"'What you talkin', Amanda Toplady?' says Silas, crisp; and ''Mandy, what the blazes do you mean?' says Timothy, her lawful lord. But Mis' Toplady didn't mind them, nor mind Mis' Sykes, that was staring at her flat and thick. "'I mean,' says Mis' Toplady, reckless, 'I been sick to death of the idea of a Fourth with no spirit to it. I mean I been sick to death of a Fourth that's all starched white dresses an' company manners an' no hurrahs anywheres about it. An' us ladies, most all of us, feels the same. We didn't like to press in, bein' you men done the original plannin', an' so not one of us has said "P'rade," nor nothin' else to you. But now that your orator has fell through on himself, you men just leave us ladies in on this thing to do more'n take orders, an' you needn't be the Laughin' Stock o' nothin' an' nobody. I guess you'll all stand by me. What say, ladies?' "Well, sir, you'd ought to of heard us. We joined in like a patch of grasshoppers singing. They wasn't one of us that hadn't been dying to get our hands on that Fourth and make it a Fourth full of unction and oil of joy, like the Bible said, and must of meant what we meant. "'Oh, ladies,' I remember I says, fervent, 'I feel like we could make a Fourth o' July just like stirrin' up a white cake, so be we was let.' "'What d' you know about managin' a Fourth?' snarls Silas. 'You'll have us all in the hole. You'll have us shellin' out of our own pockets to make up--' "Mis' Toplady whirled on him. 'Would you druther have Red Barns an' Indian Mound a-jumpin' on you through the weekly press for bein' bluffers, an' callin' us cheap an' like that, or would you druther not?' she put it to him. "'Dang it,' says Silas, 'I never tried to do a thing for this town that it didn't lay down an' roll all over me. I wish I was dead.' "'You wan't tryin' to do this thing for this town,' says Mis' Toplady back at him, like the wind. 'You was tryin' to do it for the _stores_ of this town, an' you know it. You was tryin' to ride the Fourth for a horse to the waterin' trough o' good business, an' you know it, Silas Sykes,' says she, 'an' so was Jimmy and Threat an' all of you. The hull country tries to get behind the Fourth of July an' make money over its back like a counter. It ain't what was meant, an' us ladies felt it all along. An' neither was it meant for a garden party day alone, though _that_,' says Mis' Toplady, gracious, 'is a real sweet side idea. An' Mis' Sykes an' Mis' Sessions had ought to go on an' run that part of it, bein' the--tent's here,' she could _not_ bring herself to use that other word. 'But,' she says, 'that ain't all of a real Fourth, nor yet a speech ain't, though he did use to be in the legislature. Them things alone don't make a real flag, liberty-praisin' Fourth, to me nor to none of us.' "'Well,' says Silas, sour, 'what you goin' to _do_ if the men decides to let you try this?'