What did I say to that? Somehow I got them out of the house, telling them I’d send them word later. When I feel as deep as I did then, I know I can’t do justice, by just thoughts or just words, to what I mean inside. So I let the men go off the best I could. And then I went back into my sitting room, with the August sun pouring in all acrost the air like some kind of glory that we didn’t understand; and I set down in it, and thought. And the thing that come to me was them early days, them first days when the first Christians were trying to plan ways that they could meet, and hoping and longing to be together, and finding caves and wild places where they could gather in safety and talk about their wonderful new knowledge of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and the divine experience of the spirit, here and after. And then I thought of this red, white and blue denominational banquet. Oh, what a travesty it was even on the union that the three colors stand for. And I thought of our talk about “getting people out,” and “filling up the churches,” and I thought of the one hundred and fourteen or more social calls that we require a month from our pastors. And I says to myself: “Oh, Calliope Marsh, has it come to this--_has_ it? Is it like this only in Friendship Village? Or is it like this out in the world too? And, either way, what are we going to do about it?” There was one thing I could do about it. I went to see our minister and his wife, and I told ’em firm that I couldn’t have anything more to do about the extra September services, and that they would have to get somebody else to play the organ for all four Sundays. They was both grieved--and I hated to hurt them. That’s the worst about being true to something you believe--it so often hurts somebody else. But there wasn’t any other way to do. “But Miss Marsh,” says our minister, “don’t you see that it is going to be a time of awakening if we all stand by each other and support the meetings?” “Support the meetings!” I wondered how many times, in those first days, they had to argue that. But I didn’t say anything--I just sat still and ached. “But Miss Marsh,” said the minister’s wife, “we have so depended on you. And your influence--what about that?” “I can’t help it,” I says--and couldn’t say no more. Mis’ Postmaster Sykes was there, and _she_ piped up: “But it’s so _dig_nified, Calliope,” she says. “No soliciting, no pledging people to be present, no money-begging for expenses. No anything except giving people to understand that not attending ain’t real respectable.” It was them words that give me the strength to get up and go home without breaking down. And all the way up Daphne Street I went saying it over: “No anything except giving people to understand not attending ain’t real respectable. No, not anything only just that.” Near my own gate I come on young Elbert Kinsman, minister of the White Frame church, going along alone.