in the world. I'm the one to take -him." - -"I'm alone in the world too," he said, "and I'm a man. So I'm just as -able to care for him as you are. I'll keep him." - -Then he looked down the car, kind of startled, and began smiling, slow -and nice. - -"On my word," he said, "I'd forgotten that besides being a man I'm about -to be a guest. And this little old chap wasn't included in the -invitation." - -I looked out the window to see where we were getting, and there we were -drawing over the Flats outside Friendship Village, and the brakeman -came to the door and shouted the name. When I hear the name that way, -and when I see the Fair ground and the Catholic church steeple and the -canal bridge and the old fort and the gas house, it's always as sweet as -something new, and as something old, and it's something sweeter than -either. It makes me feel happy and good and like two folks instead of -one. - -"Look here," I said, brisk, "this is where I get off. This is home. And -I'm going to take this baby with me. You go on to your visiting -place--so be you'll help me off," I says, "with my baby and my bundles -that's for half of Friendship Village." - -"Friendship Village!" he said over, as if he hadn't heard the man call. -"Is this Friendship Village? Why, then this," he said, "is where I'm -going too. This is where the Proudfits live, isn't it?" he said--and he -said some more, meditative, about towns acting so important over having -one name and not another, when nobody can remember either name. But I -hardly heard him. He was going to the Proudfits'. And without knowing -how I knew it, I knew all over me, all of a sudden, who he was: That he -was the Novel-and-Poem man himself. - -"You _can't_ be him!" I said aloud. I don't know what I was looking -for--a man with wings or what. But it wasn't for somebody like this--all -simple and still and every day--like stars coming out. "You can't be -him," says I, mentioning his name. "He was to get here this afternoon on -the Through." - -"That alone would prove I'm I," he said, merry. "I always miss the -Throughs." - -Think of that.... There I'd been riding all that way beside him, talking -to him as familiar as if he had been just folks. - -It seems a dream when I think of it now. The Proudfits' automobile was -there for him too--because he had telegraphed that he would take the -next train--as well as for me and the chocolate peppermints and the red -candles. And so, before I could think about me being me sure enough, -there I was in the Proudfits' car, glassed in and lit up, and a -stranger-baby in my arms; and beside me the Novel-and-Poem man that was -the Brother-man too,--the man that had made me talk through walls with -everything there is. Oh, and how I wanted to tell him! And when I tried -to tell him what he had meant to me, how do you guess it came out of my -brain? - -"I've read your book," says I, like a goose. - -But he seemed real sort of pleased. "I've been honored," he said, -gentle. - -I looked up at him; and I knew how he knew already that I didn't know -all the hard parts in the book, and all the big words, and some of the -little nice things he had tried to work out to suit him. And it seemed -as if any praise of mine would only make him hurt with not being -appreciated. Still, I wanted my best to say something out of the -gratitude in me. - -"It--helped," I said; and couldn't say more to save me. - -But he turned and looked down at me almost as he had looked at the -little chap. - -"That is the only compliment I ever try to get," he said to me, as grave -as grave. - -And at that I saw plain what it was that had made him seem so much like -a friend, and what had made me think to call him the Brother-man. Why, -he was folks, like me. He wasn't only somebody big and distinguished and -name-in-the-paper. He was like those that you meet all the time, going -round the streets, talking to you casual, coming out of their houses -quiet as stars coming out. He was folks and a brother to folks; and he -knew it, and he seemed to want to keep letting folks know that he knew -it. He wasn't the kind that goes around thinking "Me, me, me," nor even -"You and me." It was "_You and me and all of us_" with the Brother-man. - -"Isn't it strange," he says once, while we rode along, "that what all -these streets and lights and houses are for, and what the whole world is -for is helped along by taking just one little chap and bringing him -up--bringing him up?" And he looked down at the baby, that was drowsing -off in my arms, as if little chaps in general were to him windows into -somewhere else. - -The Proudfit house was lamps from top to bottom, but I could see from -the glass vestibule that the big rooms were all empty, and I thought -mebbe they hadn't had dinner yet, being they have it all unholy hours -when most folks's is digested and ready to let them sleep. But when we -stepped in the hall I heard a little tip-tap of strings from up above, -and it was from the music-room that opens off the first stair-landing, -and dinner was over and they were all up there; and the Piano Lady and -the Violin Man were gettin' ready to play. Madame Proudfit had heard the -car, and came down the stairs, saying a little pleased word when she saw -the Brother-man. She looked lovely in black lace, and jewels I didn't -know the name of, and she was gracious and glad and made him one of the -welcomes that stay alive afterwards and are almost _people_ to you to -think about. The Brother-man kissed her hand, and he says to her, some -rueful and some wanting to laugh: - -"I'm most awfully sorry about the train, Madame Proudfit. But--I've -brought two of us to make up for being so late. Will--will that not do?" -he says. - -Madame Proudfit looked over at me with a smile that was like people -too--only her smile was like nice company and his was like dear -friends; and then she saw the baby. - -"Calliope!" she said, "what on earth have you been doing now?" - -"She hasn't done it. I did it," says the Brother-man. "Look at him! You -rub the back of his neck when he won't sleep." - -Madame Proudfit looked from him to me. - -"How utterly, extravagantly like both of you!" Madame Proudfit said. -"Come in the library and tell me about it." - -We went in the big, brown library, where nothing looked as if it would -understand about this, except, mebbe, some of the books--and not all of -them--and the fire, that was living on the hearth, understanding all -about everything. I sat by the fire and pulled back the little chap's -blanket and undid his coat and took his bonnet off; his hair was all -mussed up at the back and the cheek he'd slept on was warm-red. Madame -Proudfit and the Brother-man stood on the hearth-rug, looking down. Only -she was looking from one star to another, and the Brother-man and I, we -were on the same star, looking round. - -We told her what had happened, some of his telling and some of mine. It -came over me, while we were doing it, that what had sounded so sensible -and sure in the train and in the automobile and in our two hearts -sounded different here in the Proudfits' big, brown library, with -Madame Proudfit in black lace and jewels I didn't know the name of, -listening. But then I looked up in the Brother-man's face and I got -_right back_, like he was a kind of perpetual telegraph, the feeling of -its being sensible and the _only_ sensible thing to do. Sensible in the -sense of your soul being sensible, and not just your being sensible like -your neighbors. - -"But, my dear, dear children," Madame Proudfit says, and stopped. "My -_dear_ children," she says on, "what, exactly, are you going to do with -him?" - -"Keep him!" says the Brother-man prompt, and beamed on her as if he had -said the one possible answer. - -"But--keep him!" says Madame Proudfit. "How 'keep him'? Be practical. -What are you going to do?" - -It makes you feel real helpless when folks in black lace tell you to be -practical, as if that came before everything else--especially when their -"practical" and your "practical" might as well be in two different -languages. And yet Madame Proudfit is kind and good too, and she -understands that you've got to help or you might as well not be alive; -and she gives and gives and gives. But _this_--well, she saw the need -and all that, but her way that night would have been to give money and -send the little chap away. You know how some are. They can understand -everything good and kind--up to a certain point. And that point is, -_keep him_. They can't seem to get past that. - -"_Keep him!_" she says. "Make your bachelor apartment into a nursery? Or -you, Calliope, leave him to mind the house while you are canvassing? Be -practical. What, _exactly_, are you going to do?" - -Then the Brother-man frowned a little--I hadn't known he could, but I -was glad he knew how. - -"Really," he said, "I haven't decided yet on the cut of his -knickerbockers, or on what college he shall attend, or whether he shall -spend his vacations at home or abroad. The details will get themselves -done. I only know I mean to _keep him_." - -She shook her head as if she was talking to a foreign language; then we -heard somebody coming--a little rustle and swish and afterwards a voice. -These three things by themselves would have made somebody more -attractive than some women know how to be. I'll never forget how she -seemed when she came to the door--Miss Clementina, waiting to speak with -her mother and not knowing anybody else was with her. - -Honest, I couldn't tell what her dress was--and me a woman that has -turned her hand to dressmaking. It was all thin, like light, and it had -all little ways of hanging that made you know you never could make one -like it, so's you might as well enjoy yourself looking and not fuss -with trying to remember how it was put together. But her dress wasn't so -much like light as her face. Miss Clementina's face--oh, it was like the -face of a beautiful woman that somebody tells you about, and that you -never do get to see, and if you did, like enough she might not be so -beautiful after all--but you always think of her as being the way you -mean when you say "beautiful." Miss Clementina looked like that. And -when I saw her that night I could hardly wait to have her face and eyes -soften all to Summer, that wonderful way she had. - -"Oh, Miss Clementina," I says, "I've got a baby. At least, he's only -half mine. I mean--" - -Then, while she was coming toward us along the lamp-light, as if it was -made to bring her, the little chap began waking up. He stirred, and -budded up his lips, and said little baby-things in his throat, and begun -to cry, soft and lonesome, as if he didn't understand. Oh, isn't it -true? A baby's waking-up minute, when it cries a little and don't know -where it is, ain't that like us, sometimes crying out sort of blind to -be took care of? And when the little thing opened his eyes, first thing -he saw was Miss Clementina, standing beside him. And what did that -little chap do instead of stopping crying but just hold out one hand -toward her, and kind of bend across, same as if he meant something. - -With that the Brother-man, that Madame Proudfit hadn't had a chance yet -to present to Miss Clementina, he says to her all excited: - -"He wants you to kiss his hand! Kiss his hand and he'll stop crying!" - -Miss Clementina looked up at him like a little question, then she -stooped and kissed the baby's hand, and we three watched him perfectly -breathless to see what he would do. And he done exactly what that -up-hill note had said he would--he stopped crying, and he done more than -it said he would--he smiled sweet and bright, and as if he knew -something else about it. And we three looked at each other and at him, -and we smiled, too. And it made a nice minute. - -"Clementina," said Madame Proudfit, like another minute that wasn't so -very well acquainted with the one that was being, and then she presented -the Brother-man. But instead of a regular society, -say-what-you-ought-to-say answer to her greeting, the Brother-man says -to her: - -"Miss Proudfit, you shall arbitrate! Somebody left him to this lady and -me--or to anybody like, or unlike us--on the train. Shall we find his -own mother that has run away from him? Or shall we send him to an -institution? Or shall we keep him? Which way," he says, smiling, "is the -way that _is_ the way?" - -She looked up at him as if she knew, clear inside his words, what he was -talking about. - -"Are you," she ask' him, half merry, but all in earnest too, "are you -going to decide with your heart or your head?" - -"Why, with my soul, I hope," says the Brother-man, simple. - -Miss Clementina nodded a little, and I saw her face all Summer-soft as -she answered him. - -"Then," she said, "almost nobody will tell you so, but--there's only one -way." - -"I know it," says he, gentle. - -"I know it," says I, solemn. - -We three stood looking at each other from close on the same star, -knowing all over us that if you decide a thing with your head you'll -probably shift a burden off; if you decide with your heart you'll -probably give, give, give, like Madame Proudfit does, to pay somebody -else liberal to take the burden; but if you decide it with your soul, -you give your own self to whatever is going on. And you know that's the -way that _is_ the way. - -All of a sudden, as if words that were not being said had got loose and -were saying themselves anyway, the music--that had been tip-tapping -along all the while since we came--started in, sudden and beautiful, -with the Piano Lady and the Violin Man playing up there in the landing -room. I don't know whether it was a lullaby--though I shouldn't be -surprised if it was, because I think sometimes in this world things -happen just like they were being stage-managed by somebody that knows. -But anyway--oh, it had a lullaby sound, a kind-of rocking, tender, -just-you-and-me meaning; that ain't so very far from the -you-and-me-and-all-of-us meaning when they're both said right and deep -down. - -I looked up at Miss Clementina and the Brother-man--as you do look up -when some nice little thing has happened that you think whoever you're -with will understand. But they didn't look back at me. They looked over -to each other. They looked over to each other, swift at the first, but -lasting long, and with the faces of both of them softening to Summer. -And the music went heavenly-ing on, into the room, and into living, and -into everything, and it was as if the whole minute was turned into its -own spirit and then was said out in a sound. - -Miss Clementina and the Brother-man looked away and down at the little -chap that Miss Clementina was holding his hand. It was as if there was a -pulse in the room--the Great Pulse that we all beat to, and that now and -then we hear. But those two didn't see me at all; and all of a sudden I -understood, how there was still another star that I didn't know anything -about, and that they two were standing there together, they two and the -little chap--but not me. Oh, it was wonderful--starting the way great -things start, still and quiet like stars coming out. So still that they -didn't either of them know it. And I felt as if everything was some -better and some holier than I had ever known. - -Then Madame Proudfit, she leans out from her star, gracious and benign, -and certain sure that her star was the only one that had eternal truth -inside it; and she spoke with a manner of waving her hand good natured -to all the other little stars, including ours: - -"You mad, mad, children!" she said. "You _are_ mad. But you are very -picturesque in your decisions, there's no denying that. He would -probably be better cared for, more scientifically fed, and all that, in -a good, hired, private family. But that's as you see it. Be mad, if you -like--I'm here to watch over you!" - -She had quite a nice tidy high point of view about it--but oh, it wasn't -ours. It wasn't ours. We three--the Brother-man and Miss Clementina and -me--we sort of hugged our own way. And the little chap he kept smiling, -like he sort of hugged it too. - -So that was the way it was. Miss Clementina and the Brother-man--that -she'd been afraid to meet, 'count of thinking mebbe he didn't mean his -writings for living--were in love from before they knew it. And I think -it was part because they both meant life strong enough for living and -not just for thinking, like the lukewarm folks do. - -I kept the little chap with me the three months or so that went by -before the wedding--and I could hardly bear to let him go then. - -"Why don't you keep him for them the first year or so?" Friendship -Village ask' me. But there's some things even your own town doesn't -always understand. "It's so unromantic for them to take him now," some -of them even said. - -But I says to them what I say now: "There's things that's bigger than -romantic and there's things that's bigger than practical, so be some of -both is mixed in right proportion. And the biggest thing I know in this -world is when folks say over, 'You and me and all of us,' like voices, -speaking to everybody's Father from inside the dark." - -FOOTNOTE: - -[9] Copyright, 1913, _The Delineator_. - - - - -THE CABLE[10] - - -I says to myself: "What shall I do? What shall I do?" - -I crushed the magazine down on my knee, and sat there rocking with it -between my hands. - -It was just a story about a little fellow with a brick. They met him, a -little boy six years old, somewhere in Europe, going along up toward one -of the milk stations, at sunrise. They wondered why he carried a brick, -and they asked him: "Why do you have the brick?" "You see," he says, -"it's so wet. I can get up on this." And he stood on his brick in the -mud before the milk station for five hours, waiting for his supplies -that was a pint of milk to take home to his mother. - -Mebbe it was queer that this struck me all of a heap, when the big war -I'd got used to. But you can't get used to the things that hurt a child. - -And then I kept thinking about Bennie. Supposing it had been Bennie, -with the brick? Bennie was the little boy that his young father had gone -back to the old country, and Bennie hadn't any mother. So I had him. - -Because I had to do something, I went out on the porch and called him. -He came running from his swing--his coat was too big for him and his -ears stuck out, but he was an awful sweet little boy. The kind you want -to have around. - -"Bennie," I says, "I know little boys hate it. But _could_ you leave me -hug you?" - -He kind of saw I was feeling bad--like a child can--and he came right up -to me and he says: - -"I got one hug left. _Here_ it is!" - -And he hugged me grand. - -Then he ran back down the path, throwing his legs out sideways, kind of -like a little calf, the way he does. And I set down on the side stoop, -and I cried. - -"Oh, blessed God," I says, "supposing Bennie was running round Europe -with a brick, waiting five hours in the mud for milk for his ma, that he -ain't got none?" - -When I feel like that, I can't sit still. I have to walk. So I opened -the side gate and left Bennie run through into Mis' Holcomb's yard, that -was ironing on her back porch, and I says to her to please keep an eye -on him. And then I headed down the street, towards nothing; and my heart -just filled out ready to blow up. - -As I went, I heard a bell strike. It was a strange bell, and I wondered. -Then I remembered. - -"The new Town Hall's new bell," I thought. "It's come and it's up. -They're trying it." - -And it seemed like the voice of the town, saying something. - -In the door of the newspaper office sat the editor, Luke Norris, his red -face and black hair buried behind a tore newspaper. - -"Hello, Luke," I says, sheer out of wanting human looks and words from -somebody. - -He laid down his newspaper, and he took his breath quick and he says: "I -wish't Europe wasn't so far off. I'd like to go over there--with a -basket." - -I overtook little Nuzie Cook, going along home,--little thin thing she -was, with such high eye-brows that her face looked like its windows were -up. - -"Nuzie," I says, "how's your ma?" And that was a brighter subject, -because Mis' Cook has only got the rheumatism and the shingles. - -"Ma's in bed," says Nuzie. "She's worried about her folks in the old -country--she ain't heard and she can't sleep." - -I went to a house where I knew there was a baby, and I played with that. -Then I went to call on Mis' Perkins, that ain't got sense enough to talk -about anything that is anything, so she kind of rested me. But into Mis' -Hunter's was a little young rabbit, that her husband had plowed into its -ma's nest, and he'd brought it in with its leg cut by the plow, and they -was trying to decide what best to do. And I begun hurting inside again, -and thinking: - -"Nothing but a rabbit--a baby rabbit--and over there...." - -I didn't say anything. Pretty soon I turned back home. And then I ran -into the McVicars--three of them. - -The McVicars--three of them--had Spring hats trimmed with cherries and I -guess raisins and other edibles; the McVicars--mother and two offspring, -sprung quite a while back--are new-come to the village, and stylish. -They hadn't been in town in two months when they'd been invited twice to -drive to the cemetery in the closed carriages, though they hadn't known -either corpse, personally. They impressed people. - -"Oh, Mis' Marsh," says Mis' McVicar, "we wanted to see you. We're -getting up a relief fund...." - -I went down in my pocket for a quarter, automatic. I heard their thanks, -and I went on. And it came to me how, all over the country, the whole -100,000,000 of us, more or less, had been met up with to contribute -something to relief, and we'd all done it. And it had gone over there to -this country and to that. But our hearts had ached, individual and -silent, the way mine was aching that day--and there wasn't any means of -cabling that ache over to Europe. If there was, if that great ache that -was in all of us for the folks over there, could just be gathered up and -got over to them in one mass, I thought it would do as much as food and -clothes and money to help them. - -I stood still by a picket fence I happened to be passing, and I looked -down the little street. It had a brick sidewalk and a dirt road and -little houses, and the fences hadn't been taken down yet. And all the -places looked still and kind of dear. - -"They all feel bad," I thought, "just as bad as I do, for folks that's -starved. But they can't say so--they can't say so. Only in little dabs -of money, sent off separate." - -Bennie was swinging on Mis' Holcomb's gate, looking for me. He came -running to meet me. - -"I found a blue beetle," he says to me. "And that lady's kitty's home, -with a bell on. And I got a new nail. An--an--an--" - -And I thought: "He ain't no different from them--over there. The little -tikes, with no pas and no suppers and nothing to play with, only mebbe a -brick to lug." - -And there I was, right back to where I started from. And I went out to -get supper, with my heart hanging around my neck like a pail of rock. - - -II - -Next day was Memorial Day. And Memorial Day in Friendship Village is -something grand. - -First the G. A. R. conducts the service in the Court House yard, with -benches put up special, and a speech from out of town and paid for. - -Right away afterward everybody marches or drives, according to the state -of their pocket-book, out to the Cemetery, to lay flowers on the -soldiers' graves; and it's quite an event, because everybody that's got -anybody buried out there and that is still alive themselves, they all -whisk out the day before and decorate up their graves, so's everybody -can see for themselves how intimate their dead is held in remembrance. -And everybody walks around to see if so-and-so has thought to send -anything from Seattle, or wherenot, _this_ year. And if they didn't, -it's something to tell about. - -Then all the Ladies' Aid Societies serve dinners in the empty store -buildings down town, and make what they can. And in the afternoon -everybody lounges round and cuts the grass and tinkers with the screens -and buys ice cream off the donkey-cart man. - -I dressed Bennie up, clean and miserable, in the morning, and went down -to the exercises. I couldn't see much, because the woman in front of me -couldn't either, and she stood up; and I couldn't hear much, because the -paid-for speaker addressed only one-half of his audience, and as usual I -wasn't in the right half. But the point is that neither of them -limitations mattered. I didn't have to see and I didn't have to hear. -All that I had to do was to feel. And I felt. For I was alive at the -time of the Civil War, and all you have to do to me is to touch that -spring in me, and I'm back there: Getting the first news, reading about -Sumter, sensing the call for 75,000 volunteers, hearing that this one -and this one and this one had enlisted, peeking through the fence at -Camp Randall where my two brothers were waiting to go; and then living -the long four years through, when every morning meant news, and no news -meant news, and every night meant more to hear. For years I couldn't -open a newspaper without feeling I must look first for the list of the -dead.... - -I set there on the bench in the spring sunshine, without anything to -lean against, seeing the back breadths of Mis' Curtsey's gray flowered -delaine, and living it all over again, with Bennie hanging on my knee. -And it made it a thousand times worse, now that these Memorial Days were -passing, with what was going on in Europe still going on. - -And I thought: "Oh, I dunno how we can keep up feeling memorial for just -our own soldiers, when the whole world's soldiers are lying dead, new -every night...." - -And getting a little more used to the paid speaker's voice, I could hear -some of what he was saying. I could get the names,--Vicksburg, -Gettysburg, Shenandoah, Missionary Ridge, all these, over and over. And -my heart ached with every one. But it had a new ache, for names that the -whole world will echo with for years to come. And sitting there, with -nobody knowing, I says to myself: - -"And, O Lord, I memorial all the rest of them--the soldiers of fifty -years ago no more than the soldiers of now--the soldiers of Here no more -than the soldiers of Over There. O Lord, I memorial them all, and I pray -for them that survive over there--put all Your strength on them, Lord, -as far as I am concerned, for us survivors here, we don't need You as -much as they do--them that's new bereaved and new desolated. For -Christ's sake. Amen." - -On my way home, I saw Luke Norris sitting out by the door of his office -again. He never went to any exercises because his wind-pipe was liable -to shut up on him, and it broke up the program some, getting his breath -through to him. - -"Calliope," he says, "we want you should go on to the Committee for -opening the new Town Hall, in about two months from now. We want the -jim-dandiest, swell-upest celebration this town has ever had. Twenty -years of unexampled prosperity--" - -I stood still and stared down on him. - -"Honest," I says, "do you want me to help in a prosperity celebration -_this_ Summer?" - -"Sure," he says, "women are in on it." - -"Luke," I says. "I dunno how you'll feel about that when you come to -think it over. But I feel--" - -Bennie, fussing round on the side-walk, came over, tugging a chunk of -wood. I thought at first he was carrying a brick. - -I sat down in a handy chair, just inside Luke's door. - -"Luke," I says, "Luke! That ain't the kind of a celebration this town -had ought to have. You listen here to me...." - - -III - -Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I think about the next two Summer months. -I lie awake and think how it all went, that planning, from first to -last. I think about the idea, and about how it started, and kindled, and -spread, and flamed. And I think about what finally came of it. - -For one thing, it was the first living, human thing that Friendship -Village ever got up that there wasn't a soul that kicked about. You -can't name another thing that any of the town ever went in for, that the -rest didn't get up and howl. Pavement--some of us said we couldn't -afford it, "not now." New bridge--half of us says we was bonded to the -limit as it was. Sewerage--three-fourths of us says for our town it was -a engineering impossibility. Buying the electric light plant, that would -be pure socialism. Central school building--a vast per cent of us allows -it would make it too far for the children to walk, though out of school -hours they run all over the town, scot-free and foot loose, skate, sled -and hoop. As a town none of us would unite on nothing. Never, not till -this time. - -But this time it was different. And even if not anything had come of it, -I'd be glad to remember the kind of flash I got from different folks, -when we came to tell them about it. - -I went first to the Business Men's Association, because it was them that -was talking the Town Hall celebration the hardest. I'd been to them -before, about playgrounds, about band concerts, about taking care of the -park; and some of them were down on us ladies. - -"You're always putting up propositions to give money _out_," says one of -them once. "Why don't you propose us taking _in_ some? What do you think -we are? Charity?" - -"No," says I to him, "I don't. Nor yet love. You're dollar marks and -ciphers, a few of you," I told him, candid, "and those don't make a -number." - -So when I stood up before them that night, I knew some of them were -prepared to vote, automatic, against whatever we wanted. Some of them -didn't even have to hear what us ladies suggested in order to be against -it. And then I began to talk. - -I told them the story of the little fellow with the brick. That stayed -in my mind. I never see my milk-man go along, leaving big, clean -bottles in everybody's doors that I didn't image up that little boy -standing in the mud on his brick, waiting. And then I mentioned Bennie -to them too, that they all knew about. We hadn't heard from his father -in two months now, and of course there didn't any of us know.... - -"I don't need to remind you," I says to them, "how we feel about Europe. -Every one of us knows. We try not to talk about it, because there's some -of it we can't talk about without letting go. But it's on us all the -time. The other day I was trying to think how the world use' to feel, -and how I'd felt, before this came on us. I couldn't do it. There can't -any of us do it. It's on us, like thick dark, whatever we do. Giving -money don't express it. Talking don't express it.... Oh, let's do -something in this town! Instead of our new Town Hall Prosperity -celebration, let's us do something on August 4 to let Europe see how bad -we feel. Let's us." - -We talked a little more, and then I told them our plan, and we talked -over that. I'll never forget them, in the little Town Room with the two -gas jets and the chairman's squeaky swivel chair and the tobacco smoke. -But there wasn't one voice that dissented, not one. They all sat still, -as if they were taking off some spiritual hats that didn't show. It was -as if their little idea of a Prosperity celebration sort of gave up its -light to some big sun, blazing there on us, in the room. - -The rest was easy. It kind of done itself. In a way it was already done. -Something was in people's hearts, and we were just making a way for it -to get out. And the air was full of something that was ready to get into -people's hearts, and we made a way for it to get in. I don't know but -these are our only job on this earth. - - -August 4--that's the Europe date that none of America can forget, -because it's part our date too. - -"What we going to do?" says Bennie, when I was dressing him. It was four -months since we had had a letter from his father.... - -"We're going to do something," I says to him, "that you'll remember, -Bennie, when you're an old man." And I gave his shoulders a little -shake. "You tell them about it when you're old. Because they'll -understand it better then than we do now. You tell them!" - -"Yes, ma'am," says Bennie, obedient--and I kind of think he'll do it. - -We were to meet in the Court House yard, that's central, and march to -the Market Square, that's big. I was to march in the last detachment, -and so it came that I could watch them start. And I could see down -Daphne Street, with all the closed business houses with the flags hung -out at half mast, some of them with a bow of black cloth tied on. And -it was a strange gathering, for everybody was thinking, and everybody -knew everybody else was thinking. - -We've got a nice band in Friendship Village, that they often send for to -play to the City. And when it started off ahead, beating soft with the -Beethoven funeral march, I held my breath and shut my eyes. _They were -playing for Europe, four thousand miles away._ - -Then came the women. That seemed the way to do, we thought--because war -means what war means to women. They were wearing white--or at least -everybody was that had a white dress, but blue or green or brown marched -just the same as if it was white; and they all wore black -streamers--just cloth, because we none of us had very much to do with. -Every woman in town marched--not one stayed home. And one of the women -had thought of something. - -"We'd ought not to carry just our flag," she said. "That don't seem real -right. Let's us get out our dictionaries and copy off the other nations' -flags over there; and make 'em up out of cheese-cloth, and carry 'em." - -And that was what we done. And all the women carried the different ones, -just as they happened to pick them up, and at half mast. - -I don't know as I know who came next, or what order we arranged them. -We didn't have many ex-foreigners living in Friendship Village, but them -we had marched, in their own groups. They all came, dressed in their -best, and we had cheese-cloth flags of their own nation, made for each -group; and they marched carrying them, all together. - -There was everybody that worked in the town, marching for Labor. Then -come the churches, not divided off into denominations, but just walking, -hit or miss, as they came; and though this was due to a superintendent -or two getting rattled at the last minute and not falling in line right, -it seemed good to see it, for the sorrow of one church for Europe isn't -any whit different from the sorrow of every one of the rest. When your -heart aches, it aches without a creed. - -Last came the children, that I was going to march with; and someway they -were kind of the heart of the whole. And just in front of them was the -Mothers' Club--twenty or so of them, hard-worked, hopeful women, all -wanting life to be nice for their children, and trying, the best they -knew, to read up about it at their meetings. And they were marching that -day for the motherhood of the nations, and there wasn't one of them that -didn't feel it so. And the children ... when we turned the corner where -I could look back on them, I had all I could do--I had all I could do. -Three-four hundred of them, bobbing along, carrying any nation's flag -that came handy. And they meant so much more than they knew they meant, -like children always do. - -"You're going to march for the little boys and girls in Europe that have -lost their folks," was all we said to them. - -And when I see them coming along, looking round so sweet, dressed up in -what they had, and their hair combed up nice by somebody, somehow, there -came over me the picture of that little fellow with his brick, waiting -there for that pint of milk; and I squeezed up so on Bennie's hand that -I was walking with, that he looked up at me. - -"You're lovin' me too hard in my fingers," he told me, candid. - -"Oh, Bennie," I says, "you excuse me. I guess I was squeezing the hand -of every little last one of them, over there." - -We all came into the Market Square, in the afternoon sunshine, with our -little still, peaceful street--laying and listening, and never knowing -it was like heaven at all. Every soul in town was there, I don't know of -one that didn't go. Even Luke Norris was there, his wind-pipe forgot. We -didn't have much exercises. Just being there was exercise enough. We -sung--no national airs, and above all, not our own; but just a hymn or -two that had in it all we could find of sympathy and love. There wasn't -anything else to say, only just those two things. Then Dr. June prayed, -brief: - -"Lord God of Love, our hearts are full of love this day for all those -in Europe who are bereaved. We cannot speak about it very well--we -cannot show it very much. But Thou art love to them. Oh, draw us near in -spirit to those sorrowing over there, even as Thou are near to them all. -Amen." - -Then the band played the Chopin funeral march, while we all stood still. -When it was done, up in the belfry of the new Town Hall, the new bell -that we were so proud of began to toll. And it seemed like the voice of -the town, saying something. We all went home to that bell, with the -children leading us. And nobody's store was opened again that day. For -the spirit of the time, and of Over There, was on the village like a -garment, and I suppose none of us spoke of anything else at supper, or -when the lamps were lit. - - -Quite a little while after supper I was sitting on my porch in the dark, -when Luke Norris and some of them came in my gate. - -"Calliope," said one of the women, "we've been thinking. Don't it seem -awful pitiful that Europe can't know how we feel here to-day?" - -"I thought of that," I said. - -And Luke says: "Well, we've been looking up the cable charges. And we -thought we might manage it, to cable something like this: - - - "Friendship Village memorial exercises held to-day for Europe's - dead. Love and sympathy from our village." - - -"It'll cost a lot," says Luke. "The McVicars want us to add the money to -their relief fund instead. But I say _no_!" he struck the porch post -with his palm. "Leave us send it, cost or no cost, no matter what." - -"I say so too," I says. "But tell me: Where'll you send it to?" - -And Luke says simple: - -"None of the newspaper dispatch folks'll take it--it ain't news enough -for them. So I'm a-going to cable it myself, prepaid, to six Europe -newspapers." - -Pretty soon they went away, and I took Bennie and walked down to the -gate. I thought about that message, going on the wire to Europe.... -There wasn't any moon, or any sound. The town lay still, as if it was -thinking. The world lay still, as if it was feeling. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[10] Copyright, 1916, _Collier's Weekly_, as "Over There." - - - - -WHEN THE HERO CAME HOME[11] - - -Never, not if I live till after my dying day, will I forget the evening -that Jeffro got home from the War. It was one of the times when what you -thought was the earth under your feet dissolves away, and nothing is -left there but a little bit of dirt, with miles of space just on the -under side of it. It was one of the times when what you thought was the -sky over your head is drawn away like a cloth, and nothing is there but -miles of space on the upper side of it. And in between the two great -spaces are us little humans, creeping 'round, wondering what we're for. -And not doing one-ninth as much wondering as you'd think we would. - -Jeffro was the little foreign-born peddler, maker of toys, that had come -to Friendship Village and lived for a year with his little boy, scraping -enough together to send for his wife and baby in the old country. And no -sooner had he got them here than the Big War came--and nothing would do -but Jeffro must go back and fight it out with his country. And back he -went, though how he got there I dunno, for the whole village loaded him -down so with stuff that he must have been part helpless. How a man -could fight with his arms part full of raspberry jam and hard cookies -and remedies and apple butter, I'm sure I don't know. But the whole -village tugged stuff there for days beforehand. Jeffro was our one hero. -He was the only soldier Friendship Village had--except old Bud Babcock, -with his brass buttons and his limp and his perfectly everlasting, -always-coming-on and never-going-off reminiscences. And so, when Jeffro -started off, the whole town turned out to watch him go; and when I say -that Silas Sykes gave him a store-suit at cost, more no one could say -about nothing. For Silas Sykes is noted--that is, he ain't exactly -expected--that is to say,--well, to put it real delicate, Silas is as -stingy as a dog with one bone. And a store-suit at cost from him was -similar to a gold-mine from anybody else. Or more--more. - -Well, then, for six months Jeffro was swallowed up. We never heard a -word from him. His little wife went around white and thin, and we got so -we didn't ask her if she'd heard from him, because we couldn't stand -that white, hunted, et-up look on her face. So we kept still, village -delicate. And that's a special kind of delicate. - -Then, like a bow from the blue, or whatever it is they say, the mayor of -the town got the word from New York that Jeffro was coming home with his -right arm gone, honorably discharged. And about the same time a letter -from Europe, from somebody he knew that had got him the money to come -with, told how he'd been shot in a sortie and recommended by the captain -for promotion. - -"A sortie," says Mis' Postmaster Sykes, thoughtful. "What kind of a -battle is a sortie, do you s'pose?" - -"Land," says Mis' Amanda Toplady, "ain't that what they call an evening -musicale?" - -When it heard Jeffro was coming home, Friendship Village rose up like -one man. We must give him a welcome. This was part because he was a -hero, and part because Mis' Postmaster Sykes thought of it first. And -most of Friendship Village don't know what it thinks about anything till -she thinks it for them. - -"We must welcome him royal,"--were her words. "We must welcome him -royal. Ladies, let's us plan." - -So she called some of us together to her house one afternoon--Mis' -Timothy Toplady, Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, Abigail Arnold, that -keeps the Home Bakery, Mis' Photographer Sturgis, that's the village -invalid, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, that her husband's dead, but she -keeps his title because we got started calling her that and can't bear -to stop--and me. I told her I couldn't do much, being I was training two -hundred school children for a Sunday night service that week, and I was -pretty busy myself. But I went. And when we all got there, Mis' Sykes -took out a piece of paper tore from an account book, and she says, -pointing to a list on it with her front finger that wore her cameo ring: - -"Ladies! I've got this far, and it's for you to finish. Jeffro will come -in on the Through, either Friday or Saturday night. Now we'll have the -band"--that's the Friendship Village Stonehenge Band of nine -pieces--"and back of that Bud Babcock, a-carrying the flag. We'll take -the one off'n the engine house, because that stands so far back no one -will miss it. And then we'll have the Boy Scouts, and the Red Barns's -ambulance; and we'll put Jeffro in that; and the boys can march beside -of him to his home." - -"Well-a," says Mis' Timothy Toplady, "what'll you have the ambulance -for?" - -"Because we've got no other public ve-hicle," says Mis' Sykes, -commanding, "without it's the hearse. If so, name what it is." - -And nobody naming nothing, she went on: - -"Then I thought we'd have the G. A. R., and the W. R. C. from Red -Barns--they'll be glad to come over because they ain't so very much -happening for them to be patriotic about, without it's Memorial Day. And -then the D. A. R. of Friendship Village and Red Barns will come last, -each a-carrying a flag in our hands. Friday is April 18th, and we did -mean to have a Pink Tea to celebrate Paul Revere's ride. But I'm quite -sure the ladies'll all be willing to give that up and transfer their -patriotic observation over to Jeffro. And we'll all march down in a -body, and be there when the train pulls in. What say, Ladies?" - -She leaned back, with a little triumphant pucker, like she'd scraped the -world for ideas, and got them all and defied anybody to add to them. - -"Well-a," says Mis' Timothy Toplady, "and then what?" - -"Then what?" says Mis' Sykes, irritable. "Why, be there. And wave and -cheer and flop our flags. And walk along behind him to his house. And -hurrah--and sing, mebbe--oh, we _must_ sing, of course!" Mis' Sykes -cries, thinking of it for the first time, with her hands clasped. - -Mis' Toplady looked troubled. - -"Well-a," she says, "what would we sing for?" - -"Sing for!" cried Mis' Sykes, exasperated. "Because he's got home, of -course." - -"With his arm shot off. And his eyes blinded with powder. And him -half-starved. And mebbe worse. I dunno, Ladies," says Mis' Toplady, -dreamy, "but I'm terrible lacking. But I don't feel like singing over -Jeffro." - -Mis' Sykes looked at her perfectly withering. - -"Ain't you no sense of what'd due to occasions?" says she, regal. - -"Yes," says Mis' Toplady, "I have. I guess that's just what's the -matter of me. It's the occasion that ails me. I was thinking--well, -Ladies, I was wondering just how much like singing we'd feel if we'd -_seen_ Jeffro's arm shot off him." - -"But we _didn't_ see it," says Mis' Sykes, final. That's the way she -argues. - -"Mebbe I'm all wrong," says Mis' Toplady, "but, Ladies, I can't feel -like a man getting all shot up is an occasion for jollification. I can't -do it." - -Us ladies all kind of breathed deep, like a vent had been opened. - -"Nor me." "Nor me." "Nor me." Run 'round Mis' Sykes's setting-room, from -one to one. - -I wish't you could have seen Mis' Sykes. She looked like we'd declared -for cannibalism and atheism and traitorism, all rolled into one. - -"Ain't you ladies," she says, "no sense of the glories of war? Or what?" - -"Or what," says Mis' Toplady. "That's just it--glories of what. I guess -it's the _what_ part that I sense the strongest, somehow." - -Mis' Sykes laid down her paper, and crossed her hands--with the cameo -ring under, and then remembered and crossed it _over_--and she says: - -"Ladies, facts is facts. You've got to take things as they are." - -Abigail Arnold flashed in. - -"But you ain't takin' 'em nowheres," she says. "You're leavin' 'em as -they are. War is the way it's been for five thousand years--only five -thousand times worse." - -Mis' Sykes tapped her foot, and made her lips both thin and straight. - -"Yes," she says, "and it always will be. As long as the world lasts, -there'll be war." - -Then I couldn't stand it any longer. I looked her right square in the -face, and I says: - -"Mis' Sykes. Do you believe that?" - -"Certainly I believe it," she says. "Besides, there's nothing in the -Bible against war. Not a thing." - -"What about 'Thou shalt not kill'?" says I. - -She froze me--she fair froze me. - -"That," she said, "is an entirely different matter." - -"Well," says I, "if you'll excuse me for saying so, it ain't different. -But leave that go. What about 'Love thy neighbor'? What about the -brotherhood of man? What about--" - -She sighed, real patient. "Your mind works so queer sometimes, -Calliope," she says. - -"Yes, well, mebbe," I says, like I'd said to her before. "But anyhow, it -works. It don't just set and set and set, and never hatch nothing. This -whole earth has set on war since the beginning, and hatched nothing but -death. Do you think, honest, that we haven't no more invention to us -than to keep on a-bungling like this to the end of time?" - -Mis' Sykes stomped her foot. - -"Look-a-here," she says. "Do you want to arrange something to go down to -welcome Jeffro home, or don't you? If you don't, say so." - -Mis' Toplady sighed. - -"Let's us go down to meet him," she says. "Leave us do that. But don't -you expect no singing off me," says she, final. "That's all." - -So Mis' Sykes, she went ahead with her plan, and she agreed, grudging, -to omit out the singing. And the D. A. R's. put off their Paul Revere -Tea, and we sent to the City for more flags. Me, though, I didn't take a -real part. I agreed to march, and then I didn't take a real part. I'd -took on a good deal more than I'd meant to in training the children for -the Sunday night thing, and so I shirked Mis' Sykes's party all I could. -Not that I wouldn't be glad to see Jeffro. But I couldn't enthuse the -way she meant. By Friday, Mis' Sykes had everything pretty ship-shape, -and being we still didn't know which day Jeffro would come, we were all -to go down to the depot that night, on the chance; and Saturday as well. - -Friday afternoon I was working away on some stuff for the children, when -Jeffro's wife came in. The poor little thing was so nervous she didn't -know whether she was saying "yes" or "no." She'd got herself all ready, -in a new-ironed calico, and a red bow at her neck. - -"Do you think this bow looks too gay?" she says. "It seems gay, and him -so sick. But he always liked me to wear red, and it's all the red I've -got. It's only cotton ribbin, too," says she, wistful. - -She wanted to know what I was doing, and so's to keep her mind off -herself, I told her. The hundred children, from all kinds and -denominations and everythings, were to meet together in Shepherd's Grove -that Sunday night, and I'd fixed up a little exercise for them: One -bunch of them were to represent Science, and they were to carry little -models of boats and engines and dirigibles and a little wireless tower. -And one bunch was to represent Art, and they were to carry colors and -figures and big lovely cardboard designs they made in school. And one -bunch was to represent Friendship, and they were to come with garlands -and arches that connected them each with all the rest. And one was to -represent Plenty, with fruit and grain. And one Beauty, and one -Understanding--and so on. And then, in the midst of them, I was going to -have a little bit of a child walk, carrying a model of the globe in his -hands. And they were all going to come to him, one after another, and -they were going to give him what they had. And what we'd planned, with -music and singing and a trumpeter and everything, was to be all around -that. - -"I haven't the right child yet to carry the globe though," I says to -Jeffro's wife; "I can't find one little enough that's strong enough to -lug the thing." - -And then, all of a sudden, I remembered her little boy, and Jeffro's -little boy. I remembered Joseph. Awful little he was, but with sturdy -legs and arms, and the kind of a face that makes you wonder why all -little folks don't look the same way. It seems the only way for them to -look. - -"Why," I says, "look here: Why can't I borrow Joseph for Sunday night, -to carry the globe?" - -"You can," she says, "without his father won't be wanting him to leave -him, when he's just got home so. Mebbe, though," she says, "he's so sick -he won't know whether Joseph is there or not--" - -She kind of petered off, like she didn't have strength in her to finish -with. She never cried though. That was one thing I noticed about her. -She acted like crying is one of the things we ought to have -outgrown--like dressing in black for mourning, and like beating a drum -on the streets to celebrate anything, and like war. Honest, the way we -keep on using old-fashioned styles like these makes me feel sorry for -the Way-Things-Were-Meant-To-Be. - -So it was arranged that Joseph was to carry the globe. And Jeffro's wife -went home to wash out his collar so he could go at all. And I flew round -so's to be all ready by six o'clock, when we were to meet at Court -House Park and march to the depot to meet Jeffro--so be he come that -night. - -You know that nice, long, slanting, yellow afternoon light that begins -to be left over at six o'clock, in April? When we came along toward -Court House Park that night, it looked like that. There was a new fresh -green on the grass, and the birds were doing business some, and there -was a little nice spring smell in the air, that sort of said "Come on." -You know the kind of evening? - -We straggled up to the depot, not in regular marching order at all, but -just bunched, friendly. Mis' Sykes was walking at the head of her D. A. -R. detachment, and she had sewed red and blue to her white duck skirt, -and she had a red and blue flower in her hat, and her waist was just -redded and blued, from shoulder to shoulder, with badges and bows. Mis' -Sykes was awful patriotic as to colors, but I didn't blame her. She'd -worn mourning so much, her only chance to wear the becoming shades at -all was by putting on her country's colors. Honest, I don't s'pose she -thought of that, though--well, I mean--I don't s'pose she really -thought--well, let's us go ahead with what I was trying to tell. - -While we were waiting at the depot, all disposed around graceful on -trucks and trunks, the Friendship Village Stonehenge band started in -playing, just to get its hand in. And it played "The Star Spangled -Banner." And as soon as ever it started in, up hopped Silas Sykes onto -his feet, so sudden it must have snapped his neck. Mis' Amanda Toplady, -that was sitting by me on the telegraph window sill, she looked at him a -minute without moving. And then she says to me, low: - -"Whenever a man gets up so _awful_ sudden when one of his country's airs -is played, I always think," she says, "I'd just love to look into his -business life, and make perfectly sure that he ain't a-making his money -in ways that ain't patriotic to his country, nor a credit to his -citizenship--in the real sense." - -"Me, too," I says, fervent. - -And then we both got to our feet deliberate, Silas having glared at us -and all but beckoned to us with his neck. He was singing the song, -too--negligent, in his throat. And while he did so, I knew Mis' Toplady -and I were both thinking how Silas, a while ago, had done the town out -of twice the worth of the property we'd bought from him, for a Humane -Society home. And that we'd be paying him for ten years to come. I -couldn't help thinking of it. I'm thinking of it now. - -Before they were done playing the piece, the train whistled. We lined -up, or banked up, or whatever you want to call it. And there we stood -when the train slowed and stopped. And not a soul got off. - -No; Jeffro wasn't on that train. He didn't come that night at all. And -when the next night we all got down there to meet the Through again, in -the same grand style, the identical same thing happened. He didn't come -that night, either. And we trailed back from the train, with our spirits -dampened a little. Because now he couldn't come till Monday night, being -the Through only run to the city on Sundays and didn't come out to -Friendship Village at all. - -So I had that evening to put my mind on the children, and finish up what -I had to do for them. And I was glad. Because the service that I was -planning for that night grew on me. It was a Spring festival, a -religious festival--because I always think that the coming of Spring is -a religious ceremony, really--in the best sense. It's when the new birth -begins to come all over the earth at once, gentle, as if somebody was -thinking it out, a little at a time. And as if it was hoping and longing -for us to have a new life, too. - -And yet I was surprised that they'd leave me have the festival on -Sunday. We've got so used to thinking of religion--and one or two brands -of patriotism--as the only holy things there are. I didn't know but when -I mentioned having Science and Art and Friendship and Beauty and Plenty -and Understanding and Peace at my Sunday evening service, they might -think I was over-stepping some. I don't know but they did, too. Only -they indulged me a little. - -So everybody came. The churches had all agreed to unite, being -everybody's children were in the festival. And by five o'clock that -Sunday afternoon the whole of Shepherd's Grove was full of Friendship -Village folks, come from all over the town and out on the edges, and in -the country, to see the children have their vesper festival. That's what -I'd called it--a vesper festival, so it'd help them that had their -doubts. - -There weren't any seats, for it wasn't going to be long, and I had them -all stand in a pleasant green spot in the grove, on two sides of the -little grass-grown road that wound through the wood, and down which, -pretty soon, I was going to have Joseph come, carrying the globe of the -world. - -When we were ready, and the little trumpeter we'd got had stilled them -all with the notes he'd made, that were like somebody saying something -and really meaning it--the way a trumpet does--then the children began -to sing, soft and all together, from behind a thicket of green that -they'd made themselves: - - - "Don't you wish we had a place - Where only bright things are, - Like the things we dream about, - And like a star? - - "Don't you wish the world would turn - For an hour or two, - And run back the other way - And be made new? - - "Don't you wish we all could be - What we know we are, - 'Way inside, where a Voice speaks, - Far--and near--and far?" - - -And then they came out--one after another of the groups I've told you -about--Science, and Art, and Friendship, and Plenty, and the others. And -each one said what they knew how to do to the world to make that wish -come true. I don't need to tell you about that. You know. If you have -friendship or plenty or beauty in your life, you know. If only we could -get enough of them! - -Out they all came, one after another. It was very still in the wood. The -children's voices were sweet and clear. They all had somebody there that -they were near and dear to. The whole time was quiet, and close up to, -and like the way things were meant to be. And like the way things might -be. And like the way things will be--when we let them. - -Then there was a little pause. For they'd all told what might be, and -now it was time to signal Joseph to come running up the road, carrying -the globe in its orbit, and speaking for the World, and asking all these -lovely things to come and take possession of it, and own it, and be it. -But, just as I got ready to motion to him, I had to wait, for down the -grassy road through Shepherd's Grove, where there wasn't much travel, -was coming an automobile, though one doesn't pass that way from the -city once in ten years. - -We all drew back to let it pass among us. And, in that little pause, we -looked, curious, to see who was in it. And then a whisper, and then a -cry, came from the nearest, and from them back, and then from them all -at once. For, propped up on the seat, was Jeffro. He'd come to the city -on the Through, that doesn't come to Friendship Village Sundays, and -they'd brought him home this way. - -I dunno how I thought of it--don't it seem as if something in you works -along alone, if only you'll keep your thinking still? It did that now. -Almost before I knew I was going to do it, I signed to the man to stop, -and I stepped right up beside the car where Jeffro sat, looking like a -ghost of a man. And I says: - -"Mr. Jeffro! Mr. Jeffro! Are you too sick to leave us welcome you home?" - -He smiled then, and put out his hand--the one hand that he'd come back -with. And from somewhere in the crowd, Jeffro's wife got to the car, and -got the door open, and leaned there beside him. And we all waited a -minute--but one minute was the very best we could do. Then everybody -came pressing up round the car to shake his hand. And I slipped back to -the bugler we had, and I says: - -"Blow! Blow the loudest you ever blew in your life. _Blow!_" - -He blew a blast, silver clear, golden clear, sunlight clear. And I sent -him through the crowd, blowing, and making a path right up to the -automobile. Then I signed to the children, and I had them come down that -open aisle. And they came singing, all together, the song they had sung -behind the thicket. And they pressed close around the car, singing -still: - - - "Don't you wish we had a place - Where only bright things are, - Like the things we dream about, - And like a star?" - - -And there they came to meet him--Art and Science and Plenty and Beauty -and Friendship--Friendship. I don't know whether he understood what they -said. I don't know whether he understood the meaning of what they -carried--for Jeffro wasn't quite sure of our language all the time. But, -oh, he couldn't misunderstand the spirit of that time or of those folks. - -He got to his feet, Jeffro did, his face kind of still and solemn. And -just then Mis' Silas Sykes, in a black dress, without a scrap of red or -blue about her, stepped up to him, her face fair grief-struck. And she -says: - -"Oh, Mr. Jeffro. The D. A. R., and the G. A. R., and the W. R. C. was to -welcome you back from the glories of war. And here you've took us -unbeknownst." - -He looked round at us--and this is what I'll never forget--not if I -live till my dying day: - -"The glories of war!" he says over. "The glories of war! You do not know -what you say! I tell you that I have seen mad dogs, mad beasts of -prey--but I do not know what it is they do. The glories of war! Oh, my -God, does nobody know that we are all mad together?" - -Jeffro's wife tried to quiet him, but he shook her off. - -"Listen," he said. "I have gone to war and lived through hell to learn -one thing. I gif it to you: _Life is something else than what we think -it is._ That is true. _Life is something else than what we think it is._ -When we find it out, we shall stop this devil's madness." - -Just then a little cry came from somewhere over back in the road. - -"My papa! It _is_ my papa!" it said. And there came running Joseph, that -had heard his father's voice, and that we had forgot' all about. We let -him through the crowd, and he climbed up in the car, and his father took -him in his one arm. And there they sat, with the globe that Joseph -carried, the world that he carried, in beside them. - -We all began moving back to the village, before much of anybody knew -it--the automobile with Jeffro in it, and Jeffro's wife, and Jeffro's -little boy. And with the car went, not soldiers, not flags, not the -singing of any one nation's airs--but the children, with those symbols -of the life that is living and building life--as fast as we'll let it -build. Jeffro didn't know what they were, I guess--though he knew the -love and the kindliness and the peace of the time. But I knew, and more -of us knew, that in that hour lay all the promise of the new day, when -we understand what we are: Gods, fallen into a pit. - -We went up the street with the children singing: - - - "Don't you wish we all could be - What we know we are, - 'Way inside, where a Voice speaks, - Far--and near--and far?" - - -When we got to Jeffro's gate, Mis' Sykes came past me. - -"Ain't it sad?" she says. "Not a soldier, nor a patriotic song, nor a -flag to meet our hero?" - -I looked at her, kind. I felt kind to all the world, because somehow I -felt so sure, so certain sure, of things. - -"Don't you worry, Mis' Sykes," I says. "I kind of feel as if more was -here to meet Jeffro than we've any notion of." - -For it was one of the times when what you thought was the earth under -your feet dissolves away, and nothing is left there but a little bit of -dirt, with miles of space just on the under side of it. It was one of -the times when what you thought was the sky over your head is drawn -away like a cloth, and nothing is there but miles of space high on the -upper side of it. And in between these two great spaces are us little -humans, kind of creeping round--wondering what we're for. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[11] Copyright, 1915, _The Woman's Home Companion_. - - - - -"FOLKS"[12] - - -I dunno whether you like to go to a big meeting or not? Some folks seem -to dread them. Well, I love them. Folks never seem to be so much folks -as when I'm with them, thousands at a time. - -Well, once annually I go to what's a big meeting for us, on the occasion -of the Friendship Village Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement -Sodality's yearly meeting.... I always hope folks won't let that name of -us bother them. We don't confine our attention to Cemetery any more. But -that's been the name of us for twenty-four years, and we got started -calling it that and we can't bear to stop. You know how it is--be it -institutions or constitutions or ideas or a way to mix the bread, one of -our deformities is that we hate to change. - -"Seems to me," says Mis' Postmaster Sykes once, "if we should give up -that name, we shouldn't be loyal nor decent nor loving to the dead." - -"Shucks," says I, "how about being loyal and decent and loving to the -living?" - -"Your mind works so queer sometimes, Calliope," says Mis' Sykes, -patient. - -"Yes--well," I says, "mebbe. But anyhow, it works. It don't just set -and set and set, and never hatch nothing." - -So we continued to take down bill-boards and put in shrubbery and chase -flies and dream beautiful, far-off dreams of sometime getting in -sewerage, all under the same undying name. - -Well, at our annual meeting that night, we were discussing what should -be our work the next year. And suggestions came in real sluggish, being -the thermometer had been trying all day to climb over the top of its -hook. - -Suggestions run about like this: - - - _1. See about having seats put in the County House Yard._ - - _2. See about getting the blankets in the Calaboose washed - oftener._ - - _3. Get trash baskets for the streets._ - - _4. Plant vines over the telegraph poles._ - - _5. See about Main Street billboards--again._ - - _6. See about the laundry soft coal smoke--again._ - - _7. See about window boxes for the library--again._ - - -And these things were partitioned out to committees one by one, some to -strike dry, shallow sand, some to get planted on the bare rock, and some -to hit black dirt and a sunny spot with a watering can, or even a -garden hose handy. You know them different sorts of soil under -committees? - -Then up got Mis' Timothy Toplady--that dear, abundant woman. And we kind -of rustled expectant, because Mis' Toplady is one of the women that -looks across the edges of what's happening at the minute, and senses -what's way over there beyond. She's one of the women that never shells -peas without seeing beyond the rim of her pan. - -And that night she says to Sodality: - -"Ladies, I hear that up to the City next week there's going to be some -kind of a woman's convention." - -Nobody said anything. Railroad wrecks, volcanoes, diamonds, conventions -and such never seemed real _real_ to us in the village. - -"It seems to be some kind of a once-in-two-years affair," Mis' Toplady -went on, "and I read in the paper how it had a million members, and how -they came 10,000 to a time to their meetings. Well, now," she ends up, -serene, "I've rose to propose that, bein' it's so near, Sodality send a -delegate up there next week to get us some points." - -"What points do we need, I should like to know," says Mis' Postmaster -Sykes, majestic. "Ain't we abreast of whatever there is to be abreast -of?" - -"That's what I dunno," says Mis' Toplady. "Leave us find out." - -"Well," says Mis' Sykes, "my part, expositions and conventions are -horrible to me. _I'm_ no club woman, anyhow," says she, righteous. - -All the keeping still I ever done in my life when I'd ought to wouldn't -put nobody to sleep. I spoke right up. - -"Ain't our Sodality a club, Mis' Sykes?" I says. - -"Oh, our little private club here," says Mis' Sykes, "is one -thing--carried on quiet and womanly among ourselves. But a great big -public convention is no place for a woman that respects her home." - -"Why," I says, "Mis' Sykes, that was the way we were arguing when clubs -began. It took quite a while to outgrow it. But ain't we past all that -by now?" - -"Women's homes," she says, "and women's little home clubs are enough to -occupy any woman. A convention is men's business." - -"It is if it is," says I, "but think how often it is that it ain't." - -Mis' Toplady kept on, thoughtful. - -"Anyway, I been thinking," she says, "why don't we leave the _men_ join -Sodality?" - -I dunno if you've ever suggested a revolution? Whether I'm in favor of -any particular revolution or not, it always makes a nice, healthy -minute. And it's such an elegant measuring rod for the brains of folks. - -"Why, how can we?" says Mis' Sykes. "We're the Married _Ladies'_ -Cemetery Improvement Sodality." - -"Is that name," says Mis' Toplady, mild, "made up out o' cast-iron, Mis' -Sykes?" - -"But our constitution says we shall consist of fifty married ladies," -says Mis' Sykes, final. - -"Did we make that constitution," says I, "or did it make us? Are we -a-idol-worshiping our constitution or are we a-growing inside it, and -bursting out occasional?" - -"If you lived in back a ways, Calliope,"--Mis' Sykes begun. - -"Well," says I, "I might as well, if you're going to use _any_ rule or -any law for a ball and chain for the leg instead of a stepping-stone for -the feet." - -Mis' Fire Chief Merriman looked up from her buttonholing. - -"But we don't _want_ to do men's work, do we?" says she, distasteful. -"Leave them do their club work and leave us do our club work, like the -Lord meant." - -"Well--us women tended Cemetery quite a while," says I, "and the death -rate wasn't confined to women, exclusive. Graves," says I, "is both -genders, Mis' Fire Chief." - -Mis' State Senator Pettigrew, she chimed in. - -"So was the park. So was paving Main Street. So was getting pure milk. -So was cleaning up the slaughter house--parse them and they're both -genders, all of them. Of course let's us take men into the Sodality," -says she. - -Mis' Sykes put her hand over her eyes. - -"My g-g-grandmother organized and named Sodality," she said. "I can't -bear to see a change." - -"Cheer up, Mis' Sykes," I says, "you'll be a grandmother yourself some -day. Can't you do a little something to let _your_ grandchildren point -back to? Awful selfish," I says, "not to give them something to brag -about." - -We didn't press the men proposition any more. We see it was too -delicate. But bye and bye we talked it out, that we'd have a big meeting -of everybody, men and women, and discuss over what the town needed, and -what the Sodality ought to undertake. - -"That'll be real democratic," says Mis' Sykes, contented. "We'll give -everybody a chance to express their opinion--and then afterwards we can -take up just what we please." - -And we decided that was another reason for sending a delegate to the -woman's convention, to get ahold of somebody, somehow, to come down to -Friendship Village and talk to us. - -"Be kind of nice to show off to somebody, too," says Mis' Fire Chief -Merriman, complacent, "what a nice, neat, up-to-date little town we've -got." - -"Without the help of no great big clumsy convention either," Mis' Sykes -stuck in. - -Then the first thing I heard was Mis' Amanda Toplady up onto her feet -nominating me to go for a delegate to that convention, fare paid out of -the Cemetery Improvement Treasury. - -Guess what the first thought was that came to my head? Oh, ain't it like -women had been wrapped up in something that we're just beginning to peek -out of? Guess what I thought. Yes, that was it. When I spoke out my -first thought, I says: - -"Oh, _ladies_, I can't go. I ain't got a rag fit to wear." - -It took quite a while to persuade me. All the party dress I had was out -of the spare-room curtains, and I didn't have a wrap at all--I'm just -one of them jacket women. And finally I says to them: "You look here. -Suppose I write a note to the president of the whole thing, and tell her -just what clothes I have got, and ask her if anybody'd best go, looking -like me." - -And that was what I did do. I kept a copy of the letter I wrote her. I -says: - - - "_Dear President_: - - "Us ladies have heard about the meeting set for next week, and we - thought we'd send somebody up from our Friendship Village Married - Ladies Cemetery Improvement Sodality. And we thought we'd send me. - But I wouldn't want to come and have everybody ashamed of me. I've - only got my two years suit, and a couple of waists and one thin - dress--and they're all just every day--or not so much so. I'm - asking you, like I feel I can ask a woman, president or not. Would - you come at all, like that, if you was me. - - "Respectfully, - "CALLIOPE MARSH." - - -I kept her answer too, and this is what she said: - - - "_Dear Miss Marsh_: - - "Just as I have told my other friends, let me tell you: By all - means we want you to come. Do not disappoint us. But I believe that - your club is not entitled to a delegate. So I am sending you this - card. Will you attend the meeting, and the reception as my guest?" - - -And then her name. Sometimes, when I get discouraged about us, I take -out that letter, and read it through. - -I remember when the train left that morning, how I looked back on the -village, sitting there in its big arm chair of hills, with green -cushions of woods dropped around, and wreaths of smoke curling up from -contented chimneys. And over on the South slope our big new brick county -house, with thick lips and lots of arched eye-brows, the house that us -ladies was getting seats to put in the yard of. - -"Say what who will," thinks I, "I love that little town. And I guess -it's just about as good as any of us could expect." - -I got to the City just before the Convention's evening meeting. I -brushed my hair up, and put on my cameo pin, and hurried right over to -the hall. And when I showed them my card, where do you guess they took -me? Up to one of the rows on the stage. Me, that had never faced an -audience except with my back to them--as organist in our church. (That -sounds so grand that I'd ought to explain that I can't play anything -except what's wrote natural. So I'm just organist to morning service, -when I can pick out my own hymns, and not for prayer meeting when -anybody is likely to pipe up and give out a song just black with sharps -and flats.) There were a hundred or more on the stage, and there were -flowers and palms and lights and colors. I sat there looking at the -pattern of the boards of the stage, and just about half sensing what was -going on at first. Then I got my eyes up a little ways to some pots of -blue hydrangeas on the edge of the stage. I had a blue hydrangea in my -yard home, so they kind of gave me courage. Then my eye slipped over the -foot-lights, to the first rows, to the back rows, to the boxes, to the -galleries--over the length and breadth of that world of folks--thousands -of them--as many as five times them in my whole village. And they were -gathered in a room the size and the shape and--almost the height of a -village green. - -The woman that was going to talk that night I'd never even heard of. She -was a woman that you wouldn't think of just as a woman or a wife or a -mother or a teacher same as some. No, you thought of her first of all -as folks. And she had eyes like the living room, with all the curtains -up. She'd been talking a little bit before I could get my mind off the -folks and on to her. But all of a sudden something she was saying rang -out just like she had turned and said it to me. I cut it out of the -paper afterwards--this is it, word for word: - -"_You who believe yourselves to be interested in social work, ask -yourselves what it is that you are interested in really. I will tell -you. Well, whether you know it or not, fundamentally what you care about -is_ PEOPLE. _Let us say it in a better way. It is_ FOLKS." - -I never took my eyes off her face after that. For "folks" is a word I -know. Better than any other word in the language, I know that word -"folks." - -She said: "Well, let us see what, in clubs, our social work has been: At -first, Clean-up days, Planting, Children's Gardens, School Gardens, Bill -Boards, the Smoke Nuisance. That is fine, all of it. These are what we -must do to make our towns fit to live in. - -"Then more and more came the need to get nearer to folks--and yet -nearer. And then what did we have? Fly campaigns, Garbage Disposal, Milk -and Food Inspection, Playgrounds, Vocational Guidance, Civic and Moral -training in the schools, Sex Hygiene, Municipal Recreation, Housing. All -this has brought us closer and closer to folks--not only to their needs -but to what they have to give. That is fine--all of it. That is what we -have to do. - -"But who is it that has been doing it? Those of us to whom life has been -a little kind. Those of us on whom the anguish and the toil of life do -not fall the most heavily. We are free to do these things. Clean, -cleanly clothed, having won--or been given--a little leisure, we are -free to meet together and to turn our thought to the appearance of our -cities--and to the other things. That is a great step. We have come very -far, my friends. - -"But is it far enough? - -"Here in this hall with us to-night there are others besides ourselves. -Each of us from near towns and far cities comes shepherding a cloud of -witnesses. Who are these? Say those others, clean and leisured, who live -in your town, and yours. Say the school children, that vast, ambiguous -host, from your town and yours and yours. Say the laboring -children--five hundred thousand of them in the states which you in this -room represent--my friends, the _laboring children_. Say, the seven -million and more women workers in your states and mine. Say the -men,--the wage earners,--toilers with the hands, multitudes, multitudes, -who on the earth and beneath it, in your town and yours and yours, are -at labor now, that we may be here--clean and at leisure. I tell you they -are all here, sitting with us, shadowy. And the immediate concerns of -these are the immediate concerns of us. And social work is the -development of the chance for all of us to participate more abundantly -in our common need to live. - -"As fast as in you lies, let your civic societies look farther than -conserving or planting or beautifying, or even cleaning. Give these -things to committees--important committees. And turn you to the -fundamentals. Turn to the industries and to the government and to the -schools of your towns and there work, for there lie the hidings of your -power. Here are the great tasks of the time: The securing of economic -justice for labor, the liberation of women, and the great deliverances: -From war, from race prejudice, from prostitution, from alcohol, and at -last from poverty. - -"These are the things _we_ have to do. Not they. We. You and I. These -are your tasks and mine and the tasks of those who have not our -cleanliness nor our leisure, but who will help as fast as ever we learn -how to share that help--as fast as ever we all learn how to work as -one.... Oh, my friends, we must dream far. We must dream the farthest -that folks can go. For life is something other than that which we -believe it to be." - -When she'd got through, right in the middle of the power and the glory -that came in my head, something else flew up and it was: - -1. See about having seats put in the County House Yard. - -2. See about getting the blankets in the Calaboose washed oftener. - -3. See about--and all the rest of them. - -And instead, _this_ was what we were for, till all of us have earned the -right to something better. This was what we could help to do. It was -like the sky had turned into a skylight, and let me look up through.... - -My seat was on the side corner of the platform, nearest to her. She had -spoken last, and everybody was rustling to go. I didn't wait a minute. I -went down close beside the footlights and the blue hydrangeas, and held -out my letter. And I says: - -"Oh! Come to Friendship Village. You must come. We were going to get the -blankets in the calaboose washed oftener--and--we--oh, you come, and -make us see that life is the kind of thing you say it is, and show us -that we belong!" - -She took the letter that Mis' Fire Chief Merriman had composed for me, -and right while forty folks were waiting for her, she stood and read it. -She had a wonderful kind of tender smile, and she smiled with that. And -then all she says to me was all I wanted: - -"I'll come. When do you want me?" - -Never, not if I live till after my dying day, will I forget the day that -I got back to Friendship Village. When it came in sight through the car -window, I saw it--not sitting down on its green cushions now, but -standing tip-toe on its heaven-kissing hills--waiting to see what we -could do to it. When you come home from a big convention like that, if -you don't step your foot on your own depot platform with a new sense of -consecration to your town, and to all living things, then you didn't -deserve your badge, nor your seat, nor your privilege. And as I rode -into the town, thinking this, and thinking more than I had words to -think with, I wanted to chant a chant, like Deborah (but pronounced -Déborah when it's a relative). And I wanted to say: - -"Oh, Lord. Here we live in a town five thousand strong, and we been -acting like we were five thousand weak--and we never knew it. - -"And because we had learned to sweep up a few feet beyond our own -door-yard, and had found out the names of a few things we had never -heard of before, we thought we were civic. We even thought we were -social. - -"Civic. Social. We thought these were new names for new things. And here -they are only bringing in the kingdom of God, that we've known about all -along. - -"Oh, it isn't going to be brought in by women working along alone. Nor -by men working along alone. It's going to come in by whole towns rising -up together men and women, shoulder to shoulder, and nobody left out, -organized and conscious and working like one folk. Like one folk." - -Mis' Amanda Toplady and Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss were at the -depot to meet me. I remember how they looked, coming down the platform, -with an orange and lemon and water-melon sunset idling down the sky. - -And then Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss says to me, with her eye-brows -all pleased and happy: - -"Oh, Calliope, we've got the new seats for the County House Yard. -They're iron, painted green, with a leaf design on the back." - -"And," chimes in the other one, "we've got them to say they'll wash the -blankets in the calaboose every quarter." - -I wanted to begin right then. But I didn't. I just walked down the -street with them, a-carrying my bag and my umbrella, and when one of -them says, "Well, I'm sure your dress don't look so very much wore after -all, Calliope," I answered back, casual enough, just as if I was -thinking about what she said: "Well, I give you my word, I haven't once -thought about myself in con-nection with that dress." - -Together we went down Daphne Street in the afternoon sun. And they -didn't know, nor Friendship Village didn't know, that walking right -along with us three was the tramp and the tramp of the feet of a great -convention that had come home with me, right there to our village. Oh, I -mean the tramp and the tramp of the feet of the folks in the whole -world. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[12] Copyright, 1914, _La Follette's Magazine_. - - -THE END - - -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Peace in Friendship Village, by Zona Gale - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE *** - -***** This file should be named 52410-8.txt or 52410-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/4/1/52410/ - -Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Peace in Friendship Village - -Author: Zona Gale - -Release Date: June 25, 2016 [EBook #52410] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE *** - - - - -Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="center"><a name="cover.jpg" id="cover.jpg"></a><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">PEACE<br />IN FRIENDSHIP<br />VILLAGE</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo" /></div> - -<p class="center">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> -NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS<br /> -ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO<br /><br /> -MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br /> -LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA<br />MELBOURNE<br /> -<br /> -THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br />TORONTO</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> - -<h1>PEACE<br />IN FRIENDSHIP<br />VILLAGE</h1> - -<p class="bold space-above">BY<br /> -ZONA GALE<br /> -AUTHOR OF "FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE," "FRIENDSHIP<br /> -VILLAGE LOVE STORIES," ETC.</p> - -<p class="bold space-above">NEW YORK<br /> -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> -1919<br /> -<br /> -<i>All rights reserved</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1919<br /> -<span class="smcap">By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> -——<br />Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1919.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="box"> -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p><p>"Whatever comes of it after this [in Russia] every one in the world -should be plainly told of what took place in those first weeks. For it -was a dazzling revelation of the deep, deep powers for brotherhood and -friendliness that lie buried in mankind. I was no dreamer; I was a -chemist, a scientist, used to dealing with facts. All my life I had -smiled at social dreams as nothing but Utopias. But in those days I was -wholly changed, for I could feel beneath my feet this brotherhood like -solid ground. There is no end to what men can do—for there is no limit -to their good will, if only they can be shown the way."</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Tarasov</span>, in Ernest Poole's "The Village."</p> - -<p>"I am the way ..."</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Jesus Christ.</span></p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>NOTE</h2> - -<p>These stories are told in the words of Calliope Marsh. Wherever I have -myself intruded a word, it is with apology to her. I chronicle her -stories as faithfully as I am able, faults and all, and, through her, -the affairs of the village, reflecting in its small pool the people and -the stars.</p> - -<p>And always I hear most clearly as her conclusion:</p> - -<p>"Life is something other than that which we believe it to be."</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Zona Gale.</span></p> - -<p>Portage, Wisconsin, 1919.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="CONTENTS"> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="left"><span class="smaller">CHAPTER</span></td> - <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>I</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Feast of Nations</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>II</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Peace in Friendship Village</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>III</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Story of Jeffro</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>IV</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">When Nick Nordman Came Back Home</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>V</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Being Good to Letty</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>VI</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Something Plus</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>VII</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Art and Loan Dress Exhibit</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>VIII</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Rose Pink</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>IX</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Peace</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>X</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Dream</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XI</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Brother-Man</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XII</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Cable</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XIII</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">When the Hero Came Home</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>XIV</td> - <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Folks</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP<br />VILLAGE</p> - -<h2>THE FEAST OF NATIONS<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> - -<p>Three-four of us older ones were down winding up Red Cross, and -eight-ten of our daughters were helping; not my daughter—I ain't -connect'—but Friendship Village daughters in general. Or I don't know -but it was us older ones that were helping them. Anyway, Red Cross was -being wound up from being active, and the rooms were going to be rented -to a sewing-machine man. And that night we were to have our final -entertainment in the Friendship Village Opera House, and we were all -going to be in it.</p> - -<p>There was a sound from the stairs like something walking with six feet, -and little Achilles Poulaki came in. He always stumbled even when there -was nothing in sight but the floor—he was that age. He was the Sykeses' -grocery delivery boy, that Mis' Sykes thinks is her social secretary as -well, and he'd been errand boy for us all day.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p><p>"Anything else, Mis' Sykes?" he says.</p> - -<p>"I wonder," says Mis' Sykes, "if Killy can't take that basket of cotton -pieces down to old Mis' Herman, for her woolen rugs?"</p> - -<p>We all thought he could, and some of the girls went to work to find the -basket for him.</p> - -<p>"Killy," I says, "I hear you can speak a nice Greek piece."</p> - -<p>He didn't say anything. He hardly ever did say anything.</p> - -<p>"Can you?" I pressed him, because somebody had been telling me that he -could speak a piece his Greek grandfather had taught him.</p> - -<p>"Yes'm," he says.</p> - -<p>"Will you?" I took it further.</p> - -<p>"No'm," he says, in exactly the same tone.</p> - -<p>"You ought to speak it for me," I said. "I'm going to be Greece in the -show to-night."</p> - -<p>But they brought the basket then, and he went off with it. He was a -little thin-legged chap—such awful thin legs he had, and a pale neck, -and cropped hair, and high eyebrows and big, chapped hands.</p> - -<p>"Don't you drop it, now!" says Mis' Sykes, that always uses a club when -a sliver would do it.</p> - -<p>Achilles straightened up his thin little shoulders and threw out his -thin little chest, and says he:</p> - -<p>"My grandfather was in the gover'ment."</p> - -<p>"Go <i>on</i>!" says Mis' Sykes. "In Greece?"</p> - -<p>"Sure," he says—which wasn't Greek talk,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> though I bet Greek boys have -got something like it.</p> - -<p>Then Achilles was scared to think he'd spoke, and he run off, still -stumbling. His father had been killed in a strike in the Friendship -mills, and his mother was sick and tried to sew some; and she hadn't -nothing left that wasn't married, only Achilles.</p> - -<p>The work went on among us as before, only I always waste a lot of time -watching the girls work. I love to see girls working together—they seem -to touch at things with the tips of their fingers. They remind me of -butterflies washing out their own wings. And yet what a lot they could -get done, and how capable they got to be. Ina Clare and Irene Ayres and -Ruth Holcomb and some more—they were packing up and making a regular -lark of it. Seemed like they were so big and strong and young they could -do 'most anything. Seemed like it was a shame to close down Red Cross -and send them back to their separate church choirs and such, to operate -in, exclusive.</p> - -<p>That was what I was thinking when Mis' Silas Sykes broke in—her that's -the leading woman of the Friendship Village caste of folks.</p> - -<p>"I don't know," says Mis' Sykes, "I don't know but pride is wicked. But -I can<i>not</i> help feeling pride that I've lived in Friendship Village for -three generations of us, unbroken. And for three generations back of -that we were American, on American soil,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> under the American flag—as -soon as ever it got here."</p> - -<p>"<i>Was</i> you?" I says. "Well, a strain of me is English, and a touch of me -way back was Scotch-Irish; and I've got a little Welsh. And I'd like to -find some Indian, but I haven't ever done it. And I'm proud of all them, -Mis' Sykes."</p> - -<p>Mis' Hubbelthwait spoke up—her that's never been able to get a plate -really to fit her, and when she talks it bothers out loud.</p> - -<p>"I got some of nearly all the Allies in me," she says, complacent.</p> - -<p>"<i>What?</i>" says Mis' Sykes.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," says Mis' Hubbelthwait. "I was counting up, and there ain't -hardly any of 'em I ain't."</p> - -<p>"Japanese?" says Mis' Sykes, withering. "How interesting, Mis' -Hubbelthwait," says she.</p> - -<p>"Oh, I mean Europe," says Mis' Hubbelthwait, cross. "Of course you can't -descend from different continents. There's English—I've got that. And -French—I've got that. And I-talian is in me—I know that by my eyes. -And folks that come from County Galway has Spanish—"</p> - -<p>"Spain ain't ally," says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, majestic. "It's -neuter."</p> - -<p>"Well, there's that much more credit—to be allies <i>and</i> neuter," says -Mis' Hubbelthwait triumphant.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p><p>"Well, sir," says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. "I ain't got -anything in me but sheer American—you can't beat that."</p> - -<p>"How'd you manage that, Mame?" I ask her. "Kind of a trick, wasn't it?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know what you mean," she says. And went right on over my head, -like she does. "Ain't it nice, ladies," she says, "to be living in the -very tip-top nation of this world?"</p> - -<p>"Except of course England," says Mis' Jimmy Sturgis.</p> - -<p>"Why except England?" snaps Mame Holcomb.</p> - -<p>"Oh well, we all know England's the grandest nation," says Mis' Sturgis. -"Don't the sun never set on her possessions? Don't she rule the wave? -Ain't she got the largest city? And all like that?"</p> - -<p>Mame looked mad.</p> - -<p>"Well, I'm sure I don't know," she says. "But from the time I studied -g'ography I always understood that no nation could touch us Americans."</p> - -<p>"Why," says Mis' Sturgis, "I <i>love</i> America best. But I never had any -doubts that England that my folks came from was the most important -country."</p> - -<p>Mis' Holcomb made her mouth both tight and firm.</p> - -<p>"Their gover'ment beats ours, I s'pose?" she says. "You know very well -you can't beat our gover'ment."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p><p>Berta, Mis' Sykes's little Switzerland maid, spoke up.</p> - -<p>"Oh," she says, "I guess Sweetzerland has got the nicest gover'ment. -Everybody speaks so nice of that."</p> - -<p>Mame looked over at me, behind Berta. But of course we wouldn't say a -word to hurt the poor little thing's feelings.</p> - -<p>Up spoke that new Mis' Antonio, whose husband has the fluff rug store.</p> - -<p>"Of course," she says, "nothing has Rome but Italy."</p> - -<p>We kep' still for a minute. Nobody could contradict that.</p> - -<p>"I feel bad," said Mis' Antonio, "for the new countries—America, -England—that have not so much old history in them. And no old -sceneries."</p> - -<p>Berta spoke up again. "Yes, but then who's got part of the Alps?" she -wanted to know, kind of self-conscious.</p> - -<p>Mame Holcomb looked around, sort of puzzled.</p> - -<p>"Rome used to be nice," she admitted, "and of course the Alps is high. -But everybody knows they can't hold a candle to the United States, all -in all."</p> - -<p>After that we worked on without saying anything. It seemed like pretty -near everything had been said.</p> - -<p>Pretty soon the girls had their part all done. And they stood up, -looking like rainbows in their pretty furs and flowers.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p><p>"Miss Calliope," Ina Clare said to me, "come on with us to get some -things for to-night."</p> - -<p>"Go with you and get out of doing any more work?" says I, joyful. "Well, -won't I!"</p> - -<p>"But we are working," cried Ruth. "We've got oceans of things to -collect."</p> - -<p>"Well," says I, "come along. Sometimes I can't tell work from play and -this is one of the times."</p> - -<p>I thought that more than once while I went round with them in Ruth's big -car late that afternoon. How do you tell work from play when both are -the right kind? How do we know that some day play won't be only just the -happiest kind of work, done joyful and together?</p> - -<p>"I guess you're going to miss this kind of work when Red Cross stops," I -said to them.</p> - -<p>Ruth is tall and powerful and sure, and she drives as if it was only one -of the things she knows about.</p> - -<p>"Miss it?" she said. "We'll be <i>lost</i>—simply. What we're going to do I -don't know."</p> - -<p>"We've been some use in the world," said Clare, "and now we've got to go -back to being nothing but happy."</p> - -<p>"We'll have to play bridge five nights a week to keep from being bored -to tears," says Irene—that is pretty but she thinks with her scalp and -no more.</p> - -<p>Ruth, that's the prettiest of them all, she shook her head.</p> - -<p>"We can't go back to that," she said. "At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> least, I <i>won't</i> go back to -that. But what I'm going on to do I don't know."</p> - -<p>What were they going on to do? That was what I kept wondering all the -while we gathered up the finishing touches of what we wanted for the -stage that night.</p> - -<p>"Now the Greek flag," said Ruth finally. "Mis' Sykes said we could get -that at Mis' Poulaki's."</p> - -<p>That was Achilles' mother, and none of us had ever met her. We went in, -real interested. And there in the middle of the floor sat Mis' Poulaki -looking over the basket of cotton rags that the Red Cross had sent down -by Achilles to old Mis' Herman.</p> - -<p>"Oh," says little Mis' Poulaki, "you sent me such grand clothes for my -rags. Thank you—thank you!"</p> - -<p>She had tears in her eyes, and there wasn't one of us would tell her -Achilles had just plain stole them for her.</p> - -<p>"It is everything," she said to us in her broken talk. "Achilles, he had -each week two dollar from Mr. Sykes. But it is not enough. I have hard -time. Hard."</p> - -<p>Over the lamp shelf I saw, just then, the picture of a big, handsome -man; and out of being kind of embarrassed, I asked who he was.</p> - -<p>"Oh," says Mis' Poulaki, "he's Achilles' grandfather—the father of my -boy's father. He was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> officer of the Greek gover'ment," she added, -proud. "He taught my boy a piece to speak—something all the Greek boys -learn."</p> - -<p>I told her I'd heard about that piece; and then we asked for the Greek -flag, and Mis' Poulaki got it for us, but she said:</p> - -<p>"Would you leave Achilles carry it for you? He like that."</p> - -<p>We said "yes," and got out as soon as possible—it seemed so sad, love -of a country and stealing all mixed up promiscuous in one little boy.</p> - -<p>Out by the car there was a whole band of little folks hanging round -examining it. They were all going to be in the drill at the -entertainment that night, and they all came running to Ruth that had -trained them.</p> - -<p>"Listen," she said to us, and then she held up her hand to them. "All -say 'God bless you' in your own language."</p> - -<p>They shouted it—a Bedlam, a Babylon. It seems there were about fourteen -different nations of them, more or less, living around down there—it -wasn't a neighborhood we'd known much about. They were cute little bits, -all of them; and I felt better about taking part in the performance, at -my age, for the children were so cute nobody would need to look at us.</p> - -<p>Just as we got in the car, Achilles Poulaki came running home to his -supper—one of the kind of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> suppers, I suppose, that would be all right, -what there was of it; and enough of it, such as it was. When he see us, -his eyes got wide and dark and scared—it was terrible to see that look -in that little boy's face, that had stole to help his mother. We told -him about the Greek flag, and his face lit, and he said he'd bring it. -But he stood there staring at us, when we drove away.</p> - -<p>His look was haunting me still when I went into the Friendship Village -Opera House that night for the Red Cross final entertainment. "The Feast -of Nations," it was going to be, and us ladies had worked at it hard and -long, and using recipes we were not accustomed to using.</p> - -<p>There's many different kinds of excitement in this vale of tears, but -for the sheer, top-notch variety give me the last few minutes before the -curtain goes up on a home-talent entertainment in a little town. All the -different kinds of anxiety, apprehension and amateur agony are there -together, and gasping for utterance.</p> - -<p>For instance, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman was booked to represent a -Jugo-Slav. None of us ladies knew how it ought to be done, so we had -fixed up kind of a neutral costume of red, white and blue that couldn't -be so very far out of the way. But the last minute Mis' Merriman got -nervous for fear there'd be a Jugo-Slav in the audience, and she balked -out on going on, and it took all we could do to persuade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> her. And then -the Balkans got nervous—we weren't any of us real clear about the -Balkans. And we didn't know whether the Dolomites was states or -mountains, so we left them out altogether. But we'd been bound the -little nations were going to be represented whether anybody else was or -not—and there we were, nations of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the -Americas and the provinces, and somebody for every one of them. And for -a curtain we'd sewed all the flags of every nation together because we -were so sick and tired of the advertisements and the pink lady on the -old Opera House curtain.</p> - -<p>It's no part of my purpose, as the orators say, to tell about the -Friendship Village "Feast of Nations" entire. It would take sheets. To -mention the mere mistakes and misadventures of that evening would be -Arabian Nights long. Us ladies were the nations, and the young girls -were the spirits—Liberty, Democracy, To-morrow, Humanity, Raw -Materials, Trade Routes, the High Seas, Disputed Territory, Commerce, -Peace, and like that. There ought to have been one more, and she did -come all dressed up and ready, in white with gold and silver on her; and -then she sat flat down on a scaffold, and she says:</p> - -<p>"I <i>can</i> not do it. I <i>can</i> not pronounce me. I shall get," she says -wild, "nothing said out loud but a whisper. And what <i>is</i> the use?"</p> - -<p>We gathered round her, and we understood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> None of us could pronounce -her easy, especially when scared. She was Reciprocity.</p> - -<p>"Make a sign," says somebody, "make a sign with her name on it, and hold -it over her head."</p> - -<p>But that was no better, because nobody could spell her, either, -including her herself. So we give it up, and she went down in the -audience and looked on.</p> - -<p>"It's all right," says Mis' Sykes. "Nobody knows what it means, anyway."</p> - -<p>"No," says I, "but think of the work her mother's put on her dress."</p> - -<p>And we all knew what that meant, anyway; and we all felt bad, and -thought mebbe the word would be more in use by the next show we give, if -any.</p> - -<p>About in the middle of the program, just after Commerce and Raw -Materials and Disputed Territory tried to raise a row, and had got held -in place by Humanity, Mis' Sykes came to me behind the scenes. She was -Columbia, of course, and she was dressed in the United States flag, and -she carried an armful of all the other flags. We had had all we could do -to keep her from wearing a crown—she'd been bound and determined to -wear a crown, though we explained to her that crowns was going out of -fashion and getting to be very little worn.</p> - -<p>"But they're so regal!" she kept saying, grieving.</p> - -<p>"Crowns are all right," we had agreed with her. "It's the regal part -that we object to. Not on Columbia you don't put no crown!"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p><p>And we made her wear a wreath of stars. But the wreath was near over -one eye when she came to me there, between the acts.</p> - -<p>"Killy Poulaki," she says, "he stole that whole basket of stuff we sent -down to old Mis' Herman by him. Mis' Herman found it out."</p> - -<p>"For his ma, though," I says pitiful.</p> - -<p>"Ma or no ma, stole is stole," says Mis' Sykes. "We're going to make an -example of him."</p> - -<p>And I thought: "First we starve Achilles on two dollars a week, and then -when he steals for his ma, we make an example of him. Ain't there -anything else for him...."</p> - -<p>There wasn't time to figure it out, because the flag curtain was parting -for the children—the children that came capering up to do their drill, -all proud and pleased and important. They didn't represent anything only -themselves—the children of all the world. And Ruth Holcomb stood up to -drill them, and she was the <i>Spirit of To-morrow</i>.</p> - -<p>The curtains had parted on the empty stage, and <i>To-morrow</i> had stepped -out alone and given a short, sharp word. And all over the house, where -they were sitting with their families, they hopped up, boys and girls, -and flashed into the aisles. And the orchestra started them, and they -began to sing and march to the stage, and went through what Ruth had -taught them.</p> - -<p>Nothing military. Nothing with swords or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>anything of that. But instead, -a little singing dance as they came up to meet <i>To-morrow</i>. And she gave -them a star, a bird, a little pretend animal, a flower, a lyre, a green -branch, a seed, and she told them to go out and make the world more -beautiful and glad. They were willing! That was something they knew -about already. They lined up at the footlights and held out their gifts -to the audience. And it made it by far the more wonderful that we knew -the children had really come from so many different nations, every one -with its good gift to give to the world.</p> - -<p>You know how they looked—how all children look when you give them -something like that to do. Dear and small and themselves, so that you -swallow your whole throat while you watch. Because they <i>are</i> To-morrow, -and they want life to be nice, and they think it's going to be—but we -haven't got it fixed up quite right for them yet. We're late.</p> - -<p>As they stood there, young and fine and ready, Ruth, that was -<i>To-morrow</i>, said:</p> - -<p>"Now!"</p> - -<p>They began speaking together, clear and strong and sweet. My heart did -more things to my throat while I looked at them.</p> - -<p>"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands, -one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."</p> - -<p>Somebody punched at me, violent.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p><p>"Ain't it magnificent to hear 'em say it?" says Mis' Sykes. "Ain't it -truly magnificent?"</p> - -<p>But I was looking at Achilles and thinking of her being willing to make -an example of him instead of helping him, and thinking, too, of his two -dollars a week.</p> - -<p>"It is if it is," says I, cryptic.</p> - -<p><i>To-morrow</i> was speaking again.</p> - -<p>"Those of you whose fathers come from Europe, hold up your hands."</p> - -<p>Up shot maybe twenty hands—scraggy and plump, and Achilles' little thin -arm in the first row among them.</p> - -<p>And at the same minute, out came us ladies, marching from the wings—all -those of us that represented the different countries of the world; and -we formed back of the children, and the stage was full of the nations of -Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, the islands and all.</p> - -<p>And <i>To-morrow</i> asked:</p> - -<p>"What is it that your fathers have sworn to, so that you now all belong -to one nation?"</p> - -<p>Then we all said it with the children—waveringly at first, swelling, -mounting to full chorus, the little bodies of the children waving from -side to side as we all recited it:</p> - -<p>"I absolutely and entirely renounce and adjure all allegiance and -fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, and -particularly to—"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p><p>Here was a blur of sound as all the children named the ruler of the -state from which their fathers had come.</p> - -<p>"—of whom I have heretofore been subject ... that I will support and -defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, -foreign or domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same, so -help me God...."</p> - -<p>Before they had finished, I began to notice something. I stood on the -end, and Achilles was just near me. He had looked up and smiled at me, -and at his Greek flag that I was carrying. But now, while the children -recited together, Achilles stood there with them saying not one word. -And then, when the names of the rulers all blurred together, Achilles -scared me, for he put up the back of his hand as if to rub tears from -his eyes. And when they all stopped speaking, only his sobbing broke the -stillness of the hall.</p> - -<p>I don't know how it came to me, save that things do come in shafts of -light and splendor that no one can name; but in that second I knew what -ailed him. Maybe I knew because I remembered the picture of his -grandfather on the wall over the lamp shelf. Anyway, the big pang came -to me to speak out, like it does sometimes, when you have to say what's -in you or die.</p> - -<p>"<i>To-morrow!</i>" I cried out to Ruth, and I was glad she had her back to -the audience so they couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> see how scared she looked at me speaking -what wasn't in my part. "<i>To-morrow!</i> I am Greece! I ask that this -little Greek boy here say the words that his Greek grandfather taught -him!"</p> - -<p>Ruth looked at Achilles and nodded, and I saw his face brighten all of a -sudden through his tears; and I knew he was going to speak it, right out -of his heart.</p> - -<p>Achilles began to speak, indistinct at first, then getting clearer, and -at last his voice went over the hall loud and strong and like he meant -it:</p> - -<p>"'We will never bring disgrace to this our city by any act of dishonor -or cowardice, nor ever desert our suffering comrades in the ranks. We -will revere and obey the city's laws, and do our best to incite a like -respect and reverence in those above us who are prone to annul them or -set them at naught. We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public -sense of civic duty. Thus in all these ways, we will transmit this city -not less but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted -to us.'"</p> - -<p>It was the Athenian boy's creed of citizenship, that Achilles' father -had learned in Greece, and that Achilles' grandfather, that officer in -the Greek government, had taught to them both.</p> - -<p>The whole hall cheered him—how could they help that? And right out of -the fullness of the lump in my throat, I spoke out again. And I says:</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p><p>"<i>To-morrow! To-morrow!</i> You're going to give us a world, please God, -where we can be true to our own nation and true to all others, for we -shall all belong to the League of the World."</p> - -<p>Oh, and they cheered that! They knew—they knew. Just like every hamlet -and cross-roads in this country and in this world is getting to -know—that a great new idea is waiting, for us to catch the throb of its -new life. To-morrow, the League of the World is going to teach us how to -be alive. If only we can make it the League of the World indeed.</p> - -<p>Right then came beating out the first chords of the piece we were to -close with. And as it was playing they brought out the great world flag -that us ladies had made from the design that we had thought up and made -ourselves: A white world and white stars on a blue field.</p> - -<p>It floated over the heads of all of us that were dressed as the nations -of the earth, and not one of us ladies was trying to tell which was the -best one, like we had that afternoon; and that flag floated over the -children, and over <i>To-morrow</i> and <i>Democracy</i> and <i>Liberty</i> and -<i>Humanity</i> and <i>Peace</i> and like that. And then we sang, and the hall -sang with us:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>"The crest and crowning of all good,</div> -<div>Life's common goal is brotherhood."</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And when the curtains swept together—the curtains made of everybody's -flags—I tell you, it left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> us all feeling like we ain't felt in I don't -know when.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Within about a minute afterward Ruth and Ina and Irene were around me.</p> - -<p>"Miss Calliope," they said, "the Red Cross isn't going to stop."</p> - -<p>"No?" I said.</p> - -<p>"We're going to start in with these foreign-born boys and girls—" Ina -said.</p> - -<p>"We're going to teach them all the things <i>To-morrow</i> was pretending to -teach them," Ruth said.</p> - -<p>"And we're going to learn a thing or two they can teach us," I says, -"beginning with Achilles."</p> - -<p>They knew what I meant, and they nodded.</p> - -<p>And the flag of the white world and white stars on a blue field was all -ready-made to lead us—a kind of picture of God's universe.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Copyright, <i>Red Cross Magazine</i>, April, 1919.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h2> - -<p>Post-office Hall, where the Peace celebration was to be held, was filled -with flags, both bought and borrowed, and some made up by us ladies, -part guessed at but most of them real accurate out of the back of the -dictionary.</p> - -<p>Two days before the celebration us ladies were all down working in the -hall, and all pretty tired, so that we were liable to take exception, -and object, and I don't know but what you might say contradict.</p> - -<p>"My feet," says Mis' Toplady, "ache like the headache, and my head aches -as if I'd stood on it."</p> - -<p>"Do they?" says Mis' Postmaster Sykes, with her little society pucker. -"Why, I feel just as fresh. I've got a wonderful constitution."</p> - -<p>"Oh, anybody's constitution feels fresh if they don't work it too hard," -says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, having been down to the Hall all -day long, as Mis' Sykes hadn't.</p> - -<p>Then Mis' Toplady, that is always the one to pour oil and balm and myrrh -and milk onto any troubled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> situation, she brought out her question more -to reduce down the minute than anything else:</p> - -<p>"Ladies," she says, holding up one foot to rest the aching sole of it, -"Ladies, what under the sun are we going to do now that our war work's -done?"</p> - -<p>"What indeed?" says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss.</p> - -<p>"What indeed?" says I.</p> - -<p>"True for you," says Mis' Sykes, that always has to sound different, -even though she means the same.</p> - -<p>Of course we were all going to do what we could to help all Europe, but -saving food is a kind of negative activity, and besides us ladies had -always done it. Whereabouts was the novelty of that?</p> - -<p>And we'd took over an orphan each and were going to skin it out of the -egg-money and such—that is, not the orphan but its keep—and still -these actions weren't quite what we meant, either.</p> - -<p>"The mornings," says Mis' Toplady dreamy, "when I use' to wake up crazy -to get through with my work and get with you ladies to sew—where's all -that gone?"</p> - -<p>"The meetings," says Mame Holcomb, "when Baptists and Catholics and -young folks and Elks met promiscuous and sung and heard talking—where's -them?"</p> - -<p>And somebody brought out the thing we'd all thought most about.</p> - -<p>"The days," she says, "when we worked next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> to our old enemies—both -church and family enemies—and all bad feelings forgot—where's them -times?"</p> - -<p>"What we going to do about it?" I says. "And when?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes had a suggestion. She always does have a suggestion, being -she loves to have folks disciple after her. "Why, ladies," she says, -"there's some talking more military preparedness right off, I hear. That -means for another war. Why not us start in and knit for it <i>now</i>?" And -she beamed around triumphant.</p> - -<p>"Well," says Mame Holcomb, reasonable, "if the men are going to prepare -in any way, it does seem like women had ought to be getting ready too. -Why <i>not</i> knit? And have a big box all setting ready, all knit up, to -match the other preparednesses?"</p> - -<p>It was on to this peaceful assemblage that Berta, Mis' Sykes's little -Switzerland maid, came rushing. And her face was pale and white. "Oh, -Mis' Sykes," she says, "oh, what jew s'pose? I found a little boy -setting on the front stoop."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes is always calm—not so much because calm is Christian as -because calm is grand lady, I always think. "On whose stoop, Berta?" she -ask' her kind.</p> - -<p>"On your own stoop, ma'am," cried Berta excitable.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>"And whose little boy is it, Berta?" she ask', still more calm and -kind.</p> - -<p>"That's what I donno, ma'am," says Berta. "Nor they don't no one seem to -know."</p> - -<p>We all ask' her then, so that I don't know, I'm sure, how she managed to -say a word on her own hook. It seems that she'd come around the house -and see him setting there, still as a mouse. When he see her, he looked -up and smiled, and got up like he'd been waiting for somebody. Berta had -taken him in the kitchen.</p> - -<p>"And he's wearing all different clothes than I ever see before in my -life," said Berta, "and he don't know who he is, nor nothing. Nor he -don't talk right."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes got up in her grand, deliberate way. "Undoubtedly it's -wandered away from its ma," says she, and goes out with the girl that -was still talking excitable without getting a great deal said.</p> - -<p>The rest of us finished setting the hall in shape. It looked real nice, -with the Friendship Village booth on one side and the Foreign booth on -the other. Of course the Friendship Village booth was considerably the -biggest, being that was the one we knew the most about.</p> - -<p>Then us ladies started home, and we were rounding the corner by Mis' -Sykes's, when we met her a-running out.</p> - -<p>"Ladies," she says, "if this is anybody's child that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> lives in -Friendship Village, I wish you'd tell me whose. Come along in."</p> - -<p>She was awful excited, and I don't blame her. Sitting on the foot of the -lounge in her dining-room was the funniest little dud ever I see. He was -about four years old, and he had on a little dress that was all gold -braid, and animals, and pictures, and biscuits, and shells, looked like. -But his face was like any—black eyes he had, and a nice skin, and -plain, brown hair, and no hat.</p> - -<p>"For the land," we all says, "where <i>did</i> he come from?"</p> - -<p>"Now listen at this," says Mis' Sykes, and she squatted down in front of -him that was eating his cracker so pretty, and she says, "What's your -name?"</p> - -<p>It stumped him. He only stared.</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes rolled her eyes, and she pressed him. "Where d'you live?"</p> - -<p>That stumped him too. He only stared on.</p> - -<p>"What's your papa's name?"</p> - -<p>That was a worse poser. So was everything else we asked him. Pretty soon -he begun to cry, and that was a language we could all understand. But -when we ask' him, frantic, what it was he wanted, he said words that -sounded like soup with the alphabet stirred in.</p> - -<p>"Heavens!" says Mis' Sykes. "He ain't English."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p><p>And that's what we all concluded. He wore what we'd never seen, he -spoke what we couldn't speak, he come from nobody knew where.</p> - -<p>But while we were a-staring at each other, the Switzerland maid come -a-racing back. Seems she'd been up to the depot, a block away, and -Copper, the baggageman, had noticed a queer-looking kid on the platform -when some folks got off Number 16 that had gone through west an hour or -so back. Copper thought the kid was with them, but he didn't notice it -special. Where the folks went to, nobody knew.</p> - -<p>"Down on the Flats somewhere, that's where its folks went," says Mis' -Sykes. "Sure to. Well, then, they'll be looking for it. We must get it -in the papers."</p> - -<p>We raced around and advertised that little boy in the <i>Daily</i>. The -Friendship Village <i>Evening Daily</i> goes to press almost any time, so if -you happen to hit it right, you can get things in most up to seven -o'clock. Quite often the <i>Evening Daily</i> comes after we're all in bed, -and we get up and read it to go to sleep by. We told the sheriff, and he -come up that evening and clucked at the little boy, without getting a -word out of him, no more than we could. The news flew round town, and -lots of folks come up to see him. It was more exciting than a -night-blooming cereus night.</p> - -<p>But not a soul come to claim him. He might have dropped down from inside -the air.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p><p>"Well," says Mis' Sykes, "if some of them foreigners down on the Flats -<i>has</i> lost him, it'll be us that'll have to find him. They ain't capable -of nothing."</p> - -<p>That was how Mis' Sykes, and Mis' Toplady, and Mame Holcomb and I -hitched up and went down to the Flats and took the baby with us, right -after breakfast next morning, to try our best to locate him.</p> - -<p>The Flats are where the Friendship Village ex-foreigners live—ain't it -scandalous the way we keep on calling ex-foreigners foreigners? And -then, of course, nobody's so very foreign after you get acquainted. -Americans, even, ain't so very foreign to Europeans after they get to -know us, they say. I'd been down there often enough to see my -wash-woman, or dicker for a load of wood, or buy new garden truck, or -get somebody to houseclean, but I didn't know anybody down there to -visit—and none of us ladies did. The Flats were like that. The Flats -didn't seem ever to count real regular in real Friendship Village -doings. For instance, the town was just getting in sewerage, but it -wasn't to go in down on the Flats, and nobody seemed surprised. The only -share the Flats seemed to have in sewerage was to house the long, red -line of bunk cars, where the men lived, drawn up on a spur of track by -the gas house.</p> - -<p>It was a heavenly day, warm and cool and bright,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> with a little whiff of -wind, like a sachet bag, thrown in. We had the Sykeses' surrey and old -white horse, and Mis' Toplady and Mame and me squoze on the back seat -so's to let Mis' Sykes, that was driving, have sitting beside her in -plain sight that little boy in his blazing red dress.</p> - -<p>We went first to see some folks named Amachi—her husband was up in the -pineries, she said, and so she run their little home-made rug business. -She was a wonderful, motherly soul, and she poored the little boy with -her big, thick hand and listened, with her face up and her hair low in -her neck like some kind of a picture with big, sad eyes. But she hadn't -heard of anybody lost.</p> - -<p>"One trouble with these folks," Mis' Sykes says as we drove away, "they -never know anything but their own affairs."</p> - -<p>Then we went to some folks named Cardell. They tended the bridge and let -the gypsies camp in their pasture whenever they wanted. She was cutting -the grass with a blunt pair of shears; and she had lots of flowers and -vines and the nicest way of talking off the tip of her tongue. She give -the little boy a cup of warm milk, but she hadn't heard anything about -anybody being lost anywheres.</p> - -<p>"Real superior for a foreigner," says Mis' Sykes, so quick after she'd -clucked to her horse I was afraid Mis' Cardell heard her.</p> - -<p>Then we saw an old lady named Marchant, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> her ancestors had settled -up Friendship Village, but she was so poor now that everybody had kind -of forgot about that, and some folks named Swenson that lived in the -toll-gate house and had a regular hennery of homeless cats. And though -they give the little boy a flower or two and left him stroke a kitty or -more, they hadn't any of them either seen or heard of anybody that was -out trying to locate a son.</p> - -<p>It was just a little while after we started that Mis' Sykes had her -great idea. I remember we were just coming out at Mis' Swenson's when -she thought of it, and all the homeless cats were following along behind -us with all their tails sticking up straight.</p> - -<p>"Ladies," says Mis' Sykes, "why in under the canopy don't we get some -work out of some of these folks for the peace meeting to-morrow night?"</p> - -<p>"I was thinking of that," says Mame Holcomb.</p> - -<p>"Some of them would wash the dishes and not charge anything, being it's -for the peace."</p> - -<p>"And help clean up next day," says Mis' Sykes. "That's when the -backaching, feet-burning work comes in."</p> - -<p>"Costs a sight to pay by the hour," says Mame, "and this way we could -get the whole thing free, for patriotism."</p> - -<p>"Mop the hall floor, too," says Mis' Sykes. "Land," she adds, only about -half soft enough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> "look at them children! Did you ever see such skinny -sights?"</p> - -<p>Awful pindling-looking children, the Swensons were, and there were most -as many of them as there were cats.</p> - -<p>When she got to the gate, Mis' Sykes turned round in her grand-lady way, -and she says, "Mis' Swenson, why don't you and your husband come up to -the peace meetin' to-morrow night and help us?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Swenson was a peaked little thing, with too much throat in length -and not enough in thickness. "I never heard of it," she says.</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes explained in her commanding way. "Peace, you know," she says, -"is to be celebrated between the different countries. And, of course, -this is your country, too," Mis' Sykes assured her, "and we'd like to -hev you come up and help with the dishes, or like that."</p> - -<p>"Is it dress-up?" says Mis' Swenson, not very loud.</p> - -<p>"My, no!" we told her, and decided to stick to the usual hooks in our -closets.</p> - -<p>"I'd like to," says Mis' Swenson, "if I can get Pete to change his -clothes."</p> - -<p>"So do," says Mis' Sykes gracious and clucked her horse along. "My -goodness," she says, "what awful stuff these folks must feed their -children! And how they must bungle 'em when they're sick. And they won't -hardly any of 'em come to-morrow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> night," she says. "You can not," she -says, "get these folks to take part in nothing."</p> - -<p>We went to twenty or thirty houses, and every one of them Mis' Sykes -invited to come and help. But not one of the twenty or thirty houses had -heard of any foreigner whatever having just arrived in Friendship -Village, nor had ever seen or heard of that little boy before. He was -awful good, the little soul, waving his hands so nice that I begun to be -afraid everybody we met would claim foreign and ask for him.</p> - -<p>By noon we begun to get pretty excited. And the sheriff, he was excited -too, and he was hunting just as wild as any of us, being arrests was -light. He was hanging on the canal bridge when we crossed it, going home -along toward noon.</p> - -<p>"They never had a case of lost child in Friendship Village in twenty -years," he said. "I looked it up."</p> - -<p>"Lost child nothing!" I told him. "The child ain't lost. Here he is. -It's the parents," I said, "that's lost on us."</p> - -<p>The noon whistle blew just then, and the men that were working on the -sewer threw down their shovels.</p> - -<p>"Look at their faces," says Mis' Sykes. "Did you ever see anything so -terrible foreign?"</p> - -<p>"Foreign ain't poison," says Mis' Toplady on the back seat.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p><p>"I'm going to have Silas put a button on the cellar window," says Mis' -Sykes.</p> - -<p>"Shucks, they ain't shaved, that's all," says Mis' Toplady.</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes leaned over to the sheriff. "You better be up around the -peace celebration to-morrow night," she says. "We've been giving out -invitations pretty miscellaneous, and we might need you."</p> - -<p>"I'll drop up," says the sheriff. "But I like to watch them bunk cars -pretty close, where the men live."</p> - -<p>"Is there much lawlessness?" Mis' Sykes asks, fearful.</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady sings out, laughing, that there would be if she didn't get -home to get Timothy's dinner, and Mis' Sykes come to herself and -groaned.</p> - -<p>"But oh, my land," she says, "we ain't found no ma nor pa for this -child. What in time are we going to do? I'm too stiff," she says, "to -adopt one personally."</p> - -<p>But the little boy, he just smelled of the flowers the folks on the -Flats had give him, and waved his hand to the sheriff, cute.</p> - -<p>Late the next afternoon, us ladies that weren't tending to the supper -were trying to get the Foreign booth to look like something. The Foreign -booth looked kind of slimpsey. We hadn't got enough in it. We just had a -few dishes that come from the old country, and a Swiss dress of Berta's -mother's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> and a Japanese dress, and like that. But we couldn't seem to -connect up much of Europe with Friendship Village.</p> - -<p>At five o'clock the door opened, and in walked Mis' Amachi and Mis' -Swenson from the Flats, with nice black dresses on and big aprons pinned -up in newspapers. Pretty soon in come old Mis' Marchant, that had rode -up on a grocery delivery wagon, she said. Close behind these come some -more of them we had asked. And Mis' Sykes, acting like the personal -hostess to everything, took them around and showed them things, the -Friendship Village booth that was loaded with stuff, and the Foreign -booth that wasn't.</p> - -<p>And Mis' Poulaki, one of the Greek women, she looked for a while and -then she says, "We got two nice musics from old country."</p> - -<p>She made her hands go like playing strings, and we made out that she -meant two musical instruments.</p> - -<p>"Good land!" says Mis' Sykes. "Post right straight home and get them. -Got anything else?"</p> - -<p>"A little boy's suit from Norway," says Mis' Swenson. "And my marriage -dress."</p> - -<p>"Get it up here!" cries Mis' Sykes. "Ladies, why do you s'pose we never -thought of this before?"</p> - -<p>There wasn't hardly one of them that couldn't think of something—a -dish, or a candlestick, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> wooden shoes, or an old box, or a kerchief. -Old Mis' Marchant had come wearing a shoulder shawl that come from -Lombardy years back, and we jerked it off her and hung it up, hole and -all.</p> - -<p>It made quite some fun for all of us. And all the time our little -strange boy was running around the floor, playing with papers, and when -we weren't talking of anything else, we were talking about him.</p> - -<p>"Say," says Mis' Sykes, that never means to say "say" but gets it said -unbeknownst when excited, "I guess he's the foreignest thing we've got."</p> - -<p>But by six o'clock she was ready to take that back, about him being the -foreignest. The women from the Flats had all come back, bringing all -they had, and by the time we put it up the Foreign booth looked like -Europe personified. And that wasn't all. Full three quarters of the -folks that we'd asked from down there had showed up, and most of them -says they'd got their husbands to come too. So we held off the supper a -little bit for them—a fifteen-cent supper it was, coffee and sandwiches -and baked beans and doughnuts—and it was funny, when you think of it, -for us to be waiting for them, for most of us had never spoken to any of -these folks before. The women weren't planning to eat, they said; they'd -help, but their men would buy the fifteen-cent supper, they added, -proud. Isn't it kind of sad and dear and <i>motherly</i>, the way, whenever -there isn't food<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> enough, it's always the woman who manages to go -without and not let on, just exactly like her husband was her little -boy?</p> - -<p>By and by in they all come, dressed up clean but awful heavy-handed and -big-footed and kind of wishing they hadn't come. But I liked to see them -with our little lost red boy. They all picked him up and played with him -like here was something they knew how to do.</p> - -<p>The supper was to come first, and the peace part afterward, in some set -speeches by the town orators; and we were just ready to pour out the -coffee, I recollect, when the fire-bell rang. Us ladies didn't think -much of that. Compared with getting supper onto the table, what was a -fire? But the men all jumped up excitable, being fires are more in their -line.</p> - -<p>Then there was a scramble and rush and push outside, and the door of the -hall was shoved open, and there stood a man I'd never seen before, white -and shaking and shouting.</p> - -<p>"The bunk cars!" he cried. "They're burning. Come!"</p> - -<p>The bunk cars—the ten or twelve cars drawn up on a spur track below the -gas house....</p> - -<p>All of us ran out of the hall. It didn't occur to us till afterward that -of course the man at the door was calling the men from the Flats, some -of whom worked on the sewer too. I don't suppose it would ever have -entered his head to come up to call<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> us if the Flat folks hadn't been -there. And it was they who rushed to the door first, and then the rest -of us followed.</p> - -<p>It was still dusk, with a smell of the ground in the air. And a little -new moon was dropping down to bed. It didn't seem as if there ought to -be a fire on such a night. Everything seemed too usual and casual.</p> - -<p>But there was. When we got in sight of the gas house, we could see the -red glare on the round wall. When we got nearer, we could see the -raggedy flames eating up into the black air.</p> - -<p>The men that lived in the cars were trying to scrabble out their poor -belongings. They were shouting queer, throaty cries that we didn't -understand, but some of the folks from the Flats were answering them. I -think that it seemed queer to some of us that those men of the bunk cars -should be having a fire right there in our town.</p> - -<p>"Don't let's get too near," says somebody. "They might have small-pox or -something."</p> - -<p>It was Mis' Sykes, with Silas, her husband, and him carrying that bright -red little boy. And the baby, kind of scared at all the noise and the -difference, was beginning to straighten out and cry words in that -heathen tongue of his.</p> - -<p>"Mercy," says Mis' Sykes, "I can't find Berta. He's going," she says, -"to yell."</p> - -<p>Just then I saw something that excited me more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> than the baby. There was -one car near the middle that was burning hard when the stream of water -struck it. And I saw that car had a little rag of lace curtain at its -window, and a tin can with a flower in it. And when the blaze died for a -minute, and the roof showed all burned, but not the lower part of the -car or the steps, I saw somebody in blue overalls jump up the steps, and -then an arm tearing down that rag of lace curtain and catching up the -tin can.</p> - -<p>"Well," I says pitiful, "ain't that funny? Some man down there in a bunk -car, with a lace curtain and a posy."</p> - -<p>I started down that way, and Mis' Toplady, Mis' Holcomb and the Sykeses -come too, the Sykeses more to see if walking wouldn't keep the baby -still. It wouldn't. That baby yelled louder than I'd ever heard one, -which is saying lots but not too much.</p> - -<p>When we all got down nearer, we came on Mis' Swenson and Mis' Amachi, -counting up.</p> - -<p>"We can take in two," says Mis' Swenson, "by four of the children -sleeping on the floor that'll never wake up to know it."</p> - -<p>"One can sleep on our lounge," says Mis' Amachi.</p> - -<p>"We can put a couple or two in our barn," says a Flats man. "Oh, we'll -find 'em room—no trouble to that."</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady and me looked at each other. Always before, in a Friendship -Village catastrophe, her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> and me had been among the planners. But here -we were, it seemed, left out, and the whole thing being seen to by the -Flats.</p> - -<p>"Say," says Mis' Toplady all of a sudden, "it's a woman!"</p> - -<p>We were down in front by now, and I saw her too. The blue overalls, as I -had called them, were a blue dress. And the woman, a little dark thing -with earrings, stood there with her poor, torn lace curtain and her tin -can with a geranium all wilted down.</p> - -<p>"Mercy!" says Mis' Sykes, shuddering. "A woman down here!"</p> - -<p>But I was looking at that woman. And I saw she wasn't listening to what -some of the Flat women were saying to her. She had her head up and back -as if she was listening to something else. And now she began moving -through the crowd, and now she began running, straight to where all of -us stood and Mis' Sykes was trying to hush the crying child.</p> - -<p>The next second Mis' Sykes was near knocked down by the wildness and the -strength of that little dark thing who threw herself on her and grabbed -the baby.</p> - -<p>Speaking Greek, speaking Hebrew, and Hittite, and Amalekite, and the -tongues of Babylon at the confusion and the last day—for all we knew, -these were what that woman was speaking. We couldn't make more head nor -tail out of what she was saying than we had of the baby. But we could -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>understand without understanding. It was in her throat, it was in her -tears, it was in her heart. She cried, she sunk down to the ground, -kissing that baby. He put out his hands and went right to her, laughing -in the midst of the crying—oh, I've heard a baby laugh in its tears -when it saw its mother, but this one was the best. And he snuggled up -close, while she poured all over him them barbarous accents. But he knew -what she said, and he said them back. Like before our eyes the alphabet -of vermicelli had begun spelling words.</p> - -<p>Then a man come running—I can see now that open collar, that face -covered with stubble, those great eyes under their mass of tangled hair, -the huge, rough hands that he laid about the baby's shoulders. And they -both began talking to us, first one and then both, asking, looking, -waiting for us to reply. Nobody replied. We all looked to Mis' Sykes to -see what she could think of, as we always do in a village emergency.</p> - -<p>But it wasn't Mis' Sykes that could help us now. It was the Flat folks. -It was them that could understand. Half a dozen of them began telling us -what it was they said. It seemed so wonderful to see the folks that we -had never paid attention to, or thought they knew anything, take those -tangled sounds and unravel them for us, easy, into regular, right-down -words.</p> - -<p>It seems the family had got to Friendship Village<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> night before last, -him to work on the sewer and his wife to cook for the men in the bunk -cars. There were five other little folks with them—sure enough, there -they were now, all flocking about her—and the oldest girl had somehow -lost the baby. Poor souls, they had tried to ask. But he knew that he -must dig and she must cook, and there was not much time for asking, and -eight weeks in this country was all that they had and hardly three words -of English. As for asking the law, they knew the law only as something -that arrests you.</p> - -<p>We were all there in a bunch by that time, everybody making signs to -everybody, whether anybody could understand or not. There was something -about those two, with our little chap in the midst of them, that sort of -loosened us all up. We all of us understood so thorough that we pretty -near forgot the fire.</p> - -<p>By then it had most died down anyhow, and somebody started to move back -up-town.</p> - -<p>"The hall, the hall!" says Mis' Toplady to us. "Have 'em all go up to -the Post-office Hall. Spread it, spread it!"</p> - -<p>We did spread it, to go up there and see what we could do for the -burned-out folks, and incidentally finish the peace celebration.</p> - -<p>Up there in Post-office Hall the lights were all on, just as we'd left -them, and there was kind of a cozy feel of supper in the air.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p><p>"Look here," says Mis' Toplady, "there's quarts of coffee hot on the -back of the stove and a whole mountain of sandwiches—"</p> - -<p>"Let's," I says. And we all begun to do so.</p> - -<p>We all begun to do so, and I begun to do something more. I'd learned -quite a little from seeing them there in the hall and kitchen that -afternoon, the Swensons and Poulakis and Amachis and the rest. And now -here were these others, from the bunk cars,—big, beautiful eyes they -had, and patient looks, and little bobbing curtsies, and white teeth -when they smiled. I saw them now, trying to eat and behave the best they -knew how, and back of them the Foreign booth, under the Foreign flag. -And what I begun to have to do, was to get in over behind that Foreign -Booth and wipe up my eyes a little.</p> - -<p>Once I peeked out. And I happened to see the sheriff going by. He was -needed, like Mis' Sykes told him he might be, but not the same, either. -He was passing the sugar and cream.</p> - -<p>What brought me out finally was what I heard Mis' Sykes saying:</p> - -<p>"Ladies," says she, "let's us set her up there in the middle of the -Foreign Booth, with her little boy in her lap. That'll be just the -finishing foreign touch," says she, "to our booth."</p> - -<p>So we covered a chair with foreign flags, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>promiscuous, and set her -there. Awful pretty and serious she looked.</p> - -<p>"If only we could talk to her," says Mis' Sykes, grieving. "Ladies, any -of you know any foreign sentences?"</p> - -<p>All any of us could get together was terra cotton and delirium tremens. -So we left it go, and just stood and looked at her, and smiled at her, -and clucked at the little boy, and at all her little folks that come -around her in the booth, under the different flags.</p> - -<p>"We'll call her Democracy!" says Marne Holcomb, that often blazes up -before the match is lit. "Why not call her the Spirit of Democracy, in -the newspaper write-up?"</p> - -<p>With that Mis' Sykes kind of stopped winking and breathing, in a way she -has.</p> - -<p>"My land," she says, "but <i>s'pose he's an enemy baby and she's his enemy -ma</i>?"</p> - -<p>There hadn't one of us thought of that. For all we had made out, they -might be anything. We got hold of Mis' Poulaki and Mis' Amachi, hot -foot.</p> - -<p>"Ast her what she is," we told them. "Ast her what country it is she -comes from."</p> - -<p>"Oh," says Mis' Poulaki, "that we know already. They're -Lithuanians—that is what they are."</p> - -<p>Lithuanians. Where was it? Us ladies drew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>together still more close. -Was Lithuanians central power or was it ally? Us ladies ain't so very -geographical, and not one of us knew or could make out.</p> - -<p>"Say," says Mis' Toplady finally, "shut up, all of us. If it gets around -for folks to wonder at—Why, my land," she says, "their bunk car's -burned up anyhow, ain't it? Let's us shut up."</p> - -<p>And so we done. And everybody was up around the Foreign Booth. And the -Friendship Village booth was most forgot.</p> - -<p>All of a sudden, somebody started up "America." I don't know where -they'd learned it. There aren't so very many chances for such as these -to learn it very good. Some of them couldn't say a word of it, but they -could all keep in tune. I saw the side faces of the Flats folks and the -bunk car folks, while they hummed away, broken, at that tune that they -knew about. Oh, if you want to know what to do next with your life, go -somewhere and look at a foreigner in this country singing "America," -when he doesn't know you're looking. I don't see how we rest till we get -our land a little more like what he thinks it is. And while I was -listening, it seemed as if Europe was there in the room.</p> - -<p>It was while they were singing that the magic began to work in us all. I -remember how it started.</p> - -<p>"Oh," says Mis' Toplady, "ladies! Think of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> that little boy, and the -other folks, living in those bunk cars. Don't it seem as if, while -they're here, us ladies could—"</p> - -<p>"Don't it?" I says.</p> - -<p>"And the little skinny ones down on the Flats," Mis' Toplady whispers -pretty soon. "Can't some of us teach them women how to feed them better -and cost no more?"</p> - -<p>"And take care of them when they're sick," says Mame Holcomb. "I -shouldn't wonder if they die when they don't need to, all day long."</p> - -<p>We see ideas gathering back of one another's eyes. And all of a sudden I -thought of something else. "Ladies," I says, "and get sewerage down -there on the Flats! Don't it belong there just exactly as much as in the -residence part?"</p> - -<p>Us ladies all looked at each other. We'd just taken it for granted the -Flats shouldn't have sewerage and should have the skeptic tank.</p> - -<p>"Say," says Mis' Toplady, "it don't look to me like we'd have a very -hard time knowing what to do with ourselves, now this war is over."</p> - -<p>"The mornings," says Mame Holcomb, "when we use' to wake up, crazy to -start in on something—it looks to me like they ain't all through with -yet!"</p> - -<p>"The meetings," says Mis' Toplady, "when Baptists and Catholics and -Elks—"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes was listening. It ain't very often that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> she comes down off -her high horse, but when she does, I tell you she lands hard.</p> - -<p>"Ladies!" she says. "It was me that was talking about beginning to knit -for another war. Why didn't you shut me up and bolt the door?"</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Copyright, <i>Good Housekeeping</i>, June, 1919.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THE STORY OF JEFFRO<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></h2> - -<p><i>When I have told this story of Jeffro, the alien, some one has always -said:</i></p> - -<p>"<i>Yes, but there's another side to that. They aren't all Jeffros.</i>"</p> - -<p><i>When stories are told of American gentleness, childlike faith, -sensitiveness to duty, love of freedom, I do not remember to have heard -any one rejoin:</i></p> - -<p>"<i>Yes, but Americans are not all like that.</i>"</p> - -<p><i>So I wonder why this comment should be made about Jeffro.</i></p> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p>When Jeffro first came knocking at my door that Spring morning, he said -that which surprised me more than anything that had been said to me in -years. He said:</p> - -<p>"Madam, if you have a house for rent—a house for rent. Have you?"</p> - -<p>For years nobody had said that to me; and the little house which I own -on the Red Barns road, not far from the schoolhouse, was falling in -pieces because I never could get enough ahead to mend it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> up. In the -road in front of it there was a big hole that had never been filled in. -And the house only had two rooms anyway—and a piece of ground about as -big as a rug; and the house was pretty near as old as the ground was.</p> - -<p>"Land," I says, "man, you don't want to rent that house?"</p> - -<p>He smiled, nice and wrinkled and gentle, and said yes, he did; and -nothing that I, as my own real estate agent, could say discouraged him. -Even when I'd whipped off my kitchen apron and found the key to the -little house in my button-box, and had gone down the road with him to -look the house over, and let him see what it was like, he insisted that -he wanted to rent it. And so in the end he done: at four dollars a -month, which wasn't much more than, by rights, the sale price should -have been.</p> - -<p>"I do little things to this house," said Jeffro. "I make little change -for good. I have some handy with a hammer."</p> - -<p>I remember turning back a ways from the house, and seeing him standing -there, with his hands behind him, looking at the house as if it <i>was</i> -something, and something of his.</p> - -<p>When I got home and was up in the garret hunting up the three green -paper shades for his windows, it come to me that I hadn't asked him for -any references, and that for all I knew he might be going to counterfeit -money or whisky or something there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> on the premises. But anybody'd known -better than that just to look at Jeffro's face. A wonderful surprised -face he had; surprised, but believing it all too, and trusting the good. -A brown face, with big, brown eyes, and that wrinkled smile of his. I -like to think about him.</p> - -<p>After a few days I went over with the shades, and he'd got a few pieces -of furniture there, setting round, loose and unattached. And on a big -basket of stuff was sitting a little boy, about eight years old.</p> - -<p>"That's Joseph," says Jeffro, simple. "We are the two that came."</p> - -<p>Then he told me. In "the old country" his wife and two little ones were -waiting till he could earn money to send back for them.</p> - -<p>"I thought when I had thes' little follow here," he said, "I could work -then more easy. He don't eat but little," he added.</p> - -<p>"But how," says I, "are you expecting to earn all that money out of -Friendship Village—where folks saves for years to put on a new stoop?"</p> - -<p>At this he smiled, sort of knowing. And he pointed to a poster over his -wood-box. It was printed in Yiddish, all but the words "United States"; -but the picture—that was plain enough. It showed a mill on one side of -the street, and a bank on the other. And from the mill a stream of -workingmen, with bags of money on their backs, were streaming over -toward the bank.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p><p>"That was put up on my cow-shed at home," said Jeffro. "I have brought -it. But I have no trade—I can not earn money fast like those. I make -the toys."</p> - -<p>He threw open the door into the only other room of the house. In it was -piled dozens of boxes, and some broad shelves to be put up, and a table -was covered with colored stuff. "Then I go up to the city and sell," -said he. "It is only five miles. But I can not live there—not with -thes' boy. I say, 'I vill find some little cheap place out in the -country for us two.' So then I come here. I am now in America five -weeks," he added, proud.</p> - -<p>"Five weeks!" says I. "Then where'd you learn to talk American?"</p> - -<p>"I have study and save' for six-seven years, to be ready," said Jeffro, -simple. "Now I come. Next year I think I send for them."</p> - -<p>All day long those words of his kept coming and ringing in my ears. And -it kind of seemed to me that in them was a great chorus—a chorus of -thousands going up that minute, and this minute, and all the time, all -over America:</p> - -<p>"Now I come. Next year I think I send for them."</p> - -<p>And I says to myself: "What's America going to do for him? What's -America going to do to him? What are we going to do to him? And what is -he going to do for us?"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p><p>Well, the story of the first few weeks of Jeffro's in Friendship -Village is for me a kind of window set in the side-wall of the way -things are.</p> - -<p>One morning, a little before nine o'clock, I had to go to the -schoolhouse to see Miss Mayhew. When I went by Jeffro's I didn't see -anything of him, but when I got along by the schoolhouse grounds, there -I saw him, leaning on the fence under the locust-tree.</p> - -<p>"Good morning, Mr. Jeffro," I says. "Do the children bother you down to -your house with their noise? That's one reason my house used to be so -hard to rent, it was so close by the schoolhouse."</p> - -<p>His face, when he turned to me, startled me.</p> - -<p>"Bother me!" he said, slow. "Every day I come across to look at them -near. To see them—it is a vonder. Thes' big building, thes' big yard, -thes' children that do no vork, only learn, learn. And see—Joseph is -there. Over by the swing—you see him? He learn, too—my Joseph—I do -not even buy his books. It is free—all free. I am always vatching them -in thes' place. It is a vonder."</p> - -<p>Then one night, when he had been there about two weeks, Jeffro's house -caught fire. A candle that he used for melting his wax tipped over on -his toy shavings and blazed up. Timothy Toplady, driving by, heard him -shout, and galloped into town for the department, and they went tearing -out Red Barns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> way soon after Jeffro had the fire put out. He was making -toys again when the fire-engine drew up at his gate, and the men came -trampling up to his porch, wanting the blaze pointed out to them. Bud -Miles, that's in the department, told me how Jeffro stood in the door -bowing to them and regretting the trouble he'd made, and apologizing to -them for not having any fire ready for them to put out.</p> - -<p>And the next day Jeffro walked into the engine house and asked the men -sitting round with their heels up how much he owed them.</p> - -<p>"For what?" says they.</p> - -<p>"For putting down my fire," Jeffro says. "That is, for coming to put it -down if I had one."</p> - -<p>The men stared at him and burst out laughing. "Why nothing," they said. -"That don't cost anything. That's free."</p> - -<p>Jeffro just stood and looked at them. "Free?" he said. "But the big -engine and the wagons and the men and the horses—does nobody pay them -to come and put down fires?"</p> - -<p>"Why, the town does," they told him. "The town pays them."</p> - -<p>He said eagerly: "No, no—you have not understood. I pay no taxes—I do -not help that way with taxes. Then I must pay instead—no?"</p> - -<p>They could hardly make him understand. All these big things put at his -service, even the town fire-bell rung, and nothing to pay for it. His -experience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> with cities was slight, in any case. He went off, looking -all dazed, and left the men shouting. It seemed such a joke to the men -that it shouldn't be all free. It seemed so wonderful to Jeffro that it -should.</p> - -<p>He hadn't gone half a block from the engine-house when he turned round -and went back.</p> - -<p>"The gentlemen have not understood," he said. "I am not yet a citizen. I -have apply for my first papers, but I am not yet a citizen. Whoever is -not citizen must pay for this fire attention. Is it not so?"</p> - -<p>Then they shouted again. Think of stopping to find out whether a man was -a citizen before they put his fire out! Everybody in Friendship Village -was telling that to each other for weeks, and splitting their sides over -it.</p> - -<p>Less than a couple of weeks afterward Jeffro got a letter from home, -from his wife. Postmaster Silas Sykes handed it out to him when Jeffro -come in the post-office store for some groceries, and when he started to -pay for the groceries Jeffro says:</p> - -<p>"How much on the letter?"</p> - -<p>"Why, they's nothing due on that," says Silas, squinting at it over the -sugar-barrel.</p> - -<p>"But thes' is only old country stamp on here," said Jeffro. "It is not -enough for all this way in America too?"</p> - -<p>Silas waved his hand at him like the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>representative of the gover'ment -he was. "Your Uncle Sam pays for all that," says he.</p> - -<p>Jeffro looks at him a minute, then he says: "Uncle Sam—is that, then, a -person? I see the pictures—"</p> - -<p>"Sure, sure," says Silas, winking to Timothy Toplady that stood by. -"Uncle Sam takes grand care of us, you bet."</p> - -<p>"I am not yet a citizen," Jeffro insisted. "I have apply for my first -papers—"</p> - -<p>"Go 'long," says Silas, magnificent. "Do you s'pose Uncle Sam bothers -himself about that? You belong to his family as soon as you strike -shore."</p> - -<p>Timothy Toplady told me about it. "And," says he, "do you know that man -went out of the store looking perfectly queer! And kind of solemn."</p> - -<p>All these things begun to open my eyes. Here, all my life, I'd been -taking things for granted. My school-days, the fire-engine, -postage-stamps, and all the rest, I'd took for granted, just like this -generation is taking for granted aëroplanes. And all of a sudden now, I -see how they were: not gifts to me, but powers of the big land. I'd -always thought of a village as a person. But a Big Land—that had powers -too! And was developing more as fast as its folks would let it.</p> - -<p>And it was wonderful consoling. It helped me over more than I can tell. -When Silas Sykes give light measure on my sugar and oatmeal, thinks I:</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p><p>"Well, you're just a little piece of the Big Land's power of -business—and it ain't grown yet. It's only just growing."</p> - -<p>And when the Friendship Village Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement -Sodality—that's just the name of it and it works at more things than -just cemetery—when it had spent five years studying our gover'ment, and -then turned around and created an executive board whose reports to the -Society of Forty had to be made unanimous—I says to myself:</p> - -<p>"Well, the club's just a little piece of the Big Land's power of -democracy, and it ain't grown yet. It's only just growing."</p> - -<p>And when the Friendship Village chapter of the Daughters of the American -Revolution refused to leave us ladies borrow their copy of the American -flag because they reverenced it so hard they were afraid it would get -tore, I says to myself:</p> - -<p>"But it's just a little scrap of the Big Land's power of patriotism to -the universe, and it ain't grown yet only just to one country—and not -entirely to that."</p> - -<p>And it made me see things intimate and tender. And it was Jeffro that -did that for me.</p> - -<p>That summer he come to kind of belong to the town, the way a hill or a -tree does, only lots more so. At first, folks used to call him "that Jew -peddler," and circus day I heard Mis' Sykes saying we better lock up our -doors during the parade, because we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> didn't know what "that foreigner" -might take it in his head to do.</p> - -<p>"Mis' Sykes," says I, "where were your mother and father born?"</p> - -<p>"New York state," says she, like the right answer.</p> - -<p>"And their folks?" I went on.</p> - -<p>"Massachusetts," says she, like she was going to the head now sure.</p> - -<p>"And <i>their</i> folks?" I continued, smooth. "Where'd <i>they</i> come from?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes began to wobble. "Well," says she, "there was three brothers -come over together—"</p> - -<p>"Yes," I says, "I know. There always is. Well, where'd they come from? -And where'd their folks come from? Were they immigrants to America, too? -Or did they just stay foreigners in England or Germany or Scandinavia or -Russia, maybe?" says I. "Which was it?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes put on her most ancestral look. "You can ask the most -personal questions, Calliope," she began.</p> - -<p>"Personal," says I. "Why, I dunno. I thought that question was real -universal. For all we know, it takes in a dozen nations with their blood -flowing, sociable, in with yours. It's awful hard for any of us," I -says, "to find a real race to be foreign to. I wouldn't bet I was -foreign to no one," says I, "nor that no one was foreign, for certain, -to me."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p><p>"I shall lock my door circus day, just the same," says Mis' Sykes.</p> - -<p>"Do," says I. "Circuses is likely to be followed up by hoodlums. And -I've known them to be native-born, now and again."</p> - -<p>But after a while, in spite of his being a foreigner, most everybody got -to like Jeffro. You couldn't help it—he was so patient and ready to -believe. And the children—the children that like your heart—they all -loved him. They would follow him along the curb, and he'd set down and -show them his pack—time and again I've come on him in a shady -side-street opening his pack for them. And sometimes when he had a new -toy made, he'd walk up to the schoolhouse a-purpose to show it to them, -and they'd all crowd round him, at recess.</p> - -<p>On account of that, the children's folks took to noticing him and -speaking to him. And folks done little things for him and for Joseph. -Abigail Arnold, that keeps the home bakery, she had him make a wooden -bridal pair for the top of the wedding-cake she keeps permanent in her -show window; Mis' Timothy Toplady had him do little odd jobs around -their place, and she'd pay him with a cooked chicken. He'd show most all -of us the picture of his little young wife and the two children—</p> - -<p>"I declare," says Mis' Toplady, kind of wondering, "since I've seen the -picture of his wife and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> babies he don't seem to me much more foreign -than anybody else."</p> - -<p>I happened over to Jeffro's one morning with a loaf of my brown bread -and a half a johnny-cake. He seemed to know how to cook pretty well, but -still I felt more or less sorry for him and the little boy, and I used -to take them in a thing or two less than half occasionally. When I -stepped up to the door that night I heard him singing—he used to sing -low, funny songs while he worked. And when he opened the door for me, -all of a sudden he blushed to the top of his face. And he bowed his -funny, stiff way, and says:</p> - -<p>"Vell, I see I blush like boys. It is because I was singing a -little—vat-you-call, lull'by. Ven I make the toys I am always thinking -how little children vill go to sleep holding vat I make, and sometimes I -put in lull'bies, in case there is no mother to sing them."</p> - -<p>That was like Jeffro. I mention it because Jeffro was just like that.</p> - -<p>I'd set down the bread and the johnny-cake, and he'd thanked me—Jeffro -always thanked folks like he'd just been give a piece of new life with -every kindness—and I dunno but he had—I dunno but we all have; and I'd -started to go, when he says hesitating:</p> - -<p>"I have vanted to ask you thes': If I vork at that bad place in the road -in front—if I bring sand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> from the hill behind, what I can, and fill in -that hole, slow, you know—but some every day—you would not mind?"</p> - -<p>"Mind?" says I. "Why, my, no. But it's part the village's business to do -that. You're in the village limits, you know. It'd ought to been done -long ago."</p> - -<p>"The village?" said he. "But it is your place. Why should the village -fix that hole?"</p> - -<p>"It's the village's business," I told him, "to keep the streets good. -Most of them do it pretty lackadaisical, but it's their business to do -it."</p> - -<p>His face lit up like turning up the wick. "<i>Nu!</i>" he cried. "So I vill -do. I thought it vould be you I am doing it for, and I vas glad. But if -it is the village, then I am many times more glad of that."</p> - -<p>It wasn't much of a compliment to a lady, but I thought I see what he -meant.</p> - -<p>"Why are you glad, Mr. Jeffro," I says, to make sure, "that it's the -village?"</p> - -<p>"It does all the things for me," he says, simple. "The fire-engine, the -post-office—even the telephone is free to me in the village. So it is -America doing this for me; for thes' village, it belongs to America. -There is no army that I go in or pay to keep out of—there are no -soldiers that are jostling me in the streets—they do not even make me -buy and put up any flag. And my little Joseph, all day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> long he is -learning. And the people—here they call me 'Mr.' All is free—free. For -all thes' I pay nothing. And now you tell me here is a hole that it is -the village business to fill up. It is the business of America to fill -up that hole! Vell, I can make that my business, for a -little—what-you-say—<i>pay-back</i>."</p> - -<p>It was awful hard to know what to say. I wonder what you'd have said? I -just stood still and kept still. Because, if I'd known what to say, it -would have been pretty hard, just then, to say it anyway.</p> - -<p>"It is a luck for the folks," he said, "that their own vork lets them -make some paying back. My toys, they don't pay back, not very much. I -must find another vay."</p> - -<p>He followed me out on the stoop.</p> - -<p>"There is von thing they vill let me do after a vile, though," he said, -with a smile. "In America, I hear everybody make von long, strong -groaning about their taxes. Those taxes, ven vill they come? And are -they so very big, then? They must be very big to pay for all the free -things."</p> - -<p>"Why, Mr. Jeffro," I said, "but you won't have any taxes."</p> - -<p>"But I am to be a citizen!" he cried. "Every citizen pays his taxes."</p> - -<p>"No," I told him. "No, they don't. And unless you own property or—or -something," says I,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> stumbling as delicate as I could, "you don't pay -any taxes at all, Mr. Jeffro."</p> - -<p>When I made him know that sure, he lifted his arms and let them drop; -and he come on down the path with me, and he stood there by the syringa -bush at the gate, looking off down the little swelling hill to where the -village nestled at the foot. School was just out, and the children were -flooding down the road, and the whole time was peaceful and spacious and -close-up-to, like a friend. We stood still for a minute, while I was -thinking that; and when I turned to Jeffro, he stood with the tears -running down his cheeks.</p> - -<p>"To think there is such a place," he said reverently. "And me in it. And -them going to be here." Then he looked at me like he was seeing more -than his words were saying. "I keep thinking," he said, "how hard God is -vorking, all over the earth—and how good He's succeeded here."</p> - -<p>Up to the gate run little Joseph, his school-books in his arms. Jeffro -put both hands on the boy.</p> - -<p>"Little citizen, little citizen," his father said. And it was like one -way of being baptized.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>When I was a little girl, a cardinal bird came one summer and nested in -our yard. They almost never come so far north, and I loved him like a -friend. When autumn came, the other birds all went, but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> didn't go. -And one day, in the first snow and high wind, he was storm-beaten into -our little porch, and we caught him. We dare not let him go, in the -cold. So we kept him until he died. I shall never forget the change that -the days made. I cannot bear to tell or to think about the change in him -that the days made. That is why I will never have about me a caged -thing, bird or beast or spirit. The cardinal helped me to understand. I -wonder if the death of any beauty or any life is as much Nature's will -as we still think it is....</p> - -<p>This is why I shrink from telling what next happened to Jeffro—what I -knew must happen to him if he came here and lived the life of his -kind—of my kind. Lived it, I mean, with his eyes open. There are plenty -who live it and never know anything about it, after all. But Jeffro -would know. He had seeing eyes, and his heart was the heart of a child, -and his face was always surprised—surprised, but believing it all too, -and trusting the good. He trusted the good just as you and I did, in the -beginning. Just as you and I do, in the end. But in between the two -trusts there comes a black time; and if it hasn't come to you, then you -don't know the Big Land; and you don't see what's going on in it; and -you haven't questioned where it's all going to lead. As, after a while, -Jeffro questioned it.</p> - -<p>All summer he worked at his toys, and all the autumn. But when winter -began to come, the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> house was hard to heat. The roof was decayed, -the windows were shrunken, the floor was in a draft from all four -directions; and I didn't have the money to make the house over—which -was just about what it needed. I offered to rent him and the little boy -a room in my house, and to let him do his work there; but it was far for -the little fellow to go to school. And just then came the Offer.</p> - -<p>A man from a mining town in the next state gave Jeffro a chance to go -there with him, and he'd give him work in the mines all winter. Jeffro -listened, and heard about the good pay, and the plain, hearty food, and -the chance to get ahead; and Miss Mayhew said she'd keep the little boy; -and Jeffro thought about the cold little house, and feeding himself all -winter, and about standing on street corners with his pack; and there -was Miss Mayhew's nice, warm house and woman-care for the little boy. -And in the end Jeffro went. I told him to leave his things in the little -house and I wouldn't charge him rent, which it wasn't worth it.</p> - -<p>The night before he started he come round to my house to say good-by. He -thanked me, so nice, for what I'd done, off and on. And then he pulled -something out of his pocket.</p> - -<p>"Look!" he said. "It is from the National Bank. It is my bank-book—the -proofs that I have money there. Here is my checker book," said he. "You -know how these things go. See that!" His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> eyes got big and deep. "They -give me credit—and thes' two books," he said. "And they vill give me -interest on thes' little money. It vill make money for me vile I am -gone. It is a vonder. I ask' them vat there is to pay for this chance, -and the man laughed. And see—all the vile I am gone, Joseph vill be -learning free. I pay no more than his little board. It is a vonder."</p> - -<p>He showed me the entry, thirty-seven dollars, his summer's savings. He -had had to keep back the amount of his fare.</p> - -<p>"The ticket is much," he said, "but thes' vay I can save enough by -spring so they can come. They can live in your little house—oh, it is a -plenty room. Ve shall have a little garden—as big as Joseph's plate! -She vill keep a little coop of chickens—"</p> - -<p>So he ran on with his happy planning. I remember how he looked when he -left my house that night—his two books tightly clasped, his shoulders -back, his head full of dreams, his face sort of held up to the stars. I -never saw him that way again.</p> - -<p>It was a long winter. It's strange how the calendar sets down winter as -just being three months when everybody that's lived through one knows -how it's either long or short and never, never clipped right off at the -three months, same as the almanac would have you believe. This one was -long, and it was white, and it was deep. It kept me shoveling coal and -splitting kindling and paying for stove-wood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> and warming my feet, and -it seemed to me that was pretty near all I did do those months. It's -surprising and it's discouraging how much of our lives goes along just -doing the little fussy things necessary to keep a-going, that you can't -count in on just pure, sheer living.</p> - -<p>"Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for -exercise," they used to tell me; and I used to think: "Yes, but what -about just messing-round?" That don't get itself counted in at all, and -that just eats up time by the dialful. And I think, if you look close, -that one of the things we've got to learn is how to do less of the -little hectoring, wearing messing-round, and to do more of the big, -plain, real, true, unvarnished living—like real work, and real play, -and real talk, and real thinking. And fewer little jobs—fewer little -jobs.</p> - -<p>But after a while the winter got done, and early April came—a little -faint green down below, a little fine gold up above, and a great wide -wash of pale blue at the top; Spring in three layers.</p> - -<p>I'd been often to see Joseph, and he was well, and in the reader ahead -of the reader a boy of his age would naturally have been in. He had had -several short letters from his father, and I was looking to have one of -them say when we might expect him, but none of them did.</p> - -<p>Then in April no letter came. We thought it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> meant that he'd be home. -I'd been over and cleaned the little house. And then when April was -almost to a close, and he hadn't come yet, I saw it would be too late -for his garden, so I planted that—a few vegetables, and a few flowers, -and a morning-glory or two over the stoop. And I laid in a few canned -things in his cupboard, so's he would have something to start in on.</p> - -<p>May came, and we wondered. Then one day there was a letter in a strange -writing. Jeffro was in the hospital, it said, and he wanted to send word -that he was all right and would send a letter himself in a little while. -That was all that it told us.</p> - -<p>Everybody in Friendship Village remembers that spring, because it was -the year the bank closed down. Nobody knew the reason. Some day, when -the world gets really to going, one of the things they'll read about in -musty books and marvel over will be the things we call panics. They'll -know then that, put simple, it's just another name for somebody's greed, -dressed up becoming as Conditions. We're beginning now to look at the -quality of the clothes Conditions dress in, and we're finding them -pretty poor quality sometimes, and cut awful old-fashioned, and the dye -rubs off. But in those days, all we knew was that the bank had -"suspended payment."</p> - -<p>"But what's that mean—'suspended payment?'" I says to Silas Sykes that -told me. "You can't suspend your debts, can you? I never could."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><p>"It means," Silas says, "that they'll never pay a cent on the dollar. -That's what it means."</p> - -<p>"But," I says, "I don't understand. If I owe you ten dollars, I can't -put down my curtain and suspend <i>that</i> payment, <i>can</i> I?"</p> - -<p>"Well, you ain't banks," says Silas. "And banks is."</p> - -<p>I was walking away and thinking it over, when I stopped stock-still in -the street. The National Bank—it was the National Bank that Jeffro had -his thirty-seven dollars in.</p> - -<p>I felt as if I had to do something for him, then and there. And that -afternoon I took my trowel and went up to his little place, and thought -I'd dig round some in the garden that was coming up, gay as a button.</p> - -<p>When I stepped inside the gate, I looked up at the house, and I saw the -front door was open. "Land," I thought, "I hope they haven't stole what -little he had in there, too." And I stepped up to the door.</p> - -<p>In the wooden chair in the middle of the floor sat Jeffro. His hat was -pulled down over his eyes, his legs were thrust out in front of him, one -of his arms was hanging down, and the other one was in a white sling.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Jeffro—Mr. Jeffro!" I says. "Oh—what's the matter?"</p> - -<p>He looked up, and his face never changed at sight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> of me, nor he never -got up or moved. And his look—well, it wasn't the look of Jeffro any -more than feathers have the look of a bird. But one thing I knew about -that look—he was hungry. I could tell that look anywhere, because I've -been hungry myself, with no food coming from anywheres.</p> - -<p>I flew to the cupboard where I'd put in the few things, and in a jiffy I -had some soup heating and a box of crackers opened. I brought the bowl -to the table, all steaming and good-smelling, and he drew up there -without a word and ate with his hat on—ate like I never saw a man eat -before.</p> - -<p>When he got through: "Tell me about it, Mr. Jeffro," I says. And he told -me.</p> - -<p>It wasn't anything very new. Jeffro had been in the mines since the -first of November, and the first of January the strike had begun—the -strike against a situation that Jeffro drew for me that afternoon, -telling it without any particular heat, but just plain and quiet. He -told me how he had gone with some of the men to the house of one of the -owners to talk of settlement.</p> - -<p>"I spoke out to him once," said Jeffro. "I said: 'Will <i>you</i> tell me how -this is? They can not make me understand. America gives me free all the -things that I did not expect: The fire-engine, it takes no pay. My -little boy's school costs me not anything. When I come to this state I -have no passport to get, and they did not search me at the frontier. All -this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> is very free. But when we want more bread, and we are willing to -work for it all day long with our hands, you will not let us have more, -even then. Even when we pay with work. Will you tell me how this is?'"</p> - -<p>Of all that the man had said to him, kindly enough, Jeffro understood -nothing. And he could speak the language, while many of the men in the -mines could not say one word of English.</p> - -<p>"But they could strike in Russian and Polish and Lithuanian," Jeffro -said, "and they did."</p> - -<p>Then came the soldiers. Jeffro told me about that.</p> - -<p>"Ve vere standing there outside the Angel mine," he said, "to see that -nobody vent to vork and spoiled our hopes, ven somebody cried out: 'The -soldiers!' Many of the men ran—I did not know vy. Here was some of the -United States army. I had never seen any of the army before. I hurried -toward them, my cap in my hand. I saw their fine uniforms, their fine -horses, this army that was kept to protect me, a citizen, and vich I did -not have to pay. I stood bowing. My heart felt good. They had come to -help us then—free! And then somebody cried. 'He's one of the damned, -disorderly picketers. Arrest him!' And they did; and nothing I could say -vould make them understand. I vas in jail four days, but all those days -I thought it vas a mistake. I smiled to think how sorry they vould be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> -ven they found out they had arrested von they were paid to -protect—free."</p> - -<p>He told me how there went on the days, the weeks, of the strike; hunger, -cold; the militia everywhere. The little that Jeffro had earned was -spent, dime by dime. He stayed on, hoping for the settlement, certain -that it would all be right as soon as everybody "understood."</p> - -<p>"It vas this vay," he said laboriously. "Mine-owners and money and -militia vere here. Over here vere the men. Vrong vas done on both -sides—different kinds of vrong. The sides could not speak together -clear. No von understood no von."</p> - -<p>Then a miner had resisted an officer who tried to arrest him, the -officer fired, and Jeffro had the bullet in his shoulder, and had been -locked up for being "implicated"—"I don't know yet vat they mean by -that long vord," Jeffro said—and had been taken to the courthouse and -later to the hospital. On his discharge, eight days ago, he had started -to walk home to Friendship Village.</p> - -<p>"To-morrow," Jeffro said, "I vill get out from the bank my money—I have -not touched that—and send to her vat I have. It may be she has saved a -little bit. Somehow she vill come. To-morrow I vill get it, as soon as -the bank is open."</p> - -<p>I knew I had to tell him—I knew I had to tell him right then. "Mr. -Jeffro—Mr. Jeffro," I said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> "you can't. You can't get your money. The -bank's failed."</p> - -<p>He looked at me, not understanding.</p> - -<p>"Vat is that?" he said. "'Failed'—for a bank?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know what it is," I told him. "It's something banks can do. You -never can tell when. And this one has done it."</p> - -<p>"But," he cried, "vat do you mean? It vas the <i>National</i> Bank! This -nation can not fail!"</p> - -<p>"This much of it has," I says. "The bank's shut up tight. Everybody that -had money in it has lost it—unless maybe they pay back to each one just -a little bit."</p> - -<p>He stood up then and looked at me as if I were strange. "Then this too," -he says, "can happen in America. And the things I see all winter—the -soldiers to shoot you down?"</p> - -<p>"No, no," I says. "You mustn't think—"</p> - -<p>"I do not think," says Jeffro. "I know. I have seen. I am there ven it -happens. And more that I did not tell. In March a man came to me ven I -was hungry, and tried to buy my vote. Ven I understood, I struck him in -his face, just the same as if I have von. But I saw men sell their vote, -and laugh at it. And now I understand. You throw dust in our eyes, free -fire-engines, free letter-carriers, free this and free that, and all the -time somebody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> must be laughing somewhere at how it makes us fools. I -hate America. Being free here, it is a lie!"</p> - -<p>And me, I set still, trying to think. I set looking at the -bright-colored poster that Jeffro had found on his cow-shed in the old -country, and I was trying to think. I knew that a great deal of what -he'd said was true. I knew that folks all over the country were waking -up and getting to know that it was true. And yet I knew that it wasn't -all the truth. That there was more, and that something had got to make -him know. But what was going to do that?</p> - -<p>Faint and high and quite a ways off, I heard a little call. It wasn't -much of a call, but when another came and then another, it set my heart -to beating and the blood to rushing through me as though it was trying -to tell me something.</p> - -<p>I stood up and looked. And up the street I saw them—running and -jumping, shouting little songs and laughing all the way—the children, -coming out of the Friendship Village schoolhouse, there at the top of -the hill. And in a minute it came over me that even if I couldn't help -him, there was something to do that mebbe might comfort him some, just -now, when he was needing it.</p> - -<p>I stepped to the door, and up by the locust-tree I see Joseph coming. I -could pick out his little black head and his bobbed hair and his red -cheeks. And I called to him.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p><p>"Joseph, Joseph!" I says. "You come over here—and have the rest come -too!"</p> - -<p>He came running, his eyes beginning to shine. And the others came -running and followed him, eager to know what was what. And up the road a -piece I see some more coming, and they all begun to run too.</p> - -<p>Joseph ran in the gate ahead of everybody, and past me, and in at the -door that was close to the road. And he threw away his book, and ran to -his father, and flung both arms around his neck. And the rest all came -pressing up around the door, and when they see inside, they set up a -shout:</p> - -<p>"It's the Present-man! It's the Present-man! He's back a'ready!"</p> - -<p>Because I guess 'most every one of them there had had something or other -of Jeffro's making for Christmas. But I'd never known till that minute, -and neither had he, that they'd ever called him that. When he heard it, -he looked up from Joseph, where he stood holding him in his arms almost -fierce, and he come over to the door. And the children pressed up close -to the door, shouting like children will, and the nearest ones shook his -hand over Joseph's shoulder.</p> - -<p>And me, all of a sudden I shouted louder'n they did: "Who you glad to -see come home?"</p> - -<p>And they all shouted together, loud as their lungs: "<i>The Present-man! -The Present-man!</i>"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p><p>And then they caught sight of Miss Mayhew, coming from the school, and -they all ran for her, to tell her the news. And she came in the gate to -shake hands with him. And then in a minute they all trooped off down the -road together, around Miss Mayhew, one or two of them waving back at -him.</p> - -<p>Then I turned round and looked at Jeffro.</p> - -<p>"Why, they have felt—felt glad to see me!" he says, breathless. And -back to his face came creeping some of the old Jeffro look.</p> - -<p>"Why, they are glad," says I. "We all are. We've missed you like -everything—trudging along with your toys."</p> - -<p>Joseph wasn't saying a word. He was just snuggling up, nosing his -father's elbow, like a young puppy. Jeffro stood patting him with his -cracked, chapped hand. And Jeffro was looking down the road, far as he -could watch, after the children.</p> - -<p>"I've got a little canned stuff there in the cupboard for your suppers," -I says, not knowing what else to say. "And I stuck a few things in the -ground for you out there, that are coming up real nice—potatoes and -onions and a cabbage or two. And they's a little patch of corn that'll -be along by and by."</p> - -<p>All of a sudden Jeffro turned his back to me and walked a few steps -away. "A garden?" he says, not looking round. "A little garden?"</p> - -<p>"Kind of a one," I told him. "Such as it is, it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> all right—what there -is of it. And Abigail Arnold," I says, "wants you should make her -another wooden bridal pair for the cake in the window—the groom to the -other one is all specked up. And I heard her say you could set some of -your toys there in her front case. Oh yes, and Mis' Timothy Toplady's -got a clucking hen she's been trying to hold back for you, and she says -you can pay her in eggs—"</p> - -<p>I stopped, because Jeffro frightened me. He wheeled round and stood -looking out the door across the pasture opposite, and his lips were -moving. I thought maybe he was figuring something with them, and I kept -still. But he wasn't—he was thinking with them. In a minute he -straightened up. And his face—it wasn't brave or confident the way it -had been once, but it was saying a thing for him—a nice thing, even -before he spoke.</p> - -<p>He came and put out his hand to me, round Joseph. "My friend," he says, -"I vill tell you what it is. Thes' is what I thought America was like."</p> - -<p>Wasn't that queer, when I understood all he had hoped from America, and -all he hadn't found? A lump come in my throat—not a sad one though! But -a glad one. And oh, the difference in them lumps!</p> - -<p class="space-above">He went back to work at his toys again, and he began at the bottom, a -whole year after his first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>coming, to save up money to bring over his -wife and the little ones. And it wasn't two weeks later that I went -there one night and saw him out working on the hole in the road again.</p> - -<p>"I work for you this time, though," he said, when he see I noticed. -"Thes' I do not for America—no! I do it for you and for thes' village. -No one else."</p> - -<p>And I thought, while I watched him pounding away at the dirt:</p> - -<p>"Anybody might think Friendship Village knows things America hasn't -found out yet—but of course that can't be so."</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Copyright, <i>Everybody's Magazine</i>, 1915.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> - -<h2>WHEN NICK NORDMAN CAME BACK HOME</h2> - -<p>I was awful nervous about going up to meet Nick Nordman. It had been -near thirty years since I'd seen him, and he'd got so rich that one -house and one automobile weren't anything. He had about three of each, -and he frisked the world in between occupying them. Still, when he wrote -to me that he was coming back to visit the village, I made up my mind -that I'd be there to welcome him, being as we were boys and girls in -school together.</p> - -<p>It was a nice October evening when I started out. When I came down -through town, I saw the council chamber all lit up, being it was the -regular meeting night. And sitting in there I saw Silas Sykes and -Timothy Toplady and Eppleby Holcomb and some more, smoking to heaven and -talking to each other while the mayor addressed them. I wondered, as I -went along, which of the thirteen hundred things we needed in the -village they were talking about. I concluded they were talking about how -to raise the money to do any one of them—some years away.</p> - -<p>In the middle of town I came on Lucy Hackett. She was down buying her -vegetables; she always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> bought them at night, because then they give her -a good deal for her money and some cheaper. Lucy was forty-odd, with -long brown hair, braided round and round her head, crown after crown. -She was tall and thin, with long arms, but a slow, graceful way of -walking and of picking her way, holding up her old work skirt, that made -you think of a grand lady moving around. And she had lovely dark eyes -that made you like her anyway.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Lucy," I says, "guess who I'm up here to meet—Nick Nordman."</p> - -<p>She just stared at me. "Nick Nordman?" she says. "Coming <i>here</i>?"</p> - -<p>"First time in twenty years," I says, and went off, with her face -a-following me, and me a-chiding myself energetic: What was the matter -with me to spring that onto her all of a sudden that way, and clean -forget that her and Nick used to keep company for a year or more before -he went off to town?</p> - -<p>"Paper? Paper, Miss Marsh? As soon's we get 'em off the train?" says -somebody. And there I saw from four to six little boys, getting orders -for the city paper before the train had come in. But it was just -whistling down by the gas works, and I was so excited I dunno if I -answered them.</p> - -<p>My gracious, what do you s'pose? On the back of the Dick Dasher -accommodation train—we called it that because Dick Dasher was the -conductor—came rolling in a special car, and a black porter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> bounced -off and set down a step, and out of the car got one lonely, solitary -man.</p> - -<p>"Is that a show car hitched on there, or what?" I says to Mis' Sturgis, -that got off the train.</p> - -<p>"That's what we was wondering," says she.</p> - -<p>Dick Dasher, he was lifting off bundles of laundry and stuff that's -intrusted to him to bring home all along the line, and he heard me. "If -you're to meet somebody, that's the man-you're-looking-for's private -car," says he. "He's the only other one off here."</p> - -<p>Land, there he was! As soon as I faced the man the porter had bowed off -the step, I knew him. Stockier, redder in the face, with blunt gray hair -and blunt gray mustache, and clothes that fit him like a label round a -bottle—sure as could be, it was him!</p> - -<p>"Well, Nick!" I'd been going to say; but instead of it what I did say -was, "Is this Mr. Nordman?"</p> - -<p>He lifted his hat in the hand with his glove on. "It's Calliope Marsh, -isn't it?" says he. "<i>I am</i> glad to see you. Mighty good of you to meet -me, you know."</p> - -<p>I don't know how it was, but the way he was and the way he spoke shut me -up tighter than a clamshell. It had never entered my head to feel -embarrassed or stiff with him until I saw him, and heard him being so -formal. My land, he looked rich and acted rich! The other women stood -there, so I managed to introduce them. "You meet Mis' Arnet. You meet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> -Mis' Sturgis. You meet Mis' Hubbelthwait," I says. "Them that was Hetty -Parker and Mamie Bain and Cassie White—I guess you remember them, don't -you?"</p> - -<p>"Perfectly! Perfectly!" says he; and he done his heartiest, it seemed to -me. But to bow quite low, and lift his hat higher and higher to each -one—well, I dunno. It wasn't the way I thought it'd be.</p> - -<p>"I thought we'd walk down," I says. "I thought mebbe you'd like to see -the town—" But I kind of wavered off. All of a sudden the town didn't -seem so much to me as it had.</p> - -<p>"By all means," says he.</p> - -<p>But just then there was above six-seven of them little boys found him. -They'd got their papers now and they were bound to make a sale. "Paper? -Buy a paper? Buy a newspaper, mister?" they says, most of them running -backward in their bare feet right in front of him.</p> - -<p>"Sure," he says, "I'll buy a paper. Give me one of <i>all</i> your papers.</p> - -<p>"Now let's see," he says then. "Where's the pop-corn wagon?"</p> - -<p>There wasn't any. None of the boys had ever heard of one.</p> - -<p>"No pop-corn wagon? Bless me," he says, "you don't mean to say you don't -have a circus every year—with pop-corn wagons and—"</p> - -<p>A groan broke out from every boy. "No!" they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> says in chorus. "Aw, it -ain't comin'. Pitcairn's wanted to show here. But the town struck 'em -for high license."</p> - -<p>Mr. Nordman looked at the boys a minute. Then he rapped his cane down -hard on the platform. "It's a burning shame!" he says out, indignant and -human. "Ain't they even any ice-cream cones in this town?" he cries.</p> - -<p>Oh, yes, there was them. The boys set up a shout. Mr. Nordman—he give -them a nickel apiece, and the next instant the platform was swept clean -of every boy of them. And him and me begun walking down the street.</p> - -<p>"Bless me," he says. "What a nice little town it's grown! What a <i>very</i> -nice little town!" And the way he said it shut me right up again.</p> - -<p>I dunno how it was, but this was no more the way I'd imagined showing -Nick Nordman over the village than anything on earth. I'd been going to -tell him about old Harvey Myers' hanging himself in the garret we were -then passing, but I hadn't the heart nor the interest.</p> - -<p>Just as we got along down to the main block of Daphne Street, the -council meeting was out and Silas and Eppleby and Timothy Toplady and -the rest came streaming out of the engine house. Mis' Toplady and Mame -Holcomb were sitting outside, waiting for their husbands, and so of -course I marched Mr. Nicholas Nordman right up to the lot of them and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> -named them to him. Every one of them had known him over twenty years -before.</p> - -<p>Off came the gray hat, and to each one of the ladies he bowed low, and -he says: "Delighted—<i>delighted</i> to see you again. Indeed we remember, -don't we? And Timothy! Eppleby! Silas! I <i>am</i> delighted."</p> - -<p>Then there was a long pause. We all just stood there.</p> - -<p>Then Silas, as the chief leading citizen, he clears his throat and he -says: "Do you—ah—remain long?" I don't know a better sample of what -Mr. Nicholas Nordman's manner done to us all. "<i>Remain!</i>" Silas never -said "remain" in his life before. Always, always he would, under any -real other circumstances, have said "stay."</p> - -<p>The whole few minutes was like that, while we just stood there. And -perhaps it was like that most of all in the minute when it ought to have -been like that the least. This was when Mr. Nordman told a plan he had. -"I want you all," he said, "and a few more whom I well remember, to do -me the honor to lunch with me to-morrow in my car. We can have a fine -time to talk over the—ah—old days."</p> - -<p>There was a dead pause. I guess everybody was figgering on the same -thing; finally Eppleby asked about it. "Much obliged," says he. "What -car?"</p> - -<p>"My private car," says Mr. Nordman, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>"somewhere on the siding. You'll -recognize her. She's gray."</p> - -<p>"Much obliged," "Pleased, I'm sure," "Pleased to come," says everybody.</p> - -<p>And we broke up and he walked along with me. Halfway down the block, who -should I see ahead of me but Lucy Hackett. I never said anything till we -overtook her. When I spoke she wheeled and flushed up like a girl, and -put out her hand so nice and eager, and with her pretty way that was a -glad way and was a grand lady way too.</p> - -<p>I says: "Mr. Nordman, you meet Miss Lucy Hackett, that I guess you can -remember each other."</p> - -<p>He took off his hat and bowed. "Ah, Miss Lucy," says he, "this <i>is</i> a -pleasure. How <i>good</i> to see you again!"</p> - -<p>"I'm glad to see you, too, Nick," she says, and walked along on the -inside of the walk with us, just <i>drooping</i>!</p> - -<p>Yes, you might as well have tried to greet a fountain in full play as to -greet him. He invited her to come to his luncheon next day. She said she -would, with a nice little catch of pleasure in her tone; and he left her -at her gate, him bowing tremendous. And it was the same gate he used to -take her to when they were boy and girl....</p> - -<p>He said the same kind of a formal good night to me at my gate; and I was -just going to go into my house, feeling sick and lonesome all rolled -into one,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> because there wasn't a mite of Nick Nordman about him at all; -but all of a sudden, like an explosion out of a clear sky and all points -of the earth, there came down onto us the most tremendous, outrageous -racket that ever blasted a body's ears. It seemed to come from sky, -earth, air and sea, at one and the same instants. And it went like this:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>S——s——s!</div> -<div>Yow! Yow! Yow!</div> -<div>Who's——all——right?</div> -<div>Mr. N——o——rdm——a——n!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And then there was a great burst of yelling, and the whole seven boys -came dropping out of trees and scrambling up from under the fence, and -they ran off down the street, still yelling about him. Seems the -ice-cream cones had made a hit.</p> - -<p>Then—just for one little minute—I saw the real Nick Nordman that I -remembered. His face broke into a broad, pleased grin, and he shoved his -hat onto the back of his head, and he slapped his leg so that you could -hear it. "Why," says he, "the durn little kids!"</p> - -<p class="space-above">We all dressed up in the best we had for the luncheon. Lucy Hackett come -for me. She had on a clean, pretty print dress, and she looked awful -nice.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Lucy," I says to her right off, "ain't it too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> bad about Nick? He -ain't no more like he use' to be than a motor is like a mule."</p> - -<p>Lucy, she flushed up instant. "I thought," says she, "he was real -improved."</p> - -<p>"Land, yes, improved!" I says. "Improved out of all recognizing him."</p> - -<p>She staggered me some by giving a superior smile. "Of course," she says, -"he's all city ways now. Of course he is."</p> - -<p>Yes, of course he was. I thought of her words over and over again during -that lunch. His private car had a little table fitted in most every seat -and laid, all white, with pretty dishes and silver and flowers. Electric -fans were going here and there. The lights were lighted, though it was -broad day and broader. The porter, in a white coat, was frisking round -with ice and glasses. But, most magnificent of all, was Mr. Nicholas -Nordman, standing in the middle of the aisle in pure white serge.</p> - -<p>"So pleased," says he. "So very pleased. Now this <i>is</i> good of you all -to come."</p> - -<p>I s'pose what we done was to chat; that, I figger, would be the name of -it. But when he set us all down to the little tables, four and four, a -deathlike silence fell on the whole car. It was hard enough to talk -anyhow. Add to that the interestingness of all this novelty, and not one -of us could work up a thing to say.</p> - -<p>Mr. Nordman took the minister and Lucy Hackett<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> and me to his table, -being we were all odd ones, and begun to talk benevolent about the -improvements that a little town of this size ought to have.</p> - -<p>"I s'pose they have grand parks and buildings in the cities, Nick?" says -Lucy.</p> - -<p>"Haven't you ever been to see them?" says he—oh, so kind!</p> - -<p>"Never," says she. "But I've heard about them."</p> - -<p>He sat staring out the car window across the Pump pasture, where the -shadows were all laying nice. "City life is intensely interesting," says -he. "Intensely so."</p> - -<p>"As interesting as the time you stole Grandpa Toplady's grapes?" I says. -I couldn't help it.</p> - -<p>He tapped on the table. "Let us be in order for a few minutes," he says. -He needn't of. We were in order already; we hadn't been anything else. -Nobody was speaking a word hardly. But everybody twisted round and -looked at him as he got onto his feet.</p> - -<p>"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, and looked at us once round. "I have -summoned you here for a purpose. On this, the occasion of my first visit -back to my boyhood's home, I feel that I should—and, indeed, I most -earnestly desire to—mark the time by some small token. Therefore, after -some conversation about the matter during the forenoon, and much thought -before my coming, I have decided to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> set aside ten thousand dollars from -to-day to be used for your town in a way which a committee—of which I -hope that you, my guests of the day, will be appointed members—may -decide. For park purposes, playgrounds, pavements—what you will; I -desire to make this little acknowledgment to my native town, to this the -home of my boyhood. I thank you."</p> - -<p>He set down and, after a minute, everybody burst out and spatted their -hands.</p> - -<p>And then Silas Sykes, that is our professional leading citizen, got to -his feet and accepted in the name of the town. Some of the other men -said a little about the needs of the town; and Eppleby Holcomb, he got -up and proposed a toast to the host. And by that time, the sun had got -around considerable and it was blazing hot there on the side track, and -us ladies in our black silks begun to think, longing, of our side -piazzas and our palm-leaf fans.</p> - -<p>We filed down the aisle and shook the hand of Mr. Nicholas Nordman and -thanked him, individual and formal, both for the lunch and the big gift, -and got out. But Lucy Hackett burst out talking, with the tears in her -eyes. "Nick!" she says. "Oh, Nick, it was wonderful! Oh, it was the most -wonderful time I ever had in my life—the luncheon with everything so -pretty—prettier'n I ever saw things before; and then the present to the -town. Ten thousand dollars! Oh, none of us can be happy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> and grateful -enough. And to think it's you that's done it, Nick—to think it's you!"</p> - -<p>"Thank you, Miss Lucy," says he, "thank you; you are very good, I'm -sure."</p> - -<p>But I noticed that he wasn't so much formal now as he was lifeless; and -I was wondering if he hadn't had a good time to his own luncheon party -or what, when I heard something out on the platform, and then there come -a-walking in a regular procession. It was all seven of the small boys -again, and from seven to fourteen more besides, done up clean, with -shoes on and here and there a collar.</p> - -<p>"Is it time?" they says.</p> - -<p>Nick Nordman stood with his hands in his pockets and grinned down on -them. And it came to me to be kind of jealous of the boys, because he -was with them just the way he ought to have been with us—and wasn't. -But he was going off that night, with his car to be hitched onto the -Through; and there wasn't any time for anybody to say any more, or be -any different. So Lucy and I said good-by to him and left him there with -the boys, dragging out together an ice-cream freezer into the middle of -the gray private car.</p> - -<p>I'd just got the door locked up that night about nine o'clock, and was -seeing to the window catches before I went upstairs, when there come a -rap to my front door.</p> - -<p>"Who's there?" says I, with my hand on the bolt.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p><p>"It's Nick Nordman, Calliope."</p> - -<p>"Land!" says I, letting him in. "I thought you'd gone off hitched to the -Through."</p> - -<p>"I was," he says, "but I ain't. I'm going to wait till five in the -morning. And I'm going to talk over something with you."</p> - -<p>Sheer through being flabbergasted, I led him past the parlor and out -into the dining room and lit the lamp there. I'd been sewing there and -things were spread on every chair. Think of receiving a millionaire in a -place like that! But he never seemed to notice. He dropped right down on -the machine cover that was standing up on end. And he put his elbow on -the machine, and his head on his hand.</p> - -<p>"Calliope," he says, "it ain't the way I thought it'd be. I wanted to -come back here," he says. "I been thinking about it and planning on it -for years. But it ain't like what I thought."</p> - -<p>"Well," I says, soothing, "of course that's always the way when anybody -comes back. They's changes. Things ain't the same. Folks has gone -away—"</p> - -<p>He cut me short off. "Oh," he says, "it ain't that. I expected that. -There were enough folks here. It's something else. When I went away from -here twenty years ago, I had just thirty-six dollars to go on. Now I've -come back, and I don't mind telling you that I've got not far from six -hundred thousand invested. Well, from the time I went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> off, I used to -plan how I'd come back some day, just about like I have come back, and -see folks, and give something to the town, and give a lunch like I did -to-day. I've laid awake nights planning it. And I liked to think about -it."</p> - -<p>"Well," I says, "and you've done it."</p> - -<p>He didn't pay attention. "You remember," he says, "how I used to live -over on the Slew with my uncle in the house that wasn't painted? He'd -got together a cow somehow, and I use' to carry the milk. I never owned -a pair of shoes till I was fifteen and earned them, and I never went to -school after I was twelve. And when I went to the city I begun at the -bottom and lived on nothing and went to night school and got through the -whole works up to pardner for them I used to sweep out for. When I got -my first ten thousand I thought: 'That's what I'm going to give that -little old town—when I get enough more.' Well, I've done it, and I -ain't got no more satisfaction out of it than if I'd thrown it in the -gutter. And that"—he looked at me solemn—"was," says he, "the -durndest, stiffest luncheon I ever et at."</p> - -<p>"Well," I says, "of course—"</p> - -<p>"When I think," he says, "of the way I planned it—with the men all -coming around me, and slapping me on the back, and being glad to see -me—"</p> - -<p>"Oh, Nick!" I says. "Nick Nordman! <i>Was</i> that what you wanted?"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p><p>He looked at me in perfect astonishment. "Why," says he, "ain't that -what anybody wants?"</p> - -<p>I rose right up on my feet and I went over and put out my hand to him. -"Why, Nick," I says, "don't you see? We was afraid of you. <i>I</i> was -afraid of you. I froze right up and give up telling you about folks -hanging themselves and all sorts of interesting things because I thought -you wouldn't care. Why, they don't know you care!"</p> - -<p>"Don't know I care?" says he. "But ain't I showed 'em—ten thousand -dollars' worth?"</p> - -<p>"Oh," I says, "that way! Yes, they know that way. In dollars they know; -but they don't know in feelings. It's them," I says, "that counts." I -set down by him, right on a pile of my new sewing. "Look here," I says, -"Nick Nordman, if that's the way you feel about coming back and about -the village, let's you and me fix up some way to make folks know you -feel that way."</p> - -<p>His face lit up. "How?" says he, doubting.</p> - -<p>I thought a minute. I don't know why it was, but all at once there -flashed into my head the way he had been with the boys, and the way the -boys had been to him; that was what he was wanting, and that was what -had been lacking, and that was what he didn't know how to make come. And -he was lonesome for it.</p> - -<p>"It ought to be," says I, feeling my way in my own head, "some way -that'll make folks—Oh,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Nick," I says, jumping up, "I know the very -thing!"</p> - -<p class="space-above">Pitcairn's Circus that wintered not twenty miles from us, and that had -got so big and successful that it hadn't been to Friendship Village -before in twenty years! And this year, when they'd wanted to come, the -council had put the license so high that they refused it. And yet, one -morning, we woke up to find the town plastered up and down with the big -flaming bill posters of Pitcairn's Circus itself. The town had all it -could do to believe in its own good luck. But there was no room to -doubt. There they were:</p> - -<p class="center">BALLET OF TWELVE HUNDRED</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><span class="smcap">Tremendous Pageant and Spectacle Of<br /> -Esther, the Beautiful Queen<br />magnificent costumes, regal women,<br /> -gorgeous jewels, diverting dancers,<br />solos and ensembles</span></p> - -<hr class="smler" /> - -<p class="center">A HUNDRED TRAINED RIDERS,<br />A HUNDRED ACROBATS, A HUNDRED<br /> -ANIMALS FROM THE HEART OF THE<br />WILD HILLS</p> - -<p class="center smaller">ANIMALS TRAINED—ANIMALS SAVAGE—<br />ANIMALS WONDERFUL</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><span class="smcap">Gigantic Street Parade</span></p> - -<p class="center">FREE!<span class="s5"> </span>FREE!<span class="s5"> </span>FREE!</p> - -<p>The whole town planned to turn out. There was to be no evening -performance, and I schemed to have us all take our lunch—a whole crowd -of us—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> go over to the Pump pasture right from the parade, and -spread it under the big maple, and see the sights while we et. I -broached it to Mis' Toplady and Timothy and Eppleby and Marne Holcomb -and Postmaster and Mis' Sykes, and some more—Mis' Arnet and Mis' -Sturgis and Mis' Hubbelthwait; and they, all of them, and Lucy and me, -fell to planning on who'd take what, and running over to each other's -houses about sweet pickles and things we hadn't thought of, and we had a -real nice old-fashioned time.</p> - -<p>I'll never forget the day. It was one of the regular circus days, bright -and blue and hot. Lucy Hackett and I went down to see the parade -together; and we watched it, as a matter of course, from the window -where I'd watched circus parades when I was a little girl. The horses, -the elephants, the cages closed and the cages opened, the riders, the -bands, the clowns, the calliope—that I was named for, because a circus -with one come to town the day I was born—had all passed when, to crown -and close the whole, we saw coming a wagon of the size and like we had -not often beheld before.</p> - -<p>It was red, it had flags, pennons, streamers, festoons, balloons. -Continually up from it went daylight firecrackers. From the sides of it -fell colored confetti. And it was filled, not with circus folks, dressed -gorgeous, but with boys. And we knew them! Laughing, jigging, frantic -with joy—we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> saw upward of a hundred Friendship Village boys. As the -wagon passed us and we stared after it, suddenly the clamor of shouting -inside it took a kind of form. We begun, Lucy and I, to recognize -something. And what was borne back to us perfectly clamorous was:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>S——s——s!</div> -<div>Yow! Yow! Yow!</div> -<div>Who's——all——right?</div> -<div>Mr. N——o——rdm——a——n!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>"What in time are they yelling?" says a woman at the next window.</p> - -<p>"Some stuff," says somebody else.</p> - -<p>Lucy and I just looked at each other. Lucy was looking wild. "Calliope," -says she, "how'd they come to yell that—that that they said?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, I dunno," I says serene; "I could yell that too—on general -principles. Couldn't you?" I says to her.</p> - -<p>And Lucy blushed burning, rosy, fire red—on general principles, I -suppose.</p> - -<p>We were all to meet at the courthouse with our lunches and go right out -to the Pump pasture. The tents were up already, flags were flying every -which way, and folks were running all over, busy.</p> - -<p>"Like somebody was giving a party," I says.</p> - -<p>Lucy never said a word. She'd gone along, kind of breathless, all the -way down. All us that know each other best were there. And we were dying -to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> get into each other's lunches and see what each other had brought. -So Jimmy Sturgis went to building fire for the coffee, and Eppleby went -off for water, and Silas Sykes, that don't like to do much work, he -says:</p> - -<p>"Timothy, supposing we go along down and buy all our tickets and avoid -the rush?"</p> - -<p>We let them go, and occupied ourselves spreading down the cloth, and -cutting up cake and veal loaf, and opening up pickles and jell. The -maple shade came down nice on the cloth, and appetizing little picnic -smells of potato salad and other things begun getting out around, and -the whole time was cozy and close up to. We were just disposing the -deviled eggs in a mound in the middle, when Silas Sykes and Timothy come -fair running up the slope.</p> - -<p>"My dum!" says Silas. "They won't leave us buy no tickets. They say the -show is free."</p> - -<p>"<i>Free!</i>" says most everybody but me in chorus.</p> - -<p>"They say they ain't no ticket wagon, and they ain't going to be," says -Silas. "What you going to make out that?"</p> - -<p>"Blisterin' Benson!" says Timothy Toplady. "What I think is this, -they're kidding us."</p> - -<p>Lucy stood opening up a little bag she had.</p> - -<p>"Here's one of the slips they threw round this morning," she says; "I -dunno—"</p> - -<p>She had it out and we studied it. We'd all seen them blowing round the -streets, but nobody had paid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> any attention. She held it out and they -all stared at it:</p> - -<p class="center">FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE<br /> -IS INVITED TO COME TO THE CIRCUS<br />THIS AFTERNOON<br />FREE<br />NO TICKETS ON SALE<br /> -FREE ADMISSION<br />FOR<br />FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE</p> - -<p>"My gracious," says Mis' Sykes, "I never heard of such a thing since the -world began."</p> - -<p>"Land, land!" says Mis' Toplady. "But what does it <i>mean</i>?"</p> - -<p>"What <i>does</i> it mean?" says Silas Sykes. "What are we all being a party -to?"</p> - -<p>"I guess it's <i>who</i> are we being a party to, Silas," I says, mild.</p> - -<p>They all looked at me. And then they looked where I was looking, and I -was looking at something hard. Coming out of the main tent was a mass of -struggling, wriggling, dancing humanity—little humanity—in short, the -boys that had rode in the big wagon. And walking in the midst of them -was a man.</p> - -<p>At first not even I recognized him. He had his coat off, and his collar -was turned in, his hat was on the back of his head, and he was smiling -throughout his whole face, which was red.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p><p>"Look-at!" says I. "I guess that's who we're the party to—all of us."</p> - -<p>"What do you <i>mean</i>?" Silas says again.</p> - -<p>"I mean," says I, "that Nick Nordman's had this whole circus come here -to the village and give it to us free. And I say, let's us rush down -there and drag him up here to eat with us!"</p> - -<p>It came to them so sudden that they all moved off like one man, and, as -we started together, not caring who stole the whole lunch that we left -laying idle under the tree, I turned and took a look at Lucy.</p> - -<p>Land, she looked as I haven't seen her look in twenty years! Her head -was back, her eyes were bright, her face was bright, and she didn't know -one of us was there. She just went down the slope, running.</p> - -<p>We came on him as he was distributing nickels destined for the peanut -man that had just got his wagon going, savory. Nick didn't see us till -we were right there, and then the nicest shamefaced look come over him, -and he threw the rest of the nickels among the boys and left them -scrambling, and met us.</p> - -<p>"Nick Nordman! <i>Is</i> this your doings?" Silas plumped it at him, -accusing.</p> - -<p>"Gosh, no!" says Nick, grinning like a schoolboy. "It's the kids' -doin's."</p> - -<p>And when a millionaire can say "Gosh" like he said it, you can't feel -remote from him. Nobody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> could. Oh, how we talked at him, all round, a -good many at a time. And I think everything there was to say, we said -it. Anyway, I can't think of any exclamation to speak of that we left -unexclaimed.</p> - -<p>We all streamed up the slope, Silas near walking backward most of the -way to take in the full magnitude of it. We sat down round the potato -salad and the deviled eggs and the veal loaf, beaming. And it made a -real nice minute.</p> - -<p>Oh, and it was no time till we got to living over the old days. And it -was no time till Timothy and Eppleby were rolling over, recalling this -and bringing back that. It was no time at all till every one of us was -back twenty-five to thirty years, and telling about it. And Lucy, that -I'd maneuvered should sit by Nick, I caught her looking across at me -kind of superior, and as if she could have told me, all the while, that -something or other was so!</p> - -<p>"Let's us drink him a toast," says Timothy Toplady when we got through. -"Look-at here: To Nicholas Nordman, the big man of Friendship Village."</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir!" says Silas Sykes. "And to Nicholas Nordman, that's give us -ten thousand dollars <i>and</i> a circus!"</p> - -<p>"No, sir!" says Eppleby Holcomb, sudden. "None of them things. Let's us -drink just to Nick Nordman, that's come back home!" He up with his hand, -and it came down on Nick Nordman's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> shoulder with a sound you could have -heard all acrost the grounds.</p> - -<p>And as he did that, just for a fraction of nothing, Nick Nordman met my -eyes. And we both knew what we both knew.</p> - -<p>Just then the band struck up, and the people were already pouring in the -pasture, so we scrabbled things up and all started for the tent. Nick -was walking with Lucy.</p> - -<p>"Lucy," I heard him say, "you look near enough like you used to, for you -to be you!"</p> - -<p>She looked like a girl as she answered him. "You <i>are</i> you, Nick," she -says, simple and neat and direct.</p> - -<p>And me—I walked along, feeling grand. I kind of felt what all of us was -feeling, and what everybody was going to feel down there in the big -tent, when they knew. But far, far more, I sensed the thing that Nick -Nordman, walking there with us, with about a hundred and fifty boys all -waiting to sit down side of him at his circus—the thing that Nick -Nordman had found out.</p> - -<p>"God bless you, Calliope," says he, when he got a chance.</p> - -<p>"Oh!" I says. "He has. He has! He's made folks so awful nice—when they -just let it show through!"</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> - -<h2>BEING GOOD TO LETTY<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></h2> - -<p>"The poor little thing," says I. "Well, mustn't we be good to her?"</p> - -<p>"Mustn't we?" says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, wiping her eyes.</p> - -<p>"Must we not?" says Mis' Silas Sykes—that would correct your grammar if -the house was on fire.</p> - -<p>My niece's daughter Letty had lost her father and her mother within a -year, and she was coming to spend the summer with me.</p> - -<p>"She's going to pick out the style monument she wants here in town," I -says, "and maybe buy it."</p> - -<p>"Poor thing! That'll give her something to put her mind on," says Mis' -Sykes.</p> - -<p>George Fred come in just then to fill my wood-box—his father was bound -he should be named George and his mother hung out for Fred, so he got -both onto him permanent. He was going to business college, and choring -it for near the whole town. He used to swallow his supper and rush like -mad from wood-box to cow all over the village. Nights when I heard a -noise, I never thought it was a burglar any more. I turned over again -and thought:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> "That's George Fred cutting somebody's grass." I never see -a man more bent on getting himself educated.</p> - -<p>"George Fred," I says, "my grandniece Letty is coming to live with me. -She's lost her folks. I thought we'd kind of try to be good to her."</p> - -<p>"Trust me," says George Fred. "My cousin Jed, he lost his folks too. I -can tell her about him."</p> - -<p>The next day Letty came. I hadn't seen her for years. My land! when she -got off the train, I never saw plainer. She was a nice little thing, but -plain eyes, plain nose, plain mouth, and her hair—that was less than -plain. But she was so smiling and so gentle that the plain part never -bothered me a minute.</p> - -<p>"Letty," says I, "welcome home." Mis' Merriman and Mis' Sykes had gone -to the depot with me.</p> - -<p>"Welcome home, child," says Mis' Merriman, and wiped her eyes! Mis' -Merriman is human, but tactless.</p> - -<p>"Welcome home, you poor thing," says Mis' Sykes, and she sniffed. -Everything Mis' Sykes does she ought to have picked out to do the way -she didn't.</p> - -<p>But Letty, she took it serene enough. While we were getting her trunk, -Mis' Sykes whispered to me:</p> - -<p>"Are you sure she's the right niece? She ain't got on a stitch of -mourning."</p> - -<p>Sure enough, she hadn't. She wore a little blue dress.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p><p>"Like enough she couldn't afford it," says Mis' Merriman. And we -thought that must be it.</p> - -<p>They were both to stay for supper, and they'd each brought a little -present for my niece. When she opened them, one was a black-edged -handkerchief and the other was a package of mixed flower-seeds to plant -next spring in her cemetery lot. Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman were both -ready to cry all the while she untied them. But Letty smiled, serene, -and thanked them, serene too, and put a pink aster from the table in her -dress, and said, couldn't we go out and look at my flowers? And we went, -Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman folding up their handkerchiefs and -exchanging surprised eyebrows.</p> - -<p>At the back door we came, plain in the face, on George Fred, whittling -up my shavings.</p> - -<p>"Two baskets of shavings, Miss Marsh, or one?"</p> - -<p>"I guess," says I, "you'll earn your education better if you bring me in -two."</p> - -<p>George Fred never smiled. "I ain't earning my education any more, Miss -Marsh," he says. "I've give it up. I can't make it go—not and chore -it."</p> - -<p>"Then you can't be a bookkeeper, George Fred?" I says.</p> - -<p>"I've took a job delivering for the post-office store."</p> - -<p>"Tell me about it, won't you?" says Letty.</p> - -<p>George Fred told her a little about it, whittling my shavings.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p><p>"There ain't enough cows and grass and wood-boxes in the village to -make it go, seems though," he ends up.</p> - -<p>Then he rushed into the house with my stuff, and headed for the Sykes's -cow that we could hear lowing.</p> - -<p>We talked about George Fred while we looked at the flowers, Letty all -interested in both of them, and then we came back and sat on the front -porch.</p> - -<p>"Dear child," says Mis' Sykes, "wouldn't it be a comfort to you, now -that you're among friends, to talk about your folks? What was it they -died of? Was they sick long?"</p> - -<p>Letty looked over to her, sweet and serene.</p> - -<p>"Beautiful things happened while they were sick," she said. "A little -child across the street used to come every morning with a flower or a -fresh egg. Then there was an old man who picked every rose in his garden -and sent them in. And a club there hired a singer who was at the theater -to come and serenade them, just a few days before. Oh, so many beautiful -things happened!"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes and Mis' Merriman sat still. This isn't the way we talk about -sickness in the village. We always tell symptoms and treatments and pain -and last words and funeral preparations, right up to the time the hearse -backs up to the door.</p> - -<p>"She acts the queerest, to me, for a mourner," says Mis' Sykes, when she -went for her shawl.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p><p>Next morning we went down, Letty and me, to pick out the monument. -Letty, she priced them, and then she figured some on a card. Then she -walked over and priced some more things, and then she came out. I -s'posed she was going to think about it.</p> - -<p>"Didn't she cry when she picked out the monument?" says Mis' Sykes to me -over the telephone that noon.</p> - -<p>"I didn't see her," says I, truthful.</p> - -<p>That night, after he got the last cow milked, I see George Fred, in his -best clothes, coming in our front gate. He was coming, I see, to do what -I said—help be good to Letty and cheer her up.</p> - -<p>"Miss Letty," says he, "I know just how you feel. My cousin Jed, he lost -his folks a year ago. They took down with the typhoid, and they suffered -frightful—"</p> - -<p>"I'm so sorry, Mr. Fred," says Letty.</p> - -<p>I explained. "Fred," says I, "is his other front name. His final name is -Backus."</p> - -<p>She colored up pretty, and went right on—it was curious: she hadn't -been with me twenty-four hours hardly, and yet she didn't look a bit -plain to me now.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Backus," Letty says, "I've been thinking. Miss Marsh and I have got -a little money we're not using. Don't you want to borrow it, and keep on -at business college, and pay us back when you can?"</p> - -<p>"Gosh!" says George Fred.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p><p>If I hadn't been aiming to be a lady, I dunno what I might have said -similar.</p> - -<p>They talked about it, and then George Fred went off, walking some on the -ground and some in the air. "Letty!" says I, then, "where in this -world—"</p> - -<p>"Why," says Letty, "I'm going to get just headstones instead of a -monument—and leave that boy be a bookkeeper instead of a delivery boy. -Father and mother—" it was the only time I heard her catch her breath -sharp—"would both rather. I know it."</p> - -<p>Before breakfast next morning, I ran over to Mis' Sykes's and Mis' -Merriman's, and told them.</p> - -<p>"Like enough she done something better than buy mourning, too," says -Mis' Merriman.</p> - -<p>It was the first and only time in my life I ever see Mis' Silas Sykes's -eyes fill up with tears.</p> - -<p>"Why, my land," she says, "she's <i>using</i> her sorrow."</p> - -<p>And all of a sudden, the morning and the world meant something more. And -Letty, that we were going to be so good to, had brought us something -like a present.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Copyright, 1914, <i>Woman's Home Companion</i>.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> - -<h2>SOMETHING PLUS<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></h2> - -<p>I laid the letter up on the clock-shelf where I could see it while I did -my dishes. I needed it there to steady me. I didn't have to write my -answer till after dinner, because it wouldn't go out until the four -o'clock mail anyway. I kind of left the situation lie around me all the -morning so I could sense it and taste it and, you might say, be steeped -in it, and get so I could believe.</p> - -<p>Me—a kind of guest housekeeper for six months in a beautiful flat in -the city—with two young married folks and a little baby to amuse myself -with, and the whole world sitting around me, expansive, and waiting for -me to enjoy it. It seemed as if the Golden Plan folks always think is -going to open up for them had really opened now for me.</p> - -<p>How I kept from baking my doughnuts and frying my sponge-cakes in lard, -I dunno, but I did—sheer through instinct, I guess. And then I wrote my -letter and took it down to the post-office. Go? Wouldn't I go? My letter -just said:</p> - -<blockquote><p>"Ellen dear, you ridiculous child, did you think I could wobble for -a single second? I'd made up my mind before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> I got down the first -page. I'll be there Monday night. Do you care if I wear your -table-spread for dress-up, when I get there? All I've got is -everyday—or not so much so. And for your wanting me, I'll say -thank you when I get there.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Calliope.</span>"</p></blockquote> - -<p>On my way to mail my letter I came on Mis' Toplady and Mis' -Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, downtown to get something for supper. And I -told them all about it.</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady hunched her shawl farther up her back and sighed abundant.</p> - -<p>"Ain't that just grand, Calliope?" says she. "To think you're going to -do something you ain't been doing all your days."</p> - -<p>That was the point, and she knew it.</p> - -<p>"I says to Timothy the other night," she went on, "I says, 'Don't you -wish I had something to tell you about, or you had something to tell me -about, that we both of us didn't know by heart, forward and back?'"</p> - -<p>"Eppleby and me, too," says Mis' Holcomb, "I wish to the land we could -do something—or be something—that would give a body something to kind -of—relate to each other."</p> - -<p>"I know," I says. "Husbands and wives <i>is</i> awful simultaneous, I always -think."</p> - -<p>But I didn't say anything more, being I wasn't married to one; and they -didn't say anything more, being they was.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p><p>Mis' Holcomb waved her cheese at me, cheerful.</p> - -<p>"Be gay for us!" says she, and then went home to cook supper for her -hungry family.</p> - -<p>And so did I, wishing with all my heart that the two of them—that -hadn't seen over the rim of home in thirty years—could have had my -chance.</p> - -<p>When I got to the city that night it was raining—rather, it was past -raining and on up to pouring. So I got in a taxi to go up to Ellen's—a -taxi that was nothing but an automobile after all, in spite of its -foreign name, ending in a letter that no civilized name ought to end in. -And never, never, not if I live till after my dying day, will I forget -my first look at that living-room of theirs—in the apartment building, -as big as a ship, and as lighted up as our church at Christmas-time, -which was where Ellen and Russell lived.</p> - -<p>A pretty maid let me in. I remember I went in by her with my eyes on her -white embroidery cap, perked up on her head and all ironed up, saucy as -a blue jay's crest.</p> - -<p>"Excuse me," I says to her over my shoulder, "I've read about them, but -yours is the first one I ever saw. My dear, you look like a queen in a -new starched crown."</p> - -<p>She was an awful stiff little thing—'most as stiff as her head-piece. -She never smiled.</p> - -<p>"What name?" she says, though—and I see she was friendlier than I'd -thought.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p><p>"Why, mine's Calliope Marsh," I says, hearty. "What's yours?"</p> - -<p>She looked so funny—I guess not many paid her much attention.</p> - -<p>"Delia," she says. "You're expected," she says, and opened the inside -door.</p> - -<p>The room was long and soft and wine-colored, with a fire burning in the -fireplace, and more lamps than was necessary, but that altogether didn't -make much more light than one, only spread it out more. The piano was -open, and there was a vase of roses—in Winter! They seemed to have -them, I found out later, as casual as if there was a combined wedding -and funeral in the house all the time. But they certainly made a -beautiful picture.</p> - -<p>But all this I sort of took in out of my eyes' four corners, while the -rest of me looked at what was before the fire.</p> - -<p>A big, low-backed chair was there, as fat and soft as a sofa. And in it -was Ellen, in a white dress—in Winter! She wore them, I saw after a -while, as casual as if she was at a party, perpetual. But there was -something else there in a white dress, too, sitting on her lap, with his -pink, bare feet stretched out to the blaze. And he was laughing, and -Ellen was, too, at Russell, her husband, sitting on the floor, and -aiming his head right at the baby's stomach, to hear him laugh out -like—oh, like bluebells must be doing in the Spring.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p><p>"Pretty enough to paint," says I—which was the first they knew I was -there.</p> - -<p>It was a shame to spoil it, but Ellen and Russell sprang up, and tried -to shake hands with me, though I wasn't taking the slightest notice of -them. It was the baby I was engaged in. I'd never seen him before. In -fact, I'd never seen Ellen and Russell since they were married two years -before and went off to Europe, and lived on a peak of the Alps where the -baby was born.</p> - -<p>They took me to a gray little room that was to be mine, and I put on a -fresh lace collar and my cameo pin and my best back comb. And then -dinner was ready—a little, round white table with not one living thing -on it but lace and roses and glass and silver.</p> - -<p>"Why," says I, before I got through with my melon that came first, "why, -you two must be perfectly happy, ain't you?"</p> - -<p>And Ellen says, looking over to him:</p> - -<p>"Perfectly, absolutely, radiantly happy. Yes, I am."</p> - -<p>And this is what Russell done. He broke his bread, and nodded to both of -us promiscuous, and he says:</p> - -<p>"Considerable happier than any decent man has a right to be, I'm -thinking."</p> - -<p>I noticed that incident particular. And when I look back on it now, I -know that that very first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>evening I begun noticing other things. I -remember the talk went on about like this:</p> - -<p>"Ellen," says Russell, "the dog show opened yesterday. They've got some -great little pups, I hear. Aren't you going in?"</p> - -<p>"Why—I am if you are," says Ellen.</p> - -<p>"Nonsense," says Russell, "I can run in any time, but I can't very well -meet you there in the middle of the day. You go in yourself."</p> - -<p>"Well, I only enjoy it about a third as much to go alone," says she.</p> - -<p>"The dogs don't differ when I'm along, you know, lady," says he, -smiling.</p> - -<p>"You know that isn't what I mean," she says.</p> - -<p>And she looked over at him, and smiled at his eyes with her eyes. But I -saw that he looked away first, sort of troubled. And I thought:</p> - -<p>"Why, she acts as if not enjoying things when he ain't along is a kind -of joyful sacrifice, that would please any man. I wonder if it does."</p> - -<p>It happened two-three times through dinner. She hadn't been over to see -some kind of a collection, and couldn't he come home some night early -and take her? He couldn't promise—why didn't she go herself and tell -him about it?</p> - -<p>"You wouldn't have said that three years ago," she says, half fun, half -earnest, and waited for him to deny it. But he didn't seem to sense what -was expected of him, and he just et on.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p><p>Ain't it funny how you can sort of see things through the pores of your -skin? By the time dinner was over, I knew most as much about those two -as if I had lived in the house with them a week.</p> - -<p>He was wonderful tender with her, though. I don't mean just in little -loverlike ways, saying things and calling her things and looking at her -gentle. I mean in ways that don't have to be said or called or looked, -but that just are. To my mind they mean a thousand times more. But I -thought that in her heart she sort of hankered for the said and called -and looked kind. And of course they <i>are</i> nice. Nice, but not vital like -the other sort. If you had to get along without one, you know which one -would be the one.</p> - -<p>When we went into the other room, Ellen took me to look at the baby, in -bed, asleep, same as a kitten and a rosebud and a little yellow chicken, -and all the things that you love even the names of. And when we went -back, Ellen went to the piano and begun to play rambley things but low -so's you could hardly hear them across the room, on account of the baby. -I sank down and was listening, contented, and thinking of the most -thinkable things I knew, when she looked over her shoulder.</p> - -<p>"Russell," she says, "if you'll come and turn the music, I'll do that -new Serenade."</p> - -<p>Russell was on a couch, stretched out with a newspaper and his pipe, and -I dunno if I ever seen a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> look more luxurious. But he got up, sort -of a one-joint-at-a-time fashion, and came slumping over, with his hair -sticking out at the back. He stood and turned the music, with his pipe -behind him. And when she'd got through, he says:</p> - -<p>"Very pretty, indeed. Now I'll just finish my article, I guess, dear."</p> - -<p>He went back to his couch. And she got up, kind of quick, and walked -over and stared into the fire. And I got up and went over and stared out -the window. It seemed kind of indelicate to be looking, when I knew so -well what was happening in that room.</p> - -<p><i>For she'd forgot he was a person. She was thinking that he was just -another one of her. And that seems to me a terrible thing for any human -being to get to thinking about another, married to them or not though -they be.</i></p> - -<p>When I looked out the window, I needed new words. I hadn't realized the -elevator had skimmed up so high with me—and done it in the time it -would have taken the Emporium elevator, home, to go the two stories. But -we were up ten, I found afterward. And there I was looking the city -plain in the face. Rows and rows and fields of little lights from -windows that were homes—and homes—and homes. I'd never seen so many -homes in my life before, at any one time. And it came over me, as I -looked, that in all the hundreds of them I was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>looking at, and in the -thousands that lay stretched out beyond, the same kind of thing must -have gone on at some time or other, or be going to go on, or be going on -now, like I saw clear as clear was going on with Ellen and Russell.</p> - -<p>It was the third night I was there that the thing happened. I was -getting along fine. I did the ordering and the managing and took part -care of the baby and mended up clothes and did the dozens of things that -Ellen wasn't strong enough to do. Delia and I had got to be real good -friends by the second day.</p> - -<p>Russell came home that third night looking fagged out. He was never -nervous or impatient—I noticed that about him. I'd never once seen him -take it out in his conversation with his wife merely because he had had -a hard day. We'd just gone in from the dining-room when Russell, instead -of lighting his pipe and taking his paper, turned round on the rug, and -says:</p> - -<p>"Dear, I think I'll go over to Beldon's a while to-night."</p> - -<p>She was crossing the floor, and I remember how she turned and looked at -him.</p> - -<p>"Beldon's?" she said. "Have—have you some business?"</p> - -<p>"No," Russell says. "He wanted me to come in and have a game of -billiards."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p><p>"Very well," she says only, and she went and sat down by the fire.</p> - -<p>He got into his coat, humming a little under his breath, and then he -came over and stooped down and kissed her. She kissed him, but she -hardly turned her head. And she didn't turn her head at all as he went -out.</p> - -<p>When he'd gone and she heard the apartment door shut, Ellen fairly -frightened me. She sank down in the big chair where I had first seen -her, and put her head on its arm, and cried—cried till her little -shoulders shook, and I could hear her sobs. "Ellen," I says, "what is -it?" Though, mind you, I knew well enough.</p> - -<p>She put her arms round my neck as I kneeled down beside her. "Oh, -Calliope, Calliope!" she says. "It's the end of things."</p> - -<p>"End," says I, "of what?"</p> - -<p>She looked in my face, with the tears streaming down hers. "Didn't you -realize," she says, "that that is the first time my husband ever has -left me in the evening—when he didn't have to?"</p> - -<p>I saw that I had to be as wise as ten folks and as harmless as none, if -I was to help her—and help him. And all at once I felt as if I <i>was</i> -ten folks, and as if I'd got to live up to them all.</p> - -<p>Because I didn't underestimate the minute. No woman can underestimate -that minute when it comes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> to any other woman. For out of it there are -likely to come down onto her the issues of either life or death; and the -worst of it is that, ten to one, she never once sees that it's in her -power, maybe, to say whether it shall be life or death that comes.</p> - -<p>"What of it?" I says, as calm as if I didn't see anything at all, -instead of seeing more than she saw, as I know I did.</p> - -<p>She stared at me. "Don't you understand," she says, "what it means?"</p> - -<p>"Why, it means," says I, "that he wants a game of billiards, the way any -other man does, once in a while."</p> - -<p>She shook her head, mournful.</p> - -<p>"Three years ago this Winter," says she, "only three short years ago, -every minute of the world that Russell had free, he wanted to spend with -me. That Winter before we were married, do you suppose that -anybody—<i>any</i>body could have got him to play billiards with him if he -could have been with me?"</p> - -<p>I thought it over. "Well," I says, "no. Likely not. But then, you see, -he couldn't be with you every evening—and that just naturally give him -some nights off."</p> - -<p>"'Some nights off,'" she says. "Oh, if you think <i>that</i> is the way he -looks at it—There is no way in this world that I would rather spend my -evenings," she says, "than to sit here with my husband."</p> - -<p>"Yes," I says, "I s'pose that's true. I s'pose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> that's true of most -wives. And it's something they've got to get over thinking is so -important."</p> - -<p>She gasped. "Get over—" she says. "Then," says she, "they'll have to -get over loving their husbands."</p> - -<p>"Oh, dear, no, they won't—no, they won't," says I. "But they'll have to -get over thinking that selfishness is love—for one thing. Most folks -get them awful mixed—I've noticed that."</p> - -<p>But she broke down again, and was sobbing on the arm of the chair. "To -think," she says over, "that now it'll never, never be the same again. -From now on we're going to be just like other married folks!"</p> - -<p>That seemed to me a real amazing thing to say, but I saw there wasn't -any use talking to her, so I just let her cry till it was time to go and -feed the baby. And then she sat nursing him, and breathing long, sobbing -breaths—and once I heard her say, "Poor, poor little Mother's boy!" -with all the accent on the relationship.</p> - -<p>I walked back into the middle of the long, soft, wine-colored room, -trying to think if I s'posed I'd got so old that I couldn't help in a -thing like this, for I have a notion that there is nothing whatever that -gets the matter that you can't help some way if you're in the -neighborhood of it.</p> - -<p>Delia was just shutting the outside door of the apartment. And she came -trotting in with her little, formal, front-door air.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p><p>"Two ladies to see you, Miss Marsh," she says. "Mis' Toplady and Mis' -Holcomb."</p> - -<p>No sooner said than heard, and I flew to the door, all of a tremble.</p> - -<p>"For the land and forevermore," says I. "Where from and what for?"</p> - -<p>There they stood in the doorway, dressed, I see at first glance, in the -very best they'd got. Mis' Holcomb, that is the most backward-feeling of -any of our women, was a step behind Mis' Toplady, and had hold of her -arm. And Mis' Toplady was kind of tiptoeing and looking round cautious, -to see if something not named yet was all right.</p> - -<p>"There ain't any company, is there?" she says, in a part-whisper.</p> - -<p>"No," says I, "not a soul. Come on in."</p> - -<p>"Well," says she, relaxing up on her bones, "I asked the girl, and she -says she'd see. What's the use of <i>being</i> a hired girl if you don't know -who you've let in?"</p> - -<p>"Sit down," says I, "and tell me what you're doing here, and why you've -come. Is anything the matter? I see there ain't, though—with you in -your best clothes. Throw off your things."</p> - -<p>"Calliope," says Mis' Holcomb, "you'd never guess." She leaned forward -in her chair. "We ain't come up for a single thing," says she, "not a -thing!"</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady leaned forward, too. "And the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> fare a dollar and ninety-six -cents each way," says she, "and us a-staying at a hotel!"</p> - -<p>"Go on," says I. "How long you going to be here?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, mercy, only to-night," Mis' Holcomb says. "Why, the room is -two-fifty just for us to sleep in it. I told him we shouldn't be setting -in it a minute, but I guess he didn't believe me."</p> - -<p>"Well, go on," says I. "Tell me what you've come for?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady leaned back and looked round her and sighed—and anybody -could of told that her sigh was pleased and happy.</p> - -<p>"Calliope," says she, "we've run away to stay overnight and one day on -our chicken money, because we got so dead tired of home."</p> - -<p>Mis' Holcomb just giggled out.</p> - -<p>"It's a fact," she says. "We thought we'd come while you was here, for -an excuse. But we were just sick of home, and that's the truth."</p> - -<p>I looked at them, stupefied, or part that. Mis' Toplady and Mame, that's -been examples of married contentment for thirty years on end, -hand-running! It begun to dawn on me, slow, what this meant, as Mis' -Toplady begun to tell me about it.</p> - -<p>"You know, Calliope," she says, "the very best home in the world gets—"</p> - -<p>Then I jumped up. "Hold on," I says. "You wait a minute. I'll be -straight back again."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p><p>I run down the hall to the bedroom where Ellen was. She was just laying -the baby down—even in my hurry I stopped to think what a heavenly and -eternal picture that makes—a mother laying a baby down. There's -something in the stooping of her shoulders and the sweep of her skirt -and the tender drooping of her face, with the lamp-light on her hair, -that makes a picture out of every time a baby is laid in his bed. The -very fact that Ellen looked so lovely that way made me all the more -anxious to save her.</p> - -<p>"Ellen," I says, "come out here, please."</p> - -<p>I pulled her along, with her hair all loose and lovely about her -face—Ellen was a perfect picture of somebody's wife and a little baby's -mother. You never in the world would have thought of her as a human -being besides.</p> - -<p>So then I introduced them, and I sat down there with them—the two I -knew so well, and the one I'd got to know so well so sudden. And two of -them were nearly sixty, and one was not much past twenty; but the three -of them had so much in common that they were almost like one person -sitting there with me, before the fire.</p> - -<p>"Now," says I, "Mis' Toplady, go ahead. You needn't mind Ellen. She'll -understand."</p> - -<p>After a little bit, Mis' Toplady did go ahead.</p> - -<p>"Well, sir," Mis' Toplady said, "I dunno what you'll think of us, but -this is the way it was. I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> sitting home by the dining-room table -with Timothy night before last. We had a real good wood fire in the -stove, and a tin of apples baking in the top, that smelled good. And the -lamp had been filled that day, so the light was extra bright. And there -was a little green wood in the fire that sort of sung—and Timothy set -with his shoes off, as he so often does evenings, reading his newspaper -and warming his stocking feet on the nickel of the stove. And all of a -sudden I looked around at my dining-room, the way I'd looked at it -evenings for thirty years or more, ever since we went to housekeeping, -and I says to myself, 'I hate the sight of you, and I wish't I was -somewheres else.' Not that I do hate it, you know, of course—but it -just come over me, like it has before. And as soon as my tin of apples -was done and I took them into the kitchen, I grabbed my shawl down off -the hook, and run over to Mis' Holcomb's. And when I shut her gate, I -near jumped back, because there, poking round her garden in the snow in -the dark, was Mame!</p> - -<p>"So," Mis' Toplady continued, "we hung over the gate and talked about -it. And we came to the solemn conclusion that we'd just up and light out -for twenty-four hours. We told our husbands, and they took it -philosophic. Men understand a whole lot more than you give them credit -for. They know—if they're any <i>real</i> good—that it ain't that you ain't -fond of them, or that you ain't thankful you're their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> wife, but that -you've just got to have things that's different and interesting and—and -tellable. Anyhow, that's the way Mame and I figgered it out. And we got -into our good clothes, and we came up to the city, and went to the -hotel, and got us a bowl of hot oyster soup apiece. And then we had the -street-car ride out here, and we'll have another going back. And we've -seen you. And we'll have a walk past the store windows in the morning -before train-time. And I bet when we get home, 'long towards night, our -two dining-rooms'll look real good to us again—don't you, Mame?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir!" Mame says, with her little laugh again. "And our husbands, -too!"</p> - -<p>I'd been listening to them—but I'd been watching Ellen. Ellen was one -of the women that aren't deceived by outside appearances, same as some. -Mis' Toplady and Mis' Holcomb didn't look any more like her city friends -than a cat's tail looks like a plume, but just the same Ellen saw what -they were and what they were worth. And when they got done:</p> - -<p>"Do you mean you are going back to-morrow?" she says.</p> - -<p>"Noon train," says Mame, "and be home in time to cook supper as natural -as life and as good as new."</p> - -<p>Ellen kept looking at them, and I guessed what she was thinking: A -hundred miles they'd come for a change, and all they'd got was two -street-car rides<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> and a bowl of oyster soup apiece and this call, and -they were going home satisfied.</p> - -<p>All of a sudden Ellen sat up straight in her chair.</p> - -<p>"See," she says, "it's only eight o'clock. Why can't the four of us go -to the theater?"</p> - -<p>The two women sort of gasped, in two hitches.</p> - -<p>"Us?" they says.</p> - -<p>Ellen jumped up. "Quick, Calliope," she says. "Get your things on. Delia -can stay with the baby. I'll telephone for a taxi. We can decide what to -see on the way down. You'll go, won't you?" she asks 'em.</p> - -<p>"Go!" says they, in one breath. "Oh—yes, <i>sir</i>!"</p> - -<p>In no time, or thereabouts, we found ourselves down-stairs packing into -the taxicab. I was just as much excited as anybody—I hadn't been to a -play in years. Ellen told us what there was as we went down, but they -might have been the names of French cooking for all they meant to us, -and we left it to her to pick out where we were to go.</p> - -<p>When we followed her down the aisle of the one she picked out, just -after the curtain went up, where do you think she took us? <i>Into a box!</i> -It was so dark that Mis' Toplady and Mame never noticed until the -curtain went down, and the lights came up, and we looked round.</p> - -<p>As for me, I could hardly listen to the play. I was thinking of these -two dear women from the village,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> and what it meant to them to have -something different to do. But even more, I was watching Ellen, that had -set out to make them have a good time, and was doing her best at it, -getting them to talk and making them laugh, when the curtain was down. -But when the curtain was up, it seemed to me that Ellen wasn't listening -to the play so very much, either.</p> - -<p>Before the last act, Ellen had to get back to the baby, so we left the -two of them there and went home.</p> - -<p>"Alone in the box!" says Mame Holcomb, as we were leaving. "My land, and -my hat's trimmed on the wrong side for the audience!"</p> - -<p>"Do we have to go when it's out?" says Mis' Toplady. "Won't they just -leave us set here, on—and on—and on?"</p> - -<p>I remember them as I looked back and saw them, sitting there together. -And something, I dunno whether it was the wedding-trip poplin dress, or -the thought of the two dining-rooms where they'd set for so long, or of -the little lark they'd planned, sort of made a lump come and meet a word -I was trying to say.</p> - -<p>We'd got out to the entry of the box, when somebody came after us, and -it was little bit of Mame Holcomb, looking up with eyes bright as a blue -jay's at the feed-dish.</p> - -<p>"Oh," she says to Ellen, "I ain't half told you—neither of us has—what -this means to us. And I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> wanted you to know—we both of us do—that the -best part is, you so sort of <i>understood</i>."</p> - -<p>Ellen just bent over and kissed her. And when we came out in the hall, -all light and red carpet, I see Ellen's eyes were full of tears.</p> - -<p>And when we got in the taxicab: "Ellen," I says, "I thank you, too—ever -so much. You did understand. So did I."</p> - -<p>"I don't know—I don't know," she says "But, Calliope, how in the world -do you understand that kind of thing?"</p> - -<p>So I said it, right out plain:</p> - -<p>"Oh," I says, "I guess sheer because I've seen so much unhappiness, and -on up to divorce, come about sole because married folks <i>will</i> hunt in -couples perpetual, and not let themselves be just folks."</p> - -<p>When we got home—and we hadn't said much more all the way there—as we -opened the living-room door, I saw that we'd got there first, before -Russell. I was glad of that. Ellen ran right down the hall to the baby's -room, and I took off my things and went down to the end of the room -where the couch was, to lay down till she came back.</p> - -<p>I must have dozed off, because I didn't hear Russell come in. The first -I knew, he was standing with his back to the fire, filling his pipe. So -I looked in his face, when he didn't know anybody was looking.</p> - -<p>He had evidently walked home, and had come in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> fresh and glowing and -full of frosty air, and his cheeks were ruddy. He was smiling a little -at something or other, and altogether he looked not a bit like the tired -man that had come home that night to dinner.</p> - -<p>Then I heard the farther door click, and Ellen's step in the hall.</p> - -<p>He looked toward the door, and I saw the queerest expression come in his -face. Now, there was Russell, a man of twenty-seven or eight, a grown -man that had lived his independent life for years before he had married -Ellen. And yet, honestly, when he looked up then, his face and his eyes -were like those of a boy that had done something that he had been -scolded for. He looked kind of apologetic and explanatory—a look no man -ought to be required to look unless for a real reason. It seems -so—ignominious for a human being to have to look like that when they -hadn't done a thing wrong.</p> - -<p>My heart sank some. I thought of the way Ellen had been all slumped down -in that easy chair, crying and taking on. And I waited for her to come -in, feeling as if all the law and the prophets hung on the next few -minutes—and I guess they did.</p> - -<p>She'd put on a little, soft house-dress, made you-couldn't-tell-how, of -lace, with blue showing through, kind of like clouds and the sky. But it -was her face I looked at, because I remembered the set look it had when -she'd told Russell good-by. And when I see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> her face now there in all -that sky-and-clouds effect, honest, it was like a star.</p> - -<p>"Hello, dear," she says, kind of sweet and casual, "put a stick of wood -on the fire and tell me all about it."</p> - -<p>I tell you, my heart jumped up then as much as it would of if I'd heard -her say "I will" when they were married. For this was their new minute.</p> - -<p>"Sit here," he says, and pulled her down to the big chair, and sat on -the low chair beside her, where I'd seen him first. Only now, the baby -wasn't there—it was just the two of them.</p> - -<p>"Did you beat them all to pieces?" she asks, still with that blessed, -casual, natural way of hers.</p> - -<p>He smiled, sort of pleased and proud and humble. "I did," he owns up. -"You're my wife, and I can brag to you if I want to. I walloped 'em."</p> - -<p>He told her about the game, saying a lot of things that didn't mean a -thing to me, but that must have meant to her what they meant to him, -because she laughed out, pleased.</p> - -<p>"Good!" she says. "You play a corking game, if I do say it. Do you know, -you look a lot better than you did when you came home to dinner? I hate -to see you look tired like that."</p> - -<p>"I feel fit as a fish now," says he. "There's something about an evening -like that with half a dozen of 'em—it isn't the game. It's the—oh, I -don't know. But it kind of—"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p><p>He petered off, and she didn't make the mistake of agreeing too hard or -talking about it too long. She just nodded, and pretty soon she told him -some little thing about the baby. When he emptied his pipe, she said she -thought she'd go to bed.</p> - -<p>But when she got up, he reached up and pulled her back in the chair -again, and moved so that he set with his cheek against hers. And he -says:</p> - -<p>"I've got something to tell you."</p> - -<p>She picked up his hand to lean her head on, and says, "What? Me?"—which -I'd noticed was one of the little family jokes, that no family should be -without a set of.</p> - -<p>"Do you know, Ellen," he said, "to-night, when I went out to go over to -Beldon's, I thought you didn't like my going."</p> - -<p>"You did?" she says. "What made you think that?"</p> - -<p>"The way you spoke—or looked—or kissed me. I don't know. I imagined -it, I guess," says he. "And—I've got something to own up."</p> - -<p>She just waited; and he said it out, blunt:</p> - -<p>"It made me not want to come home," says he.</p> - -<p>"Not want to come home?" she says over, startled.</p> - -<p>He nodded. "Lacy and Bright both left Beldon's before I did," he says. -"I thought probably—I don't know. I imagined you were going to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> -polite as the deuce, the way I thought you were when I went out."</p> - -<p>"Oh," she says, "was I that?"</p> - -<p>"So when Lacy and Bright made jokes about what their wives'd say if they -didn't get home, I joined in with them, and laughed at the 'apron -strings.' That's what we called it."</p> - -<p>She moved a little away. "Did you do that?" she said. "Oh, Russell, I -should hate that. I should think any woman would hate it."</p> - -<p>"I know," he says. "I'm dead sorry. But I wanted you to know. And, -dear—"</p> - -<p>He got up and stood before her, with her hands crushed up in his.</p> - -<p>"I want you to know," he says, kind of solemn, "that the way you are -about this makes me—gladder than the dickens. Not for the reason you -might think—because it's going to make it easy to be away when I want -to. But because—"</p> - -<p>He didn't say things very easy. Most men don't, except for their little -bit of courting time.</p> - -<p>"Well, thunder," he said, "don't you see? It makes me so sure you're my -<i>wife</i>—and not just married to me."</p> - -<p>She smiled up at him without saying anything, but I knew how balm and -oil were curing the hurt that she thought she'd had that night when he -went out.</p> - -<p>"I've always thought of our each doing things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>—and coming home and -telling each other about them," he says, vague.</p> - -<p>"Of <i>my</i> doing things, too?" she asks, quick.</p> - -<p>"Why, yes—sure. You, of course," he says, emphatic. "Haven't you seen -that I want you to do things sometimes, without me tagging on?"</p> - -<p>"Is that the way you look at it?" she says, slow.</p> - -<p>He gave her two hands a gay little jerk, and pulled her to her feet.</p> - -<p>"Why," he said, "you're a person. And I'm a person. If we really love -each other, being married isn't only something <i>instead</i>. It's something -<i>plus</i>."</p> - -<p>"Russell," she says, "how did you find that out?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know," he says. "How does anybody find out anything?"</p> - -<p>I'll never forget the way Ellen looked when she went close to him.</p> - -<p>"By loving somebody enough, I think," she says.</p> - -<p>That made him stop short to wonder about something.</p> - -<p>"How did you find out, if it comes to that?" he asks.</p> - -<p>"What? Me?" she says. "Oh, I found out—by special messenger!"</p> - -<p>Think of Mis' Toplady and Mame being that, unbeknownst!</p> - -<p>They turned away together, and walked down the room. The fire had burned -down, and everything<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> acted like eleven-o'clock-at-night. It made a nice -minute. I like to think about it.</p> - -<p>"To-morrow morning," she told him, "I'm going to take Calliope and two -friends of hers to the dog show. And you—don't—have—to—come. But -you're invited, you know."</p> - -<p>He laughed like a boy.</p> - -<p>"Well, now, maybe I <i>can</i> drop in!" says he.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Copyright, 1916, <i>Pictorial Review</i>.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THE ART AND LOAN DRESS EXHIBIT<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></h2> - -<p>"We could have a baking sale. Or a general cooking sale. Or a bazaar. Or -a twenty-five-cent supper," says I.</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady tore off a strip of white cloth so smart it sounded saucy.</p> - -<p>"I'm sick to death," she said, "of the whole kit of them. I hate a -baking sale like I hate wash-day. We've had them till we can taste them. -I know just what every human one of us would bring. Bazaars is death on -your feet. And if I sit down to another twenty-five-cent supper—beef -loaf, bake' beans, pickles, cabbage salad, piece o' cake—it seems as -though I should scream."</p> - -<p>"Me too," agrees Mis' Holcomb.</p> - -<p>"Me too," I says myself. "Still," I says, "we want a park—and we want -to name it Hewitt Park for them that's done so much for the town -a'ready. And if we ever have a park, we've got to raise some money. -That's flat, ain't it?"</p> - -<p>We all allowed that this was flat, and acrost the certainty we faced one -another, rocking and sewing in my nice cool sitting-room. The blinds -were open,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> the muslin curtains were blowing, bees were humming in the -yellow-rose bush over the window, and the street lay all empty, except -for a load of hay that lumbered by and brushed the low branches of the -maples. And somewheres down the block a lawn-mower was going, sleepy.</p> - -<p>"Who's that rackin' around so up-stairs?" ask' Mis' Toplady, pretty -soon.</p> - -<p>Just when she spoke, the little light footstep that had been padding -overhead came out in the hall and down my stair.</p> - -<p>"It's Miss Mayhew," I told them, just before Miss Mayhew tapped on the -open door.</p> - -<p>"Come right in—what you knocking for when the door sets ajar?" says I -to her.</p> - -<p>Miss Mayhew stood in the doorway, her rough short skirt and stout boots -and red sweater all saying "I'm going for a walk," even before she did. -Only she adds: "I wanted to let you know I don't think I'll get back for -supper."</p> - -<p>"Such a boarder I never saw," I says. "You don't eat enough for a bird -when you're here. And when you ain't, you're off gallivanting over the -hills with nothing whatever to eat. And me with a fresh spice-cake just -out of the oven for your supper."</p> - -<p>"I'm so sorry," Miss Mayhew says, penitent to see.</p> - -<p>I laid down my work. "You let me put you up a couple o' pieces to nibble -on," says I.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p><p>"You're so good. May I come too?" Miss Mayhew asks, and smiled bright -at the other two women, who smiled back broad and almost tender—Miss -Mayhew's smile made you do that.</p> - -<p>"I s'pose them writing folks can't stop to think of food," Mis' Toplady -says as we went out.</p> - -<p>"Look at her lugging a book. What's she want to be bothered with that -for?" Mis' Holcomb says.</p> - -<p>But that kind of fault-finding don't necessarily mean unkindness. With -us it was as natural as a glance.</p> - -<p>Out in the kitchen, I, having wrapped two nice slices of spice cake and -put them in Miss Mayhew's hand, looked up at her and was shook up -considerable to see that her eyes were filled with tears.</p> - -<p>I know I'm real blunt when I'm embarrassed or trying to be funny, but -when it comes to tears I'm more to home. So I just put my hand on the -girl's shoulder and waited for her to speak.</p> - -<p>"It's nothing," Miss Mayhew says back to the question I didn't ask. -"I—I—" she sobbed out quite open. "I'm all right," she ends, and put -up her head like a banner.</p> - -<p>To the two women in my sitting-room I didn't say a word of that moment, -when I went back to them. But what I did say acted kind of electric.</p> - -<p>"Now," says I, "day before yesterday was my sweeping day for the -chambers. But I hated to disturb her, she set there scribbling so hard -when I stuck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> my head in. She ain't been out of the house since. If -you'll excuse me, I'll whisk right up there and sweep out now."</p> - -<p>The women begun folding their work.</p> - -<p>"Why, don't hurry yourselves!" I says. "Sit and visit till I get -through, why don't you?"</p> - -<p>"Go!" says Mis' Toplady. "We ain't a-going. We're going to help."</p> - -<p>"I been dying to get up-stairs in that room ever since I see her fix it -up," Miss Holcomb lets out, candid.</p> - -<p>Miss Mayhew's room—she'd been renting my front chamber for a month -now—was little and bare, but her daintiness was there, like her saying -something. And the two women began looking things over—the books, the -pictures—"prints," Miss Mayhew called them—the china tea-cups, the -silver-topped bottles, and the silver and ivory toilet stuff.</p> - -<p>"My, what a homely picture!" Mis' Holcomb says, looking at a scene of a -Japanese lady and a mountain.</p> - -<p>"What in the world is these forceps for?" says Mis' Toplady, balancing -an ivory glove-stretcher with Miss Mayhew's initials on. I knew that it -was, because I'd asked her.</p> - -<p>"What she wants of a dust-cap I dunno," Mis' Holcomb contributes, -pointing to the little lace and ribbon cap hanging beside the -toilet-table.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>And I'd wondered that myself. She put it on for breakfast, like she was -going to do some work; then she never done a thing the whole morning, -only wrote.</p> - -<p>Then all of a sudden was when I come out with something surprising.</p> - -<p>"Why," says I, "it's gone!"</p> - -<p>"What's gone?" they says. And I was looking so hard I couldn't -answer—bureau, chest of drawers, bookshelves, I looked on all of them. -"It ain't here anywhere," says I, "and he was <i>that</i> handsome—"</p> - -<p>I told them about the photograph, as well as I could. It was always -standing on the bureau, right close up by the glass—a man's picture -that always made me want to say: "Well, you look just exactly the way -you <i>ought</i> to look. And I believe you are it." He looked like what you -mean when you say "man" when you're young—big and dark and frank and -boyish and manly, with eyes that give their truth to you and count on -having yours back again. That kind.</p> - -<p>"Land," I says. "I'd leave a picture like that up in my room no matter -what occurred between me and the one the picture was the picture of. I -<i>couldn't</i> take it down."</p> - -<p>But now it was down, though I remembered seeing it stand there every -time I'd dusted ever since Miss Mayhew had come, up till this day. And -when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> I'd told the women all about it, they couldn't recover from -looking. They looked so energetic that finally Mis' Toplady pulled out -the wardrobe a little mite and peeked behind it.</p> - -<p>"I thought mebbe it'd got itself stuck in here," she explains, bringing -her head back with a great streak of dust on her cheek—and I didn't -take it as any reflection whatever on my housekeeping. I've always -believed that there's some furniture that the dust just rises out of, in -the night, like cream—and of those the backs of wardrobes are chief.</p> - -<p>Then she shoved the wardrobe in place, and the door that I'd fixed at -the top with a little wob of newspaper so it would stay shut, all of a -sudden swung open, and the other one followed suit. We three stood -staring at what was inside. For my wardrobe, that had never had anything -in it better than my best black silk, was hung full of pink and blue and -rose and white and lavender clothes. Dresses they were, some with little -scraps of shining trimming on, and all of them not like anything any of -us had ever seen, outside of fashion books—if any.</p> - -<p>"My land!" says I, sitting down on the edge of the fresh-made bed—a -thing I never do in my right senses.</p> - -<p>"Party clothes!" says Mis' Holcomb, kind of awelike. "Ball-gowns," she -says it over, to make them sound as grand as they looked.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p><p>"Why, mercy me," Mis' Toplady says, standing close up and staring. -"She's an actress, that's what she is. Them's stage clothes."</p> - -<p>"Actress nothing," I says, "nor they ain't ball dresses—not all anyway. -They're just light colors, for afternoon wear, the most of them—but -like we don't wear here in this town, 'long of being so durable-minded."</p> - -<p>"Have you ever seen her wear any of 'em?" demands Mis' Toplady.</p> - -<p>"I can't say I ever have," I says, "but she likely ain't done so because -she don't want to do different from us. That," says I, "is the lady of -it."</p> - -<p>Mis' Holcomb leaned close and looked at the things through her glasses.</p> - -<p>"I think she'd ought to wear them here," she says. "I'd dearly love to -look at things like that. Nobody ever wore things here like that since -the Hewitts went away. We'd all love to see them. We don't see things -like that any too often. I s'pose—I s'pose, ladies," says she, -hesitating, "I s'pose it wouldn't do for us to look at them any closer -up to, would it?"</p> - -<p>We knew it wouldn't—not, that is, to the point of touching. But we all -came and stood by the wardrobe door and looked as close up to as we -durst.</p> - -<p>"My," says Mis' Toplady, "how Mis' Sykes would admire to see these. And -Mis' Hubbelthwait. And Mis' Sturgis. And Mis' Merriman."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p><p>And then she went on, real low:</p> - -<p>"Why, ladies," she says, "why couldn't we have an exhibit—a loan -exhibit? And put all those clothes on dress-makers' forms in somebody's -parlor—"</p> - -<p>"And charge admission!" says I. "Instead of a bazaar or a supper or a -baking sale—"</p> - -<p>"And get each lady that's got them to put up her best dress too," says -Mis' Holcomb. "Mis' Sykes has never had a chance to wear her navy-blue -velvet in this town once, and she's had it three years. I presume she'd -be glad to get a chance to show it off that way."</p> - -<p>"And Mis' Sturgis her black silk that she had dressmaker made in the -city," says I, "when she went to her relation's funeral. She's never had -it on her back but the once—it had too much jet on it for anything but -formal—and that once was to the funeral, and then it was so cold in the -church she had to keep her coat on over it. She's often told me about -it, and she's real bitter about it, for her."</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady flushed up. "I've got," she said, "that lavender silk -dressing gown my nephew sent me from Japan. It's never been out of its -box since it come, nine years ago, except when I've took somebody -up-chamber to show it to them. Do you think—"</p> - -<p>"Of course we'll have it," I said, "and, Mis' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>Toplady, your -wedding-dress that you've saved, with the white raspberry buttons. And -there's Mis' Merriman's silk-embroidered long-shawl—oh, ladies," I -says, "won't it be nice to see some elegant clothes wore for once here -in the village, even if it's only on dressmaker's forms?"</p> - -<p>"So be Miss Mayhew'll only let us take hers," says Mis' Holcomb, -longing.</p> - -<p>We planned the whole thing out, sitting up there till plump six o'clock -when the whistle blew, and not a scratch of sweeping done in the chamber -yet. The ladies both flew for home then, and I went at the sweeping, -being I was too excited to eat anyway, and I planned like lightning the -whole time. And I made up my mind to arrange with Miss Mayhew that -night.</p> - -<p>I'd had my supper and was rocking on the front porch when she came home. -The moon was shining up the street, and the maple leaves were all moving -pleasant, and their shadows were moving pleasant, too, as if they were -independent. Everybody's windows were open, and somewhere down the block -some young folks were singing an old-fashioned love-song—I saw Miss -Mayhew stand at the gate and listen after she had come inside. Then she -came up the walk slow.</p> - -<p>"Good evening and glad you're back," said I. "<i>Ain't</i> this a night?"</p> - -<p>She stood on the bottom step, looking the moon in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> the face. The air was -sweet with my yellow roses—it was almost as if the moonlight and they -were the same color and both sweet-smelling. And her a picture in that -yellow frame.</p> - -<p>"Oh, it is—it is," she says, and she sighs.</p> - -<p>"This," I says, "isn't a night to sigh on."</p> - -<p>"No," she says, "it isn't—is it? I won't do it again."</p> - -<p>"Sit down," I says, "I want to ask you something."</p> - -<p>So then I told her how her wardrobe door had happened to swing open, and -what we wanted to do.</p> - -<p>"—we don't see any too many pretty things here in the village," I said, -"and I'd kind of like to do it, even if we didn't make a cent of money -out of it for the park."</p> - -<p>She didn't say anything—she just sat with her head turned away from me, -looking down the street.</p> - -<p>"—us ladies," I said, "we don't dress very much. We can't. We've all -had a hard time to get together just what we've had to have. But we all -like pretty things. I s'pose most all of us used to think we were going -to have them, and these things of yours kind of make me think of the way -I use' to think, when I was a girl, I'd have things some day. Of course -now I know it don't make a mite of difference whether anybody ever had -them or not—there's other things and more of them. But still,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> now and -then you kind of hanker. You kind of hanker," I told her.</p> - -<p>Still she didn't say anything. I thought mebbe I'd offended her.</p> - -<p>"We wouldn't touch them, you know," I said. "We'd only just come and -look. But if you'd mind it any—"</p> - -<p>Then she looked up at me, and I saw that her eyes were brimming over -with tears.</p> - -<p>"Mind!" she said. "Why, no—no! If you can really use those things of -mine. But they're not nice things, you know."</p> - -<p>"Well," I says, "I dunno as us ladies would know that. But you do love -<i>light</i> things when you've had to go around dressed dark, either 'count -of economy or 'count of being afraid of getting talked about. Or both."</p> - -<p>She got up and leaned and kissed me, light. Wasn't that a funny thing to -do? But I loved her for it.</p> - -<p>"Anything I own," she says, "is yours to use just the way you want to -use it."</p> - -<p>"You're just as sweet as you are pretty," I told her, "and more I dunno -who could say about no one."</p> - -<p>I lay awake most all night planning it, like you will. I spent most of -the next day tracking round seeing folks about it. And everybody pitched -in to work, both on account of needing the money for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> the little park us -ladies had set our hearts on, and on account of being glad to have some -place, at last, to show what clothes we'd got to some one, even if it -was nobody but each other.</p> - -<p>"Oh," says Mis' Holcomb, "I was thinking only the other day if only -somebody'd get married. You know we ain't had an evening party in this -town in years—not since the Hewitts went away. But I couldn't think of -a soul likely to have a big evening wedding for their daughter but the -Mortons, and little Abbie Morton, she's only 'leven. It'd take another -good six years before we could get asked to that. And I did want to get -a real chance to wear my dress before I made it over."</p> - -<p>"The Prices might have a wedding for Mamie," says Mis' Toplady, -reflective. "Like enough with a catyier and all that. But I dunno's -Mamie's ever had a beau in her life."</p> - -<p>We were to have the exhibit—the Art and Loan Dress Exhibit, we called -it—at my house, and I tell you it was fun getting ready for it. But it -was hard work, too, as most fun is.</p> - -<p>The morning of the day that was the day, everybody came bringing their -stuff over in their arms. We had dress-forms from all the dress-makers -and all the stores in town, and they were all set up around the rim of -my parlor. Mis' Sturgis had just got her black silk put up and was -trying to make out whether side view to show the three quarters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> train -or front view to show the jet ornament was most becoming to the dress, -when Miss Mayhew brought in her things and began helping us.</p> - -<p>"How the dead speaks in clothes," Mis' Sturgis says. "This jet ornament -was on my mother's bonnet for twelve years when I was a little girl."</p> - -<p>"The Irish crochet medallion in the front of my basque," says Mis' -Merriman, "was on a scarf of my mother's that come from the old country. -It got old, and I took the best of it and appliqued it on a crazy quilt -and slept under it for years. Then when I see Irish crochet beginning to -be wore in the magazines again, I ripped it off and ragged out in it."</p> - -<p>"Oh," says Miss Mayhew, all of a sudden. "What a lovely shawl! What you -going to put that on?"</p> - -<p>"Where?" says we.</p> - -<p>"Why this," she says—but still we didn't see, for she didn't have -anything but the shawl Mis' Hubbelthwait had worn in over her head. -"This Paisley shawl," Miss Mayhew says.</p> - -<p>"My land!" says Mis' Hubbelthwait, "I put that on me to go through the -cold hall and bring in the kindling, and run out for a panful of chips, -and like that."</p> - -<p>Miss Mayhew smiled. "You must put that on a figure," she says. "Why, -it's beautiful. Look at those colors."</p> - -<p>"All faded out," says Mis' Hubbelthwait, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> thought Miss Mayhew was -making fun of her. But she wasn't. And she insisted on draping it and -putting it near the front. Miss Mayhew was nice, but she was queer in -some things. I'd upholstered my kitchen rocker with part of my Paisley -shawl, and covered the ironing-board under the cloth with the rest of -it—and nothing would do but that old chair must be toted up in her -room! And yet I'd spent four dollars for a new golden-oak rocker when -she'd engaged the rooms.... But me, I urged them to let her do as she -pleased with Mis' Hubbelthwait's shawl that morning; because I -remembered that what had been the matter in my kitchen the afternoon -before was probably still the matter. And moreover, I'd looked when I -made the bed, and I see that the picture hadn't been set back on the -bureau.</p> - -<p>Well, then we began putting up Miss Mayhew's own things—and I tell you -they were pretty. There wasn't much to them—little slimpsey soft silk -things, made real inexpensive with no lining, and not fussed up at -all—but they had an air to them that you can hardly ever get into a -dress, no matter how close you follow your paper pattern. She had a pink -and a blue and a white and a lavender—and one lovely rose gown that I -took and held up before her.</p> - -<p>"I'd dearly love to see you in this," says I. "I bet you look like a -rose in it—or more so."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p><p>Her face, that was usually bright and soft all in one, sort of fell, -like a cloud had blown over it.</p> - -<p>"I always liked to wear that dress," she says. "I had—there were folks -that liked it."</p> - -<p>"Put it on to-night," I says, "and take charge of this room for us."</p> - -<p>But she kind of shrunk back, and shook her head.</p> - -<p>And I thought, like lightning, "It was the Picture Man that was on the -bureau that liked to see you in that dress—or I miss my guess."</p> - -<p>But I never said a word, and went on putting a dress-form together.</p> - -<p>The room looked real pretty when we got all the things up. There were -fourteen dresses in all, around the room. In the very middle was Mis' -Toplady's wedding-dress—white silk, made real full, with the white -raspberry buttons.</p> - -<p>"For twenty years," she said, "it's been in the bottom drawer of the -spare room. It's nice to see it wore."</p> - -<p>And we all thought it was so nice that we borrowed the wax figure from -the White House Emporium, and put the dress on. It looked real funny, -though, to see that smirking, red-cheeked figure with lots of light hair -and its head on one side, coming up out of Mis' Toplady's wedding-dress.</p> - -<p>Us ladies were all ready and on hand early that night, dressed in our -black alpacas and wearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> white aprons, most of us; and Miss Mayhew had -on a little white dimity, and she insisted on helping in the kitchen—we -were going to give them only lemonade and sandwiches, for we were -expecting the whole town, and the admission was only fifteen cents -apiece.</p> - -<p>Then—I remember it was just after the clock struck seven—my telephone -rang. And it was a man's voice—which is exciting in itself, no man ever -calling me up without it's the grocery-man to try to get rid of some of -his fruit that's going to spoil, or the flour and feed man to say he -can't send up the corn-meal till to-morrow, after all. And this Voice -wasn't like either one of them.</p> - -<p>He asked if this was my number, brisk and strong and deep and sure, and -as if he was used to everything there is.</p> - -<p>"Is Miss Marjorie Mayhew there?" says he.</p> - -<p>"Miss <i>Marjorie</i> Mayhew," says I, thoughtful. "Why, I dunno's I ever -heard her front name."</p> - -<p>"Whose front name?" says he.</p> - -<p>"Why," says I, "Miss Mayhew's. That's who we're talking about, ain't -it?"</p> - -<p>"Oh," says he, "then there <i>is</i> a Miss Mayhew staying there?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir," says I short, "there ain't. She's <i>the</i> Miss Mayhew—the one -I mean—and anybody that's ever seen her would tell you the same thing."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p><p>He was still at that, just for a second. And when he spoke again, his -voice had somehow got a little different—I couldn't tell how.</p> - -<p>"I see," says he, "that you and I understand each other perfectly. May I -speak to the Miss Mayhew?"</p> - -<p>"Why, sure," says I hearty. "Sure you can."</p> - -<p>So I went in the kitchen and found her where she was stirring -lemon-juice in my big stone crock. And when I told her, first she turned -red-rose red, and then she turned white-rose white.</p> - -<p>"Me?" she says. "Who can want me? Who knows I'm here?"</p> - -<p>"You go on and answer the 'phone, child," I says to her. "Him and me, we -understand each other perfectly."</p> - -<p>So she went. I couldn't help hearing what she said.</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"You are?"</p> - -<p>"It doesn't matter in the least."</p> - -<p>"If you wish."</p> - -<p>"Two automobiles?"</p> - -<p>"Very well. Any time."</p> - -<p>"Oh, not at all, I assure you."</p> - -<p>—all in a cool, don't-care little voice that I never in this wide world -would have recognized as Miss Mayhew's voice. Then she hung up. And I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> -stepped out of the cloak-closet. I took hold of her two shoulders and -looked in her eyes. And I saw she was palpitating and trembling and -breathless and pink.</p> - -<p>"Marjorie Mayhew," I says, "I never knew that was your name, till just -now when that Nice Voice asked for you. But stranger though you are to -me—or more so—I want to say something to you: <i>If</i> you ever love—I -don't say That Nice Voice, but Any Nice Voice, don't you never, never -speak cold to it like you just done. No matter what—"</p> - -<p>She looked at me, kind of sweet and kind of still, and long and deep. -And I saw that we both knew what we both knew.</p> - -<p>"I know," she says. "Folks are so foolish—oh, so foolish! I know it -now. And yet—"</p> - -<p>"And yet you young folks hurt love for pride all the time," I says. "And -love is gold, and pride is clay. And some of you never find it out till -too late."</p> - -<p>"I know," she says in a whisper, "I know—" Then she looked up. "Twelve -folks are coming here in two automobiles in about half an hour. The -telephone was from Prescott—that's about ten miles, isn't it? It's the -Hewitts. From the city—and some guests of theirs—"</p> - -<p>"The Hewitts?" I says over. "From the city?"</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p><p>"The Hewitts," I pressed on, "that give us our library? And that we -want to name the park for?"</p> - -<p>Yes. It was them.</p> - -<p>"Why, my land," I says, "my land—let me tell the ladies."</p> - -<p>I rushed in on them, where they were walking 'round the parlor peaceful, -each lady looking over her own dress and giving little twitches to it -here and there to make the set right.</p> - -<p>"The Hewitts," I says, "that we've all wanted to meet for years on end. -And now look at us—dressed up in every-day, or not so much so, when -we'd like to do them honor."</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady, standing by her wedding dress on the wax form, waved both -her arms.</p> - -<p>"Ladies!" she says. "S'posing we ain't any of us dressed up. Can't we -dress up, I'd like to know? Here's all our best bib and tucker present -with us. What's to prevent us putting it on?"</p> - -<p>"But the exhibit!" says Mis' Holcomb most into a wail. "The exhibit that -they was to pay fifteen cents apiece for?"</p> - -<p>"Well," says Mis' Toplady majestic, "they'll have it, won't they? We'll -tell them which is which—only we'll all be wearing our own!"</p> - -<p>Like lightning we decided. Each lady ripped her own dress off its wire -form and scuttled for up-stairs. I took mine too, and headed with them; -and at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> turn I met Marjorie Mayhew, running down the stairs.</p> - -<p>"Oh!" she says, kind of excited and kind of ashamed. "<i>Do</i> you think -it'd spoil your exhibit if I took—if I wore—that rose dress—"</p> - -<p>"No, child," I says. "Go right down and get it. That won't spoil the -exhibit. The exhibit," I says, "is going to be exhibited <i>on</i>."</p> - -<p>We were into our clothes in no time, hooking each other up, laughing -like girls.</p> - -<p>The first of us was just beginning to appear, when the two big cars came -breathing up to the gate.</p> - -<p>In came the Hewitts, and land—in one glance I saw there was nothing -about them that was like what we'd always imagined—nothing grand or -sweeping or rustling or cold. I guess that kind of city folks has gone -out of fashion, never to come back. The Hewitts didn't seem like city -folks at all—they seemed just like folks. It made a real nice surprise. -And we all got to be folks, short off. For when I ushered them into my -parlor, there were all the wire dress-forms setting around with nothing -whatever on.</p> - -<p>"My land," I says, "we might as well own right up to what we done," I -says. And I told them, frank. And I dunno which enjoyed it the most, -them or us.</p> - -<p>The minute I saw him, I knew him. I mean The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> Nice Voice. I'd have known -him by his voice if I hadn't been acquainted with his face, but I was. -He was the picture that wasn't on Miss Marjorie Mayhew's dresser any -longer—and, even more than the picture, he looked like what you mean -when you say "man." When I was introduced to him I wanted to say: "How -do you do. Oh! I'm <i>glad</i> you look like that. She deserves it!"</p> - -<p>But even if I could, I'd have been struck too dumb to do it. For I -caught his name—and he was the only son of the Hewitts, and -heir-evident to all his folks.</p> - -<p>The only fault I could lay to his door was that he didn't have any eyes. -Not for us. He was looking every-which-way, and I knew for who. So as -soon as I could, I slips up to him and I says merely:</p> - -<p>"This way."</p> - -<p>He was right there with me, in a second. I took him up the stairs, and -tapped at my front chamber door.</p> - -<p>She was setting in there on her couch, red as a red rose this time. And -when she see who was with me, she looked more so than ever. But she -spoke gentle and self-possessed, as women can that's been trained that -way all their days.</p> - -<p>"How do you do?" says she, and gave him her hand, stranger-cool.</p> - -<p>That man—he pays no more attention to me than if I hadn't been there. -He just naturally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> walked across the room, put his hands on her -shoulders, looked deep into her eyes for long enough to read what she -couldn't help being there, and then he took her in his arms.</p> - -<p>I slipped out and pulled the door to. And in the hall I met from six to -seven folks coming up to take their things off, and heading straight for -the front chamber. I stood myself up in front of the door.</p> - -<p>"Walk right into my room," says I—though I knew full well that it -looked like Bedlam, and that I was letting good housekeepers in to see -it. And so they done. And, more heads appearing on the stairs about -then, I see that what I had to do was to stand where I was—if they were -to have their Great Five Minutes in peace.</p> - -<p>Could anybody have helped doing that? And could anybody have helped -hearing that little murmur that came to me from that room?</p> - -<p>"Dearest," he said, "how could you—how could you do like this? I've -looked everywhere—"</p> - -<p>"I thought," she said, "that you'd never come. I thought you weren't -looking."</p> - -<p>"You owe me," he told her solemnly, "six solid weeks of my life. I've -done nothing since you left."</p> - -<p>"When a month went by," she owned up, "and you hadn't come, I—I took -your picture off my bureau."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p><p>"Where'd you put it?" he asks, stern.</p> - -<p>She laughed out, kind of light and joyous.</p> - -<p>"In my hand-bag," says she.</p> - -<p>Then they were still a minute.</p> - -<p>"Walk right to the left, and left your things right on my bed...." I -heard myself saying over, crazy, to some folks. But then of course you -always do expect your hostess to be more or less crazy-headed, and -nobody thought anything of it, I guess.</p> - -<p>They came out in just a minute, and we went down the stairs together. -And on the way down he says to her:</p> - -<p>"Remember, you're going back with us to-night. And I'm never going to -let you out of my sight again—ever."</p> - -<p>And she said: "But I know why. Because it'd be hard work to make me -go...."</p> - -<p>At the foot of the stairs Mis' Holcomb met me, her silk dress's collar -under one ear.</p> - -<p>"Have you heard?" she says. "We didn't have much exhibit, but the -Hewitts have give us enough for the park—outright."</p> - -<p>I'd wanted that park like I'd wanted nothing else for the town. But I -hardly sensed what she said. I was looking acrost to where those two -stood, and pretty soon I walked over to them.</p> - -<p>"Is this the Miss Mayhew you were referring to?" I ask' him, demure.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>"This," says he, his nice eyes twinkling, "is the only Miss Mayhew -there is."</p> - -<p>"You may say that now," says I then, bold. "But—I see you won't call -her that long."</p> - -<p>He looked at me, and she looked at me, and they both put out their hands -to me.</p> - -<p>"I see," says he, "that we three understand one another perfectly."</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Copyright, 1914, <i>The Delineator</i>.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> - -<h2>ROSE PINK<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></h2> - -<p><i>The Art and Loan Dress Exhibit recalls a story of my early association -with Calliope Marsh in Friendship Village, when yet she was not well -known to me—her humanity, her habit of self-giving, her joy in life -other than her own.</i></p> - -<p><i>Afterward I knew that I had never seen a woman more keenly and -constantly a participant in the lives of others. She was hardly -individuated at all. She suffered and joyed with others, literally, more -than she did in her "own" affairs. I now feel certain that before we can -reach the individualism which we crave—and have tried to claim too -soon—we must first know such participation as hers in all conscious -life—in all life, conscious or unconscious.</i></p> - -<p><i>This is that early story, as I then wrote it down:</i></p> - -<p>Calliope Marsh had been having a "small company." Though nominally she -was hostess to twenty of us, invited there for six o'clock supper, yet -we did not see Calliope until supper was done. Mis' Postmaster Sykes had -opened the door for us, had told us to "walk up-stairs to the right an' -lay aside your things," and had marshaled us to the dining-room and so -to chairs outlining the room. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> there the daughters of most of the -guests had served us while Calliope stayed in the kitchen, with Hannah -Hager to help her, seasoning and stirring and "getting it onto the -plates." Afterward, flushed and, I thought, lovably nervous, Calliope -came in to receive our congratulations and presently to hear -good-nights. But I, who should have hurried home to Madame Josephine, -the modiste from town who that week called my soul her own, waited for a -little to talk it over—partly, I confess, because a fine, driving rain -had begun to fall.</p> - -<p>We sat in the kitchen while Calliope ate her own belated supper on a -corner of the kitchen table; and on another corner, thin, tired little -Hannah Hager ate hers. And, as is our way in Friendship, Hannah talked -it over, too—that little maid-of-all-work, who was nowhere attached in -service, but lived in a corner of Grandma Hawley's cottage and went -tirelessly about the village ministering to the needs of us all.</p> - -<p>"Everything you hed was lovely, Miss Marsh," Hannah said with shining -content and a tired sigh. "You didn't hev a single set-back, did you?"</p> - -<p>"Well, I dunno," Calliope doubted; "it all tastes like so much chips to -me, even now. I was kind o' nervous over my pressed ham, too. I noticed -two o' the plates didn't eat all theirs, but the girls couldn't rec'lect -whose they was. Did you notice?"</p> - -<p>"No, sir, I didn't," Hannah confessed with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> shake of the head at -herself. "I did notice," she amended brightly, "that Mis' Postmaster -Sykes didn't make way with all her cream, but I guess ice-cream don't -agree with her. She's got a kind o' peculiar stomach."</p> - -<p>"Well-a, anybody hev on anything new?" Calliope asked with interest. "I -couldn't tell a stitch anybody hed on. I don't seem to sense things when -I hev company."</p> - -<p>There was no need for me to give evidence.</p> - -<p>"Oh!" Hannah said, as we say when we mean a thing very much, "didn't you -see Lyddy Eider?"</p> - -<p>"Seems to me I did take it in she hed on something pink," Calliope -remembered.</p> - -<p>Little Hannah stood up in her excitement.</p> - -<p>"Pink, Miss Marsh!" she said. "I should say it was. Pink with cloth, -w'ite. The w'ite," Hannah illustrated it, "went here an' so, in points. -In between was lace an' little ribbon, pink too. An' all up so was -buttons. An' it all rustled w'en she stirred 'round. An' it laid smooth -down, like it was starched an' ironed, an' then all to once it'd slimpse -into folds, soft as soft. An' every way she stood it looked nice—it -didn't pucker nor skew nor hang wrong. It was dressmaker-made, ma'am," -Hannah concluded impressively. "An' it looked like the pictures in -libr'ry books. My! You'd ought 'a' seen Gramma Hawley. She fair et Lydia -up with lookin' at her."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p><p>I, who was not yet acquainted with every one in Friendship, had already -observed the two that day—brown, bent Grandma Hawley and the -elaborately self-possessed Miss Eider, with a conspicuously high-pitched -voice, who lived in the city and was occasionally a guest in the -village. The girl, who I gathered had once lived in Friendship, was like -a living proof that all village maids may become princesses; and the -brooding tenderness of the old woman had impressed me as might a -mourning dove mothering some sprightly tanager.</p> - -<p>"Gramma Hawley brought her up from a little thing," Calliope explained -to me now, "and a rich Mis' Eider, from the city, she adopted her, and -Gramma let her go. I guess it near killed Gramma to do it—but she'd -always been one to like nice things herself, and she couldn't get them, -so she see what it'd mean to Lyddy. Lyddy's got pretty proud, she's hed -so much to do with, but she comes back to see Gramma sometimes, I'll say -that for her. Didn't anybody else hev on anything new?"</p> - -<p>"No," Hannah knew positively, "they all come out in the same old togs. -When the finger-bowl started I run up in the hall an' peeked down the -register, so's to see 'em pass out o' the room. Comp'ny clo'es don't -change much here in Friendship. Mis' Postmaster Sykes says yest'day, -when we was ironin': 'Folks,' she says, 'don't dress as much here in -Friendship as I wish't we did. Land knows,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> Mis' Sykes says, '<i>I</i> don't -dress, neither. But I like to see it done.'"</p> - -<p>Calliope, who is sixty and has a rosy, wrinkled face, looked sidewise -down the long vista of the cooking-stove coals.</p> - -<p>"Like to see it done!" she repeated. "Why, I get so raving hungry to see -some colored dress-goods on somebody seem's though I'd fly. Black and -brown and gray—gray and brown and black hung on to every woman in -Friendship. Every one of us has our clo'es picked out so everlastin' -<i>durable</i>."</p> - -<p>Hannah sympathetically giggled with, "Don't they, though?"</p> - -<p>"My grief!" Calliope exclaimed. "It reminds me, I got my mother's -calicoes down to pass 'round and I never thought to take them in."</p> - -<p>She went to her new golden oak kitchen cabinet—a birthday gift to -Calliope from the Friendship church for her services at its organ—and -brought us her mother's "calicoes"—a huge box of pieces left from every -wool and lawn and "morning housework dress" worn by the Marshes, quick -and passed, and by their friends. Calliope knew them all; and I listened -idly while the procession went by us in sad-colored fabrics—"black and -brown and gray—gray and brown and black."</p> - -<p>I think that my attention may have wandered a little, for I was recalled -by some slight stir made by Hannah Hager. She had risen and was bending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> -toward Calliope, with such leaping wistfulness in her eyes that I -followed her look. And I saw among the pieces, like a bright breast in -sober plumage, a square of chambray in an exquisite color of rose.</p> - -<p>"Oh—" said little Hannah softly, "hain't that just <i>beauti</i>-ful?"</p> - -<p>"Like it, Hannah?" Calliope asked.</p> - -<p>"My!" said the little maid fervently.</p> - -<p>"It was a dress Gramma Hawley made for Lyddy Eider when she was a little -girl," Calliope explained. "I dunno but what it was the last one she -made for her. Pretty, ain't it? Lyddy always seemed to hanker some after -pink. Gramma mostly always got her pink." Calliope glanced at Hannah, -over-shoulder. "Why don't you get a pink one for <i>then</i>?" she asked -abruptly; and, "When is it to be, Hannah?" she challenged her, -teasingly, as we tease for only one cause.</p> - -<p>On which I had pleasure in the sudden rose-pink of Hannah's face, and -she sank back in her seat at the table corner in the particular, -delicious anguish that comes but once.</p> - -<p>"There, there," said Calliope soothingly, "no need to turn any more -colors, 's I know of. Land, if they ain't enough sandwiches left to fry -for my dinner."</p> - -<p>When, presently, Calliope and I were in the dining-room and I was -watching her "redd up" the table while Hannah clattered dishes in the -kitchen,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> I asked her who Hannah's prince might be. Calliope told me -with a manner of triumph. For was he not Henry Austin, that great, -good-looking giant who helped in the post-office store, whose baritone -voice was the making of the church choir and on whom many Friendship -daughters would not have looked unkindly?</p> - -<p>"I'm so glad for her," Calliope said. "She ain't hed many to love -besides Gramma Hawley—and Gramma's so wrapped up in Lyddy Eider. And -yet I feel bad for Hannah, too. All their lives folks here'll likely -say: 'How'd he come to marry <i>her</i>?' It's hard to be that kind of woman. -I wish't Hannah could hev a wedding that would show 'em she <i>is</i> -somebody. I wish't she could hev a wedding dress that would show them -how pretty she is—a dress all nice, slim lines and folds laid in in the -right places and little unexpected trimmings like you wouldn't think of -having if you weren't real up in dress," Calliope explained. "A dress -like Lyddy Eider always has on."</p> - -<p>"Calliope!" I said then, laughing. "I believe you would be a regular -fashion plate, if you could afford it."</p> - -<p>"I would," she gravely admitted, "I'm afraid I would. I love nice -clothes and I just worship colors." She hesitated, looking at me with a -manner of shyness. "Sit still a minute, will you?" she said, "I'd like -to show you something."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p><p>She went upstairs and I listened to Hannah Hager, clattering kitchen -things and singing:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>"He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons,</div> -<div>To tie up my bonny brown ha—ir."</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Pink chambray and the love of blue ribbons and Miss Lydia Eider in her -dress that was "dressmaker-made." These I turned in my mind, and I found -myself thinking of my visit to the town in the next week, for which -Madame Josephine was preparing; and of how certain elegancies are there -officially recognized instead of being merely divined by the wistful -amateur in color and textile. How Calliope and Hannah would have -delighted, I thought idly, in the town's way of pretty things to wear, -such as Josephine could make; the way that Lydia Eider knew, in her -frocks that were "dressmaker-made." Indeed, Calliope and Hannah and -Lydia Eider had been physically cast in the same mold of prettiness and -of proportion, but only Lydia had come into her own.</p> - -<p>And then Calliope came down, and she was bringing a long, white box. She -sat before me with the box on her knee and I saw that she was flushing -like a girl.</p> - -<p>"I expect," she said, "you'll think I'm real worldly-minded. I dunno. -Mebbe I am. But when I get out in company and see everybody wearing the -dark shades like they do here in Friendship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> so's their dresses won't -show dirt, I declare I want to stand up and tell 'em: 'Colors! Colors! -What'd the Lord put colors in the world for? Burn up your black and -brown and gray and get into somethin' <i>happy</i>-colored, and see the -difference it'll make in the way you feel inside.' I get so," Calliope -said solemnly, "that when I put on my best black taffeta with the white -turnovers, I declare I could slit it up the back seam. And I've felt -that way a long time. And that's what made me—"</p> - -<p>She fingered the white box and lifted the cover from a mass of -tissue-paper.</p> - -<p>"When Uncle Ezra Marsh died sixteen years ago last Summer," she said, -"he left me a little bit of money—just a little dab, but enough to mend -the wood-shed roof or buy a new cook-stove or do any of the useful -things that's always staring you in the face. And I turned my back flat -on every one of them. And I put the money in my pocket and went into the -city. And there," said Calliope breathlessly, "I bought this."</p> - -<p>She unwrapped it from its tissues, and it was yards and yards of -lustrous, exquisite soft silk, colored rose-pink, and responding in -folds almost tenderly to the hand that touched it.</p> - -<p>"It's mine," Calliope said, "mine. My dress. And I haven't ever hed the -sheer, moral courage to get it made up."</p> - -<p>And that I could well understand. For though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Calliope's delicacy of -figure and feature would have been well enough become by the soft pink, -Friendship would have lifted its hands to see her so and she would -instantly have been "talked about."</p> - -<p>"Seems to me," Calliope said, smoothing the silk, "that if I could have -on a dress like this I'd feel another kind of being—sort o' free and -liberty-like. Of course," she added hurriedly, "I know well enough a -pink dress ain't what-you-might-say important. But land, land, how I'd -like one on me in company! Ain't it funny," she added, "in the city -nobody'd think anything of my wearing it. In the city they sort of seem -to know colors ain't wicked, so's they look nice. I use' to think," -Calliope added, laughing a little, "I'd hev it made up and go to town -and wear it on the street. All alone. Even if it was a black street. I -guess you'll think I'm terrible foolish."</p> - -<p>But with that the idea which had come to me vaguely and as an -impossibility, took shape; and I poured it out to Calliope as a thing -possible, desirable, inevitable.</p> - -<p>"Calliope!" I said. "Bring the silk to my house. Let Madame Josephine -make it up. And next week come with me to the city—for the opera. We -will have a box—and afterward supper—and you shall wear the pink -gown—and a long, black silk coat of mine—"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p><p>"You're fooling—you're <i>fooling</i>!" Calliope cried, trembling.</p> - -<p>But I made her know how in earnest I was; for, indeed, on the instant my -mind was made up that the thing must be, that the lonely pink dress must -see the light and with it Calliope's shy hopes, long cherished. And so, -before I left her, it was arranged. She had agreed to come next morning -to my house, if Madame Josephine were willing, bringing the rose-pink -silk.</p> - -<p>"Me!" she said at last. "Why, me! Why, it's enough to make all the -<i>me's</i> I've been turn over in their graves. And I guess they hev turned -and come trooping out, young again."</p> - -<p>Then, as she stood up, letting the soft stuff unwind and fall in shining -abandon, we heard a little noise—tapping, insistent. It was very near -to us—quite in the little passage; and as Calliope turned with the silk -still in her arms the door swung back and there stood Grandma Hawley. -She was leaning on her thick stick, and her gray lace cap was all awry -and a mist of the fine, driving rain was on her gray hair.</p> - -<p>"I got m' feet wet," she said querulously. "M' feet are wet. Lyddy's -gone to Mis' Sykes's. I comeback to stay a spell till it dries off -some—"</p> - -<p>"Grandma!" Calliope cried, hurrying to her, "I didn't hear you come in. -I never heard you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> Come out by the kitchen fire and set your feet in -the oven."</p> - -<p>Calliope had tossed the silk on the table and had run to the old woman -with outstretched hand; but the outstretched hand Grandma Hawley did not -see. She stood still, looking by Calliope with a manner rather than an -expression of questioning.</p> - -<p>"What is't?" she asked, nodding direction.</p> - -<p>Calliope understood, and she slightly lifted her brows and her thin -shoulders, and seemed to glance at me.</p> - -<p>"It's some pink for a dress, gramma," she said.</p> - -<p>Grandma Hawley came a little nearer, and stood, a neat, bent figure in -rusty black, looking, down at the sumptuous, shining lengths. Then she -laid her brown, veined hand upon the silk—and I remember now her -fingers, being pricked and roughened by her constant needle, caught and -rubbed on the soft stuff.</p> - -<p>"My soul," she said, "it's pink silk."</p> - -<p>She lifted her face to Calliope, the perpetual trembling of her head -making her voice come tremulously.</p> - -<p>"That's what Abe Hawley was always talkin' when I married him," she -said. "'A pink silk dress fer ye, Minnie. A fine pink silk to set ye -off,' s' 'e over an' over. I thought I was a-goin' to hev it. I hed the -style all picked out in my head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> I know I use' to lay awake nights an' -cut it out. But, time the cookin' things was paid for, the first baby -come—an' then the other three to do for. An' Abe he didn't say pink -silk after the fourth. But I use' to cut it out in the night, fer all -that. I dunno but I cut it out yet, when I can't get to sleep an' my -head feels bad. My head ain't right. It bothers me some, hummin' and -ringin'. Las' night m' head—"</p> - -<p>"There, there, gramma," said Calliope, and took her arm. "You come along -with me and set your feet in the oven."</p> - -<p>I had her other arm, and we turned toward the kitchen. And we were -hushed as if we had heard some futile, unfulfilled wish of the dead -still beating impotent wings.</p> - -<p>In the kitchen doorway Hannah Hager was standing. She must have seen -that glowing, heaped-up silk on the table, but it did not even hold her -glance. For she had heard what Grandma Hawley had been saying, and it -had touched her, who was so jealously devoted to the old woman, perhaps -even more than it had touched Calliope and me.</p> - -<p>"Miss Marsh, now," Hannah tried to say, "shall I put the butter that's -left in the cookin'-butter jar?" And then her little features were -caught here and there in the puckers of a very child's weeping, and she -stood before us as a child might stand, crying softly without covering -her face. She held out a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> hand to the old woman, and Calliope and I let -her lead her to the stove. My heart went out to the little maid for her -tears and to Calliope for the sympathy in her eyes.</p> - -<p>Grandma Hawley was talking on.</p> - -<p>"I must 'a' got a little cold," she said plaintively. "It always settles -in my head. My head's real bad. An' now I got m' feet wet—"</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>To Madame Josephine, the modiste who sometimes comes to me with her -magic touch, transforming this and that, I confided something of my -plans for Calliope, asked her if she would do what she could. Her -kindly, emotional nature responded to the situation as to a kind of -challenge.</p> - -<p>"<i>Bien!</i>" she cried. "We shall see. You say she is slim—<i>petite</i>—with -some little grace? <i>Bien!</i>"</p> - -<p>So when, next day, Calliope arrived at my house with her parcel brought -forth for the first time in sixteen years, she found madame and me both -tip-toe with excitement. And from some bewildering plates madame -explained how she would cut and suit and "correct" mademoiselle.</p> - -<p>"The effect shall be long, slim, excellent. Soft folds from one's -waist—so. From one's shoulder—so. A line of velvet here and here and -down. <i>Bien!</i> Mademoiselle will look younger than <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>everyone! <i>If</i> -mademoiselle would wave ze hair back a ver' little—so?" the French -woman delicately advanced.</p> - -<p>"Ma'moiselle," returned Calliope recklessly, "will do anything you want -her to, short of a pink rose over one ear. My land, I never hed a dress -before that I didn't hev to skimp the pattern and make it up less -according to my taste than according to my cloth."</p> - -<p>That day I sent to the city for a box at the opera. I chose "Faust," and -smiled as I planned to sing the Jewel Song for Calliope before we went, -and to laugh at her in her surprising rôle of Butterfly. "<i>Ah, je ris de -me voir si belle.</i>" A lower proscenium box, a modest suite at a -comfortable hotel, a little supper, a cab—I planned it all for the -pleasure of watching her; and all this would, I knew, be given its -significance by the wearing of the anomalous, rosy gown. And I loved -Calliope for her weakness as we love the whip-poor-will for his little -catching of the breath.</p> - -<p>On the day that our tickets came Calliope appeared before me in some -anxiety.</p> - -<p>"Calliope," I said, without observing this, "our opera box is, so to -speak, here."</p> - -<p>But instead of the light in her face that I had expected:</p> - -<p>"What night?" she abruptly demanded.</p> - -<p>"For 'Faust,' on Wednesday," I told her.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p><p>And instead of her delight of which I had made sure:</p> - -<p>"Will the six-ten express get us in the city too late?" she wanted to -know.</p> - -<p>And when I had agreed to the six-ten express:</p> - -<p>"It's all right then," she said in relief. "They can hev it a little -earlier and take the six-ten themselves instead of the accommodation. -Hannah and Henry's going to get married a' Wednesday," she explained. "I -hev to be here for that."</p> - -<p>Then she told me of the simple plan for Hannah Hager's marriage to her -good-looking giant. Naturally, Grandma Hawley could not think of "giving -Hannah a wedding," so these poor little plans had been for some time -wandering about unparented.</p> - -<p>"<i>I</i> wanted," Calliope said, "she should be married in the church with -Virginia creeper on the pew arms, civilized. But Hannah said that'd be -putting on airs and she'd be so scairt she couldn't be solemn. Mis' -Postmaster Sykes, she invited her real cordial to be married in her -sitting-room, but Hannah spunked up and wouldn't. 'A sitting-room -weddin',' s' she to me, private, ''d be like bein' baptized in the -pantry. A parlor,' s' she, ''s the only true place for a wedding. And I -haven't no parlor, so we'll go to the minister's and stand up in <i>his</i> -parlor. Do you think,' s' she to me, real pitiful, 'Henry can respec' me -with no place to set m' foot in to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>married but jus' the public -parsonage?' Poor little thing! Her wedding-dress is nothing but a last -year's mull with a sprig in, either. And her traveling-dress to go to -the city is her reg'lar brown Sunday suit."</p> - -<p>"And they are going to the minister's?" I asked.</p> - -<p>"Well, no," Calliope answered apologetically. "I asked them to be -married at my house. I never thought about the opera when I done it. I -never thought about anything but that poor child. I guess you'll think -I'm real flighty. But I always think when two's married in the parsonage -and the man pays the minister, it's like the bride is just the groom's -guest at the cer'mony. And it ain't real dignified for her, seems -though."</p> - -<p>I knew well what this meant: That Calliope would have "asked in a few" -and "stirred up" this and that delectable, and gone to no end of trouble -and an expense which she could ill afford. Unless, as she was wont to -say: "When it comes to doing for other people there ain't such a word as -'afford.' You just go ahead and do it and keep some rational yourself, -and the <i>afford</i> 'll sort o' bloom out right, same's a rose."</p> - -<p>So for Hannah, Calliope had caused things to "bloom right, same's a -rose," as one knew by Hannah's happy face. On Tuesday she was helping at -my house ("Brides always like extry money," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>Calliope had advanced when -I had questioned the propriety of asking her to iron on the day before -her marriage) and, on going unexpectedly to the kitchen I came on Hannah -with a patent flat-iron in one hand and a piece of beeswax in the other, -and Henry, her good-looking giant, was there also and was frankly -holding her in his arms. I liked him for his manly way when he saw me -and most of all that he did not wholly release her but, with one arm -about her, contrived a kind of bow to me. But it was Hannah who spoke.</p> - -<p>"Oh, ma'am," she said shyly, "I <i>hope</i> you'll overlook. We've hed an -awful time findin' any place to keep company, only walkin' 'round the -high-school yard!"</p> - -<p>My heart was still warm within me at the little scene as I went upstairs -to see Calliope in her final fitting of the rose-pink gown, the work on -which had gone on apace. And I own that, as I saw her standing before my -long triple mirrors, I was amazed. The rosy gown suited the little body -wonderfully and with her gray hair and delicate brightness of cheeks, -she looked like some figure on a fan, exquisitely and picturesquely -painted. The gown was, as Calliope had said that a gown should be, "all -nice, slim lines and folds laid in in the right places, and little -unexpected trimmings like you wouldn't think of having them if you -wasn't real up in dress." It was a triumph for skillful madame,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> who had -wrought with her impressionable French heart as well as with her -scissors.</p> - -<p>Calliope laughed as she looked over-shoulder in the mirrors.</p> - -<p>"My soul," she said, "I feel like a sparrow with a new pink tail! I -declare, the dress looks more like Lyddy Eider herself than it looks -like me. Do you think I look enough like me so's you'd sense it <i>was</i> -me?"</p> - -<p>"Mademoiselle," said Madame Josephine simply, "has a look of another -world."</p> - -<p>"I wish't I could see it on somebody," Calliope said wistfully; and -since I was far too tall and madame not sufficiently "slendaire," -Calliope cried:</p> - -<p>"There's Hannah! She's downstairs helping, ain't she? Couldn't Hannah -come upstairs a minute and put it on? We're most of a size!"</p> - -<p>And indeed they were, as I had noted, cast in the same mold of -proportion and prettiness.</p> - -<p>So, with madame just leaving for the city, and I obliged to go down to -the village, Calliope and Hannah Hager were left alone with the -rose-pink silk gown, which fitted them both. Ought I not to have known -what would happen?</p> - -<p>And yet it came as a shock to me when, an hour later, as I passed -Calliope's gate on my way home, she ran out and stood before me in some -unusual excitement.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p><p>"Do they take back your opera boxes?" she demanded.</p> - -<p>"No," I assured her, "they do not. Nor," I added suspiciously, "do folk -take back their promises, you know, Calliope!"</p> - -<p>"Well," she said miserably, "I expec' I've done wrong by you. The -righter you try to do by some folks seems 's though the wronger it comes -down on others. Oh," she cried, "I wish't I always knew what was right! -But I can't go to the opera and I can't sit in the box. Yes, sir—I -guess you'll think I'm real flighty and I dunno but what I am. But I've -give my pink silk dress to Hannah Hager for her wedding. And I've lied -some. I've said I meant she should hev it all along!"</p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>The news that Calliope was to "give Hannah Hager a wedding" was received -in Friendship with unaffected pleasure. Every one liked the tireless -little thing, and those who could do so sent something to Calliope's -house for a wedding-gift. These things Calliope jealously kept secret, -intending not to let Hannah see them until the very hour of the -ceremony. But when on Wednesday, some while before the appointed time, I -went to the house, Calliope took me to the dining-room where the gifts -were displayed.</p> - -<p>"Some of 'em's real peculiar," she confided; "some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> of 'em's what I call -pick-up presents—things from 'round the house, you know. Mis' -Postmaster Sykes she sent over the rug with the running dog on, and -she's hed it in her parlor in a dark corner for years an' Hannah must -have cleaned it many's the time. Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss sent -her old drop-leaf mahogany table, being she's got a new oak. The Liberty -girls sent two of their chickens, live, for the wedding lunch, and I -dassent to kill them—I'm real queer like that—so I hed to send for the -groom, and he run up noon-hour and done it. And so on. But quite a few -things are new—the granite iron and the drip coffee-pot and the -sweeper's all new. And did you hear what Gramma Hawley done? Drew five -dollars of her burial money out of the savings bank and give it to -Hannah right out. You know how Gramma fixed it—she had Zittelhof figger -up her funeral expenses and she banked the sum, high and dry, and left -herself just bare enough to live on coming in. But now she drew the five -out and give Zittelhof to understand he'd hev to skimp some on her -coffin. Hannah told me, crying like a child at the i-dee."</p> - -<p>Calliope paused impressively, and shook her head at space.</p> - -<p>"But wouldn't you have thought," she demanded, "that Lyddy Eider might -have give Hannah a little something to wear? One of her old dresses for -street would have sent Hannah cloud-high, and over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> I s'pose you heard -what she did send? Mis' Postmaster Sykes run over to tell me. A man from -the city come up by trolley sense noon to-day, bringing a rug from -Lyddy. Well, of course a rug's a rug," Calliope admitted, "but it ain't -a dress, seem's though. Hannah knows about Gramma's an' Lyddy's, but she -don't know a word about the other presents. I do admire a surprise."</p> - -<p>As for me, I, too, love a surprise. And that was why I had sent to the -station a bag packed for both Calliope and me; and I meant, when the -wedding guests should have gone, to take no denial, but to hurry -Calliope into her "black grosgrain with the white turnovers," and with -her to catch the six-ten express as we had planned aforetime. For pink -silk might appear and disappear, but "Faust" would still be "Faust."</p> - -<p>There were ten guests at Hannah's wedding, friends of hers and of -Henry's, pleasantly excited, pleasantly abashed.</p> - -<p>"And not one word do they know about the pink silk," Calliope whispered -me. "Hannah's going to come with it on—I let her take my tan ulster to -wear over her, walking through the streets, so. Do you know," she said -earnestly, "if it wasn't for disappointing you I wouldn't feel anything -but good about that dress?"</p> - -<p>"Ah, well, I won't be disappointed," I prophesied confidently.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p><p>Grandma Hawley was last to arrive. And the little old woman was in some -stress of excitement, talking incessantly and disconnectedly; but this -we charged to the occasion.</p> - -<p>"My head ain't right," she said. "It ain't been right for a while -back—it hums and rings some. When I went in the room I thought it was -my head the matter. I thought I didn't see right. But I did—I did, -Hannah said I did. My head felt some better this mornin', an' that was -there, just the same. I thought I'd be down flat on my back when I got -m' feet wet, but I'd be all right if m' head wa'n't so bad. I must tell -Hannah what I done. Why don't Hannah come?"</p> - -<p>Hannah was, as a matter of fact, somewhat late at her wedding. We were -all in some suspense when we saw her at last, hurrying up the street -with Henry, who had gallantly called to escort her; and Calliope and I -went to the door to meet her.</p> - -<p>But when Hannah entered in Calliope's tan ulster buttoned closely about -her throat, she was strangely quiet and somewhat pale and her eyes, I -was certain, were red with weeping.</p> - -<p>"Is Gramma here?" she asked at once, and, at our answer, merely turned -to hurry upstairs where Calliope and I were to adjust the secret -wedding-gown and fasten a pink rose in her hair. And, as we went, Henry -added still further to our anxiety<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> by calling from the gay little crowd -about him a distinctly soothing:</p> - -<p>"Now, then. Now, then, Hannah!"</p> - -<p>Up in Calliope's tiny chamber Hannah turned and faced us, still with -that manner of suppressed and escaping excitement. And when we would -have helped with the ulster she caught at its collar and held it about -her throat as if, after all, she were half minded to depart from the -place and let her good-looking giant be married alone.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, trembling, "oh, Miss Marsh. I can't -dare tell you what I done."</p> - -<p>With that she broke down and cried, and Calliope promptly took her in -her arms, as I think that she would have liked to take the whole -grieving world. And now, as she soothed her, she began gently to -unbutton the tan ulster, and Hannah let her take it off. But even the -poor child's tears had not prepared us for what was revealed.</p> - -<p>Hannah had come to her wedding wearing, not the rose-pink silk, but the -last year's mull "with the sprig in."</p> - -<p>"Well, sir!" cried Calliope blankly. "Well, Hannah Hager—"</p> - -<p>The little maid sat on the foot of the bed, sobbing.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, "you know—don't you know, -ma'am?—how I was so glad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> about the dress you give me't I was as weak -as a cat all over me. All las' night in the evenin' I was like a trance -an' couldn't get my supper down, an' all. An' Gramma, she was over to -Mis' Sykes's to supper an' hadn't seen it. An' Gramma an' I sleep -together, an' I went an' spread the dress on the bed, an' I set side of -it till Henry come. An' I l-left it there to hev him go in an' l-look at -it. An' we was in the kitchen a minute or two first. An' nex' we knew, -Gramma, she stood in the inside door. An' I thought she was out of her -head she was so wild-like an' laughin' an' cryin'. An' she set down on a -chair, an' s' she: 'He's done it. He's done it. He's kep' his word. -Look—look on my bed,' s' she, 'an' see if I ain't seen it right. Abe -Hawley,' s' she, 'he's sent me my pink silk dress he wanted to, out o' -the grave!'"</p> - -<p>Hannah's thin, rough little hands were clinched on her knee and her eyes -searched Calliope's face.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am," she said, "she was like one possessed, beggin' -me to look at it an' tell her if it wasn't so. She thought mebbe it -might be her head. So I went an' told her the dress was hers," the -little maid sobbed. "I was scairt she'd make herself sick takin' on so. -An' after<i>wards</i> I couldn't a-bear to tell her any different. Ma'am, if -you could 'a' seen her! She took her rocker an' set by the bed all -hours, kind o' gentlin' the silk with her hands. An' she wouldn't go to -bed an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> disturb it off, an' I slep' on the dinin'-room lounge with the -shawl over me. An' this m-mornin' she went on just the same. An' after -dinner Lyddy sent a man from town with a rug for me, an' I set on the -back stoop so's not to see him, I was cryin' so. An' when I come in -Gramma hed shut the bedroom door an' gone. I couldn't trust me even to -l-look in the bedroom for fear I'd put it on. An' I couldn't take it -away from her—I couldn't. Not with all she's done for me, an' the five -dollars an' all. Oh, Miss Marsh, ma'am—" Hannah ended helplessly.</p> - -<p>It seemed to me that I had never known Calliope until that moment.</p> - -<p>"Gracious," she said to Hannah calmly, "crying that way for a little -pink silk dress, and Henry waiting for you downstairs! Wipe up your eyes -this instant minute, Hannah, and get to 'I will'!"</p> - -<p>I think that this attitude of Calliope's must have tranquillized the -wildest. In spite of the reality of the tragedy, it was no time at all -until, having put the pink rose in Hannah's hair, anyway, Calliope and I -led the little bride downstairs. For was there not a reality of -happiness down there?</p> - -<p>"After all, Henry was marrying you and not the dress, you know," -Calliope reminded her on the landing.</p> - -<p>"That's what he keeps a-sayin'," consented Hannah with a wan little -smile, "but oh, ma'am—" she added, for Hannah was all feminine.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p><p>And when the "I will" had been said, I loved the little creature for -taking Grandma Hawley in her arms.</p> - -<p>"Did they tell you what I done?" the old woman questioned anxiously when -Hannah kissed her. "I was savin' it to tell you, an' it went out o' my -head. An' I dunno—did you know what I done?" she persisted.</p> - -<p>But the others crowded forward with congratulation and, as was their -fashion, with teasing; and presently I think that even the rosy gown was -forgotten in Hannah's delight over her unexpected gifts. The -graniteware, the sweeper, the rug with the running dog—after all, was -ever any one so blessed?</p> - -<p>And as I watched them—Hannah and her great, good-looking adoring -giant—I who, like Calliope, love a surprise, caught a certain plan by -its shining wings and held it close. They say that when one does this -such wings bear one away—and so it proved.</p> - -<p>I found my chance and whispered my plan to Hannah, half for the pastime -of seeing the quickening color in her cheek and the light in her eyes. -Then I told the giant, chiefly for the sake of noting how some -mischievous god smote him with a plague of blushes. And they both -consented—and that is the way when one clings to the wings of a plan.</p> - -<p>So it came about that in the happy bustle of the parting, as Hannah in -her "regular brown Sunday<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> suit" went away on Henry's arm, they two and -I exchanged glances of pleasant significance. Then, when every one had -gone, I turned to Calliope with authority.</p> - -<p>"Put on," I bade her, "your black grosgrain silk with the white -turnovers—and mind you don't slit it up the back seam!"</p> - -<p>"I'm a-goin' to do my dishes up," said Calliope. "Can't you set a spell -and talk it over?"</p> - -<p>"Hurry," I commanded, "or we shall miss the six-ten express!"</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?" she asked in alarm.</p> - -<p>"Leave everything," said I. "There's a box waiting for us at the opera -to-night. And supper afterward."</p> - -<p>"You ain't—" she said tremulously.</p> - -<p>"I am," I assured her firmly, "and so are you. And Hannah and Henry are -going with us. Hurry!"</p> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>"He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>is, in effect, the spirit of the "<i>Ah, je ris de me voir si belle</i>" of -"Marguerite" when she opens the casket of jewels. As we sat, the four of -us, in the dimness of the opera box—Calliope in her black silk with the -white turnovers, Hannah in her "regular brown Sunday suit," and Henry -and I, it seemed to me that Marguerite's song was really concerning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> the -delight of rose-pink silk. And I found myself grieving anew for the -innocent hopes that had been dissolved, immaterial as Abe Hawley's -message from the grave.</p> - -<p>Then the curtain fell on the third act and the soft thunder of applause -spent itself and the lights leaped up. And immediately I was aware of a -conspicuously high-pitched voice at the door of the box, a voice which -carried with it some consciousness of elaborate self-possession.</p> - -<p>"Really!" said the voice. "Of all people! My dear Hannah—and Calliope -Marsh! You butterflies—"</p> - -<p>I looked up, and at first all that I saw was a gown which "laid smooth -down—and then all to once it'd slimpse into folds, soft as soft—and -didn't pucker nor skew nor hang wrong"; a gown that was "dressmaker -made"; a gown, in short, such as Lydia Eider "always hed on." And there -beside us stood Lydia Eider herself, wearing some exquisite, priceless -thing of pink chiffon and old lace, with a floating, glittering scarf on -her arms.</p> - -<p>I remember that she seemed some splendid, tropic bird alight among our -nun-like raiment. A man or two, idling attendance, were rapidly and -perfunctorily presented to us—one, who was Lydia's adopted brother, -showing an amused cordiality to Henry. And I saw how the glasses were -instantly turned from pit and boxes toward her—this girl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> who, with -Calliope and Hannah, had been cast in one mold of prettiness and -proportion and who alone of the three, as I thought, had come into her -own.</p> - -<p>And Lydia said:</p> - -<p>"<i>Will</i> you tell me how on earth Grandma Hawley came to send me a pink -silk dress to-day? You didn't know! But she did—on my honor. It came -this afternoon by the man I sent out to you, Hannah. And so decently -made—how can it have happened? Made for me too—positively I can wear -it—though nearly everything I have is pink. But how did Grandma come to -do it? And <i>where</i> did she get it? And why—"</p> - -<p>She talked on for a little, elaborating, wondering. But I fancy that she -must have thought us uncommonly stupid, for none of us had the faintest -suggestion to offer. We listened, and murmured a bit about the health of -Grandma Hawley, and Henry said some hesitating thanks, in which Hannah -barely joined, for the wedding gift of the rug, but none of us gave -evidence. And at last, with some gracious word, Lydia Eider left the -box, trailing her pink chiffon skirts and saying the slight good-by -which utterly forgets one.</p> - -<p>But when she had gone, Calliope laughed, softly and ambiguously and -wholly contagiously, so that Hannah, whose face had begun to pucker like -a child's, unwillingly joined her. And then, partly because of Henry's -reassuring, "Now then, now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> then, Hannah," and partly at the touch of -his big hand and in the particular, delicious embarrassment which comes -but once, Hannah tremulously spoke her conclusion:</p> - -<p>"I don't care," she said, "I don't care! I'm <i>glad</i>—for Gramma."</p> - -<p>Calliope sat smiling, looking, in her delicate color and frailty and the -black and white of her dress, like some one on a fan, exquisitely and -appropriately painted.</p> - -<p>"I was thinking," she said brightly to Hannah, "going without a thing is -some like a jumping tooth. It hurts you before-hand, but when it's gone -for good all the hurt sort of eases down and peters out and can't do you -any more harm."</p> - -<p>But I think they both knew that this was not all. For some way, outside -the errantry of prettiness and proportion, Calliope and Hannah too had -come into their own.</p> - -<p>I looked at Calliope, her face faintly flushed by the unwonted hour; at -Hannah, rosy little bride; and at her adoring giant over whom some god -had cast the usual spell of wedding blushes.</p> - -<p>Verily, I thought, would not one say there is rose pink enough in the -world for us all?</p> - -<p>As the curtain rose again Calliope leaned toward me. "I don't believe -any dress," she said, "pink silk or any other kind, ever dressed up so -many folks's souls!"</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Copyright, 1913, The Delineator.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PEACE<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></h2> - -<p>When they went to South America for six months, the Henslows, that live -across the street from me, wanted to rent their cottage. And of course, -being a neighbor, I wanted them to get the fifteen dollars a month. -But—being the cottage was my neighbor—I couldn't help, deep down in my -inner head, feeling kind of selfish pleased that it stood vacant a -while. It's a chore to have a new neighbor in the summer. They always -want to borrow your rubber fruit-rings, and they forget to return some; -and they come in and sit in the mornings when you want to get your work -out of the way before the hot part of a hot day crashes down on you. I -can neighbor agreeable when the snow flies, but summers I want my porch -and my rocker and my wrapper and my palm-leaf fan, and nobody to call -on. And—I don't want to sound less neighborly than I mean to sound—I -don't want any real danger of being what you might say called-on—not -till the cool of the day.</p> - -<p>Then, on a glorious summer morning, right out of a clear blue sky, what -did I see but two trunks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> plopped down on the Henslows' porch! I knew -they were never back so soon. I knew the two trunks meant renters, and -nothing but renters.</p> - -<p>"I'll bet ten hundred thousand dollars one of them plays the flute and -practices evenings," I says.</p> - -<p>I didn't catch sight of them till the next morning, and then I saw him -head for the early train into the city, and her stand at the gate and -watch him. And, my land, she was in a white dress and she didn't look -twenty years old.</p> - -<p>So I went right straight over.</p> - -<p>"My dear," I says, "I dunno what your name is, but I'm your neighbor, -and I dunno what more we need than that."</p> - -<p>She put out her hand—just exactly as if she was glad. She had a -wonderful sweet, loving smile—and she smiled with that.</p> - -<p>So I says: "I thought moving in here with trunks, so, you might want -something. And if I can let you have anything—jars or jelly-glasses or -rubber rings or whatever, why, just you—"</p> - -<p>"Thank you, Miss Marsh," she says. "I know you're Miss Marsh—Mrs. -Henslow told me about you."</p> - -<p>"The same," says I, neat.</p> - -<p>"I'm Mrs. Harry Beecher," she says. "I—we were just married last week," -she says, neat as a biography.</p> - -<p>"So you was!" I says. "Well, now, you just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> let me be to you what your -folks would want me to be, won't you?" says I. "Feel," I says, "just -like you could run in over to my house any time, morning, noon or night. -Call on me for anything. Come on over and sit with me if you feel -lonesome—or if you don't. My side porch is real nice and cool and shady -all the afternoon—"</p> - -<p>And so on. And wasn't that nice to happen to me, right in the middle of -the dead of summer, with nothing going on?</p> - -<p>If you have lived in the immediate neighborhood of a bride and groom, -you know what I am going to tell about.</p> - -<p>But if you haven't, try to rent your next house—if you rent—or try to -buy your next home—if you buy—somewhere in the more-or-less -neighborhood of a bride and groom. Because it's an education. It's an -education in living. No—I don't believe I mean that the way you think I -mean it at all. I mean it another way.</p> - -<p>To be sure, there were the mornings, when I saw them come out from -breakfast and steal a minute or two hanging round the veranda before he -had to start off. That was as nice as a picture, and nicer. I got so I -timed my breakfast so's I could be watering my flower-beds when this -happened, and not miss it. He usually pulled the vines over better, or -weeded a little near the step, or tinkered with the hinge of the screen, -or fussed with the bricks where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the roots had pushed them up. And she -sat on the steps and talked with him, and laughed now and then with her -little pretty laugh. (Not many women can laugh as pretty as she did—and -we all ought to be able to do it. Sometimes I wish somebody would start -a school to teach pretty laughing, and somebody else would make us all -go to it.) And I knew how they were pretending that this was really -their own home, and playing proprietor and householder, just like -everybody else. And of course that was pleasurable to me to see—but -that wasn't what I meant.</p> - -<p>Nor I didn't mean times when she'd be out in the garden during the day, -and the telephone bell would ring, and she would throw things and head -for the house, running, because she thought it might be him calling her -up from the city. Most usually it was. I always knew it had been him -when she came back singing.</p> - -<p>And then there were the late afternoons, say, almost an hour before the -first train that he could possibly come on and that now and then he -caught. Always before it was time for that she would open her front door -that she'd had closed all day to keep her house cool, and she'd bring -her book or her sewing out on the porch, and never pay a bit of -attention to either, because she sat looking up the street. There was -only a little bit of shade on her porch that time in the afternoon, and -I used to want to ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> her to come over on my cool, shady side porch, -but I had the sense not to. I sort of understood how she liked to sit -out there where she was, on their own porch, waiting for him. Then he'd -come, and she'd sit out in the garden and read to him while he dug in -the beds, or she'd sew on the porch while he cut the grass—well, now, -it don't sound like much as I tell it, does it?—and yet it used to look -wonderful sweet to me, looking across the street.</p> - -<p>But as I said, it wasn't any of these times, nor yet the long summer -evenings when I could just see the glimmer of her white dress on the -porch or in the garden, or their shadows on the curtain, rainy evenings; -no, it wasn't these times that made me wish for everybody in the world -that they lived next door to a bride and groom. But the thing I mean -came to me all of a sudden, when they hadn't been my neighbors for a -week. And it came to me like this:</p> - -<p>One night I'd had them over for supper. It had been a hot day, and -ordinarily I'm opposed to company on a hot day; but some way having -<i>them</i> was different. And then I didn't imagine she was so very used to -cooking, and I got to thinking maybe a meal away from home would be a -rest.</p> - -<p>And after supper we'd been walking around my yard, looking at my late -cosmos and wondering whether it would get around to bloom before the -frost. And they had been telling me how they meant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> to plant their -garden when they got one of their own. I liked to keep them talking -about it, because his face lit up so young and boyish, and hers got all -soft and bright; and they looked at each other like they could see that -garden planted and up and growing and pretty near paid for. So I kept -egging them on, asking this and that, just to hear them plan.</p> - -<p>"One whole side of the wall," said he, "we'll have lilacs and -forsythia."</p> - -<p>She looked at him. "I thought we said hollyhocks there," she said.</p> - -<p>"Well, don't you remember," he said, "we changed that when you said -you'd planned, ever since you were a little girl to have lilacs and -forsythia on the edge of your garden?"</p> - -<p>"Well—so I did," she remembered. "But I thought you said you liked -hollyhocks best?"</p> - -<p>"Maybe I did," says he. "I forget. I don't know but I did for a while. -But I think of it this way now."</p> - -<p>She laughed. "Why," she said, "I was getting to <i>prefer</i> hollyhocks."</p> - -<p>I noticed that particular. Then we came round the corner of the house. -And the street looked so peaceful and lovely that I knew just how he -felt when he said:</p> - -<p>"Let's us three go and take a drive in the country. Can't we? We could -get a carriage somewhere, couldn't we?"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p><p>And she says like a little girl, "Oh, yes, let's. But don't you s'pose -we could rent a car here from somebody?"</p> - -<p>I liked to look at his look when he looked at her. He done it now.</p> - -<p>"A car?" he said. "But you're nervous when I drive. Wouldn't you rather -have a horse?"</p> - -<p>"Well, but you'd rather have a car," she said. "And I'd like to know you -were liking that best! And, truly, I don't think I'd care much—now."</p> - -<p>Then I took a hand. "You look here," I says. "I'd really ought to step -down to Mis' Merriman's to a committee meeting. I've been trying to make -myself believe I didn't need to go, but I know I ought to. And you two -take your drive."</p> - -<p>They fussed a little, but that was the way we arranged it. I went off to -my meeting before I saw which they did get to go in. But that didn't -make any difference. All the way to the meeting I kept thinking about -lilacs and hollyhocks and horses and cars. And I saw what had happened -to those two: they loved each other so much that they'd kind of lost -track of the little things that they thought had mattered so much, and -neither could very well remember which they had really had a leaning -towards of all the things.</p> - -<p>"It's a kind of <i>each-otherness</i>!" I says to myself. "It's a new thing. -That ain't giving-upness. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>Giving-upness is when you still want what you -give up. This is something else. It's each-otherness. And you can't get -it till you <i>care</i>."</p> - -<p>But then I thought of something else. It wasn't only them—it was me! It -was like I had caught something from them. For of course I'd rather have -gone driving with those two than to have gone to any committee meeting, -necessary or not. But I knew now that I'd been feeling inside me that of -course they didn't want an old thing like me along, and that of course -they'd rather have their drive alone, horse <i>or</i> automobile. And so I'd -kind of backed out according. Being with them had made me feel a sort of -each-otherness too. It was wonderful. I thought about it a good deal.</p> - -<p>And when I came home and see that they'd got back first, and were -sitting on the porch with no lights in the house yet, except the one -burning dim in the hall, I sat upstairs by my window quite a while. And -I says to myself:</p> - -<p>"If only there was a bride and groom in every single house all up and -down the streets of the village—"</p> - -<p>And I could almost think how it would be with everybody being decent to -each other and to the rest, just sheer because they were all happy.</p> - -<p>Picture how I felt, then, when not six weeks later, on a morning all -yellow and blue and green, and tied onto itself with flowers, little -Mrs. Bride came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> standing at my side door, knocking on the screen, and -her face all tear-stained.</p> - -<p>"Gracious, now," I says, "did breakfast burn?"</p> - -<p>She came in. She always wore white dresses and little doll caps in the -morning, and she sit down at the end of my dining-room table, looking -like a rosebud in trouble.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Miss Marsh," she says, "it isn't any laughing matter. Something's -happened between us. We've spoke cross to each other."</p> - -<p>"Well, well," I says, "what was that for?"</p> - -<p>I s'posed maybe he'd criticized the popovers, or something equally -universal had occurred.</p> - -<p>"<i>That</i> was it," she says. "We've spoke cross to each other, Miss -Marsh."</p> - -<p>And then it came to me that it didn't seem to be bothering her at all -what it was about. The only thing that stuck out for her was that they'd -spoke cross to each other.</p> - -<p>"So!" I says. "And you've got to wait all day long before you can patch -it up. Why don't you call him up?" I ask her. "It's only twenty cents -for the three minutes—and you can get it all in that."</p> - -<p>She shook her head. "That's the worst of it," she says. "I can't do it. -Neither can he. I'm not that sort—to be able to give in after I've been -mad and spoke harsh. I'm—I'm afraid neither of us will, even when he -gets home."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p><p>Then I sat up straight. This, I see, was serious—most as serious as -she thought.</p> - -<p>"What's the reason?" says I.</p> - -<p>"I dunno," she says. "We're like that—both of us. We're awful proud—no -matter how much we want to give in, we can't."</p> - -<p>I sat looking at her.</p> - -<p>"Call him up," I says.</p> - -<p>She shook her head again and made her pretty mouth all tight.</p> - -<p>"I couldn't," she says. "I couldn't."</p> - -<p>She seemed to like to sit and talk it over, kind of luxurious. She told -me how it began—some twopenny thing about screens in the parlor window. -She told me how one thing led to another. I let her talk and I sat there -thinking. Pretty soon she went home and she never sung once all day. It -didn't seem as if anybody's screens were worth that.</p> - -<p>I'm not one that's ashamed of looking at anything I'm interested in. -When it came time for the folks from the afternoon local, I sat down in -my parlor behind the Nottinghams. I saw she never came out to the gate. -And when he came home I could see her white dress out in the back garden -where she was pretending to work.</p> - -<p>He sat down on the front porch and smoked, and seemed to read the paper. -She came in the house after a while, and finally she appeared in the -front door for three-fourths of a second.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p><p>"Your supper's ready for you," I heard her say. And then I knew, -certain sure, how they were both sitting there at their table not -speaking a word.</p> - -<p>I ate my own supper, and I felt like a funeral was going on. It kills -something in me to have young folks, or any folks, act like that. And -when I went back in the parlor I saw him on the front porch again, -smoking, and her on the side porch playing with the kitten.</p> - -<p>"It's the first death," I says. "It's their first kind of death. And I -can't stand it a minute longer."</p> - -<p>So when I saw him start out pretty soon to go downtown alone—I went to -my front gate and I called to him to come over. He came—a fine, -close-knit chap he was, with the young not rubbed out of his face yet, -and his eyes window-clear.</p> - -<p>"The catch on my closet-door don't act right," I says. "I wonder if -you'll fix it for me?"</p> - -<p>He went up and done it, and I ran for the tools for him and tried to get -my courage up. When he got through and came down I was sitting on my -hall-tree.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Groom," I says—that was my name for him—"I hope you won't think -I'm interfering <i>too</i> much, but I want to speak to you serious about -your wife."</p> - -<p>"Yes," he says, short.</p> - -<p>I went on, never noticing: "I dunno whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> you've took it in, but -there seems to be something wrong with her."</p> - -<p>"Wrong with her?" he says.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," I says. "And I dunno but awfully wrong. I've been noticing -lately." (I didn't say <i>how</i> lately.)</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?" says he, and sat down on the bottom step.</p> - -<p>"Don't you see," I says, "that she don't look well? She don't act no -more like herself than I do. She hasn't," says I, truthful, "half the -spirit to her to-day that she had when you first came here to the -village."</p> - -<p>"Why—no," he says, "I hadn't noticed—"</p> - -<p>"You wouldn't," says I. "You wouldn't be likely to. But it seems to me -that you ought to be warned—and be on your guard."</p> - -<p>"<i>Warned!</i>" he says, and I saw him get pale—I tell you I saw him get -pale.</p> - -<p>"I'm not easy alarmed," I told him. "And when I see anything serious, it -ain't in my power to stand aside and not say anything."</p> - -<p>"Serious," he says over. "Serious? But, Miss Marsh, can you give me any -idea—"</p> - -<p>"I've give you a hint," says I, "that it's something you'd ought to be -mighty careful about. I dunno's I can do much more; I dunno's I ought to -do that. But if anything should happen—"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p><p>"Good heavens!" he says. "You don't think she's that bad off?"</p> - -<p>"—if anything should happen," I went on, calm, "I didn't want to have -myself to blame for not having spoke up in time. Now," says I, brisk, -"you were just going downtown. And I've got a taste of jell I want to -take over to her. So I won't keep you."</p> - -<p>He got up, looking so near like a tree that's had its roots hacked at -that I 'most could have told him that I didn't mean the kind of death he -was thinking of at all. But I didn't say anything more. And he thanked -me, humble and grateful and scared, and went off downtown. He looked -over to the cottage, though, when he shut my gate—I noticed that. She -wasn't anywhere in sight. Nor she wasn't when I stepped up onto her -porch in a minute or two with a cup-plate of my new quince jell that I -wanted her to try.</p> - -<p>"Hello," I says in the passage. "Anybody home?"</p> - -<p>There was a little shuffle and she came out of the dining-room. There -was a mark all acrost her cheek, and I judged she'd been lying on the -couch out there crying.</p> - -<p>"Get a teaspoon," says I, "and come taste my new receipt."</p> - -<p>She came, lack-luster, and like jell didn't make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> much more difference -than anything else. We sat down, cozy, in the hammock, me acting like -I'd forgot everything in the world about what had gone before. I rattled -on about the new way to make my jell and then I set the sample on the -sill behind the shutter and I says:</p> - -<p>"I just had Mr. Groom come over to fix the latch on my closet-door. I -dunno what was wrong with it—when I shut it tight it went off like a -gun in the middle of the night. Mr. Groom fixed it in just a minute."</p> - -<p>"Oh, he did," says she, about like that.</p> - -<p>"He's awful handy with tools," I says. And she didn't say anything. And -then says I:</p> - -<p>"Mrs. Bride, we're old friends by now, ain't we?"</p> - -<p>"Why, yes," says she, "and good friends, I hope."</p> - -<p>"That's what I hope," I says. "And now," I went on, "I hope you won't -think I'm interfering too much, but I want to speak to you serious about -your husband."</p> - -<p>"My husband?" says she, short.</p> - -<p>I went on, never noticing. "I don't know whether you've took it in, but -there seems to be something wrong with him."</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?" she says, looking at me.</p> - -<p>"Well, sir," I says, "I ain't sure. I can't tell just how wrong it is. -But something is ailing him."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p><p>"Why, I haven't noticed anything," she says, and come over to a chair -nearer to me.</p> - -<p>"You don't mean," I says, "that you don't notice the change there's been -in him?"—I didn't say in how long—"the lines in his face and how -different he acts?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, no," she says. "Why, surely not!"</p> - -<p>"Surely <i>yes</i>," says I. "It strikes me—it struck me over there -to-night—that something is the matter—<i>serious</i>."</p> - -<p>"Oh, don't say that," she says. "You frighten me."</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry for that," says I. "But it's better to be frightened too soon -than too late. And if anything should happen I wouldn't want to think—"</p> - -<p>"Oh!" she says, sharp, "what do you think could happen?"</p> - -<p>"—I wouldn't want to think," I went on, "that I had suspicioned and -hadn't warned you."</p> - -<p>"But what can I do—" she began.</p> - -<p>"You can watch out," I says, "now that you know. Folks get careless -about their near and dear—that's all. They don't notice that anything's -the matter till it's too late."</p> - -<p>"Oh, dear!" she says. "Oh, if anything should happen to Harry, why, Miss -Marsh—"</p> - -<p>"Exactly," says I.</p> - -<p>We talked on a little while till I heard what I was waiting for—him -coming up the street. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> noticed that he hadn't been gone downtown long -enough to buy a match.</p> - -<p>"I'm going over to Miss Matey's for some pie-plant," I says. "Her second -crop is on. Can I go through your back gate? Maybe I'll come back this -way."</p> - -<p>When I went around their house I saw that she was still standing on the -porch and he was coming in the gate. And I never looked back at all—bad -as I wanted to.</p> - -<p>It was deep dusk when I came back. The air was as gentle as somebody -that likes you when they're liking you most.</p> - -<p>When I came by the end of the porch I heard voices, so I knew that they -were talking. And then I caught just one sentence. You'd think I could -have been contented to slip through the front yard and leave them to -work it out. But I wasn't. In fact I'd only just got the stage set ready -for what I meant to do.</p> - -<p>I walked up the steps and laid my pie-plant on the stoop.</p> - -<p>"I'm coming in," I says.</p> - -<p>They got up and said the different things usual. And I went and sat -down.</p> - -<p>"You'll think in a minute," says I, "that I owe you both an apology. But -I don't."</p> - -<p>"What for, dear?" Mrs. Bride says, and took my hand.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p><p>I'm an old woman and I felt like their mother and their grandmother. -But I felt a little frightened too.</p> - -<p>"Is either of you sick?" I says.</p> - -<p>Both of them says: "No, <i>I</i> ain't." And both of them looked furtive and -quick at the other.</p> - -<p>"Well," I says, "mebbe you don't know it. But to-day both of you has had -the symptoms of coming down with something. Something serious."</p> - -<p>They looked at me, puzzled.</p> - -<p>"I noticed it in Mrs. Bride this morning," I says, "when she came over -to my house. She looked white, and like all the life had gone out of -her. And she didn't sing once all day, nor do any work. Then I noticed -it in you to-night," I says to him, "when you walked looking down, and -came acrost the street lack-luster, and like nothing mattered so much as -it might have if it had mattered more. And so I done the natural thing. -I told each of you about something being the matter with the other one. -Something serious."</p> - -<p>I stood up in front of them, and I dunno but I felt like a fairy -godmother that had something to give them—something priceless.</p> - -<p>"When two folks," I says, "speak cross to each other and can't give in, -it's just as sure a disease as—as quinsy. And it'll be fatal, same as a -fever can be. You can hate the sight of me if you want to, but that's -why I spoke out like I done."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p><p>I didn't dare look at them. I began just there to see what an awful -thing I <i>had</i> done, and how they were perfectly bound to take it. But I -thought I'd get in as much as I could before they ordered me off the -porch.</p> - -<p>"I've loved seeing you over here," I says. "It's made me young again. -I've loved watching you say good-by in the mornings, and meet again -evenings. I've loved looking out over here to the light when you sat -reading, and I could see your shadows go acrost the curtains sometimes, -when I sat rocking in my house by myself. It's all been something I've -liked to know was happening. It seemed as if a beautiful, new thing was -beginning in the world—and you were it."</p> - -<p>All at once I got kind of mad at the two of them.</p> - -<p>"And here for a little tinkering matter about screens for the parlor, -you go and spoil all my fun by not speaking to each other!" I scolded, -sharp.</p> - -<p>It was that, I think, that turned the tide and made them laugh. They -both did laugh, hearty—and they looked at each other and laughed—I -noticed that. For two folks can <i>not</i> look at each other and laugh and -stay mad same time. They can <i>not</i> do it.</p> - -<p>I went right on: "So," I says, "I told you each the truth, that the -other one was sick. So you were, both of you. Sick at heart. And you -know it."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p><p>He put out his hand to her.</p> - -<p>"I know it," he says.</p> - -<p>"I know too," says she.</p> - -<p>"Land!" says I, "you done that awful pretty. If I could give in that -graceful about anything I'd go round giving in whether I'd said anything -to be sorry for or not. I'd do it for a parlor trick."</p> - -<p>"Was it hard, dear?" he says to her. And she put up her face to him just -as if I hadn't been there. I liked that. And it made me feel as much at -home as the clock.</p> - -<p>He looked hard at me.</p> - -<p>"Truly," he says, "didn't you mean she looked bad?"</p> - -<p>"I meant just what I said," says I. "She did look bad. But she don't -now."</p> - -<p>"And you made it all up," she says, "about something serious being the -matter with him—"</p> - -<p>"Made it up!" says I. "No! But what ailed him this morning doesn't ail -him now. That's all. I s'pose you're both mad at me," I says, mournful.</p> - -<p>He took a deep breath. "Not when I'm as thankful as this," he says.</p> - -<p>"And me," she says. "And me."</p> - -<p>I looked around the little garden of the Henslows' cottage, with the -moon behaving as if everything was going as smooth as glass—don't you -always notice that about the moon? What grand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> manners it's got? It -never lets on that anything is the matter.</p> - -<p>He threw his arm across her shoulder in that gesture of comradeship that -is most the sweetest thing they do.</p> - -<p>They got up and came over to me quick.</p> - -<p>"We can't thank you—" she says.</p> - -<p>"Shucks," I says. "I been wishing I had something to give you. I -couldn't think of anything but vegetables. Now mebbe I've give you -something after all—providing you don't go and forget it the very next -time," I says, wanting to scold them again.</p> - -<p>They walked to the gate with me. The night was black and pale gold, like -a great soft drowsy bee.</p> - -<p>"You know," I says, when I left them, "peace that we talk so much -about—that isn't going to come just by governments getting it. If -people like you and me can't keep it—and be it—what hope is there for -the nations? We <i>are</i> 'em!"</p> - -<p>I'd never thought of it before. I went home saying it over. When I'd put -my pie-plant down cellar I went in my dark little parlor and sat down by -the window and rocked. I could see their light for a little while. Then -it went out. The cottage lay in that hush of peace of a hot summer -night. I could feel the peacefulness of the village.</p> - -<p>"If only we can get enough of it," I says. "If only we can get enough of -it—"</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Copyright, 1917, <i>Woman's Home Companion</i>.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> - -<h2>DREAM</h2> - -<p>When a house in the neighborhood has been vacant for two years, and all -of a sudden the neighborhood sees furniture being moved into that house, -excitement, as Silas Sykes says, reigns supreme and more than supreme.</p> - -<p>And so it did in Friendship Village when the Oldmoxon House got a new -tenant, unbeknownst. The excitement was specially strained because the -reason Oldmoxon House had stood vacant so long was the rent. And whoever -had agreed to the Twenty Dollars was going to be, we all felt, and as -Mis' Sykes herself put it, "a distinct addition to Friendship Village -society."</p> - -<p>It was she gave me the news, being the Sykeses are the Oldmoxon House's -nearest neighbors. I hurried right over to her house—it was summer-warm -and you just ached for an excuse to be out in it, anyway. We drew some -rockers onto her front porch where we could get a good view. The -Oldmoxon double front doors stood open, and the things were being set -inside.</p> - -<p>"Serves me right not to know who it is," says Mis' Sykes. "I see men -working there yesterday,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> and I never went over to inquire what they -were doing."</p> - -<p>"A body can't do everything that's expected of them," says I, soothing.</p> - -<p>"Won't it be nice," says Mis' Sykes, dreamy, "to have that house open -again, and folks going and coming, and maybe parties?" It was then the -piano came out of the van, and she gave her ultimatum. "Whoever it is," -she says, pointing eloquent, "will be a distinct addition to Friendship -Village society."</p> - -<p>There wasn't a soul in sight that seemed to be doing the directing, so -pretty soon Mis' Sykes says, uneasy:</p> - -<p>"I don't know—would it seem—how would it be—well, wouldn't it be -taking a neighborly interest to step over and question the vans a -little?"</p> - -<p>And we both of us thought it would be in order, so we did step right -over to inquire.</p> - -<p>Being the vans had come out from the City, we didn't find out much -except our new neighbor's name: Burton Fernandez.</p> - -<p>"The Burton Fernandezes," says Mis' Sykes, as we picked our way back. "I -guess when we write that name to our friends in our letters, they won't -think we live in the woods any more. Calliope," she says, "it come to me -this: Don't you think it would be real nice to get them up a -reception-surprise, and all go there some night as soon as they get -settled, and take our own refreshments, and get <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>acquainted all at once, -instead of using up time to call, individual?"</p> - -<p>"Land, yes," I says, "I'd like to do that to every neighbor that comes -into town. But you—" says I, hesitating, to her that was usually so -exclusive she counted folks's grand-folks on her fingers before she -would go to call on them, "what makes you—"</p> - -<p>"Oh," says Mis' Sykes, "you can't tell me. Folks's individualities is -expressed in folks's furniture. You can't tell me that, with those -belongings, we can go wrong in our judgment."</p> - -<p>"Well," I says, "<i>I</i> can't go wrong, because I can't think of anything -that'd make me give them the cold shoulder. That's another comfort about -being friends to everybody—you don't have to decide which ones you want -to know."</p> - -<p>"You're so queer, Calliope," says Mis' Sykes, tolerant. "You miss all -the satisfaction of being exclusive. And you can't <i>afford</i> not to be."</p> - -<p>"Mebbe not," says I, "mebbe not. But I'm willing to try it. Hang the -expense!" says I.</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes didn't waste a day on her reception-surprise. I heard of it -right off from Mis' Holcomb and Mis' Toplady and two-three more. They -were all willing enough, not only because any excitement in the village -is like a personal present to all of us, but because Mis' Sykes was -interested. She's got a real gift for making folks think her way is the -way. She's a real leader. Everybody wears a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> straw hat contented till, -somewheres near November, Mis' Sykes flams out in felt, and then you -begin right off to feel shabby in your straw, though new from the store -that Spring.</p> - -<p>"It does seem like rushing things a little, though," says Mis' Holcomb -to me, very confidential, the next day.</p> - -<p>"Not for me," I says. "I been vaccinated."</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?" says she.</p> - -<p>"Not even the small-pox can make me snub them," I explains.</p> - -<p>"Yes, but Calliope," says Mis' Toplady in a whisper, "suppose it should -turn out to be one of them awful places we read about. They have good -furniture."</p> - -<p>"Well," says I, "in that case, if thirty to forty of us went in with our -baskets, real friendly, and done it often enough, I bet we'd either -drive them out or turn them into better neighbors. Where's the harm?"</p> - -<p>"Calliope," says Mame Holcomb, "don't you draw the line <i>nowheres</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," I says, mournful. "Them on Mars won't speak to me—yet. But short -of Mars—no. I have no lines up."</p> - -<p>We heard from the servant that came down on Tuesday and began cleaning -and settling, that the family would arrive on Friday. We didn't get much -out of him—a respectable-seeming colored man but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> reticent, very. The -fact that the family servant was a man finished Mis' Sykes. She had had -a strong leaning, but now she was bent, visible. And with an item that -appeared Thursday night in the Friendship Village <i>Evening Daily</i>, she -toppled complete.</p> - -<p>"Professor and Mrs. Burton Fernandez," the <i>Supper Table Jottings</i> said, -"are expected Friday to take possession of Oldmoxon House, 506 Daphne -street. Professor Fernandez is to be engaged for some time in some -academic and scholastic work in the City. Welcome, Neighbors."</p> - -<p>"Let's have our reception-surprise for them Saturday night," says Mis' -Sykes, as soon as she had read the item. "Then we can make them right at -home, first thing, and they won't need to tramp into church, feeling -strange, Next-day morning."</p> - -<p>"Go on—do it," says I, affable.</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes ain't one to initiate civic, but she's the one to initiate -festive, every time.</p> - -<p>Mis' Holcomb and Mis' Toplady and me agreed to bake the cakes, and Mis' -Sykes was to furnish the lemonade, being her husband keeps the -Post-office store, and what she gets, she gets wholesale. And Mis' Sykes -let it be known around that on Saturday night we were all to drop into -her house, and go across the street together, with our baskets, to put -in a couple of hours at our new neighbors', and make them feel at home. -And everybody was looking forward to it.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p><p>I've got some hyacinth bulbs along by my side fence that get up and -come out, late April and early May, and all but speak to you. And it -happened when I woke up Friday morning they looked so lovely, I couldn't -resist them. I had to take some of them up, and set them out in pots and -carry them around to a few. About noon I was going along the street with -one to take to an old colored washerwoman I know, that never does see -much that's beautiful but the sky; but when I got in front of Oldmoxon -House, a thought met me.</p> - -<p>"To-day's the day they come," I said to myself. "Be kind of nice to have -a sprig of something there to welcome them."</p> - -<p>So my feet turned me right in, like your feet do sometimes, and I rang -the front bell.</p> - -<p>"Here," says I, to that colored servant that opened the door, "is a posy -I thought your folks might like to see waiting for them."</p> - -<p>He started to speak, but somebody else spoke first.</p> - -<p>"How friendly!" said a nice-soft voice—I noticed the voice particular. -"Let me thank her."</p> - -<p>There came out from the shadow of the hall, a woman—the one with the -lovely voice.</p> - -<p>"I am Mrs. Fernandez—this is good of you," she said, and put out her -hands for the plant.</p> - -<p>I gave it to her, and I don't believe I looked surprised, any more than -when I first saw the pictures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> of the Disciples, that the artist had -painted their skin dark, like it must have been. Mrs. Fernandez was dark -too. But her people had come, not from Asia, but from Africa.</p> - -<p>Like a flash, I saw what this was going to mean in the village. And in -the second that I stood there, without time to think it through, -something told me to go in, and try to get some idea of what was going -to be what.</p> - -<p>"May I come inside now I'm here?" I says.</p> - -<p>She took me into the room that was the most settled of any. The piano -was there, and a good many books on their shelves. As I remember back -now, I must just have stood and stared at them, for impressions were -chasing each other across my head like waves on a heaving sea. No less -than that, and mebbe more.</p> - -<p>"I was trying to decide where to put the pictures," she said. "Then we -shall have everything settled before my husband gets home to-morrow."</p> - -<p>We talked about the pictures—they were photographs of Venice and of -Spain. Then we talked about the garden, and whether it was too late for -her to plant much, and I promised her some aster plants. Then I saw a -photograph of a young girl—it was her daughter, in Chicago University, -who would be coming home to spend the Summer. Her son had been studying -to be a surgeon, she said.</p> - -<p>"My husband," she told me, "has some work to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> do in the library in the -City. We tried to live there—but we couldn't bear it."</p> - -<p>"I'm glad you came here," I told her. "It's as nice a little place as -any."</p> - -<p>"I suppose so," she says only. "As nice as—any."</p> - -<p>I don't think I stayed half an hour. But when I came out of there I -walked away from Oldmoxon House not sensing much of anything except a -kind of singing thanksgiving. I had never known anything of her people -except the kind like our colored wash-woman. I knew about the negro -colleges and all, but I guess I never thought about the folks that must -be graduating from them. I'd always thought that there might be somebody -like Mis' Fernandez, sometime, a long way off, when the Lord and us his -helpers got around to it. And here already it was true of some of them. -It was like seeing the future come true right in my face.</p> - -<p>When I shut the gate of Oldmoxon House, I see Mis' Sykes peeking out her -front door, and motioning to me. And at the sight of her, that I hadn't -thought of since I went into that house, I had all I could do to keep -from laughing and crying together, till the street rang with me. I -crossed over and went in her gate; and her eye-brows were all cocked -inquiring to take in the news.</p> - -<p>"Go on," she says, "and tell me all there is to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> tell. Is it all so—the -name—and her husband—and all?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," I says, "it's all so."</p> - -<p>"I knew it when I see her come," says Mis' Sykes. "Her hat and her veil -and her simple, good-cut black clothes—you can't fool me on a lady."</p> - -<p>"No," I says. "You can't fool me, either."</p> - -<p>"Well now," says Mis' Sykes, "there's nothing to hinder our banging -right ahead with our plan for to-morrow night, is there?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing whatever," I says, "to hinder me."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes jerked herself around and looked at me irritable.</p> - -<p>"Why don't you volunteer?" says she. "I hate to dig the news out of -anybody with the can-opener."</p> - -<p>I'd have given a good deal to feel that I didn't have to tell her, but -just let her go ahead with the reception surprise. I knew, though, that -I ought to tell her, not only because I knew her through and through, -but because I couldn't count on the village. We're real democratic in -the things we know about, but let a new situation stick up its head and -we bound to the other side, automatic.</p> - -<p>"Mis' Sykes," I says, "everything that we'd thought of our new neighbor -is true. <i>Also</i>, she's going to be a new experience for us in a way we -hadn't thought of. She's dark-skinned."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p><p>"A brunette," says Mis' Sykes. "I see that through her veil—what of -it?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing—nothing at all," says I. "You noticed then, that she's -colored?"</p> - -<p>I want to laugh yet, every time I think how Mis' Postmaster Sykes looked -at me.</p> - -<p>"<i>Colored!</i>" she says. "You mean—you can't mean—"</p> - -<p>"No," I says, "nothing dangerous. It's going to give us a chance to see -that what we've always said could be true sometime, away far off, is -true of some of them now."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes sprang up and began walking the floor.</p> - -<p>"A family like that in Oldmoxon House—and my nearest neighbors," says -she, wild. "It's outrageious—outrageious."</p> - -<p>I don't use my words very good, but I know better than to say -"outrageious." I don't know but it was her pronouncing it that way, in -such a cause, that made me so mad.</p> - -<p>"Mis' Sykes," I says, "Mis' Fernandez has got a better education than -either you or I. She's a graduate of a Southern college, and her two -children have been to colleges that you and I have never seen the inside -of and never will. And her husband is a college professor, up here to -study for a degree that I don't even know what the letters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> stands for. -In what," says I, "consists your and my superiority to that woman?"</p> - -<p>"My gracious," says Mis' Sykes, "ain't you got no sense of fitness to -you. Ain't she black?"</p> - -<p>"Her skin ain't the same color as ours, you're saying," I says. "Don't -it seem to you that that reason had ought to make a cat laugh?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes fair wheeled on me. "Calliope Marsh," says she, "the way you -set your opinions against established notions is an insult to your -kind."</p> - -<p>"Established notions," I says over after her. "'Established notions.' -That's just it. And who is it, of us two, that's being insulting to -their kind now, Mis' Sykes?"</p> - -<p>She was looking out the window, with her lips close-pressed and a -thought between her narrowed eye-lids.</p> - -<p>"I'll rejoin 'em—or whatever it is you call it," she says. "I'll rejoin -'em from living in that house next to me."</p> - -<p>"Mis' Sykes!" says I. "But their piano and their book-cases and their -name are just the same as yesterday. You know yourself how you said -folks's furniture expressed them. And it does—so be they ain't using -left-overs the way I am. I tell you, I've talked with her, and I know. -Or rather I kept still while she told me things about Venice and -Granada<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> where she'd been and I hadn't. You've got all you thought you -had in that house, and education besides. Are you the Christian woman, -Mis' Sykes, to turn your nose up at them?"</p> - -<p>"Don't throw my faith in my face," says she, irritable.</p> - -<p>"Well," I says, "I won't twit on facts. But anybody'd think the Golden -Rule's fitted neat onto some folks to deal with, and is left flap at -loose ends for them that don't match our skins. Is that sense, or ain't -it?"</p> - -<p>"It ain't the skin," she says. "Don't keep harping on that. It's them. -They're different by nature."</p> - -<p>Then she says the great, grand motto of the little thin slice of the -human race that's been changed into superiority.</p> - -<p>"You can't change human nature!" says she, ticking it out like a clock.</p> - -<p>"Can't you?" says I. "<i>Can't</i> you? I'm interested. If that was true, you -and I would be swinging by our tails, this minute, sociable, from your -clothes-line."</p> - -<p>By this time she didn't hear anything anybody said back—she'd got to -that point in the argument.</p> - -<p>"If," she says, positive, "if the Lord had intended dark-skinned folks -to be different from what they are, he'd have seen to it by now."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p><p>I shifted with her obliging.</p> - -<p>"Then," says I, "take the Fernandez family, in the Oldmoxon House. -They're different. They're more different than you and I are. What you -going to do about it?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes stamped her foot. "How do you know," she says, "that the Lord -intended them to be educated? Tell me that!"</p> - -<p>I sat looking down at her three-ply Ingrain carpet for a minute or two. -Then I got up, and asked her for her chocolate frosting receipt.</p> - -<p>"I'm going to use that on my cake for to-morrow night," I says. "And do -you want me to help with the rest of the telephoning?"</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?" she says, frigid. "You don't think for a minute I'm -going on with that, I hope?"</p> - -<p>"On with it?" I says. "Didn't you tell me you had the arrangements about -all made?"</p> - -<p>She sunk back, loose in her chair. "I shall be the Laughing Stock,—the -Laughing Stock," she says, looking wild and glazed.</p> - -<p>"Yes," says I, deliberate, determined and serene, "they'll say you were -going to dance around and cater to this family because they've moved -into the Oldmoxon House. They'll say you wanted to make sure, right -away, to get in with them. They'll repeat what you've been saying about -the elegant furniture, in good taste. And about the academic and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> -scholastic work being done. And about these folks being a distinct -addition to Friendship Village society—"</p> - -<p>"Don't, Calliope—oh, don't!" said Mis' Sykes, faint.</p> - -<p>"Well, then," I says, getting up to leave, "go on ahead and act -neighborly to them, the once, and decide later about keeping it up, as -you would with anybody else."</p> - -<p>It kind of swept over me—here we were, standing there, bickering and -haggling, when out there on the planet that lay around Daphne Street -were loose ends of creation to catch up and knit in.</p> - -<p>"My gracious," I says, "I ain't saying they're all all right, am I? But -I'm saying that as fast as those that try to grow, stick up their heads, -it's the business of us that tootle for democracy, and for evolution, to -help them on."</p> - -<p>She looked at me, pitying.</p> - -<p>"It's all so much bigger than that, Calliope," she says.</p> - -<p>"True," says I, "for if some of them stick up their heads, it proves -that more of them could—if we didn't stomp 'em down."</p> - -<p>I got out in the air of the great, gold May day, that was like another -way of life, leading up from our way. I took in a long breath of it—and -that always helps me to see things big.</p> - -<p>"One Spring," I says, "One world—one God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>—one life—one future. -Wouldn't you think we could match ourselves up?"</p> - -<p>But when I got in my little house, I looked around on the homely inside -of it—that always helps me to think how much better things can be, when -we really know how. And I says:</p> - -<p>"Oh, God, we here in America got up a terrible question for you to help -us settle, didn't we? Well, <i>help</i> us! And help us to see, whatever's -the way to settle anything, that giving the cold shoulder and the -uplifted nose to any of the creatures you've made ain't the way to -settle <i>nothing</i>. Amen."</p> - -<p class="space-above">Next morning I was standing in my door-way, breathing in the fresh, gold -air, when in at the gate came that colored man of Mis' Fernandez's, and -he had a big bouquet of roses. Not roses like we in the village often -see. They were green-house bred.</p> - -<p>"Mis' Fernandez's son done come home las' night and brung 'em," says the -man.</p> - -<p>"Her son," I says, "from college?"</p> - -<p>"No'm," says the man. "F'om the war."</p> - -<p>"From the what?" I says.</p> - -<p>"F'om the war," he says over. "F'om U'pe."</p> - -<p>He must have thought I was crazy. For a minute I stared at him, then I -says "Glory be!" and I began to laugh. Then I told him to tell Mis' -Fernandez that I'd be over in half an hour to thank her myself for the -flowers, and in half an hour I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> was going up to her front door. I had to -make sure.</p> - -<p>"Your son," I says, forgetting all about the roses, "he's in the -American army?"</p> - -<p>"He was," she said. "He fought in France for eighteen months. Now he has -been discharged."</p> - -<p>"Oh," I says to myself, "that arranges everything. It must."</p> - -<p>"Perhaps you will let me tell you," she said. "He comes back to us -wearing the cross of war."</p> - -<p>"The cross of war!" I cried. "That they give when folks save folks in -battle?" I said it just like saving folks is the principal business of -it all.</p> - -<p>"My son did save a wounded officer in No-man's land," she told me. "The -officer—he was a white man."</p> - -<p>"Oh," I says, and I couldn't say another word till I managed to ask her -if her son had been in the draft.</p> - -<p>"No," she said. "He volunteered April 7, 1917."</p> - -<p>It wasn't until I got out in the street that I remembered I hadn't -thanked her for the roses at all. But there wasn't time to think of -that.</p> - -<p>I headed straight for Mis' Silas Sykes. She looked awful bad, and I -don't think probably she'd slept a wink all night. I ask' her casual how -the reception was coming on, and she kind of began to cry.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p><p>"I don't know what you hector me for like this," she says. "Ain't it -enough that I've got to call folks up to-day and tell them I've made a -fool of myself?"</p> - -<p>"Not yet," I says. "Not yet you ain't made one of yourself, Mis' Sykes. -That's to come, if any. It is hard," I says, "to do the particular thing -you'll have to do. There's them," I says crafty, "as'll gloat."</p> - -<p>"I thought about them all night long," she says, her breath showing -through her words.</p> - -<p>"Then think no more, Mis' Sykes," I says, "because there's a reason over -there in that house why we should go ahead with our plan—and it's a -reason you can't get around."</p> - -<p>She looked at me, like one looking with no hope. And then I told her.</p> - -<p>I never saw a woman so checkered in her mind. Her head was all reversed, -and where had been one notion, another bobbed up to take its place, and -where the other one had been previous, a new one was dancing.</p> - -<p>"But do they do that?" she ask'. "Do they give war-crosses to -<i>negroes</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Why not?" I says. "France don't care because the fore-fathers of these -soldiers were made slaves by us. She don't lay it up against <i>them</i>. -That don't touch their bravery. England never has minded dark -skins—look at her East Indians and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> Egyptians that they say are -everywhere in London. Nobody cares but us. Of course France gives -negroes crosses of war when they're brave—why shouldn't she?"</p> - -<p>"My gracious," Mis' Sykes says, "but what'll folks say here if we do go -ahead and recognize them?"</p> - -<p>"Recognize <i>him</i>!" I cried. "Mis' Sykes—are you going to let him offer -up his life, and go over to Europe and have his bravery recognized -there, and then come back here and get the cold shoulder from you—are -you? Then shame on us all!" I says.</p> - -<p>Then Mis' Sykes said the things folks always say: "But if we recognize -them, what about marriage?"</p> - -<p>"See here," says I, "there's thousands and thousands of tuberculosis -cases in this country to-day. And more hundreds of thousands with other -diseases. Do we set the whole lot of them apart, and refuse to be decent -to them, or do business with them, because they ought not to marry our -girls and boys? Don't you see how that argument is just an excuse?"</p> - -<p>"All the same," said Mis' Sykes, "it might happen."</p> - -<p>"Then make a law against inter-marriage," I says. "That's easy. Nothing -comes handier than making a new law. But don't snub the whole -race<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>—especially those that have risked their lives for you, Mis' -Sykes!"</p> - -<p>She stared at me, her face looking all triangular.</p> - -<p>"It's for you to show them what to do," I pressed her. "They'll do what -you do."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes kind of stopped winking and breathing.</p> - -<p>"I could make them do it, I bet you," she says, proud.</p> - -<p>"Of course you could," I egged her on. "You could just take for granted -everybody meant to be decent, and carry it off, matter-of-fact."</p> - -<p>She stood up and walked around the room, her curl-papers setting strange -on her proud ways.</p> - -<p>"Don't figger on it, Mis' Sykes," I says. "Just think how much easier it -is to be leading folks into something they ain't used to than to have -them all laughing at you behind your back for getting come up with."</p> - -<p>It wasn't the highest motive—but then, I only used it for a finishing -touch. And for a tassel I says, moving off rapid:</p> - -<p>"Now I'm going home to stir up my cake for the party."</p> - -<p>She didn't say anything, and I went off up the street.</p> - -<p>I remember it was one of the times when it came to me, strong, that -there's something big and near working away through us, to get us to -grow in spite of us. In spite of us.</p> - -<p>And when I had my chocolate cake baked, I lay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> down on the lounge in my -dining-room, and planned out how nice it was going to be, that night....</p> - -<p class="space-above">There was a little shower, and then the sun came back again; so by the -time we all began to move toward Mis' Sykes's, between seven and eight, -everything was fresh and earth-smelling and wet-sweet green. And there -was a lovely, flowing light, like in a dream.</p> - -<p>Whenever I have a hard thing to do, be it housecleaning or be it -quenching down my pride, I always think of the way I see Mis' Sykes do -hers. Dressed in her best gray poplin with a white lace yoke, and hair -crimped front <i>and</i> back, Mis' Sykes received us all, reserved and -formal—not with her real society pucker, but with her most leader-like -look.</p> - -<p>Everybody was there—nobody was lacking. There must have been above -fifty. I couldn't talk for trying to reckon how each of them would act, -as soon as they knew.</p> - -<p>"Blistering Benson," says Timothy Toplady, that his wife had got him -into his frock-tail coat that he keeps to be pall-bearer in, "—kind of -nice to welcome in another first family, ain't it?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes heard him. "Timothy Toplady, you ain't enough democracy to -shake a stick at," she says, regal; and left him squenched, but with his -lips moving.</p> - -<p>"I'm just crazy to get upstairs in the Oldmoxon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> House," says Mis' -Hubbelthwait. "How do you s'pose they've got it furnished?"</p> - -<p>"They're thinking more about the furniture of their heads than of their -upstairs chambers," snaps back Mis' Sykes. And I see anew that whatever -Mis' Sykes goes into, she goes into up to her eyes, thorough and firm.</p> - -<p>"Calliope," she says, "you might run over now and see how they're -situated. And be there with them when we come."</p> - -<p>I knew that Mis' Sykes couldn't quite bear to make her speech with me -looking at her, so I waited out in the entry and heard her do it—I -couldn't help that. And honest, I think my respect for her rose while -she done so, almost as much as if she'd meant what she said. Mis' Sykes -is awful convincing. She can make you wish you'd worn gloves or went -without, according to the way she's done herself; and so it was that -night, in the cause she'd taken up with, unbeknownst.</p> - -<p>She rapped on the table with the blue-glass paper weight.</p> - -<p>"Friends," she says, distinct and serene, and everybody's buzzing -simmered down. "Before we go over, I must tell you a little about our -new—neighbors. The name as you know is Fernandez—Burton Fernandez. The -father is a college professor, now in the City doing academic and -scholastic work to a degree, as they say. The daughter is in one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> our -great universities. The mother, a graduate of a Southern college, has -traveled extensive in Venice and—and otherwise. I can't believe—" here -her voice wobbled just for an instant, "I can't believe that there is -one here who will not understand the significance of our party when I -add that the family happens to be colored. I am sure that you will agree -with me—with <i>me</i>—that these elegant educations merit our -approbation."</p> - -<p>She made a little pause to let it sink in. Then she topped it off. She -told them about the returned soldier and the cross of war.</p> - -<p>"If there is anybody," said she—and I knew how she was glancing round -among them; "if there is anybody who can't appreciate <i>that</i>, we'll -gladly excuse them from the room."</p> - -<p>Yes, she done it magnificent. Mis' Sykes carried the day, high-handed. I -couldn't but remember, as I slipped out, how in Winter she wears -ear-muffs till we've all come to consider going without them is -affected.</p> - -<p>I ran across the street, still in that golden, pouring light. In the -Oldmoxon House was a surprise. Sitting with Mrs. Fernandez before the -little light May fire, was her husband, and a slim, tall girl in a smoky -brown dress, that was their daughter, home from her school to see her -brother. Then the soldier boy came in. Even yet I can't talk much about -him: A slight, silent youth, that had left his senior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> year at college -to volunteer in the army, and had come home now to take up his life as -best he could; and on the breast of his uniform shone the little cross, -won by saving his white captain, under fire.</p> - -<p>I sat with them before their hearth, but I didn't half hear what they -said. I was looking at the room, and at the four quiet folks that had -done so much for themselves—more than any of us in the village, in -proportion—and done it on paths none of us had ever had to walk. And -the things I was thinking made such a noise I couldn't pay attention to -just the talk. Over and over it kept going through my head: In fifty -years. <i>In fifty years!</i></p> - -<p>At last came the stir and shuffle I'd been waiting for and the door-bell -rang.</p> - -<p>"Don't go," they said, when I sprang up; and they followed me into the -hall. So there we were when the door opened, and everybody came crowding -in.</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes was ahead, and it came to me, when I saw how deathly pale she -was, that a prejudice is a living thing, after all—not a dead thing; -and that to them that are in its grasp, your heart has got to go out -just as much as to them that suffer from it.</p> - -<p>I waved my hand to them all, promiscuous, crowding in with their -baskets.</p> - -<p>"Neighbors," I says, "here's our new neighbors. Name yourselves -gradual."</p> - -<p>They set their baskets in the hall, and came into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> the big room where -the fire was. And I was kind of nervous, because our men are no good on -earth at breaking the ice, except with a pick; and our women, when they -get in a strange room, are awful apt to be so taken up looking round -them that they forget to work up anything to say.</p> - -<p>But I needn't have worried. No sooner had we sat down than somebody -spoke out, deep and full. Standing in the midst of us was Burton -Fernandez, and it was him. And his voice went as a voice goes when it's -got more to carry than just words, or just thoughts.</p> - -<p>"My friends," he said, "I cannot bear to have you put yourselves in a -false position. When you came, perhaps you didn't know. I mean—did you -think, perhaps, that we were of your race?"</p> - -<p>It was Mis' Sykes who answered him, grand and positive, and as if she -was already thinking up her answer when she was born.</p> - -<p>"Certainly not," she says. "We were informed—all of us." Then I saw her -get herself together for something tremenjus, that should leave no doubt -in anybody's mind. "What of that?" says she.</p> - -<p>He stood still for a minute. He had deep-set eyes and a tired face that -didn't do anything to itself when he talked. But his voice—that did. -And when he began to speak again, it seemed to me that the voice of his -whole race was coming through him.</p> - -<p>"My friends," he said, "how can we talk of other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> things when our minds -are filled with just what this means to us?"</p> - -<p>We all kept still. None of us would have known how to say it, even if we -had known what to say.</p> - -<p>He said: "I'm not speaking of the difficulties—they don't so much -matter. Nothing matters—except that even when we have made the -struggle, then we're despised no less. We don't often talk to you about -it—it's the surprise of this—you must forgive me. But I want you to -know that from the time I began my school life, there have been many who -despised, and a few who helped, but never until to-night have there been -any of your people with the look and word of neighbor—never once in our -lives until to-night."</p> - -<p>In the silence that fell when he'd finished, I sat there knowing that -even now it wasn't like he thought it was—and I wished that it had been -so.</p> - -<p>He put his hand on his boy's shoulder.</p> - -<p>"It's for his sake," he said, "that I thank you most."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes was equal to that, too.</p> - -<p>"In the name of our whole town," she says to that young soldier, "we -thank <i>you</i> for what you've done."</p> - -<p>He just nodded a little, and nobody said anything more. And it came to -me that most everything is more so than we most always suppose it to be.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p><p>When Mis' Toplady don't know quite what to do with a minute, she always -brings her hands together in a sort of spontaneous-sounding clap, and -kind of bustles her shoulders. She done that now.</p> - -<p>"I motion I'll take charge of the refreshments," she says. "Who'll -volunteer? I'm crazy to see what-all we've brought."</p> - -<p>Everybody laughed, and rustled, easy. And I slipped over to the -daughter, standing by herself by the fire-place.</p> - -<p>"You take, don't you?" I ask' her.</p> - -<p>"'Take?'" she says, puzzled.</p> - -<p>"Music, I mean," I told her. (We always mean music when we say "take" in -Friendship Village.)</p> - -<p>"No," she says, "but my brother plays, sometimes."</p> - -<p>The soldier sat down to the piano, when I asked him, and he played, soft -and strong, and something beautiful. His cross shone on his breast when -he moved. And me, I stood by the piano, and I heard the soul of the -music come gentling through his soul, just like it didn't make any -difference to the music, one way or the other....</p> - -<p>Music. Music that spoke. Music that sounded like laughing voices.... No, -for it was laughing voices....</p> - -<p class="space-above">I opened my eyes, and there in my dining-room, by the lounge, stood Mis' -Toplady and Mis' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>Holcomb, laughing at me for being asleep. Then they -sat down by me, and they didn't laugh any more.</p> - -<p>"Calliope," Mis' Toplady says, "Mis' Sykes has been round to everybody, -and told them about the Oldmoxon House folks."</p> - -<p>"And she took a vote on what to do to-night," says Mame Holcomb.</p> - -<p>"Giving a little advice of her own, by the wayside," Mis' Toplady adds.</p> - -<p>I sat up and looked at them. With the soldier's music still in my ears, -I couldn't take it in.</p> - -<p>"You don't mean—" I tried to ask them.</p> - -<p>"That's it," says Mis' Toplady. "Everybody voted to have a public -meeting to honor the soldiers—the colored soldier with the rest. But -that's as far as it will go."</p> - -<p>"But he don't want to be honored!" I cried. "He wants to be -neighbored—the way anybody does when they're worth it."</p> - -<p>"Mis' Sykes says," says Mis' Toplady, "that we mustn't forget what is -fitting and what isn't."</p> - -<p>And Mis' Holcomb added: "She carried it off grand. Everybody thinks just -the way she does."</p> - -<p>My reception-surprise cake stood ready on the table. After a while, we -three sat down around it, and cut it for ourselves. But all the while we -ate, that soldier's music was still playing for me; and what hadn't -happened was more real for me than the things that were true.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THE BROTHER-MAN<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></h2> - -<p><i>When the New Race comes—those whom Hudson calls "that blameless, -spiritualized race that is to follow"—surely they will look back with -some sense of actual romance upon the faint tapers which we now light, -both individual and social tapers. They will make their allowance for -us, as do we for the ambiguous knights of chivalry. And while the New -Race will shudder at us—at our disorganization with its war, its -poverty and its other crime—yet I think that they will love us a little -for our ineffectual ministries, as already we love them for exceeding -our utmost dream.</i></p> - -<p>Don't you love a love-story; starting right before your eyes as casual -as if it was preserves getting cooked or parsley coming up? It doesn't -often happen to me to see one start, but once it did. It didn't start -like anything at all that was going to be anything, but just still and -quiet, same as the stars come out. I guess that's the way most great -things move, isn't it? Still and quiet, like stars coming out. Or -similar to stars.</p> - -<p>It was the time of the Proudfits' big <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>what-they-called week-end -parties, and it was the Saturday of the biggest of them, when a dozen -city people came down to Friendship Village for the lark. And with them -was to come a Piano Lady and a Violin Man—and a man I'd known about in -the magazines, a Novel-and-Poem Man that writes the kind of things that -gets through all the walls between you and the world, so's you can talk -to everything there is. I was crazy to see the Novel-and-Poem Man—from -behind somewheres, though, so's he wouldn't see me and look down on me. -And when Miss Clementina Proudfit asked me to bring her out some things -from the city Saturday night, chocolate peppermints and red candles and -like that, and said she'd send the automobile to the train for me to -fetch up the things and see the decorations, I was real pleased. But I -was the most excited about maybe seeing the Poem-and-Novel Man.</p> - -<p>"What's he like, Miss Clementina?" I ask' her. "When I hear his name I -feel like when I hear the President's. Or even more that way."</p> - -<p>"I've never met him," she says. "Mother knows him—he's her lion, not -mine."</p> - -<p>"He writes lovely things," I says, "things that makes you feel like -everybody's way of doing is only lukewarm, and like you could just bring -yourself to a boil to do good and straighten things out in the world, no -matter what the lukewarm-way folks thought."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p><p>Miss Clementina looked over to me with a wonderful way she -had—beautiful face and beautiful eyes softening to Summer.</p> - -<p>"I know—know," she says; "I dread meeting him, for fear he doesn't mean -it."</p> - -<p>I knew what she meant. You can mean a thing you write in a book, or that -you say in talk, or for other folks to do. But meaning it for <i>living</i> -it—that's different.</p> - -<p>I came out from the city that night on the accommodation, tired to death -and loaded down with bundles for everybody in Friendship Village. Folks -used to send into town by me for everything <i>but</i> stoves and wagons, -though I wouldn't buy anything there except what you can't buy in the -village: lamb's-wool for comforters, and cut-glass and baby-pushers, and -shrimps—that Silas won't keep in the post-office store, because they -don't agree with his stomach. Well, I was all packages that night, and -it was through dropping one in the seat in front of me that I first saw -the little boy.</p> - -<p>He was laying down, getting to sleep if he could and pulling his eyes -open occasional to see what was going on around him. His mother had had -the seat turned, and she sat there beyond him, facing me, and I noticed -her—flat red cheeks, an ostrich feather broke in the middle, blue and -red stone rings on three fingers, and giving a good deal of attention to -studying the folks around her. She was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> kind of woman you see and -don't look back to, 'count of other things interesting you more.</p> - -<p>But the little boy, he was different. He wasn't more than a year old, -and he didn't look that—and his cheeks were flushed and his eyelashes -and mouth made you think "My!" I remember feeling I didn't see how the -woman could keep from waking him up, just to prove he was hers and she -could if she wanted to.</p> - -<p>Instead of that, all she did was continually to get up and go out of the -car. Every station we stopped at—and the accommodation acts like it was -made for the stations and not the stations for it—she was up and out, -as if the town was something swimming up to the car-door to speak to -her. She'd leave the baby asleep in the seat, and I wondered what would -happen if he woke up while she was gone, and started to roll. She stayed -every time up till after the train started—I didn't wonder it made her -cold, and that after a bit she put on her coat before she went. And once -or twice she carried out her valise with her, as if she might have -expected somebody to be there to get it. "Mebbe she's got somebody's -laundry," thinks I, "and mebbe a stranger has asked her to bring it out -on the train and she can't remember what station it's to be put off at." -They send things to stations along the way a lot on the -accommodation—everybody being neighbors, so.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>Well, when we got to the Junction, out she went again, cloak and valise -and all. But I didn't think much about her then, because at the Junction -it's always all excitement, being that's where they switch the parlor -car off the train, and whoever is in it for Friendship Village has to -come back in the day coach for the rest of the way, and be just folks. -And among those that came back that night was the Brother-man.</p> - -<p>I dunno if you'll know what I mean by that name for him. Some men are -just men, like they thought God made them just for the pleasure of -making them. And some men are flying around like they wanted to prove -that the Almighty didn't make a mistake when He created them. But there -are some men that just live like God hadn't made them so much as that -they're a piece of Him, and they haven't forgotten it and they feel -kindly toward all the other pieces. Well, this man was one of the -Brother-men. I knew it the minute I saw him.</p> - -<p>By the time he came in the car, moving leisurely and like getting a seat -wasn't so interesting as most other things, there wasn't a seat left, -excepting only the turned one in front of the little chap asleep. The -man looked around idle for a minute and see that they wasn't cloak or -valise keeping that seat, and he sat down and opened the book he'd had -his finger in the place all the time, and allowed to read.</p> - -<p>There's consid'rable switching to do at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>Junction, time we get -started; and the jolts and bounces did just exactly what I thought they -would do—woke the little chap up. From before the train started he -begun stirring and whimpering—that way a baby does when it wants -nothing in the world but a hand to be laid on it. Isn't it as if its -mother's hand was a kind of healing that big folks forget about needing? -By the time the train was out on the road in earnest, the little chap, -he was in earnest, too. And he just what-you-might-say yelled. But no -mother came. They wasn't a mother's hand with big red and blue rings on -three fingers to lay on the little boy's back. And there wasn't a mother -of him anywhere's in sight.</p> - -<p>In a minute or two the Brother-man looked up. He hadn't seemed to see -the baby before or to sense that he <i>was</i> a baby. And he looked at him -crying and he laid his book down and he looked all around him, -perplexish, and then he looked over to me that was looking at him -perplexish, too. And being he was a man and I wasn't, I got right up and -went round there and picked the little chap up in my arms and sat down -with him.</p> - -<p>"His ma went out of the car somewheres," I explained it.</p> - -<p>He had lifted his hat and jumped up, polite as if he was the one I'd -picked up. And he stood looking down at me.</p> - -<p>"I wonder if I couldn't fetch her," he says<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>—and his voice was one of -the voices that most says an idea all alone. I mean you'd most have -known what he meant if he'd just spoke along without using any -words—oh, well, I dunno if that sounds like anything, but I guess you -know the kind I mean. The Novel-and-Poem Man's stories are the same -kind, being they say so much that never does get set up in type.</p> - -<p>The baby didn't stop crying at all—seems as though your hands don't -have the right healing unless—unless—well, it didn't stop nor even -halt. And so I says, hesitating, I says: "You wouldn't know her," I -says. "I been watching her. I could find her better—if so be you -wouldn't mind taking the baby."</p> - -<p>The Brother-man put out his arms. I remember I looked up in his face -then, and he was smiling—and his smile talked the same as his voice. -And his face was all full of what he meant. He had one of those Summer -faces like Miss Clementina's—just a general liking of the minute and a -special liking for all the world. And what he said made me think of -Summer, too:</p> - -<p>"<i>Mind?</i>" says he. "Why it's like putting your cap over a butterfly."</p> - -<p>He took the little fellow in his arms, and it was then that I first -sensed how beautiful the Brother-man was—strong and fine and quiet, -like he done whatever he done, and said whatever he said, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span><i>all over -him</i>, soul and all, and didn't just speak with his muscles, same as -some. And the baby, he was beautiful, too, big and fine and healthy and -a boy, only not still a minute nor didn't know what quiet meant. But he -stopped crying the instant the man took him, and they both looked at -each other like—oh, like they were more alike than the years between -them wanted to let them think. Isn't it pitiful and isn't it -wonderful—when two folks meet? Big or little, nice or horrid, pleasant -or cross, famous or ragged or talking or scairt—it don't make any -differ'nce. They're just brother-pieces, broke off the same way. That -was how the Brother-man looked down at the little chap, and I dunno but -that was how the little chap looked up at him. Because the little thing -threw out his arms toward him, and we both see the letter under his -blanket pinned to his chest.</p> - -<p>All of a sudden, I understood what had happened—almost without the use -of my brain, as you do sometimes.</p> - -<p>"Sit down a minute," I said to the Brother-man. "I guess mebbe this -letter tells where she is."</p> - -<p>And so it did. It was written in pencil, spelled irregular and addressed -uphill, and the direction told the story even before the letter did. "To -Anybody," the direction was. And the inside of the letter said:</p> - -<blockquote><p>"Take care of my Baby. I ain't fit and never was and now don't -think to be anywheres long. Don't look for me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> The baby would be -best off with anybody but me, and don't think to be anywheres long -and so would be orphant quite soon sure. He ain't no name so best -not put mine except.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Mother.</span></p> - -<p>P. S. If he puts out his hand he means you should kiss his hand -then he won't cry. Don't forget, then he won't cry.</p> - -<p>P. S. When he can't get to sleep he can get to sleep if you rub the -back of his neck."</p></blockquote> - -<p>I remember how the Brother-man looked at me when we'd got it spelled -out.</p> - -<p>"Oh," he said—and then he said a name that sounded like somebody -calling to its Father from inside the dark.</p> - -<p>I hate to think of what I said. I said it kind of mechanical and wooden, -the way we get to be from shifting the burdens off our own backs where -they belong, onto somebody else's back—and doing it second-nature, and -as if we were constructed slanting so that burdens could slip off. What -I said was:</p> - -<p>"I suppose we'd better tell the conductor."</p> - -<p>"Tell the conductor!" said he, wondering. "What on earth for?"</p> - -<p>"I dunno," says I, some taken back. I suppose I'd had some far notion of -telling him because he wore a uniform.</p> - -<p>"What do we want to tell him for?" this Brother-man repeated. "<i>We</i> -know."</p> - -<p>Oh, but that's come back to me, time and time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> again, when I've thought -I needed help in taking care of somebody, or settling something, or -doing the best way for folks. "What do we want to tell the conductor or -anybody else for? <i>We</i> know." And ten to one we are the one who can do -the thing ourselves.</p> - -<p>"But what are we going to do?" I said. I think that his eyes were the -kind of eyes that just make you say "What are <i>we</i> going to do?" and not -"What are <i>you</i> going to do?" or "What are <i>they</i> going to do?"—same as -most folks start to say, same as I had started.</p> - -<p>For the first time the Brother-man looked helpless—but he spoke real -firm.</p> - -<p>"Keep him," he says, simple.</p> - -<p>"Keep him!" I said over—since I had lived quite a while in a world -where those words are not common.</p> - -<p>He looked down thoughtful at the little chap who was lying there, -contented, going here and there with his fists, and looking up at the -lights as if he was reflecting over the matter some himself.</p> - -<p>"The conductor," said the Brother-man, "would telegraph, and most likely -find the mother. If he was efficient enough, he might even get her -arrested. And what earthly good would that do to the child? Our concern -is with this little old man here, with his life hanging on his shoulders -waiting to be lived. Isn't it?" he asked, simple. And in a minute, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> -added: "I always hoped that this would never happen to me—because when -it does happen, there's only one thing to do: Keep them." And he added -in another minute: "I don't know—I ought to look at it that I've been -saved the trouble of going out and finding a way to help—" only you -understand, his words came all glossy and real different from mine.</p> - -<p>I tell you, anybody like that makes all the soul in you get up and -recognize itself as <i>being</i> you; and your body and what it wants and -what it is afraid of is no more able to run you then than a pinch of -dirt would be, sprinkled on your wings. Before I knew it, my body was -keeping quiet, like a child that's been brought up well. And my soul was -saying whatever it pleased.</p> - -<p>"I'm a woman," I said, "and alone in the world. I'm the one to take -him."</p> - -<p>"I'm alone in the world too," he said, "and I'm a man. So I'm just as -able to care for him as you are. I'll keep him."</p> - -<p>Then he looked down the car, kind of startled, and began smiling, slow -and nice.</p> - -<p>"On my word," he said, "I'd forgotten that besides being a man I'm about -to be a guest. And this little old chap wasn't included in the -invitation."</p> - -<p>I looked out the window to see where we were getting, and there we were -drawing over the Flats outside Friendship Village, and the brakeman -came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> to the door and shouted the name. When I hear the name that way, -and when I see the Fair ground and the Catholic church steeple and the -canal bridge and the old fort and the gas house, it's always as sweet as -something new, and as something old, and it's something sweeter than -either. It makes me feel happy and good and like two folks instead of -one.</p> - -<p>"Look here," I said, brisk, "this is where I get off. This is home. And -I'm going to take this baby with me. You go on to your visiting -place—so be you'll help me off," I says, "with my baby and my bundles -that's for half of Friendship Village."</p> - -<p>"Friendship Village!" he said over, as if he hadn't heard the man call. -"Is this Friendship Village? Why, then this," he said, "is where I'm -going too. This is where the Proudfits live, isn't it?" he said—and he -said some more, meditative, about towns acting so important over having -one name and not another, when nobody can remember either name. But I -hardly heard him. He was going to the Proudfits'. And without knowing -how I knew it, I knew all over me, all of a sudden, who he was: That he -was the Novel-and-Poem man himself.</p> - -<p>"You <i>can't</i> be him!" I said aloud. I don't know what I was looking -for—a man with wings or what. But it wasn't for somebody like this—all -simple and still and every day—like stars coming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> out. "You can't be -him," says I, mentioning his name. "He was to get here this afternoon on -the Through."</p> - -<p>"That alone would prove I'm I," he said, merry. "I always miss the -Throughs."</p> - -<p>Think of that.... There I'd been riding all that way beside him, talking -to him as familiar as if he had been just folks.</p> - -<p>It seems a dream when I think of it now. The Proudfits' automobile was -there for him too—because he had telegraphed that he would take the -next train—as well as for me and the chocolate peppermints and the red -candles. And so, before I could think about me being me sure enough, -there I was in the Proudfits' car, glassed in and lit up, and a -stranger-baby in my arms; and beside me the Novel-and-Poem man that was -the Brother-man too,—the man that had made me talk through walls with -everything there is. Oh, and how I wanted to tell him! And when I tried -to tell him what he had meant to me, how do you guess it came out of my -brain?</p> - -<p>"I've read your book," says I, like a goose.</p> - -<p>But he seemed real sort of pleased. "I've been honored," he said, -gentle.</p> - -<p>I looked up at him; and I knew how he knew already that I didn't know -all the hard parts in the book, and all the big words, and some of the -little nice things he had tried to work out to suit him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> And it seemed -as if any praise of mine would only make him hurt with not being -appreciated. Still, I wanted my best to say something out of the -gratitude in me.</p> - -<p>"It—helped," I said; and couldn't say more to save me.</p> - -<p>But he turned and looked down at me almost as he had looked at the -little chap.</p> - -<p>"That is the only compliment I ever try to get," he said to me, as grave -as grave.</p> - -<p>And at that I saw plain what it was that had made him seem so much like -a friend, and what had made me think to call him the Brother-man. Why, -he was folks, like me. He wasn't only somebody big and distinguished and -name-in-the-paper. He was like those that you meet all the time, going -round the streets, talking to you casual, coming out of their houses -quiet as stars coming out. He was folks and a brother to folks; and he -knew it, and he seemed to want to keep letting folks know that he knew -it. He wasn't the kind that goes around thinking "Me, me, me," nor even -"You and me." It was "<i>You and me and all of us</i>" with the Brother-man.</p> - -<p>"Isn't it strange," he says once, while we rode along, "that what all -these streets and lights and houses are for, and what the whole world is -for is helped along by taking just one little chap and bringing him -up—bringing him up?" And he looked down at the baby, that was drowsing -off in my arms,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> as if little chaps in general were to him windows into -somewhere else.</p> - -<p>The Proudfit house was lamps from top to bottom, but I could see from -the glass vestibule that the big rooms were all empty, and I thought -mebbe they hadn't had dinner yet, being they have it all unholy hours -when most folks's is digested and ready to let them sleep. But when we -stepped in the hall I heard a little tip-tap of strings from up above, -and it was from the music-room that opens off the first stair-landing, -and dinner was over and they were all up there; and the Piano Lady and -the Violin Man were gettin' ready to play. Madame Proudfit had heard the -car, and came down the stairs, saying a little pleased word when she saw -the Brother-man. She looked lovely in black lace, and jewels I didn't -know the name of, and she was gracious and glad and made him one of the -welcomes that stay alive afterwards and are almost <i>people</i> to you to -think about. The Brother-man kissed her hand, and he says to her, some -rueful and some wanting to laugh:</p> - -<p>"I'm most awfully sorry about the train, Madame Proudfit. But—I've -brought two of us to make up for being so late. Will—will that not do?" -he says.</p> - -<p>Madame Proudfit looked over at me with a smile that was like people -too—only her smile was like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> nice company and his was like dear -friends; and then she saw the baby.</p> - -<p>"Calliope!" she said, "what on earth have you been doing now?"</p> - -<p>"She hasn't done it. I did it," says the Brother-man. "Look at him! You -rub the back of his neck when he won't sleep."</p> - -<p>Madame Proudfit looked from him to me.</p> - -<p>"How utterly, extravagantly like both of you!" Madame Proudfit said. -"Come in the library and tell me about it."</p> - -<p>We went in the big, brown library, where nothing looked as if it would -understand about this, except, mebbe, some of the books—and not all of -them—and the fire, that was living on the hearth, understanding all -about everything. I sat by the fire and pulled back the little chap's -blanket and undid his coat and took his bonnet off; his hair was all -mussed up at the back and the cheek he'd slept on was warm-red. Madame -Proudfit and the Brother-man stood on the hearth-rug, looking down. Only -she was looking from one star to another, and the Brother-man and I, we -were on the same star, looking round.</p> - -<p>We told her what had happened, some of his telling and some of mine. It -came over me, while we were doing it, that what had sounded so sensible -and sure in the train and in the automobile and in our two hearts -sounded different here in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>Proudfits' big, brown library, with -Madame Proudfit in black lace and jewels I didn't know the name of, -listening. But then I looked up in the Brother-man's face and I got -<i>right back</i>, like he was a kind of perpetual telegraph, the feeling of -its being sensible and the <i>only</i> sensible thing to do. Sensible in the -sense of your soul being sensible, and not just your being sensible like -your neighbors.</p> - -<p>"But, my dear, dear children," Madame Proudfit says, and stopped. "My -<i>dear</i> children," she says on, "what, exactly, are you going to do with -him?"</p> - -<p>"Keep him!" says the Brother-man prompt, and beamed on her as if he had -said the one possible answer.</p> - -<p>"But—keep him!" says Madame Proudfit. "How 'keep him'? Be practical. -What are you going to do?"</p> - -<p>It makes you feel real helpless when folks in black lace tell you to be -practical, as if that came before everything else—especially when their -"practical" and your "practical" might as well be in two different -languages. And yet Madame Proudfit is kind and good too, and she -understands that you've got to help or you might as well not be alive; -and she gives and gives and gives. But <i>this</i>—well, she saw the need -and all that, but her way that night would have been to give money and -send the little chap away. You know how some are. They can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>understand -everything good and kind—up to a certain point. And that point is, -<i>keep him</i>. They can't seem to get past that.</p> - -<p>"<i>Keep him!</i>" she says. "Make your bachelor apartment into a nursery? Or -you, Calliope, leave him to mind the house while you are canvassing? Be -practical. What, <i>exactly</i>, are you going to do?"</p> - -<p>Then the Brother-man frowned a little—I hadn't known he could, but I -was glad he knew how.</p> - -<p>"Really," he said, "I haven't decided yet on the cut of his -knickerbockers, or on what college he shall attend, or whether he shall -spend his vacations at home or abroad. The details will get themselves -done. I only know I mean to <i>keep him</i>."</p> - -<p>She shook her head as if she was talking to a foreign language; then we -heard somebody coming—a little rustle and swish and afterwards a voice. -These three things by themselves would have made somebody more -attractive than some women know how to be. I'll never forget how she -seemed when she came to the door—Miss Clementina, waiting to speak with -her mother and not knowing anybody else was with her.</p> - -<p>Honest, I couldn't tell what her dress was—and me a woman that has -turned her hand to dressmaking. It was all thin, like light, and it had -all little ways of hanging that made you know you never could make one -like it, so's you might as well enjoy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> yourself looking and not fuss -with trying to remember how it was put together. But her dress wasn't so -much like light as her face. Miss Clementina's face—oh, it was like the -face of a beautiful woman that somebody tells you about, and that you -never do get to see, and if you did, like enough she might not be so -beautiful after all—but you always think of her as being the way you -mean when you say "beautiful." Miss Clementina looked like that. And -when I saw her that night I could hardly wait to have her face and eyes -soften all to Summer, that wonderful way she had.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Miss Clementina," I says, "I've got a baby. At least, he's only -half mine. I mean—"</p> - -<p>Then, while she was coming toward us along the lamp-light, as if it was -made to bring her, the little chap began waking up. He stirred, and -budded up his lips, and said little baby-things in his throat, and begun -to cry, soft and lonesome, as if he didn't understand. Oh, isn't it -true? A baby's waking-up minute, when it cries a little and don't know -where it is, ain't that like us, sometimes crying out sort of blind to -be took care of? And when the little thing opened his eyes, first thing -he saw was Miss Clementina, standing beside him. And what did that -little chap do instead of stopping crying but just hold out one hand -toward her, and kind of bend across, same as if he meant something.</p> - -<p>With that the Brother-man, that Madame <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>Proudfit hadn't had a chance yet -to present to Miss Clementina, he says to her all excited:</p> - -<p>"He wants you to kiss his hand! Kiss his hand and he'll stop crying!"</p> - -<p>Miss Clementina looked up at him like a little question, then she -stooped and kissed the baby's hand, and we three watched him perfectly -breathless to see what he would do. And he done exactly what that -up-hill note had said he would—he stopped crying, and he done more than -it said he would—he smiled sweet and bright, and as if he knew -something else about it. And we three looked at each other and at him, -and we smiled, too. And it made a nice minute.</p> - -<p>"Clementina," said Madame Proudfit, like another minute that wasn't so -very well acquainted with the one that was being, and then she presented -the Brother-man. But instead of a regular society, -say-what-you-ought-to-say answer to her greeting, the Brother-man says -to her:</p> - -<p>"Miss Proudfit, you shall arbitrate! Somebody left him to this lady and -me—or to anybody like, or unlike us—on the train. Shall we find his -own mother that has run away from him? Or shall we send him to an -institution? Or shall we keep him? Which way," he says, smiling, "is the -way that <i>is</i> the way?"</p> - -<p>She looked up at him as if she knew, clear inside his words, what he was -talking about.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p><p>"Are you," she ask' him, half merry, but all in earnest too, "are you -going to decide with your heart or your head?"</p> - -<p>"Why, with my soul, I hope," says the Brother-man, simple.</p> - -<p>Miss Clementina nodded a little, and I saw her face all Summer-soft as -she answered him.</p> - -<p>"Then," she said, "almost nobody will tell you so, but—there's only one -way."</p> - -<p>"I know it," says he, gentle.</p> - -<p>"I know it," says I, solemn.</p> - -<p>We three stood looking at each other from close on the same star, -knowing all over us that if you decide a thing with your head you'll -probably shift a burden off; if you decide with your heart you'll -probably give, give, give, like Madame Proudfit does, to pay somebody -else liberal to take the burden; but if you decide it with your soul, -you give your own self to whatever is going on. And you know that's the -way that <i>is</i> the way.</p> - -<p>All of a sudden, as if words that were not being said had got loose and -were saying themselves anyway, the music—that had been tip-tapping -along all the while since we came—started in, sudden and beautiful, -with the Piano Lady and the Violin Man playing up there in the landing -room. I don't know whether it was a lullaby—though I shouldn't be -surprised if it was, because I think sometimes in this world things -happen just like they were being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> stage-managed by somebody that knows. -But anyway—oh, it had a lullaby sound, a kind-of rocking, tender, -just-you-and-me meaning; that ain't so very far from the -you-and-me-and-all-of-us meaning when they're both said right and deep -down.</p> - -<p>I looked up at Miss Clementina and the Brother-man—as you do look up -when some nice little thing has happened that you think whoever you're -with will understand. But they didn't look back at me. They looked over -to each other. They looked over to each other, swift at the first, but -lasting long, and with the faces of both of them softening to Summer. -And the music went heavenly-ing on, into the room, and into living, and -into everything, and it was as if the whole minute was turned into its -own spirit and then was said out in a sound.</p> - -<p>Miss Clementina and the Brother-man looked away and down at the little -chap that Miss Clementina was holding his hand. It was as if there was a -pulse in the room—the Great Pulse that we all beat to, and that now and -then we hear. But those two didn't see me at all; and all of a sudden I -understood, how there was still another star that I didn't know anything -about, and that they two were standing there together, they two and the -little chap—but not me. Oh, it was wonderful—starting the way great -things start, still and quiet like stars coming out. So still that they -didn't either of them know it. And I felt as if everything was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> some -better and some holier than I had ever known.</p> - -<p>Then Madame Proudfit, she leans out from her star, gracious and benign, -and certain sure that her star was the only one that had eternal truth -inside it; and she spoke with a manner of waving her hand good natured -to all the other little stars, including ours:</p> - -<p>"You mad, mad, children!" she said. "You <i>are</i> mad. But you are very -picturesque in your decisions, there's no denying that. He would -probably be better cared for, more scientifically fed, and all that, in -a good, hired, private family. But that's as you see it. Be mad, if you -like—I'm here to watch over you!"</p> - -<p>She had quite a nice tidy high point of view about it—but oh, it wasn't -ours. It wasn't ours. We three—the Brother-man and Miss Clementina and -me—we sort of hugged our own way. And the little chap he kept smiling, -like he sort of hugged it too.</p> - -<p>So that was the way it was. Miss Clementina and the Brother-man—that -she'd been afraid to meet, 'count of thinking mebbe he didn't mean his -writings for living—were in love from before they knew it. And I think -it was part because they both meant life strong enough for living and -not just for thinking, like the lukewarm folks do.</p> - -<p>I kept the little chap with me the three months<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> or so that went by -before the wedding—and I could hardly bear to let him go then.</p> - -<p>"Why don't you keep him for them the first year or so?" Friendship -Village ask' me. But there's some things even your own town doesn't -always understand. "It's so unromantic for them to take him now," some -of them even said.</p> - -<p>But I says to them what I say now: "There's things that's bigger than -romantic and there's things that's bigger than practical, so be some of -both is mixed in right proportion. And the biggest thing I know in this -world is when folks say over, 'You and me and all of us,' like voices, -speaking to everybody's Father from inside the dark."</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Copyright, 1913, <i>The Delineator</i>.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THE CABLE<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></h2> - -<p>I says to myself: "What shall I do? What shall I do?"</p> - -<p>I crushed the magazine down on my knee, and sat there rocking with it -between my hands.</p> - -<p>It was just a story about a little fellow with a brick. They met him, a -little boy six years old, somewhere in Europe, going along up toward one -of the milk stations, at sunrise. They wondered why he carried a brick, -and they asked him: "Why do you have the brick?" "You see," he says, -"it's so wet. I can get up on this." And he stood on his brick in the -mud before the milk station for five hours, waiting for his supplies -that was a pint of milk to take home to his mother.</p> - -<p>Mebbe it was queer that this struck me all of a heap, when the big war -I'd got used to. But you can't get used to the things that hurt a child.</p> - -<p>And then I kept thinking about Bennie. Supposing it had been Bennie, -with the brick? Bennie was the little boy that his young father had gone -back to the old country, and Bennie hadn't any mother. So I had him.</p> - -<p>Because I had to do something, I went out on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> porch and called him. -He came running from his swing—his coat was too big for him and his -ears stuck out, but he was an awful sweet little boy. The kind you want -to have around.</p> - -<p>"Bennie," I says, "I know little boys hate it. But <i>could</i> you leave me -hug you?"</p> - -<p>He kind of saw I was feeling bad—like a child can—and he came right up -to me and he says:</p> - -<p>"I got one hug left. <i>Here</i> it is!"</p> - -<p>And he hugged me grand.</p> - -<p>Then he ran back down the path, throwing his legs out sideways, kind of -like a little calf, the way he does. And I set down on the side stoop, -and I cried.</p> - -<p>"Oh, blessed God," I says, "supposing Bennie was running round Europe -with a brick, waiting five hours in the mud for milk for his ma, that he -ain't got none?"</p> - -<p>When I feel like that, I can't sit still. I have to walk. So I opened -the side gate and left Bennie run through into Mis' Holcomb's yard, that -was ironing on her back porch, and I says to her to please keep an eye -on him. And then I headed down the street, towards nothing; and my heart -just filled out ready to blow up.</p> - -<p>As I went, I heard a bell strike. It was a strange bell, and I wondered. -Then I remembered.</p> - -<p>"The new Town Hall's new bell," I thought. "It's come and it's up. -They're trying it."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p><p>And it seemed like the voice of the town, saying something.</p> - -<p>In the door of the newspaper office sat the editor, Luke Norris, his red -face and black hair buried behind a tore newspaper.</p> - -<p>"Hello, Luke," I says, sheer out of wanting human looks and words from -somebody.</p> - -<p>He laid down his newspaper, and he took his breath quick and he says: "I -wish't Europe wasn't so far off. I'd like to go over there—with a -basket."</p> - -<p>I overtook little Nuzie Cook, going along home,—little thin thing she -was, with such high eye-brows that her face looked like its windows were -up.</p> - -<p>"Nuzie," I says, "how's your ma?" And that was a brighter subject, -because Mis' Cook has only got the rheumatism and the shingles.</p> - -<p>"Ma's in bed," says Nuzie. "She's worried about her folks in the old -country—she ain't heard and she can't sleep."</p> - -<p>I went to a house where I knew there was a baby, and I played with that. -Then I went to call on Mis' Perkins, that ain't got sense enough to talk -about anything that is anything, so she kind of rested me. But into Mis' -Hunter's was a little young rabbit, that her husband had plowed into its -ma's nest, and he'd brought it in with its leg cut by the plow, and they -was trying to decide what best to do. And I begun hurting inside again, -and thinking:</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p><p>"Nothing but a rabbit—a baby rabbit—and over there...."</p> - -<p>I didn't say anything. Pretty soon I turned back home. And then I ran -into the McVicars—three of them.</p> - -<p>The McVicars—three of them—had Spring hats trimmed with cherries and I -guess raisins and other edibles; the McVicars—mother and two offspring, -sprung quite a while back—are new-come to the village, and stylish. -They hadn't been in town in two months when they'd been invited twice to -drive to the cemetery in the closed carriages, though they hadn't known -either corpse, personally. They impressed people.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Mis' Marsh," says Mis' McVicar, "we wanted to see you. We're -getting up a relief fund...."</p> - -<p>I went down in my pocket for a quarter, automatic. I heard their thanks, -and I went on. And it came to me how, all over the country, the whole -100,000,000 of us, more or less, had been met up with to contribute -something to relief, and we'd all done it. And it had gone over there to -this country and to that. But our hearts had ached, individual and -silent, the way mine was aching that day—and there wasn't any means of -cabling that ache over to Europe. If there was, if that great ache that -was in all of us for the folks over there, could just be gathered up and -got over to them in one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> mass, I thought it would do as much as food and -clothes and money to help them.</p> - -<p>I stood still by a picket fence I happened to be passing, and I looked -down the little street. It had a brick sidewalk and a dirt road and -little houses, and the fences hadn't been taken down yet. And all the -places looked still and kind of dear.</p> - -<p>"They all feel bad," I thought, "just as bad as I do, for folks that's -starved. But they can't say so—they can't say so. Only in little dabs -of money, sent off separate."</p> - -<p>Bennie was swinging on Mis' Holcomb's gate, looking for me. He came -running to meet me.</p> - -<p>"I found a blue beetle," he says to me. "And that lady's kitty's home, -with a bell on. And I got a new nail. An—an—an—"</p> - -<p>And I thought: "He ain't no different from them—over there. The little -tikes, with no pas and no suppers and nothing to play with, only mebbe a -brick to lug."</p> - -<p>And there I was, right back to where I started from. And I went out to -get supper, with my heart hanging around my neck like a pail of rock.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>Next day was Memorial Day. And Memorial Day in Friendship Village is -something grand.</p> - -<p>First the G. A. R. conducts the service in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> Court House yard, with -benches put up special, and a speech from out of town and paid for.</p> - -<p>Right away afterward everybody marches or drives, according to the state -of their pocket-book, out to the Cemetery, to lay flowers on the -soldiers' graves; and it's quite an event, because everybody that's got -anybody buried out there and that is still alive themselves, they all -whisk out the day before and decorate up their graves, so's everybody -can see for themselves how intimate their dead is held in remembrance. -And everybody walks around to see if so-and-so has thought to send -anything from Seattle, or wherenot, <i>this</i> year. And if they didn't, -it's something to tell about.</p> - -<p>Then all the Ladies' Aid Societies serve dinners in the empty store -buildings down town, and make what they can. And in the afternoon -everybody lounges round and cuts the grass and tinkers with the screens -and buys ice cream off the donkey-cart man.</p> - -<p>I dressed Bennie up, clean and miserable, in the morning, and went down -to the exercises. I couldn't see much, because the woman in front of me -couldn't either, and she stood up; and I couldn't hear much, because the -paid-for speaker addressed only one-half of his audience, and as usual I -wasn't in the right half. But the point is that neither of them -limitations mattered. I didn't have to see and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> I didn't have to hear. -All that I had to do was to feel. And I felt. For I was alive at the -time of the Civil War, and all you have to do to me is to touch that -spring in me, and I'm back there: Getting the first news, reading about -Sumter, sensing the call for 75,000 volunteers, hearing that this one -and this one and this one had enlisted, peeking through the fence at -Camp Randall where my two brothers were waiting to go; and then living -the long four years through, when every morning meant news, and no news -meant news, and every night meant more to hear. For years I couldn't -open a newspaper without feeling I must look first for the list of the -dead....</p> - -<p>I set there on the bench in the spring sunshine, without anything to -lean against, seeing the back breadths of Mis' Curtsey's gray flowered -delaine, and living it all over again, with Bennie hanging on my knee. -And it made it a thousand times worse, now that these Memorial Days were -passing, with what was going on in Europe still going on.</p> - -<p>And I thought: "Oh, I dunno how we can keep up feeling memorial for just -our own soldiers, when the whole world's soldiers are lying dead, new -every night...."</p> - -<p>And getting a little more used to the paid speaker's voice, I could hear -some of what he was saying. I could get the names,—Vicksburg, -Gettysburg, Shenandoah, Missionary Ridge, all these, over and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> over. And -my heart ached with every one. But it had a new ache, for names that the -whole world will echo with for years to come. And sitting there, with -nobody knowing, I says to myself:</p> - -<p>"And, O Lord, I memorial all the rest of them—the soldiers of fifty -years ago no more than the soldiers of now—the soldiers of Here no more -than the soldiers of Over There. O Lord, I memorial them all, and I pray -for them that survive over there—put all Your strength on them, Lord, -as far as I am concerned, for us survivors here, we don't need You as -much as they do—them that's new bereaved and new desolated. For -Christ's sake. Amen."</p> - -<p>On my way home, I saw Luke Norris sitting out by the door of his office -again. He never went to any exercises because his wind-pipe was liable -to shut up on him, and it broke up the program some, getting his breath -through to him.</p> - -<p>"Calliope," he says, "we want you should go on to the Committee for -opening the new Town Hall, in about two months from now. We want the -jim-dandiest, swell-upest celebration this town has ever had. Twenty -years of unexampled prosperity—"</p> - -<p>I stood still and stared down on him.</p> - -<p>"Honest," I says, "do you want me to help in a prosperity celebration -<i>this</i> Summer?"</p> - -<p>"Sure," he says, "women are in on it."</p> - -<p>"Luke," I says. "I dunno how you'll feel about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> that when you come to -think it over. But I feel—"</p> - -<p>Bennie, fussing round on the side-walk, came over, tugging a chunk of -wood. I thought at first he was carrying a brick.</p> - -<p>I sat down in a handy chair, just inside Luke's door.</p> - -<p>"Luke," I says, "Luke! That ain't the kind of a celebration this town -had ought to have. You listen here to me...."</p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I think about the next two Summer months. -I lie awake and think how it all went, that planning, from first to -last. I think about the idea, and about how it started, and kindled, and -spread, and flamed. And I think about what finally came of it.</p> - -<p>For one thing, it was the first living, human thing that Friendship -Village ever got up that there wasn't a soul that kicked about. You -can't name another thing that any of the town ever went in for, that the -rest didn't get up and howl. Pavement—some of us said we couldn't -afford it, "not now." New bridge—half of us says we was bonded to the -limit as it was. Sewerage—three-fourths of us says for our town it was -a engineering impossibility. Buying the electric light plant, that would -be pure socialism. Central school building—a vast per cent of us allows -it would make it too far for the children to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> walk, though out of school -hours they run all over the town, scot-free and foot loose, skate, sled -and hoop. As a town none of us would unite on nothing. Never, not till -this time.</p> - -<p>But this time it was different. And even if not anything had come of it, -I'd be glad to remember the kind of flash I got from different folks, -when we came to tell them about it.</p> - -<p>I went first to the Business Men's Association, because it was them that -was talking the Town Hall celebration the hardest. I'd been to them -before, about playgrounds, about band concerts, about taking care of the -park; and some of them were down on us ladies.</p> - -<p>"You're always putting up propositions to give money <i>out</i>," says one of -them once. "Why don't you propose us taking <i>in</i> some? What do you think -we are? Charity?"</p> - -<p>"No," says I to him, "I don't. Nor yet love. You're dollar marks and -ciphers, a few of you," I told him, candid, "and those don't make a -number."</p> - -<p>So when I stood up before them that night, I knew some of them were -prepared to vote, automatic, against whatever we wanted. Some of them -didn't even have to hear what us ladies suggested in order to be against -it. And then I began to talk.</p> - -<p>I told them the story of the little fellow with the brick. That stayed -in my mind. I never see my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> milk-man go along, leaving big, clean -bottles in everybody's doors that I didn't image up that little boy -standing in the mud on his brick, waiting. And then I mentioned Bennie -to them too, that they all knew about. We hadn't heard from his father -in two months now, and of course there didn't any of us know....</p> - -<p>"I don't need to remind you," I says to them, "how we feel about Europe. -Every one of us knows. We try not to talk about it, because there's some -of it we can't talk about without letting go. But it's on us all the -time. The other day I was trying to think how the world use' to feel, -and how I'd felt, before this came on us. I couldn't do it. There can't -any of us do it. It's on us, like thick dark, whatever we do. Giving -money don't express it. Talking don't express it.... Oh, let's do -something in this town! Instead of our new Town Hall Prosperity -celebration, let's us do something on August 4 to let Europe see how bad -we feel. Let's us."</p> - -<p>We talked a little more, and then I told them our plan, and we talked -over that. I'll never forget them, in the little Town Room with the two -gas jets and the chairman's squeaky swivel chair and the tobacco smoke. -But there wasn't one voice that dissented, not one. They all sat still, -as if they were taking off some spiritual hats that didn't show. It was -as if their little idea of a Prosperity celebration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> sort of gave up its -light to some big sun, blazing there on us, in the room.</p> - -<p>The rest was easy. It kind of done itself. In a way it was already done. -Something was in people's hearts, and we were just making a way for it -to get out. And the air was full of something that was ready to get into -people's hearts, and we made a way for it to get in. I don't know but -these are our only job on this earth.</p> - -<p class="space-above">August 4—that's the Europe date that none of America can forget, -because it's part our date too.</p> - -<p>"What we going to do?" says Bennie, when I was dressing him. It was four -months since we had had a letter from his father....</p> - -<p>"We're going to do something," I says to him, "that you'll remember, -Bennie, when you're an old man." And I gave his shoulders a little -shake. "You tell them about it when you're old. Because they'll -understand it better then than we do now. You tell them!"</p> - -<p>"Yes, ma'am," says Bennie, obedient—and I kind of think he'll do it.</p> - -<p>We were to meet in the Court House yard, that's central, and march to -the Market Square, that's big. I was to march in the last detachment, -and so it came that I could watch them start. And I could see down -Daphne Street, with all the closed business houses with the flags hung -out at half mast, some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> of them with a bow of black cloth tied on. And -it was a strange gathering, for everybody was thinking, and everybody -knew everybody else was thinking.</p> - -<p>We've got a nice band in Friendship Village, that they often send for to -play to the City. And when it started off ahead, beating soft with the -Beethoven funeral march, I held my breath and shut my eyes. <i>They were -playing for Europe, four thousand miles away.</i></p> - -<p>Then came the women. That seemed the way to do, we thought—because war -means what war means to women. They were wearing white—or at least -everybody was that had a white dress, but blue or green or brown marched -just the same as if it was white; and they all wore black -streamers—just cloth, because we none of us had very much to do with. -Every woman in town marched—not one stayed home. And one of the women -had thought of something.</p> - -<p>"We'd ought not to carry just our flag," she said. "That don't seem real -right. Let's us get out our dictionaries and copy off the other nations' -flags over there; and make 'em up out of cheese-cloth, and carry 'em."</p> - -<p>And that was what we done. And all the women carried the different ones, -just as they happened to pick them up, and at half mast.</p> - -<p>I don't know as I know who came next, or what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> order we arranged them. -We didn't have many ex-foreigners living in Friendship Village, but them -we had marched, in their own groups. They all came, dressed in their -best, and we had cheese-cloth flags of their own nation, made for each -group; and they marched carrying them, all together.</p> - -<p>There was everybody that worked in the town, marching for Labor. Then -come the churches, not divided off into denominations, but just walking, -hit or miss, as they came; and though this was due to a superintendent -or two getting rattled at the last minute and not falling in line right, -it seemed good to see it, for the sorrow of one church for Europe isn't -any whit different from the sorrow of every one of the rest. When your -heart aches, it aches without a creed.</p> - -<p>Last came the children, that I was going to march with; and someway they -were kind of the heart of the whole. And just in front of them was the -Mothers' Club—twenty or so of them, hard-worked, hopeful women, all -wanting life to be nice for their children, and trying, the best they -knew, to read up about it at their meetings. And they were marching that -day for the motherhood of the nations, and there wasn't one of them that -didn't feel it so. And the children ... when we turned the corner where -I could look back on them, I had all I could do—I had all I could do. -Three-four hundred of them, bobbing along, carrying any nation's flag -that came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> handy. And they meant so much more than they knew they meant, -like children always do.</p> - -<p>"You're going to march for the little boys and girls in Europe that have -lost their folks," was all we said to them.</p> - -<p>And when I see them coming along, looking round so sweet, dressed up in -what they had, and their hair combed up nice by somebody, somehow, there -came over me the picture of that little fellow with his brick, waiting -there for that pint of milk; and I squeezed up so on Bennie's hand that -I was walking with, that he looked up at me.</p> - -<p>"You're lovin' me too hard in my fingers," he told me, candid.</p> - -<p>"Oh, Bennie," I says, "you excuse me. I guess I was squeezing the hand -of every little last one of them, over there."</p> - -<p>We all came into the Market Square, in the afternoon sunshine, with our -little still, peaceful street—laying and listening, and never knowing -it was like heaven at all. Every soul in town was there, I don't know of -one that didn't go. Even Luke Norris was there, his wind-pipe forgot. We -didn't have much exercises. Just being there was exercise enough. We -sung—no national airs, and above all, not our own; but just a hymn or -two that had in it all we could find of sympathy and love. There wasn't -anything else to say, only just those two things. Then Dr. June prayed, -brief:</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p><p>"Lord God of Love, our hearts are full of love this day for all those -in Europe who are bereaved. We cannot speak about it very well—we -cannot show it very much. But Thou art love to them. Oh, draw us near in -spirit to those sorrowing over there, even as Thou are near to them all. -Amen."</p> - -<p>Then the band played the Chopin funeral march, while we all stood still. -When it was done, up in the belfry of the new Town Hall, the new bell -that we were so proud of began to toll. And it seemed like the voice of -the town, saying something. We all went home to that bell, with the -children leading us. And nobody's store was opened again that day. For -the spirit of the time, and of Over There, was on the village like a -garment, and I suppose none of us spoke of anything else at supper, or -when the lamps were lit.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Quite a little while after supper I was sitting on my porch in the dark, -when Luke Norris and some of them came in my gate.</p> - -<p>"Calliope," said one of the women, "we've been thinking. Don't it seem -awful pitiful that Europe can't know how we feel here to-day?"</p> - -<p>"I thought of that," I said.</p> - -<p>And Luke says: "Well, we've been looking up the cable charges. And we -thought we might manage it, to cable something like this:</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"Friendship Village memorial exercises held to-day for Europe's -dead. Love and sympathy from our village."</p></blockquote> - -<p>"It'll cost a lot," says Luke. "The McVicars want us to add the money to -their relief fund instead. But I say <i>no</i>!" he struck the porch post -with his palm. "Leave us send it, cost or no cost, no matter what."</p> - -<p>"I say so too," I says. "But tell me: Where'll you send it to?"</p> - -<p>And Luke says simple:</p> - -<p>"None of the newspaper dispatch folks'll take it—it ain't news enough -for them. So I'm a-going to cable it myself, prepaid, to six Europe -newspapers."</p> - -<p>Pretty soon they went away, and I took Bennie and walked down to the -gate. I thought about that message, going on the wire to Europe.... -There wasn't any moon, or any sound. The town lay still, as if it was -thinking. The world lay still, as if it was feeling.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Copyright, 1916, <i>Collier's Weekly</i>, as "Over There."</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> - -<h2>WHEN THE HERO CAME HOME<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></h2> - -<p>Never, not if I live till after my dying day, will I forget the evening -that Jeffro got home from the War. It was one of the times when what you -thought was the earth under your feet dissolves away, and nothing is -left there but a little bit of dirt, with miles of space just on the -under side of it. It was one of the times when what you thought was the -sky over your head is drawn away like a cloth, and nothing is there but -miles of space on the upper side of it. And in between the two great -spaces are us little humans, creeping 'round, wondering what we're for. -And not doing one-ninth as much wondering as you'd think we would.</p> - -<p>Jeffro was the little foreign-born peddler, maker of toys, that had come -to Friendship Village and lived for a year with his little boy, scraping -enough together to send for his wife and baby in the old country. And no -sooner had he got them here than the Big War came—and nothing would do -but Jeffro must go back and fight it out with his country. And back he -went, though how he got there I dunno, for the whole village loaded him -down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> so with stuff that he must have been part helpless. How a man -could fight with his arms part full of raspberry jam and hard cookies -and remedies and apple butter, I'm sure I don't know. But the whole -village tugged stuff there for days beforehand. Jeffro was our one hero. -He was the only soldier Friendship Village had—except old Bud Babcock, -with his brass buttons and his limp and his perfectly everlasting, -always-coming-on and never-going-off reminiscences. And so, when Jeffro -started off, the whole town turned out to watch him go; and when I say -that Silas Sykes gave him a store-suit at cost, more no one could say -about nothing. For Silas Sykes is noted—that is, he ain't exactly -expected—that is to say,—well, to put it real delicate, Silas is as -stingy as a dog with one bone. And a store-suit at cost from him was -similar to a gold-mine from anybody else. Or more—more.</p> - -<p>Well, then, for six months Jeffro was swallowed up. We never heard a -word from him. His little wife went around white and thin, and we got so -we didn't ask her if she'd heard from him, because we couldn't stand -that white, hunted, et-up look on her face. So we kept still, village -delicate. And that's a special kind of delicate.</p> - -<p>Then, like a bow from the blue, or whatever it is they say, the mayor of -the town got the word from New York that Jeffro was coming home with his -right arm gone, honorably discharged. And about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> the same time a letter -from Europe, from somebody he knew that had got him the money to come -with, told how he'd been shot in a sortie and recommended by the captain -for promotion.</p> - -<p>"A sortie," says Mis' Postmaster Sykes, thoughtful. "What kind of a -battle is a sortie, do you s'pose?"</p> - -<p>"Land," says Mis' Amanda Toplady, "ain't that what they call an evening -musicale?"</p> - -<p>When it heard Jeffro was coming home, Friendship Village rose up like -one man. We must give him a welcome. This was part because he was a -hero, and part because Mis' Postmaster Sykes thought of it first. And -most of Friendship Village don't know what it thinks about anything till -she thinks it for them.</p> - -<p>"We must welcome him royal,"—were her words. "We must welcome him -royal. Ladies, let's us plan."</p> - -<p>So she called some of us together to her house one afternoon—Mis' -Timothy Toplady, Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, Abigail Arnold, that -keeps the Home Bakery, Mis' Photographer Sturgis, that's the village -invalid, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, that her husband's dead, but she -keeps his title because we got started calling her that and can't bear -to stop—and me. I told her I couldn't do much, being I was training two -hundred school children for a Sunday night service that week, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> was -pretty busy myself. But I went. And when we all got there, Mis' Sykes -took out a piece of paper tore from an account book, and she says, -pointing to a list on it with her front finger that wore her cameo ring:</p> - -<p>"Ladies! I've got this far, and it's for you to finish. Jeffro will come -in on the Through, either Friday or Saturday night. Now we'll have the -band"—that's the Friendship Village Stonehenge Band of nine -pieces—"and back of that Bud Babcock, a-carrying the flag. We'll take -the one off'n the engine house, because that stands so far back no one -will miss it. And then we'll have the Boy Scouts, and the Red Barns's -ambulance; and we'll put Jeffro in that; and the boys can march beside -of him to his home."</p> - -<p>"Well-a," says Mis' Timothy Toplady, "what'll you have the ambulance -for?"</p> - -<p>"Because we've got no other public ve-hicle," says Mis' Sykes, -commanding, "without it's the hearse. If so, name what it is."</p> - -<p>And nobody naming nothing, she went on:</p> - -<p>"Then I thought we'd have the G. A. R., and the W. R. C. from Red -Barns—they'll be glad to come over because they ain't so very much -happening for them to be patriotic about, without it's Memorial Day. And -then the D. A. R. of Friendship Village and Red Barns will come last, -each a-carrying a flag in our hands. Friday is April 18th, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> we did -mean to have a Pink Tea to celebrate Paul Revere's ride. But I'm quite -sure the ladies'll all be willing to give that up and transfer their -patriotic observation over to Jeffro. And we'll all march down in a -body, and be there when the train pulls in. What say, Ladies?"</p> - -<p>She leaned back, with a little triumphant pucker, like she'd scraped the -world for ideas, and got them all and defied anybody to add to them.</p> - -<p>"Well-a," says Mis' Timothy Toplady, "and then what?"</p> - -<p>"Then what?" says Mis' Sykes, irritable. "Why, be there. And wave and -cheer and flop our flags. And walk along behind him to his house. And -hurrah—and sing, mebbe—oh, we <i>must</i> sing, of course!" Mis' Sykes -cries, thinking of it for the first time, with her hands clasped.</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady looked troubled.</p> - -<p>"Well-a," she says, "what would we sing for?"</p> - -<p>"Sing for!" cried Mis' Sykes, exasperated. "Because he's got home, of -course."</p> - -<p>"With his arm shot off. And his eyes blinded with powder. And him -half-starved. And mebbe worse. I dunno, Ladies," says Mis' Toplady, -dreamy, "but I'm terrible lacking. But I don't feel like singing over -Jeffro."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes looked at her perfectly withering.</p> - -<p>"Ain't you no sense of what'd due to occasions?" says she, regal.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p><p>"Yes," says Mis' Toplady, "I have. I guess that's just what's the -matter of me. It's the occasion that ails me. I was thinking—well, -Ladies, I was wondering just how much like singing we'd feel if we'd -<i>seen</i> Jeffro's arm shot off him."</p> - -<p>"But we <i>didn't</i> see it," says Mis' Sykes, final. That's the way she -argues.</p> - -<p>"Mebbe I'm all wrong," says Mis' Toplady, "but, Ladies, I can't feel -like a man getting all shot up is an occasion for jollification. I can't -do it."</p> - -<p>Us ladies all kind of breathed deep, like a vent had been opened.</p> - -<p>"Nor me." "Nor me." "Nor me." Run 'round Mis' Sykes's setting-room, from -one to one.</p> - -<p>I wish't you could have seen Mis' Sykes. She looked like we'd declared -for cannibalism and atheism and traitorism, all rolled into one.</p> - -<p>"Ain't you ladies," she says, "no sense of the glories of war? Or what?"</p> - -<p>"Or what," says Mis' Toplady. "That's just it—glories of what. I guess -it's the <i>what</i> part that I sense the strongest, somehow."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes laid down her paper, and crossed her hands—with the cameo -ring under, and then remembered and crossed it <i>over</i>—and she says:</p> - -<p>"Ladies, facts is facts. You've got to take things as they are."</p> - -<p>Abigail Arnold flashed in.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p><p>"But you ain't takin' 'em nowheres," she says. "You're leavin' 'em as -they are. War is the way it's been for five thousand years—only five -thousand times worse."</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes tapped her foot, and made her lips both thin and straight.</p> - -<p>"Yes," she says, "and it always will be. As long as the world lasts, -there'll be war."</p> - -<p>Then I couldn't stand it any longer. I looked her right square in the -face, and I says:</p> - -<p>"Mis' Sykes. Do you believe that?"</p> - -<p>"Certainly I believe it," she says. "Besides, there's nothing in the -Bible against war. Not a thing."</p> - -<p>"What about 'Thou shalt not kill'?" says I.</p> - -<p>She froze me—she fair froze me.</p> - -<p>"That," she said, "is an entirely different matter."</p> - -<p>"Well," says I, "if you'll excuse me for saying so, it ain't different. -But leave that go. What about 'Love thy neighbor'? What about the -brotherhood of man? What about—"</p> - -<p>She sighed, real patient. "Your mind works so queer sometimes, -Calliope," she says.</p> - -<p>"Yes, well, mebbe," I says, like I'd said to her before. "But anyhow, it -works. It don't just set and set and set, and never hatch nothing. This -whole earth has set on war since the beginning, and hatched nothing but -death. Do you think, honest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> that we haven't no more invention to us -than to keep on a-bungling like this to the end of time?"</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes stomped her foot.</p> - -<p>"Look-a-here," she says. "Do you want to arrange something to go down to -welcome Jeffro home, or don't you? If you don't, say so."</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady sighed.</p> - -<p>"Let's us go down to meet him," she says. "Leave us do that. But don't -you expect no singing off me," says she, final. "That's all."</p> - -<p>So Mis' Sykes, she went ahead with her plan, and she agreed, grudging, -to omit out the singing. And the D. A. R's. put off their Paul Revere -Tea, and we sent to the City for more flags. Me, though, I didn't take a -real part. I agreed to march, and then I didn't take a real part. I'd -took on a good deal more than I'd meant to in training the children for -the Sunday night thing, and so I shirked Mis' Sykes's party all I could. -Not that I wouldn't be glad to see Jeffro. But I couldn't enthuse the -way she meant. By Friday, Mis' Sykes had everything pretty ship-shape, -and being we still didn't know which day Jeffro would come, we were all -to go down to the depot that night, on the chance; and Saturday as well.</p> - -<p>Friday afternoon I was working away on some stuff for the children, when -Jeffro's wife came in. The poor little thing was so nervous she didn't -know whether she was saying "yes" or "no." She'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> got herself all ready, -in a new-ironed calico, and a red bow at her neck.</p> - -<p>"Do you think this bow looks too gay?" she says. "It seems gay, and him -so sick. But he always liked me to wear red, and it's all the red I've -got. It's only cotton ribbin, too," says she, wistful.</p> - -<p>She wanted to know what I was doing, and so's to keep her mind off -herself, I told her. The hundred children, from all kinds and -denominations and everythings, were to meet together in Shepherd's Grove -that Sunday night, and I'd fixed up a little exercise for them: One -bunch of them were to represent Science, and they were to carry little -models of boats and engines and dirigibles and a little wireless tower. -And one bunch was to represent Art, and they were to carry colors and -figures and big lovely cardboard designs they made in school. And one -bunch was to represent Friendship, and they were to come with garlands -and arches that connected them each with all the rest. And one was to -represent Plenty, with fruit and grain. And one Beauty, and one -Understanding—and so on. And then, in the midst of them, I was going to -have a little bit of a child walk, carrying a model of the globe in his -hands. And they were all going to come to him, one after another, and -they were going to give him what they had. And what we'd planned, with -music and singing and a trumpeter and everything, was to be all around -that.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p><p>"I haven't the right child yet to carry the globe though," I says to -Jeffro's wife; "I can't find one little enough that's strong enough to -lug the thing."</p> - -<p>And then, all of a sudden, I remembered her little boy, and Jeffro's -little boy. I remembered Joseph. Awful little he was, but with sturdy -legs and arms, and the kind of a face that makes you wonder why all -little folks don't look the same way. It seems the only way for them to -look.</p> - -<p>"Why," I says, "look here: Why can't I borrow Joseph for Sunday night, -to carry the globe?"</p> - -<p>"You can," she says, "without his father won't be wanting him to leave -him, when he's just got home so. Mebbe, though," she says, "he's so sick -he won't know whether Joseph is there or not—"</p> - -<p>She kind of petered off, like she didn't have strength in her to finish -with. She never cried though. That was one thing I noticed about her. -She acted like crying is one of the things we ought to have -outgrown—like dressing in black for mourning, and like beating a drum -on the streets to celebrate anything, and like war. Honest, the way we -keep on using old-fashioned styles like these makes me feel sorry for -the Way-Things-Were-Meant-To-Be.</p> - -<p>So it was arranged that Joseph was to carry the globe. And Jeffro's wife -went home to wash out his collar so he could go at all. And I flew round -so's to be all ready by six o'clock, when we were to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> meet at Court -House Park and march to the depot to meet Jeffro—so be he come that -night.</p> - -<p>You know that nice, long, slanting, yellow afternoon light that begins -to be left over at six o'clock, in April? When we came along toward -Court House Park that night, it looked like that. There was a new fresh -green on the grass, and the birds were doing business some, and there -was a little nice spring smell in the air, that sort of said "Come on." -You know the kind of evening?</p> - -<p>We straggled up to the depot, not in regular marching order at all, but -just bunched, friendly. Mis' Sykes was walking at the head of her D. A. -R. detachment, and she had sewed red and blue to her white duck skirt, -and she had a red and blue flower in her hat, and her waist was just -redded and blued, from shoulder to shoulder, with badges and bows. Mis' -Sykes was awful patriotic as to colors, but I didn't blame her. She'd -worn mourning so much, her only chance to wear the becoming shades at -all was by putting on her country's colors. Honest, I don't s'pose she -thought of that, though—well, I mean—I don't s'pose she really -thought—well, let's us go ahead with what I was trying to tell.</p> - -<p>While we were waiting at the depot, all disposed around graceful on -trucks and trunks, the Friendship Village Stonehenge band started in -playing, just to get its hand in. And it played "The Star Spangled -Banner." And as soon as ever it started<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> in, up hopped Silas Sykes onto -his feet, so sudden it must have snapped his neck. Mis' Amanda Toplady, -that was sitting by me on the telegraph window sill, she looked at him a -minute without moving. And then she says to me, low:</p> - -<p>"Whenever a man gets up so <i>awful</i> sudden when one of his country's airs -is played, I always think," she says, "I'd just love to look into his -business life, and make perfectly sure that he ain't a-making his money -in ways that ain't patriotic to his country, nor a credit to his -citizenship—in the real sense."</p> - -<p>"Me, too," I says, fervent.</p> - -<p>And then we both got to our feet deliberate, Silas having glared at us -and all but beckoned to us with his neck. He was singing the song, -too—negligent, in his throat. And while he did so, I knew Mis' Toplady -and I were both thinking how Silas, a while ago, had done the town out -of twice the worth of the property we'd bought from him, for a Humane -Society home. And that we'd be paying him for ten years to come. I -couldn't help thinking of it. I'm thinking of it now.</p> - -<p>Before they were done playing the piece, the train whistled. We lined -up, or banked up, or whatever you want to call it. And there we stood -when the train slowed and stopped. And not a soul got off.</p> - -<p>No; Jeffro wasn't on that train. He didn't come that night at all. And -when the next night we all got down there to meet the Through again, in -the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> same grand style, the identical same thing happened. He didn't come -that night, either. And we trailed back from the train, with our spirits -dampened a little. Because now he couldn't come till Monday night, being -the Through only run to the city on Sundays and didn't come out to -Friendship Village at all.</p> - -<p>So I had that evening to put my mind on the children, and finish up what -I had to do for them. And I was glad. Because the service that I was -planning for that night grew on me. It was a Spring festival, a -religious festival—because I always think that the coming of Spring is -a religious ceremony, really—in the best sense. It's when the new birth -begins to come all over the earth at once, gentle, as if somebody was -thinking it out, a little at a time. And as if it was hoping and longing -for us to have a new life, too.</p> - -<p>And yet I was surprised that they'd leave me have the festival on -Sunday. We've got so used to thinking of religion—and one or two brands -of patriotism—as the only holy things there are. I didn't know but when -I mentioned having Science and Art and Friendship and Beauty and Plenty -and Understanding and Peace at my Sunday evening service, they might -think I was over-stepping some. I don't know but they did, too. Only -they indulged me a little.</p> - -<p>So everybody came. The churches had all agreed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> to unite, being -everybody's children were in the festival. And by five o'clock that -Sunday afternoon the whole of Shepherd's Grove was full of Friendship -Village folks, come from all over the town and out on the edges, and in -the country, to see the children have their vesper festival. That's what -I'd called it—a vesper festival, so it'd help them that had their -doubts.</p> - -<p>There weren't any seats, for it wasn't going to be long, and I had them -all stand in a pleasant green spot in the grove, on two sides of the -little grass-grown road that wound through the wood, and down which, -pretty soon, I was going to have Joseph come, carrying the globe of the -world.</p> - -<p>When we were ready, and the little trumpeter we'd got had stilled them -all with the notes he'd made, that were like somebody saying something -and really meaning it—the way a trumpet does—then the children began -to sing, soft and all together, from behind a thicket of green that -they'd made themselves:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>"Don't you wish we had a place</div> -<div class="i1">Where only bright things are,</div> -<div>Like the things we dream about,</div> -<div class="i1">And like a star?</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div>"Don't you wish the world would turn</div> -<div class="i1">For an hour or two,</div> -<div>And run back the other way</div> -<div class="i1">And be made new?</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>"Don't you wish we all could be</div> -<div class="i1">What we know we are,</div> -<div>'Way inside, where a Voice speaks,</div> -<div class="i1">Far—and near—and far?"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And then they came out—one after another of the groups I've told you -about—Science, and Art, and Friendship, and Plenty, and the others. And -each one said what they knew how to do to the world to make that wish -come true. I don't need to tell you about that. You know. If you have -friendship or plenty or beauty in your life, you know. If only we could -get enough of them!</p> - -<p>Out they all came, one after another. It was very still in the wood. The -children's voices were sweet and clear. They all had somebody there that -they were near and dear to. The whole time was quiet, and close up to, -and like the way things were meant to be. And like the way things might -be. And like the way things will be—when we let them.</p> - -<p>Then there was a little pause. For they'd all told what might be, and -now it was time to signal Joseph to come running up the road, carrying -the globe in its orbit, and speaking for the World, and asking all these -lovely things to come and take possession of it, and own it, and be it. -But, just as I got ready to motion to him, I had to wait, for down the -grassy road through Shepherd's Grove, where there wasn't much travel, -was coming an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>automobile, though one doesn't pass that way from the -city once in ten years.</p> - -<p>We all drew back to let it pass among us. And, in that little pause, we -looked, curious, to see who was in it. And then a whisper, and then a -cry, came from the nearest, and from them back, and then from them all -at once. For, propped up on the seat, was Jeffro. He'd come to the city -on the Through, that doesn't come to Friendship Village Sundays, and -they'd brought him home this way.</p> - -<p>I dunno how I thought of it—don't it seem as if something in you works -along alone, if only you'll keep your thinking still? It did that now. -Almost before I knew I was going to do it, I signed to the man to stop, -and I stepped right up beside the car where Jeffro sat, looking like a -ghost of a man. And I says:</p> - -<p>"Mr. Jeffro! Mr. Jeffro! Are you too sick to leave us welcome you home?"</p> - -<p>He smiled then, and put out his hand—the one hand that he'd come back -with. And from somewhere in the crowd, Jeffro's wife got to the car, and -got the door open, and leaned there beside him. And we all waited a -minute—but one minute was the very best we could do. Then everybody -came pressing up round the car to shake his hand. And I slipped back to -the bugler we had, and I says:</p> - -<p>"Blow! Blow the loudest you ever blew in your life. <i>Blow!</i>"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p><p>He blew a blast, silver clear, golden clear, sunlight clear. And I sent -him through the crowd, blowing, and making a path right up to the -automobile. Then I signed to the children, and I had them come down that -open aisle. And they came singing, all together, the song they had sung -behind the thicket. And they pressed close around the car, singing -still:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>"Don't you wish we had a place</div> -<div class="i1">Where only bright things are,</div> -<div>Like the things we dream about,</div> -<div class="i1">And like a star?"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And there they came to meet him—Art and Science and Plenty and Beauty -and Friendship—Friendship. I don't know whether he understood what they -said. I don't know whether he understood the meaning of what they -carried—for Jeffro wasn't quite sure of our language all the time. But, -oh, he couldn't misunderstand the spirit of that time or of those folks.</p> - -<p>He got to his feet, Jeffro did, his face kind of still and solemn. And -just then Mis' Silas Sykes, in a black dress, without a scrap of red or -blue about her, stepped up to him, her face fair grief-struck. And she -says:</p> - -<p>"Oh, Mr. Jeffro. The D. A. R., and the G. A. R., and the W. R. C. was to -welcome you back from the glories of war. And here you've took us -unbeknownst."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p><p>He looked round at us—and this is what I'll never forget—not if I -live till my dying day:</p> - -<p>"The glories of war!" he says over. "The glories of war! You do not know -what you say! I tell you that I have seen mad dogs, mad beasts of -prey—but I do not know what it is they do. The glories of war! Oh, my -God, does nobody know that we are all mad together?"</p> - -<p>Jeffro's wife tried to quiet him, but he shook her off.</p> - -<p>"Listen," he said. "I have gone to war and lived through hell to learn -one thing. I gif it to you: <i>Life is something else than what we think -it is.</i> That is true. <i>Life is something else than what we think it is.</i> -When we find it out, we shall stop this devil's madness."</p> - -<p>Just then a little cry came from somewhere over back in the road.</p> - -<p>"My papa! It <i>is</i> my papa!" it said. And there came running Joseph, that -had heard his father's voice, and that we had forgot' all about. We let -him through the crowd, and he climbed up in the car, and his father took -him in his one arm. And there they sat, with the globe that Joseph -carried, the world that he carried, in beside them.</p> - -<p>We all began moving back to the village, before much of anybody knew -it—the automobile with Jeffro in it, and Jeffro's wife, and Jeffro's -little boy. And with the car went, not soldiers, not flags, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> the -singing of any one nation's airs—but the children, with those symbols -of the life that is living and building life—as fast as we'll let it -build. Jeffro didn't know what they were, I guess—though he knew the -love and the kindliness and the peace of the time. But I knew, and more -of us knew, that in that hour lay all the promise of the new day, when -we understand what we are: Gods, fallen into a pit.</p> - -<p>We went up the street with the children singing:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>"Don't you wish we all could be</div> -<div class="i1">What we know we are,</div> -<div>'Way inside, where a Voice speaks,</div> -<div class="i1">Far—and near—and far?"</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>When we got to Jeffro's gate, Mis' Sykes came past me.</p> - -<p>"Ain't it sad?" she says. "Not a soldier, nor a patriotic song, nor a -flag to meet our hero?"</p> - -<p>I looked at her, kind. I felt kind to all the world, because somehow I -felt so sure, so certain sure, of things.</p> - -<p>"Don't you worry, Mis' Sykes," I says. "I kind of feel as if more was -here to meet Jeffro than we've any notion of."</p> - -<p>For it was one of the times when what you thought was the earth under -your feet dissolves away, and nothing is left there but a little bit of -dirt, with miles of space just on the under side of it. It was one of -the times when what you thought was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> sky over your head is drawn -away like a cloth, and nothing is there but miles of space high on the -upper side of it. And in between these two great spaces are us little -humans, kind of creeping round—wondering what we're for.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Copyright, 1915, <i>The Woman's Home Companion</i>.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> - -<h2>"FOLKS"<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></h2> - -<p>I dunno whether you like to go to a big meeting or not? Some folks seem -to dread them. Well, I love them. Folks never seem to be so much folks -as when I'm with them, thousands at a time.</p> - -<p>Well, once annually I go to what's a big meeting for us, on the occasion -of the Friendship Village Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement -Sodality's yearly meeting.... I always hope folks won't let that name of -us bother them. We don't confine our attention to Cemetery any more. But -that's been the name of us for twenty-four years, and we got started -calling it that and we can't bear to stop. You know how it is—be it -institutions or constitutions or ideas or a way to mix the bread, one of -our deformities is that we hate to change.</p> - -<p>"Seems to me," says Mis' Postmaster Sykes once, "if we should give up -that name, we shouldn't be loyal nor decent nor loving to the dead."</p> - -<p>"Shucks," says I, "how about being loyal and decent and loving to the -living?"</p> - -<p>"Your mind works so queer sometimes, Calliope," says Mis' Sykes, -patient.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p><p>"Yes—well," I says, "mebbe. But anyhow, it works. It don't just set -and set and set, and never hatch nothing."</p> - -<p>So we continued to take down bill-boards and put in shrubbery and chase -flies and dream beautiful, far-off dreams of sometime getting in -sewerage, all under the same undying name.</p> - -<p>Well, at our annual meeting that night, we were discussing what should -be our work the next year. And suggestions came in real sluggish, being -the thermometer had been trying all day to climb over the top of its -hook.</p> - -<p>Suggestions run about like this:</p> - -<blockquote><p><i>1. See about having seats put in the County House Yard.</i></p> - -<p><i>2. See about getting the blankets in the Calaboose washed -oftener.</i></p> - -<p><i>3. Get trash baskets for the streets.</i></p> - -<p><i>4. Plant vines over the telegraph poles.</i></p> - -<p><i>5. See about Main Street billboards—again.</i></p> - -<p><i>6. See about the laundry soft coal smoke—again.</i></p> - -<p><i>7. See about window boxes for the library—again.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p>And these things were partitioned out to committees one by one, some to -strike dry, shallow sand, some to get planted on the bare rock, and some -to hit black dirt and a sunny spot with a watering can,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> or even a -garden hose handy. You know them different sorts of soil under -committees?</p> - -<p>Then up got Mis' Timothy Toplady—that dear, abundant woman. And we kind -of rustled expectant, because Mis' Toplady is one of the women that -looks across the edges of what's happening at the minute, and senses -what's way over there beyond. She's one of the women that never shells -peas without seeing beyond the rim of her pan.</p> - -<p>And that night she says to Sodality:</p> - -<p>"Ladies, I hear that up to the City next week there's going to be some -kind of a woman's convention."</p> - -<p>Nobody said anything. Railroad wrecks, volcanoes, diamonds, conventions -and such never seemed real <i>real</i> to us in the village.</p> - -<p>"It seems to be some kind of a once-in-two-years affair," Mis' Toplady -went on, "and I read in the paper how it had a million members, and how -they came 10,000 to a time to their meetings. Well, now," she ends up, -serene, "I've rose to propose that, bein' it's so near, Sodality send a -delegate up there next week to get us some points."</p> - -<p>"What points do we need, I should like to know," says Mis' Postmaster -Sykes, majestic. "Ain't we abreast of whatever there is to be abreast -of?"</p> - -<p>"That's what I dunno," says Mis' Toplady. "Leave us find out."</p> - -<p>"Well," says Mis' Sykes, "my part, expositions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> and conventions are -horrible to me. <i>I'm</i> no club woman, anyhow," says she, righteous.</p> - -<p>All the keeping still I ever done in my life when I'd ought to wouldn't -put nobody to sleep. I spoke right up.</p> - -<p>"Ain't our Sodality a club, Mis' Sykes?" I says.</p> - -<p>"Oh, our little private club here," says Mis' Sykes, "is one -thing—carried on quiet and womanly among ourselves. But a great big -public convention is no place for a woman that respects her home."</p> - -<p>"Why," I says, "Mis' Sykes, that was the way we were arguing when clubs -began. It took quite a while to outgrow it. But ain't we past all that -by now?"</p> - -<p>"Women's homes," she says, "and women's little home clubs are enough to -occupy any woman. A convention is men's business."</p> - -<p>"It is if it is," says I, "but think how often it is that it ain't."</p> - -<p>Mis' Toplady kept on, thoughtful.</p> - -<p>"Anyway, I been thinking," she says, "why don't we leave the <i>men</i> join -Sodality?"</p> - -<p>I dunno if you've ever suggested a revolution? Whether I'm in favor of -any particular revolution or not, it always makes a nice, healthy -minute. And it's such an elegant measuring rod for the brains of folks.</p> - -<p>"Why, how can we?" says Mis' Sykes. "We're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> the Married <i>Ladies'</i> -Cemetery Improvement Sodality."</p> - -<p>"Is that name," says Mis' Toplady, mild, "made up out o' cast-iron, Mis' -Sykes?"</p> - -<p>"But our constitution says we shall consist of fifty married ladies," -says Mis' Sykes, final.</p> - -<p>"Did we make that constitution," says I, "or did it make us? Are we -a-idol-worshiping our constitution or are we a-growing inside it, and -bursting out occasional?"</p> - -<p>"If you lived in back a ways, Calliope,"—Mis' Sykes begun.</p> - -<p>"Well," says I, "I might as well, if you're going to use <i>any</i> rule or -any law for a ball and chain for the leg instead of a stepping-stone for -the feet."</p> - -<p>Mis' Fire Chief Merriman looked up from her buttonholing.</p> - -<p>"But we don't <i>want</i> to do men's work, do we?" says she, distasteful. -"Leave them do their club work and leave us do our club work, like the -Lord meant."</p> - -<p>"Well—us women tended Cemetery quite a while," says I, "and the death -rate wasn't confined to women, exclusive. Graves," says I, "is both -genders, Mis' Fire Chief."</p> - -<p>Mis' State Senator Pettigrew, she chimed in.</p> - -<p>"So was the park. So was paving Main Street. So was getting pure milk. -So was cleaning up the slaughter house—parse them and they're both -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>genders, all of them. Of course let's us take men into the Sodality," -says she.</p> - -<p>Mis' Sykes put her hand over her eyes.</p> - -<p>"My g-g-grandmother organized and named Sodality," she said. "I can't -bear to see a change."</p> - -<p>"Cheer up, Mis' Sykes," I says, "you'll be a grandmother yourself some -day. Can't you do a little something to let <i>your</i> grandchildren point -back to? Awful selfish," I says, "not to give them something to brag -about."</p> - -<p>We didn't press the men proposition any more. We see it was too -delicate. But bye and bye we talked it out, that we'd have a big meeting -of everybody, men and women, and discuss over what the town needed, and -what the Sodality ought to undertake.</p> - -<p>"That'll be real democratic," says Mis' Sykes, contented. "We'll give -everybody a chance to express their opinion—and then afterwards we can -take up just what we please."</p> - -<p>And we decided that was another reason for sending a delegate to the -woman's convention, to get ahold of somebody, somehow, to come down to -Friendship Village and talk to us.</p> - -<p>"Be kind of nice to show off to somebody, too," says Mis' Fire Chief -Merriman, complacent, "what a nice, neat, up-to-date little town we've -got."</p> - -<p>"Without the help of no great big clumsy convention either," Mis' Sykes -stuck in.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p><p>Then the first thing I heard was Mis' Amanda Toplady up onto her feet -nominating me to go for a delegate to that convention, fare paid out of -the Cemetery Improvement Treasury.</p> - -<p>Guess what the first thought was that came to my head? Oh, ain't it like -women had been wrapped up in something that we're just beginning to peek -out of? Guess what I thought. Yes, that was it. When I spoke out my -first thought, I says:</p> - -<p>"Oh, <i>ladies</i>, I can't go. I ain't got a rag fit to wear."</p> - -<p>It took quite a while to persuade me. All the party dress I had was out -of the spare-room curtains, and I didn't have a wrap at all—I'm just -one of them jacket women. And finally I says to them: "You look here. -Suppose I write a note to the president of the whole thing, and tell her -just what clothes I have got, and ask her if anybody'd best go, looking -like me."</p> - -<p>And that was what I did do. I kept a copy of the letter I wrote her. I -says:</p> - -<blockquote><p>"<i>Dear President</i>:</p> - -<p>"Us ladies have heard about the meeting set for next week, and we -thought we'd send somebody up from our Friendship Village Married -Ladies Cemetery Improvement Sodality. And we thought we'd send me. -But I wouldn't want to come and have everybody ashamed of me. I've -only got my two years suit, and a couple of waists and one thin -dress—and they're all just every day—or not so much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> so. I'm -asking you, like I feel I can ask a woman, president or not. Would -you come at all, like that, if you was me.</p> - -<p class="right">"Respectfully,<span class="s5"> </span><br /> -"<span class="smcap">Calliope Marsh</span>."</p></blockquote> - -<p>I kept her answer too, and this is what she said:</p> - -<blockquote><p>"<i>Dear Miss Marsh</i>:</p> - -<p>"Just as I have told my other friends, let me tell you: By all -means we want you to come. Do not disappoint us. But I believe that -your club is not entitled to a delegate. So I am sending you this -card. Will you attend the meeting, and the reception as my guest?"</p></blockquote> - -<p>And then her name. Sometimes, when I get discouraged about us, I take -out that letter, and read it through.</p> - -<p>I remember when the train left that morning, how I looked back on the -village, sitting there in its big arm chair of hills, with green -cushions of woods dropped around, and wreaths of smoke curling up from -contented chimneys. And over on the South slope our big new brick county -house, with thick lips and lots of arched eye-brows, the house that us -ladies was getting seats to put in the yard of.</p> - -<p>"Say what who will," thinks I, "I love that little town. And I guess -it's just about as good as any of us could expect."</p> - -<p>I got to the City just before the Convention's evening meeting. I -brushed my hair up, and put on my cameo pin, and hurried right over to -the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> hall. And when I showed them my card, where do you guess they took -me? Up to one of the rows on the stage. Me, that had never faced an -audience except with my back to them—as organist in our church. (That -sounds so grand that I'd ought to explain that I can't play anything -except what's wrote natural. So I'm just organist to morning service, -when I can pick out my own hymns, and not for prayer meeting when -anybody is likely to pipe up and give out a song just black with sharps -and flats.) There were a hundred or more on the stage, and there were -flowers and palms and lights and colors. I sat there looking at the -pattern of the boards of the stage, and just about half sensing what was -going on at first. Then I got my eyes up a little ways to some pots of -blue hydrangeas on the edge of the stage. I had a blue hydrangea in my -yard home, so they kind of gave me courage. Then my eye slipped over the -foot-lights, to the first rows, to the back rows, to the boxes, to the -galleries—over the length and breadth of that world of folks—thousands -of them—as many as five times them in my whole village. And they were -gathered in a room the size and the shape and—almost the height of a -village green.</p> - -<p>The woman that was going to talk that night I'd never even heard of. She -was a woman that you wouldn't think of just as a woman or a wife or a -mother or a teacher same as some. No, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> thought of her first of all -as folks. And she had eyes like the living room, with all the curtains -up. She'd been talking a little bit before I could get my mind off the -folks and on to her. But all of a sudden something she was saying rang -out just like she had turned and said it to me. I cut it out of the -paper afterwards—this is it, word for word:</p> - -<p>"<i>You who believe yourselves to be interested in social work, ask -yourselves what it is that you are interested in really. I will tell -you. Well, whether you know it or not, fundamentally what you care about -is</i> PEOPLE. <i>Let us say it in a better way. It is</i> FOLKS."</p> - -<p>I never took my eyes off her face after that. For "folks" is a word I -know. Better than any other word in the language, I know that word -"folks."</p> - -<p>She said: "Well, let us see what, in clubs, our social work has been: At -first, Clean-up days, Planting, Children's Gardens, School Gardens, Bill -Boards, the Smoke Nuisance. That is fine, all of it. These are what we -must do to make our towns fit to live in.</p> - -<p>"Then more and more came the need to get nearer to folks—and yet -nearer. And then what did we have? Fly campaigns, Garbage Disposal, Milk -and Food Inspection, Playgrounds, Vocational Guidance, Civic and Moral -training in the schools, Sex Hygiene, Municipal Recreation, Housing. All -this has brought us closer and closer to folks—not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> only to their needs -but to what they have to give. That is fine—all of it. That is what we -have to do.</p> - -<p>"But who is it that has been doing it? Those of us to whom life has been -a little kind. Those of us on whom the anguish and the toil of life do -not fall the most heavily. We are free to do these things. Clean, -cleanly clothed, having won—or been given—a little leisure, we are -free to meet together and to turn our thought to the appearance of our -cities—and to the other things. That is a great step. We have come very -far, my friends.</p> - -<p>"But is it far enough?</p> - -<p>"Here in this hall with us to-night there are others besides ourselves. -Each of us from near towns and far cities comes shepherding a cloud of -witnesses. Who are these? Say those others, clean and leisured, who live -in your town, and yours. Say the school children, that vast, ambiguous -host, from your town and yours and yours. Say the laboring -children—five hundred thousand of them in the states which you in this -room represent—my friends, the <i>laboring children</i>. Say, the seven -million and more women workers in your states and mine. Say the -men,—the wage earners,—toilers with the hands, multitudes, multitudes, -who on the earth and beneath it, in your town and yours and yours, are -at labor now, that we may be here—clean and at leisure. I tell you they -are all here,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> sitting with us, shadowy. And the immediate concerns of -these are the immediate concerns of us. And social work is the -development of the chance for all of us to participate more abundantly -in our common need to live.</p> - -<p>"As fast as in you lies, let your civic societies look farther than -conserving or planting or beautifying, or even cleaning. Give these -things to committees—important committees. And turn you to the -fundamentals. Turn to the industries and to the government and to the -schools of your towns and there work, for there lie the hidings of your -power. Here are the great tasks of the time: The securing of economic -justice for labor, the liberation of women, and the great deliverances: -From war, from race prejudice, from prostitution, from alcohol, and at -last from poverty.</p> - -<p>"These are the things <i>we</i> have to do. Not they. We. You and I. These -are your tasks and mine and the tasks of those who have not our -cleanliness nor our leisure, but who will help as fast as ever we learn -how to share that help—as fast as ever we all learn how to work as -one.... Oh, my friends, we must dream far. We must dream the farthest -that folks can go. For life is something other than that which we -believe it to be."</p> - -<p>When she'd got through, right in the middle of the power and the glory -that came in my head, something else flew up and it was:</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p><p>1. See about having seats put in the County House Yard.</p> - -<p>2. See about getting the blankets in the Calaboose washed oftener.</p> - -<p>3. See about—and all the rest of them.</p> - -<p>And instead, <i>this</i> was what we were for, till all of us have earned the -right to something better. This was what we could help to do. It was -like the sky had turned into a skylight, and let me look up through....</p> - -<p>My seat was on the side corner of the platform, nearest to her. She had -spoken last, and everybody was rustling to go. I didn't wait a minute. I -went down close beside the footlights and the blue hydrangeas, and held -out my letter. And I says:</p> - -<p>"Oh! Come to Friendship Village. You must come. We were going to get the -blankets in the calaboose washed oftener—and—we—oh, you come, and -make us see that life is the kind of thing you say it is, and show us -that we belong!"</p> - -<p>She took the letter that Mis' Fire Chief Merriman had composed for me, -and right while forty folks were waiting for her, she stood and read it. -She had a wonderful kind of tender smile, and she smiled with that. And -then all she says to me was all I wanted:</p> - -<p>"I'll come. When do you want me?"</p> - -<p>Never, not if I live till after my dying day, will I forget the day that -I got back to Friendship Village.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> When it came in sight through the car -window, I saw it—not sitting down on its green cushions now, but -standing tip-toe on its heaven-kissing hills—waiting to see what we -could do to it. When you come home from a big convention like that, if -you don't step your foot on your own depot platform with a new sense of -consecration to your town, and to all living things, then you didn't -deserve your badge, nor your seat, nor your privilege. And as I rode -into the town, thinking this, and thinking more than I had words to -think with, I wanted to chant a chant, like Deborah (but pronounced -Déborah when it's a relative). And I wanted to say:</p> - -<p>"Oh, Lord. Here we live in a town five thousand strong, and we been -acting like we were five thousand weak—and we never knew it.</p> - -<p>"And because we had learned to sweep up a few feet beyond our own -door-yard, and had found out the names of a few things we had never -heard of before, we thought we were civic. We even thought we were -social.</p> - -<p>"Civic. Social. We thought these were new names for new things. And here -they are only bringing in the kingdom of God, that we've known about all -along.</p> - -<p>"Oh, it isn't going to be brought in by women working along alone. Nor -by men working along alone. It's going to come in by whole towns rising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> -up together men and women, shoulder to shoulder, and nobody left out, -organized and conscious and working like one folk. Like one folk."</p> - -<p>Mis' Amanda Toplady and Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss were at the -depot to meet me. I remember how they looked, coming down the platform, -with an orange and lemon and water-melon sunset idling down the sky.</p> - -<p>And then Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss says to me, with her eye-brows -all pleased and happy:</p> - -<p>"Oh, Calliope, we've got the new seats for the County House Yard. -They're iron, painted green, with a leaf design on the back."</p> - -<p>"And," chimes in the other one, "we've got them to say they'll wash the -blankets in the calaboose every quarter."</p> - -<p>I wanted to begin right then. But I didn't. I just walked down the -street with them, a-carrying my bag and my umbrella, and when one of -them says, "Well, I'm sure your dress don't look so very much wore after -all, Calliope," I answered back, casual enough, just as if I was -thinking about what she said: "Well, I give you my word, I haven't once -thought about myself in con-nection with that dress."</p> - -<p>Together we went down Daphne Street in the afternoon sun. And they -didn't know, nor Friendship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> Village didn't know, that walking right -along with us three was the tramp and the tramp of the feet of a great -convention that had come home with me, right there to our village. Oh, I -mean the tramp and the tramp of the feet of the folks in the whole -world.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Copyright, 1914, <i>La Follette's Magazine</i>.</p></div> -</div> - -<p class="center space-above">THE END</p> - -<p class="center space-above">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Peace in Friendship Village, by Zona Gale - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEACE IN FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE *** - -***** This file should be named 52410-h.htm or 52410-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/4/1/52410/ - -Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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