A few mornings later Judge Hippisley stopped William on the street and
spoke in his best bench manner:
"Will, I hate to speak about your daughter, but I've got to."
"Why, Judge, what's Ollie done? Isn't she fast enough?"
"Ollie's all right. I'm speaking of Prue. She's entirely too fast. I
want you to tell her to let my son alone."
"Why, I--you--he--"
"My boy was clerking in Beadle's hardware-store, learning the business
and earning twelve dollars a week. And now he spends half his time
dancing with that dam--daughter of yours. And Beadle is going to fire
him if he doesn't 'tend to business better."
"I--I'll speak to Prue," was all Pepperall dared to say. The judge had
too many powers over him to be talked back to.
Papa spoke to Prue and it amused her very much. She said that old Mr.
Beadle had better speak to his own boy, who was Orton's fiercest rival
at the dances. And as for the fat old judge, he'd better take up dancing
himself.
The following Sunday three of the Carthage preachers attacked the tango.
One of them used for his text Matthew xiv:6, and the other used Mark
vi:22. Both told how John the Baptist had lost his head over Salome's
dancing. Doctor Brearley chose Isaiah lix:7 "Their feet run to evil ...
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in
their paths."
Mr. and Mrs. Pepperall and Ollie sat under Doctor Brearley. Prue had
slept too late to be present. Doctor Brearley blamed so many of the
evils of the world on the tango craze that if a visitor from Mars had
dropped into a pew he might have judged that the world had been an Eden
till the tango came. But then Doctor Brearley had always blamed old
things on new things.
It was a ferocious sermon, however, and the wincing Pepperalls felt that
it was aimed directly at them. When Doctor Brearley denounced modern
parents for their own godlessness and the irreligion of their homes,
William took the blame to himself. On his way home he announced his
determination to resume the long-neglected family custom of reading from
the Bible.
After the heavy Sabbath dinner had been eaten--Prue was up in time for
this rite--he gathered his little flock in the parlor for a solemn
while. It had been his habit to choose the reading of the day at
random--he called it "letting the Lord decide." The big rusty-hinged
Bible fell open with a loud puff of dust several years old. Papa
adjusted his spectacles and read what he found before him:
"Nehemiah x: 'Now those that sealed were, Nehemiah, the Tirshatha, the
son of Hachaliah, and Zidkijah, Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, Pashur,
Amariah, Malchijah, Hattush ...'" He began to breathe hard. He was lost
in an impenetrable forest of names, and he could not pronounce one of
them. He sneaked a peek ahead, dimly made out "Bunni, Hizkijah, Magpiash
and Hashub," and choked.
It looked like sacrilege, but he ventured to close the Book and open it
once more.
This time he happened on the last chapter of the Book of Judges, wherein
is the chronicle of the plight of the tribe of Benjamin, which could not
get women to marry into it. The wife famine of the Benjamites was not in
the least interesting to Mr. Pepperall, but he would not tempt the Lord
again. So he read on, while the children yawned and shuffled, Prue
especially.
Suddenly Prue sat still and listened, and papa's cough grew worse. He
was reading about the "feast of the Lord in Shiloh yearly," and how the
elders of the congregation ordered the children of Benjamin to go and
lie in wait in the vineyards.
"'And see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in
dances, then come ye out of the vineyards and catch you every man his
wife of the daughters of Shiloh....
"'And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to
their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and
returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in
them....
"'In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which
was right in his own eyes."
He closed the Book and stole a glance at Prue. Her eyes were so bright
with triumph that he had to say:
"Of course that proves nothing about dancing. It doesn't say that the
Shiloh girls made good wives."
Prue had the impudence to add, "And it doesn't say that the sons of
Benjamin were good dancers."
Her father silenced her with a scowl of horror. Then he made a long
prayer, directed more at his family than at the Lord. It apparently had
an equal effect on each. After a hymn had been mumbled through the
family dispersed.
Prue lingered just long enough to capture the Bible and carry it off to
her room in a double embrace. Serina and William tried to be glad to
see her sudden interest, but they were a little afraid of her exact
motive.
She made no noise at all and did not come down in time to help get
supper--the sad, cold supper of a Sunday evening. She slipped into the
dining-room just before the family was called. Papa found at his plate a
neat little stack of cards, bearing each a carefully lettered legend in
Prue's writing. He picked them up, glanced at them, and flushed.
"I dare you to read them," said Prue.
So he read: "'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every
purpose under the heaven ... a time to mourn and a time to dance.... He
hath made every thing beautiful in his time.' Ecclesiastes iii.
"'Let them praise his name in the dance ... for the Lord taketh pleasure
in his people.... Praise him with the timbrel and dance.... Praise him
upon the loud cymbals.' Psalms cxlix, cl.
"'O virgin of Israel ... thou shalt go forth in the dances of them that
make merry.... Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young
men and old together.' Jeremiah xxxi.
"'We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced.' Matthew xi: 17.
"'Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window, and saw King David
leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her
heart.... Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the
day of her death.' II Samuel vi: 16, 23."
Papa did not fall back upon the Shakesperean defense that the devil can
quote Scripture to his purpose. He choked a little and filled his hand
with the apple-butter he was spreading on his cold biscuit. Then he
said:
"It's not that I don't believe in dancing. I don't say all dances are
immor'l."
"You better not," said Serina, darkly. "You met me at a dance. We used
to dance all the time till you got so's you wouldn't take me to parties
any more. And you got so clumsy and I began to take on flesh, and ran
short of breath like."
"Oh, there's mor'l dances as well as immor'l dances," William confessed,
not knowing the history of the opposition every dance has encountered in
its younger days. "The waltz now, or the lancers or the Virginia reel.
Even the two-step was all right. But this turkey-trot-tango
business--it's goin' to be the ruination of the home. It isn't fit for
decent folks to look at, let alone let their daughters do. I want you
should quit it, Prue. If you need exercise help your mother with the
housework. You go and tango round with a broom awhile. I don't see why
you don't try to help your sister, too, and make something useful of
yourself. I tell you, in these days a woman ought to be able to earn her
own living same's a man. You could get a good position in Shillaber's
dry-goods store if you only would."
Prue wriggled her shoulders impatiently and said: "I guess I'm one of
those Shiloh girls. I'll just dance round awhile, and maybe some rich
Benjamin gent'man will grab me and take me off your hands."