"'Real surprised,' I says, dry.
"'Amanda,' pipes up Timothy, 'air you a fool party to this fool doin's?'
"'Oh, shucks!' says Mis' Toplady, tired. 'I been doin' too real things to row, Timothy.'
"'Nev' mind,' says Silas, pacific. 'When the new iron gates gets here for this here entry, we won't have no more such doin's as this. They're ordered,' says Silas, like a bombshell, 'to keep out the hoodlums.'
"Then Eppleby, that had been peeking through the schoolhouse window, whirled around.
"'Yes,' says he. 'Let's put up the gates to keep out the hoodlums. But what you going to do for the girls and boys of Friendship Village that ain't hoodlums? What you goin' to do for them? I want to tell you that I knew all about what was goin' on here to-night, and I give over the schoolhouse key myself. And now you look down there.'
"It was Friendship Village he pointed to, laying all around the schoolhouse slope, little lights shining for homes. And Eppleby went on before Silas and Timothy could get the breath to reply:—
"'The town's nothin' but roots, is it?' Eppleby says. 'Roots, sendin' up green shoots to the top o' this hill to be trained up here into some kind of shape to meet life. What you doin' to 'em? Buildin' 'em a great, expensive schoolhouse that they use a few hours a day, part o' the year, an' the rest of the time it might as well be a hole in the ground for all the good it does anybody. An' here's the young folks, that you built it for chasin' the streets to let off the mere flesh-an'-blood energy the Lord has give to 'em. Put up your iron gates if you want to, but don't put 'em up till the evenin's over an' till there's been some sort o' doin's here like this to give 'em what's their right. Put up your iron gates, but shame on the schoolhouse that puts 'em up an' stops there! Open the buildin' in the name of public decency, but in the name of public decency, don't shut it up!'
"Timothy was starting to wave his arms when Mis' Toplady stood up, quiet, on the bottom step.
"'Timothy,' she says, 'thirty-five years ago this winter you an' I was keepin' company. Do you remember how we done it? Do you remember singin' school? Do you remember spellin' school? Did our straw ridin' an' sleigh ridin' to the Caledonia district schoolhouse for our fun ever hurt the schoolhouse, or do you s'pose we ever learnt any the less in it? Well, I remember; an' we both remember; an' answer me this: Do you s'pose them young things in there is any differ'nt than we was? An' what's the sin an' the crime of what they're doin' now? Look at 'em!'