"Then what?" says Mis' Sykes, irritable. "Why, be there. And wave and cheer and flop our flags. And walk along behind him to his house. And hurrah—and sing, mebbe—oh, we must sing, of course!" Mis' Sykes cries, thinking of it for the first time, with her hands clasped.
Mis' Toplady looked troubled.
"Well-a," she says, "what would we sing for?"
"Sing for!" cried Mis' Sykes, exasperated. "Because he's got home, of course."
"With his arm shot off. And his eyes blinded with powder. And him half-starved. And mebbe worse. I dunno, Ladies," says Mis' Toplady, dreamy, "but I'm terrible lacking. But I don't feel like singing over Jeffro."
Mis' Sykes looked at her perfectly withering.
"Ain't you no sense of what'd due to occasions?" says she, regal.
"Yes," says Mis' Toplady, "I have. I guess that's just what's the matter of me. It's the occasion that ails me. I was thinking—well, Ladies, I was wondering just how much like singing we'd feel if we'd seen Jeffro's arm shot off him."
"But we didn't see it," says Mis' Sykes, final. That's the way she argues.