“To work?” I demanded.
“To be,” mother said.
“Oh, yes, yes!” I welcomed it. “But her father—where will he be?”
“In a little while now,” father said, “he will be free—and perhaps even equal.”
I did not understand this wholly. Besides, there was far too much to think about. I turned toward the house of the New Family. A light glowed in Mary Elizabeth’s room. I brought down my torpedo on the brick walk, and it exploded merrily, and from Mary Elizabeth’s window came an answering pop.
“Then Mary Elizabeth will get free and equal too!” I cried joyously.
XIX
EARTH-MOTHER
And for that day and that night, and for all the days and all the nights, I should like to tell a story about the Earth, and about some of the things that it keeps expecting.
And if it were Sometime Far Away—say 1950—or 2050—or 3050—I should like to meet some Children of Then, and tell them this story about Now, and hear them all talk of what a curious place the earth must have been long ago, and of how many things it did not yet do.