"I couldn't help piping up again from the back parlour. 'What about them that don't get no votes?' I asks. 'What about them that is beat in death like they may of been in life? What's there to cheer them up? If I was them,' says I, 'I'd ha'nt the whole Sodality.' "'No need to be so sacrilegious in speakin' of the Dead as I know of, Calliope,' says Mis' Sykes that was in the chair and could rebuke at will. "That made me kind o' mad, and I answered back, chair or no chair: 'A thing is sacrilegious,' says I, 'according to which side of the fence you're on. But the fence it don't change none.' "Mis' Toplady looked over her glasses and out the window and like she see far away. "'Land, land,' she says, 'I'd like to take that Sixty Dollars and hire some place to invite the young folks into evenings, that don't have no place to go on earth for fun. Friendship Village,' says she, 'is about as lively as Cemetery is for the young folks.' "'Well, but, Mis' Toplady,' says Mis' Sykes, reprovin', 'the young folks is alive and able to see to themselves. They don't come in Sodality's scope. Everything we do has got to be connect' with Cemetery.' "'I can't help it,' Mis' Toplady answers, 'if it is. I'd like to invite 'em in for some good safe evenin's somewheres instead of leaving 'em trapse the streets. And if I had to have Cemetery in it somehow, I donno but I'd make it a lawn party and give it in Cemetery and have done with it.' "We all laughed, but I knew that underneath, Mis' Toplady was kind of half-and-half in earnest. "'The young folks,' says Mis' Sykes, mysterious, 'is going to be took care of by the proper means, very, very soon.' "'I donno,' says Mis' Holcomb, obstinate. 'I think the monument is a real nice idea. Grandfather Holcomb, now, him that helped draft the town, or whatever it is they do, I bet he'd be real pleased to be voted for.' "But Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, seems she couldn't forget the little way Mame had spoke to her before, and she leaned forward and cut her way into the talking. "'Why, Mis' Holcomb,' she says, 'of course your Grandfather Holcomb can be voted on if he wants to and if he thinks he could get it. But dead though he is, what he done can't hold a candle to what Grandfather Merriman done. That man just about run this town for years on end.' "'I heard he did,' said Mame, short. 'Those was the days before things was called by their true names in politics and in graft and like that.' "'I'm sure,' says Mis' Merriman, her voice slipping, 'Grandfather Merriman was an angel in heaven to his family. And he started the very Cemetery by bein' buried in it first himself, and he took a front lot--' "'Ladies, ladies,' says Mis' Sykes, stern, 'we ain't votin' _yet_. Has anybody got anything else to offer? Let the discussion be free.' "'What do we get a monument for, anyway?' says Mis' Toplady, hemming peaceful. 'Why don't we stick the money onto the new iron fence for Cemetery, same as we've been trying to do for years?'