Hepsey Burke
by Frank N. Westcott · English · Gutenberg #28517 · 362,552 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Hepsey Burke
Author: Frank N. Westcott
Illustrator: Frederic Rodrigo Gruger
Release date: April 6, 2009 [eBook #28517]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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HEPSEY BURKE
by
FRANK N. WESTCOTT
Illustrated by Frederick R. Gruger
[Illustration: "YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ANYTHING THAT LOOKED LIKE A PARSON, HAVE
YOU? YOU CAN GENERALLY SPOT 'EM EVERY TIME"]
[Illustration]
New York
The H. K. Fly Company
Publishers
Copyright, 1915, by
The H. K. Fly Company.
Copyright, 1915, by
The Red Book Corporation.
Copyright, 1914, by
The Red Book Corporation.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I Hepsey Burke 11
II Gossip 25
III The Senior Warden 36
IV Milking 52
V The Miniature 59
VI The Missionary Tea 71
VII Hepsey Goes A-Fishing 85
VIII An Icebox for Cherubim 96
IX The Rectory 111
X The Bride's Arrival 122
XI Virginia's High Horse 130
XII House Cleaning and Bachelorhood 137
XIII The Circus 147
XIV On the Side Porch 160
XV Nickey's Social Ambitions 170
XVI Practical Temperance Reform 186
XVII Notice to Quit 200
XVIII The New Rectory 212
XIX Couleur de Rose 224
XX Muscular Christianity 238
XXI Uninvited Guests 253
XXII Hepsey's Diplomacy 271
XXIII Hepsey Calls a Meeting 283
XXIV Omnium Gatherum 308
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
"You haven't seen anything that looked like a parson,
have you? You can generally spot 'em every time" Frontispiece
"I'm blessed if you 'aint sewin' white buttons on with
black thread. Is anybody dead in the family, or 'aint
you feelin' well this mornin'?" 62
"Nicholas Burke, what in the name of conscience does
all this idiotic performance mean, I'd like to know?" 80
"Oh well, I always believe that two young married
people should start out by themselves, and then if they
get into a family row it won't scandalize the parish" 126
"I 'aint a chicken no more, Mrs. Betty, and I've 'most
forgot how to do a bit of courtin'" 140
"I consider it a shame and a disgrace to the parish to
have our rector in filthy clothes, drawing stone with a
lot of ruffians" 248
"I've got a hunch, Sylvester Bascom, that it'll be you
that'll have the last word, after all" 280
"Hepsey Burke, for all your molasses and the little bit
of vinegar you say you keep by you, 'There are no flies
on you' as Nickey would put it" 308
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
HEPSEY BURKE
The noisy, loose-jointed train pulled out of the station, leaving
behind it a solitary young man, enveloped in smoke and cinders. In the
middle of the platform stood a little building with a curb roof,
pointed at both ends like a Noah's Ark; and the visitor felt that if
he could only manage to lift up one side of the roof he would find the
animals "two by two," together with the cylindrical Noah and the rest
of his family. There was no one in sight but the station-master, who
called out from the ticket office:
"Did you want to go to the village? The 'bus won't be down till the
next train: but maybe you can ride up on the ice wagon."
"Thanks," the stranger replied. "I think I'll wait for the 'bus, if
it's not too long."
"Twenty minutes or so, if Sam don't have to collect the passengers
goin' West, and wait for a lot o' women that forget their handbags and
have to get out and go back after 'em."
The new arrival was good to look at--a handsome, well-built fellow of
about twenty-five, dressed in a gray suit which was non-committal as
to his profession, with a clean-shaven face which bore the
unmistakable stamp of good breeding and unlimited good-nature. He
tilted his suit-case on end and sat down on it; then he filled his
briar pipe, crossed his legs, and looked about to take stock of the
situation. He gazed about curiously; but there was nothing of any
special interest in sight, except, painfully conspicuous on the face
of a grass terrace, the name of the village picked out in large
letters composed of oyster-shells and the bottoms of protruding beer
bottles stuck in the ground. The stranger found himself wondering
where a sufficient number of bottles could be found to complete such
an elaborate pattern. The only other marked feature of the landscape
in the way of artistic decoration was the corrugated base of an old
stove, painted white, which served as a flower vase. From this grew a
huge bunch of scarlet geraniums, staring defiantly, and seeming fairly
to sizzle in the hot, vibrant atmosphere, which was as still as the
calm of a moon-lit night.
As the man on the suit-case gazed about him at the general air of
dilapidation and neglect characteristic of a country town on the down
grade, and recalled the congenial life of the city which he had left,
with all its busy competition, with all its absorbing activities, the
companionship of the men he loved, and the restful, inspiring intimacy
with a certain young woman, he felt, for the moment, a pang of
homesickness. If the station were a sample of the village itself, then
life in such a place must be deadening to every finer sensibility and
ambition; it must throw a man back on himself and make him morbid.
The momentary depression was relieved by the station-master, who
suddenly appeared at the door of the Ark and called out:
"Here comes Hepsey Burke. Maybe she'll take you up; that'll be a dum
sight more comfortable than Lipkin's 'bus."
There was nothing to be seen but a cloud of dust, advancing with the
rapidity of a whirlwind along the highway, from which there gradually
emerged a team and a "democrat," containing a woman, a boy about
fourteen, and a middle-aged man.
As the turn-out drew up, the man took the reins from Mrs. Burke, who
jumped out of the wagon with remarkable agility for one of her size
and years, and, nodding to the station-master, came on to the
platform.
Hepsey Burke was rather stout; and the lines from her nose to the
corners of her mouth, and the wisps of gray hair which had blown about
her face, indicated that she had passed the meridian of life. At first
glance there was nothing striking about her appearance; but there was
a subtle expression about the mouth, a twinkle about the large gray
eyes behind the glasses she wore, that indicated a sense of humor
which had probably been a God-send to her. She was strong and well,
and carried with her an air of indomitable conviction that things
worked themselves out all right in the long run.
The boy was obviously her son, and in spite of his overalls and frayed
straw hat, he was a handsome little chap. He looked at you shyly from
under a crop of curly hair, with half closed eyes, giving you the
impression that you were being "sized up" by a very discriminating
individual; and when he smiled, as he did frequently, he revealed a
set of very white and perfect teeth. When he was silent, there was a
little lifting of the inner brow which gave him a thoughtful look
quite beyond his years; and you were sadly mistaken if you imagined
that you could form a correct impression of Nicholas Burke at the
first interview.
The man wore a sandy beard, but no mustache, and had a downcast,
meekly submissive air, probably the depressing effect of many years of
severe domestic discipline.
Mrs. Burke was evidently surprised to find no one there but the man on
the suit-case; but as he rose and lifted his hat, she hesitated a
moment, exclaiming:
"I beg pardon, but I was lookin' for a parson who was to arrive on
this train. You haven't seen anything that looked like a parson, have
you? You can generally spot 'em every time."
The young man smiled.
"Well, no; I seem to be the only passenger who got off the train; and
though I'm a clergyman, you don't seem to find it easy to 'spot' me."
Mrs. Burke, with a characteristic gesture, pulled her glasses forward
with a jerk and settled them firmly back again on the bridge of her
nose. She surveyed the speaker critically as she questioned:
"But you don't seem to show the usual symptoms--collar buttoned
behind, and all that."
"I am sorry to disappoint you, Madam, but I never travel in clerical
uniform. Can't afford it."
"Well, you've got more sense than most parsons, if I may say so. Maybe
you're the one I'm lookin' for: Mr. Donald Maxwell."
"That is my name, and I am sure you must be Mrs. Burke."
"Sure thing!"--shaking his outstretched hand heartily. "Now you come
right along with me, Mr. Maxwell, and get into the democrat and make
yourself comfortable." They walked round to the front of the station.
"This, Mr. Maxwell, is Jonathan Jackson, the Junior Warden; and this
is my son Nicholas, generally known as Nickey, except when I am about
to spank him. Say, Jonathan, you just h'ist that trunk into the back
of the wagon, and Nickey, you take the parson's suit-case."
The Junior Warden grinned good-naturedly as he shook hands with the
new arrival. But Hepsey continued briskly: "Now, Jonathan, you get
into the back seat with Nickey, and Mr. Maxwell, you sit with me on
the front seat so that I can talk to you. Jonathan means well, but his
talk's limited to crops and symptoms, even if he is an old friend, my
next door neighbor, and the Junior Warden."
Jonathan obeyed orders; and, as he got into the wagon, winked at
Maxwell and remarked:
"You see we have to take a back seat when Hepsey drives; and we have
to hold on with both hands. She's a pacer."
"Don't you let him frighten you, Mr. Maxwell," Hepsey replied.
"Jonathan would probably hold on with both hands if he lay flat on his
back in a ten-acre lot. He's just that fearless and enterprisin'."
Then, starting the horses with a cluck, she turned to Maxwell and
continued:
"I guess I didn't tell you I was glad to see you; but I am. I got your
note tellin' me when you were comin', but I didn't get down to the
station in time, as the men are killin' hogs to-day, and until I get
the in'ards off my hands, I haven't time for anything."
"I am sorry to have put you to the trouble of coming at all. I'm sure
it's very good of you."
"No trouble; not the least. I generally look after the visitin'
parsons, and I'm quite used to it. You can get used to 'most
anything."
Maxwell laughed as he responded:
"You speak as if it weren't always a pleasure, Mrs. Burke."
"Well, I must admit that there are parsons and parsons. They are
pretty much of a lottery, and it is generally my luck to draw blanks.
But don't you worry about that; you don't look a bit like a parson."
"I think that's a rather doubtful compliment."
"Oh, well, you know what I mean. There are three kinds of people in
the world; men, women, and parsons; and I like a parson who is a man
first, and a parson afterwards; not one who is a parson first, and a
man two weeks Tuesday come Michaelmas."
Donald laughed: he felt sure he was going to make friends with this
shrewd yet open-hearted member of his flock. The pace slackened as the
road began a steep ascent. Mrs. Burke let the horses walk up the hill,
the slackened reins held in one hand; in the other lolled the whip,
which now and then she raised, tightening her grasp upon it as if for
use, on second thoughts dropping it to idleness again and clucking to
the horses instead. It was typical of her character--the means of
chastisement held handy, but in reserve, and usually displaced by
other methods of suasion.
As they turned down over the brow of the hill they drove rapidly, and
as the splendid landscape of rolling country, tilled fields and
pasture, stretching on to distant wooded mountains, spread out before
him, Maxwell exclaimed enthusiastically, drawing a deep breath of the
exhilarating air:
"How beautiful it is up here! You must have a delightful climate."
"Well," she replied, "I don't know as we have much climate to speak
of. We have just a job lot of weather, and we take it regular--once
after each meal, once before goin' to bed, and repeat if necessary
before mornin'. I won't say but it's pretty good medicine, at that.
There'd be no show for the doctor, if it wasn't fashionable to invite
him in at the beginnin' and the end of things."
Jonathan, who up to this time had been silent, felt it incumbent to
break into the conversation a bit, and interposed:
"I suppose you've never been up in these parts before?"
"No," Maxwell responded; "but I've always intended to come up during
the season for a little hunting some time. Was there much sport last
year?"
"Well, I can't say as there was, and I can't say _as_ there wasn't.
The most I recollect was that two city fellers shot a guide and
another feller. But then it was a poor season last fall, anyway."
Maxwell gave the Junior Warden a quick look, but there was not a trace
of a smile on his face, and Hepsey chuckled. Keeping her eyes on the
horses as they trotted along at a smart pace over a road none too
smooth for comfortable riding, she remarked casually:
"I suppose the Bishop told you what we wanted in the shape of a
parson, didn't he?"
"Well, he hinted a few things."
"Yes; we're awful modest, like most country parishes that don't pay
their rector more than enough to get his collars laundered. We want a
man who can preach like the Archbishop of Canterbury, and call on
everybody twice a week, and know just when anyone is sick without
bein' told a word about it. He's got to be an awful good mixer, to
draw the young people like a porous plaster, and fill the pews. He
must have lots of sociables, and fairs, and things to take the place
of religion; and he must dress well, and live like a gentleman on the
salary of a book-agent. But if he brings city ways along with him and
makes us feel like hayseeds, he won't be popular."
"That's a rather large contract!" Maxwell replied with a smile.
"Yes, but think what we're goin' to pay you: six hundred dollars a
year, and you'll have to raise most of it yourself, just for the fun
of it."
At this point the Junior Warden interrupted:
"Now, Hepsey, what's the use of upsettin' the young man at the start.
He's----"
"Never mind, Jonathan. I'm tellin' the truth, anyway. You see," she
continued, "most people think piety's at a low ebb unless we're
gettin' up some kind of a holy show all the time, to bring people
together that wouldn't meet anywhere else if they saw each other
first. Then when they've bought a chance on a pieced bed-quilt, or
paid for chicken-pie at a church supper, they go home feelin' real
religious, believin' that if there's any obligation between them and
heaven, it isn't on their side, anyway. Do you think you're goin' to
fill the bill, Mr. Maxwell?"
"Well, I don't know," said Maxwell. "Of course I might find myself
possessed of a talent for inventing new and original entertainments
each week; but I'm afraid that you're a bit pessimistic, Mrs. Burke,
aren't you?"
"No, I'm not. There's a mighty fine side to life in a country parish
sometimes, where the right sort of a man is in charge. The people take
him as one of their family, you know, and borrow eggs of his wife as
easy as of their next door neighbor. But the young reverends expect
too much of a country parish, and break their hearts sometimes because
they can't make us tough old critters all over while you wait. Poor
things! I'm sorry for the average country parson, and a lot sorrier
for his wife."
"Well, don't you worry about me; I'm well and strong, and equal to
anything, I imagine. I don't believe in taking life too seriously;
it's bad for the nerves and digestion. It will be an entirely new
experience for me, and I'm sure I shall find the people interesting."
"Yes, but what if they aren't your kind? I suppose you might find
hippopotamuses interestin' for a while, but that's no reason you
should like to live with 'em. Anyway, don't mind what people say. They
aint got nothin' to think about, so they make up by talkin' about it,
especially when it happens to be a new parson. We've been havin' odds
and ends of parsons from the remnant counter now for six months or
more; and that's enough to kill any parish. I believe that if the
angel Gabriel should preach for us, half the congregation would object
to the cut of his wings, and the other half to the fit of his halo. We
call for all the virtues of heaven, and expect to get 'em for
seven-forty-nine."
"Well--I shall have to look to you and the Wardens to help me out," he
said. "You must help me run things, until I know the ropes."
"Oh! Bascom will run things for you, if you let him do the runnin',"
she replied, cracking her whip. "You'll need to get popular first with
him and his--then you'll have it easy."
Maxwell pondered these local words of wisdom, and recalled the
Bishop's warning that Bascom, the Senior Warden, had not made life
easy for his predecessors, and his superior's exhortation to firmness
and tact, to the end that he, Maxwell, should hold his own, while
taking his Senior Warden along with him. The Senior Warden was
evidently a power in the land.
They had driven about a mile and a half when the wagon turned off the
road, and drew up by a house standing some distance back from it;
getting down, Mrs. Burke exclaimed:
"Welcome to Thunder Cliff, Mr. Maxwell. Thunder Cliff's the name of
the place, you know. All the summer visitors in Durford have names for
their houses; so I thought I'd call my place Thunder Cliff, just to be
in the style."
Jonathan Jackson, who had kept a discreet silence during Hepsey's
pointers concerning his colleague, the Senior Warden, interjected:
"There 'aint no cliff, Hepsey, and you know it. I always tell her, Mr.
Maxwell, 'taint appropriate a bit."
"Jonathan, you 'aint no Englishman, and there's no use pretendin'
that you are. Some day when I have a couple of hours to myself, I'll
explain the whole matter to you. There isn't any cliff, and the house
wants paintin' and looks like thunder. Isn't that reason enough to go
on with? Now, Mr. Maxwell, you come in and make yourself perfectly at
home."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II
GOSSIP
That afternoon Maxwell occupied himself in unpacking his trunks and
arranging his room. As the finishing touch, he drew out of a leather
case an exquisite miniature of a beautiful girl, which he placed on
the mantelpiece, and at which he gazed for a long time with a wistful
light in his fine gray eyes. Then he threw himself on the lounge, and
pulling a letter from his inner pocket, read:
"Don't worry about expenses, dear. Six hundred is quite enough for
two; we shall be passing rich! You must remember that, although I am a
'college girl,' I am not a helpless, extravagant creature, and I know
how to economize. I am sure we shall be able to make both ends meet.
With a small house, rent free, a bit of ground for a vegetable garden,
and plenty of fresh air, we can accomplish almost anything, and be
supremely happy together. And then, when you win advancement, as of
course you will very soon, we shall appreciate the comforts all the
more from the fact that we were obliged to live the simple life for a
while.
"You can't possibly imagine how I miss you, sweetheart. Do write as
soon as possible and tell me all about Durford. If I could just have
one glimpse of you in your new quarters--but that would only be a
wretched aggravation; so I keep saying to myself 'Some day, some day,'
and try to be patient. God bless you and good-by."
* * * * *
Donald folded the letter carefully, kissed it, and tucked it away in
his pocket. Clasping his hands behind his head, he gazed at the
ceiling.
"I wonder if I'd better tell Mrs. Burke about Betty. I don't care to
pass myself off as a free man in a parish like this. And yet, after
all, it's none of their business at present. I think I'd better wait
and find out if there's any possibility of making her happy here."
There was a knock at the door.
"Talk of angels," murmured Maxwell, and hurriedly returned the
miniature to its case before opening the door to Mrs. Burke, who came
to offer assistance.
"Don't bother to fuss for me," she said as he hastened to remove some
books and clothes from a chair, so that she might sit down. "I only
came up for a moment to see if there was anything I could do. Think
you can make yourself pretty comfortable here? I call this room 'the
prophet's chamber,' you know, because it's where I always put the
visitin' parsons."
"They're lucky," he replied. "This room is just delightful with that
jolly old fireplace, its big dormer windows, and the view over the
river and the hills beyond: I shall be very comfortable."
"Well, I hope so. You know I don't think any livin'-room is complete
without a fireplace. Next to an old friend, a bright wood fire's the
best thing I know to keep one from getting lonesome."
"Yes--that and a good cigar."
"Well, I haven't smoked in some time now," Mrs. Burke replied,
smiling, "so I can't say. What a lot of things you've got!"
"Yes, more than I thought I had."
"I do love to see a man tryin' to put things to rights. He never knows
where anything belongs. What an awful lot of books you've got! I
suppose you're just chuck full of learnin', clean up to your back
teeth; but we won't any of us know the difference. Most city parsons
preach about things that are ten miles over the heads of us country
people. You can't imagine how little thinkin' most of us do up here.
We're more troubled with potato bugs than we are with doubts; and
you'll have to learn a lot about us before you really get down to
business, I guess."
"Yes, I expect to learn more from you than you will from me. That's
one of the reasons why I wanted to come so far out in the country."
"Hm! I hope you won't be disappointed."
Mrs. Burke adjusted her glasses and gazed interestedly about the room
at some pictures and decorations which Maxwell had placed in position,
and inquired:
"Who is the plaster lady and gentleman standin' on the mantelpiece?"
"The Venus de Milo, and the Hermes of Praxiteles."
"Well, you know, I just can't help preferrin' ladies and gentlemen
with arms and legs, myself. I suppose it's real cultivated to learn to
like parts of people done in marble. Maybe when I go down to the city
next fall to buy my trousseau, I'll buy a few plasters myself, to make
the house look more cheerful-like."
Maxwell caught at the word "trousseau," and as Mrs. Burke had spoken
quite seriously he asked:
"Are you going to be married, Mrs. Burke?"
"No such thing! But when a handsome young widow like me lives alone,
frisky and sixty-ish, with six lonesome, awkward widowers in the same
school district, you can never tell what might happen any minute; 'In
time of peace prepare for war,' as the paper says."
Maxwell laughed reassuringly.
"I don't see why you laugh," Mrs. Burke responded, chuckling to
herself. "'Taint polite to look surprised when a woman says she's
a-goin' to get married. Every woman under ninety-eight has
expectations. While there's life there's hope that some man will make
a fool of himself. But unless I miss my guess, you don't catch me
surrenderin' my independence. As long as I have enough to eat and am
well, I'm contented."
"You certainly look the picture of health, Mrs. Burke."
"Oh, yes! as well as could be expected, when I'm just recoverin' from
a visit from Mary Sam."
"What sort of a visitor is that?" asked Maxwell, laughing.
"Mary Sam is my sister-in-law. She spends a month with me every year
on her own invitation. She is what you'd call a hardy annual. She is
the most stingy and narrow-minded woman I ever saw. The bark on the
trees hangs in double box-plaits as compared with Mary Sam. But I got
the best of her last year. While I was cleanin' the attic I came
across the red pasteboard sign with 'Scarlet Fever' painted on it,
that the Board of Health put on the house when Nickey had the fever
three years ago. The very next day I was watchin' the 'bus comin' up
Main Street, when I saw Mary Sam's solferino bonnet bobbin' up and
down inside. Before she got to the house, I sneaked out and pinned up
the sign, right by the front door. She got onto the piazza, bag,
baggage, and brown paper bundles, before she caught sight of it. Then
I wish you could have seen her face: I wouldn't have believed so much
could be done with so few features."
"She didn't linger long?" laughed the parson, who continued arranging
his books while his visitor chatted.
"Linger? Well, not exactly. She turned tail and run lickety-spindle
back for the 'bus as if she had caught sight of a subscription paper
for foreign missions. I heard Jim Anderson, who drives the 'bus,
snicker as he helped her in again; but he didn't give me away. Jim and
I are good friends. But when she got home she wrote to Sally Ramsdale
to ask how Nickey was; and Sally, not bein' on to the game, wrote back
that there was nothin' the matter with Nickey that she knew of. Then
Mary Sam wrote me the impudentest letter I ever got; and she came
right back, and stayed two months instead of one, just to be mean. But
that sign's done good service since. I've scared off agents and tramps
by the score. I always hang it in the parlor window when I'm away from
home."
"But suppose your house caught fire while you were away?"
"Well, I've thought of that; but there's worse things than fire if
your insurance is all right."
Mrs. Burke relapsed into silence for a while, until Maxwell opened a
box of embroidered stoles, which he spread out on the bed for her
inspection.
"My! but aren't those beautiful! I never saw the like before. Where
did you get 'em?"
"They were made by the 'Sisters of St. Paul' in Boston."
Hepsey gazed at the stoles a long time in silence, handling them
daintily; then she remarked:
"I used to embroider some myself. Would you like to see some of it?"
"Certainly, I should be delighted to see it," Donald responded; and
Mrs. Burke went in search of her work.
Presently she returned and showed Maxwell a sample of her
skill--doubtless intended for a cushion-cover. To be sure it was a bit
angular and impressionistic. Like Browning's poems and Turner's
pictures, it left interesting room for speculation. To begin with,
there was a dear little pink dog in the foreground, having convulsions
on purple grass. In the middle-distance was a lay-figure in orange,
picking scarlet apples from what appeared to be a revolving
clothes-horse blossoming profusely at the ends of each beam. A little
blue brook gurgled merrily up the hill, and disappeared down the other
side only to reappear again as a blue streak in an otherwise
crushed-strawberry sky. A pumpkin sun was disappearing behind emerald
hills, shooting up equidistant yellow rays, like the spokes of a
cart-wheel. Underneath this striking composition was embroidered the
dubious sentiment "There is no place like home."
Maxwell examined carefully the square of cross-stitch wool embroidery,
biting his lip; while Hepsey watched him narrowly, chuckling quietly
to herself. Then she laughed heartily, and asked:
"Confess now; don't you think it's beautiful?"
Donald smiled broadly as he replied:
"It's really quite wonderful. Did you do it yourself?"
"To be sure I did, when I was a little girl and we used to work in
wool from samplers, and learn to do alphabets. I'm glad you appreciate
it. If you would like to have me embroider anything for the church,
don't hesitate to ask me." She busied herself examining the stoles
again, and asked:
"How much did these things cost, if you don't mind my askin'?"
"I don't know. They were given to me by a friend of mine, when I
graduated from the Seminary."
"Hm! a friend of yours, eh? She must think an awful lot of you."
Hepsey gave Donald a sharp glance.
"I didn't say it was a lady."
"No, but your eyes and cheeks did. Well, it's none of my business, and
there's no reason that I know of why the Devil should have all the
bright colors, and embroideries, and things. Are you High Church?"
Maxwell hesitated a moment and replied:
"What do you mean by 'High Church?'"
"The last rector we had was awful high." Hepsey smiled with
reminiscent amusement.
"How so?"
"We suspected he didn't wear no pants durin' service."
"How very extraordinary! Is that a symptom of ritualism?"
"Well, you see he wore a cassock under his surplice, and none of our
parsons had ever done that before. The Senior Warden got real stirred
up about it, and told Mr. Whittimore that our rectors always wore
pants durin' service. Mr. Whittimore pulled up his cassock and showed
the Warden that he had his pants on. The Warden told him it was an
awful relief to his mind, as he considered goin' without pants durin'
service the enterin' wedge for Popish tricks; and if things went on
like that, nobody knew where we would land. Then some of the women got
talkin', and said that the rector practiced celibacy, and that some
one should warn him that the parish wouldn't stand for any more
innovations, and he'd better look out. So one day, Virginia Bascom,
the Senior Warden's daughter, told him what was being said about him.
The parson just laughed at Ginty, and said that celibacy was his
misfortune, not his fault; and that he hoped to overcome it in time.
That puzzled her some, and she came to me and asked what celibacy was.
When I told her it was staying unmarried, like St. Paul--my, but
wasn't she mad, though! You ought to have seen her face. She was so
mortified that she wouldn't speak to me for a week. Well, I guess I've
gossiped enough for now. I must go and make my biscuits for supper. If
I can help you any, just call out."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III
THE SENIOR WARDEN
"It's a fine morning, Mr. Maxwell," Mrs. Burke remarked at breakfast
next day, "and I'm goin' to drive down to the village to do some
shopping. Don't you want to go with me and pay your respects to the
Senior Warden? You'll find him in his office. Then I'll meet you
later, and bring you home--dead or alive!"
Maxwell laughed. "That sounds cheerful, but I should be glad to go."
"I guess you better, and have it over with. He'll expect it. He's
like royalty: he never calls first; and when he's at home he always
has a flag on a pole in the front yard. If he's out of town for the
day, his man lowers the flag. I generally call when the flag's down. I
wish everybody had a flag; it's mighty convenient."
The center of Durford's social, commercial and ecclesiastical life was
the village green, a plot of ground on which the boys played ball, and
in the middle of which was the liberty pole and the band-stand. On one
side of the green was a long block of stores, and on the opposite side
a row of churches, side by side, five in number. There was the Meeting
House, in plain gray; "The First Church of Durford," with a Greek
portico in front; "The Central Church," with a box-like tower and a
slender steeple with a gilded rooster perched on top--an edifice which
looked like a cross between a skating rink and a railroad station; and
last of all, the Episcopal Church on the corner--a small, elongated
structure, which might have been a carpenter-shop but for the little
cross which surmounted the front gable, and the pointed tops of the
narrow windows, which were supposed to be "gothic" and to proclaim the
structure to be the House of God.
Just around the corner was a little tumble-down house known as "The
Rectory." The tall grass and the lowered shades indicated that it had
been unoccupied for some time. Mrs. Burke called Maxwell's attention
to it.
"I suppose you'll be living there some day--if you stay here long
enough; though of course you can't keep house there alone. The place
needs a lot of over-haulin'. Nickey says there's six feet of plaster
off the parlor ceilin', and the cellar gets full of water when it
rains; but I guess we can fix it up when the time comes. That's your
cathedral, on the corner. You see, we have five churches, when we
really need only one; and so we have to scrap for each other's
converts, to keep up the interest. We feed 'em on sandwiches, pickles
and coffee every now and then, to make 'em come to church. Yes,
preachin' and pickles, sandwiches and salvation, seem to run in the
same class, these days."
When they arrived in front of the block, Mrs. Burke hitched her horse,
and left Maxwell to his own devices. He proceeded to hunt up the post
office; and as the mail was not yet distributed, he had to wait some
time, conscious of the fact that he was the center of interest to the
crowd assembled in the room. Finally, when he gained access to the
delivery window, he was greeted by a smile from the postmistress, a
woman of uncertain age, who remarked as she handed him his letters:
"Good morning, Mr. Maxwell. Glad to meet you. I'm a Presbyterian
myself; but I have always made it a point to be nice to everybody. You
seem to have quite a good many correspondents, and I presume you'll be
wantin' a lock box. It's so convenient. You must feel lonesome in a
strange place. Drop in and see mother some day. She's got curvature of
the spine, but no religious prejudices. She'll be right glad to see
you, I'm sure, even though she's not 'Piscopal."
Maxwell thanked her, and inquired the way to the Senior Warden's
office, to which she directed him.
Three doors below the post office was a hallway and a flight of stairs
leading up to Mr. Bascom's sanctum. As he ascended, Maxwell bethought
him of the Bishop's hint that this was the main stronghold for the
exercise of his strategy. The Senior Warden, for some reason or other,
had persistently quarreled with the clergy, or crossed them. What was
the secret of his antagonism? Would he be predisposed in Maxwell's
favor, or prejudiced against him? He would soon discover--and he
decided to let Bascom do most of the talking. Reaching the first
landing, Donald knocked on a door the upper panel of which was filled
with glass, painted white. On the glass in large black letters was
the name: "SYLVESTER BASCOM."
The Senior Warden sat behind a table, covered with musty books and a
litter of letters and papers. In his prime he had been a small man;
and now, well past middle age, he looked as if he had shrunk until he
was at least five sizes too small for his skin, which was sallow and
loose. There was a suspicious look in his deep-set eyes, which made
his hooked nose all the more aggressive. He was bald, except for a few
stray locks of gray hair which were brushed up from his ears over the
top of his head, and evidently fastened down by some gluey cosmetic.
He frowned severely as Maxwell entered, but extended a shriveled, bony
hand, and pointed to a chair. Then placing the tips of his fingers
together in front of his chest, he gazed at Donald as if he were the
prisoner at the bar, and began without any preliminary welcome:
"So you are the young man who is to take charge of the church. It is
always difficult for a city-bred man to adjust himself to the needs
and manners of a country parish. Very difficult, Mr. Maxwell--very
difficult."
Maxwell smiled as he replied:
"Yes, but that is a fault which time will remedy."
"Doubtless. Time has a way of remedying most things. But in the
meantime--in the meantime, lack of tact, self-assertiveness,
indiscretion, on the part of a clergyman may do much harm--much
harm!"
Mr. Maxwell colored slightly as he laughed and replied:
"I should imagine that you have had rather a 'mean time,' from the way
you speak. Your impressions of the clergy seem to be painful."
"Well," the lawyer continued sententiously, "we have had all sorts and
conditions of men, as the Prayer Book says; and the result has not
_always_ been satisfactory--_not_ always satisfactory. But I was not
consulted."
To this, Maxwell, who was somewhat nettled, replied:
"I suppose that in any case the responsibility for the success of a
parish must be somewhat divided between the parson and the people. I
am sure I may count on your assistance."
"Oh yes; oh yes; of course. I shall be very glad to advise you in any
way I can. Prevention is better than cure: don't hesitate to come to
me for suggestions. You will doubtless be anxious to follow in the
good old ways, and avoid extremes. I am a firm believer in expediency.
Though I was not consulted in the present appointment, I may say that
what we need is a man of moderate views who can adjust himself to
circumstances. Tact, that is the great thing in life. I am a firm
believer in tact. Our resources are limited; and a clergyman should be
a self-denying man of God, contented with plain living and high
thinking. No man can succeed in a country parish who seeks the loaves
and fishes of the worldling. Durford is not a metropolis; we do not
emulate city ways."
"No, I should imagine not," Maxwell answered.
The parson gathered that the Senior Warden felt slighted that he had
not been asked by the Bishop to name his appointee; and that if he had
bethought himself to sprinkle a little hay-seed on his clothing, his
reception might have been more cordial.
At this point the door opened and a woman, hovering somewhere between
twenty-five and forty, dressed in rather youthful and pronounced
attire, entered, and seeing Donald exclaimed:
"Oh, papa, I did not know that you were busy with a client. Do excuse
me."
Then, observing the clerical attire of the "client," she came forward,
and extending her hand to Donald, exclaimed with a coy, insinuating
smile:
"I am sure that you must be Mr. Maxwell. I am so glad to see you. I
hope I am not interrupting professional confidences."
"Not in the least," Donald replied, as he placed a chair for her. "I
am very glad to have the pleasure of meeting you, Miss Bascom."
"I heard last night that you had arrived, Mr. Maxwell; and I am sure
that it is very good of you to come and see papa so soon. I hope to
see you at our house before long. You know that we are in the habit of
seeing a good deal of the rector, because--you will excuse my
frankness--because there are so few people of culture and refinement
in this town to make it pleasant for him."
"I am sure that you are very kind," Donald replied. Miss Bascom had
adjusted her tortoise-shell lorgnette, and was surveying Donald from
head to foot.
"Is your wife with you?" she inquired, as one who would say: "Tell me
no lies!"
"No, I am not married."
At once she was one radiant smile of welcome:
"Papa, we must do all we can to make Mr. Maxwell feel at home at
Willow Bluff--so that he will not get lonesome and desert us," she
added genially.
"You're very kind."
"You must come and dine with us very soon and see our place for
yourself. You are staying with Mrs. Burke, I understand."
"Yes."
"How does she impress you?"
"I hardly know her well enough to form any definite opinion of her,
though she has been kindness itself to me."
"Yes, she has a sharp tongue, but a kind heart; and she does a great
deal of good in the village; but, poor soul! she has no sense of
humor--none whatever. Then of course she is not in society, you know.
You will find, Mr. Maxwell, that social lines are very carefully drawn
in this town; there are so many grades, and one has to be careful, you
know."
"Is it so! How many people are there in the town?"
"Possibly eight or nine hundred."
"And how many of them are 'in society'?"
"Oh, I should imagine not more than twenty or thirty."
"They must be very select."
"Oh, we are; quite so."
"Don't you ever get tired of seeing the same twenty or thirty all the
time? I'm afraid I am sufficiently vulgar to like a change, once in a
while--somebody real common, you know."
Miss Bascom raised her lorgnette in pained surprise and gazed at
Donald curiously; then she sighed and tapping her fingers with her
glasses replied:
"But one has to consider the social responsibilities of one's
position, you know. Many of the village people are well enough in
their way, really quite amusing as individuals; but one cannot alter
social distinctions."
"I see," replied Donald, non-committally.
Virginia was beginning to think that the new rector was rather dull in
his perceptions, rather _gauche_, but, deciding to take a charitable
view, she held out her hand with a beaming smile as she said:
"Remember, you are to make Willow Bluff one of your homes. We shall
always be charmed to see you."
When, after their respective shoppings were completed, Maxwell
rejoined Mrs. Burke, and they had started on a brisk trot towards
home, she remarked:
"So you have had a visit with the Senior Warden."
"Yes, and with Miss Bascom. She came into the office while I was
there."
"Hm! Well! She's one of your flock!"
"Would you call Miss Bascom one of my lambs?" asked Donald
mischievously.
"Oh, that depends on where you draw the line. Don't you think she's
handsome?"
"I can hardly say. What do you think about it?"
"Oh, I don't know. When she's well dressed she has a sort of style
about her; but isn't it merciful that we none of us know how we really
do look? If we did, we wouldn't risk bein' alone with ourselves five
minutes without a gun."
"Is that one for Miss Bascom?"
"No, I ought not to say a word against Virginia Bascom. She's a good
sort accordin' to her lights; and then too, she is a disconnection of
mine by marriage--once removed."
"How do you calculate that relationship?"
"Oh, her mother's brother married my sister. She suspected that he was
guilty of incompatibility--and she proved it, and got a divorce. If
that don't make a disconnection of Ginty Bascom, then I don't know
what does. Virginia was born in Boston, though she was brought up
here. It must be terrible to be born in Boston, and have to live up to
it, when you spend your whole life in a place like Durford. But Ginty
does her very best, though occasionally she forgets."
"You can hardly blame her for that. Memory is tricky, and Boston and
Durford are about as unlike as two places well could be."
"Oh, no; I don't blame her. Once she formed a club for woman's
suffrage. She set out to 'form my mind'--as if my mind wasn't pretty
thoroughly formed at this time of day--and get me to protest against
the tyranny of the male sex. I didn't see that the male sex was
troublin' her much; but I signed a petition she got up to send to the
Governor or somebody, asking for the right to vote. There was an
opposition society that didn't want the ballot, and they got up
another petition."
"And you signed that too, I expect," laughed Donald.
"Sure thing, I did. I'm not narrow-minded, and I like to be obliging.
Then she tried what she called slummin', which, as near as I can see,
means walkin' in where you 'aint wanted, because people are poorer
than you are, and leavin' little tracts that nobody reads, and currant
jelly that nobody eats, and clothes that nobody can wear. But an
Irishman shied a cabbage at her head while she was tryin' to convince
him that the bath-tub wasn't really a coal bin, and that his mental
attitude was hindside before.
"Then she got to be a Theosophist, and used to sit in her room
upstairs projecting her astral body out of the window into the back
yard, and pulling it in again like a ball on a rubber string--just for
practice, you know. But that attack didn't last long."
"She seems to be a very versatile young woman; but she doesn't stick
to one thing very long."
"A rolling stone gathers no moss, you know," Mrs. Burke replied.
"That's one of the advantages of bein' a rolling stone. It must be
awful to get mossy; and there isn't any moss on Virginia Bascom,
whatever faults she may have--not a moss."
For a moment Mrs. Burke was silent, and then she began:
"Once Virginia got to climbin' her family tree, to find out where her
ancestors came from. She thought that possibly they might be noblemen.
But I guess there wasn't very much doin' up the tree until she got
down to New York, and paid a man to tell her. She brought back an
illuminated coat of arms with a lion rampantin' on top; but she was
the same old Virginia still. What do I care about my ancestors! It
doesn't make no difference to me. I'm just myself anyway, no matter
how you figure; and I'm a lot more worried about where I'm goin' to,
than where I came from. Virginia's got a book called 'Who's Who,' that
she's always studying. But the only thing that matters, it seems to
me, is Who's What."
"I wonder she hasn't married," remarked Donald, innocently.
"Ah, that's the trouble. She's like a thousand others without no
special occupation in life. She's wastin' a lot of bottled up interest
and sympathy on foolish things. If she'd married and had seven babies,
they would have seen to it that she didn't make a fool of herself.
However, it isn't her fault. She's volunteered to act as Deaconess to
every unmarried parson we've had; and it's a miracle of wonders one of
'em didn't succumb; parsons are such--oh, do excuse me! I mean so
injudicious on the subject of matrimony."
"But, Mrs. Burke, don't you think a clergyman ought to be a married
man?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, t'aint me that's been doin' the thinkin'
along those lines, for most of the parsons we've had. I've been more
of a first aid to the injured, in the matrimonial troubles of our
parish, and the Lord only knows when love-making has got as far as
actual injury to the parties engaged,--well thinkin' 'aint much use.
But there's Ginty for example. She's been worryin' herself thin for
the last five years, doin' matrimonial equations for the clergy. She's
a firm believer in the virtue of patience, and if the Lord only keeps
on sendin' us unmarried rectors, Ginty is goin' to have her day. It's
just naturally bound to come. I 'aint sure whether she's got a right
to be still runnin' with the lambs or not, but that don't matter
much,--old maids will rush in where angels fear to tread."
Maxwell smiled. "Old maids, and old bachelors, are pretty much alike.
I know a few of the latter, that no woman on earth could make into
regular human beings."
"Oh, yes; old bachelors aren't the nicest thing the Lord ever made.
Most of 'em are mighty selfish critters, take 'em as they run; and a
man that's never had a real great love in his life doesn't know what
life is."
"That's quite true," Donald responded, with such warmth that Mrs.
Burke glanced at him suspiciously, and changed her tune, as she
continued:
"Seems to me a parson, or any other man, is very foolish to marry
before he can support a wife comfortably, and lay by somethin' for a
rainy day, though. The last rector had five babies and seventeen cents
to feed 'em with. Yes, there were little olive branches on all four
sides of the table, and under the table too. The Whittimores seemed to
have their quiver full of 'em, as the psalmist says. Mrs. Whittimore
used to say to me, 'The Lord will provide,'--just to keep her courage
up, poor thing! Well, I suppose the Lord did provide; but I had to do
a lot of hustlin', just the same. No sir, if a parson marries, he
better find a woman who has outgrown her short skirts. Young things
dyin' to be martyrs with a good lookin' young parson, are a drug in
the market. Better go slow." And Hepsey looked up at him
significantly.
"Then you think it would be inadvisable to propose to Miss Virginia
immediately, do you?" Donald asked, as if humbly seeking guidance.
"Well, there doesn't seem to be any immediate hurry about it. Now if
you'll open the gate to Thunder Cliff, I'll be much obliged to you. If
I don't get my mind on something less romantic than Virginia, we shall
have to dine off airy fancies--and that won't suit Nickey, for one."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV
MILKING
Betty, my love:
I can imagine that just about this time you have finished your dinner,
and are enjoying your after-dinner coffee in the library with your
father. I would give all that I possess, though heaven knows that is
mighty little, to be with you and get you to talk to me, and let me
tell you all that has happened since I left you. But instead of that I
am alone in my room with your picture on the table while I write, and
it is the middle of the evening with us on the farm. I have a bright
wood fire on the hearth, as it's a bit chilly to-night.
To-day I have almost completed my first round of parish visits, and
the experience has been a revelation to me of the mixture of pathetic
narrowness, hardship, and self-denial of the people up here in the
mountains. One minute I am all out of patience with their stupidity,
and the next I am touched to the heart by their patience with
unendurable conditions, and their generosity and kindness to each
other. I hope to be able to adjust my mental equilibrium to the
situation before long and to learn to understand them better; I find
that a country parson must be a man of many accomplishments, and that
I have to learn my profession all over again. Yesterday I called on a
poor shriveled old woman who, I was told, was in trouble. When I asked
her what I could do for her, she brightened up and informed me that
her apple trees were full of worms! So there was nothing for it but to
take off my coat and vest, roll up my sleeves, and burn out the worms.
I must have destroyed about a bushel, more or less. It took most of
the afternoon; but she was pleased, and appeared in church this
morning for the first time in six years.
I have learned a lot about the rotation of crops, helped to dig a
well, and attended a barn dance. I have eaten pickles by the score at
teas given in my honor, rather than offend the hostess; and have had
horrible nights in consequence. Every morning Nickey and I take the
milk down to the creamery before breakfast. I am so tanned that you
would hardly recognize me; and I must confess with shame that I am
never more happy than when I am able to put on my soiled working
clothes and do manual labor on the farm. I suppose it is the contrast
to my former life, and the fact that it takes my thoughts away from
the longing for you.
The men up here seem to think I know mighty little. It's very
humiliating! But since they discovered that I am neither
"'ristocratic" nor "pious," they seem to be friendly enough. I often
find myself wondering if much of the work in the seminary wasn't a
sheer waste of time, when I am brought up against the practical,
commonplace, everyday life of these people. My friend Mrs. Burke has a
fund of common sense and worldly wisdom which is worth more than any
Ph.D. or S.T.D. represents, to help a man to meet the hard facts of
life successfully; and she has been very nice and considerate in
making suggestions to me--always wrapped up in a humor all her own. I
have found it practically impossible to get into touch with the
farmers of the neighborhood without becoming more or less of a farmer
myself, and learning by actual experience what the life is like. One
man was so openly supercilious when he found out that I did not know
how to milk, that Mrs. Burke, who is nothing if not practical, offered
to show me.
I have acquired a suit of overalls, and a wide-brimmed straw hat; and
so, attiring myself in the most orthodox fashion, Mrs. Burke and I
went to the shed yesterday where Louise, the Jersey cow, abides, and I
took my first lesson in milking. Mrs. Burke carefully explained to me
the _modus operandi_ I was to pursue; and so, taking the tin pail
between my knees, I seated myself on the three-legged stool by the
side of Louise, and timidly began operations. She seemed to know by
some bovine instinct that I was a tenderfoot; and although I followed
Mrs. Burke's instructions to the letter, no milk put in its
appearance. Mrs. Burke was highly amused at my perplexity. Finally she
remarked:
"You've got to introduce yourself, and get Louise's confidence before
she'll give down. She thinks that you are too familiar on a short
acquaintance. Now talk to her a bit, and be friendly."
This was somewhat of a poser, as Louise and I really have not much in
common, and I was at a loss where to begin. But something had to be
done, and so I made a venture and remarked:
"Louise, the wind is in the south; and if it doesn't change, we shall
certainly have rain within three days."
This did not seem to have the desired effect. In fact, she ignored my
remark in the most contemptuous fashion. Then Mrs. Burke suggested:
"Get up, and come round where she can see you. No lady wants to be
talked to by a gentleman that's out of sight."
So I got up and went around by her head, fed her some clover, patted
her on the neck, rubbed her nose, and began a little mild, persuasive
appeal:
"Louise, I am really a man of irreproachable character. I am a son of
the Revolution; I held three scholarships in Harvard; and I graduated
second in my class at the General Sem. Furthermore, I'm not at all
accustomed to being snubbed by ladies. Can't you make up your mind to
be obliging?"
Louise sniffed at me inquiringly, gazing at me with large-eyed
curiosity. Then as if in token that she had come to a favorable
conclusion, she ran out her tongue and licked my hand. When I resumed
operations, the milk poured into the pail, and Mrs. Burke was just
congratulating me on my complete success, when, by some accident the
stool slipped, and I fell over backwards, and the whole contents of
the pail was poured on the ground. My! but wasn't I disgusted? I
thought Mrs. Burke would never stop laughing at me; but she was good
enough not to allude to the loss of the milk!
Some day when we are married, and you come up here, I will take you
out and introduce you to Louise, and she will fall in love with you on
the spot.
My most difficult task is my Senior Warden--and it looks as if he
_would not_ make friends, do what I will to "qualify" according to his
own expressed notions of what a country parson should be. But I rather
suspect that he likes to keep the scepter in his own hands, while the
clergy do his bidding. But that won't do for me.
So you see the life up here is interesting from its very novelty,
though I do get horribly lonesome, sometimes. If I had not pledged
myself to the Bishop to stay and work the parish together into
something like an organization, I am afraid I should be tempted to cut
and run--back to you, sweetheart.
And there was a post script:
"I've not said half enough of how much Mrs. Burke's wisdom has taught
and helped me. She is a shrewd observer of human motives, and I
expect she has had a struggle to keep the sweetness of her nature at
the top. She is, naturally, a capable, dominating character; and often
I watch how she forces herself to let persuasiveness take precedence
of combativeness. Her acquired philosophy, as applied to herself and
others, is summed up in a saying she let drop the other day, modified
to suit her needs: 'More flies are caught with molasses than with
vinegar--but keep some vinegar by you!' _Verb. Sap.!_"
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V
THE MINIATURE
It happened that the Reverend Donald Maxwell committed a careless
indiscretion. When he went to his room to prepare for supper, he found
that he had left the miniature of a certain young lady on the
mantelpiece, having forgotten to return it to its hiding-place the
night before. He quickly placed it in its covering and locked it up in
his desk, but not without many misgivings at the thought that Mrs.
Burke had probably discovered it when she put his room in order.
He was quite right in his surmise, for just as she was about to leave
the room she had caught sight of the picture, and, after examining it
carefully, she had exclaimed to herself:
"Hm! Hm! So that's the young woman, is it? In a gilded frame set with
real glass rubies and turquoises. I guessed those letters couldn't
come from his mother. She wouldn't write to him every blessed day;
she'd take a day off now and then, just to rest up a bit. Well, well,
well! So this is what you've been dreaming about; and a mighty good
thing too--only the sooner it's known the better. But I suppose I'll
have to wait for his reverence to inform me officially, and then I'll
have to look mighty surprised! She's got a good face, anyway; but he
ought to wait awhile. Poor soul! she'd just die of loneliness up here.
Well, I suppose it'll be my business to look after her, and I reckon
I'd best take time by the fetlock, and get the rectory in order. It
isn't fit for rats to live in now."
Mrs. Burke's discovery haunted her all day long, and absorbed her
thoughts when she went to bed. If Maxwell was really engaged to be
married, she did not see why he did not announce the fact, and have it
over with. She had to repeat her prayers three times before she could
keep the girl in the gilt frame out of them; and she solved the
problem by praying that she might not make a fool of herself.
The next morning she went over to Jonathan Jackson's house to see what
her friend and neighbor, the Junior Warden, would say about the
matter. He could be trusted to keep silent and assist her to carry out
some provisional plans. She knew exactly what she wished and what she
intended to do; but she imagined that she wanted the pleasure of
hearing some one tell her that she was exactly right.
Jonathan Jackson was precisely the person to satisfy the demand, as
his deceased wife had never allowed him to have any opinion for more
than fifteen minutes at a time--if it differed from hers; and when she
had made a pretense of consulting him, he had learned by long
experience to hesitate for a moment, look judicially wise, and then
repeat her suggestions as nearly as he could remember them. So
Jonathan made a most excellent friend and neighbor, when any crisis or
emergency called for an expert opinion.
Mrs. Burke had been an intimate friend of Sarah Jackson, and just
before Mrs. Jackson died she made Hepsey promise that after she was
gone she would keep a friendly eye on Jonathan, and see that he did
not get into mischief, or let the house run down, or "live just by
eatin' odds and ends off the pantry shelf any old way." Mrs. Jackson
entertained no illusions in regard to her husband, and she trusted
Hepsey implicitly. So, after Mrs. Jackson's mortal departure, Hepsey
made periodic calls on Jonathan, which always gave him much pleasure
until she became inquisitive about his methods of housekeeping; then
he would grow reticent.
"Good morning, Jonathan," Hepsey called, as she presented herself at
the woodshed door, where she caught Jonathan mending some of his
underclothes laboriously.
"Well, I declare," she continued, "I'm blessed if you 'aint sewin'
white buttons on with black thread. Is anybody dead in the family, or
'aint you feelin' well as to your head this mornin'?"
His voice quavered with mingled embarrassment and resentment as he
replied:
"What difference does it make, Hepsey? It don't make no difference, as
long as nobody don't see it but me."
"And why in the name of conscience don't you get a thimble, Jonathan?
The idea of your stickin' the needle in, and then pressin' it against
the chair to make it go through. If that 'aint just like a helpless
man, I wouldn't say."
[Illustration: "I'M BLESSED IF YOU 'AINT SEWIN' WHITE BUTTONS ON WITH
BLACK THREAD. IS ANYBODY DEAD IN THE FAMILY, OR 'AINT YOU
FEELIN' WELL THIS MORNIN'?"]
"Well, of course sewin' 'aint just a man's business, anyway; and when
he has just got to do it----"
"Why don't you let Mary McGuire do it for you? You pay her enough,
certainly, to keep you from becomin' a buttonless orphan."
Mary McGuire, be it said, was the woman who came in by the day, and
cooked for Jonathan, and intermittently cleaned him out of house and
home.
"She don't know much about such things," replied Jonathan
confidentially. "I did let her do it for a while; but when my
buttonholes got tore larger, instead of sewin' 'em up, she just put on
a larger button; and I'd be buttonin' my pants with the covers of
saucepans by now, if I'd let her go on."
"It is curious what helpless critters men are, specially widowers. Now
Jonathan, why don't you lay aside your sewin', and invite me into your
parlor? You aren't a bit polite."
"Well, come along then, Hepsey; but the parlor aint just in apple-pie
order, as you might say. Things are mussed up a bit." He looked at her
suspiciously.
When they entered the parlor Mrs. Burke gazed about in a critical sort
of way.
"Jonathan Jackson, if you don't get married again before long I don't
know what'll become of you," she remarked, as she wrote her name with
the end of her finger in the dust on the center-table. "Why don't you
open the parlor occasionally and let the air in? It smells that musty
in here I feel as if I was attendin' your wife's funeral all over
again."
"Well, of course you know we never did use the parlor much, 'cept
there was a funeral in the family, or you called, or things like
that."
"Thank _you_; but even so, you might put things away occasionally, and
not leave them scattered all over the place."
"What's the use? I never can find anything when it's where it belongs;
but if it's left just where I drop it, I know right where it is when I
want it."
"That's a man's argument. Sakes alive! The least you could do would be
to shut your bureau drawers."
"What's the use shuttin' bureau drawers when you've got to open 'em
again 'fore long?" Jonathan asked. "It just makes so much more
trouble; and there's trouble enough in this world, anyway."
"You wouldn't dare let things go like this when Sarah was livin'."
"No," Jonathan replied sadly, "but there's some advantages in bein' a
widower. Of course I don't mean no disrespect to Sarah, but opinions
will differ about some things. She'd never let me go up the front
stairs without takin' my boots off, so as not to soil the carpet; and
when she died and the relatives tramped up and down reckless like, I
almost felt as if it was wicked. For a fact, I did."
"Well, I always told Sarah she was a slave to dust; I believe that
dust worried her a lot more than her conscience, poor soul. I should
think that Mary McGuire would tidy up for you a little bit once in a
while."
"Well, Mary does the best she knows how. But I like her goin' better
than comin'. The fact is, a man of my age can't live alone always,
Hepsey. It's a change to live this way, till----"
"Oh, heaven save the mark! I can't stay here talkin' all day; but I'll
tidy up a bit before I go, if you don't mind, Jonathan. You go on with
what you call your sewin'."
"Go ahead, Hepsey. You can do anything you like," he replied, beaming
upon her.
Mrs. Burke opened the blinds and windows, shook up the pillows on the
lounge, straightened the furniture, dusted off the chairs and opened
the door to the porch. She made a flying trip to the garden, and
returned with a big bunch of flowers which she placed in a large glass
vase on the mantel. Then she hung Jonathan's dressing gown over the
back of a chair, and put his slippers suggestively near at hand. In a
few moments she had transformed the whole appearance of the room,
giving it a look of homelike coziness which had long been foreign to
it.
"There now, Jonathan! That's better, isn't it?"
Jonathan sighed profoundly as he replied:
"It certainly is, Hepsey; it certainly is. I wonder why a man can't do
that kind of thing like a woman can? He knows somethin's wrong, but he
can't tell what it is."
Hepsey had almost forgotten her errand; but now that her work was done
it came back to her with sudden force; so, puckering up her lips and
scowling severely at the carpet, she began:
"The fact is, Jonathan, I didn't come over here to dust the parlor or
to jolly you. I've come to have a confidential talk with you about a
matter of great importance."
"What is it, Hepsey?"
"Matrimony."
Jonathan started eagerly, and colored with self-conscious
embarrassment; and after clearing his throat, nervously inquired:
"Did you think of contemplatin' matrimony again, Hepsey?--though this
'aint leap year."
"I, contemplate matrimony? Oh, land of Gideon, _no_. It's about some
one else. Don't get scared. I'm no kidnapper!"
"Well, who is it, then?" Jonathan inquired, with a touch of
disappointment.
"My adopted son."
"You don't say! I've heard rumors about Maxwell and Virginia Bascom;
but I didn't take no stock in 'em, knowin' Virginia."
"Virginia hasn't nothin' to do with it."
"Well, who has then, for land's sake!"
"I don't know the girl's name; but I saw her picture on his
mantelpiece yesterday mornin', and I've had my suspicions for some
time."
"Well, I suppose his marryin' 'aint none of our business anyway, be
it?"
"Yes, it is our business; if he's goin' to get married, the rectory's
got to be fixed over a whole lot 'fore it's fit to live in. You know
the Senior Warden won't lift his finger, and you've got to help me do
it."
Jonathan sighed profoundly, knowing from past experience that Hepsey's
word carried more weight than all the vestry.
"I suppose I have, if you say so, Hepsey."
"Yes sir, you've got to help me do it. No decent girl is goin' into
that house as it is, with my consent. It's the worst old rat-trap I
ever saw. I've got the key, and I'm goin' through it this afternoon,
and then I'm goin' to plan what ought to be done."
"But it seems to me you're venturin' some. You don't _know_ they're
goin' to be married."
"No, but all the symptoms point that way, and we've got to be prepared
for it."
"But the people round town seem to think that Virginia has a first
mortgage on the rector already."
"No doubt _she_ thinks she has; but it 'aint true. He's made a
blunder, though, not announcin' his engagement, and I'm goin' to tell
him so the first chance I get. I don't see why he should air his
private affairs all over the town, but if he don't announce his
engagement before long, Virginia Bascom'll make an awful row when he
does."
"Yes, and to the best of my knowledge and belief this'll be her fifth
row."
"Well, you meet me at the rectory at two o'clock sharp."
"But we ought to consult the vestry first," the Junior Warden
cautioned her.
"What for, I'd like to know?"
"'Cause they are the trustees of the property."
"Then why don't they 'tend to the property? The vestry are a lot
of----"
"Sh! Hepsey, be careful. I'll be there, I'll be there!"
Mrs. Burke rose and started for the door; but Jonathan called out to
her:
"Hepsey, can't you stay to dinner? I'd like awful well to have you. It
would seem so nice and homelike to see you sittin' opposite me at the
table."
"Am I to consider this a proposal of marriage, Jonathan?"
"Well, I hadn't thought of it in that light; but if _you_ would, I'd
be mighty thankful."
But Hepsey was beating her retreat.
Jonathan stood for a minute or two in the middle of the room and
looked very sober. Slowly he took off his coat and put on his dressing
gown. Then he sat down, and cautiously put his feet in another chair.
Next he lighted a cigar--gazing about the room as if his late wife
might appear at any moment as an avenging deity, and drag him into the
kitchen where he belonged. But nothing happened, and he began to feel
a realization of his independence. He sat and thought for a long time,
and a mighty hunger of the heart overwhelmed him. Before he knew it, a
tear or two had fallen on the immaculate carpet; and then, suddenly
recollecting himself, he stood up, saying to himself--such is the
consistency of man:
"Sarah was a good soul accordin' to her lights; but she's dead, and I
must confess I'm powerful reconciled. Hepsey Burke's different. I
wonder if----"
But he put he thought away from him with a "get thee behind me"
abruptness, and putting on his coat, went out to water the stock.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI
THE MISSIONARY TEA
"Hm!" Mrs. Burke remarked to Maxwell abruptly one day during supper.
"We haven't had a missionary tea since you came, and I think it's high
time we did."
"What sort of a missionary tea do you mean?" the parson inquired.
"Well," Mrs. Burke responded, "our missionary teas combine different
attractions. We get together and look over each other's clothes;
that's the first thing; then some one reads a paper reportin' how
things is goin' in Zanzibar, or what's doin' in Timbuctoo. Then we
look over the old clothes sent in for missionaries, mend 'em up, and
get 'em ready to send off. Then we have tea and cake. I've had my
misgivin' for some time that perhaps we cared more for the tea and
cake than we did for the heathen; but of course I put such a wicked
thought aside. If you value your reputation for piety, don't you ever
speak of a missionary tea here except in a whisper."
"But I suppose the tea helps to get people together and be more
sociable?"
"Certainly. The next best thing to religion is a cup of strong tea and
a frosted cake, to make us country people friends. Both combined can't
be beat. But you ought to see the things that have been sent in this
last week for the missionary box. There's a smoking jacket, two pairs
of golf-trousers, several pairs of mismated gloves, a wonderful lot of
undarned stockings, bonnets and underclothes to burn, two jackets and
a bathin' suit. I wonder what people think missionaries are doin' most
of the time!"
On the day appointed for the missionary tea the ladies were to
assemble at Thunder Cliff at four o'clock; and when Maxwell came home,
before the advent of the first guest, he seemed somewhat depressed;
and Mrs. Burke inquired:
"Been makin' calls on your parishioners?"
"Yes, I have made a few visits."
"Now you must look more cheerful, or somebody'll suspect that you
don't always find parish calls the joy of your life."
"It's so difficult to find subjects of conversation that they are
interested in. I simply couldn't draw out Mrs. Snodgrass, for
instance."
"Well, when you've lived in the country as long as I have, you'll find
that the one unfailin' subject of interest is symptoms--mostly
dyspepsy and liver complaint. If you had known enough to have started
right with Elmira Snodgrass, she would have thawed out at once. Elmira
is always lookin' for trouble as the sparks fly upwards, or
thereabouts. She'd crawl through a barbed wire fence if she couldn't
get at it any other way. She always chews a pill on principle, and
then she calls it a dispensation of Providence, and wonders why she
was ever born to be tormented."
"In that case," laughed Maxwell, "I'd better get some medical books
and read up on symptoms. By the by, is there any particular program
for this missionary meeting, Mrs. Burke?"
"Yes, Virginia Bascom's goin' to read a paper called 'The Christian
Mother as a Missionary in her own Household.' To be sure, Ginty's no
Christian Mother, or any other kind of a mother; but she's as full of
enthusiasm as a shad is of bones. She'd bring up any child while you
wait, and not charge a cent. There goes the bell, so please excuse
me."
The guests were received by Mrs. Burke. Miss Bascom entered the parlor
with a portentous bundle of manuscript under her arm, and greeted
Donald with a radiant smile. Pulling a pansy from a bunch in her
dress, she adjusted it in his buttonhole with the happy shyness of a
young kitten chasing its tail. After the others had assembled, they
formed a circle to inspect the clothing which had been sent in. There
was a general buzz of conversation.
As they were busily going through the garments, Virginia remarked,
"Are all these things to go to the missionaries at Tien Tsin?" and she
adjusted her lorgnette to inspect the heap.
"Yes," Mrs. Burke responded wearily, "and I hope they'll get what
comfort they can out of 'em."
"You don't seem to be very appreciative, Mrs. Burke," Virginia
reproved.
"Well, I suppose I ought to be satisfied," Hepsey replied. "But it
does seem as if most people give to the Lord what they can't use for
themselves any longer--as they would to a poor relation that's worthy,
but not to be coddled by too much charity."
"I think these things are quite nice enough for the missionaries,"
Virginia retorted. "They are thankful for anything."
"Yes, I know," Mrs. Burke replied calmly. "Missionaries and their
families have no business to have any feelings that can't be satisfied
with second-hand clothes, and no end of good advice on how to spend
five cents freely but not extravagantly."
"But don't you believe in sending them useful things?" Virginia asked
loftily.
"So I do; but I'd hate that word 'useful' if I was a missionary's
wife."
"Might I inquire," asked Miss Bascom meekly, "what you would send?"
"Certainly! I'd send a twenty-five-cent scent bag, made of silk and
filled with patchouli-powder," said Hepsey, squarely.
"Well," Virginia added devoutly, "satchet bags may be well enough in
their place; but they won't feed missionaries, or clothe them, or save
souls, you know, Mrs. Burke."
"Did anybody say they would?" Mrs. Burke inquired. "I shouldn't
particularly care to see missionaries clothed in sachet bags myself;
the smell might drive the heathen to desperation. But do we always
limit our spending money to necessary clothes and food? The truth is,
we all of us spend anything we like as long as it goes on our backs,
or down our throats; but the moment it comes to supportin'
missionaries we think 'em worldly and graspin' if they show any
ambition beyond second-hand clothes."
"Do you live up to your preachin', Mrs. Burke?" a little sallow-faced
woman inquired from a dark corner of the room.
"Oh, no; it hits me just as hard as anybody else, as Martin Luther
said. But I've got a proposition to make: if you'll take these things
you brought, back with you, and wear 'em for a week just as they are,
and play you're the missionaries, I'll take back all I've said."
As, however, there was no response to this challenge, the box was
packed, and the cover nailed down.
(It is perhaps no proper part of this story to add, that its opening
on the other side of the world was attended by the welcome and
surprising fragrance of patchouli, emanating from a little silk sachet
secreted among the more workaday gifts.)
The ladies then adjourned to the front piazza, where the supper was
served.
When the dishes had been cleared away, the guests adjusted their
chairs and assumed attitudes of expectant attention while Virginia
stood up and shyly unrolled her manuscript, with a placid,
self-conscious smile on her countenance. She apologized for her youth
and inexperience, with a moving glance towards her pastor, and then
got down to business. She began with the original and striking remark
that it was the chief glory and function of woman to be a home-maker.
She continued with something to the effect that the woman who forms
the character of her children in the sanctity of the home-life rules
the destinies of the world. Then she made a fetching allusion to the
"Mother of the Gracchi," and said something about jewels. Nobody knew
who the "Gracchi" were, but they supposed that they must be some
relatives of Virginia's who lived in Boston.
She asserted that the modern methods of bringing up children were all
wrong. She drew a striking picture of the ideal home in which children
always stood modestly and reverently by their parents' chairs,
consumed with anxiety to be of some service to their elders. They were
always to be immaculately neat in their attire, and gentle in their
ways. The use of slang was quite beneath them.
These ideal children were always to spend their evenings at home in
the perusal of instructive books, and the pursuit of useful knowledge.
Then, when half-past seven arrived, they were to rise spontaneously
and promptly, and bid their parents an affectionate good-night, and
retire to their rooms, where, having said their prayers and recited
the golden text, they were to get into bed.
Portions of Virginia's essay were quite moving. Speaking of the
rewards which good mothers reap, in the virtues and graces of their
dutiful offspring, she said:
"What mother does not feel a thrill of exquisite rapture as she fondly
gazes into the depths of her baby's eyes and sees there the budding
promise of glorious womanhood. What mother does not watch the
development of her little son with wondering pride, as she notes his
manly, simple ways, his gentle reverence, his tender, modest behavior.
What mother----"
Here Virginia came to an abrupt stop, for there was a terrible racket
somewhere overhead on the piazza roof; a rope was suddenly dropped
over the edge of the eaves, and almost immediately a pair of very
immodestly bare legs were lowered into view, followed by the rest of
Nickey Burke's person, attired in his nightshirt. It was the work of a
moment for the nimble boy to slide down the rope onto the ground. But,
as he landed on his feet, finding himself in the august presence of
the missionary circle, he remarked "Gee Whitaker bee's wax!" and
prudently took to his heels, and sped around the house as if he had
been shot out of a gun.
Several segments of the circle giggled violently. The essayist, though
very red, made a brave effort to ignore the highly indecorous
interruption, and so continued with trembling tones:
"What more beautiful and touching thing is there, than the innocent,
unsullied modesty of childhood? One might almost say----"
But she never said it, for here again she was forced to pause while
another pair of immodest legs appeared over the eaves, much fatter and
shorter than the preceding pair. These belonged to Nickey's
boon-companion, the gentle Oliver Wendell Jones. The rest of O. W. J.
followed in due time; and, quite ignorant of what awaited him, he
began his wriggling descent. Most unfortunately for him, the hem of
his nightshirt caught on a large nail in the eaves of the roof; and
after a frantic, fruitless, and fearful effort to disconnect himself,
he hung suspended in the breeze for one awful moment, like a painted
cherub on a Christmas tree, while his mother, recognizing her
offspring, rose to go to his assistance.
Then there was a frantic yell, a terrible ripping sound, and Oliver
Wendell was seen to drop to the ground clad in the sleeves and the
front breadth of his shirt, while the entire back of it, from the
collar down, waved triumphantly aloft from the eaves. Oliver Wendell
Jones picked himself up, unhurt, but much frightened, and very angry:
presenting much the aspect of a punctured tire. Then suddenly
discovering the proximity of the missionary circle and missing the
rear elevation of his shirt about the same time, in the horror and
mortification of the moment, he lost his head entirely.
Notwithstanding the protests of his pursuing mother, without waiting
for his clothes, he fled, "anywhere, anywhere out of the world,"
bawling with wrath and chagrin.
The entire circumference of the missionary circle now burst into roars
of laughter. His mother quickly overtook and captured Oliver, tying
her apron around his neck as a concession to the popular prejudice
against "the altogether." The gravity of the missionary circle was so
thoroughly demoralized that it was impossible to restore order; and
Miss Bascom, in the excess of her mortification, stuffed the rest of
her manuscript, its eloquent peroration undelivered, into her bag.
[Illustration: "NICHOLAS BURKE, WHAT IN THE NAME OF CONSCIENCE DOES ALL
THIS IDIOTIC PERFORMANCE MEAN, I'D LIKE TO KNOW?"]
When the last guest had departed, Mrs. Burke proceeded to hunt up
Nickey, who was dressed and sitting on the top of the corn-crib
whittling a stick. His mother began:
"Nicholas Burke, what in the name of conscience does all this idiotic
performance mean, I'd like to know?"
Nickey closed his knife. Gazing serenely down at his mother, he
replied:
"How'd I know the blamed missionary push was goin' to meet on the
front porch, I'd like to know? Me and Oliver Wendell was just playin'
the house was on fire. We'd gone to bed in the front room, and then I
told Ollie the fire was breakin' out all around us, and the sparks was
flyin', and the stairs was burned away, and there was no way of
'scapin' but to slide down the rope over the roof. I 'aint to blame
for his nightshirt bein' caught on a nail, and bein' ripped off him.
Maybe the ladies was awful shocked; but they laughed fit to split
their sides just the same. Mr. Maxwell laughed louder than 'em all."
Hepsey retired hastily, lest her face should relax its well-assumed
severity.
Maxwell, in the meantime, felt it a part of his duty to console and
soothe the ruffled feelings of his zealous and fluent parishioner, and
to Virginia's pride his offer of escort to Willow Bluff was ample
reparation for the untoward interruption of her oratory. She
delivered into his hands, with sensitive upward glance, the receptacle
containing her manuscript, and set a brisk pace, at which she insured
the passing of the other guests along the road, making visible her
triumph over circumstance and at the same time obviating untimely
intrusion of a tete-a-tete conversation.
"You must have given a great deal of time and study to your subject,"
remarked Maxwell politely.
"It is very near to my heart," responded Virginia, in welling tones.
"Home-life is, to me, almost a religion. Do you not feel, with me,
that it is the most valuable of human qualities, Mr. Maxwell?"
"I do indeed, and one of the most difficult to reduce to a
science,"--she glanced up at him apprehensively, whereupon, lest he
seemed to have erred in fact, he added,--"as you made us realize in
your paper."
"It is so nice to have your appreciation," she gurgled. "Often I feel
it almost futile to try to influence our cold parish audiences; their
attitude is so stolid, so unimaginative. As you must have realized, in
the pulpit, they are so hard to lead into untrodden paths. Let us take
the way home by the lane," she added coyly, leading off the road down
a sheltered by-way.
The lane was rough, and the lady, tightly and lightly shod, stumbled
neatly and grasped her escort's arm for support--and retained it for
comfort.
"What horizons your sermons have spread before us--and, yet,"--she
hesitated,--"I often wonder, as my eyes wander over the congregation,
how many besides myself, really hear your message, really see what
_you_ see."
Her hand trembled on his arm, and Maxwell was a little at a loss,
though anxious not to seem unresponsive to Virginia's enthusiasm for
spiritual vision.
"I feel that my first attention has to be given to the simpler
problems, here in Durford," he replied. "But I am glad if I haven't
been dull, in the process."
"Dull? No indeed--how can you say that! To my life--you will
understand?" (she glanced up with tremulous flutter of eyelids) "--you
have brought so much helpfulness and--and warmth." She sighed
eloquently.
Maxwell was no egotist, and was always prone to see only an impersonal
significance in parish compliments. A more self-conscious subject for
confidences would have replied less openly.
"I am glad--very glad. But you must not think that the help has been
one-sided. You have seconded my efforts so energetically--indeed I
don't know what I could have accomplished without such whole-hearted
help as you and Mrs. Burke and others have given."
To the optimistic Virginia the division of the loaves and fishes of
his personal gratitude was scarcely heeded. She cherished her own
portion, and soon magnified it to a basketful--and soon, again, to a
monopoly of the entire supply. As he gave her his hand at the door of
Willow Bluff, she was in fit state to invest that common act of
friendliness with symbolic significance of a rosy future.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII
HEPSEY GOES A-FISHING
Mrs. Burke seemed incapable of sitting still, with folded hands, for
any length of time; and when the stress of her attention to household
work, and her devotion to neighborly good deeds relaxed, she turned to
knitting wash-rags as a sportsman turns to his gun, or a toper to his
cups. She seemed to find more stimulus for thought and more helpful
diversion in the production of one wash-rag than most persons find in
a trip abroad.
One day, not very long after the eventful missionary tea, she was
sitting in her garden, and knitting more rapidly than usual, as she
said to Maxwell:
"What's been the matter with you these last few weeks? You've been
lookin' altogether too sober, and you don't eat nothin' to speak of.
It must be either liver, or conscience, or heart."
Secretly, she strongly suspected a cardiac affection, of the romantic
variety. She intended to investigate.
Donald laughed as he replied:
"Perhaps it's all three together; but I'm all right. There's nothing
the matter with me. Every man has his blue days, you know."
"Yes, but the last month you've had too many; and there must be some
reason for it. There's nothin' so refreshin' as gettin' away from your
best friends, once in a while. I guess you need a change--pinin' for
the city, maybe. Sakes alive! I can't see how folks can live that
way--all crowded up together, like a lot of prisons."
"You don't care to visit in the city, then?"
"Not on your life!"
"But a change is good for everyone. Don't you ever get away from
Durford for a few weeks?"
"Not very often. What with decidin' where to go, and fussin' to get
ready, and shuttin' up the house, it's more trouble than its worth.
Then there's so many things to 'tend to when you get home."
"But don't you ever visit relatives?"
"Not on your life, unless I'm subpoena-ed by the coroner: though of
course we do get together to celebrate a family funeral or a wedding
now and then. Visitin' is no joke, I tell you. No sir, I'm old enough
to know when I'm well off, and home's the best place for me. I want my
own table, and my own bed when it comes night." She paused, and then
remarked meditatively:
"I went down to visit in New York once."
"Didn't you enjoy your visit?" Maxwell inquired. "New York's my
home-city."
"Can't say I did, awful much. You see, I was visitin' Sally
Ramsdale--Sally Greenway that was. They were livin' in an apartment,
ninth floor up. In the first place, I didn't like goin' up stairs in
the elevator. I was so scared, I felt as if the end had come, and I
was bein' jerked to my reward in an iron birdcage with a small kid
dressed in brass buttons. When I got into the hall it was about two
feet wide and darker than Pharaoh's conscience. It had a string of
cells along the side, and one opened into a chimney, and the rest into
nothin' in particular. The middle cell was a dinin' room where we ate
when we could find the way to our mouths. Near as I can recollect,
you got into the parlor through the pantry, back of the servant's
room, by jumpin' over five trunks. You ought to have seen my room. It
looked just like a parlor when you first went in. There was somethin'
lookin' like a cross between an upright piano and writin' desk. Sally
gave it a twist, and it tumbled out into a folding bed. The first
night, I laid awake with my eyes on the foot of that bed expectin' it
to rise and stand me on my head; but it didn't. You took the book of
poems off the center table, gave it a flop, and it was a washstand.
Everything seemed to shut up into something else it hadn't ought to.
It was a 'now you see it, and now you don't see it,' kind of a room;
and I seemed to be foldin' and unfoldin' most of the time. Then the
ceilin' was so low that you could hardly get the cover off the soap
dish. I felt all the while as if I should smother. My! but I was glad
to get home and get a breath of real air."
"Yes," Maxwell replied, "people live more natural and healthful lives
in the country. The advantages of the city aren't an unmixed
blessing."
"That's true enough. That's no way to live. Just think of havin' no
yard but a window box and a fire escape! I'd smother!
"We folks out here in the country 'aint enjoyin' a lot of the
refinements of city life; anyhow we get along, and the funny part
about it is,--it 'aint hard to do, either. In the first place we 'aint
so particular, which helps a lot, and besides, as Jonathan Jackson
used to say,--there's compensations. I had one look at Fifth Avenue
and I'm not sayin' it wasn't all I had heard it was; but if I had to
look at it three hundred and sixty-five days a year I wouldn't trade
it for this.
"Why, some days it rains up here, but I can sit at my window and look
down the valley, to where the creek runs through, and 'way up into the
timber, and the sight of all those green things, livin' and noddin' in
the rain is a long ways from being disheartenin',--and when the sun
shines I can sit out here, in my garden, with my flowers, and watch
the boys playin' down in the meadow, Bascom's Holsteins grazin' over
there on the hill, and the air full of the perfume of growin'
things,--they 'aint got anything like that, in New York."
For a time Mrs. Burke relapsed into silence, while Maxwell smoked his
briar pipe as he lay on the grass near by. She realized that the
parson had cleverly side-tracked her original subject of conversation,
and as she glanced down at him she shook her head with droll
deprecation of his guile.
When she first accused him of the blues, it was true that Maxwell's
look had expressed glum depression. Now, he was smiling, and, balked
of her prey, Mrs. Burke knitted briskly, contemplating other means
drawing him from his covert. Her strategy had been too subtle: she
would try a frontal attack.
"Ever think of gettin' married, Mr. Maxwell?" she inquired abruptly.
For an instant Maxwell colored; but he blew two or three rings of
smoke in the air, and then replied carelessly, as he plucked at the
grass by his side:
"Oh, yes: every fellow of my age has fancied himself in love some time
or other, I suppose."
"Yes, it's like measles, or whoopin'-cough; every man has to have it
sometime; but you haven't answered my question."
"Well, suppose I was in love; a man must be pretty conceited to
imagine that he could make up to a girl for the sacrifice of bringing
her to live in a place like Durford. That sounds horribly rude to
Durford, but you won't misunderstand me."
"No; I know exactly how you feel; but the average girl is just dyin'
to make a great sacrifice for some good-lookin' young fellow, all the
same."
"Ah yes; the _average_ girl; but----"
Maxwell's voice trailed off into silence, while he affected to gaze
stonily into the blue deeps of the sky overhead.
Hepsey had thought herself a pretty clever fisherman, in her day;
evidently, she decided, this particular fish was not going to be easy
to land.
"Don't you think a clergyman is better off married?" she asked,
presently.
Donald knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put it in his pocket,
clasped his hands across his knees, and smiled thoughtfully for a
moment. There was a light in his eyes which was good to see, and a
slight trembling of his lips before he ventured to speak. Then he
sighed heavily.
"Yes, I do, on many accounts. But I think that any parson in a place
like this ought to know and face all the difficulties of the situation
before he comes to a definite decision and marries. Isn't that your
own view? You've had experience of married parsons here: what do you
think?"
"Well, you see the matter is just like this: Every parish wants an
unmarried parson; the vestry 'cause he's cheap, every unmarried woman
'cause he may be a possible suitor; and it's easier to run him than it
is a married man. He may be decent, well-bred and educated. And he
comes to a parcel of ignoramuses who think they know ten times as much
as he does. If he can't earn enough to marry on, and has the good
sense to keep out of matrimony, the people talk about his bein' a
selfish old bachelor who neglects his duty to society. He can't afford
to run a tumble-down rectory like ours. If in the face of all this he
marries, he has to scrimp and stint until it is a question of buyin'
one egg or two, and lettin' his wife worry and work until she's fit
for a lunatic asylum. No business corporation, not even a
milk-peddlin' trust, would treat its men so or expect good work from
'em. Then the average layman seldom thinks how he can help the parson.
His one idea is to be a kicker as long as he can think of anything to
kick about. The only man in this parish who never kicks is paralyzed
in both legs. Yes sir; the parson of the country parish is the parish
goat, as the sayin' is."
Mrs. Burke ceased her tirade, and after a while Maxwell remarked
quietly:
"Mrs. Burke, I'm afraid you are a pessimist."
"I'm no such thing," she retorted hotly. "A pessimist's a man that
sees nothin' but the bad, and says there's no help for it and won't
raise a hand: he's a proper sour-belly. An optimist's a man that sees
nothin' but the good, and says everything's all right; let's have a
good time. Poor fool! The practical man--anyway, the practical
woman--sees both the bad and the good, and says we can make things a
whole lot better if we try; let's take off our coats and hustle to
beat the cars, and see what happens. The real pessimists are your
Bascoms, and that kind: and I guess I pity him more than blame him: he
seems as lonesome as a tooth-pick in a cider-barrel."
"But I thought that Bascom was a wealthy man. He ought to be able to
help out, and raise money enough so that the town could keep a parson
and his wife comfortably."
"Sure thing! But the church isn't supported by tight-fisted wealthy
people. It's the hard-workin' middle class who are willin' to turn in
and spend their last cent for the church. And don't you get me started
on Bascom as you value your life. Maybe I'll swear a blue streak
before I get through: not but what I suppose that even Bascom has his
good points--like a porcupine. But a little emery paper on Bascom's
good points wouldn't hurt 'em very much. They're awful rusty."
"Oh well! Money isn't all there is in life," soothed Maxwell,
smiling.
"No, not quite; but it's a mighty good thing to have in the house.
You'd think so if you had to wear the same hat three summers. I've got
to that time in my life where I can get along very well without most
of the necessities; but I must have a few luxuries to keep me goin'."
"Then you think that a clergyman ought not to marry and bring his wife
to a place like Durford?"
"I didn't say anything of the sort. If you was to get married I'd see
you through, if it broke my neck or Bascom's."
"Do you know, you seem to me a bit illogical?" remarked Maxwell
mildly.
"Don't talk to me about logic! The strongest argument is often the
biggest lie. There are times in your life when you have to take your
fate in both hands and shut your eyes, and jump in the dark. Maybe
you'll land on your feet, and maybe you--won't. But you have got to
jump just the same. That's matrimony--common sense, idiocy, or
whatever you choose to call it.... I never could tell which. It's the
only thing to do; and any man with a backbone and a fist won't
hesitate very long. If you marry, I'll see you through; though of
course you won't stay here long, anyhow."
"You're awfully kind, Mrs. Burke," Maxwell replied, "and I sha'n't
forget your promise--when the time comes for me to take the momentous
step. But I think it would be the wisest thing for me to keep my
heart free for a while; or at any rate, not to get married."
Mrs. Burke looked down at her rector, and smiled broadly at his clever
evasion of the bait she had dangled before him so persistently.
"Well, do as you like; but that reminds me that when next you go to
town you'll need to get a new glass for that miniature of your sister.
You must have dozed off with it in your hands last night and dropped
it. I found it this morning on the floor alongside of your chair, with
the glass broken."
She rose triumphantly, as she knitted the last stitch of the wash-rag.
"Excuse me--I must go and peel the potatoes for dinner."
"I'd offer to contribute to the menu, by catching some fish for you;
but I don't think it's a very good day for fishing, is it, Mrs.
Burke?" asked Maxwell innocently.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII
AN ICEBOX FOR CHERUBIM
As we have seen, when Maxwell began his work in Durford, he was full
of the enthusiasm of youth and inexperience. He was, however, heartily
supported and encouraged in his efforts by all but Sylvester Bascom.
Without being actively and openly hostile, the Senior Warden, under
the guise of superior wisdom and a judicial regard for expediency,
managed to thwart many of his projects. After each interview with
Bascom, Maxwell felt that every bit of life and heart had been pumped
out of him, and that he was very young, and very foolish to attempt
to make any change in "the good old ways" of the parish, which for so
many years had stunted its growth and had acquired the immobility of
the laws of the Medes and Persians.
But there was one parishioner who was ever ready to suggest new
ventures to "elevate" the people, and to play the part of intimate
friend and adviser to her good-looking rector, and that was Virginia
Bascom. For some unknown reason "the people" did not seem to be
acutely anxious thus to be elevated; and most of them seemed to regard
Virginia as a harmless idiot with good intentions, but with positive
genius for meddling in other people's affairs. Being the only daughter
of the Senior Warden, and the leading lady from a social standpoint,
she considered that she had a roving commission to set people right at
a moment's notice; and there were comparatively few people in Durford
on whom she had not experimented in one way or another. She organized
a Browning club to keep the factory girls out of the streets evenings,
a mothers' meeting, an ethical culture society, and a craftman's club,
and, as she was made president of each, her time was quite well
filled.
And now in her fertile brain dawned a brilliant idea, which she
proceeded to propound to the rector. Maxwell was non-committal, for
he felt the matter was one for feminine judgment. Then she decided to
consult Mrs. Burke--because, while Hepsey was "not in society," she
was recognized as the dominant personality among the women of the
village, and no parish enterprise amounted to much unless she approved
of it, and was gracious enough to assist. As Virginia told Maxwell,
"Mrs. Burke has a talent of persuasiveness," and so was "useful in any
emergency." If Mrs. Burke's sympathies could be enlisted on behalf of
the new scheme it would be bound to succeed.
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Burke had heard rumors of this new project
of Virginia's. It always went against the grain with Hepsey to say:
"Don't do it." She was a firm believer in the teaching of experience:
"Experience does it," was her translation of the classic adage.
And so one morning found Virginia sitting opposite Mrs. Burke in the
kitchen at Thunder Cliff, knitting her brows and poking the toe of her
boot with the end of her parasol in an absent-minded way. This was
symptomatic.
"Anything on your mind, Virginia? What's up now?" Mrs. Burke began.
For a moment Virginia hesitated, and then replied:
"I am thinking of establishing a day-nursery to care for the babies of
working women, Mrs. Burke."
Mrs. Burke, with hands on her hips, gazed intently at her visitor,
pushed up her under lip, scowled, and then observed thoughtfully:
"I wonder some one hasn't thought of that before. Who's to take care
of the babies?"
"Mary Quinn and I, with the assistance of others, of course."
"Are you sure that you know which is the business end of a
nursing-bottle? Could you put a safety-pin where it would do the most
good? Could you wash a baby without drownin' it?"
"Of course I have not had much experience," Virginia replied in a
dignified and lofty way, "but Mary Quinn has, and she could teach
me."
"You're thinkin', I suppose, that a day-nursery would fill a long-felt
want, or somethin' like that. Who's goin' to pay the bills?"
"Oh, there ought to be enough progressive, philanthropic people in
Durford to subscribe the necessary funds, you know. It is to be an
auxiliary to the parish work."
"Hm! What does Mr. Maxwell say?"
"Well, he said that he supposed that babies were good things in their
way; but he hadn't seen many in the village, and he didn't quite
realize what help a day-nursery would be to the working women."
"That doesn't sound mighty enthusiastic. Maybe we might get the money;
but who's to subscribe the babies?"
"Why, the working women, of course."
"They can't subscribe 'em if they haven't got 'em. There are mighty
few kids in this town; and if you really want my candid opinion, I
don't think Durford needs a day-nursery any more than it needs an
icebox for cherubim. But then of course that doesn't matter much. When
you goin' to begin?"
"Next Monday. We have rented the store where Elkin's grocery used to
be, and we are going to fit it up with cribs, and all the most
up-to-date conveniences for a sanitary day-nursery."
"Hm! Well, I'll do all I can to help you, of course. I suppose you'll
find babies pushin' all over the sidewalk Monday mornin', comin' early
to avoid the rush. Better get down as early as possible, Virginia."
Virginia departed.
After the furnishing of the incipient nursery had been completed, and
each little crib had a new unbreakable doll whose cheeks were
decorated with unsuckable paint, Virginia and Mary Quinn--invaluable
in undertaking the spadework of all Virginia's parish exploits--gave
an afternoon tea to which all the subscribers and their friends were
invited. But when everything was in readiness for patronage, what few
working women there were in Durford, possessed of the right kind of
babies, seemed strangely reluctant to trust their youthful offspring
to the tender mercies of Virginia Bascom and Mary Quinn.
Consequently, the philanthropic movement, started under such favorable
patronage, soon reached a critical stage in its career, and Mrs. Burke
was called in to contribute some practical suggestions. She responded
to the summons with all due promptness, and when she arrived at the
nursery, she smilingly remarked:
"Hm! But where are the babies? I thought they would be swarming all
over the place like tadpoles in a pool."
"Well, you see," Virginia began, her voice quivering with
disappointment, "Mary Quinn and I have been sitting here four mortal
days, and not a single infant has appeared on the scene. I must say
that the working women of Durford seem strangely unappreciative of our
efforts to help them."
"Well," Mrs. Burke responded, "I suppose day-nurseries without babies
are as incomplete as an incubator without eggs. But after all, it
hardly seems worth while to go out and snatch nursing infants from
their mother's breasts just to fill a long-felt want, does it?
Besides, you might get yourself into trouble."
"I didn't ask you to come and make fun of me," Virginia replied
touchily. "I wanted you to make some suggestions to help us out. If we
don't get any babies, we might just as well close our doors at once. I
should be awfully mortified to have the whole thing a failure, after
all we have done, and all the advertising we have had."
Mrs. Burke sat down and assumed a very judicial expression.
"Well, Ginty dear, I'm awful sorry for you; I don't doubt you done the
best you could. It'd be unreasonable to expect you to collect babies
like mushrooms in a single night. All true reformers are bound to
strike snags, and to suffer because they aint appreciated in their own
day and generation. It's only after we are gone and others take our
places that the things we do are appreciated. You'll have to resign
yourself to fate, Virginia, and wait for what the newspapers call 'the
vindicatin' verdict of prosperity.' Think of all the people that tried
to do things and didn't do 'em. Now there's the Christian
martyrs----"
For some reason Virginia seemed to have a vague suspicion that Hepsey
was still making fun of her; and being considerably nettled, she
interjected tartly:
"I'm not working for the verdict of posterity, and I don't care a flip
for the Christian martyrs. I'm trying to conduct a day-nursery, here
and now; we have the beds, and the equipment, and some money,
and----"
"But you haven't got the babies, Virginia!"
"Precisely, Mrs. Burke. It's simply a question of babies, now or
never. Babies we must have or close our doors. I must confess that I
am greatly pained at the lack of interest of the community in our
humble efforts to serve them."
For some time Hepsey sat in silence; then she smiled as if a bright
idea occurred to her.
"Why not borrow a few babies from the mothers in town, Virginia? You
see, you might offer to pay a small rental by the hour, or take out a
lease which could be renewed when it expired. What is lacking is
public confidence in your enterprise. If you and Miss Quinn could be
seen in the nursery windows dandlin' a baby on each arm, and singin'
lullabies to 'em for a few days, it'd attract attention, inspire
faith in the timid, and public confidence would be restored. The tide
of babies'd turn your way after a while, and the nursery would prove a
howlin' success."
Virginia considered the suggestion and, after deep thought, remarked:
"What do you think we ought to pay for the loan of a baby per hour,
Mrs. Burke?"
"Well, of course I haven't had much experience rentin' babies, as I
have been busy payin' taxes and insurance on my own for some years;
then you see rents have gone up like everything lately. But I should
think that ten cents an afternoon ought to be sufficient. I think I
might be able to hunt up a baby or two. Mrs. Warren might lend her
baby, and perhaps Mrs. Fletcher might add her twins. I'll call on them
at once, if you say so."
Virginia looked relieved, and in a voice of gratitude responded:
"You are really very, very kind."
"Well, cheer up, Virginia; cheer up. Every cloud has its silver
linin'; and I guess we can find some babies somewhere even if we have
to advertise in the papers. Now I must be goin', and I'll stop on the
way and make a bid for the Fletcher twins. Good-by."
When Nicholas Burke learned from his mother of the quest of the
necessary babies, he started out of his own motion and was the first
to arrive on the scene with the spoils of victory, in the shape of the
eighteen-months infant of Mrs. Thomas McCarthy, for which he had been
obliged to pay twenty-five cents in advance, the infant protesting
vigorously with all the power of a well developed pair of lungs. As
Nickey delivered the goods, he remarked casually:
"Say, Miss Virginia, you just take the darn thing quick. He's been
howlin' to beat the band."
"Why, Nickey," exclaimed Virginia, entranced, and gingerly possessing
herself of James McCarthy, "however did you get him?"
"His ma wouldn't let me have him at first; and it took an awful lot of
jollyin' to bring her round. Of course I didn't mean to tell no lies,
but I said you was awful fond of kids. I said that if you only had
Jimmy, it would give the nursery a dandy send-off, 'cause she was so
well known, and Mr. McCarthy was such a prominent citizen. When she
saw me cough up a quarter and play with it right under her nose, I
could see she was givin' in; and she says to me, 'Nickey, you can take
him just this once. I'd like to help the good cause along, and Miss
Bascom, she means well.' Ma's gettin' after the Fletcher twins for
you."
James McCarthy was welcomed with open arms, was washed and dressed in
the most approved antiseptic manner; his gums were swabed with boracic
acid, and he was fed from a sterilized bottle on Pasteurized milk, and
tucked up in a crib with carbolized sheets, and placed close to the
window where he could bask in actinic rays, and inhale ozone to his
heart's content. Thus the passer-by could see at a glance that the
good work had begun to bear fruit.
Mrs. Burke managed to get hold of the Fletcher twins, and as they both
howled lustily in unison, all the time, they added much to the natural
domesticity of the scene and seemed to invite further patronage, like
barkers at a side-show. Mrs. Warren was also persuaded.
Although the village was thoroughly canvassed, Miss Bascom was obliged
to content herself with the McCarthy baby and the Fletcher twins, and
the Warren baby, until, one morning, a colored woman appeared with a
bundle in her arms. As she was the first voluntary contributor of live
stock, she was warmly welcomed, and a great fuss made over the tiny
black infant which gradually emerged from the folds of an old shawl
"like a cuckoo out of its cocoon," as Mary Quinn remarked. This, of
course, was very nice and encouraging, but most unfortunately, when
night came, the mother did not appear to claim her progeny, nor did
she ever turn up again. Of course it was a mere oversight on her part,
but Virginia was much disturbed, for, to her very great embarrassment,
she found herself the undisputed possessor of a coal black baby. She
was horrified beyond measure, and sent at once for Mrs. Burke.
"What shall I do, what shall I do, Mrs. Burke?" she cried. Mrs. Burke
gazed musingly at the writhing black blot on the white and rose
blanket, and suggested:
"Pity you couldn't adopt it, Virginia. You always loved children."
"Adopt it!" Virginia screamed hysterically. "What in the world can you
be thinking of?"
"Well, I can't think of anything else, unless I can persuade Andy
Johnston, the colored man on the farm, to adopt it. He wouldn't mind
its complexion as much as you seem to."
Virginia brightened considerably at this suggestion, exclaiming
excitedly:
"Oh Mrs. Burke, do you really think you could?"
"Well, I don't know. Perhaps so. At any rate, if we offer to help pay
the extra expense, Mrs. Johnston might bring the baby up as her own.
Then they can name it Virginia Bascom Johnston, you see."
Virginia bit her lip, but she managed to control her temper as she
exclaimed quite cheerfully:
"Mrs. Burke, you are so very kind. You are always helping somebody out
of a scrape."
"Don't overpraise me, Virginia. My head's easily turned. The teachin's
of experience are hard--but I guess they're best in the end. Well,
send the poor little imp of darkness round to me to-night, and I'll
see that it has good care."
As a matter of fact, Hepsey had qualms of conscience as to whether she
should not, at the outset, have discouraged the whole baby project;
experience threatened to give its lesson by pretty hard knocks, on
this occasion.
For though the immediate problem was thus easily solved, others
presented themselves to vex the philanthropic Virginia.
When on the tenth day the rental for the Warren baby and the Fletcher
twins fell due, and the lease of James McCarthy expired without
privilege of renewal, the finances of the nursery were at a very low
ebb. It certainly did not help matters much when, towards night, Mary
Quinn called Virginia's attention to the fact that there were
unmistakable signs of a bad rash on the faces of the twins, and very
suspicious spots on the cheeks of the Warren baby. Even the
antiseptic James McCarthy blushed like a boiled lobster, and went
hopelessly back on his sterilized character. Of course the only thing
to be done was to send at once for the doctor, and for the mothers of
the respective infants. When the doctor arrived he pronounced the
trouble to be measles; and when the mothers made their appearance,
Virginia learned something of the unsuspected resources of the English
language served hot from the tongues of three frightened and irate
women. Finally the floor was cleared, and the place closed up for
disinfection.
Just before she left, Virginia dropped into a chair and wept, quite
oblivious of the well-meant consolations of Mary Quinn, sometime
co-partner in "The Durford Day-Nursery for the Children of Working
Women."
"We've done the very best we could, Miss Bascom; and it certainly
isn't our fault that the venture turned out badly. Poor babies!"
At this the sobbing Virginia was roused to one last protest:
"Mary Quinn, if ever you say another word to me about babies, I'll
have you arrested. I just hate babies, and--and everything! Why, there
comes Mr. Maxwell! Say, Mary, you just run and get me a wet towel to
wipe my face with, while I hunt for my combs and do up my back hair.
And then if you wouldn't mind vanishing for a while--I'm sure you
understand--for if ever I needed spiritual consolation and the help of
the church, it is now, this minute."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX
THE RECTORY
A few weeks after Donald's conversational duel with Mrs. Burke he
started on a six-weeks' vacation, which he had certainly earned; and
as he busied himself with his packing,--Hepsey assisting,--he
announced:
"When I come back, Mrs. Burke, I probably shall not come alone."
He was strapping up his suit-case when he made this rather startling
announcement, and the effect seemed to send the blood to his head.
Mrs. Burke did not seem to notice his confusion as she remarked
calmly:
"Hm! That's a good thing. Your grandmother can have the room next to
yours, and we'll do all we can to make the old lady comfortable. I'm
sure she'll be a great comfort to you, though she'll get a bit
lonesome at times, unless she's active on her feet."
Donald laughed, as he blushed more furiously and stuttered:
"No, I am not going to bring my grandmother here, and I strongly
suspect that you know what I mean. I'm going to be married."
"So you are going to get married, are you?" Hepsey remarked with due
amazement, as if the suspicion of the fact had never entered her head
before. "Well, I am mighty glad of it. I only wish that I was goin' to
be present to give you away. Yes, I'm mighty glad. She'll make a new
man of you up here, so long as she isn't a new woman."
"No, not in the slang sense of the word; although I think you will
find her very capable, and I hope with all my heart that you'll like
her."
"I'm sure I shall. The question is whether she'll like me."
Hepsey Burke looked rather sober for a moment, and Donald instantly
asserted:
"She can't help liking you."
"We-ell now, I could mention quite a number of people who find it as
easy as rolling off a log to _dis_like, me. But that doesn't matter
much. I have found it a pretty good plan not to expect a great deal of
adoration, and to be mighty grateful for the little you get. Be sure
you let me know when to expect you and your grandmother back."
"Most certainly I shall," he laughed. "It will be in about six weeks,
you know. Good-by, and thank you a thousand times for all your
kindness to me."
There was considerable moisture in Hepsey's eyes as she stood and
watched Maxwell drive down the road. Then wiping her eyes furtively
with one corner of her apron she remarked to herself:
"Well, I suppose I am glad, mighty glad; but somehow it isn't the
jolliest thing in the world to have one's friends get married. They
are never the same again; and in ten times out of six the lady in the
case is jealous of her husband's friends, and tries to make trouble.
It takes a lady saint to share her husband's interests with anybody,
and maybe she 'aint to blame. Well, the next thing in order is to fix
up the rectory in six weeks. The best way to repair that thing is with
a match and some real good kerosene and a few shavings; however, we'll
have to do the best we can. I think I'll set Jonathan Jackson to work
this afternoon, and go around and interview the vestry myself."
Jonathan proved resignedly obedient to Hepsey's demands, but the
vestry blustered and scolded, because they had not been consulted in
the matter, until Hepsey said she would be glad to receive any
contribution they might choose to offer; then they relapsed into
innocuous desuetude and talked crops.
As soon as the repairs were well under way, the whole town was wild
with gossip about Maxwell and Miss Bascom. If he were going to occupy
the rectory, the necessary inference was that he was going to be
married, as he surely would not contemplate keeping bachelor's hall by
himself. At last Virginia had attained the height of her ambition and
captured the rector! Consequently she was the center of interest in
every social gathering, although, as the engagement had not been
formally announced, no one felt at liberty to congratulate her. To any
tentative and insinuating advances in this direction Virginia replied
by non-committal smiles, capable of almost any interpretation; and the
seeker after information was none the wiser.
Mrs. Roscoe-Jones, by virtue of her long intimacy with Hepsey and her
assured social position in Durford's thirty gentry, felt that she was
entitled to some definite information; and so, as they walked back
from church one Wednesday afternoon, she remarked:
"I hear that the parish is going to repair the rectory, and that you
are taking a great interest in it. You must be on very intimate terms
with Mr. Bascom and the vestry!"
"Well, not exactly. Bascom and I haven't held hands in the dark for
some time; but I am going to do what I can to get the house in order
for Mr. Maxwell."
"I wonder where the money is coming from to complete the work? It
seems to me that the whole parish ought to be informed about the
matter, and share in the work; but I suppose Mr. Bascom's shouldering
it all, since there's been no effort to raise money by having a
fair."
"I really don't know much about it as yet, Sarah. Of course Bascom's
charitable work is mostly done in secret, so that nobody ever finds it
out. He is a modest man and wouldn't like to be caught in the act of
signing a check for anybody else. It might seem showy."
"Yes, I understand," Mrs. Roscoe-Jones retorted dryly; "but under the
circumstances, that is----"
"Under what circumstances?" Mrs. Burke inquired quickly.
"Oh, considering that Mr. Bascom is Virginia's father and would want
to make her comfortable, you know----"
"No, I don't know. I'm awful stupid about some things. You must have
discovered that before."
"Now Hepsey, what is the use of beating around the bush like this? You
must know the common gossip of the town, and you must be in Mr.
Maxwell's confidence. What shall I say when people ask me if he is
engaged to Virginia Bascom?"
"Tell 'em you don't know a blessed thing about it. What else can you
tell 'em? You might tell 'em that you tried to pump me and the pump
wouldn't work 'cause it needed packin'."
After this, Mrs. Roscoe-Jones felt that there was nothing left for her
to do but retire from the scene; so she crossed the road.
When Mrs. Burke began the actual work on the rectory she quickly
realized what she had to cope with. The workmen of Durford had a
pleasing habit of accepting all offers of work, and promising
anything, and making a start so as to get the job; and then, having
upset the whole premises, they promptly "lit out" for parts unknown in
order to get another job, and no mortal knew when they would return.
It always seemed promising and hopeful to see a laboring man arrive in
his overalls with his dinner-pail and tools at seven; but when two
hours later he had vanished, not to return, it was a bit discouraging.
Mrs. Burke was not in a very good humor when, arriving at the rectory,
she met Tom Snyder the plumber, at ten-thirty, walking briskly away
from his job. She planted herself squarely across the walk and began:
"Good morning, Thomas; where are you going, if I may ask?"
"I am going back for my tools, Mrs. Burke."
"Excuse me, Thomas, but you were never more mistaken in your life. You
put the kitchen pipes out of business two weeks ago, and you must have
been goin' back for your tools ever since. I suppose you're chargin'
me by the hour for goin' backwards."
Thomas looked sheepish and scratched his head with his dirty fingers.
"No, but I have to finish a little job I begun for Elias Warden on the
hill. I'll be back again right away."
"None of that, Thomas. You're goin' back to the rectory with me now,
and if the job isn't finished by six o'clock, you'll never get your
hands on it again."
The crestfallen Thomas reluctantly turned around and accompanied
Hepsey back to the rectory and finished his work in half an hour.
After much trial and tribulation the rectory was duly repaired,
replastered, and papered. The grass had been cut; the bushes were
trimmed; and the house had been painted. Then Mrs. Burke obtained a
hayrack with a team, and taking Nickey and Jonathan Jackson with her,
made a tour of the parish asking for such furniture as individual
parishioners were willing to give. Late in the afternoon she arrived
at the rectory with a very large load, and the next day Jonathan was
made to set to work with his tools, and she started in with some paint
and varnish, and the result seemed eminently satisfactory to her, even
though her hands were stained, she had had no dinner, and her hair was
stuck to her head here and there in shiny spots. As they were leaving
the house to return home for supper, she scowled severely at Jonathan
as she remarked:
"Jonathan, I do believe you've got more red paint on the top of your
head than you left on the kitchen chairs. Do for mercy sake wash the
end of your nose. I don't care to be seen comin' out of here with you
lookin' like that," she added scathingly.
After that, it was, as Mrs. Burke remarked, just fun to finish the
rectory; and though so much had been given by the people of the
parish, there were many new pieces of furniture delivered, for which
no one could account. As neither Mr. Bascom nor Miss Bascom had sent
anything, and as neither had appeared on the scene, excitement was at
fever heat. Rumor had it that Virginia had gone to the city for a week
or so, to buy her trousseau. Presently the report circulated that
Maxwell was going to bring his bride back with him when he returned
from his vacation.
The day before the one set for Maxwell's arrival Mrs. Burke confessed
the truth, and suggested that the rectory be stocked with provisions,
so that the bride and groom should have something to eat when they
first got home. The idea seemed to please the parish, and provisions
began to arrive and were placed in the cellar, or on the newly painted
pantry shelves, or in the neat cupboards. Mrs. Talbot sent a bushel of
potatoes, Mrs. Peterson a pan of soda biscuit, Mrs. Andrews two loaves
of bread; Mrs. Squires donated a pan of soda biscuit, Mrs. Johnson
some frosted cake, and Mrs. Marlow two bushels of apples. Mrs. Hurd
sent a pan of soda biscuit, Mrs. Waldorf three dozen eggs, and a sack
of flour; Mrs. Freyburg sent a pan of soda biscuit, Mrs. Jones a
boiled ham, Mrs. Orchardson two bushels of turnips and half a pan of
soda biscuit.
Mrs. Burke received the provisions as they arrived, and put them where
they belonged. Just about supper time Mrs. Loomis came with a large
bundle under her arm and remarked to Hepsey:
"I thought I'd bring something nobody else would think of--something
out of the ordinary that perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell would relish."
"I'm sure that was real thoughtful of you, Mrs. Loomis," Hepsey
replied. "What have you got?"
"Well," Mrs. Loomis responded, "I thought I'd bring 'em two pans of my
nice fresh soda biscuit."
Mrs. Burke kept her face straight, and responded cheerfully:
"That was awful nice of you, Mrs. Loomis."
"Oh, that's all right. And if you want any more, just let me know."
Finally, when the door was closed on the last contributor, Mrs. Burke
dropped into a chair and called:
"Jonathan Jackson, come here quick."
Jonathan responded promptly, and anxiously inquired:
"Hepsey, be you ill?"
"No, I'm not sick; but we have ten pans of soda biscuit. They are in
the pantry, down cellar, in the woodshed, on the parlor table. For
mercy's sake take eight pans out to the chickens or stick 'em on the
picket fence. I just loathe soda biscuit; and if any more come I shall
throw 'em at the head of the woman that brings 'em."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X
THE BRIDE'S ARRIVAL
Next morning, when Nickey brought up the mail, Mrs. Burke looked
anxiously over her letters until she came to the one she was
expecting. She read it in silence.
The gist of the matter was that Maxwell had been married to the nicest
girl in the world, and was looking forward to having Mrs. Burke meet
her, and to have his wife know the woman who had been so supremely
good to him in the parish. He closed by informing her that they were
to return the next day at five P. M., and if it were not asking too
much, he hoped that she would take them in for a few days until they
could find quarters elsewhere. The letter was countersigned by a
pretty little plea for friendship from "Mrs. Betty."
Mrs. Burke replaced the letter and murmured to herself, smiling:
"Poor little dear! Of course they could come and stay as long as they
pleased; but as the rectory is in order, I think that I'll meet them
at the depot, and take them there direct. They'll be much happier
alone by themselves from the start. I'll have supper ready for 'em,
and cook the chickens while they're unpackin' their trunks."
As Mrs. Burke thought it best to maintain a discreet silence as to the
time of their arrival, there was no one but herself to meet them at
the station when the train pulled in. As Maxwell presented his wife to
Mrs. Burke, Hepsey took the girl's two hands in hers and kissed her
heartily, and then, looking at her keenly as the bride blushed under
her searching gaze, she remarked:
"You're a dreadful disappointment, Mrs. Maxwell. I'm afraid it'll take
me a long time to get over it."
"I am horribly sorry to disappoint you so, Mrs. Burke."
Maxwell laughed, while Mrs. Betty looked puzzled.
"Yes," Mrs. Burke continued, "you're a dreadful disappointment. Your
picture isn't half as sweet as you are." Then turning to Maxwell, she
said:
"Why didn't you tell me? Who taught you to pick out just the right
sort of wife, I'd like to know?"
"_She_ did!" Maxwell replied, pointing delightedly to the young woman,
who was still smiling and blushing under Hepsey's inspection.
"But Mrs. Burke," Mrs. Betty interposed, "can't you give me a little
credit for 'picking out' Donald, as you say?"
"Yes; Mr. Maxwell's pretty fine, though I wouldn't want to have you
tell him so, for anything. But I know, because Durford is calculated
to test a man's mettle, if any place ever was. Now Mrs. Betty, if
that's what I'm to call you, if you'll get into the wagon we'll drive
home and have some supper. You must be 'most famished by this time, if
you stop thinkin' about Mr. Maxwell long enough to have an appetite. I
suppose that we might have had a committee of the vestry down here to
bid you welcome to Durford; and Nickey suggested the village band and
some hot air balloons, and that the boys of the parish should pull
the carriage up to the house after they'd presented you with a
magnificent bouquet; but I thought you'd just like to slip in
unnoticed and get acquainted with your parishioners one at a time.
It'd be simply awful to have a whole bunch of 'em thrown at your head
at once; and as for the whole vestry--well, never mind."
They got into the "democrat" and started out at a smart trot, but when
they came to the road which turned toward Thunder Cliff, Mrs. Burke
drove straight across the green.
"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Burke?" Maxwell exclaimed.
"Well, I thought that maybe Mrs. Betty would like to get a sight of
the town before we went home."
When they came to the rectory and turned into the yard, the wonderful
transformation dawned on Maxwell.
"My gracious, what a change! It's perfectly marvelous," he exclaimed.
"Why Mrs. Burke, I believe you've brought us here to live!"
"Right you are, my friend. This is where you belong."
"Well, you certainly do beat the Dutch. Who is responsible for all
this, I'd like to know? But of course it's you."
"Well, I had a hand in it, but so did the whole parish. Now walk right
in and make yourselves at home."
Mrs. Burke enjoyed to the full Maxwell's surprise and delight, as he
and Mrs. Betty explored the house like a couple of very enthusiastic
children. When they got into the china closet and Mrs. Betty found a
silver tea-ball she exclaimed rapturously:
"Look here, Donald! Did you ever see the like of this? Here is a
regular tea-ball. We will have tea every afternoon at four, and Mrs.
Burke will be our guest. How perfectly delightful."
This remark seemed to please Hepsey mightily, as she exclaimed:
"Oh, my, no! Do you want to spoil my nervous system? We are not given
much to tea-balls in Durford. We consider ourselves lucky if we get a
plain old-fashioned pot. Now you get fixed up," she directed, "while I
get supper ready, and I'll stay just this time, if you'll let me, and
then if you can stand it, perhaps you'll ask me again."
Soon they sat down to a little table covered with spotless linen and a
pretty set of white china with gold bands. Maxwell did not say much;
he was still too surprised and delighted.
[Illustration: "OH WELL, I ALWAYS BELIEVE THAT TWO YOUNG MARRIED PEOPLE
SHOULD START OUT BY THEMSELVES, AND THEN IF THEY GET INTO
A FAMILY ROW IT WON'T SCANDALIZE THE PARISH"]
The broiled chickens and the browned potato balls were placed before
Maxwell, who faced Mrs. Betty--Hepsey sitting between them.
"Now this is what I call rich," Maxwell exclaimed as he carved. "I
hadn't the slightest suspicion that we were to come here and find all
these luxuries."
"However did the house get furnished?" chimed in Mrs. Betty.
"Oh well," Mrs. Burke replied, "I always believe that two young
married people should start out by themselves, you know; and then if
they get into a family row it won't scandalize the parish. The only
new thing about the furnishings is paint and varnish. I drove around
and held up the parish, and made them stand and deliver the goods, and
Jonathan Jackson and I touched it up a little; that's all."
"We ought to acknowledge each gift personally," Maxwell said. "You
must tell us who's given what."
"Oh, no you won't. When I took these things away from their owners by
force, I acknowledged them in the politest way possible, so as to save
you the trouble. You're not supposed to know where a thing came
from."
"But there must have been a lot of money spent on the rectory to get
it into shape," Maxwell asserted. "Where did it all come from?"
Mrs. Burke grinned with amusement.
"Why, can't you guess? Of course it was that merry-hearted, generous
old Senior Warden of yours. Who else could it be? If there is anything
you need, just let us know."
"But the house seems to be very completely furnished as it is."
"No, not yet. If you look around you'll see lots of things that aren't
here."
Mrs. Betty quite raved over the salad, made of lettuce, oranges,
walnuts and a mayonnaise dressing. Then there came ice cream and
chocolate sauce, followed by black coffee.
"This is quite too much, Mrs. Burke. You must be a superb cook. I am
horribly afraid you'll have spoiled Donald, so that my cooking will
seem very tame to him," Mrs. Betty remarked.
"Well, never mind, Mrs. Betty. If worst comes to worst there are seven
pans of soda biscuit secreted around the premises somewhere; so don't
be discouraged. There are lots of things you can do with a soda
biscuit, if you know how. Now we'll just clear the table, and wash the
dishes, and put things away."
When about nine o'clock she arose to go, Maxwell took both Hepsey's
hands in his and said quietly:
"Mrs. Burke, I'm more indebted to you than I can possibly say, for all
you have done for us. I wish I knew how to thank you properly, but I
don't."
"Oh, never mind that," Mrs. Burke replied, a mist gathering in her
eyes, "it's been lots of fun, and if you're satisfied I'm more than
pleased." Then, putting her arm around Mrs. Betty's waist, she
continued:
"Remember that we're not payin' this nice little wife of yours to do
parish work, and if people interfere with her you just tell em to go
to Thunder Cliff. Good-by."
She was turning away when suddenly she stopped, an expression of
horror on her face:
"My! think of that now! This was a bride's dinner-party, and I put
yellow flowers on the table, instead of white! What'd city folks say
to that!"
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI
VIRGINIA'S HIGH HORSE
Mrs. Betty soon succeeded in winning a place for herself in the hearts
of her parishioners, and those who called to look over her "clothes,"
and see if she was going to "put on airs" as a city woman, called
again because they really liked her. She returned the calls with equal
interest, and soon had her part of the parish organization well in
hand.
Maxwell's choice was, in fact, heartily approved--except by Virginia
Bascom and the Senior Warden. The former took the opportunity to
leave cards on an afternoon when all Durford was busily welcoming
Betty at a tea; and was "not at home" when Betty duly returned the
call. Virginia was also careful not to "see" either Betty or her
husband if, by any chance, they passed her when in town.
Of all of which manoeuvres Betty and Donald remained apparently
sublimely unconscious.
As a means of making some return for the good-hearted generosity and
hospitality of the inhabitants, represented by the furniture at the
rectory and many tea-parties under various roof-trees, Mrs. Maxwell
persuaded her husband that they should give a parish party.
So invitations were issued broadcast, and Mrs. Burke was asked to scan
the lists, lest anyone be omitted. China sufficient for the occasion
was supplemented by Hepsey Burke and Jonathan Jackson, and Nickey laid
his invaluable services under contribution to fetch and
carry--organizing a corps of helpers.
The whole adult village,--at least the feminine portion of it,--young
and old, presented themselves at the party, dressed in their best bibs
and tuckers, amusing themselves outdoors at various improvised games,
under the genial generalship of their host; and regaling themselves
within at the tea-tables presided over by Mrs. Betty, whose pride it
was to have prepared with her own hands,--assisted by the
indefatigable Hepsey,--all the cakes and preserves and other
confections provided for the occasion. The whole party was one
whole-hearted, simply convivial gathering--with but a single note to
mar it; and who knows whether the rector, and still less the rector's
wife, would have noticed it, but for Hepsey Burke's subsequent
"boiling over?"
When the games and feast were at full swing, Virginia Bascom's
loud-voiced automobile drove up, and the door-bell pealed. The guests
ceased chattering and the little maid, hired for the occasion, hurried
from the tea-cups to answer the haughty summons. Through the silence
in the tea-room, produced by the overpowering clatter of the bell, the
voice of the little maid,--quite too familiar for the proper formality
of the occasion, in Virginia's opinion,--was heard to pipe out
cheerily:
"Come right in, Miss Virginia; the folks has eat most all the
victuals--but I guess Mrs. Maxwell'll find ye some."
"Please announce 'Miss Virginia Bascom'," droned the lady, ignoring
the untoward levity of the now cowering maid, and followed her to the
door of the room full of guests, where she paused impressively.
"Mrs. Bascom," called the confused maid, through the solemn silence,
as all eyes turned towards the door, "here's,--this is,--I mean Miss
Virginia says Miss Virginia Maxwell----" After which confusing and
somewhat embarrassing announcement the maid summarily fled to the
kitchen, and left Virginia to her own devices.
Betty at once came forward, and quite ignoring the error, smiled a
pleasant welcome.
"Miss Bascom, it is very nice to know you at last. We have been so
unlucky, have we not?"
Virginia advanced rustling, and gave Betty a frigid finger-tip, held
shoulder-high, and cast a collective stare at hostess and guests
through her lorgnette, bowing to Maxwell and ignoring his proffered
handshake.
There was an awkward pause. For once even Betty-the-self-possessed was
at a loss for the necessary tactics.
A hearty voice soon filled the empty spaces: "Hello there, Ginty; I
always did say those auto's was a poor imitation of a street-car; when
they get balky and leave you sticking in the road-side and make you
behind-time, you can't so much as get your fare back and walk. None
but royalty, duchesses, and the four-hundred can afford to risk
losing their cup o' tea in them things."
There was a general laugh at Hepsey's sally, and conversation again
resumed its busy buzzing, and Virginia was obliged to realize that her
entry had been something of a frost.
She spent some minutes drawing off her gloves, sipped twice at a cup
of tea, and nibbled once at a cake; spent several more minutes getting
her hands back into her gloves, fixed a good-by smile on her face,
murmured some unintelligible words to her hostess, and departed,
annoyed to realize that the engine of the awaiting car--kept running
to emphasize her comet-like passage through so mixed an assembly--had
become quite inaudible to the company.
"Such an insult!" stormed the lady, as she returned home in high
dudgeon. "I might have been a nobody, the way they treated me. Dad
shall hear of this; and I'll see that he puts them where they belong.
The impudence! And after his t-treating me s-s-so!" she wept with
chagrin, and malice that betokened no good to the rector and his
little wife.
Even so, it is doubtful if the host and hostess would have permitted
themselves to notice the supercilious rudeness of the leader of
Durford "Society," had Hepsey been able to curb her indignation.
As she and Betty and the little maid, assisted by Donald and Nickey
and his helpers, were clearing up the fragments that remained of the
entertainment, Hepsey broke forth:
"If I don't set that young woman down in her place where she belongs
before I've done, I've missed my guess: 'Please announce Miss Virginia
Bascom,' indeed! If that isn't sauce, I'm the goose."
"Oh never mind, Mrs. Burke," soothed Betty in a low voice; "she'll
soon realize that we're doing things in good old country style, and
haven't brought any city ways with us to Durford. I dare say she
thought----"
"Thought nothin'!" replied the exasperated Hepsey. "I'll thought her,
with her high looks and her proud stomach, as the psalmist says. I'd
like--oh, wouldn't I just like to send up a nice little basket of
these left-over victuals to Ginty, 'with Mrs. Maxwell's regards.'"
She laughed heartily, but Betty was determined not to let herself
dwell on anything so trivial, and soon, by way of changing the
subject, she was putting Nickey up to the idea of forming a boy-scout
corps, which, as she added, could present the village with a
thoroughly versatile organization, both useful and ornamental.
"Gee," remarked Nickey, who quickly saw himself captaining a body of
likely young blades, "that'd be some lively corpse, believe me. When
can we start in, Mrs. Maxwell?"
"You must ask Mr. Maxwell all about that, Nickey," she laughed.
"But not now," interposed his mother. "You come along with me this
minute, and let Mr. Maxwell have a bit of peace; I know how he just
loves these teas. Good night, all!" she called as she departed with
her son under her wing.
"Donald! Wasn't it all fun--and weren't they all splendid?" Betty
glowed.
"More fun than a barrel of Bascoms--monkeys, I mean," he corrected
himself, laughing at Betty's shocked expression.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII
HOUSE CLEANING AND BACHELORHOOD
Apart from Mrs. Burke, there was no one in the town who so completely
surrendered to Mrs. Maxwell's charms as Jonathan Jackson, the Junior
Warden. Betty had penetration enough to see, beneath the man's rough
exterior, all that was fine and lovable, and she treated him with a
jolly, friendly manner that warmed his heart.
One day she and Mrs. Burke went over to call on Jonathan, and found
him sitting in the woodshed on a tub turned bottom upwards, looking
very forlorn and disconsolate.
"What's the matter, Jonathan? You look as if you had committed the
unpardonable sin," Hepsey greeted him.
"No, it 'aint me," Jonathan replied; "it's Mary McGuire that's the
confounded sinner this time."
"Well, what's Mary been up to now?"
"Mary McGuire's got one of her attacks of house-cleanin' on, and I
tell you it's a bad one. Drat the nuisance."
"Why Jonathan! Don't swear like that."
"Well, I be hanged if I can stand this sort of thing much longer.
Mary, she's the deuce and all, when she once gets started
house-cleanin'."
"Oh dear," Mrs. Betty sympathized. "It's a bother, isnt it? But it
doesn't take so long, and it will soon be over, won't it?"
"Well, I don't know as to that," replied Jonathan disconsolately.
"Mary McGuire seems to think that the whole house must be turned wrong
side out, and every bit of furniture I've got deposited in the front
yard. Now, Mrs. Betty, you just look over there once. There's yards
and yards of clothes-line covered with carpets and rugs and curtains
I've been ordered to clean. It's somethin' beyond words. The whole
place looks as if there was goin' to be an auction, or a rummage sale,
or as if we had moved out 'cause the house was afire. Then she falls
to with tubs of boilin' hot soap-suds, until it fills your lungs, and
drips off the ends of your nose and your fingers, and smells like
goodness knows what."
"Jonathan!" Hepsey reproved.
"Are you exaggerating just the least bit?" echoed Betty.
"No ma'am, I'm not. Words can't begin to tell the tale when Mary gets
the fever on. I thought I noticed symptoms of house-cleanin' last
week. Mary was eyein' things round the house, and givin' me less and
less to eat, and lookin' at me with that cold-storage stare of hers
that means death or house-cleanin'."
"But, Mr. Jackson," Betty pleaded, "your house has to be cleaned
sometimes, you know."
"Sure thing," Jonathan replied. "But there's altogether too much of
this house-cleanin' business goin' on to suit me. I don't see any dirt
anywheres."
"That's because you are a man," Hepsey retorted. "Men never see dirt
until they have to take a shovel to it."
Jonathan sighed hopelessly. "What's the use of bein' a widower," he
continued, "if you can't even have your own way in your own house,
I'd just like to know? I have to eat odds and ends of cold victuals
out here in the woodshed, or anywhere Mary McGuire happens to drop
'em."
"That's tough luck, Mr. Jackson. You just come over to dinner with
Donald and me and have a square meal."
"I'd like to awful well, Mrs. Maxwell, but I dasn't: if I didn't camp
out and eat her cold victuals she'd laid out for me, it'd spoil the
pleasure of house-cleanin' for her. 'Taint as though it was done with
when she's finished, neither. After it's all over, and things are set
to rights, they're all wrong. Some shades won't roll up. Some won't
roll down; why, I've undressed in the dark before now, since one of
'em suddenly started rollin' up on me before I'd got into bed, and
scared the wits out of me. She'll be askin' me to let her give the
furnace a sponge bath next. I believe she'd use tooth-powder on the
inside of a boiled egg, if she only knew how. This house-cleanin'
racket is all dum nonsense, anyhow."
"Why Jonathan! Don't swear like that," Betty exclaimed laughing; "Mr.
Maxwell's coming."
"I said _d-u-m_, Mrs. Betty; I never say nothin' worse than
that--'cept when I lose my temper," he added, safely, examining first
the hone and then the edge of the scythe, as if intending to sharpen
it.
[Illustration: "I AIN'T A CHICKEN NO MORE, MRS. BETTY, AND I'VE 'MOST
FORGOT HOW TO DO A BIT OF COURTIN'"]
Hepsey had gone into the house to inspect for herself the thoroughness
of Mary McGuire's operations; Betty thought the opportunity favorable
for certain counsels.
"The trouble with you is you shouldn't be living alone, like this,
Jonathan. You have all the disadvantages of a house, and none of the
pleasures of a home."
"Yes," he responded, yawning, "it's true enough; but I 'aint a chicken
no more, Mrs. Betty, and I've 'most forgot how to do a bit of
courtin'. What with cleanin' up, and puttin' on your Sunday clothes,
and goin' to the barber's, and gettin' a good ready, it's a
considerable effort for an old man like me."
"People don't want to see your clothes; they want to see you. If you
feel obliged to, you can send your Sunday clothes around some day and
let her look at them once for all. Keeping young is largely a matter
of looking after your digestion and getting plenty of sleep. Its all
foolishness for you to talk about growing old. Why, you are in the
prime of life."
"Hm! Yes. And why don't you tell me that I look real handsome, and
that the girls are all crazy for me. You're an awful jollier, Mrs.
Betty, though I'll admit that a little jollyin' does me a powerful
lot of good now and then. I sometimes like to believe things I know
to a certainty 'aint true, if they make me feel good."
For a moment Betty kept silent, gazing into the kindly face, and then
the instinct of match-making asserted itself too strongly to be
resisted.
"There's no sense in your being a lonesome widower. Why don't you get
married? I mean it."
For a moment Jonathan was too astounded at the audacity of the serious
suggestion to reply; but when he recovered his breath he exclaimed:
"Well, I swan to man! What will you ask me to be doin' next?"
"Oh, I mean it, all right," persisted Mrs. Betty. "Here you've got a
nice home for a wife, and I tell you you need the happiness of a real
home. You will live a whole lot longer if you have somebody to love
and look after; and if you want to know what you will be asking me to
do next, I will wager a box of candy it will be to come to your
wedding."
"Make it cigars, Mrs. Betty; I'm not much on candy. Maybe you're up to
tellin' me who'll have me. I haven't noticed any females makin'
advances towards me in some time now. The only woman I see every day
is Mary McGuire, and she'd make a pan-cake griddle have the blues if
she looked at it."
Mrs. Betty grasped her elbow with one hand, and putting the first
finger of the other hand along the side of her little nose,
whispered:
"What's the matter with Mrs. Burke?"
Jonathan deliberately pulled a hair from his small remaining crop and
cut it with the scythe, as if he had not heard Betty's impertinent
suggestion. But finally he replied:
"There's nothin' the matter with Mrs. Burke that I know of; but that's
no reason why she should be wantin' to marry me."
"She thinks a great deal of you; I know she does."
"How do you know she does?"
"Well, I heard her say something very nice about you yesterday."
"Hm! Did you? What was it?"
"She said that you were the most--the most economical man she ever
met."
"Sure she didn't say I was tighter than the bark on a tree? I guess I
'aint buyin' no weddin' ring on the strength of that. Now, Mrs. Betty,
you just try again. I guess you're fooling me!"
"Oh no, really I'm not. I never was more serious in my life. I mean
just what I say. I know Mrs. Burke really thinks a very great deal of
you, and if you like her, you ought to propose to her. Every moment a
man remains single is an outrageous waste of time."
Jonathan grinned as he retorted:
"Well, no man would waste any time if all the girls were like you.
They'd all be comin' early to avoid the rush. Is Mrs. Burke employin'
your services as a matrimonial agent? Maybe you won't mind tellin' me
what you're to get if the deal pulls off. Is there a rake-off
anywheres?"
Betty laughed, and Jonathan was silent for a while, squinting at the
scythe-edge, first from one angle, then from another, and tentatively
raising the hone as if to start sharpening.
"Well, Mrs. Betty," he said presently, "seein' I can't possibly marry
you, I don't mind tellin' you that I think the next best thing would
be to marry Hepsey Burke. She's been a mighty good friend and neighbor
ever since my wife died; but she wouldn't look at the likes of me.
'Twouldn't be the least use of proposin' to her."
"How do you know it wouldn't? You are not afraid of proposing, are
you?"
"No, of course not; but I can't run over and propose, as I would ask
her to lend me some clothes-line. That'd be too sudden; and courtin'
takes a lot of time and trouble. I guess I 'most forgot how by this
time; and then, to tell you the truth, I always was a bit shy. It took
me near onto five years to work myself up to the sticking point when I
proposed to my first wife."
"Well, now that's easy enough; Mrs. Burke usually sits on the side
porch after supper with her knitting. Why don't you drop over
occasionally, and approach the matter gradually? It wouldn't take long
to work up to the point."
"But how shall I begin? I guess you'll have to give me lessons."
"Oh, make her think you are very lonely. Pity is akin to love, you
know."
"But she knows well enough I'm mighty lonely at times. That won't
do."
"Then make her think that you are a regular daredevil, and are going
to the bad. Maybe she'll marry you to save you."
"Me, goin' to the bad at my age, and the Junior Warden of the church,
too. What are you thinkin' of?"
"It is never too late to mend, you know. You might try being a little
frisky, and see what happens."
"Oh, I know what would happen all right. She'd be over here in two
jerks of a lamb's tail, and read the riot act, and scare me out of a
year's growth. Hepsey's not a little thing to be playin' with."
"Well, you just make a start. Anything to make a start, and the rest
will come easy."
"My, how the neighbors'd talk!"
"Talk is cheap; and besides, in a quiet place like this it's a
positive duty to afford your neighbors some diversion; you ought to be
thankful. You'll become a public benefactor. Now will you go ahead?"
"Mrs. Betty, worry's bad for the nerves, and's apt to produce insomny
and neurastheny. But I'll think it over--yes, I will--I'll think it
over."
Whereupon he suddenly began to whet his scythe with such vim as
positively startled Betty.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIII
THE CIRCUS
The Maxwells were, in fact, effectively stirring up the ambitions of
their flock, routing the older members out of a too easy-going
acceptance of things-as-they-are, and giving to the younger ones
vistas of a life imbued with more color and variety than had hitherto
entered their consciousness. And yet it happened at Durford, on
occasion, that this awakening of new talents and individuality
produced unlocked for complications.
"Oh yes," Hepsey remarked one day to Mrs. Betty, when the subject of
conversation had turned to Mrs. Burke's son and heir, "Nickey means to
be a good boy, but he's as restless as a kitten on a hot Johnny-cake.
He isn't a bit vicious, but he do run his heels down at the corners,
and he's awful wearin' on his pants-bottoms and keeps me patchin' and
mendin' most of the time--'contributing to the end in view,' as
Abraham Lincoln said. But, woman-like, I guess he finds the warmest
spot in my heart when I'm doin' some sort of repairin' on him or his
clothes. It would be easier if his intentions wasn't so good, 'cause I
could spank him with a clear conscience if he was vicious. But after
all, Nickey seems to have a winnin' way about him. He knows every
farmer within three miles; he'll stop any team he meets, climb into
the wagon seat, take the reins, and enjoy himself to his heart's
content. All the men seem to like him and give in to him; more's the
pity! And he seems to just naturally lead the other kids in their
games and mischief."
"Oh well, I wouldn't give a cent for a boy who didn't get into
mischief sometimes," consoled Mrs. Betty.
At which valuation Nickey was then in process of putting himself and
his young friends at a premium. For, about this time, in their efforts
to amuse themselves, Nickey and some of his friends constructed a
circus ring back of the barn: After organizing a stock company and
conducting several rehearsals, the rest of the boys in the
neighborhood were invited to form an audience, and take seats which
had been reserved for them without extra charge on an adjoining lumber
pile. Besides the regular artists there were a number of specialists
or "freaks," who added much to the interest and excitement of the
show.
For example, Sam Cooley, attired in one of Mrs. Burke's discarded
underskirts, filched from the ragbag, with some dried cornstalk gummed
on his face, impersonated the famous Bearded Lady from Hoboken.
Billy Burns, wearing a very hot and stuffy pillow buttoned under his
coat and thrust down into his trousers, represented the world-renowned
Fat Man from Spoonville. His was rather a difficult role to fill
gracefully, because the squashy pillow would persist in bulging out
between his trousers and his coat in a most indecent manner; and it
kept him busy most of the time tucking it in.
Dimple Perkins took the part of the Snake Charmer from Brooklyn, and
at intervals wrestled fearlessly with a short piece of garden hose
which was labeled on the bills as an "Anna Condy." This he wound
around his neck in the most reckless manner possible; it was quite
enough to make one's blood run cold to watch him.
The King of the Cannibal Islands was draped in a buffalo robe, with a
gilt paper crown adorning his head, and a very suggestive mutton-bone
in his hand.
Poor little Herman Amdursky was selected for the Living Skeleton,
because of the spindle-like character of his nethermost limbs. He had
to remove his trousers and his coat, and submit to having his ribs
wound with yards of torn sheeting, in order that what little flesh he
had might be compressed to the smallest possible compass. The result
was astonishingly satisfactory.
The Wild Man from Borneo wore his clothes wrong side out, as it is
well known wild men from Borneo always do; and he ate grass with
avidity. Wry-mouthed and squint-eyed, he was the incarnation of the
cubist ideal.
When all this splendid array of talent issued from the dressing-room
and marched triumphantly around the ring, it was indeed a proud moment
in the annals of Durford, and the applause from the lumber pile could
be heard at least two blocks.
After the procession, the entertainment proper consisted of some high
and lofty tumbling, the various "turns" of the respective stars, and
then, last of all, as a grand finale, Charley, the old raw-boned farm
horse who had been retired on a pension for at least a year, was led
triumphantly into the ring, with Nickey Burke standing on his back!
Charley, whose melancholy aspect was a trifle more abject than usual,
and steps more halting, meekly followed the procession of actors
around the ring, led by Dimple, the Snake Charmer. Nickey's entree
created a most profound sensation, and was greeted with tumultuous
applause--a tribute both to his equestrian feat and to his costume.
Nickey had once attended a circus at which he had been greatly
impressed by the artistic decorations on the skin of a tattooed man,
and by the skill of the bareback rider who had turned somersaults
while the horse was in motion. It occurred to him that perhaps he
might present somewhat of both these attractions, in one character.
Maxwell had innocently stimulated this taste by lending him a book
illustrated with lurid color-plates of Indians in full war paint,
according to tribe.
So Nickey removed his clothes, attired himself in abbreviated red
swimming trunks, and submitted to the artistic efforts of Dimple, who
painted most intricate, elaborate, and beautiful designs on Nickey's
person, with a thick solution of indigo purloined from the laundry.
Nickey's breast was adorned with a picture of a ship under full sail.
On his back was a large heart pierced with two arrows. A vine of full
blown roses twined around each arm, while his legs were powdered with
stars, periods, dashes, and exclamation points in rich profusion. A
triangle was painted on each cheek, and dabs of indigo were added to
the end of his nose and to the lobe of each ear by way of finishing
touches.
When the work was complete, Nickey surveyed himself in a piece of
broken mirror in the dressing-room, and to tell the truth, was
somewhat appalled at his appearance; but Dimple Perkins hastened to
assure him, saying that a dip in the river would easily remove the
indigo; and that he was the living spit and image of a tattooed man,
and that his appearance, posed on the back of Charley, would certainly
bring the house down.
Dimple proved to be quite justified in his statement, so far as the
effect on the audience was concerned; for, as Nickey entered the ring,
after one moment of breathless astonishment, the entire crowd arose as
one man and cheered itself hoarse, in a frenzy of frantic delight. Now
whether Charley was enthused by the applause, or whether the situation
reminded him of some festive horseplay of his youth, one cannot tell.
At any rate, what little life was left in Charley's blood asserted
itself. Quickly jerking the rope of the halter from the astonished
hand of Dimple Perkins, Charley turned briskly round, and trotted out
of the yard and into the road, while Nickey, who had found himself
suddenly astride Charley's back, made frantic efforts to stop him.
As Charley emerged from the gate, the freaks, the regular artists, the
gymnasts, and the entire audience followed, trailing along behind the
mounted tattooed man, and shouting themselves hoarse with
encouragement or derision.
As Charley rose to the occasion and quickened his pace, the heat of
the sun, the violent exercise of riding bareback, and the nervous
excitement produced by the horror of the situation, threw Nickey into
a profuse sweat. The bluing began to run. The decorations on his
forehead trickled down into his eyes; and as he tried to rub off the
moisture with the back of his hand the indigo was smeared liberally
over his face. His personal identity was hopelessly obscured in the
indigo smudge; and the most vivid imagination could not conjecture
what had happened to the boy. It was by no means an easy feat to
retain his seat on Charley's back; it would have been still more
difficult to dismount, at his steed's brisk pace; and Nickey was most
painfully conscious of his attire, as Charley turned up the road which
led straight to the village. At each corner the procession was
reinforced by a number of village boys who added their quota to the
general uproar and varied the monotony of the proceeding by
occasionally throwing a tin can at the rider on the white horse. When
Charley passed the rectory, and the green, and turned into Church
Street, Nickey felt that he had struck rock bottom of shameful
humiliation.
For many years it had been Charley's habit to take Mrs. Burke down to
church on Wednesday afternoons for the five o'clock service; and
although he had been out of commission and docked for repairs for some
time, his subliminal self must have got in its work, and the old habit
asserted itself: to the church he went, attended at a respectful
distance by the Bearded Lady, the Fat Man, the Snake Charmer, the King
of the Cannibal Islands, the Living Skeleton, and the Wild Man from
Borneo, to say nothing of a large and effective chorus of roaring
villagers bringing up the rear.
It really was quite clever of Charley to recall that, this being
Wednesday, it was the proper day to visit the church,--as clever as it
was disturbing to Nickey when he, too, recalled that it was about
time for the service to be over, and that his mother must be somewhere
on the premises, to say nothing of the assembled mothers of the entire
stock company--and the rector, and the rector's wife.
Mrs. Burke, poor woman, was quite unconscious of what awaited her, as
she emerged from the service with the rest of the congregation. It was
an amazed parent that caught sight of her son and heir scrambling off
the back of his steed onto the horse-block in front of the church,
clad in short swimming trunks and much bluing. The freaks, the regular
artists, the gymnasts, and the circus audience generally shrieked and
howled and fought each other, in frantic effort to succeed to Nickey's
place on Charley's back--for Charley now stood undismayed and
immovable, with a gentle, pious look in his soft old eyes.
For one instant, Mrs. Burke and her friends stood paralyzed with
horror; and then like the good mothers in Israel that they were, each
jumped to the rescue of her own particular darling--that is, as soon
as she could identify him. Consternation reigned supreme. Mrs. Cooley
caught the Bearded Lady by the arm and shook him fiercely, just as he
was about to land an uppercut on the jaw of the King of the Cannibal
Islands. Mrs. Burns found her offspring, the Fat Man, lying
dispossessed on his back in the gutter, while Sime Wilkins, the Man
Who Ate Glass, sat comfortably on his stomach. Sime immediately
apologized to Mrs. Burns and disappeared. Next, Mrs. Perkins took the
Snake Charmer by his collar, and rapped him soundly with the piece of
garden hose which she captured as he was using it to chastise the
predatory Wild Man from Borneo. Other members of the company received
equally unlooked-for censure of their dramatic efforts.
Nickey, meantime, had fled to the pump behind the church, where he
made his ablutions as best he could; then, seeing the vestry room door
ajar, he, in his extremity, bolted for the quiet seclusion of the
sanctuary.
To his surprise and horror, he found Maxwell seated at a table looking
over the parish records; and when Nickey appeared, still rather blue,
attired in short red trunks, otherwise unadorned, Donald gazed at him
in mute astonishment. For one moment there was silence as they eyed
each other; and then Maxwell burst into roars of uncontrollable
laughter, which were not quite subdued as Nickey gave a rather
incoherent account of the misfortune which had brought him to such a
predicament.
"So you were the Tattooed Man, were you! Well, I suppose you know
that it's not generally customary to appear in church in red tights;
but as you couldn't help it, I shall have to see what can be done for
you, to get you home clothed and in your right mind. I'll tell you!
You can put on one of the choir boy's cassocks, and skip home the back
way. If anybody stops you tell them you were practising for the choir,
and it will be all right. But really, Nickey, if I were in your place,
the next time I posed as a mounted Tattooed Man, I'd be careful to
choose some old quadruped that couldn't run away with you!"
"Then you aren't mad at me!"
"Certainly not. I'll leave that to my betters! You just get home as
fast as you can."
"Gee! but you're white all right--you know it didn't say nothing in
the book, about what kind of paint to use!"
Maxwell's eyes opened. "What book are you talking about, Nickey?" he
asked.
"The one you let me take, with the Indians in it."
Maxwell had to laugh again. "So that's where the idea for this
'Carnival of Wild West Sports' originated, eh?"
"Yes, sir," Nickey nodded. "Everybody wanted to be the tattooed man,
but seeing as I had the book, and old Charley was my horse, I couldn't
see any good reason why I shouldn't get tattooed. Gee! I'll bet ma
will be mad!"
After being properly vested in a cassock two sizes too large for him,
Nickey started on a dead run for home, and, having reached the barn,
dressed himself in his customary attire. When he appeared at supper
Mrs. Burke did not say anything; but after the dishes were washed she
took him apart and listened to his version of the affair.
"Nicholas Burke," she said, "if this thing occurs again I shall punish
you in a way you won't like."
"Well, I'm awfully sorry," said Nickey, "but it didn't seem to feaze
Mr. Maxwell a little bit. He just sat and roared as if he'd split his
sides. I guess I 'aint goin' to be put out of the church just yet,
anyway."
Mrs. Burke looked a bit annoyed.
"Never mind about Mr. Maxwell. _You_ won't laugh if anything like this
occurs again, I can tell you," she replied.
"Now, ma," soothed Nickey, "don't you worry about it occurrin' again.
You don't suppose I did it on purpose, do you? Gosh no! I wouldn't get
onto Charley's back again, with my clothes off, any more than I'd sit
on a hornet's nest. How'd you like to ride through the town with
nothin' on but your swimmin' trunks and drippin' with bluin water,
I'd like to know?"
Mrs. Burke did not care to prolong the interview any further, so she
said in her severest tones:
"Nicholas Burke, you go to bed instantly. I've heard enough of you and
seen enough of you, for one day."
Nickey went.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIV
ON THE SIDE PORCH
In the evening, after his work was done, a day or two after his talk
with Mrs. Maxwell, Jonathan went into the house and took a long look
at himself in the glass, with the satisfactory conclusion that he
didn't look so old after all. Why shouldn't he take Mrs. Betty's
advice and marry? To be sure, there was no fool like an old fool, but
no man could be called a fool who was discriminating enough, and
resourceful enough, to win the hand of Hepsey Burke. To his certain
knowledge she had had plenty of eligible suitors since her husband's
death. She was the acknowledged past-master of doughnuts; and her
pickled cucumbers done in salad oil were dreams of delight. What more
could a man want?
So he found that the question was deciding itself apparently without
any volition whatever on his part. His fate was sealed; he had lost
his heart and his appetite to his neighbor. Having come to this
conclusion, it was wonderful how the thought excited him. He took a
bath and changed his clothes, and then proceeded to town and bought
himself a white neck-tie, and a scarf-pin that cost seventy-five
cents. He was going to do the thing in the proper way if he did it at
all.
After supper he mustered sufficient courage to present himself at the
side porch where Mrs. Burke was knitting on a scarlet sweater for
Nickey.
"Good evenin', Hepsey," he began. "How are you feelin' to-night?"
"Oh, not so frisky as I might, Jonathan; I'd be all right if it
weren't for my rheumatiz."
"Well, we all have our troubles, Hepsey; and if it isn't one thing
it's most generally another. You mustn't rebel against rheumatiz. It's
one of those things sent to make us better, and we must bear up
against it, you know."
Hepsey did not respond to this philosophy, and Jonathan felt that it
was high time that he got down to business. So he began again:
"It seems to me as if we might have rain before long if the wind don't
change."
"Shouldn't be surprised, Jonathan. One--two--three--four--" Mrs. Burke
replied, her attention divided between her visitor and her sweater.
"Got your hay all in?"
"Yes, most of it. 'Twon't be long before the long fall evenin's will
be comin' on, and I kinder dread 'em. They're awful lonesome,
Hepsey."
"Purl two, knit two, an inch and a half--" Mrs. Burke muttered to
herself as she read the printed directions which lay in her lap, and
then she added encouragingly:
"So you get lonesome, do you, Jonathan, durin' the long evenin's, when
it gets dark early."
"Oh, awful lonesome," Jonathan responded. "Don't you ever get lonesome
yourself, Hepsey?"
"I can't say as it kept me awake nights. 'Tisn't bein' alone that
makes you lonesome. The most awful lonesomeness in the world is bein'
in a crowd that's not your kind."
"That's so, Hepsey. But two isn't a crowd. Don't you think you'd like
to get married, if you had a right good chance, now?"
Hepsey gave her visitor a quick, sharp glance, and inquired:
"What would you consider a right good chance, Jonathan?"
"Oh, suppose that some respectable widower with a tidy sum in the bank
should ask you to marry him; what would you say, Hepsey?"
"Can't say until I'd seen the widower, to say nothin' of the bank
book--one, two, three, four, five, six--"
Jonathan felt that the crisis was now approaching; so, moving his
chair a little nearer, he resumed excitedly:
"You've seen him, Hepsey; you've seen him lots of times, and he don't
live a thousand miles away, neither."
"Hm! Must be he lives in Martin's Junction. Is he good lookin',
Jonathan?"
"Oh, fair to middlin'. That is--of course--I well--I--I should think
he was; but tastes differ."
"Well, you know I'm right particular, Jonathan. Is he real smart and
clever?"
"I don't know as--I ought to--to--say, Hepsey; but I rather guess he
knows enough to go in when it rains."
"That's good as far as it goes. The next time you see him, you tell
him to call around and let me look him over. Maybe I could give him a
job on the farm, even if I didn't want to marry him."
"But he doesn't want any job on the farm, Hepsey. He just wants you,
that's all."
"How do you know he does? Did he ever tell you?"
"Hepsey Burke, don't you know who I'm alludin' at? Haven't you ever
suspected nothin'?"
"Yes, I've suspected lots of things. Now there's Jack Dempsey. I've
suspected him waterin' the milk for some time. Haven't you ever
suspected anythin' yourself, Jonathan?"
"Well, I guess I'm suspectin' that you're tryin' to make a fool of me,
all right."
"Oh no! Fools come ready-made, and there's a glut in the market just
now; seven--eight--nine--ten; no use makin' more until the supply's
exhausted. But what made you think you wanted to marry? This is so
powerful sudden."
Now that the point was reached, Jonathan got a little nervous: "To--to
tell you the truth, Hepsey," he stuttered, "I was in doubt about it
myself for some time; but bein' as I am a Christian man I turned to
the Bible for light on my path."
"Hm! And how did the light shine?"
"Well, I just shut my eyes and opened my Bible at random, and put my
finger on a text. Then I opened my eyes and read what was written."
"Yes! What did you find?"
"I read somethin' about 'not a man of them escaped save six hundred
that rode away on camels.'"
"Did that clear up all your difficulties?"
"No, can't say as it did. But those words about 'no man escapin''
seemed to point towards matrimony as far as they went. Then I tried a
second time."
"Oh did you? I should think that six hundred camels would be enough
for one round-up. What luck did you have the second time?"
"Well, I read, 'Moab is my wash pot, over Edom will I cast out my
shoe.' You've seen 'em cast shoes at the carriages of brides and
grooms, haven't you, Hepsey? Just for luck, you know. So it seemed to
point towards matrimony again."
"Say, Jonathan, you certainly have a wonderful gift for interpretin'
Scripture."
"Well, Scripture or no Scripture, I want you, Hepsey."
"Am I to understand that you're just fadin' and pinin' away for love
of me? You don't look thin."
"Oh, we 'aint neither of us as young as we once was, Hepsey. Of course
I can't be expected to pine real hard."
"I'm afraid it's not the real thing, Jonathan, unless you pine. Don't
it keep you awake nights, or take away your appetite, or make you want
to play the banjo, or nothin'?"
"No, Hepsey; to tell you the plain truth, it don't. But I feel awful
lonesome, and I like you a whole lot, and I--I love you as much as
anyone, I guess."
"So you are in love are you, Jonathan. Then let me give you some good
advice. When you're in love, don't believe all you think, or half you
feel, or anything at all you are perfectly sure of. It's dangerous
business. But I am afraid that you're askin' me because it makes you
think that you are young and giddy, like the rest of the village boys,
to be proposin' to a shy young thing like me."
"No, Hepsey; you aren't no shy young thing, and you haven't been for
nigh on forty years. I wouldn't be proposin' to you if you were."
"Jonathan, your manners need mendin' a whole lot. The idea of
insinuatin' that I am not a shy young thing. I'm ashamed of you, and
I'm positive we could never get along together."
"But I can't tell a lie about you, even if I do want to marry you.
You don't want to marry a liar, do you?"
"Well, the fact is, Jonathan, polite lyin's the real foundation of all
good manners. What we'll ever do when we get to heaven where we have
to tell the truth whether we want to or not, I'm sure I don't know.
It'll be awful uncomfortable until we get used to it."
"The law says you should tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothin'
but the truth," persisted the literal wooer.
"Now, see here, Jonathan. Would you say that a dog's tail was false
and misleadin' just because it isn't the whole dog?"
This proposition was exceedingly confusing to Jonathan's intelligence,
but after careful consideration he felt obliged to say "No."
"Of course you wouldn't," Mrs. Burke continued triumphantly, quickly
following up her advantage. "You see a dog's tail couldn't be
misleading, 'cause the dog leads the tail, and not the tail the dog.
Any fool could see that."
Jonathan felt that he had been tricked, although he could not see just
how the thing had been accomplished; so he began again:
"Now Hepsey, we're wanderin' from the point, and you're just talkin'
to amuse yourself. Can't you come down to business? Here I am a
widower, and here you are a widowess, and we're both lonesome, and
we----"
"Who told you I was lonesome, I'd like to know?"
"Well, of course you didn't, 'cause you never tell anything to anyone.
But I guessed you was sometimes, from the looks of you."
Hepsey bent her head over her work and counted stitches a long time
before she looked up. Then she remarked slowly:
"There's an awful lot of sick people in the world, and I'm mighty
sorry for 'em; but they'll die, or they'll get well. I guess I'm more
sorry for people who have to go on livin', and workin' hard, when
they're just dyin' for somebody to love 'em, and somebody to love,
until the pain of it hurts like a wisdom tooth. No, I can't afford to
be lonesome much, and that's a fact. So I just keep busy, and if I get
too lonesome, I just go and jolly somebody that's lonesomer than I am,
and we both feel better; and if I get lonely lyin' awake at night, I
light a lamp and read Webster's Dictionary. Try it, Jonathan; it's a
sure anti-doubt."
"There you go again, tryin' to change the subject, just when I thought
you was goin' to say somethin'."
"But you don't really want to marry me. I'm not young, and I'm not
interestin': one or the other you've just got to be."
"You're mighty interestin' to me, Hepsey, anyway; and--and you're
mighty unselfish."
"Well, you needn't throw that in my face; I'm not to blame for bein'
unselfish. I've just had to be, whether I wanted or not. It's my
misfortune, not my fault. Lots of people are unselfish because they're
too weak to stand up for their own rights." She paused--and then
looked up at him, smiling whimsically, and added: "Well, well,
Jonathan; see here now--I'll think it over, and perhaps some day
before--_go 'way_, you horrid thing! Let go my hand, I tell you.
There! You've made me drop a whole row of stitches. If you don't run
over home right now, before you're tempted to do any more flirtin,
I'll--I'll hold you for breach of promise."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XV
NICKEY'S SOCIAL AMBITIONS
To Nickey, the Maxwells were in the nature of a revelation. At his
impressionable stage of boyhood, and because of their freedom from
airs and graces of any kind, he was quick to notice the difference in
type--"some class to them; not snobs or dudes, but the real thing," as
he expressed it. His ardent admiration of Donald, and his adoration of
Mrs. Betty, gave him ambition to find the key to their secret, and to
partake of it.
He was too shy to speak of it,--to his mother last of all, as is the
nature of a boy,--and had to rely on an observant and receptive mind
for the earlier steps in his quest. When Maxwell boarded with them,
Nickey had discovered that he was won't to exercise with dumb-bells
each morning before breakfast. The very keenness of his desire to be
initiated, held him silent. A visit to the town library, on his
mother's behalf, chanced to bring his eyes--generally oblivious of
everything in the shape of a book--upon the title of a certain volume
designed to instruct in various parlor-feats of physical prowess.
The book was borrowed from the librarian,--a little shamefacedly. The
next morning Mrs. Burke was somewhat alarmed at the noise which came
from Nickey's room, and when there was a crash as if the chimney had
fallen, she could stand it no longer, and hurried aloft. Nickey stood
in the middle of the floor, clad in swimming trunks, gripping a large
weight (purloined from the barn) in either hand, very red in the face,
and much out of breath.
As the door unexpectedly opened he dived for bed and pulled the
clothes under his chin.
"Land Sakes!" Hepsey breathed, aghast. "What's all this about? If
there's a nail loose in the flooring I can lend you a hammer for the
asking," and she examined several jagged dents in the boards.
"Say ma," urged Nickey in moving tones. "If I'd a pair of dumb-bells
like Mr. Maxwell's, I c'd hold onto 'em. I've pretty near smashed my
feet with them things--gosh darn it," he added ruefully, nursing the
bruised member under the clothes.
"I guess you can get 'em, next time you go to Martin's Junction; but
if it's exercise you want," his parent remarked unsympathetically,
"there's plenty of kindlin' in the woodshed wants choppin'."
She retired chuckling to herself, as she caught a glimmer of what was
working in her son's mind.
The "reading habit" having been inculcated by this lucky find at the
library, it was not long before Nickey acquired from the same source a
veritable collection of volumes on the polite arts and crafts--"The
Ready Letter-Writer"; "Manners Maketh Man"; "Seven Thousand Errors of
Speech;" "Social Culture in the Smart Set," and the like.
Nickey laboriously studied from these authorities how to enter a ball
room, how to respond to a toast at a dinner given in one's honor, how
to propose the health of his hostess, and how to apologize for
treading on a lady's train.
In the secrecy of his chamber he put into practice the helpful
suggestions of these invaluable manuals. He bowed to the washstand,
begged the favor of the next dance from the towel rack, trod on the
window shade and made the prescribed apology. Then he discussed the
latest novel at dinner with a distinguished personage; and having
smoked an invisible cigar, interspersed with such wit as accords with
walnuts and wine, after the ladies had retired, he entered the
drawing-room, exchanged parting amenities with the guests, bade his
hostess good night, and gracefully withdrew to the clothes-press.
Several times Hepsey caught glimpses of him going through the dumb
show of "Social Culture in the Smart Set," and her wondering soul was
filled with astonishment at his amazing evolutions. She found it in
her heart to speak of it to Mrs. Betty and Maxwell, and ask for their
interpretation of the matter.
So, one day, during this seizure of feverish enthusiasm for
self-culture, Hepsey and Nickey received an invitation to take supper
at the rectory. Nevertheless, Mrs. Burke thought it prudent to give
her son some good advice in regard to his behavior. She realized,
perhaps, that a book is good so far as it goes, but is apt to ignore
elementals. So she called him aside before they started:
"Now, Nickey, remember to act like a gentleman, especially at the
table; you must try to do credit to your bringin' up."
"Yes, I'll do my level best if it kills me," the boy replied.
"Well, what do you do with your napkin when you first sit down to the
table?"
"Tie it 'round my neck, of course!"
"Oh, no, you mustn't do anything of the sort; you must just tuck it in
your collar, like any gentleman would. And when we come home what are
you goin' to say to Mrs. Maxwell?"
"Oh, I'll say, 'I'll see you later.'"
"Mercy no! Say, 'I've had a very nice time.'"
"But suppose I didn't have a nice time,--what'd I say?"
For a moment Hepsey struggled to reconcile her code of ethics with her
idea of good manners, and then replied:
"Why say, 'Mrs. Maxwell, it was awfully good of you to ask me,' and I
don't believe she'll notice anything wrong about that."
"Hm!" Nickey retorted scornfully. "Seems pretty much like the same
thing to me."
"Oh no! Not in the least. Now what will you wear when we go to the
rectory?"
"My gray suit, and tan shoes, and the green tie with the purple spots
on it."
"Who'll be the first to sit down to the table?"
"Search me--maybe I will, if there's good eats."
"Nonsense! You must wait for Mrs. Maxwell and the rector to be seated
first."
"Well," Nickey exclaimed in exasperation, "I'm bound to make some
horrible break anyway, so don't you worry, ma. It seems to me from
what them books say, that when you go visitin' you've got to tell lies
like a sinner; and you can't tell the truth till you get home with the
door shut. I never was good at lyin'; I always get caught."
"It isn't exactly lyin', Nickey; its just sayin' nice things, and
keepin' your mouth shut about the rest. Now suppose you dropped a fork
under the table, what'd you say?"
"I'd say ''scuse me, Mrs. Maxwell, but one of the forks has gone, and
you can go through my clothes if you want to before I go home.'"
"Hm!" Hepsey remarked dryly, "I guess the less you say, the better."
Arrived at the rectory, Nickey felt under some restraint when they
first sat down to the supper table; but under the genial manner of
Mrs. Maxwell he soon felt at his ease, and not even his observant
mother detected any dire breach of table etiquette. His conversation
was somewhat spare, his attention being absorbed and equally divided
between observation of his host and consumption of the feast set
before him. With sure tact, Mrs. Betty--though regarding Nickey as the
guest of honor--that evening--deferred testing the results of his
conversational studies until after supper: one thing at once, she
decided, was fair play.
After the meal was over, they repaired together to the parlor, and
while Hepsey took out her wash-rag knitting and Maxwell smoked his
cigar, Mrs. Betty gave Nickey her undivided attention.
In order to interest the young people of the place in the missionary
work of the parish, Mrs. Betty had organized a guild of boys who were
to earn what they could towards the support of a missionary in the
west. The Guild had been placed under the fostering care and
supervision of Nickey as its treasurer, and was known by the name of
"The Juvenile Band of Gleaners." In the course of the evening Mrs.
Maxwell took occasion to inquire what progress they were making,
thereby unconsciously challenging a somewhat surprising recountal.
"Well," Nickey replied readily, "we've got forty-six cents in the
treasury; that's just me, you know; I keep the cash in my pants
pocket."
Then he smiled uneasily, and fidgeted in his chair.
There was something in Nickey's tone and look that excited Mrs.
Betty's curiosity, and made his mother stop knitting and look at him
anxiously over her glasses.
"That is very good for a start," Mrs. Betty commended. "How did you
raise all that, Nickey?"
For a moment Nickey colored hotly, looked embarrassed, and made no
reply. Then mustering up his courage, and laughing, he began:
"Well, Mrs. Maxwell, it was just like this. Maybe you won't like it,
but I'll tell you all the same. Bein' as I was the president of the
Juv'nul Band of Gleaners, I though I'd get the kids together, and
start somethin'. Saturday it rained cats and dogs, so Billy Burns, Sam
Cooley, Dimple Perkins and me, we went up into the hay loft, and I
said to the kids, 'You fellows have got to cough up some dough for the
church, and----'"
"Contribute money, Nickey. Don't be slangy," his mother interjected.
"Well I says, 'I'm runnin' the Juv'nals, and you've got to do just
what I say. I've got a dandy scheme for raisin' money and we'll have
some fun doin' it, or I miss my guess.' Then I asked Sam Cooley how
much money he'd got, and Sam, he had forty-four cents, Billy Burns had
fifty-two cents, and Dimple had only two. Dimp never did have much
loose cash, anyway. But I said to Dimp, 'Never mind, Dimp; you aint
to blame. Your dad's an old skinflint. I'll lend you six to start off
with.' Then I made Billy Burns sweep the floor, while Sam went down to
the chicken yard and caught my bantam rooster, Tooley. Then I sent
Dimp after some chalk, and an empty peach basket, and a piece of cord.
Then we was ready for business.
"I marked a big circle on the barn floor with the chalk, and divided
it into four quarters with straight lines runnin' through the middle.
Then I turned the peach basket upside down, and tied one end of the
string on the bottom, and threw the other end up over a beam overhead,
so I could pull the basket off from the floor up to the beam by the
string. You see," Nickey illustrated with graphic gestures, "the
basket hung just over the middle of the circle like a bell. Then I
took the rooster and stuck him under the basket. Tooley hollered and
scratched like Sam Hill and----"
"For mercy sake, Nickey! What will you say next?"
"Say, ma, you just wait and see. Well, Tooley kicked like everything,
but he had to go under just the same. Then I said to the kids to sit
around the circle on the floor, and each choose one of the four
quarters for hisself,--one for each of us. 'Now,' I said, 'you must
each cough up----'"
"Nicholas!"
"Oh ma, do let me tell it without callin' me down every time. 'You
kids must hand out a cent apiece and put it on the floor in your own
quarter. Then, when I say ready, I'll pull the string and raise the
basket and let Tooley out. Tooley'll get scared and run. If he runs
off the circle through my quarter, then the four cents are mine; but
if he runs through Dimp's quarter, then the four cents are Dimp's.'
"It was real excitin' when I pulled the string, and the basket went
up. You'd ought to 've been there, Mrs. Maxwell. You'd have laughed
fit to split----"
"Nicholas Burke, you must stop talkin' like that, or I'll send you
home," reproved Mrs. Burke, looking severely at her son, and with
deprecating side-glances at his audience.
"Excuse me, ma. It will be all over in a minute. But really, you'd
have laughed like sin--I mean you'd have just laughed yourself sick.
Tooley was awful nervous when the basket went up. For a minute he
crouched and stood still, scared stiff at the three kids, all yellin'
like mad; then he ducked his head and bolted off the circle through my
quarter and flew up on a beam. I thought the kids would bust."
Mrs. Burke sighed heavily.
"Well, burst, then. But while they were laughin' I raked in the cash.
You see I just had to. I won it for fair. I'd kept quiet, and that's
why Tooley come across my quarter."
Mrs. Maxwell was sorting over her music, while Maxwell's face was
hidden behind a paper. Mrs. Burke was silent through despair. Nickey
glanced furtively at his hearers for a moment and then continued:
"Yes, the kids was tickled; but they got awful quiet when I told them
to fork over another cent apiece for the jack-pot."
"What in the name of conscience is a jack-pot?" Hepsey asked.
Donald laughed and Nickey continued:
"A jack-pot's a jack-pot; there isn't no other name that I ever heard
of. We caught Tooley and stuck him under the basket, and made him do
it all over again. You see, every time when Tooley got loose, the kids
all leant forward and yelled like mad; but I just kept my mouth shut,
and leaned way back out of the way so that Tooley'd run out through my
quarter. So I won most all the time."
There was a pause, while Nickey looked a bit apprehensively at his
audience. But he went on gamely to the end of the chapter.
"Once Tooley made a bolt in a straight line through Dimp's quarter,
and hit Dimp in the mouth, and bowled him over like a nine-pin. Dimp
was scared to death, and howled like murder till he found he'd scooped
the pot; then he got quiet. After we made Tooley run ten times, he
struck work and wouldn't run any more; so we just had to let him go;
but I didn't care nothn' about that, 'cause you see I had the kids'
cash in my pants pocket, and that was what I was after. Well, sir,
when it was all over, 'cause I'd busted the bank----"
"Nicholas Burke, I am ashamed of you."
"Never mind, ma; I'm most through now. When they found I'd busted the
bank, they looked kind of blue, and Dimp Perkins said it was a skin
game, and I was a bunco steerer."
"What did you say to that?" Donald inquired.
"Oh, I just said it was all for religion, it was church money, and it
was all right. I was just gleanin' what few cents they had, to pay the
church debt to the missionary; and they ought to be ashamed to have a
church debt hangin' over 'em, and they'd oughter be more cheerful
'bout givin' a little somethin' toward raisin' of it."
When Nickey had finished, there was an ominous silence for a moment
or two, and then his mother said sternly:
"What do you suppose Mrs. Perkins will say when she finds that you've
tricked her son into a regular gambling scheme, to get his money away
from him?"
"Mrs. Perkins," retorted Nickey, thoroughly aroused by the soft
impeachment. "I should worry! At the church fair, before Mr. Maxwell
came, she ran a fancy table, and tried to sell a baby blanket to an
old bachelor; but he wouldn't take it. Then when he wasn't lookin',
blessed if she didn't turn around and tie the four corners together
with a bit of ribbon, and sell it to him for a handkerchief case. She
got two dollars for it, and it wasn't worth seventy-five cents. She
was as proud as a dog with two tails, and went around tellin'
everybody."
Silence reigned, ominous and general, and Nickey braced himself for
the storm. Even Mrs. Maxwell didn't look at him, and that was pretty
bad. He began to get hot all over, and the matter was fast assuming a
new aspect in his own mind which made him ashamed of himself. His
spirits sank lower and lower. Finally his mother remarked quietly:
"Nickey, I thought you were goin' to be a gentleman."
"That's straight, all right, what I've told you," he murmured
abashed.
There was another silent pause--presently broken by Nickey.
"I guess I hadn't thought about it, just that way. I guess I'll give
the kids their money back," he volunteered despondently--"only I'll
have to make it up, some way, in the treasury." He felt in his
pockets, and jingled the coins.
Another pause--with only the ticking of his mother's knitting needles
to relieve the oppressive silence. Suddenly the worried pucker
disappeared from his brow, and his face brightened like a sun-burst.
"I've got it, Mrs. Maxwell," he cried. "I've got seventy-five cents
comin' to me down at the Variety Store, for birch-bark frames, and
I'll give that for the blamed old missionaries. That's square, 'aint
it now?"
Mrs. Betty's commendation and her smile were salve to the wounds of
her young guest, and Donald's hearty laughter soon dispelled the sense
of social failure which was beginning to cloud Nickey's happy spirit.
"Say Nickey," said Maxwell, throwing down his paper, "Mrs. Betty and I
want to start a Boy Scout Corps in the parish, and with your
resourceful genius you could get the boys together, and explain it to
them, and soon we should have the whole thing in ship-shape order.
Will you do it?"
"Will I?" exclaimed the delighted recruit. "I guess so--but some of
'em 'aint 'Piscopals, Mr. Maxwell; there's Sam Cooley, he's a
Methodist, and----"
"That doesn't cut any ice, Nickey,--excuse my slang, ladies," he
apologized to his wife and Hepsey, at which the boy grinned with
delight. "We're out to welcome all comers. I've got the books that we
shall need upstairs. Let's go up to my den and talk it all over. We
shall have to spend evenings getting thoroughly up in it
ourselves,--rules and knots and first-aid and the rest. Mrs. Burke
will allay parental anxiety as to the bodily welfare of the recruits
and the pacific object of the organization, and Mrs. Maxwell will make
the colors. Come on!"
With sparkling eyes, Nickey followed Donald out of the room; as they
disappeared Hepsey slowly shook her head in grateful deprecation at
Betty.
"Bless him!" ejaculated Hepsey. "Mixin' up religion, with a little
wholesome fun, is the only way you can serve it to boys, like Nickey,
and get results. Boys that are ever goin' to amount to anything are
too full of life to stand 'em up in a row, with a prayer book in one
hand and a hymnal in the other, and expect 'em to sprout wings. It
can't be done. Keep a boy outside enough and he'll turn out alright.
Fresh air and open fields have a mighty helpful influence on 'em. The
way I've got it figgered out, all of us can absorb a lot of the right
kind of religion, if we'll only go out and watch old Mother Nature,
now and then."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVI
PRACTICAL TEMPERANCE REFORM
The small town of Durford was not immune from the curse of drink:
there was no doubt about that. Other forms of viciousness there were
in plenty; but the nine saloons did more harm than all the rest of the
evil influences put together, and Maxwell, though far from being a
fanatic, was doing much in a quiet way to neutralize their bad
influence. He turned the Sunday School room into a reading room during
the week days, organized a gymnasium, kept watch of the younger men
individually, and offered as best he could some chance for the
expression of the gregarious instinct which drew them together after
the work of the day was over. In the face of his work in these
directions, it happened that a venturesome and enterprising
saloon-keeper bought a vacant property adjacent to the church, and
opened up an aggressive business--much to Maxwell's dismay.
Among the women of the parish there was a "Ladies' Temperance League,"
of which Mrs. Burke was president. They held quarterly meetings, and
it was at one of the meetings held at Thunder Cliff, and at which Mrs.
Burke presided, that she remarked severely:
"Mrs. Sapley, you're out of order. There's a motion before the house,
and I've got something to say about it myself. Mrs. Perkins, as Mrs.
Maxwell was unable to be present, will you kindly take the chair, or
anything else you can lay your hands on, and I'll say what I've got to
say."
Mrs. Perkins took Mrs. Burke's place as the president, while Mrs.
Burke rubbed her glasses in an impatient way; and having adjusted
them, began in a decided tone from which there was meant to be no
appeal:
"The fact is, ladies, we're not gettin' down to business as we ought
to, if we are to accomplish anything. We've been singing hymns, and
recitin' lovely poems, and listenin' to reports as to how money spent
for liquor would pay off the national debt; and we've been sayin'
prayers, and pledgin' ourselves not to do things none of us ever was
tempted to do, or thought of doin', and wearin' ribbons, and attendin'
conventions, and talkin' about influencin' legislation at Washington,
and eatin' sandwiches, and drinkin' weak tea, and doin' goodness knows
what; but we've not done a blessed thing to stop men drinkin' right
here in Durford and breakin' the town law; you know that well
enough."
Mrs. Burke paused for breath after this astounding revolutionary
statement, and there was a murmur of scandalized dissent from the
assembled ladies at this outspoken expression on the part of the
honorable president of the Parish Guild.
"No," she continued emphatically, "don't you fool yourselves. If we
can't help matters right here where we live, then there's no use
havin' imitation church sociables, and goin' home thinkin' we've
helped the temperance cause, and callin' everybody else bad names who
don't exactly agree with us."
Again there were symptoms of open rebellion against this traitorous
heresy on the part of the plainspoken president; but she was not to
be easily silenced; so she continued:
"Men have got to go somewheres when their work is over, and have a
good time, and I believe that we won't accomplish anything until we
fix up a nice, attractive set of rooms with games, and give 'em
something to drink."
Cries of "Oh! Oh! Oh!" filled the room.
"I didn't say whiskey, did I? Anybody would think I'd offered to treat
you, the way you receive my remarks. Now we can't get the rooms right
off, 'cause we can't yet afford to pay the rent of 'em. But there's
one thing we can do. There's Silas Bingham--the new man. He's gone and
opened a saloon within about a hundred feet of the church, and he's
sellin' liquor to children and runnin' a slot machine besides. It's
all against the law; but if you think the village trustees are goin'
to do anythin' to enforce the law, you're just dead wrong, every one
of you. The trustees are most of 'em in it for graft, and they 'aint
goin' to close no saloon when it's comin' election day 'for long, not
if Bingham serves cocktails between the hymns in church. Maybe the
trustees'd come to church better if he did. Maybe you think I'm usin'
strong language; but it's true all the same, and you know it's true.
Silas Bingham's move is a sassy challenge to us: are we goin' to lie
down under it?"
"I must say that I'm painfully surprised at you, Mrs. Burke," Mrs.
Burns began. "You surely can't forget what wonderful things the League
has accomplished in Virginia and----"
"Yes," Mrs. Burke interrupted, "but you see Durford 'aint in Virginia
so far as heard from, and it's our business to get up and hustle right
here where we live. Did you think we were tryin' to reform Virginia or
Alaska by absent treatment?"
Mrs. Sapley could not contain herself another moment; so, rising to
her feet excitedly she sputtered:
"I do not agree with you, Mrs. Burke; I do not agree with you at all.
Our meetings have been very inspiring and helpful to us all, I am
perfectly sure; very uplifting and encouraging; and I am astonished
that you should speak as you do."
"I'm very glad you've found them so, Mrs. Sapley. I don't drink
myself, and I don't need no encoura
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