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She does cleaning and scrubbing, and we all like to get her to do it, she does it so thoroughly conscientious. She brings us in little remedies she knows about, and vegetables from her own garden, and eggs. Sometimes some of us asks her to set down to a meal. Once she brought me a picked chicken of hers. And it’s good for Friendship Village because we all see she’s human, and mostly with women like that we build a thick wall and don’t give ’em a chance to even knock out a brick ever after.
“I was just goin’ to see you, Miss Marsh,” she says. “I got kind o’ lonesome and I thought I’d bring you over a begonia slip and set a while.”
“I’m sorry, Bess,” I says. “I’m going to a meeting.”
“What kind of meetin’?” she says. “P’litical?”
“Yes,” I says, “something like that.” And that was true, of course, being politics is so often carried on by private charity from the candidates.
“I’d kind of like to go to a meeting again,” she says, wistful. “I sung to revival meetings for a month once, when I was a girl.”
“I guess you wouldn’t like this one,” I says. “Come to see me to-morrow and I’ll tell you about it.”
And then I went up-stairs and left her standing there on the sidewalk, and I felt kind of ashamed and sneaking. I didn’t know why. But I says to myself, comforting, that she’d probably of broke out and sung in the middle of the meeting, if she had come. Her head ain’t right, like the most of ours; but hers takes noisy forms, so you notice more.
Eleven of us turned out to the meeting, which was a pretty good proportion, there being only fifteen hundred living in Friendship Village all together. Silas was in the chair, formal as a funeral.
“The idear, as I understand it,” says Silas, when the meeting was open, “is to get some Charity going. We’d ought to organize.”
“And then what?” asks Mis’ Toplady.
“Why, commence distributin’ duds and victuals,” says Silas.
“Well-a,” says Mis’ Toplady, “and keep on distributing them all our lives?”
“Sure,” says Silas, “unless you’re goin’ to be weary in well-doing. Them folks’ll keep right on being hungry and nekked as long as they live.”
“Why will they?” says Mis’ Toplady, puzzled.
“Well, they’re poor folks, ain’t they?” says Silas, scowling.
“Why, yes,” says Mis’ Toplady; “but that ain’t all they is to ’em, is it?”
“What do you mean?” says Silas.
“Why, I mean,” says Mis’ Toplady, “can’t they be got goin’ so’s they sha’n’t be poor folks?”
Silas used his face like he smelled something. “Don’t you know no more about folks than that?” says he. “Facts is facts. You’ve got to take folks as they are.”
“But you ain’t taking folks nowheres. You’re leavin’ ’em as they are, Silas,” says Mis’ Toplady, troubled.
Mis’ Silas Sykes spoke up with her way of measuring off just enough for everybody.
“It’s this way Silas means,” she says. “Folks are rich, or medium, or poor. We’ve got to face that. It’s always been so.”
Mis’ Toplady kind of bit at her lower lip a few times in a way she has, that wrinkles up her nose meditative. “It don’t follow out,” she says, firm. “My back yard used to be all chickweed. Now it’s pure potatoes.”
“Folks,” says Mis’ Sykes, real witherin’, “folks ain’t dirt.”
“That’s what I thought,” says Mis’ Toplady, dry.
Silas went right over their heads, like he does.
“We’ve all been doin’ what we could for these folks,” he says, “but we ain’t been doin’ it real wise. It’s come to my notice that the Haskitts had four different chickens give to ’em last Christmas. What we want to do is to fix up some sort of a organization so’s our chickens won’t lap.”
“Well,” says Timothy Toplady, “then let’s organize. That ain’t hard. I move it be done.”
It was done, and Silas was made president, like he ever loves to be, and Timothy treasurer, and me secretary, because they could get me to take it.
“Now,” says Silas, “let’s get down to work and talk over cases.”
“Cases!” says Mis’ Toplady, distasteful. “They ain’t got the smallpox, have they? Say folks.”
“I guess you ain’t very used to Charity societies,” says Silas, tolerant. “Take the Haskitts. They ain’t got a pane o’ glass in their house.”
“Nor no wood, much,” says Timothy. “When I went to get the rent the cat was asleep on the cook-stove.”
“What rent do they give you, Timothy?” says Silas.
“Five dollars,” he says, pursin’ his lips.
“That’s only three per cent. on the money. I don’t see how you can afford it.”
“I am indulgin’ myself a little,” Timothy admits. “But I been thinkin’ o’ raisin’ it to six. One thing, though; I ain’t give ’em any repairs. If I’d had a six-dollar family in there I’d had to fixed the window-glass and cleaned out the cistern and mended the roof. It about evens itself up.”
“Yes,” says Silas, agreeful, “I guess it does. Well, they can have some boxes to burn, out of the store. I’ll take ’em on my list. You can’t go givin’ ’em truck, Timothy. If you do, they’ll come down on to you for repairs. Now the Ricker’s…”
Abigail Arnold spoke up. “They’re awful,” she says. “Mis’ Ricker ain’t fit to wash, and the children just show through. Ab’s arm won’t let him work all winter.”
“You take him, Silas,” says Timothy. “He’s your own employee.”
Silas shakes his head. “He’s been chasin’ me for damages ever since he got hurt,” he says.
“Ain’t he goin’ to get any, Silas?” says Mis’ Toplady, pitiful.
“Get any?” says Silas. “It was his own fault. He told me a week before about them belts bein’ wore. I told him to lay off till I could fix ’em. But no – he kep’ right on. Said his wife was sick and his bills was eatin’ him up. He ain’t nobody to blame but his own carelessness. I told him to lay off.”
I looked over to Mis’ Toplady, and she looked over to me. And I looked at Abigail and at Mis’ Holcomb, and we all looked at each other. Only Mis’ Sykes – she set there listening and looking like her life was just elegant.
“Can’t you take that case, Mis’ Toplady?” says Silas.
“I’ll go and see them folks,” she says, troubled. And I guess us ladies felt troubled, one and all. And so on during all the while we was discussing the Doles and the Hennings and the Bettses and the rest. And when the meeting was over we four hung around the stove, and Mis’ Sykes too.
“I s’pose it’s all right,” Mis’ Toplady says. “I s’pose it is. But I feel like we’d made a nice, new apron to tie on to Friendship Village, and hadn’t done a thing about its underclothes.”
“I’m sure,” says Mis’ Sykes, looking hurt for Silas that had cut out the apron, “I’m sure I don’t see what you mean. Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the greatest of these is Charity. Does that mean what it says, or don’t it?”
“Oh, I s’pose it does,” says Mis’ Toplady. “But what I think is this: Ain’t there things that’s greater than the whole three as most folks mean ’em?”
Mis’ Sykes, she sort of gasped, in three hitches. “Will you tell me what?” she says, as mad as if she’d been faith, hope, and charity personally.
“I dunno …” says Mis’ Toplady, dreamy, “I dunno the name of it. But ladies, it’s something. And I can feel it, just as plain as plain.”
It was three-four weeks before the new Charity Association got really to running, and had collected in enough clothes and groceries so’s we could start distributing. On the day before the next monthly meeting, that was to be in Post-Office Hall again, we started out with the things, so’s to make our report to the meeting. Mis’ Toplady and I was together, and the first place we went to was Absalom Ricker’s. Gertie, Absalom’s wife, was washing, and he was turning the wringer with his well hand, and his mother was finishing vests by the stove, and singing a tune that was all on a straight line and quite loud. And the children, one and all, was crying, in their leisure from fighting each other.
“Well,” says Mis’ Toplady, “how you getting on now? Got many washings to do?”
Gertie Ricker, she set down on the wood-box all of a sudden and begun to cry. She was a pretty little woman, but sickly, and with one of them folding spines that don’t hold their folks up very good.
“I’ve got three a week,” she says. “I can earn the rent all right.”
“I tell her,” says Absalom, “if she didn’t have no washings, then there’d be something to cry for.”
But he said it sort of lack-luster, and like it come a word at a time.
“Do you get out any?” says Mis’ Toplady, to improve the topic.
“Out where?” says Gertie. “We ain’t no place to go. I went down for the yeast last night.”
It kind of come over me: Washing all day and her half sick; Absalom by the stove tending fire and turning wringer; his old mother humming on one note; the children yelling when they wasn’t shouting. I thought of their cupboard and I could see what it must hold – cold boiled potatoes and beans, I bet. I thought of their supper-table … of early mornings before the fire was built. And I see the kind of a life they had.
And then I looked over to the two loaves of bread and the can of fruit and the dozen eggs and the old coat of Timothy’s that we’d brought, and it seemed to me these touched the spot of what was the trouble in that house about as much as the smoke that oozed into the room from the chimney. And I glanced over to Mis’ Toplady and there she set, with ideas filterin’ back of her eyes.
“We’ve brought you a few things, being you’re sick – ” she begun, sort of embarrassed; but Absalom, he cut in short, shorter than I ever knew him to speak.
“Who’s we?” he says.
“Why-a,” says Mis’ Toplady, stumbling some over her words, “the new society.”
Absalom flushed up to the roots of his hair. “What society?” says he, sharp.
Mis’ Toplady showed scairt for just a minute, and then she met his eyes brave. “Why,” she says, “us – and you. You belong to it. We had it in the paper, and met to the Post-Office Hall the other night. It’s for everybody to come to.”
“To do what?” says Absalom.
“Why-a,” says Mis’ Toplady, some put to it, “to – to do nice things for – for each other.”
“The town?” says Absalom.
“The town,” agrees Mis’ Toplady – and pressed ahead almost like she was finding something to explain with. “We meet again to-morrow night,” says she. “Couldn’t you come – you and Gertie? Come – and mebbe belong?”
Absalom’s mad cooled down some. First he looked sheepish and then he showed pleased. “Why, I dunno – could we, Gertie?” he says.
“Is it dress-up?” says Gertie.
“Mercy, no,” says Mis’ Toplady, “it’s every-day. Or not so much so. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Mebbe,” says Gertie.
When we got outside, I looked at Mis’ Toplady, kind of took aback; and it was so that she looked at me.
“Silas’ll talk charity his way to that meeting, you know,” I says. “I’m afraid he’ll hurt Absalom and Gertie. I’m afraid…”
Mis’ Toplady looked kind of scairt herself. “I done that before I meant to do it no more’n nothing in this world,” she says, “but I dunno – when I begun handin’ ’em out stuff I was ashamed to do it without putting it like I done.”
“I know,” I says, “I know.” And know I did. I’ve give things to poor folks lots of times and glowed up my spine with a virtuous feeling – but something big was always setting somewhere inside me making me feel ashamed of the glow and ashamed of the giving. Who am I that I should be the giver, and somebody else the givee?
We went to the Bettses’ and caught Mis’ Betts washing up two days’ of dishes at four o’clock in the afternoon, and we heard about Joe’s losing his job, and we talked to the canary. “We’d ought not to afford him,” Mis’ Betts says, apologetic. “I always hate to take the money to get him another package of seed – and we ain’t much of any crumbs.”
And we went to the Haskitts’ and found her head tied up with the toothache. Folks looks sick enough with their heads tied up around; but when it comes to up and down, with the ends sticking up, they always look like they was going to die. And we went to the Doles’ and the Hennings’ and carried in the stuff; and one and all them places, leaving things there was like laying a ten-cent piece down on a leper, and bowing to him to help on his recovery. And every single place, as soon as ever we’d laid down the old clothes we’d brought, we invited ’em to join the organization and to come to the meeting next night.
“What’s the name of this here club?” Joe Betts asks us.
By that time neither Mis’ Toplady nor me would have tied the word “Charity” to that club for anything on earth. We told him we was going to pick the name next night, and told him he must come and help.
“Do come,” Mis’ Toplady says, and when Mis’ Betts hung off: “We’re goin’ to have a little visiting time – and coffee and sandwiches afterwards,” Mis’ Toplady adds, calm as her hat. And when we got outside: “I dunno what made me stick on the coffee and the sandwiches,” she says, sort of dazed, “but it was so kind of bleak and dead in there, I felt like I just had to say something cheerful and human – like coffee.”
“Well,” I says, “us ladies can do the refreshments ourselves, so be the rest of the Board stands on its head at the idee of doing ’em itself. As I presume likely it will stand.”
And this we both of us presumed alike. So on the way home we stopped in to the post-office store and told Silas that we’d been giving out a good many invitations to folks to come to the meeting next night, and mebbe join.
“That’s good,” says Silas, genial; “that’s good. We need the dues.”
“We kind of thought coffee and sandwiches to-morrow night, Silas,” says Mis’ Toplady, experimental, “and a little social time.”
“Don’t you go to makin’ no white-kid-glove doin’s out o’ this thing,” says Silas. “You can’t mix up charity and society too free. Charity’s religion and society’s earthy. And that’s two different things.”
“Earthy,” I says over. “Earthy! So’m I. Ain’t it a wonderful word, Silas? Well, us two is going to do the coffee and sandwiches for to-morrow night,” I added on, deliberate, determined and serene.
When Silas had done his objecting, and see he couldn’t help himself with us willing to solicit the whole refreshments, and when we’d left the store, Mis’ Toplady thought of something else: “I dunno,” she says, “as we’d ought to leave folks out just because they ain’t poor. That,” she says, troubled, “don’t seem real right. Let’s us telephone to them we can think of that didn’t come to the last meeting.”
So we invited in the telephone population, just the same as them that didn’t have one.
The next night us ladies got down to the hall early to do the finishing touches. And on Daphne Street, on my way down, I met Bess Bones again, kind of creeping along. She’d stopped to pat the nose of a horse standing patient, hitched outside the barber-shop saloon – I’ve seen Bess go down Daphne Street on market-days patting the nose of every horse one after another.
“Hello, Mis’ Marsh,” Bess says. “Are you comin’ down with another meeting?”
“Yes, sir, Bess,” I says, “I am.” And then a thought struck me. “Bess,” I says – able now to hold up my head like my skull intended, because I felt I could ask her – “you come on up, too – you’re invited to-night. Everybody is.”
Her face lit up, like putting the curtain up.
“Honest, can I?” she says. “I’d love to go to a meeting again – I’ve looked in the window at ’em a dozen times. I’ll get my bread and be right up.”
I tell you, Post-Office Hall looked nice. We’d got in a few rugs and plants, and the refreshment table stood acrost one corner, with a screen around the gas-plate, and the cups all piled shiny and the sandwiches covered with white fringed napkins. And about seven o’clock in come three pieces of the Friendship Village Stonehenge Band we’d got to give their services, and they begun tuning up, festive. And us ladies stood around with our hands under our white aprons; and you’d have thought it was some nice, human doings instead of just duty.
Before much of anybody else had got there, in come them we’d invited first: Absalom Ricker and Gertie, her looking real nice with a new-ironed bow to her neck, and him brushed up in Timothy’s old coat and his hair trained to a high peak. And the Bettses – Joe with his beard expected to cover up where there wasn’t a necktie and her pretending the hall was chilly so’s to keep her cloak on over whatever wasn’t underneath. And the Haskitts, him snapping and snarling at her, and her trying to hush him up by agreeing with him promiscuous. And Mis’ Henning that her husband didn’t show up. We heard afterwards he was down in the barber-shop saloon, dressed up to come but backed out after. And most everybody else come – not only the original ’leven, but some of the telephone folks, and some that the refreshment-bait always catches.
Silas come in late – he’d had to wait and distribute the mail – and when he see the Rickers and the rest of them, he come tearing over to us women in the refreshment corner.
