"The new editor of the _Friendship Village Evening Daily_ give a fine
write-up of the celebration. He printed it on the night after the
Fourth, not getting out any paper at all on the day that was the day;
but on the night after that, the news columns of his paper fell flat and
dead. In a village the day following a holiday is like the hush after a
noise. The whole town seems like it was either asleep or on tiptoe. And
in Friendship Village this hush was worse than the hush of other years.
Other years they'd usually been accidents to keep track of, and mebbe
even an amputation or two to report. But this Fourth there was no
misfortunes whatever, nor nothing to make good reading for the night of
July 6.
"So the editor thought over his friends and run right down the news
column, telling what there _wasn't_. Like this:--
"'SUPPER TABLE JOTTINGS
"'Postmaster Silas Sykes is well.
"'Timothy Toplady has not had a cold since before Christmas.
Prudent Timothy.
"'Jimmy Sturgis has not broken his leg yet this year as he did
last. Keep it up, Jimmy.
"'Eppleby Holcomb has not been out of town for quite a while.
"'None of the Friendship ladies has given a party all season.
"'The First Church is not burnt down nor damaged nor repaired.
Insurance $750.
"'Nothing local is in much of any trouble.
"'Nobody is dead here to-day except the usual ones.
"'Nobody that's got a telephone in has any company at the present
writing. Where is the old-time hospitality?
"'Subscriptions payable in advance.
"'Subscriptions payable in advance.
"'Subscriptions payable in advance.'
"It made quite some fun for us, two or three of us happening in the
post-office store when the paper come out--Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady
and me. But we took it some to heart, too, because to live in a town
where they ain't nothing active happening all the time is a kind of
running account of everybody that's in the town. And us ladies wan't
that kind.
"All them locals done to Silas Sykes, though, was to set him fussing
over nothing ever happening to him. Silas is real particular about his
life, and I guess he gets to thinking how life ain't so over-particular
about him.
"'My dum,' he says that night, 'that's just the way with this town. I
always calculated my life was goin' to be quite some pleasure to me. But
I don't see as it is. If I thought I was going to get sold in my death
like I've been in my life, I swan I'd lose my interest in dyin'.'
"Mis' Timothy Toplady was over in behind the counter picking out her
butter, and she whirled around from sampling the jars, and she says to
Mis' Sykes and me:--
"'Ladies,' she says, 'le's us propose it to the editor that seems to
have such a hard job, that us members of Sodality take a hold of his
paper for a day and get it out for him and put some news in it, and sell
it to everybody, subscribers and all, that one night, for ten cents.'
"Mis' Silas Sykes looks up and stopped winking and breathing, in a way
she has when she sights some distant money for Sodality.
"'Land, land,' she says, 'I bet they'd go like hot cakes.'
"But Silas he snorts, scorching.
"'Will you ladies tell me,' he says, 'where you going to _get_ your news
to put in your paper? The Fourth don't come along every day. Or less you
commit murder and arson and runaways, there won't be any more in your
paper than they is in its editor's.'
"That hit a tender town-point, and I couldn't stand it no longer. I
spoke right up.
"'Oh, I donno, I donno, Silas,' I says. 'They's those in this town
that's doin' the murderin' for us, neat an' nice, right along,' I told
him.
"'Mean to say?' snapped Silas.
"'Mean to say,' says I, 'most every grocery store in this town an' most
every milkman an' the meat market as well is doin' their best to drag
the health out o' people's systems for 'em. Us ladies is more or less
well read an' knowledgeable of what is goin' on in the world outside,' I
says to Silas that ain't, 'an' we know a thing or two about what ought
to be clean.'
"Since Insley come, we had talked a good deal more about these things
and what was and what shouldn't be; and especially we had talked it in
Sodality, on account of our town stores and social ways and such being
so inviting to disease and death. But we hadn't talked it official,
'count of Sodality being for Cemetery use, and talking it scattering we
hadn't been able to make the other men even listen to us.
"'Pack o' women!' says Silas, now, and went off to find black molasses
for somebody.
"Mis' Toplady sampled her butter, dreamy.
"'Rob Henny's butter here,' she says, 'is made out of cow sheds that I
can't bear to think about. An' Silas knows it. Honest,' she says, 'I'm
gettin' so I spleen against the flowers in the fields for fear Rob
Henny's cows'll get holt of 'em. I should think the _Daily_ could write
about that.'
"I remember how us three women looked at each other then, like our
brains was experimenting with our ideas. And when Mis' Toplady got her
butter, we slipped out and spoke together for a few minutes up past the
Town Pump. And it was there the plan come to a head and legs and arms.
And we see that we had a way of picking purses right off of every day,
so be the editor would leave us go ahead--and of doing other things.
"The very next morning we three went to see the editor and get his
consent.
"'What's your circulation, same as City papers print to the top of the
page?' Mis' Toplady asks him, practical.
"'Paid circulation or got-out circulation?' says the editor.
"'Paid,' says Mis' Toplady, in silver-dollar tones.
"'Ah, well, _paid for_ or subscribed for?' asks the editor.
"'Paid for,' says Mis' Toplady, still more financial.
"'Six hundred and eighty paid for,' the editor says, 'an' fifty-two
that--mean to pay.'
"'My!' says Mis' Toplady, shuddering. 'What business is! Well, us ladies
of the Sodality want to run your paper for one day and charge all your
subscribers ten cents extra for that day's paper. Will you?'
"The editor, he laughed quite a little, and then he looked thoughtful.
He was new and from the City and young and real nervous--he used to pop
onto his feet whenever a woman so much as come in the room.
"'Who would collect the ten cents?' says he.
"'Sodality,' says Mis' Toplady, firm. 'Ourself, cash an' _in advance_.'
"The editor nodded, still smiling.
"'Jove,' he said, 'this fits in remarkably well with the fishing I've
been thinking about. I confess I need a day. I suppose you wouldn't want
to do it this week?'
"Mis' Toplady looked at me with her eyebrows. But I nodded. I always
rather hurry up than not.
"'So be we had a couple o' hours to get the news to happenin',' says
she, 'that had ought to do us.'
"The editor looked startled.
"'News!' said he. 'Oh, I say now, you mustn't expect too much. I ought
to warn you that running a paper in this town is like trying to raise
cream on a cistern.'
"Mis' Toplady smiled at him motherly.
"'You ain't ever tried pouring the cream into the cistern, I guess,' she
says.
"So we settled it into a bargain, except that, after we had planned it
all out with him and just as we was going out the door, Mis' Toplady
thought to say to him:--
"'You know, Sodality don't know anything about it yet, so you'd best not
mention it out around till this afternoon when we vote to do it. We'll
be up at eight o'clock Thursday morning, rain or shine.'
"There wasn't ever any doubt about Sodality when it see Sixty Dollars
ahead--which we would get if everybody bought a paper, and we was
determined that everybody should buy. Sodality members scraps among
themselves personal, but when it comes to raising money we unite yoke to
yoke, and all differences forgot. It's funny sometimes at the meetings,
funny and disgraceful, to hear how we object to each other, especially
when we're tired, and then how we all unite together on something for
the good of the town. I tell you, it makes me feel sometimes that the
way ain't so much to try to love each other,--which other folks'
peculiarities is awful in the way of,--but for us all to pitch in and
love something altogether, your town or your young folks, or your
cemetery or keeping something clean or making somethin' look nice--and
before you know it you're loving the folks you work with, no matter how
peculiar, or even more so. It's been so nice since we've been working
for Cemetery. Folks that make each other mad every time they try to talk
can sell side by side at the same bazaar and count the money mutual.
There's quite a few disagreements in Sodality, so we have to be real
careful who sets next to who to church suppers. But when we pitch in to
work for something, we sew rags and 'scallop oysters in the same pan
with our enemies. Don't it seem as if that must mean something?
Something big?
"Sodality voted to publish the paper, all right, and elected the
officers for the day: Editor, Mis' Postmaster Sykes, 'count of her
always expecting to take the lead in everything; assistant editor, me,
'count of being well and able to work like a dog; business manager and
circulation man, Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, 'count of no dime
ever getting away from her unexpected. And the reporters was to be most
of the rest of the Sodality: Mis' Timothy Toplady, the three Liberty
girls, Mis' Mayor Uppers, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, Mis' Threat
Hubbelthwait, an' Abagail Arnold, that keeps the home bakery. It was
hard for Abagail to get away from her cook stove and her counter, so we
fixed it that she was to be let off any other literary work along of her
furnishing us our sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs that day noon. It was
quite a little for Abagail to do, but she's always real willing, and we
didn't ask coffee of her. Mis' Sturgis, her that is the village invalid,
we arranged should have charge of the Woman's Column, and bring down her
rocking chair and make her beef broth right there on the office
wood-stove.
"I guess we was all glad to go down early in the morning that day,
'count of not meeting the men. One and all and with one voice the
Friendship men had railed at us hearty.
"'Pack o' women!' says Silas Sykes, over and over.
"'You act like bein' a woman an' a wife was some kind o' nonsense,' says
Mis' Sykes back at him, majestic. 'Well, I guess bein' yours is.'
"'Land, Amandy,' says Timothy Toplady, 'you women earn money so
_nervous_. Why don't you do it regular an' manly?'
"Only Eppleby Holcomb had kept his silence. Eppleby sees things that the
run of men don't see, or, if they did see them, they would be bound to
stick them in their ledgers where they would never, never belong.
Eppleby was our friend, and Sodality never had truer.
"So though we went ahead, the men had made us real anxious. And most of
us slipped down to the office by half past seven so's not to meet too
many. The editor had had a column in the paper about what we was goin'
to do--'Loyal to our Local Dead' he headed it, and of course full half
the town was kicking at the extra ten cents, like full half of any town
can and will kick when it's asked to pay out for its own good, dead or
alive. But we was leaving all that to Mis' Holcomb, that knows a thing
or two about the human in us, and similar.
"Extra-paper morning, when we all come in, Mis' Sykes she was sitting at
the editor's desk with her big apron on and a green shade to cover up
her crimping kids, and her list that her and Mis' Toplady and I had made
out, in front of her.
"'Now then, let's get right to work,' she says brisk. 'We ain't any too
much time, I can tell you. It ain't like bakin' bread or gettin' the
vegetables ready. We've all got to use muscles this day we ain't used to
usin',' she says, 'an' we'd best be spry.'
"So then she begun giving out who was to do what--assignments, the
editor named it when he told us what to do. And I skipped back an' hung
over the files, well knowing what was to come.
"Mis' Sykes stood up in her most society way, an'--
"'Anybody want to back out?' says she, gracious.
"'Land!' says everyone in a No-I-don't tone.
"'Very well,' says Mis' Sykes. 'Mis' Toplady, you go out to Rob Henney's
place, an' you go through his cow sheds from one end to the other an'
take down notes so's he sees you doin' it. You go into his kitchen an'
don't you let a can get by you. Open his churn. Rub your finger round
the inside of his pans. An' if he won't tell you, the neighbours will.
Explain to him you're goin' to give him a nice, full printed description
in to-night's _Daily_, just the way things are. If he wants it changed
any, he can clean all up, an' we'll write up the clean-up like a
compliment.'
"Just for one second them assembled women was dumb. But it hardly took
them that instant to sense what was what. And all of a sudden, Mame
Holcomb, I guess it was, bursted out in a little understanding giggle,
and after a minute everybody joined in, too. For we'd got the whole
world of Friendship Village where we wanted it, and every one of them
women see we had, so be we wasn't scared.
"'Mis' Uppers,' Mis' Sykes was going on, 'you go down to Betts's meat
market. You poke right through into the back room. An' you tell Joe
Betts that you're goin' to do a write-up of that room an' the alley back
of it for the paper to-night, showin' just what's what. If so be he
wants to turn in an' red it up this mornin', tell him you'll wait till
noon an' describe it then, _providin'_ he keeps it that way. An' you
might let him know you're goin' to run over to his slaughterhouse an'
look around while you're waitin', an' put that in your write-up, too.'
"'Miss Hubbelthwait,' Mis' Sykes went on, 'you go over to the Calaboose.
They won't anybody be in the office--Dick's saloon is that. Skip right
through in the back part, an' turn down the blankets on both beds an'
give a thorough look. If it's true they's no sheets an' pillow-cases on
the calaboose beds, an' that the blankets is only washed three times a
year so's to save launderin', we can make a real interestin' column
about that.'
"'Miss Merriman,' says Mis' Sykes to Mis' Fire Chief, 'I've give you a
real hard thing because you do things so delicate. Will you take a walk
along the residence part of town an' go into every house an' ask 'em to
let you see their back door an' their garbage pail. Tell 'em you're
goin' to write a couple of columns on how folks manage this. Ask 'em
their idees on the best way. Give 'em to understand if there's a real
good way they're thinkin' of tryin' that you'll put that in, providin'
they begin tryin' right off. An' tell 'em they can get it carted off for
ten cents a week if enough go in on it. An' be your most delicate, Mis'
Fire Chief, for we don't want to offend a soul.'
"Libby an' Viney Liberty Mis' Sykes sent round to take a straw vote in
every business house in town to see how much they'd give towards
starting a shelf library in the corner of the post-office store, a full
list to be printed in order with the amount or else 'Not a cent' after
each name. And the rest of Sodality she give urrants similar or even
more so.
"'An' all o' you,' says Mis' Sykes, 'pick up what you can on the way.
And if anybody starts in to object, you tell 'em you have instructions
to make an interview out of any of the interestin' things they say. And
you might tell 'em you don't want they should be buried in a nice
cemetery if they don't want to be.'
"Well, sir, they started off--some scairt, but some real brave, too. And
the way they went, we see every one of them meant business.
"'But oh,' says Mis' Sturgis, fixing her medicine bottles outside on the
window-sill, '_supposin'_ they can't do it. _Supposin'_ folks ain't nice
to 'em. What'll we put in the paper then?'
"Mis' Sykes drew herself up like she does sometimes in society.
"'Well,' she says, 'supposin'. Are we runnin' this paper or ain't we?
There's nothin' to prevent our writin' editorials about these things, as
I see. Our husbands can't very well sue us for libel, because they'd hev
to pay it themselves. Nor they can't put us in prison for debt, because
who'd get their three meals? I can't see but we're sure of an
interestin' paper, anyway.'
"Then she looked over at me sort of sad.
"'Go on, Calliope,' says she, 'you know what you've got to do. Do it,'
she says, 'to the bitter end.'
"I knew, and I started out, and I made straight for Silas Sykes, and the
post-office store. Silas wan't in the store, it was so early; but he had
the floor all sprinkled nice, and the vegetables set out, all uncovered,
close to the sidewalk; and everything real tasty and according to
grocery-store etiquette. The boy was gone that day. And Silas himself
was in the back room, sortin' over prunes.
"'Hello, Calliope,' s'he. 'How's literchoor?'
"'Honest as ever,' I says. 'Same with food?'
"'Who says I ain't honest?' says Silas, straightening up, an' holding
all his fingers stiff 'count of being sticky.
"'Why, I donno who,' says I. 'Had anybody ought to? How's business,
Silas?'
"'Well,' says he, 'for us that keeps ourselves up with the modern
business methods, it's pretty good, I guess.'
"'Do you mean pretty good, Silas, or do you mean pretty paying?' I ask'
him.
"Silas put on his best official manner. 'Look at here,' s'e, 'what can I
do for you? Did you want to buy somethin' or did you want your mail?'
"'Oh, neither,' I says. 'I want some help from you, Silas, about the
paper to-day.'
"My, that give Silas a nice minute. He fairly weltered in satisfaction.
"'Huh,' he says, elegant, 'didn't I tell you you was bitin' off more'n
you could chew? Want some assistance from me, do you, in editin' this
paper o' yours? Well, I suppose I can help you out a little. What is it
you want me to do for you?'
"'We thought we'd like to write you up,' I told him.
"Silas just swelled. For a man in public office, Silas Sykes feels about
as presidential as anybody I ever see. If they was to come out from the
City and put him on the front page of the morning paper, he's the kind
that would wonder why they hadn't done it before.
"'Sketch of my life?' s'e, genial. 'Little outline of my boyhood? Main
points in my career?'
"'Well,' I says, 'no. We thought the present'd be about all we'd hev
room for. We want to write up your business, Silas,' I says, 'in an
advertising way.'
"'Oh!' says Silas, snappy. 'You want me to pay to be wrote up, is that
it?'
"'Well,' I says, 'no; not if you don't want to. Of course everybody'll
be buried in the Cemetery whether they give anything towards the fund
for keeping it kep' up or not.'
"'Lord Heavens,' says Silas, 'I've had that Cemetery fund rammed down my
throat till I'm sick o' the thought o' dyin'.'
"That almost made me mad, seeing we was having the disadvantage of doing
the work and Silas going to get all the advantages of burial.
"'Feel the same way about some of the Ten Commandments, don't you,
Silas?' I says, before I knew it.
"Silas just rared.
"'The Ten Commandments!' says he, 'the Ten Commandments! Who can show me
one I ain't a-keepin' like an old sheep. Didn't I honour my father an'
mother as long as I had 'em? Did they ever buy anything of me at more
than cost? Didn't I give 'em new clothes an' send 'em boxes of oranges
an' keep up their life insurance? Do I ever come down to the store on
the Sabbath Day? Do I ever distribute the mail then, even if I'm
expectin' a letter myself? The Sabbath I locked the cat in, didn't I
send the boy down to let it out, for fear I'd be misjudged if I done it?
Who do I ever bear false witness against unless I know they've done what
I say they've done? I can't kill a fly--an' I'm that tender-hearted
that I make the hired girl take the mice out o' the trap because I can't
bring myself to do it. So you might go through the whole list an' just
find me workin' at 'em an' a-keepin' 'em. What do you mean about the Ten
Commandments?' he ends up, ready to burst.
"'Don't ask me,' I says. 'I ain't that familiar with 'em. I didn't know
anybody was. Go on about 'em. Take stealing--you hadn't got to that
one.'
"'_Stealing_,' says Silas, pompous. 'I don't know what it is.'
"And with that I was up on my feet.
"'I thought you didn't,' says I. 'Us ladies of Sodality have all thought
it over an' over again: That you don't know stealing when you see it.
No, nor not even when you've done it. Come here, Silas Sykes!' I says.
"I whipped by him into the store, and he followed me, sheer through
being dazed, and keeping still through being knocked dumb.
"'Look here,' I says, 'here's your counter of bakery stuff--put in to
take from Abagail, but no matter about that now. Where do you get it?
From the City, with the label stuck on. What's the bakery like where you
buy it? It's under a sidewalk and dust dirty, and I happen to know you
know it. And look at the bread--not a thing over it, flies promenadin'
on the crust, and you counting out change on an apple-pie the other
day--I see you do it. Look at your dates, all uncovered and dirt from
the street sticking to them like the pattern. Look at your fly-paper,
hugged up against your dried-fruit box that's standing wide open. Look
at you keeping fish and preserved fruit and canned stuff that you know
is against the law--going to start keeping the law quick as you get
these sold out, ain't you, Silas? Look at your stuff out there in front,
full of street dirt and flies and ready to feed folks. And you keepin'
the Ten Commandments like an old sheep--and being a church elder, and
you might better climb porches and bust open safes. I s'pose you wonder
what I'm sayin' all this to you for?'
"'No, ma'am,' says Silas, like the edge o' something, 'I don't wonder at
your sayin' _anything_ to anybody.'
"'I've got more to say,' I says, dry. 'I've only give you a sample. An'
the place I'm goin' to say it is _The Friendship Village Evening Daily_,
_Extra_, to-night, in a descriptive write-up of you and your store. I
thought it might interest you to know.'
"'It's libel--it's libel!' says Silas, arms waving.
"'All right,' says I, liberating a fly accidentally caught on a date.
'Who you going to sue? Your wife, that's the editor? And everybody
else's wife, that's doing the same thing to every behind-the-times
dealer in town?'
"Silas hung on to that straw.
"'Be they doin' it to the others, too?' he asks.
"Then I told him.
"'Yes,' I says, 'Silas, only--they ain't goin' to start writing up the
descriptions till noon. And if you--and they all--want to clean up the
temples where you do business and make them fit for the Lord to look
down on and a human being to come into, you've got your chance. And
seeing your boy is gone to-day, if you'll do it, I'll stay and help you
with it--and mebbe make room for some of the main points in your career
as well,' says I, sly.
"Silas looked out the door, his arms folded and his beard almost
pointing up, he'd made his chin so firm. And just in that minute when I
was feeling that all the law and the prophets, and the health of
Friendship Village, and the life of people not born, was hanging around
that man's neck--or the principle of them, anyway--Silas's eye and mine
fell on a strange sight. Across the street, from out Joe Betts's meat
market come Joe Betts, and behind him his boy. And Joe begun pointing,
and the boy begun taking down quarters of beef hung over the sidewalk.
Joe pointed consid'able. And then he clim' up on his meat wagon that
stood by the door, and out of the shop I see Mis' Mayor Uppers come,
looking ready to drop. And she clim' up to the seat beside him--he
reaching down real gentlemanly to help her up. And he headed his horse
around on what I guessed was a bee-line for the slaughterhouse.
"Well, sir, at that, Silas Sykes put his hands on his knees and bent
over and begun laughing. And he laughed like I ain't seen him since he's
got old and begun to believe that life ain't cut after his own plan that
he made. And I laughed a little, too, out of sheer being glad that a
laugh can settle so many things right in the world. And when he sobered
down a little, I says gentle:--
"'Silas, I'll throw out the dates and the dusty lettuce. And we'll hev
it done in no time. I'll be glad to get an early start on the write-up.
I don't compose very ready,' I told him.
"He was awful funny while we done the work. He was awful still, too.
Once when I lit on a piece of salt pork that I knew, first look, was
rusty, 'Them folks down on the flats buys it,' he says. 'They like it
just as good as new-killed.' 'All right,' s'I, careless, 'I'll make a
note of that to shine in my article. It needs humour some,' s'I. Then
Silas swore, soft and under his breath, as an elder should, but quite
vital. And he took the pork out to the alley barrel, an' I sprinkled
ashes on it so's he shouldn't slip out and save it afterwards.
"It was 'leven o'clock when we got done, me having swept out behind the
counters myself, and Silas he mopped his face and stood hauling at his
collar.
"'I'll get on my white kids now,' s'e, dry. 'I can't go pourin' kerosene
an' slicin' cheese in this place barehanded any more. Gosh,' he says, 'I
bet when they see it, they'll want to have church in here this comin'
Sunday.'
"'No need to be sacrilegious, as I know of, Silas,' s'I, sharp.
"'No need to be livin' at all, as I see,' says Silas, morbid; 'just lay
low an' other folks'll step in an' do it for you, real capable.'
"I give him the last word. I thought it was his man's due.
"When I got back to the office, Libby Liberty an' Mis' Toplady was there
before me. They was both setting on high stools up to the file shelf,
with their feet tucked up, an' the reason was that Viney Liberty was
mopping the floor. She had a big pail of suds and her skirt pinned up,
and she was just lathering them boards. Mis' Sykes at the main desk was
still labouring over her editorials, breathing hard, the boards steaming
soap all around her.
"'I couldn't stand it,' Viney says. 'How a man can mould public opinion
in a place where the floor is pot-black gets me. My land, my ash house
is a dinin' room side of this room, an' the window was a regular gray
frost with dust. Ain't men the funniest lot of folks?' she says.
"'Funny,' says I, 'but awful amiable if you kind of sing their key-note
to 'em.'
"Mis' Sykes pulled my skirt.
"'How was he?' she asks in a pale voice.
"'He was crusty,' says I, triumphant, 'but he's beat.'
"She never smiled. 'Calliope Marsh,' says she, cold, 'if you've sassed
my husband, I'll never forgive you.'
"I tell you, men may be some funny, and often are. But women is odd as
Dick's hatband and I don't know but odder.
"'How'd you get on?' I says to Mis' Toplady and the Libertys. The
Libertys they handed out a list on two sheets, both sides with sums
ranging from ten to fifty cents towards a shelf library for public use;
but Mis' Toplady, the tears was near streaming down her cheeks.
"'Rob Henney,' she says, mournful, 'gimme to understand he'd see me
in--some place he hadn't ought to of spoke of to me, nor to no
one--before I could get in his milk sheds.'
"'What did you say to him?' I ask', sympathetic.
"'I t-told him,' says Mis' Toplady, 'that lookin' for me wouldn't be the
only reason he'd hev for goin' there. And then he said some more. He
said he'd be in here this afternoon to stop his subscription off.'
"'So you didn't get a thing?' I says, grieving for her, but Mis'
Toplady, she bridled through her tears.
"'I got a column!' she flashed out. 'I put in about the sheds, that the
whole town knows, anyway, an' I put in what he said to me. An' I'm goin'
to read it to him when he comes in. An' after that he can take his pick
about havin' it published, or else cleanin' up an' allowin' Sodality to
inspect him reg'lar.'
"By just before twelve o'clock we was all back in the office, Mis' Fire
Chief, Mis' Uppers, fresh from the slaughterhouse, and so on, all but
Mame Holcomb that was out seeing to the circulation. And I tell you we
set to work in earnest, some of us to the desks, and some of us working
on their laps, and everybody hurrying hectic. The office was awful
hot--Mis' Sturgis had built up a little light fire to heat up her beef
broth, and she was stirring it, her shawl folded about her, in between
writing receipts. But it made it real confusing, all of us doing our
best so hard, and wanting to tell each other what had happened, and
seeing about spelling and all.
"'Land, land,' says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, 'you'd ought to _see_ the
Carters' back door. They wan't nobody to home there, so I just took a
look, anyway, bein' it was for Sodality, so. They ain't no real garbage
pail--'
"'Who said, "Give me Liberty or give me Death?"' ask' Mis' Sykes,
looking up kind o' glassy. 'Was it Daniel Webster or Daniel Boone?'
"'Ladies,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, when we'd settled down on Daniel
Boone, 'if I ever do a crime, I won't stop short at stealin' somebody's
cow an' goin' to calaboose. I'll do a whole beef corner, or some real
United States sin, an' get put in a place that's clean. Why over to the
calaboose--'
"'Ugh!' says Mis' Uppers, 'don't say "beef" when I'm where I can hear.
I donno what I'll do without my steak, but do it I will. Ladies, the
cleanest of us is soundin' brass an' tinklin' cannibals. Why do they
call 'em _tinklin'_ cannibals?' she wondered to us all.
"'Oh--,' wailed Mis' Sturgis in the rocking-chair, 'some of you ladies
give me your salad dressing receipt. Mine is real good on salad, but on
paper it don't sound fit to eat. I don't seem to have no book-style
about me to-day.'
"'How do you spell _embarrass_?' asked Libby Liberty. 'Is it an _r_ an'
two _s_'s or two _r_'s and an _s_?'
"'It's two _s_'s at the end, so it must be one _r_,' volunteers Mis'
Sykes. 'That used to mix me up some, too.'
"Just then up come Abagail Arnold bringing the noon lunch, and she had
the sandwiches and the eggs not only, but a pot of hot coffee thrown in,
and a basket of doughnuts, sugared. She set them out on Mis' Sykes's
desk, and we all laid down our pencils and drew up on our high stools
and swing chairs, Mis' Sturgis and all, and nothing in the line of food
had ever looked so welcoming.
"'Oh, the eatableness of nice refreshments!' says Mis' Toplady, sighing.
"'This is when it ain't victuals, its viands,' says Mis' Sykes, showing
pleased.
"But well do I remember, we wasn't started to eat, and Abagail still
doing the pouring, when the composing room door opened--I donno _why_
they called it that, for we done the composing in the office, and they
only got out the paper in there--and in come the foreman, with an apron
of bed-ticking. He was Riddy Styles, that we all knew him.
"'Excuse me,' he says, hesitating, 'but us fellows thought we'd ought to
mention that we can't get no paper out by quittin' time if we don't get
a-hold of some copy pretty quick.'
"'Copy o' what?' says Mis' Sykes, our editor.
"'Why, copy,' says Riddy. 'Stuff for the paper.'
"Mis' Sykes looked at him, majestic.
"'_Stuff_,' she says. 'You will please to speak,' she says, 'more
respectfully than that to us ladies, Mr. Styles.'
"'It was meant right,' says Riddy, stubborn. 'It's the word we always
use.'
"'It ain't the word you use, not with us,' says Mis' Sykes, womanly.
"'Well,' says Riddy, 'we'd ought to get to settin' up _somethin'_ by
half past twelve, if we start in on the dictionary.'
"Then he went off to his dinner, and the other men with him, and Mis'
Sykes leaned back limp.
"'I been writin' steady,' she says, 'since half past eight o'clock this
mornin', an' I've only got one page an' one-half composed.'
"We ask' each other around, and none of us was no more then started, let
be it was Mis' Toplady, that had got in first.
"'Le's us leave our lunch,' says Mis' Sykes, then. 'Le's us leave it
un-et. Abagail, you put it back in the basket an' pour the coffee into
the pot. An' le's us _write_. Wouldn't we all rather hev one of our sick
headaches,' she says, firm, 'than mebbe make ourselves the Laughing
Stock? Ladies, I ask you.'
"An' we woulded, one and all. Sick headaches don't last long, but
laughed-at has regular right down eternal life.
"Ain't it strange how slow the writing muscles and such is, that you
don't use often? Pitting cherries, splitting squash, peeling potatoes,
slicing apples, making change at church suppers,--us ladies is lightning
at 'em all. But getting idees down on paper--I declare if it ain't more
like waiting around for your bread to raise on a cold morning. Still
when you're worried, you can press forward more than normal, and among
us we had quite some material ready for Riddy and the men when they came
back. But not Mis' Sykes. She wan't getting on at all.
"'If I could only _talk_ it,' she says, grieving, 'or I donno if I could
even do that. What I want to say is in me, rarin' around my head like
life, an' yet I can't get it out no more'n money out of a tin bank. I
shall disgrace Sodality,' she says, wild.
"'Cheer up,' says Libby Liberty, soothing. 'Nobody ever reads the
editorials, anyway. I ain't read one in years.'
"'You tend to your article,' snaps Mis' Sykes.
"I had got my write-up of Silas all turned in to Riddy, and I was
looking longing at Abagail's basket, when, banging the door, in come
somebody breathing like raging, and it was Rob Henney, that I guess we'd
all forgot about except it was Mis' Toplady that was waiting for him.
"Rob Henney always talks like he was long distance.
"'I come in,' he says, blustering, 'I come in to quit off my
subscription to this fool paper, that a lot o' fool women--'
"Mis' Sykes looks up at him out from under her hand that her head was
resting on.
"'Go on out o' here, Mr. Henney,' she says sharp to him, 'an' quit your
subscription quiet. Can't you see you're disturbing us?' she says.
"With that Mis' Toplady wheeled around on her high stool and looked at
him, calm as a clock.
"'Rob Henney,' says she, 'you come over here. I'll read you what I've
wrote about you,' she told him.
"The piece begun like this:--
"'Rob Henney, our esteemed fellow-townsman and milkman, was talked with
this morning on his cow sheds. The reporter said to same that what was
wanting would be visiting the stables, churn, cans, pans, and like that,
being death is milked out of most cows if they are not kept clean and
inspected regular for signs of consumption. Mr. Henney replied as
follows:
"'First: That his cows had never been inspected because nothing of that
kind had ever been necessary.
"'Second: That he was in the milk business for a living, and did the
town expect him to keep it in milk for its health?
"'Third: That folks had been drinking milk since milk begun, and if the
Lord saw fit to call them home, why not through milk, or even through
consumption, as well as through pneumonia and others?
"'Fourth: That he would see the reporter--a lady--in the
lake-that-burneth-with-fire before his sheds and churn and pans and cans
should be put in the paper.
"'Below is how the sheds, churn, pans, and cans look to-day....' And I
tell you, Mis' Toplady, she didn't spare no words. When she meant What,
she said What, elaborate.
"I didn't know for a minute but we'd hev to mop Rob up off the clean
floor. But Mis' Toplady she never forgot who she was.
"'Either that goes in the paper to-night,' she says, 'or you'll clean up
your milk surroundin's--pick your choice. An' Sodality's through with
you if you don't, besides.'
"'Put it in print! Put it in print, if you dast!' yells Rob,
wind-milling his arms some.
"'No need to make an earthquake o' yourself,' Mis' Toplady points out to
him, serene.
"And at that Rob adds a word intending to express a cussing idee, and he
outs and down the stairs. And Mis' Toplady starts to take her article
right in to Riddy. But in the door she met Riddy, hurrying into the
office again. I never see anybody before that looked both red and
haggard, but Riddy did. He come right to the point:--
"'Some of you ladies has got to quit handing in--news,' he says,
scrabbling for a word to please Mis' Sykes. 'We're up to our eyes in
here now. An' there ain't enough room in the paper, either, not without
you get out eight pages or else run a supplement or else throw away the
whole patent inside. An' those ways, we ain't got enough type even if we
had time to burn.'
"Mis' Sykes pushed back her green shade, looking just _chased_.
"'What does he mean?' she says. 'Can't he tend to his type and things
with us doing all the work?'
"Riddy took this real nettlish.
"'I mean,' s'he, clear but brutal, 'you got to cut your stuff somewheres
to the tune of a couple o' columns.'
"Well, it's hard to pick out which colour you'll take when you have a
new dress only once in every so seldom; or which of your hens you'll
kill when you know your chickens like you know your own mind; but these
are nothing to the time we had deciding on what to omit out of the paper
that night. And the decision hurt us even more than the deciding, for
what we left out was Mis' Sturgis's two women's columns.
"'We _can't_ leave out meat nor milk nor cleanliness nor the library,'
says Mis' Toplady, reasonable, 'because them are the things we live by.
An' so with the other write-ups we got planned. But receipts and
patterns an' moth balls is only kind o' decorations, seems though.
Besides, we all know about 'em, an' it's time we stopped talkin' about
'em, anyway.'
"Mis' Sturgis she cried a little on the corner of her shawl.
"'The receipts an' patterns an' moth balls is so w-womanly,' she says.
"Mis' Toplady whirled round at her.
"'If you know anything more womanly than conquerin' dirt an' disease an'
the-dead-that-needn't-die,' s'she, 'I'll roll up my sleeves an' be into
it. But it won't be eyelet embroidery nor yet boiled frostin'!'
"After that they wrote in hasty peace, though four o'clock come racing
across the day like a runaway horse, and us not out of its way. And a
few minutes past, when Riddy was waiting in the door for Mis' Sykes's
last page, somebody most knocked him over, and there come Mis' Holcomb,
our circulation editor, purple and white, like a ghost.
"'Lock the door--lock it!' she says. 'I've bolted the one to the foot of
the stairs. Lock both outside ones an' lay yourselves low!' s'she.
"Riddy an' I done the locking, me well knowing Mis' Holcomb couldn't
give a false alarm no more than a map could.
"'What is it?' we says, pressing Mis' Holcomb to speak, that couldn't
even breathe.
"'Oh, ladies,' says Mis' Holcomb, 'they've rejoined us, or whatever it
is they do. I mean they're going to rejoin us from gettin' out
to-night's paper. The sheriff or the coroner or whoever it is they have,
is comin' with injunctions--_is_ that like handcuffs, do you know? An'
it's Rob Henney's doin'. Eppleby told me. An' I run down the alley an'
beat 'em to it. They're most here. Let's us slap into print what's wrote
an' be ready with the papers the livin' minute we can.'
"Mis' Sykes had shoved her green shade onto the back of her head, and
her crimping pins was all showing forth.
"'What good'll it do us to get the paper _out_?' says she, in a numb
voice. 'We can't distribute 'em around to no one with the sheriff to the
front door with them things to put on us.'
"Then Mis' Holcomb smiled, with her eyes shut, where she sat, breathing
so hard it showed through.
"'I come in the coal door, at the alley,' s'she. 'They'll never think o'
that. Besides, the crowd'll be in front an' the carrier boys too, an'
they'll want to show off out there. An' Eppleby knows--he told me to
come in that way--an' he'll keep 'em interested out in front. Le's us
each take the papers, an' out the coal door, an' distribute 'em around,
ourselves, without the boys, an' collect in the money same time.'
"And that was how we done. For when they come to the door and found it
locked, they pounded a little to show who was who and who wan't and then
they waited out there calm enough, thinking to stop us when the papers
come down would be plenty time. They waited out there, calm and sure,
while upstairs Bedlam went on, but noiseless. And after us ladies was
done with our part, we sat huddled up in the office, soothing Mis'
Sturgis and each other.
"'In one sentence,' Mis' Holcomb says, 'Eppleby says Rob Henney was
going to _put_ injunctions on us. An' in the next he says he was goin'
to _serve_ 'em. What did he mean by that, do you s'pose?'
"'I donno what he meant,' says Mis' Toplady, 'but I wouldn't have
anything to do with _anything_ Rob Henney served.'
"That made us think of Abagail's lunch, laying un-et in the basket. They
wasn't none of us felt like eating, but Mis' Sturgis says she bet if we
didn't eat it, Abagail would feel she hadn't had no part in writing the
paper like us, and so we broke off a little something once around; but
food didn't have much fun for us, not then. And nothing did up to the
minute the paper was done, and we was all ready to sly out the alley
door.
"With Sodality and Riddy Styles and the composing-room men we had above
twenty carriers. Riddy and the men helped us, one and all, because of
course the paper was a little theirs, too, and they was interested and
liked the lark. Land, land, I ain't felt so young or so wicked as I done
getting out that alley door. There's them I wish could see that there's
just as much fun keeping secret about something that may be good as in
being sly about something regular bad.
"When we finally got outside it was suppertime and summer seeming, and
the hour was all sweet and frank, and the whole village was buried in
its evening fried mush and potatoes, or else sprinkling their front
yards. I donno how it was with the others, but I know I went along the
streets seeing through them little houses like they was glass, and
seeing the young folks eating their suppers and growing up and getting
ready to live and to _be_. And in us ladies' arms, in them heavy papers,
it seemed to me we was carrying new life to them, in little ways--in
little ways, but ways that was going to be big with meaning. And I felt
as if something in me kind of snuggled up closer to the way things was
meant to be.
"Us that went west got clear the whole length of Daphne Street without
anybody seeing what we was doing, or else believing that we was doing it
orderly and legitimate. And away out by the Pump pasture, we started in
distributing, and we come working down town, handing out papers to the
residence part like mad and taking in dimes like wild. They was so many
of us, and the _Evening Daily_ office was so located, that by the time
Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady and I come around the corner where the men
and Rob Henney and the rejoiners and the carriers was loafing, waiting,
smoking, and secure, we didn't have many papers left. And we three was
the first ones back.
"'Evenin' paper?' says Mis' Toplady, casual. '_Friendship Village
Evenin' Daily, Extra?_ All the news for a dime?'
"Never have I see a man so truly flabbergasted as Rob Henney, and he did
look like death.
"'You're rejoined!' he yelled, or whatever it is they say--'you're
rejoined by law from printin' your papers or from deestributin' the
same.'
"'Why, Rob Henney,' says Mis' Toplady, 'no call to show fight like that.
Half the town is readin' its papers by now. They've been out for
three-quarters of an hour,' she says.
"Then soft and faint and acrost the street, we heard somebody laugh, and
then kind of spat hands; and we all looked up. And there in the open
upstairs window of the building opposite, we see leaning out Eppleby
Holcomb and Timothy Toplady and Silas Sykes. And when we crossed eyes,
they all made a little cheer like a theatre; and then they come clumping
down stairs and acrost to where we was.
"'Won out, didn't you, by heck!' says Silas, that can only see that far.
"'Blisterin' Benson,' says Timothy, gleeful. '_I_ say we ain't got no
cause to regret our wifes' brains.'
"But Eppleby, he never said a word. He just smiled slow and a-looking
past us. And we knew that from the beginning he had seen our whole plan,
face to face.
"Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady and me, seeing how Rob Henney stood
muttering and beat, and seeing how the day had gone, and seeing what was
what in the world and in all outside of it, we looked at each other,
dead tired, and real happy, and then we just dragged along home to our
kitchens and went to cooking supper. But oh, it wasn't our same old
kitchens nor it wasn't our same old Friendship Village. We was in places
newer and better and up higher, where we see how things are, and how
life would get more particular about us if we'd get particular about
some more of life.