HOW LITTLE ARCADY WAS UPLIFTED
The winter that followed proved to be a season of unrest for our town.
Mrs. Aurelia Potts was a leaven of yeast that fermented its social
waters, erstwhile calm, not to say stagnant.
Early in November an evening affair was held in her honor at the Eubanks
home. The Eubankses being our leading Presbyterians, and Mrs. Potts
having allied herself with that church, it was felt that they were best
fitted to give the lady her initial impression of Little Arcady's
society. Not only were the three Eubanks girls talented, but the mother
was a social leader, Eustace was travelled, having been one of an
excursion party to the Holy Land, and the family had relatives living in
Philadelphia. None of the girls had married, nor had Eustace. The girls,
it was said, had not wished to marry. Eustace had earnestly wished to,
it was known; but two of our young women who had successively found
favor in his sight had failed to please his mother and sisters, and
Eustace was said to be watching and waiting for one upon whom all could
agree, though every one but Eustace himself knew this was an utterly
hopeless vigil. Meantime the mother and sisters looked up to him,
guarding him jealously from corrupting associations, saw that he wore
his overshoes when clouds lowered, and knitted him chest protectors,
gloves, and pulse warmers which he was not allowed to forget. He taught
the Bible Class in the Presbyterian Sabbath school, sang bass in the
choir, and, on occasion, gave an excellent entertainment with his magic
lantern, with views of the Holy Land, which he explained with a running
fire of comment both instructive and entertaining.
The Eubanks home that evening was said by a subsequent _Argus_ to have
been "ablaze with lights" and "its handsome and spacious parlors
thronged with the elite of the town who had gathered to do honor to the
noted guest of the evening."
There first occurred a piano duet, rendered expertly by the two younger
Misses Eubanks, "Listen to the Mocking Bird," with some bewildering
variations of an imitative value, done by the Miss Eubanks seated at the
right.
Then the front parlor was darkened and, after the consequent tittering
among the younger set had died away, Eustace threw his pictures upon a
hanging sheet and delivered his agreeable lecture about them, beginning
with the exciting trip from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Most of those present
had enjoyed the privilege of this lecture enough times to know what
picture was coming next and what Eustace would say about it. But it was
thought graceful now, considering the presence of a stranger, to
simulate the expectancy of the uninformed, and to emit little gasps of
astonished delight when Eustace would say, "Passing from the city gates,
we next come upon a view that is well worthy a moment of our attention."
With the lights up again, a small flask of water from the river Jordan
was handed about, to be examined, by those who knew it too well, in the
same loyal spirit of curiosity. A guest would hold it reverently a
moment, then glance up in search of some one to whom it might be
heartily extended.
This over, the elder Miss Eubanks--Marcella of the severe mien--sang
interestingly, "I gathered Shells upon the Shore," and for an encore, in
response to eager demands, "Comin' thro' the Rye." Not coyly did she
give this, with inciting, blushing implications, but rather with an
unbending, disapproving sternness, as if with intent to divert the minds
of her listeners from the song's frank ribaldry to its purely musical
values.
Eustace followed with a solo:--
"Nigh to a grave that was newly made,
Leaned a sexton old on his earth-worn spade."
In the very low parts, where the sexton old is required to say, "I
gather them in," he was most effective, and many of his more susceptible
hearers shuddered. For an encore he sang, "I am the old Turnkey," which
goes lower and lower with deliberate steps until it descends to
incredible depths of bassness.
It was a rare comfort to the Eubanks ladies that Eustace was a bass
instead of a tenor. They had observed that most tenor songs are of a
suggestive and meretricious character. Arthur Updyke, for example, who
clerked in the city drug store, was a tenor, and nearly all of his songs
were distressingly sentimental; indeed, fairly indelicate at times in
their lack of reserve about kisses and embraces and sighs and ecstasies.
Glad indeed were the guardians of Eustace that his voice had lowered to
a salutary depth, and that bass songs in general were pure and
innocent,--songs of death, of dungeons, of honest war, or of diving
beneath the deep blue sea--down, down, down, as far as the singer's
chest tones permitted. With "Euty" a tenor, warbling those pernicious
boudoir _chansons_ of moonlight and longing of sighing love and
anguished passion, they suspected that he would have been harder to
manage. Even as it was, he had once brought home a most dreadful thing
called "A Bedouin Love Song," for a bass voice, truly enough, but so
fearfully outspoken about matters far better left unmentioned among nice
people that the three girls had fled horrified from the room after that
first verse:--
"From the desert I come to thee,
On a stallion shod with fire,
And the wind is left behind
In the speed of my desire."
The mother sped to her daughters' appeal for help and required her son
to sing "The Lost Chord" as a febrifuge. The other song was confiscated
after the mother had read the words so unblushingly penned by an author
whom she ever afterward deemed an abandoned profligate. She considered
that Bedouins must be unspeakable creatures--but how much lower the mind
that could portray their depravity, and send it out into the world for
innocent young men to carol in the homes of our best people!
Thereafter Eustace sang only songs that had been censored by his family,
and his repertoire was now stainless, containing no song in which a
romantic attachment was even hinted at; but only those reciting
wholesome adventures, military and marine, pastoral scenes and
occupations, or the religious experience of the singer.
In the words of the _Argus_, "his powerful singing was highly enjoyed by
all present."
There followed the feature of the evening,--a paper read by Mrs. Potts;
subject, "The Message of Emerson." With an agreeable public manner the
lady erected herself at one corner of a square piano, placed her
manuscripts under the shaded lamp, and began. The subject, aforetime
made known among us, had been talked about and perhaps a little wondered
at. It is certain, at least, that Westley Keyts had yielded to the
urging of his good wife to be present in the belief that a man named
Emerson had sent Mrs. Potts a telegram to be read to us. This was what
"the message of Emerson" meant to Westley, and the novelty of it had
seemed to justify what he called "togging up," after a hard day's work
at the slaughter-house.
If, then, he listened to Mrs. Potts at first with wonder-widening eyes,
amazed at Mr. Emerson's recklessness in the matter of telegrams, and if
at last he fell into gentle slumber, perhaps it was only that he had
been less hardened than others present to the rigors of social nicety.
No one else fell asleep, but it was noticed that the guests, when the
paper was done, praised it to one another in swift generalities and with
averted face, as if they sought to evade specific or pointed inquiry as
to its import. But the impression made by the reader was all that she
could have wished, and the gathering was presently engrossed with
refreshments. The _Argus_ stated that "a dainty collation was served to
all present, the menu comprising the choicest delicacies of the season,"
which I took to mean that Solon was trying to profit by instruction; and
that never again would he permit a table in the _Argus_ to groan with
its weight of good things.
Westley Keyts, being skilfully awakened without scandal by his wife,
drank a cup of strong coffee to clear his brain, and cordially consumed
as many segments of cake as he was able to glean from passing trays,
speculating comfortably, meanwhile, about the message of
Emerson,--chiefly as to why Emerson had not sent it by mail, thus
saving--he estimated--at least a hundred and twenty dollars in telegraph
tolls.
Mrs. Potts, thus auspiciously launched upon the social sea of Little
Arcady, was henceforth to occupy herself prominently with the regulation
of its ebb and flow. Already she had organized a "Ladies' Literary and
Home Study Club," and had promised to read a paper on "The Lesson of
Greek Art" at its first meeting a week hence. As the _Argus_ observed,
"it was certainly a gala occasion, and one and all felt that it was
indeed good to be there."
In addition to elevating the tone of our intellectual life, however,
Mrs. Potts found it necessary to support herself and her son. That she
could devise a way to merge these important duties will perhaps be
surmised. Comfortably installed in a cottage at the south end of town
with her household belongings, including a chair once sat in by the
Adams-husband of her heaven-favored second cousin, she lost no time in
prosecuting her double mission. The title of the work with which she
began her task of uplifting our masses was "Gaskell's Compendium of
Forms," a meritorious production of amazing and quite infinite scope,
elegantly illustrated. The book weighed five pounds and cost three
dollars, which was sixty cents a pound, as Westley Keyts took the
trouble to ascertain. But it was indeed a work admirably calculated for
a community of diversified interests. While Solon Denney might occupy
himself with the "Aid to English Composition," including "common errors
corrected, good taste, figures of speech, and sentence building," the
Eubanks ladies could further inform themselves upon grave affairs of
"The Home and Family,--Life, Health, Happiness, Human Love," etc., or
upon more frivolous concerns, such as "Introductions and Salutations,
Carriage and Horseback Riding, Croquet, Archery, and Matinee parties,
and the Art of Conversation." While Asa Bundy interested himself in
"History of Banking, Forms of Notes, Checks and Drafts, Interest and
Usury Tables, etc.," Truman Baird, who meant some day to go to Congress,
might perfect himself in Parliamentary law and oratory, an exposition of
the latter art being illumined by wood-cuts of a bearded and handsome
gentleman in evening dress who assumed the various positions of emotion
or passion, as, in "Figure 8.--This gesture is used in concession,
submission, humility," or, in Figure 9, which diagrams reproach, scorn,
and contempt. While Truman sought to copy these attitudes, to place the
feet aright for Earnest Appeal or Bold Assertion, or to clasp the hands
as directed for Supplication and Earnest Entreaty, the ladies of the
Literary and Home Study Club conned the chapter on American literature,
"containing choice proverbs and literary selections and quotations from
the poets of the old and new worlds." Our merchants found information as
to "Jobbing, Importing and Other Business," and our young ladies could
observe the correct forms for "Letters of Love and Courtship," "Apology
for a Broken Engagement," "French Terms used in Dancing," "Rights of
Married Women," "The Necessity and Sweetness of Home," and
"Marriage--Happiness or Woe may come of It."
Again, Westley Keyts could read how to cut up meats. He knew already,
but this chapter, illustrated with neat carcasses marked off into
numbered squares, convinced him that the book was not so light as some
of its other chapters indicated, and determined him to its purchase.
And there were letters for every conceivable emergency. "To a Young Man
who has quarrelled with his Master," "Dismissing a Teacher," "Inquiry
for Lost Baggage," "With a Basket of Fruit to an Invalid," and "To a
Gentleman elected to Congress." Rare indeed, in our earth life, would be
the crisis unmet by this treasury of knowledge. Not only was there an
elevation of tone in our correspondence that winter, resulting from the
persuasive activities of Mrs. Potts, but our writing became decorative
with flourishes in "the muscular" and "whole-arm" movements. We learned
to draw flying birds and bounding deer and floating swans with scrolls
in their beaks, all without lifting pen from paper. Some of us learned
to do it almost as well as the accomplished Mr. Gaskell himself, and
almost all of us showed marked improvement in penmanship. Doubtless
Truman Baird did not, he being engrossed with oratory, striving to
reproduce, "Hate--the right foot advanced, the face turned to the sky,
the gaze directed upward with a fierce expression, the eyes full of a
baleful light," or other phases of passion duly set down. Not for
Truman was the ornate full-arm flourish; he had observed that all
Congressmen write very badly.
But my namesake may be said to have laid the foundations that winter for
an excellent running chirography, under the combined stimuli of Mr.
Gaskell's curves and a hopeless passion for his school-teacher.
As my own teacher had been my own first love, I knew all that he
suffered in voiceless longing for his fair one, throned afar in his
languishing gaze. I knew that he plucked flowers meant to be given to
her, only to lay them carelessly on the floor beside his seat when
school "took in," lacking the courage to bestow them brazenly upon his
idol as others did. I knew, too, his thrill when she came straight down
the aisle, took up the flowers with a glance of sweet reproof for him,
and nested them in the largest vase on her desk. But my poor affair had
been in an earlier day, and my namesake wove novelty into the woof of
his. For in that wonder-book of the fertile-minded Gaskell was a form of
letter which Calvin Blake Denney began to copy early in December, and
which by the following spring he could write in a style that already put
my own poor penning to the blush. Did he write it a hundred times or
five hundred, moved anew each time by its sweet potencies, its rarest of
suggestions? I know not, but it must have been very many times, for I
would find the copies in his school books, growing in beauty of
flourish day by day. As well as if he had confessed it I knew that this
letter was intended for the father of his love--for old Sam Murdock, to
be literal, who uncouthly performed for us the offices of drayman; but
who, in my namesake's eyes, shone pure and splendid for his
relationship. Doubtless the letter was never sent, but I am sure it was
written each time with an iron resolve to send it. Its title in the
excellent book was "From a Lover to a Father on his Attachment to the
Daughter," and it ran:--
=DEAR SIR: As I scorn to act in any manner that may bring
reproach upon myself and family, and hold clandestine proceedings
unbecoming in any man of character, I take the liberty of distinctly
avowing my love for your daughter and humbly request your permission to
pay her my addresses, as I flatter myself my family and expectancies
will be found not unworthy of your notice. I have some reason to imagine
that I am not altogether disagreeable to your daughter, but I assure you
that I have not as yet endeavored to win her affections, for fear it
might be repugnant to a father's will. I am, etc.=
Under this was provided "A Favorable Answer," in which Sam Murdock might
have said that he had long perceived this thing and applauded it, and
would the young man "dine with us to-morrow at six if you are not
engaged, and you will then have an opportunity to plead your own cause."
But chillingly after this graceful assent followed an "Unfavorable
Answer," which Sam Murdock would also see when he opened the book at
page 251; and still more portentously on the same page was a letter
which Miss Selina Murdock herself might choose to write him, a sickening
and dreadful thing entitled, "Unfavorable Reply on the Ground of
Poverty."
"To say that I do not feel pleased and flattered at your proposal would
be to tell a useless untruth," the thing began speciously. "But how are
we situated, what hope of happiness with our unsettled prospects and
worse than small means? Industry has doubtless never been and never will
be wanting on your part, but--" and so to its dreadful end. It was
almost base in its coldness and mercenary calculation. That phrase about
the "useless untruth" implied even a dubious and considering morality;
and the conclusion, "we must not entail misery upon others as well as
ourselves by a too hasty step," argued a nature cautious in the extreme.
Yet Mr. Gaskell was too evidently a man of the world, knowing in his
ripe experience that there existed a sufficient number of such cold
natures to warrant the obtrusion of this heart-rending formula; and I
doubt not that these negative specimens of the possible alone restrained
my namesake from going beyond mere copies of that first letter.
It will be seen that the influence of Mrs. Potts pervaded our utmost
social and commercial limits. And when the "Compendium" had become a
centre-table ornament in the homes of the rich, and a bulky object of awe
in humbler abodes, she went over the ground again with other volumes
calculated to serve her double purpose, from "Dr. Chase's Receipt Book"
to "Picturesque Italy, profusely Illustrated." She also purveyed a line
of "art-pieces," including "Wide Awake and Fast Asleep," "The Monarch of
the Glen," "Woman Gathering Fagots," and "Retreat from Moscow." Also,
little Roscoe, out of school hours, took subscriptions for the _Youth's
Companion_.
Yet the town long bore it with a gentle fortitude. I believe it was not
until the following spring that murmurs were really noticeable.
Naturally they were directed against Solon Denney. By that time Westley
Keyts was greeting Solon morosely, though without open cavil; but Asa
Bundy no longer hesitated to speak out. He quoted Scripture to Solon
about the house that was swept and garnished, and the seven other wicked
spirits that entered it, making its last state worse than its first.
And of course Solon was much troubled by this, though he never failed to
rally to the support of the lady thus maligned, dwelling upon the
advantage her mere presence must always be to the town.
"If she'd only let it go at that--'her mere presence'--" rejoined Bundy.
But Solon protested, defending the lady's activities. He became
sensitive to any mention of her name, and fell to brooding. He believed
her to be a model woman, and little Roscoe to be a model boy.
"Why don't you try to be more like Roscoe Potts?" I heard him ask his
son in a moment of reproof.
My namesake took it meekly; but to me, privately, he said:--
"Hunh! I can lick Ginger Potts with one hand tied behind me!"
"How do you know?" I asked sternly.
He wriggled somewhat at this, but at length confided in me.
"Well, there's a sell, you know, Uncle Maje. You say, 'They're goin' to
tear the schoolhouse down,' or something like that, and the other boy
says, 'What fur?' and then you say, quick as you can, 'Cat-fur to make
kitten britches of,' and then we all laugh and yell, and I caught Ginger
Potts on it, and he got mad when we yelled and come at me, and they
pushed him against me and they pushed me against him, and they said he
dassent, and they said I dassent, and then it happened, only when I got
him down, he begun to say, 'Oh, it's wrong to fight! I promised my
mother I would never fight!' but I wouldn't 'a' stopped for _that_,
because teacher says he's by far the brightest boy in school--only just
then Eustace Eubanks come along, and he laid down the meat he was taking
home to dinner and jumped into the crowd and says: 'Boys, boys, shame on
you to act so like the brutes! _That_ isn't any way to act!' and he
pulled me off'n Ginger, and--and that's all, but I had him licked fair."
"I shall not tell your father of this," I said sternly.
"He has enough to worry him," said my namesake.
"Exactly," I said. "But I advise you to cultivate a friendly feeling
for Roscoe Potts. Boys should not fight."
"Well--now--I would--but he's a regular teacher's pet."
And remembering the letter that was not sent to Sam Murdock,--that the
teacher was my namesake's love,--I perceived that this breach was not to
be healed.