"But I didn't pay no more attention than as if I'd been a speaker in public life. And Mis' Toplady and Christopher, coming back to the room just then, I spoke to him and took a-hold of his little shoulder. "'Chris,' I says, 'tell 'em what you're going to be when you grow up.' "The little boy stood up with his back against the door-casing, and he spoke back between peppermints:-- "'I'm going to drive the loads of hay,' he declares himself. "'A little bit ago,' I says to 'em, 'he was going to be a cream-puff man, and keep a church and manufacture black velvet for people's coffins. Think of all them futures--not to spend time on other possibilities. Don't it seem like we'd ought to keep him around here somewheres and help him decide? Don't it seem like what he's going to be is resting with us?' "But now Mis' Sykes spoke out in her most presidential tone. "'It would be perfectly impossible,' she says, 'for Sodality to spend its money on the child or on anybody else that's living. Our constitution says we shall work for Cemetery.' "'Well,' says I, rebellish, 'then let's rip up our old constitution and buy ourselves a new pattern.' "Mis' Sykes was getting to verge on mad. "'But Sodality ain't an orphan asylum, Calliope,' says she, 'nor none of us is that.' "'Ain't we--ain't we, Mis' Sykes?' I says. 'Sometimes I donno what we're for if we ain't that.' "And then I just clear forgot myself, in one of them times that don't let you get to sleep that night for thinking about, and that when you wake up is right there by the bed waiting for you, and that makes you feel sore when you think of afterwards--sore, but glad, too. "'That's it,' I says, 'that's it. I've been thinking about that a good deal lately. I s'pose it's because I ain't any children of my own to be so busy for that I can't think about their real good. Seems to me there ain't a child living no matter how saucy or soiled or similar, but could look us each one in the face and say, "What you doing for me and the rest of us?" And what could we say to them? We could say: "I'm buying some of you ginghams that won't shrink nor fade. Some of you I'm cooking food for, and some of you I'm letting go without it. And some of you I'm buying school books and playthings and some of you I'm leaving without 'em. I'm making up some of your beds and teaching you your manners and I'm loving you--some of you. And the rest of you I'm leaving walk in town after dark with a hole in your stocking." _Where's the line--where's the line?_ How do we know which is the ones to do for? I tell you I'm the orphan asylum to the whole lot of 'em. And so are you. And I move the Cemetery Improvement Sodality do something for this little boy. We'd adopt him if he was dead--an' keep his grave as nice and neat as wax. Let's us adopt him instead of his grave!'