t run back an' play dreams.
Mother wants you to.'

"She'd taught him to call her mother--she'd had him about six months
then--an' some thought that was queer to do, seein' Calliope was her age
an' all. But I thought it was wonderful right.

"'I did play,' he says to her--he had a nice little way o' pressin' down
hard with his voice on one word an' lettin' the next run off his
tongue--'I did play dreams,' I rec'lect he says; 'I dreamed 'bout
robbers. Ain't robbers _distinct_?' he says.

"I didn't know what he meant till Calliope laughs an' says, 'Oh,
distinctly extinct!' I remembered it by the way the words kind o'
crackled.

"By then he was lookin' up to the stars--his little mind always lit here
an' there, like a grasshopper.

"'How can heaven begin,' he says, 'till everybody gets there?'

"Yes, he was a dear little chap. I like to think about him. An' I know
when he says that, Calliope just put her arms around him, an' her head
down, an' set sort o' rockin' back an' forth. An' she says:--

"'Oh, but I think it begins when we don't know.'

"After a while she took him back to bed, little round face lookin' over
her shoulder an' big, wide-apart, lonesome eyes an' little sort o'
crooked frown, for all the world like the other Calvert Oldmoxon. Just
as she come out an' set down again, we heard the click o' the gate
acrost at the corner house where the New People lived, an' it was the
New Husband got home. We see his wife's white dress get up to meet him,
an' they went in the house together, an' we see 'em standin' by the
lamp, lookin' at things. Seems though the whole night was sort
o'--gentle.

"All of a sudden Calliope unties her apron.

"'Let's dress up,' she says.

"'Dress up!' I says, laughin' some. 'Why, it must be goin' on half-past
eight,' I told her.

"'I don't care if it is,' she says; 'I'm goin' to dress up. It seems as
though I must.'

"She went inside, an' I followed her. Calliope an' I hadn't no men folks
to dress for, but, bein' dressmakers an' lace folks, we had good things
to wear. She put on the best thin dress she had--a gray book-muslin; an'
I took down a black lawn o' mine. It was such a beautiful night that I
'most knew what she meant. Sometimes you can't do much but fit yourself
in the scenery. But I always thought Calliope fit in no matter what she
had on. She was so little an' rosy, an' she always kep' her head up like
she was singin'.

"'Now what?' I says. For when you dress up,