"He wouldn't give a cent," announced Mrs. Pottle, blotting up the
nucleus of a tear on her cheek with the tip of her gloved finger. "'Not
one red cent,' was the way he put it."
"What did you want a red cent for, honey?" inquired Mr. Pottle,
absently, from out the depths of the sporting page. "Who wouldn't give
you a red cent?"
"Old Felix Winterbottom," she answered.
Mr. Pottle put down his paper.
"Do you mean to say you tackled old frosty-face Felix himself?" he
demanded with interest and some awe.
"I certainly did," replied his wife. "Right in his own office."
Her spouse made no attempt to conceal his admiration.
"What did you say; then what did he say; then what did you say?" he
queried.
"I was very polite," Mrs. Pottle answered, "and tactful. I said 'See
here, now, Mr. Winterbottom, you are the richest man in the county, and
yet you have the reputation of being the most careful with your
money----'"
"I'll bet that put him in a good humor," said Mr. Pottle in a murmured
aside.
"You know perfectly well, Ambrose, that old Felix Winterbottom is never
in a good humor," said his wife. "After talking with him, I really
believe the story that he has never smiled in his life. Well, anyhow, I
said to him, 'See here now, Mr. Winterbottom, I'm going to give you a
chance to show people your heart is in the right place, after all. The
Day Nursery we ladies of the Browning-Tagore Club of Granville are
starting needs just one thousand dollars. Won't you let me put you down
for that amount?'"
Mr. Pottle whistled.
"Did he bite you?" he asked.
"I thought for a minute he was going to," admitted Mrs. Pottle, "and
then he said, 'Are the Gulicks interested in this?' I said, 'Of course,
they are. Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick is Chairman of the Pink Contribution
Team, and Mrs. Wendell Gulick is Chairman----' 'Stop,' said Mr.
Winterbottom, giving me that fishy look of his, like a halibut in a cake
of ice, 'in that case, I wouldn't give a cent, not one red cent.
Good-day, Mrs. Pottle.' I went."
Mr. Pottle wagged his head sententiously.
"You'll never get a nickel out of him now," he declared. "Never. You
might have known that Felix Winterbottom would not go into anything the
Gulicks were in. And," added Mr. Pottle thoughtfully, "I can't say that
I blame old Felix much."
"Ambrose!" reproved Mrs. Pottle, but her rebuke lacked a certain
whole-heartedness, "The Gulicks are nice people; the nicest people in
Granville."
"That's the trouble with them," retorted Mr. Pottle, "they never let you
forget it. That's what ails this town; too much Gulicks. I'm not the
only one who thinks so, either."
She did not attempt rebuttal, beyond saying,
"They're our oldest family."
"Bah," said Mr. Pottle. He appeared to smolder, and then he flamed out,
"Honest, Blossom, those Gulicks make me just a little bit sick to the
stummick. Just because some ancestor of theirs came over in the
Mayflower, and because some other ancestor happened to own the farm this
town was built on, you'd think they were the Duke of Kackiack, or
something. The town grew up and made 'em rich, but what did they ever do
for the town?"
"Well," began Mrs. Pottle, more for the sake of debate than from
conviction, "there's Gulick Avenue, and Gulick Street, and Gulick
Park----"
"Oh, they give their name freely enough," said Mr. Pottle. "But what did
they give to the Day Nursery fund?"
"They did disappoint me," Mrs. Pottle admitted. "They only gave fifty
dollars, which isn't much for the second wealthiest family in town, but
Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick said we could put her name at the head of the
list----"
Mr. Pottle's affable features attained an almost sardonic look.
"Oho," he said, pointedly. "Oho."
He flamed up again,
"That's exactly the amount those pirates added to the rent of my barber
shop," he stated, and then, passion seething in his ordinarily amiable
bosom, he went on, "A fine lot, they are, to be snubbing a self-made man
like Felix Winterbottom, and turning up their thin, blue noses at Felix
Winterbottom's tannery."
"Ambrose," said his wife, with lifted blonde eyebrows, "please don't
make suggestive jokes in my presence."
"Honey swat key Molly pants," returned Mr. Pottle with a touch of
bellicosity. "It's no worse than other tanneries; and it's the biggest
in the state. Those Gulicks give me a pain, I tell you. You can't pick
up a paper without reading, 'Mr. P. Bradley Gulick, one of our leading
citizens, unveiled a tablet in the Gulick Hook and Ladder Company
building yesterday in honor of his ancestor, Saul Gulick, one of the
pioneers who hewed our great state out of the wilderness, and whose
cider-press stood on the ground now occupied by the hook and ladder
company.' Or 'Mrs. Wendell Gulick read a paper before the Society of
Descendants of Officers Above the Rank of Captain on General
Washington's Staff on the heroic part played by her ancestor, Major Noah
Gulick, at the battle of Saratoga.' If it isn't that it's 'The Spinning
Wheel Club met at Mrs. Gulick's palatial residence to observe the
anniversary of the birth of Phineas Gulick, the first red-headed baby
born in Massachusetts.' Bah, is what I say, Bah!"
He seethed and bubbled and broke out again.
"You'd think to hear them blow that the Gulicks discovered ancestors and
had 'em patented. I guess the Pottles had an ancestor or two. Even Felix
Winterbottom had ancestors."
"Probably haddocks," said Mrs. Pottle coldly. "He can keep his old red
cents."
"He will, never fear," her husband assured her. "After the way he and
his family have been treated by the Gulicks, I don't blame him."
Mrs. Pottle pumped up a sigh from the depths of a deep bosom and sank
tearfully to a divan.
"And I'd set my heart on it," she sobbed.
"What, dear?"
"The Day Nursery. And it's to fail for want of a miserable thousand
dollars."
"Don't speak disrespectfully of a thousand dollars, Blossom," Mr. Pottle
enjoined his spouse. "That's five thousand shaves. And don't expect me
to give anything more. You know perfectly well the barber-business is
not what it used to be. I can't give another red cent."
Mrs. Pottle sniffed.
"Who asked you for your red cents?" she inquired, with spirit. "I'll
make the money myself."
"You, Blossom?"
"Yes. Me."
"But how?"
She rose majestically; determination was in her pose, and the light of
inspiration was in her bright blue eyes.
"We'll give a pageant," she announced.
"A pageant?" Mr. Pottle showed some dismay. "A show, Blossom?"
"Evidently," she said, "you have not read your encyclopedia under 'P.'"
"I'm only as far as 'ostriches,'" he answered, humbly.
"'A pageant,'" she quoted, "'is an elaborate exhibition or spectacle, a
series of stately tableaux or living pictures, frequently historic, and
often with poetic spoken interludes.'"
"Ah," beamed Mr. Pottle, nodding understandingly, "a circus!"
"Not in the least, Ambrose. Does your mind never soar? A pageant is a
very beautiful and serious thing, with lots of lovely costumes, hundreds
of people, horses, historic scenes----" she broke off suddenly. "When
was Granville founded?"
He told her. Her eyes sparkled.
"Wonderful," she cried. "This year it will be two hundred years old.
We'll give an historic pageant--the Growth of Civilization in
Granville."
"It sounds expensive," objected Mr. Pottle.
"Don't be sordid, Ambrose," said his wife.
"I'm not sordid, Blossom," he returned. "I'm a practical man. I know
these kermesses and feats. My cousin Julia Onderdonk got up a pageant in
Peoria once and now she hasn't a friend in the place. Besides it only
netted fourteen dollars for the Bide-a-wee Home. Now, honey, why not
give a good, old-fashioned chicken supper in the church hall, with
perhaps a minstrel show afterward? That would get my money----"
"Chicken supper! Minstrel show! Oh, Ambrose." His wife's snort was the
acme of refinement. "Have you no soul? This pageant will be an inspiring
thing. It will make for, I might almost say militate for, a community
spirit. Other communities give pageant after pageant. Shall Granville
lag behind? Here is a chance for a real community get-together. Here is
a chance to give our young people the wonderful history of their native
town----"
"And also a chance for all the Gulick tribe to parade around in colonial
clothes with spinning wheels under their arms," put in Mr. Pottle.
"I'm afraid we can't avoid that," admitted his wife, ruefully. "After
all, they are our oldest family."
She meditated.
"I suppose," she mused, "that Mrs. P. Bradley Gulick would have to be
the Spirit of Progress----"
"Progress shouldn't be fat and wall-eyed," interposed Mr. Pottle. She
ignored this.
"And I suppose that odious freckled daughter of hers would have to be
the Spirit of Liberty or Civilization or something important, and I
suppose that pompous Mr. Gulick would have to be the Pioneer
Spirit--still, I think it could be managed. Now, you, Ambrose, can
be----"
"I don't want to be the spirit of anything," he declared. "Count me out,
Blossom."
Mrs. Pottle assumed a hurt pout.
"For my sake?" she said.
"I'm no actor," he stated.
"Oh, I don't want you to act," she said. "You're to be treasurer."
He wrinkled up his nose and brow into a frown.
"The dirty work," he exclaimed. "That's the way the world over. Us
Pottles do the dirty work and the Gulicks get the glory. No, Blossom,
no, no, no."
An appealing tear, and another, stole down her pink cheek.
"Mr. Gallup wouldn't have treated me that way," she said. Mr. Gallup had
been her first husband.
Mr. Pottle knew resistance was futile.
"Oh, all right. I'll be treasurer."