The Jamesons

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

Mrs. Jameson arose and bowed to the company, and adjusted her eyeglasses. Her jets glittered, her eyes shone with a commanding brightness, and she really looked very imposing. After a few words, which even Flora Clark acknowledged were very well chosen, she read the Governor's letter with great impressiveness. Then she went on to read other letters from people who were noteworthy in some way and had some association with the village. Flora Clark said that she believed that Mrs. Jameson had written to every celebrity whose grandfather ever drove through Linnville. She did have a great many letters from people who we were surprised to hear had ever heard of us, and they were very interesting. Still it did take time to read them; and after she had finished them all, Mrs. Jameson commenced to speak on her own account. She had some notes which she consulted unobtrusively from time to time. She dwelt mainly upon the vast improvement for the better in our condition during the last hundred years. She mentioned in this connection Robert Browning, the benefit of whose teaching was denied our ancestors of a hundred years ago. She also mentioned hygienic bread as a contrast to the heavy, indigestible masses of corn-meal concoctions and the hurtful richness of pound-cake. Mrs. Jameson galloped with mild state all her little hobbies for our delectation, and the time went on. We had sat very long at dinner; it was later than we had planned when the speechifying began. Mrs. Jameson did not seem to be in the least aware of the flight of time as she peacefully proceeded; nor did she see how we were all fidgeting. Still, nobody spoke to her; nobody quite dared, and then we thought every sentence would be her last.

The upshot of it was that the Grover stage-coach arrived, and Mrs. Sim White's brother, Elijah M. Mills, and Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright, besides a number of others of lesser fame, were obliged to leave without raising their voices, or lose their trains, which for such busy people was not to be thought of. There was much subdued indignation and discomfiture among us, and I dare say among the guests themselves. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright was particularly haughty, even to Mrs. Sim White, who did her best to express her regret without blaming Mrs. Jameson. As for Elijah M. Mills, Louisa said she heard him say something which she would not repeat, when he was putting on his hat. He is a fine speaker, and noted for the witty stories which he tells; we felt that we had missed a great deal. I must say, to do her justice, that Mrs. Jameson seemed somewhat perturbed, and disposed to be conciliating when she bade the guests good-by; she was even apologetic in her calmly superior way.

However, the guests had not been gone long before something happened to put it all out of our minds for the time. The Rev. Henry P. Jacobs had just stood up again, with a somewhat crestfallen air, to read his poem—I suppose he was disappointed to lose the more important part of his audience—when there was a little scream, and poor Harriet Jameson was all in a blaze. She wore a white muslin dress, and somehow it had caught—I suppose from a spark; she had been sitting near the hearth, though we had thought the fire was out. Harry Liscom made one spring for her when he saw what had happened; but he had not been very near her, and a woman was before him. She caught up the braided rug from the floor, and in a second Harriet was borne down under it, and then Harry was there with his coat, and Sim White, and the fire was out. Poor Harriet was not much hurt, only a few trifling burns; but if it had not been for the woman she might easily have gotten her death, and our centennial ended in a tragedy.

It had all been done so quickly that we had not fairly seen who the woman who snatched up the rug was, but when the fire was out we knew: Caroline Liscom. She was somewhat burned herself, too, but she did not seem to mind that at all. She was, to our utter surprise—for we all knew how she had felt about Harry's marrying Harriet—cuddling the girl in her motherly arms, the sleeves of her best black grenadine being all scorched, too, and telling her that she must not be frightened, the fire was all out, and calling her my dear child, and kissing her. I, for one, never knew that Caroline Liscom could display so much warmth of love and pity, and that toward a girl whom she was determined her son should not marry, and before so many. I suppose when she saw the poor child all in a blaze, and thought she would be burned to death, her heart smote her, and she felt that she would do anything in the world if she only lived.

Harry Liscom was as white as a sheet. Once or twice he tried to push his mother away, as if he wished to do the comforting and cuddling himself; but she would not have it. “Poor child! poor child!” she kept repeating; “it's all over, don't be frightened,” as if Harriet had been a baby.

Then Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson came close to Caroline Liscom, and tears were running down her cheeks quite openly. She did not even have out her handkerchief, and she threw her arms right around the other woman who had saved her daughter. “God bless you! Oh, God bless you!” she said; then her voice broke and she sobbed out loud. I think a good many of us joined her. As for Caroline Liscom, she sort of pushed Harriet toward her son, and then she threw her poor, scorched arms around Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson and kissed her. “Oh, let us both thank God!” sobbed Caroline.

As soon as we got calm enough we took Harriet upstairs; her pretty muslin was fluttering around her in yellow rags, and the slight burns needed attention; she was also exhausted with the nervous shock, and was trembling like a leaf, her cheeks white and her eyes big with terror. Caroline Liscom and her mother came too, and Caroline concealed her burns until Harriet's were dressed. Luckily, the doctor was there. Then Harriet was induced to lie down on the north chamber bed on the old blue-and-white counterpane that Mrs. Sim White's mother spun and wove.

Rev. Henry P. Jacobs did not read his poem; we were too much perturbed to listen to it, and nobody mentioned it to him. Flora Clark whispered to me that if he began she should go home; for her part, she felt as if she had gone through enough that day without poetry. The poem was delivered by special request at our next sewing circle, but I think the minister was always disappointed, though he strove to bear it with Christian grace. However, within three months he had to console him a larger wedding fee than often falls to a minister in Linnville.

The centennial dissolved soon after the burning accident. There was nothing more to do but to put the Shaw house to rights again and restore the various articles to their owners, which, of course, could not be done that day, nor for many days to come. I think I never worked harder in my life than I did setting things to rights after our centennial; but I had one consolation through it, and that was the happiness of the two young things, who had had indirectly their love tangle smoothed out by it.

Caroline Liscom and Mrs. Jameson were on the very best of terms, and Harriet was running over to Caroline's house to take lessons in housekeeping, instead of to mine, before the week was out.