And somebody brought out the thing we'd all thought most about.
"The days," she says, "when we worked next to our old enemies—both church and family enemies—and all bad feelings forgot—where's them times?"
"What we going to do about it?" I says. "And when?"
Mis' Sykes had a suggestion. She always does have a suggestion, being she loves to have folks disciple after her. "Why, ladies," she says, "there's some talking more military preparedness right off, I hear. That means for another war. Why not us start in and knit for it now?" And she beamed around triumphant.
"Well," says Mame Holcomb, reasonable, "if the men are going to prepare in any way, it does seem like women had ought to be getting ready too. Why not knit? And have a big box all setting ready, all knit up, to match the other preparednesses?"
It was on to this peaceful assemblage that Berta, Mis' Sykes's little Switzerland maid, came rushing. And her face was pale and white. "Oh, Mis' Sykes," she says, "oh, what jew s'pose? I found a little boy setting on the front stoop."
Mis' Sykes is always calm—not so much because calm is Christian as because calm is grand lady, I always think. "On whose stoop, Berta?" she ask' her kind.
"On your own stoop, ma'am," cried Berta excitable.
"And whose little boy is it, Berta?" she ask', still more calm and kind.