"'Us all settin' here together,'" Calliope repeated, suddenly grave amid our laughter, "that's part of what I'm comin' to. I wonder," she said to us, "how you folks have always thought of the City? Up till I went there to stay this while I always thought of it as—well, as the City an' not so much as folks at all. The City always meant to me big crowds on the streets—hurryin', hurryin', eatin', eatin', and not payin' much attention to anything. One whole batch of 'em I knew was poor an' lookin' in bakery windows. One whole batch of 'em I knew was rich an' sayin' there has to be these distinctions. And some more I knew was good—I always see 'em, like a pretty lady, stoopin' over, givin'. And some more I knew was wicked an' I always thought of them climbin' in windows. And then there was the little bit o' batch that knows the things I want to know an' talks like I'd like to talk an' that I'd wanted an' wanted to go up to the City an' get with.
"Well, then I went. An' the first thing, I see my relative wa'n't rich nor poor nor bad nor good nor—the way I mean. Nor her friends that come to see her, they wan't either. The ones I took for rich talked economy, an' the ones I thought was poor spent money, an' the good ones gossiped, an' they all jabbered about music and pictures that I thought you couldn't talk about unless you knew the 'way-inside-o'-things, like they didn't know. The kinds seemed all mixed up, and all of 'em far away an' formal, like—oh, like the books in a library when you can't think up one to draw out. I couldn't seem to get near to anything.
"Then one night I done what I'd always wanted to do. I took two dollars an' went to the theatre alone an' got me a seat. I put on the best I had, an' still I didn't feel like I was one of 'em, nor one of much of anybody. The folks on the car wasn't the way I meant, an' I felt mad at 'em for bein' differ'nt. There was a smilin' young fellow, all dressed black an' expensive, an' I thought: 'Put you side of Peter Cary an' there wouldn't be anybody there but Peter.' And when I got inside the theatre, it was just the same: one awful collection of dressed-up hair an' dressed-down backs an' everybody smilin' at somebody that wasn't me and all seemin' so sure of themselves. Specially the woman in front of me, but I guess it always is specially the woman in front of you. She was flammed out abundant. She had trimmin's in unexpected places, an' a good many colours took to do it, an' a cute little chatter to match. It come to me that she was more than different from me: she was the otherest a person can be. An' I felt glad when the curtain went up.
"Well, sir," Calliope said, "it was a silly little play—all about nothin' that you could lay much speech to. But oh, they was somethin' in it that made you get down on your hands and knees in your own heart and look around in it, and look. They was an old lady and a young mother and a child and a man and a girl—well, that don't sound like much special, does it? And that's just it: it wasn't much special, but yet it was all of everything. It made 'em laugh, it made 'em cry, it made me laugh and cry till I was ashamed and glad and grateful. And when the lights come up at the end, I felt like I was kind of the mother to everything, an' I wanted to pick it up an' carry it off an' keep care of it. And it come over me all of a sudden how the old lady and the young mother an' man an' girl, man an' girl, man an' girl was right there in the theatre, near me, over an' over again; an' there I'd been feelin' mad at 'em for seemin' far off. But they wasn't far off. They'd been laughin' and cryin', too, an' they knew, just like I knew, what was what in the world. My, my. If it'd been Friendship I'd have gone from house to house all the way home, shakin' hands. An' as it was, I just had to speak to somebody. An' just then I see the flammed-out woman in front of me, that her collar had come open a little wee bit up top—not to notice even, but it give me an excuse. And I leaned right over to her and I says with all the sympathy in me:—
"'Ma'am, your neck is peepin'."
"She looked around su'prised and then she smiled—smiled 'most into laughin'. And she thanked me sweet as a friend an' nodded with it, an' I thought: 'Why, my land, you may have a baby home.' I never had thought of that. An' then I begun lookin' at folks an' lookin'. An' movin' up the aisles, there wasn't just a theatre-lettin'-out. They was folks. And all over each one was the good little things they'd begun rememberin' now that the play was over, or the hurt things that had come back onto 'em again.... An' out on the street it was the same. The folks had all got alive and was waitin' for me to feel friendly to 'em. Friendly. The young fellows in the cars was lovers, just like Peter. An' everybody was just like me, or anyhow more alike than differ'nt; and just like Friendship, only mebbe pronouncin' their words some differ'nt an' knowin' more kinds of things to eat. It seems to me now I could go anywhere an' find folks to be nice to. I don't love Friendship Village any the less, but I love more things the same way. Everything, 'most. An' I tell you I'm glad I didn't die before I found it out—that we're all one batch. Do you see what I mean—deep down inside what I say?" Calliope cried. "Does it sound like anything to you?"
To whom should it sound like "anything" if not to us of Friendship Village? We know.