THE SORROWS OF MR. PINDAR
It must not be supposed that Mr. Pindar Hollopeter's path was altogether
set with roses at this time; on the contrary, many a thorn and bramble
arrested his progress, and the poor gentleman's enthusiasm received many
a prickly wound. He had been able to wave Mrs. Weight away with a lofty,
"Off, woman, off! this hour is mine!" but there were others who could
not be so dismissed. Mrs. Ware had gently but firmly declined to lead
the band of Roman Matrons; and Salem Rock, when approached in regard to
leading the Village Elders, had expressed his mind with massive
finality.
"Pindar," he said, "I don't exactly know what you mean by robes, but my
gen'al idee of 'em is somethin' white and flappin'. Now I wore a
christenin' robe when I was a baby, and I expect to wear a burial robe
when I'm laid out; but, betwixt them two, I expect co't and pants will
have to do me. Jest as much obleeged to you," he added, kindly, seeing
Mr. Pindar's look of disappointment.
Again, Mr. Pindar was amazed and distressed by the lack of youth and
beauty in the village. It did seem unfortunate that Sophy Willow and the
three pretty Benton girls were away, and that Villa Nudd's mother was
ill and could not spare her. Beautiful Lily Jaquith could not leave her
new baby, and Vesta Strong wrote that she should have been delighted to
be Juno, but _all_ the children had just come down with chicken-pox. On
the other hand, Mr. Pindar found to his dismay that the line between
youth and middle age was less closely drawn in the village than in the
theatres of the metropolis. That very morning, Miss Luella Slocum had
come simpering up to him in the street, and had given him to understand
that she would have no objection to taking the part of Psyche "to
accommodate," as she heard that Annie Lizzie Weight was not to be
allowed to walk in the Procession. Now Miss Luella would never see
forty-five again, and her eyes, as has already been intimated, took
widely divergent views of things in general; but she had always had a
"theatrical turn," she informed Mr. Pindar, and had taken the part of
Mrs. Jarley when they had the Wax Works.
"And I do love to accommodate!" said Miss Luella, blandly. "I know what
it is to have folks set back and keep out of things, Mr. Hollopeter. I
don't know but Mis' Weight is right about Annie Lizzie; she's too young
to be dressin' up and comin' forward in public, and besides, she's had
no experience, as you may say. You couldn't expect her to have the
_air_, like a person that's had experience. That's what I always say;
you have to have the air, or you can't do it as it should be done. Don't
say a word, Mr. Hollopeter; I shall be real pleased to help out, and I
have a flowered Cretan that I'd like to have you call and see if 'twill
do."
"I wonder if he _is_ a little wantin'," said Miss Luella, in telling
Miss Eliza Goby of the incident afterward. "He didn't hardly say a word,
only give a kind of groan, and flapped his cloak, and begun walkin' off
backwards in the most sing'lar way. I'm goin' to take this Cretan in to
Prudence this afternoon, and see if she can make it over; it's Princess
shape, and that's always stylish, I think; and I thought put on pink
silk reveres would kind of liven it up: Psyche wants to look kind of
youthful, I presume. The sleeves are a mite snug, but I don't know as
that matters; I sha'n't have to raise my arms. What are you goin' to
wear, Eliza?"
"White muslin," said Miss Eliza Goby, "and a blue sash, or green, I
haven't decided which; green is my color, but I have that blue Roman
sash, you know. I think Pindar _is_ queer, Luella. One thing, he doesn't
seem to have hardly any knowledge about this village; I don't know as he
takes the paper even. Why, he thought I was married, and wanted I should
walk with the married ladies; matrons, he called 'em; the _i_dea! I told
him I'd never ben married, and didn't hardly know as I should; anyways,
I warn't thinking of it at present, and I'd go with the rest of the
girls."
"And what did he say?" asked Miss Slocum.
"I don't believe that man is well," said Miss Goby, gravely. "He made
pretty much the same answer as he did you, sort of groaned and flapped.
I think he had a pain in--in his digestion, and didn't like to speak of
it. He's a perfect gentleman, if he is a mite flighty. That man had
ought to have him a home, and some one to look after him, that's the
fact; him and Homer, too."
"That's so!" said Miss Slocum.
But the unkindest cut of all was administered by the hand of Miss
Prudence Pardon. It was Mrs. Bliss who advised him to take counsel with
Miss Prudence in regard to costumes in general, and the little lady was
smitten with remorse afterward for having done so.
"It was base of me, John, I know," she said; "but I simply _could_ not
tell him myself; he was so hopeful and confiding, and so--so pitiful,
somehow, John. I don't think he is a bit more crazy than other
people,--I believe I am a little cracked myself on some subjects, and I
_know_ you are,--only his craziness is in a different line, that we know
nothing about. And when he blinks at me with his nice brown doggy eyes,
and flaps his little bat-cloak, and says, 'The Dramatic Moment, Mrs.
Bliss!' I want to be a Roman Matron, and a Village Elder, and everything
else, just to please him. I would, too, if you would let me, John. I
don't believe that man had enough to eat before he came here; he's a
perfect skeleton."
"I do not precisely see the connection, Marietta, my dear," said the
Reverend John, mildly.
"You never do, dear!" replied his wife. "Talk of bats! but--well, so I
just told him that I should have _loved_ to if I hadn't been a
minister's wife, but that you were a cruel tyrant and wouldn't let me;
and then I advised him to go to Miss Prudence, because she would know
all about tunics and togas and everything else. I knew, you see, that
she was all ready to give him a piece of her mind, because she gave me
just a scrap the other day, when I was trying on my blue dimity. It's
going to be perfectly sweet, John. Oh, I do hope she will not hurt his
poor dear funny feelings _too_ much: she can be frightfully severe."
But even while Mrs. Bliss was speaking, Miss Prudence Pardon,
Rhadamanthus in a black alpaca apron, was laying down the law to Mr.
Pindar, and emphasizing her points with a stiffly extended pair of
shears. Miss Prudence had sat on the same bench at school with the
Hollopeter boys, and saw no reason for mincing matters.
"Pindar," she said, "if you hadn't have come to me, I should have held
my peace; but seeing as you have come, and asked my opinion, you shall
have it, without fear or favor. I think this whole thing is ridic'lous
nonsense; and I think if you go on with it as you've begun, you will
prove yourself, if I must use such an expression, what I call a gonoph."
Mr. Pindar shrank for an instant before the epithet, but gathered
himself together with a protesting wave.
"Madam!" he cried, "you fail to comprehend--"
"Excuse _me_!" said Miss Prudence, waving the shears in return. "I
expect if there's any one in this village as ought to comprehend, it's
me, with all I've ben through this week. Do you see that pile of truck?"
She pointed stiffly with the shears at a mass of drapery piled high on
the haircloth sofa. "There's thirty whole dresses there, let alone odd
skirts and polonays. There's full sleeves and snug sleeves, and gored
skirts and full skirts, and ruffles and box-plaits, and more styles than
ever you heard of in your life, and every material from more antique to
sarsnet cambric. I am expected to make all them over into toonics and
togas, and the hens only know what other foolery; and I tell you,
Pindar, it can't be done, nor I ain't going to try to do it."
She paused for a moment, for Mr. Pindar was waving his arms and flapping
his cloak in fervid assent.
"My dear madam," he cried; "my dear Prudence, if I may take the liberty
of an old schoolmate, I agree with you fully, entirely. I have
endeavored to point out to the ladies with whom I have conversed, that a
harmony of costume is absolutely imperative; that flowing drapery--the
classic, Prudence, the classic!--is what the occasion demands. A glance
at statuary will readily convince you--"
Miss Prudence pointed the shears rigidly. "Pindar Hollopeter," she said,
"I have seen considerable statuary in the course of my life, both Parian
and wax, and I say this to you: I never see a statue yet with clothes
that I would say fitted,--where there was any!" she added, grimly, and
compressed her lips. "As to hanging sheets and the like of that on human
beings, as if they was clo'es-horses," she went on, "it's no part of the
trade I was brought up to, and I've no idee of beginning at my time of
life, and so I tell you. Now my advice to you is this: give up all this
foolishness of a procession, and have a reception at the house, or the
_mu_seum, or whatever it is to be called from now on. Have it a pink
tea, if you like, and I'll get up some real tasty dresses for the girls,
the few there is, and the ladies can receive. That'll part the cats
from the kittens, and I dunno's there's anything else will. The _i_dea
of 'Lize Goby in white muslin! She'd look like lobster and white of egg,
and so I told her.
"The fact is, Pindar," Miss Prudence went on, more gently, laying down
the shears for an instant, "you and Homer was both brought up real
peculiar, and you're feeling it now. I don't mean to set in jedgment on
your Ma, far from it; but look at the way it has worked out. Homer is a
poet; well, luckily for him, he got into the post-office, where it
didn't do a mite of harm. Homer is well liked and respected by all in
this village," she added, benevolently, "and there was no one but
rejoiced at his being left well off. But you, Pindar, took to the
Drayma. Well, I've nothing to say against the Drayma, either, because
I've had no experience of it, nor wished to have, only this: it never
had any holt in this village, and when you try to bring it here, you
make a big mistake. What is it, P'nel'pe?"
Miss Penny, kindest soul in the village where so many are kind, had been
hovering uneasily about the door during this interview. She respected
Sister Prudence's judgment highly, and her own cheerful common sense
forced her to agree with it in this instance; and yet her heart ached to
see Mr. Pindar--such an elegant man!--sitting forlorn and dejected, with
drooping head and wings, he who had entered with so jaunty a stride,
Importance throned on his brow and the Dramatic Moment flapping in his
cloak. She did wish Sister Prudence had not been quite so severe.
But now Miss Penny looked in, with anxious eyes and heightened color.
"Excuse _me_," she said. "I see some of the ladies comin', Sister, and I
thought likely they was comin' to try on. I didn't know but Mr.
Hollopeter would wish--" She paused to listen, and then hurried back,
for already the little shop was full of voices.
"Is Prudence in, Penny? Has she got that polonay ready to try on,
think?"
"Penny, I want to know if you've got any linin's to match this pink
cheese-cloth; it don't hardly show over white."
"Penny, I found this up attic, and I've come to show it to Prudence. See
here! don't you think it'll make an elegant toonic, take and piecen it
out with a Spanish flounce, and cut off this postilion? Shall I go--"
Mr. Pindar sprang to his feet and looked wildly about him. Miss Prudence
spoke no word, but, raising the shears, pointed toward the red-curtained
glass door that opened into the little back garden.
"--right in?" The door from the shop opened, and admitted Mrs. Pottle,
her massive arms filled with polka-dotted purple merino.
"How are you, Prudence?" said Mrs. Pottle. "You look feverish."
"I'm as well as common, thank you," said Miss Prudence, grimly. "Won't
you be seated?"