A church fair is one of the purely feminine functions which will be the
last to disappear when the balance between the sexes is more evenly
adjusted. It is almost a pity to assume that it will finally, in the
nature of things, disappear, for it is charming; it is innocent with
the innocence of very good, simple women; it is at the same time subtle
with that inimitable subtlety which only such women can achieve. It is
petty finance on such a moral height that even the sufferers by its
code must look up to it. Before even woman, showing anything except a
timid face of discovery at the sights of New York under male escort,
invaded Wall Street, the church fair was in full tide, and the managers
thereof might have put financiers to shame by the cunning, if not
magnitude, of their operations. Good Christian women, mothers of
families, would sell a tidy of no use except to wear to a frayed edge
the masculine nerves, and hand-painted plates of such bad art that it
verged on immorality, for prices so above all reason, that a broker
would have been taken aback. And it was all for worthy objects, these
pretty functions graced by girls and matrons in their best attire, with
the products of their little hands offered, or even forced, upon the
outsider who was held up for the ticket. They gambled shamelessly to
buy a new carpet for the church. There was plain and brazen raffling
for dreadful lamps and patent rockers and dolls which did not look fit
to be owned by nice little girl-mothers, and all for the church organ,
the minister’s salary and such like. Of this description was the church
fair held in Brookville to raise money to pay the Reverend Wesley
Elliot. He came early, and haunted the place like a morbid spirit. He
was both angry and shamed that such means must be employed to pay his
just dues, but since it had to be he could not absent himself.
There was no parlor in the church, and not long after the infamous exit
of Andrew Bolton the town hall had been destroyed by fire. Therefore
all such functions were held in a place which otherwise was a source of
sad humiliation to its owner: Mrs. Amos Whittle, the deacon’s wife’s
unfurnished best parlor. It was a very large room, and poor Mrs.
Whittle had always dreamed of a fine tapestry carpet, furniture
upholstered with plush, a piano, and lace curtains.
Her dreams had never been realized. The old tragedy of the little
village had cropped dreams, like a species of celestial foliage, close
to their roots. Poor Mrs. Whittle, although she did not realize it,
missed her dreams more than she would have missed the furniture of that
best parlor, had she ever possessed and lost it. She had come to think
of it as a room in one of the “many mansions,” although she would have
been horrified had she known that she did so. She was one who kept her
religion and her daily life chemically differentiated. She endeavored
to maintain her soul on a high level of orthodoxy, while her large,
flat feet trod her round of household tasks. It was only when her best
parlor, great empty room, was in demand for some social function like
the church fair, that she felt her old dreams return and stimulate her
as with some wine of youth.
The room was very prettily decorated with blossoming boughs, and
Japanese lanterns, and set about with long tables covered with white,
which contained the articles for sale. In the center of the room was
the flower-booth, and that was lovely. It was a circle of green, with
oval openings to frame young girl-faces, and on the circular shelf were
heaped flowers in brilliant masses. At seven o’clock the fair was in
full swing, as far as the wares and saleswomen were concerned. At the
flower-booth were four pretty girls: Fanny Dodge, Ellen Dix, Joyce
Fulsom and Ethel Mixter. Each stood looking out of her frame of green,
and beamed with happiness in her own youth and beauty. They did not,
could not share the anxiety of the older women. The more anxious
gathered about the cake table. Four pathetically bedizened middle-aged
creatures, three too stout, one too thin, put their heads together in
conference. One woman was Mrs. Maria Dodge, Fanny’s mother, one was
Mrs. Amos Dix, one was Mrs. Deacon Whittle, and one was unmarried.
She was the stoutest of the four, tightly laced in an ancient silk,
with frizzed hair standing erect from bulging temples. She was Lois
Daggett, and a tragedy. She loved the young minister, Wesley Elliot,
with all her heart and soul and strength. She had fastened, to attract
his admiration, a little bunch of rose geranium leaves and heliotrope
in her tightly frizzed hair. That little posy had, all unrecognized, a
touching pathos. It was as the aigrette, the splendid curves of waving
plumage which birds adopt in the desire for love. Lois had never had a
lover. She had never been pretty, or attractive, but always in her
heart had been the hunger for love. The young minister seemed the ideal
of all the dreams of her life. He was as a god to her. She trembled
under his occasional glances, his casual address caused vibrations in
every nerve. She cherished no illusions. She knew he was not for her,
but she loved and worshipped, and she tucked on an absurd little bow of
ribbon, and she frizzed tightly her thin hair, and she wore little
posies, following out the primitive instinct of her sex, even while her
reason lagged behind. If once Wesley should look at that pitiful little
floral ornament, should think it pretty, it would have meant as much to
that starved virgin soul as a kiss—to do her justice, as a spiritual
kiss. There was in reality only pathos and tragedy in her adoration. It
was not in the least earthy, or ridiculous, but it needed a saint to
understand that. Even while she conferred with her friends, she never
lost sight of the young man, always hoped for that one fleeting glance
of approbation.
When her sister-in-law, Mrs. Daggett, appeared, she restrained her
wandering eyes. All four women conferred anxiously. They, with Mrs.
Solomon Black, had engineered the fair. Mrs. Black had not yet appeared
and they all wondered why. Abby Daggett, who had the expression of a
saint—a fleshy saint, in old purple muslin—gazed about her with
admiration.
“Don’t it look perfectly lovely!” she exclaimed.
Mrs. Whittle fairly snapped at her, like an angry old dog. “Lovely!”
said she with a fine edge of sarcasm in her tone, “perfectly lovely!
Yes it does. But I think we are a set of fools, the whole of us. Here
we’ve got a fair all ready, and worked our fingers to the bone (I don’t
know but I’ll have a felon on account of that drawn-in rug there) and
we’ve used up all our butter and eggs, and I don’t see, for one, who is
going to buy anything. I ain’t got any money t’ spend. I don’t believe
Mrs. Slocum will come over from Grenoble, and if she does, she can’t
buy everything.”
“Well, what made us get up the fair?” asked Mrs. Dodge.
“I suppose we all thought somebody might have some money,” ventured
Abby Daggett.
“I’d like to know who? Not one of us four has, and I don’t believe Mrs.
Solomon Black has, unless she turns in her egg-money, and if she does I
don’t see how she is going to feed the minister. Where is Phoebe
Black?”
“She is awfully late,” said Lois. She looked at the door, and, so
doing, got a chance to observe the minister, who was standing beside
the flower-table talking to Ellen Dix. Fanny Dodge was busily arranging
some flowers, with her face averted. Ellen Dix was very pretty, with an
odd prettiness for a New England girl. Her pale olive skin was flawless
and fine of texture. Her mouth was intensely red, and her eyes very
dark and heavily shaded by long lashes. She wore at the throat of her
white dress a beautiful coral brooch. It had been one of her mother’s
girlhood treasures. The Dix family had been really almost opulent once,
before the Andrew Bolton cataclysm had involved the village, and there
were still left in the family little reminiscences of former splendor.
Mrs. Dix wore a superb old lace scarf over her ancient black silk, and
a diamond sparkled at her throat. The other women considered the lace
much too old and yellow to be worn, but Mrs. Dix was proud both of the
lace and her own superior sense of values. If the lace had been admired
she would not have cared so much for it.
Suddenly a little woman came hurrying up, her face sharp with news.
“What do you think?” she said to the others. “What do you think?”
They stared at her. “What do you mean, Mrs. Fulsom?” asked Mrs. Whittle
acidly.
The little woman tossed her head importantly. “Oh, nothing much,” said
she, “only I thought the rest of you might not know. Mrs. Solomon Black
has got another boarder. That’s what’s making her late. She had to get
something for her to eat.”
“Another boarder!” said Mrs. Whittle.
“Yes,” said the little woman, “a young lady, and Mrs. Solomon Black is
on her way here now.”
“With _her_?” gasped the others.
“Yes, she’s coming, and she looks to me as if she might have money.”
“Who is she?” asked Mrs. Whittle.
“How do I know? Mrs. Mixter’s Tommy told my Sam, and he told me, and I
saw Mrs. Black and the boarder coming out of her yard, when I went out
of mine, and I hurried so’s to get here first. Hush! Here they come
now.”
While the women were conferring many people had entered the room,
although none had purchased the wares. Now there was stark silence and
a concentrated fire of attention as Mrs. Black entered with a strange
young woman. Mrs. Black looked doubtfully important. She, as a matter
of fact, was far from sure of her wisdom in the course she was taking.
She was even a little pale, and her lips moved nervously as she
introduced the girl to one and another. “Miss Orr,” she said; sometimes
“Miss Lydia Orr.”
As for the girl, she looked timid, yet determined. She was pretty,
perhaps a beauty, had she made the most of her personal advantages
instead of apparently ignoring them. Her beautiful fair hair, which had
red-gold lights, should have shaded her forehead, which was too high.
Instead it was drawn smoothly back, and fastened in a mat of compact
flat braids at the back of her head. She was dressed very simply, in
black, and her costume was not of the latest mode.
“I don’t see anything about her to have made Mrs. Fulsom think she was
rich,” Mrs. Whittle whispered to Mrs. Daggett, who made an unexpectedly
shrewd retort: “I can see. She don’t look as if she cared what anybody
thought of her clothes; as if she had so much she’s never minded.”
Mrs. Whittle failed to understand. She grunted non-assent. “I don’t
see,” said she. “Her sleeves are way out of date.”
For awhile there was a loud buzz of conversation all over the room.
Then it ceased, for things were happening, amazing things. The strange
young lady was buying and she was paying cash down. Some of the women
examined the bank notes suspiciously and handed them to their husbands
to verify. The girl saw, and flushed, but she continued. She went from
table to table, and she bought everything, from quilts and hideous
drawn-in rugs to frosted cakes. She bought in the midst of that ominous
hush of suspicion. Once she even heard a woman hiss to another, “She’s
crazy. She got out of an insane asylum.”
However nobody of all the stunned throng refused to sell. Her first
failure came in the case of a young man. He was Jim Dodge, Fanny’s
brother. Jim Dodge was a sort of Ishmael in the village estimation, and
yet he was liked. He was a handsome young fellow with a wild freedom of
carriage. He had worked in the chair factory to support his mother and
sister, before it closed. He haunted the woods, and made a little by
selling skins. He had brought as his contribution to the fair a
beautiful fox skin, and when the young woman essayed to buy that he
strode forward. “That is not for sale,” said he. “I beg you to accept
that as a gift, Miss Orr.”
The young fellow blushed a little before the girl’s blue eyes, although
he held himself proudly. “I won’t have this sold to a young lady who is
buying as much as you are,” he continued.
The girl hesitated. Then she took the skin. “Thank you, it is
beautiful,” she said.
Jim’s mother sidled close to him. “You did just right, Jim,” she
whispered. “I don’t know who she is, but I feel ashamed of my life. She
can’t really want all that truck. She’s buying to help. I feel as if we
were a parcel of beggars.”
“Well, she won’t buy that fox skin to help!” Jim whispered back
fiercely.
The whole did not take very long. Finally the girl talked in a low
voice to Mrs. Black who then became her spokeswoman. Mrs. Black now
looked confident, even triumphant. “Miss Orr says of course she can’t
possibly use all the cake and pies and jelly,” she said, “and she wants
you to take away all you care for. And she wants to know if Mrs.
Whittle will let the other things stay here till she’s got a place to
put them in. I tell her there’s no room in my house.”
“I s’pose so,” said Mrs. Whittle in a thick voice. She and many others
looked fairly pale and shocked.
Mrs. Solomon Black, the girl and the minister went out.
The hush continued for a few seconds. Then Mrs. Whittle spoke. “There’s
something wrong about that girl,” said she. Other women echoed her. The
room seemed full of feminine snarls.
Jim Dodge turned on them, and his voice rang out. “You are a lot of
cats,” said he. “Come on home, mother and Fanny, I am mortal shamed for
the whole of it. That girl’s buying to help, when she can’t want the
things, and all you women turning on her for it!”
After the Dodges had gone there was another hush. Then it was broken by
a man’s voice, an old man’s voice with a cackle of derision and shrewd
amusement in it. “By gosh!” said this voice, resounding through the
whole room, “that strange young woman has bought the whole church
fair!”
“There’s something wrong,” said Mrs. Whittle again.
“Ain’t you got the money?” queried the man’s voice.
“Yes, but—”
“Then for God’s sake hang onto it!”