Neighborhood Stories

But he stopped jumping and laughing. “I can’t,” he says, “I was just pe-tend. I can pe-tend, can’t I?” he says, looking up alarmed.

“Hush, Calliope!” says Mis’ Sykes, back of me. “No need making it any harder for him than ’tis.”

“What do you mean by that?” I ask’ her sharp.

“Why,” says she, “I couldn’t have him in the drill. How could I? The children’s mothers is coming down here to trim ’em. Lots of ’em – Mis’ Grace and Mis’ Morgan Graves and some more, said flat out they wouldn’t let their children be in it if they had to trim ’em along with her.”

“My land,” I says, “my land!”

I couldn’t say anything more. And Mis’ Sykes called the children, and they all went shouting round her over to the middle of the green. All but Chris.

I picked him up and set him on the counter of the booth, and I stood side of him. But he didn’t pay much attention to me. He was looking off after the children, forming in two lines that broke into four, and wheeled and turned, and waved their wands. He watched ’em, and he never says a word.

“Come and help me tack tacks, Chris,” I says, when I couldn’t stand it any longer.

And then he says: “When they do it, it’s going to be a band playing, won’t there?”

“Yes,” I says, “but we’ll all be hearing the music. Come and – ”

“When they do it,” he says, still looking off at the children, “they’ll all have white on ’em, won’t they?”

“Yes,” I says, “white on ’em.” And couldn’t say no more.

Then he turns and looks me right in the face: “I got my new white suit home,” he says, whispering.

“Yes, lambin’, yes,” I says, and had to pretend I didn’t understand. And when I looked back at him, he was setting there, still and watching; but two big tears was going down his cheeks.

All of a sudden something in me, something big and quiet, turned round to me and said something. I heard it – oh, I tell you, I heard it. And it wasn’t the first time. And all over me went racing the knowledge that there was something to do for what was the matter. And while I stood there, feeling the glory of knowing that I’d got to find a way to do, somehow – like you do sometimes – to make things better, I looked down the long green stretch of the Square and in the middle of the Square I saw something. Something that was like an answer. And I put my arms round Chris and hugged him. For I’d got a plan that was like a present.

But he didn’t feel like that – not then. He kind of wriggled away. “It ain’t lovin’ time,” he says. “No.”

“No,” I says, looking down that sunny Market Square toward what I’d seen. “No, it ain’t loving time – not yet. But I tell you, I tell you it’s going to be it! Mebbe I can make ’em see – mebbe I know a way to make ’em see. Come along with me,” I says, “Lisbeth’s little boy – and help!”

Toward sundown of that first great day of the Friendship Village Home-coming we was the happiest, wore-outest set of folks I about ever see. Not everybody we’d expected and hoped for had come – even Abner Dawes, he hadn’t showed up. But then he was such a big man that I donno’s any of us thought he’d come, any of the time. Only we did enjoy having it in the Daily every few nights that he’d be there. The editor of the Friendship Evening Daily got six distinct locals out of it for “Supper Table Jottings” – six nights hand-running. Thus:

1. Abner Dawes is expected to arrive from the east for the Home-coming.

2. Abner Dawes will arrive from the east the last of the week. The occasion is the Home-coming.

3. Word has been received that Abner Dawes will reach here Thursday evening to attend the Home-coming.

4. Abner Dawes will reach here to-morrow night.

5. Abner Dawes will reach here this evening on the Six fifty-nine, for a brief sojourn.

6. Abner Dawes arrived last evening and is quartered at the Opera House hotel.

Some we hadn’t thought of turned up last minute, and had to tell folks who they were and then – my, what a welcome! Every few minutes, all day long, we’d hear a little shouting, and see a little crowd, and we’d all rush over, and there’d be somebody just got there, and everybody’d be calling ’em old names, and shaking hands with the children and kissing the grand-children. It was a real day. It’d be a day I’d like to talk about even if nothing else had happened but the day being just the day.

Mis’ Sykes and I were in Eppleby’s booth, and in back of it the children was all trimmed and ready to begin their march, when I heard an unusual disturbance just outside. I looked, and I saw Lisbeth, that Eppleby had asked to come and help tend his booth that night, and she was just getting there, with Chris trotting alongside of her. But they weren’t making the disturbance. Most of that was Eppleby, shaking both the hands of a big, smooth-boned, brown-skinned man that was shouting at his lungs’ top:

“Eppleby Bebbleby
Wooden-leg,
Lost his knife
Playing mumblety-peg.”

with all the gusto of a psalm. And Eppleby was shouting back at him something about

“Abner Dawes he comes to late
The wood was split and things was great.”

And it was Abner actually come and getting himself welcomed by Eppleby just like one of us. And Abner begun remembering us all and calling us by name.

Abner was one of them men that makes you know what men were meant to be like. His face was ruddy and wrinkled – but oh, it was deep and bright, and his eyes looked out like his soul was saying to your soul: “See me. I’m you. Oh, come on, let’s find out about living. How does anybody ever talk about anything else?” That was Abner. You couldn’t be with him without looking closer at the nature of being alive. And you saw that life is a different thing – a different thing from what most of us think. And some day we’ll find out what.

And me, seeing him, and the folks all gathered round the Square, waiting for the after-supper part of the entertainment, and knowing what I’d planned should happen right afterward, I had only one thought:

“Abner,” I says, just the same as if he hadn’t been a great man, “the children – they’re going to march. They’re in back of the booth, all ready. You must lead ’em! He must lead ’em, Mis’ Sykes, mustn’t he – and sing with ’em? Every child here knows your songs. Oh, would you come and march with ’em?”

I love to remember how deep and bright his face got. “Would I march?” he says. “With children? When is it? – now?”

I put out my hand to thank him, and he took hold of it. And all of a sudden, right down there close by our two hands I see somebody. And it was Lisbeth’s little boy, that had come running to us and was tugging at my skirt.

“Look,” Chris says, clear. “I got on this white one. Couldn’t – couldn’t I march too?”

He was looking up, same as a rose, his big eyes shining hopeful. My, my, but he was dear. And Abner Dawes looked down at him. He’d never seen him before – nor knew about his being Lisbeth’s.

“March!” Abner cries. “Of course you can march! Come along with me.”

And he swung little Christopher up on to his back. And he run out into the midst of the other children, where Mis’ Sykes was marshaling ’em before the booth.

“God bless him,” says Eppleby, behind me.

But then Mis’ Sykes looked up, and saw him. And she never hesitated a minute, not even a minute to wonder why. She just set her lips together in that thin line I knew, and she run right up to Abner.

“Oh, Mr. Dawes,” she says, “you mustn’t. The mothers won’t like it. He’s Lisbeth Note’s child. He’s – ”

Abner Dawes looked down at her, round Chris’s white legs. All the brightness was gone out of Abner’s face now – but not the deepness nor the kindness. That stayed. “Do you mean,” he said grave, “that this child is evil?”

“No – no,” says Mis’ Sykes, stumbling some. “But I thought you’d ought to know – folks feeling as they do here – ”

Abner turned and looked down the green, where the folks was gathered and the last sun was slanting. It was gold, and it was still, all except the folks chatting in groups. And up the street the half-past seven bell was ringing, like somebody saying something nice.

“Oh, God,” says Abner Dawes, kind of reverent and kind of like a sigh. “Here too. Here too.”

I’ll never forget his face when he turned to Mis’ Sykes. It wasn’t hard or cross or accusing – I guess he knew she was just at her crooked way of trying to be decent! But he made her know firm that if he led the children’s march, he’d lead it with Chris. – And it was so he done.

…Down the long green they come, side by side. And the other children fell in behind, and they circled out into a great orbit, with the Christmas tree in the middle of it. And folks begun to see who the man was at the head, and the word run round, and they all broke out and cheered and called out to him. Oh, it was a great minute. I like to think about it.