Mis' Sykes explained in her commanding way. "Peace, you know," she says, "is to be celebrated between the different countries. And, of course, this is your country, too," Mis' Sykes assured her, "and we'd like to hev you come up and help with the dishes, or like that." "Is it dress-up?" says Mis' Swenson, not very loud. "My, no!" we told her, and decided to stick to the usual hooks in our closets. "I'd like to," says Mis' Swenson, "if I can get Pete to change his clothes." "So do," says Mis' Sykes gracious and clucked her horse along. "My goodness," she says, "what awful stuff these folks must feed their children! And how they must bungle 'em when they're sick. And they won't hardly any of 'em come to-morrow night," she says. "You can not," she says, "get these folks to take part in nothing." We went to twenty or thirty houses, and every one of them Mis' Sykes invited to come and help. But not one of the twenty or thirty houses had heard of any foreigner whatever having just arrived in Friendship Village, nor had ever seen or heard of that little boy before. He was awful good, the little soul, waving his hands so nice that I begun to be afraid everybody we met would claim foreign and ask for him. By noon we begun to get pretty excited. And the sheriff, he was excited too, and he was hunting just as wild as any of us, being arrests was light. He was hanging on the canal bridge when we crossed it, going home along toward noon. "They never had a case of lost child in Friendship Village in twenty years," he said. "I looked it up." "Lost child nothing!" I told him. "The child ain't lost. Here he is. It's the parents," I said, "that's lost on us." The noon whistle blew just then, and the men that were working on the sewer threw down their shovels. "Look at their faces," says Mis' Sykes. "Did you ever see anything so terrible foreign?" "Foreign ain't poison," says Mis' Toplady on the back seat. "I'm going to have Silas put a button on the cellar window," says Mis' Sykes. "Shucks, they ain't shaved, that's all," says Mis' Toplady. Mis' Sykes leaned over to the sheriff. "You better be up around the peace celebration to-morrow night," she says. "We've been giving out invitations pretty miscellaneous, and we might need you." "I'll drop up," says the sheriff. "But I like to watch them bunk cars pretty close, where the men live." "Is there much lawlessness?" Mis' Sykes asks, fearful. Mis' Toplady sings out, laughing, that there would be if she didn't get home to get Timothy's dinner, and Mis' Sykes come to herself and groaned. "But oh, my land," she says, "we ain't found no ma nor pa for this child. What in time are we going to do? I'm too stiff," she says, "to adopt one personally." But the little boy, he just smelled of the flowers the folks on the Flats had give him, and waved his hand to the sheriff, cute.