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.