CHAPTER X
COUSIN ROXY’S “SOCIAL”
The night of the entertainment down at the Town Hall finally arrived. Doris said it was one of the specially nice things about Gilead, things really did happen if you just waited long enough. There was not room enough for all the family in the buggy or democrat with only one horse, so the Judge sent Ben down to drive Mrs. Gorham over and the two youngest. Shad took the rest with Princess. All along the road they met teams coming from various side roads, and the occupants sent out friendly hails as they passed. It was too dark to recognize faces, but Kit seemed to know the voices.
“That’s Sally Peckham and her father,” she said. “And Billy’s on the back seat with the boys. I heard him laugh. There’s Abby Tucker and her father. I hope her shoes won’t pinch her the way they did at our lawn party last year. And Astrid and Ingeborg from the old Ames place on the hill. Hello, girls! And that last one is Mr. Ricketts and his family.”
“Goodness, Kit,” Jean cried. “You’re getting to be just like Cousin Roxy on family history. I could never remember them all if I lived out here a thousand years.”
“ ‘An I should live a thousand years, I ne’er should forget it,’ ” chanted Kit, gaily. “Oh, I do hope there’ll be music tonight. Cousin Roxy says she’s tried to hire some splendid old fellow, Cady Graves. Isn’t that a queer name for a fiddler? He’s very peculiar, she says, but he calls out wonderfully. He’s got his own burial plot all picked out and his tombstone erected with his name and date of birth on it, and all the decorations he likes best. Cousin Roxy says it’s square, and on one side he’s got his pet cow sculptured with the record of milk it gave, and on the other is his own face in bas relief.”
“It’s original anyway,” said Jean. “I suppose there is a lot of satisfaction in fixing up your own last resting place the way you want it to be.”
“Yes, but after he’d sat for the bas relief, there it was with a full beard, and now he’s clean shaven, and Cousin Roxy says if he didn’t get the stone cutter over to give the bas relief a shave too.”
Down Huckleberry Hill they drove with all its hollows and bumps and “thank-ye-ma’ams.” These were the curved rises where the road ran over a hidden culvert. Gilead Center lay in a valley, a scattered lot of white houses set back from the road in gardens with the little church, country store and Town Hall in the middle of it. The carriage sheds were already filled with teams, so the horses were blanketed and left hitched outside with a lot of others. Inside, the little hall was filled with people, the boys perched up on the windowsills where they could get a good view of the long curtained-off platform that was used as a stage.
Cousin Roxy was busy at her end of the room, preparing the supper behind a partition, with Mrs. Peckham and Mrs. Gorham to help. Around the two great drum stoves clustered the men and older boys, and the Judge seemed to loom quite naturally above these as leader. Savory odors came from the corner, and stray tuning up sounds from another corner, where Mr. Graves sat, the center of an admiring group of youngsters. Flags were draped and crossed over doorways and windows, and bunting festooned over the top of the stage.
Jean took charge behind the curtain, getting the children ready for their different parts in the tableaux. Then she went down to the old tinkling, yellow keyed piano and everybody stood up to sing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.”