Neighborhood Stories

to go to our band concerts, because we ain’t no seats—nothing but a bandstand in the middle of the market square; but yet we all of u

of the bandstand between tunes, w

inute by a man that ain’t been drunk for six months. I dunno but they

ask’ her, “who’s goi

terdependent, but he won’t leave himself down to run against{91} Threat

t of straightened up there

n His big pie as well as in Timothy Toplady’s everlasting apple-pie. I wish’t—oh, I wish’t I was a real human being

and strong of limb, and she can lift and carry and put through, capable and swift. She’s like a woman left from some

e differn’t from the run o’ days. Some men votes,” she says, “like they used the same m

nd Eppleby Holcomb and Mame, and two-three more. We stood there together, listening to the nice, fast tune. They must have been above

parkhood, the town used the edge of it for a market and wood-yard. It stretched away ’most to the track and the Pump pasture, and on three sides of it Friendship Vil

ill, up slouched Threat Hubbe

o reverence for the tune.

to lead us one,” say

you kindly,” says he, easy. “It’s a great t

trustin’{93} you for years, ain’t th

er up, but Threat pretended not to hear anyway, and pretty soon

race it’ll be to have that man for ma

“is the only man in this town that can keep the party in

ty go out, then?” says

arty go out! What do we belong to the part

you belong to it for if you’re willing

eep the party from being di

y looks at

to keep the apples from spoiling, but yet th

three more of that crowd, with boys’ eyes in brown faces, and nice, manly ways to their shoulders. Everybody was walking round between tunes. And everywhere, in and out, under foot, went the children, eight, ten, twelve years apiece to ’em, and couldn’t be le

ou run against Threat, and mayo

up for him, “Eppleby

ing some on the west side like the Lord meant—if you two belongs to the same party, I bet the party’s about ready to

to me. But out loud he says, careless: “I couldn’t

olks to this town th

n’ clothes. And election time comes when them out towards the city limits is doing Spring plowin’ and won’t bother to come in town. (We’d took in most of the surrounding country in our efforts to beat out Red

what about the

e’ve got as many nice residences and well-kep’ yards, and as many modern improvements as

help saying, “you ain’t too relig

atriotism, I guess, as to let folks know it’s time to go home. And

was twenty-one in the spring, and it’s his first vote. I just can’t bea

’s first vote—and Mis’ Uppers’s boy and J

you own so personal?” she snaps. “Couldn’t you make it a day that is a day? A day tha

” says Timo

l roust folks up and give ’em to see their town like a wagon

sive.{97} “You’ll be wantin’ the sto

—and the universe—and I dunno but other places. Exercises that’ll make ’em think ahead and out, and up and in the air in

s, “election day ain’t no

“That’s what I dunno. It kind

es of Friendship Village that was laying over behind us there in the dark, waiting for us to keep on a-making it; and I see Lem Toplady and the rest of ’em going to do their first move public towards the making. And while

d of a French piece with a wonderful tang to it. The children have been singing it in school, with some different words to it, and when the band begun it now, they all kind of hummed it,

ple that can’t look their town in the face at election time

arch music in my heels. And listening to it, and seeing us all streaming to our homes, I co

it real halfhearted, and them that signed his petition was mostly out of business or retired or working for the Government or ministers or like that, and everybody thought they was about the only ones that would be to the polls for him. Because the rest

only do something, they’d get rousted. It’s like a snake with its tail in its mouth. It seems as if, if we could have some doin’s on election day—oh, I wish’t we was a real h

aiting{100} for election day that looked like it wasn’t going to do nothing but shake

get the smell of it. All outside lay sweet and surprised, like the first notes of something being played. Before I knew it, I went out and down the path, between the things that hadn’t come up yet—ain’t it like all outdoors was friendly and

ld, near like planets, high and single like stars, or grouped like constellations; and with a spirit inside us

lages tamed and built and trained and tended and risen from the dead of dirt and ugliness to be real bodies for the souls stirring and beating in them now—and trying to speak. And life will be richer when friends come true—not just this planet, and that star, and these constellations,—but when the whole great company of friends, in homes, in

f somebody could only think of the right wo

what that word was

t wasn’t a wagon or it wasn’t a farm machine of any kind. I looked at it a minute and I couldn’t formulate nothing. And as

to tell much about the feel of the minute when I see the two great silk wings and the airy wire, and knew I was comi

of it, but I guess at first I hardly see him. The machine was the thing, th

he man, all of a sudde

, youngish, easy-acting, and as casual as if he’d just

ctly what I’d said about Mis’ Toplady’s crocheted bed-spread. It’s

“it is. Then I’m

the Lord,” I says to hi

m going to lie over here a day or so, providing the eagle of the

ip Villag

er me, and looked off at it. And I s

ound-house, and the little peepy one chimed in up at the brick-yard, and I could hear the town clock in the engine-house striking, kind of old-fashioned and sweet-toned. And all{104} around the country lay quiet-seeming, down to the flats and out acrost the tracks and clear to the c

! Look at it. It looks like the f

cats asleep in the sun. But I always like to think of ’em like a room—a little roo

, “it does most loo

s of the United States than in the

do?” I

em the way I do. From up high. I keep{105} seeing them skimming under me, little places whose names don’t show. And it always seems that way—

took me in the

on over there—in Friendship Village,” he say

says, “day after to-morrow.

“they aren’t

ve you been in many cities and dropp

says he,—so

tion day

es,” he

ll me what they do on election day in c

” he says o

political speeches, but ones about folks and about living? I should think they must do that somewheres—‘most anybody would of thought of

I was worried for fear

er heard of their doi

trouble in Friendship Village, and about the “best” people never voting, and the city limits folks n

e town, mutual. And we wanted to get up some exercises to make election day a real true day, and to roust folks up to being not

, and nodded. “I fancy it

I thought he thought I was woman-fo

to you, but it’s after-I-die to me. I never shall do it. So far I’ve never seen it.

r done. A thing,” he says my words over, smiling a little, “that makes you think you’re a step nearer to the way things were meant to be

y heart stood still a

rrow is your electio

head begun to beat

make a flight on election-day morning? Free, you know. It wouldn’t be much; but it migh

a-living!” I says—and c

reaming. It seems it was his own machine—he was on his own hook, a-pleasuring.

the air. For I sensed the thing, whole and clear, so be we could get enough to pitch in. And Mis’ Toplady left her br

ng in them—but they see, the most of{109} ’em, what it was we meant. Of course some of them just see the lark, and some of them just didn’t want to refuse us, and some of them just joined in because they’re the joining-in kind. But oh, some of them se

n we went to see her, Mis’ Sy

e been done. As I understand it, they’s two parties. One is for the good of the country and one ain’t. And anything you dicker up outside them two gets the publi

ll makes real good sense,”

e{110} as a whole never do see sense. It’

dy, “I know. But what I t

orts the party measures,”

lady, she sh

ys, firm. “Legs ain’t the onl

tion day. And we done what we could, steadfast and quick and t

come home to the hot breakfast his wife had been up getting for him. One of ’em come out to the well for a bucket of water, and the pulleys squeaked, and somebody’s dog woke up and barked. Back on the trail road somebody’s baby was crying. Down acros

g anxious and fluttered inside of it, waiting to know what was going to become of it. I could almost sense this at six o’clock, when Mis’ Toplady and I hurried down to the market square. Yes, sir, six o’clock in the morning it was. W

ad the idea the airship was going up from. The machine itself was over in the corner of the square near the wood-yard under a wagon-shed{112} they’d made over for it. And to a stand near the platform the Friendship Married Ladies’ Cemetery Improvement Sodality had

ar as the city limits with hand-bills and posters, advertising the flight, and the breakfast on election day. And it seemed to me that outside the place we’d roped off, and in wagons in the streets, was ’most everybody in Friendship Village that I

boys, that had got acquainted with the bird-man. And while they was getting ready, the band was playing gay over in the bandstand, and we was serving breakfasts as fast as we could hand them out. Mis’ Sturgis was doing

be saying much about politics. Us ladies mentioned to one another that Threat nor ’Lish didn’t seem to be anywhere around. But we was mostly all thi

r. Down Daphne Street, hurrying some because they was late, with irregular marching and a good deal of laughing, come the public-school teachers with the school children. We’d give out that they’d b

all covered it. They was big boys and little, and little girls and big, good-dressed and poor-dressed; with honest fathers, and with them that didn’t know honest when they

says to Eppleby, that was help

ready, I s’pose,” he says, wrink

each other,” Mis’ Topl

he’d boiled the brown sugar down for that, and it added

ul of anybody that’s going to be your mayor. Public officials,” said she,

e upwards of ninety griddle cakes by then, an

haughty and questioning, an

, beating away at her pancake batter, “give m

like life was made up of the pattern of things, and like speaking of warf and woof wasn’t delicate. And she

spread ready and no head necessary. And when he finally run it off down the square and headed towards the Pump pasture, my heart sunk

it was invented when legs was. It lifted itself up in the air, like by its own boot-straps, and it went up and up and up, just like going up was its own alphabet. It went and it kept going, its motor buzzing and purring, softer and softer. And pretty soon the blue that it was going up to

the face of all the folks in Friendship Village. Heads back, a sea of little white dabs that was faces, and hearts beating underneath where you couldn’t see ’em—all of us was standing there breathless, feeling just alike. Feeling just alike and being

into the world and took hold of everybody, the more one we was going to get and to stay. And this, all vague inside of us, I knew now was what us ladies had meant by what we’d planned. Didn

. He was up so high that he was a dot, and he grew and grew like a thing being born in the sky—right down towards us and on us he come like a shot, a shot-down shot. Nobody breathed. I couldn’t

ing so deep and so breathless that I ’most forgot the band till it crashed right out behind us, playing loud and fine that Marseilles French piece, like we’d told them. And when it done that, up hopped the children that it give the cue to, and the

dren of To-

dawns upon

banners mu

ecomes our

ecomes our

d field and t

ng rumors

nd burdens m

tread the c

ldren win to thei

within the ranks of

of people,

willing arm

Liberty,

land, so i

land, so i

e have lon

at is our c

e cry of e

g us to h

how we was all feeling. By the time they got down to their

endship Village; and he’d no more’n started before the band started too, playing the tune that by now was in everybody’s veins. And behind them the children fell in, singing again, and with the people streaming behin

ry. Excep’ Mis’ Toplady. She stood for a minute

felt so much like a human b

g machine setting in the hall,—they’d took the polls out of the barber shop and the livery stable sole because the voting machi

u think anybody could go in a child’s s

, “you wouldn’t th

ether up the steps of the school-house. And Mis’ Toplady and Mis’ Sturgis and Mis’ Fire Chief Merriman and Mis’ Uppers stood and watched them—going in to vote now, to the place where the four mothers had seen them go ever since they were little bits of boys, with faces and clothes to be

” I says low to Mis’ Toplad

s, fervent and low

there with them. And when we’ll go straight from a great public meet

the syrup pitchers. But the thing was over the rest of us—the lift and the

believe in us.

was the big power and the big glory that’s near us, waiting to be drawn-on-and-used as fast as we learn how to do it—no, I dunno for sure. But they put Eppleby Holcomb in for mayor. Eppleby got in, to mayor the town! And some said it was because the boys that was to cast their first vote had

the Market Square, and it was being a village, with nobody looking and all its folks in its houses, just like the family around that one evening lamp. And their h

ust like Friendship Village was a person,

in’t some of us. You’re all of us! A

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