"No," she says, "but my brother plays, sometimes."
The soldier sat down to the piano, when I asked him, and he played, soft and strong, and something beautiful. His cross shone on his breast when he moved. And me, I stood by the piano, and I heard the soul of the music come gentling through his soul, just like it didn't make any difference to the music, one way or the other....
Music. Music that spoke. Music that sounded like laughing voices.... No, for it was laughing voices....
I opened my eyes, and there in my dining-room, by the lounge, stood Mis' Toplady and Mis' Holcomb, laughing at me for being asleep. Then they sat down by me, and they didn't laugh any more.
"Calliope," Mis' Toplady says, "Mis' Sykes has been round to everybody, and told them about the Oldmoxon House folks."
"And she took a vote on what to do to-night," says Mame Holcomb.
"Giving a little advice of her own, by the wayside," Mis' Toplady adds.
I sat up and looked at them. With the soldier's music still in my ears, I couldn't take it in.
"You don't mean—" I tried to ask them.
"That's it," says Mis' Toplady. "Everybody voted to have a public meeting to honor the soldiers—the colored soldier with the rest. But that's as far as it will go."