The meeting quivered with tense excitement. What did it all mean? If a chicken had sneezed the whole gathering would have been dissolved in hysterics, it was so keyed up with a sense of the impending disclosure of a deep mystery. As for Hepsey, she sat motionless, though Jonathan believed that he caught sight of a tear glistening in its descent.
“Hepsey Burke had a right to call me a skinflint, because she knew what none of you knew; but because it was private knowledge she wouldn’t make use of it against me—not unless she couldn’t have done what was right any other way. And now I’m going to tell you what she knew: 304
“The rectory was my wife’s property, and she intended it as a gift to the parish, for the rectory of the church. I was preparing the deeds of transfer, when she died—suddenly, as some of you remember,” his voice made heroic efforts to keep clear and steady, “owing to her death before the transfer, that house passed to our daughter; and what I intended to do was to buy it of her and present it to the parish. I delayed, at first for good reasons. And I suppose as I got more and more lonesome and mixed less and less with people, I got sourer—and then I delayed from meanness. It would have been easy enough for me to buy it of my daughter, and she’d have been willing enough; but as I saw more and more put upon me, and less and less human recognition—I was ‘a rich man,’ and needed no personal sympathy or encouragement, it seemed—I held back. And I got so mean, I couldn’t make friends with the rector, even.”
He paused, and from the half smile on his face, and the hint of brightness that passed over his expression, the audience caught relief.
“I guess a good shaking up is good for a man’s liver: it cures a sour stomach—and as there are those that say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, perhaps it cures a sour heart. I got my shaking 305 up all right, as you know; and perhaps that’s been working a cure on me. Or perhaps it was the quiet ministrations of that little Mrs. Betty of yours”—applause—“or the infusion of some of the rector’s blood in my veins (he let himself be bled to keep me alive, after I’d lost what little blood I had, as you probably have never heard)”—shouts of applause—“or possibly what cured me was a little knitting-visit that Hepsey Burke paid me the other day, and during which she dropped some home-truths: I can’t say.
“Before I decided what I would do about the rectory, I wanted to see what you would do, under Mrs. Burke’s guidance, this evening. You’ve shouldered your share, as far as the rector’s salary is concerned. Well—I’ll add what I consider my fair share to that, fifty dollars. The arrears due on the mortgage interest is one hundred and twenty dollars. I shall hold you to your side of that bargain, to date. If you pay the rector the two hundred dollars due him on his salary, you will need to subscribe about another forty to make up the interest: that done, and paid to me, I will do my part, and present the rectory to the parish, in memory of my dear wife, as she desired.”
He sat down.
Hepsey rose and called out in a clear voice:
“He’s right; Mr. Bascom’s dead right; it’s up to 306 us to be business first, and clear ourselves of the debt on a business bargain; then we can accept the gift without too much worryin’.” And she sent a very friendly smile over to Bascom.
Again there was some cheering, in the midst of which Jonathan Jackson jumped to his feet beside Hepsey; and facing the room, with his arm through hers, he shouted: