“That’s it,” I says, “that’s it! We’ve been whirling round and round, manufacturing the days and the nights, and we never knew we had an orbit too.”
So they come, till they begun to pass where we were—some heads up, some eyes down, women, women, marching to a tune that was being beat out by thousands of hearts all over the world. I’d never seen women like this before. I saw them like I’d never seen them—I felt I was one of ’em like I’d never known that either. And I saw what they saw and I felt what they felt more than I ever knew I done.
Then I heard Aunt Ellis making a little noise in her breath.
“The bad taste of it—the bad taste of it, Calliope!” she said. “When I was a girl we used to use the word ladylike—we used to strive to deserve it. It’s a beautiful word. But these——”
“We’ve been ladylike,” says I, sad, “for five or ten thousand years, and where has it got us to?”
“Oh, but, Calliope, they like it—they like the publicity and the notoriety and the——”
I kept still, but I hurt all over me. I can stand anything only hearing that they like it—the way Aunt Ellis meant. I thought to myself that I bet the folks that used to watch martyrs were heard to say that martyrs prob’ly thought flames was becoming or they wouldn’t be burnt. But when I looked at Aunt Ellis sitting in her car with her hand over her eyes, it come over me all at once the tragedy of it—of all them that watch us cast their old ideals in new forms—their old ideals.
All of a sudden I stood up in the car. The parade had got blocked for a minute, and right in front of the curb where we stood I saw a woman I knew; a little waxy-looking thing, that couldn’t look surprised or exalted or afraid or anything else, and I knew her in a minute—even to the red calico waist and the big weight of hair, just as I had seen her by the toy table in her “home” the night before. And there she was, marching. And here was Aunt Ellis and me.
I leaned over and touched Aunt Ellis.
“You mustn’t mind,” I says; “I’m going too.”