“You have no authority to raise money for the church; I believe the Warden will concur in that opinion?” and he bowed towards Bascom.
“That is a point for the meeting to decide,” he replied judicially, as Hepsey turned towards him.
“Seems to me,” continued Mrs. Burke, facing the audience, “that authority won’t fill the rector’s purse so well as cash. It’s awful curious how a church with six Vestrymen and two Wardens, all of them good business men—men that can squeeze money out of a monkey-wrench, and always get the best of the other fellow in a horse-trade, and smoke cigars enough to pay the rector’s whole salary—get limp and faint and find it necessary to fall back on talkin’ about ‘authority’ when any money is to be raised. What we want in the parish is not authority, but just everyday plain business hustle, the sort of hustle that wears trousers; and as we don’t seem to get that, the next best kind is the sort that wears skirts. I’d always rather that men shall do the public work than women; but if men won’t, women must. What we need right here in 294 Durford is a few full grown men who aren’t shirks or quitters, who can put up prayers with one hand while they put down the cash with the other; and I don’t believe the Lord ever laid it up against any man who paid first, and prayed afterwards.
“Now brethren, don’t all speak at once. I’m goin’ to start takin’ subscriptions. Who’s goin’ to head the list?”
A little withered old woman laboriously struggled to her feet, and in a high-pitched, quavering voice began:
“I’d like to give suthin’ towards the end in view. Our rector were powerful good to my Thomas when he had the brown kitties in his throat. He came to see him mos’ every day and read to him, and said prayers with him, and brought him papers and jelly. He certainly were powerful good to my Thomas; and once when Thomas had a fever our rector said that he thought that a bath would do my Thomas a heap of good, and he guessed he’d give him one. So I got some water in a bowl and some soap, and our rector he just took off his coat, and his vest, and his collar, and his cuffs, and our rector he washed Thomas, and he washed him, and he wa––”
“Well,” Hepsey interrupted, to stay the flow of eloquence, “so you’d like to pay for his laundry now, 295 would you Mrs. Sumner? Shall I put you down for two dollars? Good! Mrs. Sumner sets the ball rollin’ with two dollars. Who’ll be the next?”
As there was no response, Mrs. Burke glanced critically over the assembly until she had picked her man, and then announced:
“Hiram Mason, I’m sure you must be on the anxious bench?”
Hiram colored painfully as he replied: