Catherine, almost as near tears as she had ever been in her singularly well-controlled existence, obeyed him.
“Good evening, Chester.” Dr. Harlow had been standing near, and now decided to take a hand. “Let me introduce my daughter. Catherine, this is Mr. Holcomb, of whom you’ve heard us speak.”
“The father of the dear twin babies?” asked Catherine, with a grateful throb for her father’s help.
“That’s them yonder,” answered Chester Holcomb, swelling proudly. “Mate, bring the twins 79 here, so’t the doctor’s gal can see ’em. Weighed five pounds when they was born, and look at ’em now! Best fatted live stock on the farm, I say, Doctor.” And Mr. Holcomb’s great laugh at his own witticism filled the room. Catherine, meanwhile, with the sincerity of a girl who really loves all babies, admired the plump twins to such a degree that their father felt himself melting with benevolence.
“Mate,” he said suddenly, “think you’d like to read any of these here books? Doc, make you acquainted with my daughter Sadie. Graduated from the district school this spring and goin’ to town High School this fall. Guess the’ ain’t any of the readin’-matter here that’s beyond Sadie! Here, Miss, give us three of them tickets,–that one I had and two more. Mrs. Chester Holcomb and Miss Sadie Ditto. There! Keep the change,” and gathering up the three cards, he threw a silver dollar heavily upon the table and turned away. Catherine and her father looked at each other and laughed outright.
“No man has ever got the best of Chester in a bargain,” said Dr. Harlow, “and I judge no woman ever will! Allow me to make up the deficit. It has been worth more than that as entertainment!”
By this time the room was full. It was a motley crowd, as all classes of Winsted were represented. The would-be Smart Set in rather elaborate hats 80 and gowns, mingled with the quieter Three R’s, and their own maid servants and the “gentlemen friends” of the latter. All the standbys, who are always on hand at church doings and the County Fair, were out in force. There was the oldest inhabitant, bestowing his presence with the “nunc dimittis” air which had characterized him since old age had given him the distinction vainly sought in other fields. There was old Mis’ Tuttle in her best black and orange bonnet, and Emeline Winslow with her wig over one ear and a bouquet of artificial flowers under glass as her contribution. With her came Grandma Hopkins, whose name was the only nimble thing about her;–ponderous and elephantine, she had once, in calling upon a fragile little old lady, stumbled in the doorway and fallen upon her hostess, whose brittle bones had snapped under the strain. Polly and Dorcas constituted themselves a committee to look out for the elderly ones, taking great pains to keep Grandma Hopkins in open spaces where a fall would do little damage. There was a very bony woman with a smile which was surprising, it was so soft and radiant. She brought a fat story of the Bible for the children, and offered Algernon flowers from her garden for all summer. “Flowers are good for the soul and the mind as well as books,” she explained, “and if so be some one comes in and can’t find the book they want, ’twon’t hurt ’em to see a posy.”
81There was the Sloan family, decked out in the leavings of a milliner’s shop and bringing as offering a worn copy of one of Mary J. Holmes’ novels. There was a good-hearted lady, so disastrously given to expressing enthusiasm by embracing anyone within her reach that the heroes and heroines of the evening fought shy of her, and Tom made her well-known tendency an excuse for withdrawing altogether and going out to the fence behind the building where he could overlook the festive scene and smoke a cigar surreptitiously. Not least “among those present” was the ubiquitous reporter for the Courier, biting his pencil and using abbreviations in his notes with such freedom that the list of gifts, when finally published, contained such startling entries as: Eliza and her Germ Garden, and The Victorious Anthropology.
“I felt as though I were in a dream half the time,” sighed Polly, when the crowd had dwindled to “the immediate mourners” as Max put it, and these were sitting wearily at the messy little tables, dipping idle spoons into the melted cream that had been with difficulty saved for them. “I kept on smiling and explaining and telling people to go to Catherine for cards and to Bertha to leave their gifts, and half the time I didn’t know what I was saying or who was talking to me. Bert came up once and asked me to tell him which door he came in at, and I tried to find out for him, before I 82 tumbled–before I saw the point, I mean. I never was so exhausted in all my life.”
“Poor Algernon,” said Tom. “You’re just beginning your work. Every one of those hundred and sixty-seven cards will be in to-morrow to draw out a book. You ought to keep open for a week every day.”