"You know," I says, when I left them, "peace that we talk so much about--that isn't going to come just by governments getting it. If people like you and me can't keep it--and be it--what hope is there for the nations? We _are_ 'em!" I'd never thought of it before. I went home saying it over. When I'd put my pie-plant down cellar I went in my dark little parlor and sat down by the window and rocked. I could see their light for a little while. Then it went out. The cottage lay in that hush of peace of a hot summer night. I could feel the peacefulness of the village. "If only we can get enough of it," I says. "If only we can get enough of it--" FOOTNOTE: [8] Copyright, 1917, _Woman's Home Companion_. DREAM When a house in the neighborhood has been vacant for two years, and all of a sudden the neighborhood sees furniture being moved into that house, excitement, as Silas Sykes says, reigns supreme and more than supreme. And so it did in Friendship Village when the Oldmoxon House got a new tenant, unbeknownst. The excitement was specially strained because the reason Oldmoxon House had stood vacant so long was the rent. And whoever had agreed to the Twenty Dollars was going to be, we all felt, and as Mis' Sykes herself put it, "a distinct addition to Friendship Village society." It was she gave me the news, being the Sykeses are the Oldmoxon House's nearest neighbors. I hurried right over to her house--it was summer-warm and you just ached for an excuse to be out in it, anyway. We drew some rockers onto her front porch where we could get a good view. The Oldmoxon double front doors stood open, and the things were being set inside. "Serves me right not to know who it is," says Mis' Sykes. "I see men working there yesterday, and I never went over to inquire what they were doing." "A body can't do everything that's expected of them," says I, soothing. "Won't it be nice," says Mis' Sykes, dreamy, "to have that house open again, and folks going and coming, and maybe parties?" It was then the piano came out of the van, and she gave her ultimatum. "Whoever it is," she says, pointing eloquent, "will be a distinct addition to Friendship Village society." There wasn't a soul in sight that seemed to be doing the directing, so pretty soon Mis' Sykes says, uneasy: "I don't know--would it seem--how would it be--well, wouldn't it be taking a neighborly interest to step over and question the vans a little?" And we both of us thought it would be in order, so we did step right over to inquire. Being the vans had come out from the City, we didn't find out much except our new neighbor's name: Burton Fernandez.