Mothers to Men. Zona Gale

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      "'Oh, I say canvass, house to house,' says Timothy. 'Folks would give you a dime to get you off'n the front porch that wouldn't come out to a dime entertainment, never.'

      "'Why not ask them that's got Dead in their own families, to pay out for 'em, an' leave them alone that's got livin' mouths to feed?' says Threat Hubbelthwait, querulous. Threat ain't no relations but his wife, and he claims to have no Dead of his own. I always say they must be either living or dead, or else where's Threat come in? But he won't admit it.

      "'What you raisin' money for anyhow?' asks Eppleby Holcomb, quiet. Eppleby always keeps still a long time, and then lets out something vital.

      "As a matter of fact, Sodality didn't have no real work on hand, Cemetery lookin' real neat and tasty for Cemetery, and no immediate dead coming on as far as we could know; but we didn't have much of anything in the treasury, either. And when we didn't have any work on hand, we was in the habit of raising money, and when we'd got some money earnt, we was in the habit of devising some nice way to spend it. And so we kept Sodality real alive.

      "'Well, there may not be any active dead just now,' Mis' Sykes explains it, 'but they are sure to die and need us. We had two country funerals to pay for last year. Or I might say, one an' a half, one corpse contributing half enough for his own support in Cemetery.'

      "With that Insley spoke up, kind of firm and nice, with muscles in his tone, like he does:

      "'What's the matter with doing something with these folks before they die?' he asks.

      "I guess we all looked kind of blank—like when you get asked why Columbus discovered America and all you know how to answer is just the date he done so on.

      "'Well-a,' says Mis' Sykes, 'do what?'

      "'Mustn't there be something to do with them, living, if there's everything to be done for them, dead?' Insley asks.

      "'Well-a' says Mis' Sykes, 'I don't know that I understand just how you mean that. Perhaps the Mission Band—'

      "'No,' says Insley. 'You. Us.'

      "I never knew a man to say so little and yet to get so much said.

      "'Well-a,' says Mis' Sykes, 'of course Sodality was formed with the idee of caring for Cemetery. You see that lets in the Dead only.'

      "'Gosh,' says Eppleby Holcomb, 'how exclusive.' But I don't know as anybody heard him but me.

      "'I know,' says Insley, slow. 'Well, at any rate, perhaps there are things that all of us Living might do together—for the sake, say, of earning some money for the Dead. There'd be no objection to that, would there?'

      "'Oh, no,' says Mis' Sykes. 'I'm sure nobody could take exception to that. Of course you always have to earn money out of the living.'

      "Insley looked at us all kind of shy—at one and another and another of us, like he thought he might find some different answer in somebody's eyes. I smiled at him, and so did Mis' Toplady, and so did Eppleby; and Mis' Eleanor Emmons, the widow-lady, lately moved in, she nodded. But the rest set there like their faces was on wrong side out and didn't show no true pattern.

      "'I mean,' he says, not quite knowing how to make us understand what he was driving at, 'I mean, let's get to know these folks while they are alive. Aren't we all more interested in folks, than we are in their graves?'

      "'Folks,' Timothy Toplady says over, meditative, like he'd heard of members, customers, clients, murderers and the like, but never of folks.

      "'I mean,' Insley says again, 'oh, any one of a dozen things. For instance, do something jolly that'll give your young people something to do evenings—get them to help earn the money for Cemetery, if you want to,' he adds, laughing a little.

      "'There's goin' to be a Vigilance Committee to see after the young folks of Friendship Village, nights,' says Silas Sykes, grim.

      "'You might have town parties, have the parties in schools and in the town hall,' Insley goes on, 'and talk over the Cemetery that belongs to you all, and talk over the other things besides the Cemetery that belong to you all. Maybe I could help,' he adds, 'though I own up to you now I'm really more fond of folks—speaking by and large—than I am of tombstones.'

      "He said a little more to us, about how folks was doing in the world outside the village, and he was so humorous about it that they never knew how something inside him was hopping with hope, like I betted it was, with his young, divine enthusiasm. And when he'd got done he waited, all grave and eager, for somebody to peep up. And it was, as it would be, Silas Sykes who spoke first.

      "'It's all right, it's all right,' says he, 'so long as Sodality don't go meddling in the village affairs—petitionin' the council and protestin' an' so on. That gets any community all upset.'

      "'That's so,' says Timothy, nodding. 'Meetin', singin' songs, servin' lemonade an' plantin' things in the ground is all right enough. It helps on the fellow feelin' amazin'. But pitchin' in for reforms and things—' Timothy shook his head.

      "'As to reforms,' says Insley, 'give me the fellowship, and the reforms will take care of themselves.'

      "'Things is quite handy about takin' their course, though,' says Silas, 'so be we don't yank open the cocoons an' buds an' others.'

      "'Well,' says Mis' Uppers, 'I can't do much more, Professor. I'm drove to death, as it is. I don't even get time to do my own improvin' round the place.' Mis' Uppers always makes that her final argument. 'Sew for the poor?' I've heard her say. 'Why, I can't even get my own fall sewing done.'

      "'Me, too,' and, 'Me, either,' went round the circle. And, 'I can't do a great deal myself,' says Mis' Sykes, 'not till after my niece goes away.'

      "I thought, 'I shouldn't think you could tend to much of anything else, not with Miss Beryl Sessions in the house.' That was the Sykes's niece, till then unknown to them, that we'd all of us heard nothing but, since long before she come. But of course I kept still, part because I was expecting an unknown niece of my own in a week or so, and your unknown relatives is quite likely to be glass houses.

      "'Another thing,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, 'don't let's us hold any doin's in this church, kicking up the new cork that the Ladies' Aid has just put down on the floor. It'll all be tracked up in no time, letting in Tom, Dick, and Harry.'

      "'Don't let's get the church mixed up in anything outside, for pity's sakes,' says Silas. 'The trustees'll object to our meeting here, if we quit working for a dignified object and go to making things mutual, promiscuous. Churches has got to be church-like.'

      "'Well, Silas,' says Eppleby Holcomb, that hadn't been saying anything, 'I donno as some of us could bring ourselves to think of Christ as real Christ-like, if he come back the way he use' to be.'

      "Insley sat looking round on them all, still with his way of saying good morning on a good day. I wondered if he wasn't wishing that they'd hang on that way to something worth hanging to. For I've always thought, and I think now, that they's a-plenty of stick-to-itiveness in the world; but the trouble is, it's stuck to the wrong thing.

      "The talk broke up after that, like somebody had said something in bad taste; and we conversed around in groups, and done our best to make 'way with the refreshments. And Insley set talking to Mis' Eleanor Emmons, СКАЧАТЬ