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.'