an' he sings back to me, for the secunt line,
"'Go _now_, go _quick_, I bet they're starved!'
"So I got into my coat, tryin' to think where I should go to be sure o' not wastin' time talkin'. Lots o' folks in this world is willin', but mighty few can be quick.
"I knew right off, though, where I'd find somebody to help. The Friendship Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement Sodality was meetin' that afternoon with Mis' Toplady, an' I could cut acrost their pasture--" Calliope nodded toward the little Toplady house and the big Toplady barn--"an' that's what I done. An' when I got near enough to the house to tell, I see by the light in the parlour that they was still there. An' I know when I got into the room, full as I was o' news o' them little children an' the wreck an' the two killed an' all them that was hurt--there was the Sodality settlin' whether the lamb's wool comforter for the bazaar should be tied with pink for daintiness or brown for durability.
"'_Dainty!_' says I, when I got my breath. 'They's sides to life makes me want to pinch that word right out o' the dictionary same as I would a bug,' I says.
"That was funny, too,"--Calliope added thoughtfully, "because I like that word, speakin' o' food an' ways to do things. But some folks get to livin' the word same's if it was the law.
"I guess they thought I was crazy," she went on, "but I wasn't long makin' 'em understand. An' I tell you, the way they took it made me love 'em all. If you want to love folks, just you get in some kind o' respectable trouble in Friendship, an' you'll see so much lovableness that the trouble'll kind o' spindle out an' leave nothin' but the love doin' business. My land, the Sodality went at the situation head first, like it was somethin' to get acrost before dark. An' so it was.
"I remember Mis' Photographer Sturgis: 'There!' she says, 'most cryin'. 'If ever I take only a pint o' milk, I'm sure as sure to want more before the day's out. None of us is on good terms with each other's milkman. _Where_ we goin' to get the milk,' she says, 'for them poor little things?'
"'Where?' says Mis' Toplady--you know how big an' comfortable an' settled she is--'_Where?_ Well, you needn't to think o' where. I expect the Jersey won't be milked till I go an' milk her,' she says, 'but she gives six quarts, nights, right along now, an' sometimes seven. Now about the bread.'