Friendship Village Part 12

"Yes," I said, "and you will go, Calliope?"

But instead of answering me:--

"My land!" she said, "think of it! A party like that, an' not a low-necked waist in town, nor a swallow-tail! An' only two weeks to do anything in, an' only Liddy Ember for dressmaker, an' it takes her two weeks to make a dress. I guess Mis' Postmaster Sykes has got her. They say she read her invite in the post-office with one hand an' snapped up that tobacco-brown net in the post-office store window with the other, an' out an' up to Liddy's an' hired her before she was up from the breakfast table. So she gets the town new dress. Mis' Sykes is terrible quick-moved."

"What will you wear, Calliope?" I asked.

"Me--I never wear anything but henriettas," she said. "I think the plainer-faced you are, the simpler you'd ought to be dressed. I use' to fix up terrible ruffled, but when I see I was reg'lar plain-faced I stuck to henriettas, mostly gray--"

"Calliope," I said resolutely, "you don't mean you're not going to the Proudfit party?"

She clasped her hands and held them, palms outward, over her mouth, and her eyes twinkled above them.

"No, sir," she said, "I can't go. You'll laugh at me!" she defended.

"Don't you tell!" she warned. And finally she told me.

"Day before yesterday," she said, "I went into the City. An' I come out on the trolley. An' I donno what possessed me,--I ain't done it for months,--but when we crossed the start of the Plank Road, I got off an'

went up an' visited the Old Ladies' Home. You know I've always thought,"

she broke off, "--well, you know I ain't a rill lot to do with, an' I always had an i-dee that mebbe sometime, when I got older, I might--"

I nodded, and she went on.

"Well, I walked around among 'em up there--canary birds an' plants an'

footstools--an' the whole thing fixed up so cheerful that it's pitiful.

Red wall-paper an' flowered curtains an' such, all fair yellin' at you, 'We're cheerful--cheerful--cheerful!' till I like to run. An' it come over me, bein' so near Christmas an' all, what would they do on Christmas? So I asked a woman in a navy-blue dress, seein' she flipped around like she was the flag o' the place.

"'The south corridor,' she answers,--them's the highest payin"--Calliope threw in, "'chipped in an' got up a tree, an' there's gifts for all,'

s'she. 'The west corridor'--them's the local city ones--'all has friends to take 'em away for the day. The east corridor'--they're from farther away an' middlin' well-to-do--'all has boxes comin' to 'em from off. But the north corridor,' s'she, scowlin' some, 'is rather a trial to us.'

"An' I was waitin' for that. The north corridor is all charity old ladies, paid for out o' the fund; an' the president o' the home has just died, an' the secretary's in the old country on a pleasure trip, an' the board's in a row over the policy o' the home, an' the navy-blue matron da.s.sent act, an' altogether it looked like the north corridor was goin'

to get a regular mid-week Wednesday instead of a Christmas. An' I up an'

ast' her to take me down to see 'em."

It was easy to see what Calliope had done, I thought: she had promised to spend Christmas Eve over there in the north corridor, reading aloud.

"They was nine of 'em," she went on, "nice old grandma ladies, with hands that looked like they'd ought to 'a' been tyin' little ap.r.o.ns an'

cuttin' out cookies an' squeezin' somebody else's hand. There they set, with the wall-paper doin' its cheerfulest, loud as an insult,--one of 'em with lots o' white hair, one of 'em singin' a little, some of 'em tryin' to sew or knit some. My land!" said Calliope, "when we think of 'em sittin' up an' down the world--with their arms all empty--an'

Christmas comin' on--ain't it a wonder--Well, I stayed 'round an' talked to 'em," she went on, "while the navy-blue lady whisked her starched skirts some. She seemed too busy 'tendin' to 'em to give 'em much attention. An' they looked rill pleased when I talked to 'em about their patchwork an' knittin', an' did they get the sun all day, an' didn't the canary sort o' shave somethin' off'n the human ear-drum, on his tiptop notes? An' when I said that, Grandma Holly--her with lots o' white hair--says:--

"'I donno but it does,' she says, 'but I don't mind; I'm so thankful to see somethin' around that's _little an' young_.'

"That sort o' landed in my heart. It's just what I'd been thinkin' about 'em.

"'Little, young things,' s'I, sort o' careless, 'make a lot o' racket, you know.'

"At that old Mis' Burney pipes up--her that brought up her daughter's children an' her son-in-law married again an' turned her out:--

"'I use' to think so,' she says quiet; 'the noise o' the children use'

to bother me terrible. When they reely got to goin' I use' to think I couldn't stand it, my head hurt me so. But now,' s'she, 'I get to thinkin' sometimes I wouldn't mind a horse-fiddle if some of 'em played it.'

"'They're lots o' company, the little things,' says old Mis'

Norris--she'd kep' mislayin' her teeth an' the navy-blue lady had took 'em away from her that day for to teach her, so I couldn't hardly understand what she said. 'Mine was named Ellen an' Nancy,' I made out.

"'Some o' you remember my Sam,'--Mis' Ailing speaks up then, an' she begun windin' up her yarn an' never noticed she was ravellin' out her mitten,--'he was an alderman,' she was goin' on, but old Mis' Winslow cuts in on her:--

"'It don't matter what he was when he was man-grown,' s'she. 'Man-grown can get along themselves. It's when they're little bits o' ones,' she says.

"'Little!' says Grandma Holly. 'Is it little you mean? Well, my Amy's two little feet use' to be swallowed up in my hand--so,' she says, shuttin' her hand over to show us.

"Well, so they went on. I give you my word I stood there sort o'

grippin' up on my elbows. I'd always known it was so--like you do know things are so. But somehow when you come to _feel_ they're so, that's another thing. And I was feelin' this in my throat 'bout as big as an orange. I'd thought their hands looked like they'd ought to be tyin' up little ap.r.o.ns, but I never thought o' the hands bein' rill lonesome to do the tyin', an' thinkin' about it, too. An' now I understood 'em like I see 'em for the first time, rill face to face. Somehow, we ain't any too apt to look at people that way," said Calliope. "You see how I mean it.

"Then comes the navy-blue woman an' says it's time for their hot milk, an' they all looked up, kind o' hopeful. An' I see that the navy-blue one had got 'em trained into the i-dee that hot milk was an event. She didn't like to hev 'em talk much about the past, she told me, when she see what we was speakin' of, because it gener'lly made some of 'em cry, an' the i-dee was to keep the spirit of the home bright an' cheerful.

'So I see,' s'I, dry. An' there was Christmas comin' on, an' nothin' to break the general cheerfulness but hot milk. "Well," Calliope said, "I s'pose you'll think I'm terrible foolish, but I couldn't help what I done--"

"I don't wonder at it," said I, warmly; "you promised to spend Christmas Eve with them and read aloud to them, didn't you, Calliope?"

"No!" Calliope cried; "I didn't do that. I should think they'd be sick to death o' bein' read aloud to. I should think they'd be sick to death bein' cheered up by their surroundin's. No--I invited the whole nine of 'em to come over an' spend Christmas Eve with me."

"Calliope!" I cried, "but how--"

"I know it," she exclaimed, "I know it. But they're all well an' hardy.

The charity corridor ain't expected in the infirmary much. An' Jimmy Sturgis is goin' to bring 'em over free in the closed 'bus--I'll fill it with hot bricks an' hot flat-irons an' bed-quilts. An' my land! you'd ought to see 'em when I ask' 'em. I don't s'pose they'd had an invite out in years. The navy-blue lady looked like I'd nipped a mountain off'n her shoulders, too. An' now," said Calliope, "what on top o' this earth will I do with 'em when I get 'em here?"

What indeed? I left my task and sat by her on the rug before the fire, and we talked it over. But all the while we talked, I could see that she was keeping something back--some plan of which she was doubtful.

"I ain't no money to spend, you know," she said, "an' I won't let anybody else spend any for me, for this. Folks has plans enough o' their own without mine. But I kep' sayin' to myself, all the way home when my knees give down at the i-dee of what I was goin' to do: 'Calliope, the Lord says, "_Give._" An' He meant you to give, same's those that hev got. He didn't say, "Everybody give but Calliope, an' she ain't got much, so she'd ought to be let off." He said, "_Give._"' An' He didn't mention all nice things, same's I'd like to give, an' most everybody does give--" she nodded toward my bed, brave with its Christmas array.

"He didn't mention givin' _things_ at all. An' so," said Calliope, "I thought o' somethin' else."

She sat with brooding eyes on the fire, her hands clasped about her knees.

"The Lord Christ," said Calliope, "didn't hev nothin' of His own. An'

yet He just give an' give an' give. An' somehow I got the _i_-dee," she finished, glancing up at me shyly, "that mebbe Christmas ain't really all in your stocking foot, after all. I ain't much to spend, and mebbe that sounds some like sour grapes. But it seems like a good many beautiful things is free to all, an' that they's ways to do. Well, I've thought of a way--"

"Calliope," I said, "tell me what you have really planned for the old-lady party. You _have_ planned?"

"Well, yes," she said, "I hev. But mebbe you'll think it ain't anything.

First I thought o' tea, an' thin bread-an'-b.u.t.ter sandwiches--it seems some like a party when you get your bread thin. An' I've got apples in the house we could roast, an' corn to pop over the kitchen fire. But then I come to a stop. For I ain't nothin' else, an' I've spent every cent I _can_ spend a'ready. But yet I did want to show 'em somethin'

lovely--an' differ'nt from what they see, so's it'd seem as if somebody cared, an' as if they'd been _in Christmas_, too. An' all of a sudden it come to me, why not invite in a few little children o' somebody's here in Friendship? So's them old grandma ladies--"

She shook her head and turned away.

"I expec'," she said, "you think I'm terrible foolish. But wouldn't that be givin', don't you think? _Would_ that be anything?"

I have planned, as will fall to us all, many happy ways of keeping festival; but I think that never, even in days when I myself was happiest, have I so delighted in any event as in this of Calliope's proposing. And when at last she had gone, and the dusk had fallen and I lighted candles and went back to my pleasant task, some way the st.i.tches of pink and blue on flowered fabrics, the flutter of crisp ribbons, and the breath of the sachets were not greatly in my thoughts; and that which made me glad was a certain shining in the room, but this was not of candle-light, or firelight, or winter starlight.

With the days the plans for the Proudfit party--or rather the plans of the Proudfit guests--went merrily forward. It was, they said, like "in the Oldmoxon days," when the house in which I was now living had been the Friendship fairyland. Some take their parties solemnly, some joyously, some feverishly; but Friendship takes them vitally, as it takes a project or the breath of being. Like the rest of the world, the village sank Christmas in festivity. It could not see Christmas for the Christmas plans.