"You're going to march for the little boys and girls in Europe that have lost their folks," was all we said to them.
And when I see them coming along, looking round so sweet, dressed up in what they had, and their hair combed up nice by somebody, somehow, there came over me the picture of that little fellow with his brick, waiting there for that pint of milk; and I squeezed up so on Bennie's hand that I was walking with, that he looked up at me.
"You're lovin' me too hard in my fingers," he told me, candid.
"Oh, Bennie," I says, "you excuse me. I guess I was squeezing the hand of every little last one of them, over there."
We all came into the Market Square, in the afternoon sunshine, with our little still, peaceful street—laying and listening, and never knowing it was like heaven at all. Every soul in town was there, I don't know of one that didn't go. Even Luke Norris was there, his wind-pipe forgot. We didn't have much exercises. Just being there was exercise enough. We sung—no national airs, and above all, not our own; but just a hymn or two that had in it all we could find of sympathy and love. There wasn't anything else to say, only just those two things. Then Dr. June prayed, brief:
"Lord God of Love, our hearts are full of love this day for all those in Europe who are bereaved. We cannot speak about it very well—we cannot show it very much. But Thou art love to them. Oh, draw us near in spirit to those sorrowing over there, even as Thou are near to them all. Amen."
Then the band played the Chopin funeral march, while we all stood still. When it was done, up in the belfry of the new Town Hall, the new bell that we were so proud of began to toll. And it seemed like the voice of the town, saying something. We all went home to that bell, with the children leading us. And nobody's store was opened again that day. For the spirit of the time, and of Over There, was on the village like a garment, and I suppose none of us spoke of anything else at supper, or when the lamps were lit.
Quite a little while after supper I was sitting on my porch in the dark, when Luke Norris and some of them came in my gate.
"Calliope," said one of the women, "we've been thinking. Don't it seem awful pitiful that Europe can't know how we feel here to-day?"