"'Well,' says I, rebellish, 'then let's rip up our old constitution and buy ourselves a new pattern.'
"Mis' Sykes was getting to verge on mad.
"'But Sodality ain't an orphan asylum, Calliope,' says she, 'nor none of us is that.'
"'Ain't we—ain't we, Mis' Sykes?' I says. 'Sometimes I donno what we're for if we ain't that.'
"And then I just clear forgot myself, in one of them times that don't let you get to sleep that night for thinking about, and that when you wake up is right there by the bed waiting for you, and that makes you feel sore when you think of afterwards—sore, but glad, too.
"'That's it,' I says, 'that's it. I've been thinking about that a good deal lately. I s'pose it's because I ain't any children of my own to be so busy for that I can't think about their real good. Seems to me there ain't a child living no matter how saucy or soiled or similar, but could look us each one in the face and say, "What you doing for me and the rest of us?" And what could we say to them? We could say: "I'm buying some of you ginghams that won't shrink nor fade. Some of you I'm cooking food for, and some of you I'm letting go without it. And some of you I'm buying school books and playthings and some of you I'm leaving without 'em. I'm making up some of your beds and teaching you your manners and I'm loving you—some of you. And the rest of you I'm leaving walk in town after dark with a hole in your stocking." Where's the line—where's the line? How do we know which is the ones to do for? I tell you I'm the orphan asylum to the whole lot of 'em. And so are you. And I move the Cemetery Improvement Sodality do something for this little boy. We'd adopt him if he was dead—an' keep his grave as nice and neat as wax. Let's us adopt him instead of his grave!'
"My bedspread had slipped down onto the floor, but I never knew when nor did I see it go. All I see was that some of them agreed with me—Mis' Emmons and Mis' Toplady and Mis' Hubbelthwait and Libby and even Mame that had proposed the monument. But some of the others was waiting as usual to see how Mis' Sykes was going to believe, and Mis' Sykes she was just standing there by the piano, her cheeks getting pinker and pinker up high on her face.
"'Calliope,' she said, making a gesture. 'Ladies! this is every bit of it out of order. This ain't the subject that we come together to discuss.'
"'It kind of seems to me,' says I, 'that it's a subject we was born to discuss.'
"Mis' Toplady sort of rolled over in her chair and looked across her glasses to Mis' Sykes.