"My land," she says, "but s'pose he's an enemy baby and she's his enemy ma?"
There hadn't one of us thought of that. For all we had made out, they might be anything. We got hold of Mis' Poulaki and Mis' Amachi, hot foot.
"Ast her what she is," we told them. "Ast her what country it is she comes from."
"Oh," says Mis' Poulaki, "that we know already. They're Lithuanians—that is what they are."
Lithuanians. Where was it? Us ladies drew together still more close. Was Lithuanians central power or was it ally? Us ladies ain't so very geographical, and not one of us knew or could make out.
"Say," says Mis' Toplady finally, "shut up, all of us. If it gets around for folks to wonder at—Why, my land," she says, "their bunk car's burned up anyhow, ain't it? Let's us shut up."
And so we done. And everybody was up around the Foreign Booth. And the Friendship Village booth was most forgot.
All of a sudden, somebody started up "America." I don't know where they'd learned it. There aren't so very many chances for such as these to learn it very good. Some of them couldn't say a word of it, but they could all keep in tune. I saw the side faces of the Flats folks and the bunk car folks, while they hummed away, broken, at that tune that they knew about. Oh, if you want to know what to do next with your life, go somewhere and look at a foreigner in this country singing "America," when he doesn't know you're looking. I don't see how we rest till we get our land a little more like what he thinks it is. And while I was listening, it seemed as if Europe was there in the room.
It was while they were singing that the magic began to work in us all. I remember how it started.
"Oh," says Mis' Toplady, "ladies! Think of that little boy, and the other folks, living in those bunk cars. Don't it seem as if, while they're here, us ladies could—"