“I think they might perceive that, though corn does not grow on a high road, nor bridges yield manufactures, the value of corn lands may be doubled by opening a way to a new market, and that an unused water power may begin to yield wealth from the moment that there is a bridge over which buyers may come for it. It is a misfortune to Briery Creek that Temple is more of a selfish palace-fancier than a patriotic bridge and road maker.”
The first Sunday of the opening of the chapel, Temple appeared in a character which he had only once before attempted to support. On the occasion of using the market-house for service, he had approached the door, cast a glance within upon the company of soldiers, and the village population at their worship, while their aged friend was leading their devotions, and hastily departed, thankful that he was too pious to join in such a service as this. He took the part of a religious man that day, and now was the time for him to resume the character. Under the idea that the market-house might be opened as usual for Dr. Sneyd, making his own appear like an opposition place of worship, he spared no pains to secure a majority in point of audience. He had managed to ride past the military post, and be gracious with the soldiers. His domestics puffed the chapel and chaplain at market, the day before, and the leading villagers received intimations of good sittings being appropriated to them. These pains might have been spared. All who desired might know that Dr. Sneyd, his wife, son, and servants intended to be present, as a matter of course.
When they entered, Temple looked nearly as much surprised as if they had at the moment arrived from England. He made a prodigious bustle about having them accommodated in a seat next his own, and condescendingly sent them books, and inquired into the sufficiency of hassocks. During the greater part of the service he stood up, as if he could not listen with sufficient attention while sitting, like other people. Yet he cleared his throat if any body moved, and sent his pert glance into every corner to command a reverential demeanour, while his chaplain was enforcing, as the prime glory and charm of a place of worship, that there, and there alone, all are equal and all are free. Little Ephraim cowered behind the coachman while the preacher insisted that here the humblest slave might stand erect on the ground of his humanity; and the butler stepped on tiptoe half way down the aisle to huff Jenkins the ditcher for coming so high up, at the very moment that something was quoted about a gold ring and purple raiment in the synagogue.
It was true the preacher and his message had not so good a chance of being attended to as they might have on future Sundays. The bustle produced by the anticipation of the occasion did not subside on the arrival of the occasion. The fine large chip bonnets had been procured, and the trimming and sending them home had been achieved by the Saturday night. But it remained to wear them for the first time: not only to support the consciousness of a new piece of finery, but to compare the fine bonnets with the shabby head-gear of other people, with each other, and, finally, with Mrs. Hesselden’s. Then, while Mrs. Dods was thus contemplating the effect of her own peculiar species of architecture, her husband could not but look round him, and remember that every individual brick of this pile had been fashioned by himself and his lads. The builder scanned the measurements of the windows and the ceiling. Two or three boys and girls shuffled their feet on the matting which their mother had woven. A trader from the north gradually made up his mind to approach the ladies after service, for the purpose of recommending fur pouches for the feet during the severe season that was approaching. The Brawnees, unincumbered by any thing beyond their working-day apparel, were among the best listeners. Temmy was so alarmed at the prospect of having to give his father, for the first time, an account of the sermon, that he could not have taken in a word of it, even if he had not been miserable at seeing the tears coursing one another down his mother’s cheeks during the whole time of the service. Her left hand hung by her side, but he did not dare to touch it. He looked at Mrs. Hesselden to try to find out whether she thought his mother was ill; or whether the sermon was affecting; or whether this was the consequence of something that had been said at breakfast against grandpapa. Grandpapa seemed to be listening very serenely to the sermon, and that was a better comfort than Mrs. Hesselden’s countenance,—so grave, that Temmy feared to provoke a cross word if he looked at her again.
It was not known, till the ladies of the village ranged themselves round the work-table in the school-house, one chilly evening, soon afterwards, how great had been the bustle of preparation before the fine chip bonnets made their appearance in the chapel. All hearts, even those of rival milliners, were laid open by the sight of the roaring wood fire, the superior candles, the hearty welcome, and the smiling company that awaited them as they dropped in at the place of entertainment,—the women with their sewing apparatus, and their husbands and brothers ready for whatever occupation might have been devised for their leisure evening hours. While these latter crowded round the little library, to see of what it consisted, the sewers placed their benches round the deal table, snuffed their candles, and opened their bundles of work. Mrs. Dods made no mystery of her task. She was cutting up a large chip bonnet to make two small hats for her youngest boy and girl, owning that, not having calculated on any one else attempting to gratify the rage for imitating Mrs. Hesselden, she had injured her speculation by overstocking the market. The lawyer’s lady had been reckoned upon as a certain customer; but it turned out,—however true that the lawyer’s lady must have a chip bonnet,—that the builder’s wife had just then entered upon a rivalship with the brickmaker’s wife, and had stuck up at her window bonnets a trifle cheaper than those of Mrs. Dods. It only remained for Mrs. Dods to show how pretty her little folks looked in hats of the fashionable material, in hopes that the demand might spread to children.
“If it does, Mrs. Dods, Martha Jenkins will have the same reason to complain of you that you have to complain of being interfered with. It is unknown the trouble that Jenkins has had, following the river till he came to the beavers, and then hunting them, and preparing their skins at home, and all that, while Martha spared no pains to make beaver hats for all the boys and girls in the place. It will be rather hard if you cut her out.”
“And you can do it only by lowering your price ruinously,” observed Mrs. Sneyd. “I should think any mother in Briery Creek would rather keep her child’s ears from freezing by putting on her a warm beaver, than dress her out prettily in a light chip, at this season. Nothing but a great difference in price can give yours the preference, I should think, Mrs. Dods.”
“Then such a difference there must be,” Mrs. Dods replied. “I had rather sell my article cheap than not sell it at all. Another time I shall take care how I run myself out at elbows in providing for a new fashion among the ladies.”
Mrs. Sneyd thought that those were engaged in the safest traffic who dealt in articles in the commonest use,—who looked for custom chiefly from the lower, i.e. the larger classes of the people. From their numbers, those classes are always the greatest consumers; and, from the regularity of their productive industry, they are also the most regular consumers. It seemed probable that the demand for Martha Jenkins’s beavers would prove superior in the long run to that for Mrs. Dods’s varied supply, though poor Martha might suffer for a while from the glut of chips which occasioned loss to all sellers of bonnets, at present, and gain to all sellers of whatever was given in exchange for bonnets. Fat for candles was scarcely to be had since Temple had discouraged the sale of fresh meat. Mrs. Dods was deplorably in want of candles. She made a bargain with a neighbour for some in return for the hat now under her hands. How few she was to receive, it vexed her to think; but there was no help for it till somebody should supply the deficiency of candles, or till new heads should crave covering.
It now appeared that the ladies were not the only persons who had brought their work. When it came to be decided who should be the reader, it was unanimously agreed that some one who had no employment for his hands should undertake the office. Dods had leathern mittens to make for the less hardy of the woodsmen. Others occupied themselves in platting straw, making mops, cutting pegs to be employed in roofing, and cobbling shoes. Arthur drew sketches for Temmy to copy. Such was always the pretence for Arthur’s drawings; but a neighbour who cast a peep over his shoulder, from time to time, could not help thinking that the sketch was of the present party, with Dr. Sneyd in the seat of honour by the fire-side, Mrs. Sneyd knitting in the shadow, that the full benefit of the candles might be yielded to those whose occupation required it; Isaac, who had received the honour of the first appointment as reader, holding his book rather primly, and pitching his voice in a key which seemed to cause a tendency to giggle among some of the least wise of his auditors; and, lastly, the employed listeners, as they sat in various postures, and in many lights, as the blaze from the logs now flickered low, and now leaped up to lighten all the room. Each of these was suspected to be destined to find a place in Arthur’s sketch.