Then she left the piano, and came over to the centre of the group, which parted to let her in.
"Just as soon as we can, I mean. We must first secure the money; but I think we can work fast, with such a motive."
Then came the chorus of discouragements:
"Miss Benedict, you don't know South Plains. We never can raise this money in the world. It has been tried a dozen different times, and there are a dozen different parties, as sure as we try to do anything. Some people won't give toward the old church, because they want a new one. As if we could ever have a new church! Others think it is well enough as it is, if it could be swept now and then. And there is one woman who always goes to talking about the time she gave the most for that old rag of a carpet on the platform, and then they went and bought it at another store instead of at theirs, where they ought to, and for her part, she will never give another cent toward fixing up that church."
Another voice chimed in:
"Yes; and there is an old man who says honesty comes before benevolence. He seems to think it would be quite a benevolence to somebody to fix up that old rookery; and they owe him ten dollars for coal, and they will never prosper in the world until they pay him."
"Is it true about the society owing him?"
"No, ma'am; it isn't. Father says they paid him more than the coal was worth. He is an old scamp. But it is just a specimen of the way things go here; hundreds of reasons seem to pop up to hinder people from doing a thing; and all the old stories are raked up, and after awhile everybody gets mad with everybody else, and won't try to do anything. You never saw such a place as South Plains."
But the music-teacher laughed. She was so sure of what ought to be done, and therefore, of course, of what could be done, that she could afford to laugh over the ludicrous side of this doleful story.
The girls, however, did not see the ludicrous side.