THE AUTHOR'S READING AT BIXBY CENTRE
[Those readers who are familiar with "Timothy's Quest" will remember, perhaps, that Aunt Hitty Tarbox is a village seamstress and dressmaker who goes out by the day in Pleasant River and Edgewood, her specialty being the making-over of boys' clothes. Perhaps they will recall, too, that she uses her needle, her scissors, and her tongue with equal rapidity, and that each one of them is about as sharp as the other, although she is a member of the Orthodox church in good and regular standing. After thirty years' life in Pleasant River, that quiet village has proved too small for her genius, and she has removed to the more thriving town of Bixby Centre, an imaginary place located anywhere in the State of Maine. Mrs. Strout, an old friend from Milliken's Mills, has come to visit Bixby for a day or two; and it is during a call upon Aunt Hitty that she gains a general idea of the Author's Reading which has just occurred. Imagine Aunt Hitty, then, in a comfortable sewing-chair, her lapboard on her knee, workbasket within reach, tongue in excellent running order, and one eye always on the road which goes past her window—for she is one of the few persons who can make over boys' clothes, conduct a fire of conversation, and miss nothing that goes on in the outside world, all at once.]
MONOLOGUE: Mrs. Silas Tarbox, otherwise Aunt Hitty, speaking:
"Step right in, Mis' Strout. I should 'a' come over to see you before this, but I can't stir from my chair to-day, my foot's so lame. I'm glad you brought your fancy-work, for I'm so behindhand with my sewin' I don't dass to lay down my needle. We've had the busiest week of the whole summer, and Si not bein' through with his hayin' we had to keep right along with it, entertainment or no entertainment, so I had work inside as well as outside the house.
"Oh, yes, the Readin' was a great success, as everything is in Bixby Centre, when we get round to it; but it made lots o' work, I can tell you. It's kind o' queer you don't have none o' these things over to Milliken's Mills—but there! there ain't many small places that's got the talent we have here to the Centre, and talent allers attracts talent, somehow. Si 'n' I lived for thirty years in Pleasant River, and we know well enough what a dull place that was. They couldn't even get up a funeral there, without I planned it and managed it.
"No, the entertainment wa'n't for the church; it was for the benefit of the Winter Night Reading Club, but, of course, we had to give it in one of the three meetin'-houses, for we ain't got any hall. Oh, yes, I'm a member of the club, an' I was real pleased when they asked me to join it, for though I never was a great hand at readin' to myself I like to git into a rockin'-chair and hear other folks read out loud.
"Is there enough people in Bixby to fill three meetings? Why, no, there ain't; but nobody expects to see a church filled nowadays. Money? Of course there ain't enough to support three societies, but land! a church has something else to think about except being supported, I guess! For that matter, there ain't always enough Democrats to elect a President, but they go right on being Democrats whether they git anything or not. They git the fun o' bein' Democrats, 't any rate, if there's any fun in it, or Baptists or Universalists, or whatever 'tis!
"When we come to decidin' which church we should have the Readin' in, there was consid'able talk, and finally we settled it by writin' to the author and askin' her if she had any preference, and she wrote back and said she was a 'piscopalian, and we hadn't one of them and couldn't get one to oblige her; and I never had no opinion of 'em anyhow, for if they was anyways smart they wouldn't have to have their prayers written all out for 'em. I forgot to say that some of the club wanted a gentleman author. As we'd never hed one here before, and might never hev one again, some of 'em thought best to have the real article while we was about it; but the rest of us concluded a lady author'd come cheaper, and Mis' Stevens settled it by declarin' that she was goin' to do the entertainin' and she wouldn't have a man under foot. Yes, of course, Mr. Stevens is alive, but she's got him trained so't he don't stay in the house much. They say he keeps store jest so's he can hev a place to stop evenin's.
"After a good deal o' talk we agreed to hev the Readin' in the Baptist meetin'-house to please Mis' Stevens. She vowed she wouldn't entertain the author without we did, and she has the biggest house in the village and the best spare room, and if she happens to be in a good temper she takes three tickets besides, so we always flatter her up and calm her down all we can when there's anything going on. You wa'n't brought up hereabouts, so you ain't familiar with the Stover temper; Mis' Stevens was one of the Stovers of Scarboro', and there was temper enough in that family, if it was thinned out, to spread over the whole o' York County. Peace was the youngest, and she lost one likely beau by kickin' the churn out o' the door jest as he happened to pass by one morning; then she went away on a visit to Bangor and married Mr. Stevens. He's prospered and she's dretful ambitious. She's bound and determined that Bixby Centre shall keep right up with Bangor and Portland.
"They've had these Author's Readin's in the cities lately, and the Winter Night Club's ben saving up money for one this two years, and they was determined to do it up in style, so they wrote to the author they'd decided on and told her they wa'n't goin' to spare expense, and she could have five dollars and railroad fare if she'd come and read, and she should stop with Mis' Stevens at the Upper Corner, the one who entertained Thomas B. Reed when he was here. She sent word right back that she was expectin' to be in Portland for a month and she could just as well come out as not, and wouldn't trouble us to pay the five dollars. She said it would be pleasure and profit enough to meet the committee that had been correspondin' with her. I didn't suspicion that writers was rich enough to refuse a five-dollar bill, but mebbe she had money left to her by somebody, and was kind of independent.
"'What air these Author's Readin's, anyhow?' said Si. 'Can authors read any better'n other folks?'
"'I dunno as they can, an' I dunno but they can,' says I. 'I suppose we've got to resk our twenty-five cents an' hear 'em, before we can say.'
"When the author was writin' to the secretary of the club she put in a newspaper piece showin' how folks paid a dollar and a half a ticket to hear her read in Cleveland and Si said if anybody was willin' to pay that price to hear an author, and a lady one at that, read her own writin's it was a case of fool and his money bein' soon parted. The secretary hed to come out real blunt and plain and say we allers hed got the best in Bixby Centre for twenty-five cents and we cal'lated we allers should.
"Of course it wa'n't what you would call 'skilled labor,' anyway. She didn't make no pretense hardly; she read straight along, good and clear, but she wa'n't no elocutionist, and she didn't act out anything a mite. In one way she can't hold a candle to that Miss—what's that black-haired girl's name that's cousin to Mis' Tucker of the Lower Corner? Well, anyway, she graduated at a school of oratory, and she's ben here twice an' recited 'Asleep on the Switch' and 'The Maniac.' It comes high, for she has to be drove to and from the deepot, have her supper and breakfast and a dollar in money; but you can't have the same old thing all the year round; folks get tired of it and the house won't be filled.
"Mis' Tucker says her cousin's got real talent, and I guess she has. She's got courage, anyhow, and lungs! They say she took a gold medal the time she graduated. The whole class stood up in a row and recited 'The Maniac,' and she outscreeched all the rest without half trying. Did you ever hear it, Mis' Strout? The girl in the piece is as crazy as a loon, but she don't know it, and at the end of every verse she says,'I am not mad! I am not mad!' Well, this reciter—what is her name now?—I know it as well as I do my own! Her mother was one o' them hombly Muckfords that used to live over on the Flag Medder road. Well, anyway, the rest o' the class jest said 'I am not mad' in the craziest way they could; but when it come her turn they say she put in a screech right in the middle that you could 'a' heard all over the county, and the judges fairly leapt right out o' their seats on the platform. There wa'n't no discussion as to who should have the medal; she earned it and she got it. She's splendid—Eldora Duncombe—that's her name, and I'm glad I've got it at last—but so many of our ladies here sleeps alone in their houses at nights that they told Mis' Tucker they couldn't go hear her cousin any more unless she read quieter pieces; an' she said if she read quieter pieces what would be the good of knowin' elocution?
"This author wa'n't no elocutionist and no screecher neither, but she hed a kind of a takin' way with her after all—I must say that; though Si thought her hair was full red to read in public with. Did you hear how handsome the church looked? If speakers don't like the pulpit we gen'rally move it one side and have a marble-top table with a pitcher of water and a tumbler, and a boquet of verbenias on it; but there was a girl from Lowell summer-boardin' at Mis' Doctor Smith's—Hazel Perkins her name is—an' she'd ben to an Author's Readin', an' she offered to decorate the platform jest like a parlor. It looked handsome, but land, it was queer! I never see such a collection of onnecessary things in my life. Si said it looked to him as if the Old Boy'd ben havin' an auction on it! And the trouble that Perkins girl took, borrowin' from all the neighbors that lived within a mile o' the meetin'-house! Why, I declare, the audience stared so at the decorations they didn't pay no kind of attention to the reader. We ain't got so much furniture round here that we don't know the looks of our neighbors' things pretty well, and everybody was cranin' and gapin' and studyin' to see who'd ben asked to lend and who hadn't. Si told Miss Perkins if she'd 'a' put on a bed and a cook-stove the author could 'a' kep' house on the platform and ben real comfortable.
"There was Mis' Trowbridge's banquet lamp that her children got for a prize, sellin' Magic Soap (and there ain't much magic in it, I can tell you that, unless you mix consid'able elbow grease with it!); I thought it was real good in the Trowbridge children to lend that lamp, for it's the only namable stick o' furniture they've got in the room they call their parlor, and they set great store by it. They'd never lighted it up 'cause they couldn't afford karosene, but anyway Mis' Trowbridge never read a book in her life, I guess, and Dan Trowbridge goes to bed at sundown; Salomy Trowbridge—she's the fourteen-year-old girl—never took her eyes off the lamp the whole evening, and once when it kind o' flared up, and she thought it was goin' to scorch the pink shade, she went right up on the platform and turned it down so't the author couldn't hardly see to read. Almiry Berry's reflecting lamp was on the stage, too, and hanging from it was an ear o' corn gilded, with a thermometer let in where some o' the kernels was took out—it looked real kind o' cute! Widow Buzzell's wicker chair and walnut table set in the centre, and if she hadn't bronzed up the chair with Diamond Paint so't nobody recognized it! Diadema Bascom's foreroom rug was on the floor, and my Batterbug lace tidies on the pulpit chairs. My lunge stood in the back with an African over it, and a couple of sofy-pillows stood up on end. What the Perkins girl wanted it there for beats me, for no author that I ever see would lay down while she was readin', and after it's over she'd be glad to go home and go to bed, I should think. I didn't like it a mite that Miss Perkins put the African over it, for we'd just had it new covered with emmanuel cloth and it looked real handsome and shiny; Si's awful fond of lungeing, and I thought I'd buy something this time he couldn't lunge out! Well, if you have a decoratin' committee I s'pose you've got to give 'em their heads and let 'em decorate; so I didn't say nothin' to Miss Perkins.
"On the piano was my marble statue of Abraham Lincoln, and Mis' Emerson's pair of tall vases that Huldy Packard sent her from Indiana. Miss Perkins had filled 'em full of goldenrod, but when Judge Thomson come and seen 'em standin' on his wife's new upright pianer he said he couldn't have that nohow; so when the audience was seatin', and before the Readin' began, Miss Perkins had to empty the water out o' the vases and stick peacock feathers in 'em; and then when the author come her cousin was with her, and she didn't like the peacock feathers 'cause they was unlucky; so poor Miss Perkins hove 'em out the winder and set the vases on the pianer upside down. They're awful hombly, anyway, and they look 'bout as well empty as full, an' standin' 'em bottomside up don't hurt the pattern any.
"The Perkins girl went out on the church steps and cried, she was so hoppin' mad, and when I slipped out o' the back pew to see if I could borry a piece of ice to put in the author's pitcher I see Freedom Cobb, that's home from Dartmouth College, tryin' to comfort her. She don't know that he courts Mis' Doctor Smith's boarders right along summer after summer. Mis' Smith couldn't hold 'em, her meat's so tough, if Freedom didn't kind o' keep 'em contented courtin' of 'em! I was sorry for her; but there, it wouldn't 'a' done to spill water down into the Thomsons' new pianer the way we done into the one we hired from Edgecombe Falls. Mis' Thomson only let us have hern on condition that we wouldn't ask Clarence Cummins to play on it. He's had lessons for three years, and then, anyway, he's naturally strong in his fingers and powerful muscled all over. You'd certainly think he wouldn't leave a key on the instrument when he gits warmed up. He's a great favorite with the deef, and we've got a lot o' deef folks at Bixby Centre.
"Did you hear anything said about the minister's introduction? That's kind o' queer; the Congregationalists was real proud of his remarks. Of course there's most every sect represented in the Winter Night Club, and then there's some of the members that wouldn't know a sect if they seen one in the middle o' the road, though they do call this a Christian country. We said if the entertainment was held in the Baptist church our minister had ought to make the opening remarks. We've got a real smart man in Mr. Hobson; some think he's too old, but there! we was about wore out with young students during them four years when we didn't have no settled pastor. Si says to me: 'I declare I'm tired o' settin' in meetin' Sunday after Sunday and hearin' the law laid down to me by them half-fledged boys. Let's have a minister that's feathered out,' said he, 'even if we hev to pay a little more!'
"Well, Mr. Hobson's makin' the introduction didn't leave anything for the Methodist minister to do, and his wife was as mad as hops, but we pacified her by askin' him to give the author a vote of thanks after the Readin', and by puttin' her on the reception committee that met the author at the deepot. The Perkins girl wanted the deepot decorated with goldenrod, but the president of the club said we'd got to leave something to do in case the folks that wrote 'Paradise Lost' or 'Pilgrim's Progress' should come to Bixby to read. So we had the winders washed and the stove blacked, put a new chimbly on the lamp and carried the fly-paper into the telegraph office, and Si said the deepot looked as if 'twas goin' to be married; but the author swished right through it and never looked at the stove nor the winders, so we had our labor for our pains.
"The weather looked a little mite lowery at noon, and Mis' Stevens was afraid she'd have to git out her covered carry-all to go for the author, but the sun came out and it breezed up real nice just after three o'clock. I don't think Mis' Stevens was ever uglier or contrarier in her life than she was that afternoon, but we excused her, for she was most tired to death. Her hired girl is sick, and she'd ben helpin' her cook up flour-food for the author, sellin' tickets over to the Centre, and finishin' a worsted-work 'God Bless Our Home' to hang over the spare-room bed. Si said he guessed the comp'ny would find out before she left that house that God done the only blessin' it was likely to git, and he was about right. She didn't like it a mite because Mis' Doctor Smith shook hands with the author first, and it was kind o' forth-puttin'. Mis' Stevens is the president of the Baptist and Mis' Doctor Smith of the Congregational Ladies' Aid, and most of the quarrelin' and pull-haulin' in the churches is between them two societies. They aid the church consid'able, I s'pose, but they do hender each other awf'ly; I'll say that for 'em!
"Well, it turned out a beautiful night, and the meetin'-house was packed to the doors. Everything went off as neat as a pin when we once got the Readin' goin', but the committee had consid'able trouble at the start. First there was the fuss I told you 'bout Mis' Thomson's pianer, and Hazel Perkins hed to hev her cry out on Freedom Cobb's shoulder, and then it turned out there wa'n't no ice for the water-pitcher; and those that hed reserved seats in the choir was in trouble. You see Miss Perkins hed put appleboughs along the front o' the singin'-seats and on top o' the organ. There must 'a' ben caterpillars' nests in 'em, and I s'pose the Decorating Committee hed et their lunch up there and dropped crumbs, but 't any rate the folks was kep' busy killin' ants an' caterpillars. One woman that was a stranger to me said she didn't cal'late to pay extry for a seat an' then be et up in it.
"The next thing was that Doctor Woodside couldn't be found to take the author up the broad aisle on his arm and hand her over to the minister. I was 'bout sick o' trottin', but I went out again and found him settin' in the graveyard as comf'table as could be, smokin' there on a tombstone, with the full moon shinin' on his white hair. He's one o' the smartest men in town, but some folks call him kind o' queer in the head. He does spend a good deal of his time in the graveyard, but Si says it's only natural because most of his patients is there! Then, as if that wa'n't enough, Vilruvias Bennett, that was sellin' tickets at the door, was called home, and they wanted Si to take his place, an' Si was huntin' after Almiry Berry's horse that had broke away an' carried part o' the meetin'-house fence.
"You'd heard Vilruvias's brother, Abel Bennett, died that night, didn't you? Well, did you know how suddent it was? He'd never hed a sick day in his life, so we hed no hopes of ever gettin' red of him; though there wa'n't a worse husband nor father nor neighbor in Bixby. His mother hed consid'able better 'a' named him Cain than Abel, but you can't never tell by lookin' at little mites o' bald-headed, red-faced things in cradles whether they're going to turn out Abels or Cains. Well, he'd refused to buy a ticket to the Readin', and he never would let his wife join the club; but about half-past six o'clock the very night o' the entertainment he eat a hearty supper of brown bread and pork and beans, got up and took his hat, kicked the dog and the cat and cuffed the children, which he'd done every night and mornin' faithful for twelve years, went out the side door and expired right there on the rubber door-mat where Mis' Bennett would have to step on him to get out; and it'll be easier for a camel to get through the needle's eye than for him to git int' the Kingdom, that's all I've got to say, and I'm a woman o' few words!
"Nobody knew what Vilruvias was called away for till after the Readin', so there wa'n't no excitement at the entertainment. The author said afterwards when the committee was givin' her a colation (it was an elegant one, too—lemon pie and jelly cake and marble cake and caraway cookies, and root beer and lemonade) that if she had known it she should 'a' ben afraid it was a bad sign.'
"'Not if you'd ever hed Abel Bennett for a neighbor,' said Si; and he was about right, though it sounds hard to say it, and he didn't but jest a few times!
"No, I ain't said much about the Readin' itself, for ef you're on a committee you're too busy to listen to anything that goes on. The author looked pretty and appeared pretty; she got on first-rate with Mis' Stevens, and gave her a book, with writin' in the front of it, that Mis' Stevens keeps on her marble-top table in the parlor. Si says ef Mis' Stevens ever wants to dispose of it the writin' will spoil the trade, but I tell him the author meant all right, and Mis' Stevens is too well off to sell a present that was give to her, anyway. The audience was real pleased with the author, and she said they was awful easy to read to, and awful quick at takin' a joke; but I told her it wa'n't no ordinary State o' Maine audience she hed in Bixby: a place that has its three churches and two settled ministers and four college graduates, an' a Readin' Club an' a High School and a drinkin' fountain! She said no, she couldn't expect to meet with such folks everywhere, but the remembrance of hevin' once enjoyed sech advantages would keep her up when she was hevin' hard times in other places. I thought that was real modest and pretty of her.
"She wa'n't no great reader, as I say, and she wa'n't no great writer for that matter, and I can't hardly see why they should make a fuss over her in the cities. Her stories might 'a' happened anywhere, most; they never did happen, I s'pose, but they sounded so natural and likely that it couldn't 'a' ben much work to write 'em down. I declare if she'd 'a' ben here this afternoon and took down what we've said, 'twould 'a' ben 'bout as good as what she read that night. I wouldn't wonder if I could write a couple of books a year jest like hers, but I don't s'pose it pays so well as goin' out by the day sewin', an', as Si says, we're in this world for a livin', not for notoriety.
"The next mornin' the committee went to the deepot to see the author off, and the four young men ushers was there, too, with the biggest and about the hombliest boquet I ever set eyes on! I don't hardly know how she could 'a' took it in her hand without changin' color. I got there first, and I was glad I did, for the deepot master hed forgot and laid out that old fly-paper all over the benches in the waitin'-room, and I hed a chance to yank it out o' sight and dust down the stove-pipe before she come in. Mis' Stevens looked real smilin' for once, and asked her to come back and make her a visit when it was cooler weather and her hired girl was over the whoopin'-cough.
"Mr. Hobson was there, and he handed her an envelope with two railroad tickets to Portland inside of it. It was just like him to buy the tickets and put 'em in an envelope; the other minister would 'a' counted the dollar and seventeen cents into her hand—and just as she was gettin' on the train the president of the Readin' Club stepped up and presented her with an album that hed the photographs of all the members pasted in it.
"Si says it ain't the handsomest club in the United States, even when it gets its best clothes on; but that's nothin' but a man's way of runnin' down women's clubs. We ain't all good lookin', to be sure, and most of the pictures was taken in country daguerreon saloons, where they don't flatter folks up much. I did kind o' wish Lowisy Burrage hed hed her new glasses and Aurelia Hanson her waved front piece before they was taken, but the author was too tickled for anything to git such a handsome present, and she said so; and says the president of the club to her, 'You ain't a mite tickleder'n we be to give it to you!' Then the train went off, the author lookin' back from the platform, the committee wavin' their handkerchiefs, and Mr. Hobson 'n' the four ushers swingin' their hats at her.
"All in all it was 'bout the most successful entertainment we ever bed here to Bixby, and we made forty dollars clear, though the land knows we put work enough into it to make seventy-five! There's one thing certain, wherever that author goes readin' she won't find any place that'll do the thing up in the same style as the Winter Night Club did when it entertained her at Bixby!
"Must you go so soon, Mis' Strout? Well, it's ben real nice to see you and hear all the news from Milliken's Mills."