"It's not decent," objected Mr. Pottle fervidly. "How can I keep the
respect of the community if I go round like this?"
He indicated his pink knees, which blushed like spring rosebuds beneath
a somewhat nebulous toga of cheese-cloth.
"If I can't wear pants, I don't want to be the Spirit of History," he
added.
"For the fifth and last time," said the tired and harassed voice of Mrs.
Pottle, "you cannot wear pants. Spirits never do. That settles it. Not
another word, Ambrose. Haven't I trouble enough without my own husband
adding to it?"
She pressed her brow as if it ached. Piles of costumes, mostly tinsel
and cheese-cloth, shields, tomahawks, bridles and bits of scenery were
strewn about the Pottle parlor. She sank into a Morris chair, and
stitched fiercely at an angel's wing. Her eyes were the eyes of one at
bay.
"It's been one thing after another," she declaimed. "Those Gulicks are
making my life miserable. And just now I had a note from Etta Runkle's
mother saying that if in the Masque of the Fruits and Flowers of Botts
County her little Etta has to be an onion while little Gertrude Crump is
a violet, she won't lend us that white horse for the Paul Revere's Ride
Scene. So I had to make that hateful stupid child of hers a violet and
change Gertrude Crump to an onion and now Mrs. Crump is mad and won't
let any of her children appear in the pageant."
"Well," remarked Mr. Pottle, "I don't see why you had to have Paul
Revere's Ride anyhow. He didn't ride all the way out here to Ohio, did
he?"
"I know he didn't," she replied, tartly, "I didn't want to put him in.
But Mrs. Gulick insisted. She said it was her ancestor, Elijah Gulick,
who lent Paul Revere the horse. That's why I have to have Paul Revere
stop in the middle of his ride and say,
"_Gallant stallion, swift and noble,
Lent me by my good friend Gulick,
Patriot, scholar, king of horsemen,
Speed ye, speed ye, speed ye onward!_"
Mr. Pottle groaned.
"Is there anything in American history the Gulicks didn't have a hand
in?" he asked. "But say, Blossom, that horse of the Runkle's is no
gallant stallion. She's the one Matt Runkle uses on his milk route.
Every one in town knows Agnes."
"I can't help it," said Mrs. Pottle wearily. "Wendell Gulick, Jr., who
plays Paul Revere, insisted on having a white horse, and Agnes was the
only one I could get."
"They're the insistingest people I ever knew," observed Mr. Pottle.
His wife gave out the saddest sound in the world, the short sob of
thwarted authorship.
"They've just about ruined my pageant," she said. "Mrs. Gulick insisted
on having that battle between the settlers and the Indians just because
a great, great uncle of hers was in it. I didn't want anything rough
like that in my pageant. Besides it happened in the next county, and the
true facts are that the Indians chased the settlers fourteen miles, and
scalped three of them. Of course it wouldn't do to show a Gulick running
from an Indian, so she insisted that I change history around and make
the settlers win the battle. None of the nice young men were willing to
be Indians and be chased, so I had to hire a tough young fellow named
Brannigan--I believe they call him 'Beansy'--and nine other young
fellows from the horseshoe works to play Indian at fifty cents apiece."
Mr. Pottle looked anxious.
"I know that Beansy Brannigan," he said. "How is that gang behaving?"
"Oh, pretty well. But ten Indians at fifty cents an Indian is five
dollars, and we c-can't afford it."
She was tearful again.
"Already the costumes have cost four hundred dollars and more. We'll be
lucky to make expenses if the Gulicks keep on putting in expensive
scenes," she moaned.
She busied herself with the angel's wing, then paused to ask, "Ambrose,
have you learned your historical epilogue?"
For answer he sprang to his feet, wrapped his cheese-cloth toga about
him, struck a Ciceronian attitude, and said loudly:
"_Who am I, oh list'ning peoples?
His'try's spirit, stern and truthful!
Come I here to tell you fully,
Of our Granville's thrilling story,
How Saul and other noble Gulicks,
And a few who shall be nameless,
Hewed a city from the forests,
Blazed the way for civ'lization._"
"Stop," cried Mrs. Pottle. "I can't bear to hear another word about
those Gulicks. You know it well enough."
"There are a few things I wish I could have put in," remarked Mr.
Pottle, wistfully.
His tone made her look up with quick interest.
"What do you mean?" she inquired.
"Oh, I found out a thing or two," he replied, "when I was down at the
capital last week. I happened to drop into the state historical
society's library and run over some old records."
He chuckled.
"P. Bradley Gulick told me I didn't have to go down there to get the
facts. He'd give them to me, he said. So he did. Some of them."
"Ambrose, what do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing. All I will say is this: I'm a patient man and can be
pestered a lot, but just let one of these Gulicks pester me a little too
much one of these days, and I'll rear up on my hind legs, that's all."
There was a glint in his eye, and she saw it.
"Ambrose," she said, "if you do anything to spoil my pageant, I'll never
forgive you."
He snorted.
"Your pageant? It's just as I said it would be. We Pottles will do the
dirty work and the Gulicks will grab the glory. They've behaved so
piggish that everybody in town is sore at them, and I don't see how the
pageant is going to come out on top. You'd probably have gotten that
thousand from old Felix Winterbottom if it hadn't been for them. Then
you wouldn't have to be losing a pound a day over this pageant. Now if
you'd only gotten up a nice old-fashioned chicken supper, and a minstrel
show----"
"Ambrose! Go put on your trousers!"