“Children,” says I, simple.
“Young folks,” Silas says, smooth. “Sixty-one of ’em. Ain’t that pretty near a club, I’d like to know?”
“Oh,” I says, “a club. A club! And do them sixty-one want to be a club, Silas?”
Silas scowled. “What you talking?” he says. “Of course they want all you’ll do for ’em. Well, now: Us men has been facing this thing, and it’s so plain that even a woman must see it: Friendship Village is going to empty itself out into Red Barns, same as a skin, if this town don’t get up and do something.”
“True,” says I, attentive. “Even a woman can take in that much, Silas, if you put it right before her, and lead her up to it, and point it out to her and,” says I, warming up to it, “put blinders on her so’s not to distract her attention from the real fact in hand.”
“What you talking?” says Silas. “I never saw a woman yet that could keep on any one subject no more than a balloon. Well, now, what I thought was this: I thought I’d up and go around with a paper, and see how much everybody’d give, and we’d open an Evening Club somewheres, for the employees—folks’s old furniture and magazines and books and some games—and give ’em a nice time. Here,” says Silas, producing a paper from behind the cheese, “I’ve gone into this thing to the tune of Fifty Dollars. Fifty Dollars. And I thought,” says he direct, “that you that’s always so interested in doing things for folks, might put your own name down, and might see some of the other ladies too. And I could report it to our Commercial club meeting next Friday night. After the business session.”
I looked at him, meditative.
“If it’s all the same to you, Silas,” I says, “I’ll take this paper and go round and see some of these sixty-one women and girls, instead.”
Silas kind of raised up his whole face and left his chin hanging, idle.
“See them women and girls?” says he, some resembling a shout. “What have they got to do with it, I’d like to know?”