GETTING CLOSER TO FOLKS

...Well, once annually I go to what's a big meeting for us, on the occasion of the Friendship Village Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement Sodality's yearly meeting...

...I spoke right up...

...Be kind of nice to show off to somebody, too,' says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, complacent, 'what a nice, neat, up-to-date little town we've got.' " 'Without the help of no great big clumsy convention either,' Mis' Sykes stuck in...

...Do not disappoint us...

...And I guess it's just about as good as any of us could expect.' "I got to the City just before the Convention's evening meeting...

...And we thought we'd send me...

...There was a hundred or more on the stage, and there was flowers and palms and lights and colors...

...Plant vines over the telegraph poles...

...And as I rode into the town, thinking this, and thinking more than I had words to think with, I wanted to chant a chant, like Deborah (but pronounced Deborah when it's a relative...

...Say the school children, that vast, ambiguous host, from your town and yours and yours...

...Can't you do a little something to let your grandchildren point back to...

...We even thought we was social...

...All this has brought us closer and closer to folks—not only to their needs but to what they have to give...

...Yes—well,' I says, 'mebbe...

...So-1 am sending you this card...

...But I didn't...

...And we kind of rustled expectant, because Mis' Toplady is one of them women that looks across the edges of what's happening at the minute, and senses what's way over there beyond...

...I will tell you...

...ALL the keeping still I ever done in my life when I'd ought to wouldn't put nobody to sleep...

...When do you want me?' "NEVER, not if I live till after my dying day, will I forget the da'y that I got back to Friendship Village...

...We have come very far, my friends...

...It's going to come in by whole towns rising up together men and women, shoulder to shoulder, and nobody left out, organized and conscious and working like one folk...

...And they didn't know, nor Friendship Village didn't know, that walking right along with us three was the tramp and the tramp of the feet of a great convention that had come home with me, right there to our village...

...And these things were partitioned out to committees one by one, some to strike dry, shallow sand, some to get planted on the bare rock, and some to hit black dirt and a sunny spot with a watering can, or even a garden-hose handy...

...Up to one of the rows on the stage...

...Graves,' says I, 'is both genders, Mis' Fire Chief.' "Mis' State Senator Pettigrew, she chimed in...

...She had a wonderful kind of tender smile, and she smiled with that And then all she says to me was all I wanted: '"Hi come...

...Civic...

...These are the things we have to do...

...Well, now,' she ends up serene, 'I've rose to propose that, bein' it's so near, Sodality send a delegate up there next week to get us some points.' " 'What .points do we need, I should like to know,' says Mis' Postmaster Sykes, majestic...

...And they was gathered in a room the size and the shape and— almost the height of a village green...

...And turn you to the fundamentals...

...See about window boxes for the library—again...

...And she had eyes like the living room, with all the curtains up...

...See about the laundry soft coal smoke again...

...I just walked down the street with them, a-carrying my bag and my umbrella, and when one of 'em says, 'Well, I'm sure your dress don't look so very much wore after all, Calliope,' I answered hack, casual enough, just as if I was thinking about .what she said: 'Well, I give you my word, I ain't once thought about myself in con-nection with that dress.' "Together we went down Daphne Street in the afternoon sun...

...I brushed my hair up, and put on my cameo pin, and hurried right over to the hall...

...This was what we could help to do...

...Are we a-idol-worshippin' our constitution or are we a-growing inside it, and bursting out occasional?' " 'If you lived in Roosia, Calliope'—-Mis' Sykes begun...

...I'm no club woman anyhow,' says she, righteous...

...When it come in sight through the car window, I see it—not sitting down on its green cushions now, but standing tip-toe on its heaven-kissing hills —waiting to see what we could do to it...

...Anyway, I been thinking,' she says, 'why don't we leave the men join Sodality?' "I donno if you've ever suggested a revolution...

...Say the laboring children—five hundred thousand of them in the states which you in this room represent—my friends, the laboring children...

...See about Main Street billboards ~-again...

...I remember how they looked, coming down the platform, with an orange and lemon and water-melon sunset idling down the sky...

...And over on the South slope our big new brick county house, with thick lips and lots of arched eyebrows, the house that us ladies was getting seats to put in the yard of...

...Say the men,—the wage earners,—toilers with the hands, multitudes, multitudes, who on the earth and beneath it, in your town and yours and yours, are at labor now, that we may be here—clean and at leisure...

...And finally I says to 'em: 'You look here...

...Like one folk...

...It took quite a while to outgrow it...

...And I wanted to say: " 'Oh...

...But is it far enough...

...Not they...

...Awful selfish,' I says, 'not.to give them something to brag about.' "WE DIDN'T press the men prop-osition any more...

...REMEMBER when the train left that morning, how I looked back on the village, sitting there in its big arm chair of hills, with green cushions of woods dropped around, and wreaths of smoke curling up from contented chimneys...

...And that night she says to Sodality: " 'Ladies, I hear that up to the City noxt week there's going to be some kind of a woman's convention.' "Nobody said anything...

...It is FOLKS.' "I never took my eyes off her face after that...

...Social...

...But all of a sudden something she was saying rung out just like she had turned and said it to me...

...Sometimes, when I get discouraged about us, I take out that letter, and read it through...

...My seat was on the side corner of the platform, nearest to her...

...That is fine, all of it...

...As fast as in you lies, let your civic societies look farther than conserving or planting or beautifying, or even cleaning...

...Yes, that was it...

...Then my eye slipped over the foot-lights, to the first rows, to the hack rows, to the boxes, to the galleries—over the length and breadth of that world of folks—thousands of 'em —as many as five times them in my whole village...

...She'd been talking a little bit before I could get my mind off the folks and on to her...

...I didn't wait a minute...

...We thought these was new names for new things...

...All the party dress I had was out of the spare-room curtains, and I didn't have a wrap at all—I'm just one of them jacket women...

...I'm asking you, like I feel I can ask a woman, president or not...

...I've only got my two years suit, and a couple of waists and one thin dress—and they're all just every day—or not so much so...

...See about having seats put in the County House Yard...

...And then Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss says to me, with her eyebrows all pleased and happy: "'Oh, Calliope, we've got the new seats for the County House Yard...

...Those of us to whom life has been a little kind...

...See about getting the blankets in the Calaboose washed oftener...

...But who is it that has been doing it...

...Oh, it ain't going to be brought in by women working along alone...

...I went down close beside the footlights and the blue hydrangeas, and held out my letter...

...It don't just set and set and set, and never hatch nothing.' "So WE continued to take down bill-boards and put in shrubbery, and chase flies and dream beautiful, far-off dreams of sometime getting in sewerage, all under the same undying name...

...Would you come at all, like that, if you was me...

...She was a woman that you wouldn't think of just as a woman or a wife or a mother or a teacher same as some...

...We're the Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement Sodality.' " 'Is that name,' says Mis' Toplady, mild, 'made up out o' cast-iron, Mis' Sykes?' * 'But our constitution says we shall consist of fifty married ladies,' says Mis' Sykes, final., " 'Did we make that constitution,' says I, 'or did it make us...

...Give these things to committees — important committees...

...You know them different sorts of soil under committees...

...Mis' Amanda Toplady and Mis' Hoi-comb-that-was-Mame-Bliss was to the depot to meet me...

...No, you thought of her first of all as folks...

...But we don't want to do men's work, do we?' says she distasteful...

...I always hope folks won't let that name of us bother them...

...Mis' Sykes put her hand over her eyes...

...I sat there looking at the pattern of the boards of the Btage, and just about half sensing what was going on at first Then I got my eyes up a little ways to some pots of blue hydrangeas on the edge of th^ stage...

...Whether I'm in favor of any particular revolution or not, it always makes a nice, healthy minute...

...I tell you they are all here, sitting with us, shadowy...

...Turn to the industries and to the government and to the schools of your towns and there work, for there lie the hidings of your power...

...This was what we was for, till all of us have earned the right to something better...

...Who are these...

...But bye and bye we talked it out, that we'd have a big meeting of everybody, men and women, and discuss over what the town needed, and what the Sodality ought to undertake...

...Why how can we?' says Mis' Sykes...

...Second, from alcohol—not through prohibition but through the understanding...

...That is fine—all of it That is what we have to do...

...It seems to be some kind of a once-in-two-years affair,' Mis' Toplady went on, 'and I read in the paper how it had a million members, and how they come 10,000 to a time to their meetings...

...We was going to get the blankets in the calaboose washed oftener—and—we—oh, you come, and make us see that life is the kind of thing you say it is, and show us that we belong'.' "She took the letter that Mis' Fire Chief Merriman had composed for me, and right while forty folks was waiting- for her, she stood and read it...

...And when I showed 'em my card, where do you guess they took me...

...So was getting pure milk...

...It was like the sky had turned into a skylight, and let me look up through...

...You know how it is—be it institutions or constitutions or ideas or a way to mix the bread, one of our deformities is that we hate to change...

...Then up got Mis' Timothy Toplady —that dear, abundant woman...

...You and I. These are your tasks and mine and the tasks of those who have not our cleanliness nor our leisure, but who will help as fast as ever we learn how to share that help—as fast as ever we all learn how to work as one...

...And instead, this was what clubs was for...

...Clean, cleanly clothed, having won—or been given— a little leisure, we are free to meet together and to turn our thought to the appearance of our cities—and to the other things...

...Jf...

...She's one of them women that never shells peas without seeing beyond the rim of her pan...

...But I wouldn't vant to come and have everybody ashamed of me...

...And I says: '"Oh...

...We are free to do these things...

...I kep' a copy to the letter I wrote her...

...And here they are only bringing 'in the kingdom of God, that we've known about all along...

...Oh, our little private club here,' says Mis' Sykes, 'is one thing—carried on quiet and womanly among ourselves...

...They're iron, painted green, with a leaf design on the back.' " 'And,' chimes in the other one, 'we've got 'em to say they'll wash the blankets in the calaboose every quarter.' "I wanted to begin right then...

...We'll give everybody a chance to express their opinion—and then afterwards we ean take up just what we please.' "And we decided that was another reason for sending a delegate to the woman's convention, to get ahold of somebody, somehow, to come down to Friendship Village and talk to us...

...Will you attend the meeting, and the reception as my guest?' "And then her name...

...Those of us on whom the anguish and the toil of life do not fall the most heavily...

...Say, the seven million and more women workers in your states and mine...

...When I spoke out my first thought, I says: " 'Oh, ladies, I can't go...

...Come to Friendship Village...

...For 'folks' is a word I know...

...But that's been the name of us for twenty-four years, and we got started calling it that and we can't bear to stop...

...Guess what I thought...

...Then more and more came the need to get nearer to folks—and yet nearer...

...And the immediate concerns of these are the immediate concerns of us...

...Third, from war...

...You must come...

...That'll be real democratic,' says Mis' Sykes, contented...

...And it's such an elegant measurin' rod for the brains of folks...

...Me, that had never faced an audience excep' with my back to 'em— as organise in our churchy (That sounds so grand that I'd ought to explain that I can't play anything excep' what's wrote natural...

...Say what who will,' thinks I, 'I love that little town...

...Oh, my friends, we must dream far...

...Then the first thing I heard was Mis* Amanda Toplady up onto her feet nominating me to go for a delegate to that convention, fare paid out of the Cemetery Improvement Treasury...

...And social work—and, my friends, shall I not say club work?—is the development of the chance for all of us to participate more abundantly in our commca need to live...

...Well, whether you know it or not, fundamentally what you care about is PEOPLE...

...Oh, ain't it like women had been wrapped up in something that we're just beginning to peek out of...

...Respectfully, Calliope Mabsh.' "I kep' her answer too, and this is what she said: " 'Dear Miss Marsh: 'Just as I have told my other friends, let me tell you: By all means we want you to come...

...Of course let's us take men into the Sodality,' says she...

...See about "having seats put in the County House Yard...

...For life is something other than that which we believe it to be.' "WHEN she'd got through, right in the middle of the power and the glory that come in my head, something else flew up and it was: "1...

...When you come home from a big convention like that, if you don't step your foot on your own depot platform with a new sense of consecration to your town, and to all living things, then you didn't deserve your badge, nor your seat, nor your privilege...

...the liberation of women, and the great deliverances: First, from prostitution and its diseases, not through legislation but through the solving of what makes prostitution and what permits its diseases...

...Each of us from near towns and far cities comes shepherding a cloud of witnesses...

...So was paving Main Street...

...Some folks seems to dread them...

...Ain't our Sodality a club, Mis' Sykes?' I says...

...Seems to me,' says Mis' Postmaster Sykes once, 'if we should give up that name, we shouldn't be loyal nor decent nor loving to the dead.' " 'Shucks,' says I, 'how about being loyal and decent and loving to the living?' " 'Your mind works so queer sometimes, Calliope,' says Mis' Sykes, patient...

...I had a blue hydrangea in my yard home, so they kind of give me courage...

...And then what did we have...

...Here in this hall with us tonight there are others besides ourselves...

...So was cleaning up the slaughter house—parse 'em and they're both genders, all of 'em...

...I ain't got a rag fit to wear.' "It took quite a while to persuade me...

...I says: " 'Dear President: 'Us ladies have heard about the meeting set for next week, and we thought we'd send somebody up from our Friendship Village Married Ladies Cemetery Improvement Sodality...

...We must dream the farthest that folks can go...

...We see it was too delicate...

...These are what we must do to make our towns fit to live in...

...Fourth, from race prejudice...

...Here are the great tasks of the time: First, the securing of economic justice for labor, then...

...Leave them do their club work and leave us do our club work, like the Lord meant.' " 'Well—us women tended Cemetery quite a while,' says I, 'And the death rate wasn't confined to women, exclusive...

...Leave us find out.' " 'Well,' says Mis' Sykes, 'my part, expositions and conventions is horrible to me...

...The woman that was going to talk that night I'd never even heard of...

...Say those others, clean and leisured, who live in your town, and yours...

...Here we live in a town five-thousand strong, and we been acting like we was five thousand weak— and we never knew it...

...So I'm just organist to morning service, when I can pick out my own hymns, and not for prayer meeting when anybody is likely to pipe up and give out a song just black with sharps and flats...

...I cut it out of the paper afterwards— this is it, word for word: " Tow who believe yourselves to be interested in social work, ask yourselves what it is that you are interested in really...

...That is a great step...

...See about getting the blankets in the Calaboose washed oftener...

...Ain't we abreast of whatever they is to be abreast of?' "'That's what I donno,' says Mis' Toplady...

...But ain't we past all that by now?' " 'Women's homes,' she says, 'and women's little home clubs is enough to occupy any woman...

...Well to our annual meeting that night, we was discussing what should be our work the next year...

...But anyhow, it works...

...But I believe that your club is not entitled to a delegate...

...Guess what the first thought was that come to my head...

...Folks never seems to be so much folks as when I'm with them, thousands to a time...

...And because we had learned to sweep up a few feet beyond our own door-yard, and had found out the names of a few things we had never heard of before, we thought we was civic...

...Better than any other word in the language, I know that word 'folks.' "She said: 'Well, let us see what, in clubs, our social work has been: At first, Clean-up days, Planting, Children's Gardens, School Gardens, Bill Boards, the Smoke Nuisance...

...See about—and all the rest of 'em...

...Let us say it in a better way...

...Above all, perhaps, from poverty...

...Well,' says I. 'I might as well, if you're goin' to use any rule or any law for a ball and chain for the leg instead of a stepping-stone for the feet.' "Mis' Fire Chief Merriman looked up from her buttonholing...

...Lord...

...I can't bear to see a change.' " 'Cheer up, Mis' Sykes,' I says, 'you'll be a grandmother yourself some day...

...And suggestions come in real sluggish, being the thermometer had been trying all day to climb over the top of its hook...

...Oh, I mean the tramp and the tramp of the feet of the folks in the whole world...

...My g-g-grandmother organized and named Sodality,' she said...

...Fly campaigns, Garbage Disposal, Milk and Food Inspection, Playgrounds, Vocational Guidance, Civic and Moral training in the schools, Sex Hygiene, Municipal Recreation, Housing...

...A convention is men's business.' " 'It is if it is,' says I, 'but think how often it is that it ain't.' "Mis' Toplady kep' on, thoughtful...

...Nor by men working along alone...

...But a great big public convention is no place for a woman that respects her home.' " 'Why,' I says, 'Mis' Sykes, that was the way we was arguing when clubs first begun...

...S'posin' I write a note to the president of the whole thing, and tell her just what clothes I have got, and ask her if any-body'd best go, looking like me.' "And that was what I did do...

...Get trash baskets for the streets...

...Suggestions run about like this: "1...

...Railroad wrecks, volcanoes, diamonds, conventions and such never seemed real real to us in the village...

...Well, I love them...

...I DONNO whether you like to go to a big meeting or not...

...So was the park...

...She had spoken last and everybody was rustling to go...

...We don't confine our attention to Cemetery any more...