"'Me, too,' I says, fervent.
"'What you goin' to do?' says Silas, spreading out his hands stiff and bowing his knees. 'What's your idee? You've got to have a workin' idee for this thing, same as the curfew is.'
"'Oh, Silas,' I says then, 'that's what we've got—that's what we've got. Them poor young things wants a good time—same as you and all of us did, and same as we do yet. Why not give 'em a place to meet and be together, normal and nice, and some of us there to make it pleasant for 'em?'
"'Heh!' says Silas. 'You talk like a dook. Where you goin' to get a place for 'em? Hire the opery-house, air ye?'
"'No, sir,' I says to him. 'Give 'em the place that's theirs. Give 'em the schoolhouse, open evenings, an' all lit up an' music an' things doin'.'
"'My Lord heavens!' says Silas, that's an elder in the church and ain't no more control of his tongue than a hen. 'Air you crazy, Calliope Marsh? Plump, stark, starin' ravin'—why, woman alive, who's goin' to donate the light an' the coal? You?'
"'I thought mebbe the building and the School Board, too, was for the good o' the young folks,' I says to him, sharp.
"'So it is,' says Silas, 'it's for their good. It ain't for their foolishness. Can't you see daylight, Calliope?'
"'Is arithmetic good an' morals not, Silas Sykes?' I says.
"Then Timothy Toplady let loose: 'A school-buildin', Calliope', s'he,—'why, it's a dignified place. They must respect it, same as they would a church. Could you learn youngsters the Constitution of the United States in a room where they'd just been cookin' up cough drops an' hearin' dance tunes?'