Zona Gale - Peace in Friendship Village

"Whatever comes of it after this [in Russia] every one in the world should be plainly told of what took place in those first weeks. For it was a dazzling revelation of the deep, deep powers for brotherhood and friendliness that lie buried in mankind. I was no dreamer; I was a chemist, a scientist, used to dealing with facts. All my life I had smiled at social dreams as nothing but Utopias. But in those days I was wholly changed, for I could feel beneath my feet this brotherhood like solid ground. There is no end to what men can do – for there is no limit to their good will, if only they can be shown the way."

"I am the way …"

These stories are told in the words of Calliope Marsh. Wherever I have myself intruded a word, it is with apology to her. I chronicle her stories as faithfully as I am able, faults and all, and, through her, the affairs of the village, reflecting in its small pool the people and the stars.

And always I hear most clearly as her conclusion:

"Life is something other than that which we believe it to be."

Portage, Wisconsin, 1919.

Three-four of us older ones were down winding up Red Cross, and eight-ten of our daughters were helping; not my daughter – I ain't connect' – but Friendship Village daughters in general. Or I don't know but it was us older ones that were helping them. Anyway, Red Cross was being wound up from being active, and the rooms were going to be rented to a sewing-machine man. And that night we were to have our final entertainment in the Friendship Village Opera House, and we were all going to be in it.

There was a sound from the stairs like something walking with six feet, and little Achilles Poulaki came in. He always stumbled even when there was nothing in sight but the floor – he was that age. He was the Sykeses' grocery delivery boy, that Mis' Sykes thinks is her social secretary as well, and he'd been errand boy for us all day.

"Anything else, Mis' Sykes?" he says.

"I wonder," says Mis' Sykes, "if Killy can't take that basket of cotton pieces down to old Mis' Herman, for her woolen rugs?"

We all thought he could, and some of the girls went to work to find the basket for him.

"Killy," I says, "I hear you can speak a nice Greek piece."

He didn't say anything. He hardly ever did say anything.

"Can you?" I pressed him, because somebody had been telling me that he could speak a piece his Greek grandfather had taught him.

"Yes'm," he says.

"Will you?" I took it further.

"No'm," he says, in exactly the same tone.

"You ought to speak it for me," I said. "I'm going to be Greece in the show to-night."

But they brought the basket then, and he went off with it. He was a little thin-legged chap – such awful thin legs he had, and a pale neck, and cropped hair, and high eyebrows and big, chapped hands.

"Don't you drop it, now!" says Mis' Sykes, that always uses a club when a sliver would do it.

Achilles straightened up his thin little shoulders and threw out his thin little chest, and says he:

"My grandfather was in the gover'ment."

"Go on !" says Mis' Sykes. "In Greece?"

"Sure," he says – which wasn't Greek talk, though I bet Greek boys have got something like it.

Then Achilles was scared to think he'd spoke, and he run off, still stumbling. His father had been killed in a strike in the Friendship mills, and his mother was sick and tried to sew some; and she hadn't nothing left that wasn't married, only Achilles.

The work went on among us as before, only I always waste a lot of time watching the girls work. I love to see girls working together – they seem to touch at things with the tips of their fingers. They remind me of butterflies washing out their own wings. And yet what a lot they could get done, and how capable they got to be. Ina Clare and Irene Ayres and Ruth Holcomb and some more – they were packing up and making a regular lark of it. Seemed like they were so big and strong and young they could do 'most anything. Seemed like it was a shame to close down Red Cross and send them back to their separate church choirs and such, to operate in, exclusive.

That was what I was thinking when Mis' Silas Sykes broke in – her that's the leading woman of the Friendship Village caste of folks.

"I don't know," says Mis' Sykes, "I don't know but pride is wicked. But I can not help feeling pride that I've lived in Friendship Village for three generations of us, unbroken. And for three generations back of that we were American, on American soil, under the American flag – as soon as ever it got here."

" Was you?" I says. "Well, a strain of me is English, and a touch of me way back was Scotch-Irish; and I've got a little Welsh. And I'd like to find some Indian, but I haven't ever done it. And I'm proud of all them, Mis' Sykes."

Mis' Hubbelthwait spoke up – her that's never been able to get a plate really to fit her, and when she talks it bothers out loud.

"I got some of nearly all the Allies in me," she says, complacent.

" What? " says Mis' Sykes.

"Yes, sir," says Mis' Hubbelthwait. "I was counting up, and there ain't hardly any of 'em I ain't."

"Japanese?" says Mis' Sykes, withering. "How interesting, Mis' Hubbelthwait," says she.

"Oh, I mean Europe," says Mis' Hubbelthwait, cross. "Of course you can't descend from different continents. There's English – I've got that. And French – I've got that. And I-talian is in me – I know that by my eyes. And folks that come from County Galway has Spanish – "

"Spain ain't ally," says Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, majestic. "It's neuter."

"Well, there's that much more credit – to be allies and neuter," says Mis' Hubbelthwait triumphant.

"Well, sir," says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss. "I ain't got anything in me but sheer American – you can't beat that."

"How'd you manage that, Mame?" I ask her. "Kind of a trick, wasn't it?"

"I don't know what you mean," she says. And went right on over my head, like she does. "Ain't it nice, ladies," she says, "to be living in the very tip-top nation of this world?"

"Except of course England," says Mis' Jimmy Sturgis.

"Why except England?" snaps Mame Holcomb.

"Oh well, we all know England's the grandest nation," says Mis' Sturgis. "Don't the sun never set on her possessions? Don't she rule the wave? Ain't she got the largest city? And all like that?"

Mame looked mad.

"Well, I'm sure I don't know," she says. "But from the time I studied g'ography I always understood that no nation could touch us Americans."

"Why," says Mis' Sturgis, "I love America best. But I never had any doubts that England that my folks came from was the most important country."

Mis' Holcomb made her mouth both tight and firm.

"Their gover'ment beats ours, I s'pose?" she says. "You know very well you can't beat our gover'ment."

Berta, Mis' Sykes's little Switzerland maid, spoke up.

"Oh," she says, "I guess Sweetzerland has got the nicest gover'ment. Everybody speaks so nice of that."

Mame looked over at me, behind Berta. But of course we wouldn't say a word to hurt the poor little thing's feelings.

Up spoke that new Mis' Antonio, whose husband has the fluff rug store.

"Of course," she says, "nothing has Rome but Italy."

We kep' still for a minute. Nobody could contradict that.

"I feel bad," said Mis' Antonio, "for the new countries – America, England – that have not so much old history in them. And no old sceneries."