JONESY'S BENEFIT.
The Jonesy Benefit grew like Jack's bean-stalk after Miss Allison took
charge of it. There was less than a week in which to get ready, as the
boys insisted on having it on the twenty-second of February, in honour
of Washington's birthday; but in that short time the childish show which
Ginger had proposed grew into an entertainment so beautiful and
elaborate that the neighbourhood talked of it for weeks after.
Miss Allison spent one sleepless night, planning her campaign like a
general, and next morning had an army of helpers at work. Before the day
was over she sent a letter to an old school friend of hers in the city,
Miss Eleanor Bond, who had been her most intimate companion all through
her school-days, and who still spent a part of every summer with her.
"Dearest Nell," the letter said, "come out to-morrow on the first
afternoon train, if you love me. The children are getting up an
entertainment for charity, which shall be duly explained on your
arrival. No time now. I am superintending a force of carpenters in the
college hall, where the entertainment is to take place, have two
seamstresses in the house hurrying up costumes, and am helping mother
scour the country for pretty children to put in the tableaux.
"The house is like an ant-hill in commotion, there is so much scurrying
around; but I know that is what you thoroughly enjoy. You shall have a
finger in every pie if you will come out and help me to make this a
never-to-be-forgotten occasion.
"I want to make the old days of chivalry live again for Virginia and
Malcolm and Keith. I am going back to King Arthur's Court for the flower
of knighthood at his round table. Come and read for us between tableaux
as only you can do. Be the interpreter of 'Sir Launfal's Vision' and the
'Idylls of the King,' Give us the benefit of your talent for sweet
charity's sake, if not for the sake of 'auld lang syne' and your
devoted ALLISON."
"She'll be here," said Miss Allison, as she sealed the letter,
nodding confidently to Mrs. Sherman, who had come over to help with
Lloyd's costume. "You remember Nell Bond, do you not? She took the
prize every year in elocution, and was always in demand at every
entertainment. She is the most charming reader I ever heard, and as for
story-telling--well, she's better than the 'Arabian Nights.' You must
let the Little Colonel come over every evening while she is here."
Miss Bond arrived the next day, and her visit was a time of continual
delight to the children. They followed her wherever she went, until Mrs.
Maclntyre laughingly called her the 'Pied Piper of Hamelin,' and asked
what she had done to bewitch them.
The first night they gathered around the library-table, all as busy as
bees. Keith and the Little Colonel were cutting tinsel into various
lengths for Virginia to tie into fringe for a gay banner. Malcolm was
gilding some old spurs, Mrs. Maclntyre sat stringing yards of wax beads,
that gleamed softly in the lamplight like great rope of pearls, and Mrs.
Sherman was painting the posters, which were to be put up in the
post-office and depot as advertisements of the Jonesy Benefit.
Miss Allison, who had been busy for hours with pasteboard and glue,
tin-foil and scissors, held up the suit of mail which she had
just finished.
"Isn't that fine!" cried Malcolm. "It looks exactly like some of the
armour we saw in the Tower of London, doesn't it, Keith?"
"I've thought of a riddle!" exclaimed Virginia. "Why is Aunt Allison's
head like Aladdin's lamp?"
"'Cause it's so bright?" ventured Malcolm.
"No; because she has only to rub it, and everything she thinks of
appears. I don't see how it is possible to make so many beautiful things
out of almost nothing."
Virginia looked admiringly around at all the pretty articles scattered
over the room. A helmet with nodding white plumes lay on the piano. A
queen's robe trailed its royal ermine beside it. A sword with a jewelled
hilt shone on the mantel, and a dozen dazzling shields were ranged in
various places on the low bookshelves.
It was easy, in the midst of such surroundings, for the children to
imagine themselves back in the days of King Arthur and his court, while
Miss Bond sat there telling them such beautiful tales of its fair ladies
and noble knights. Indeed, before the day of the entertainment came
around they even found themselves talking to each other in the quaint
speech of that olden time.
When Malcolm accidentally ran against his grandmother in the hall,
instead of his usual, "Oh, excuse me, grandmother," it was "Prithee
grant me gracious pardon, fair dame. Not for a king's ransom would I
have thus jostled thee in such unseemly haste!" And Ginger, instead of
giving Keith a slap when he teasingly penned her up in a corner, to make
her divide some nuts with him, said, in a most tragic way, "Unhand me,
villain, or by my troth thou'lt rue this ruffian conduct sore!"
The library-table was strewn with books of old court life, and pictures
of kings and queens whose costumes were to be copied in the tableaux.
There was one book which Keith carried around with him until he had
spelled out the whole beautiful tale. It was called "In Kings' Houses,"
and was the story of the little Duke of Gloster who was made a knight
in his boyhood. And when Keith had read it himself, he took it down to
the professor's, and read it all over again to Jonesy.
[Illustration: "THERE WAS ONE BOOK WHICH KEITH CARRIED AROUND WITH
HIM."]
"Think how grand he must have looked, Jonesy," cried Keith, "and I am to
be dressed exactly like him when I am knighted in the tableau." Then he
read the description again:
"'A suit of white velvet embroidered with seed pearls, and literally
blazing with jewels,--even the buttons being great brilliants. From his
shoulder hung a cloak of azure blue velvet, the colour of the order,
richly wrought with gold; and around his neck he wore the magnificent
collar and jewel of St. George and the Dragon, that was the personal
gift of his Majesty, the king.'
"Think how splendid it must have been, Jonesy, when the procession came
in to the music of trumpets and bugles and silver flutes and hautboys!
Wouldn't you like to have seen the heralds marching by, two by two, in
cloth of gold, with an escort of the queen's guard following? All of
England's best and bravest were there, and they sat in the carven stalls
in St. George's Chapel, with their gorgeous banners drooping over them.
I saw that chapel, Jonesy, when we were in England, and I saw where the
knights kept the 'vigil of arms' in the holy places, the night before
they took their vows." He picked up the book and read again: "'Fasting
and praying and lonely watching by night in the great abbey where there
are so many dead folk.'
"Oh, don't you wish you could have lived in those days, Jonesy, and have
been a knight?"
It was all Greek to Jonesy. The terms puzzled him, but he enjoyed
Keith's description of the tournaments.
Several evenings after that, Keith went down to the cottage dressed in
the beautiful velvet costume of white and blue, ablaze with rhinestones
and glittering jewels. He had been wrapped in his Aunt Allison's golf
cape, and, as he threw it off, Jonesy's eyes opened wider and wider
with wonder.
"Hi! You look like a whole jeweller's window!" he cried, dazzled by the
gorgeous sight. The professor lighted another lamp, and Keith turned
slowly around, to be admired on every side like a pleased peacock.
"Of course it's all only imitation," he explained, "but it will look
just as good as the real thing behind the footlights. But you ought to
see the stage when it's fixed up to look like the Hall of the Shields,
if you want to see glitter. It's be-_yu_-tiful! Like the one at Camelot,
you know."
But Jonesy did not know, and Keith had to tell about that old castle at
Camelot, as Miss Bond had told him. How that down the side of the long
hall ran a treble range of shields,--
"And under every shield a knight was named,
For such was Arthur's custom in his hall.
When some good knight had done one noble deed
His arms were carven only, but if twain
His arms were blazoned also, but if none
The shield was blank and bare, without a sign,
Saving the name beneath."
Keith had been greatly interested in watching the carpenters fix the
stage so that it could be made to look like the Hall of the Shields in a
very few moments, when the time for that tableau should come. He knew
where every glittering shield was to hang, and every banner and
battle-axe.
"How do you suppose those knights felt," he said to Jonesy, "who saw
their shields hanging there year after year, blank and bare, because
they had never done even one noble deed? They must have been dreadfully
ashamed when the king walked by and read their names underneath, and
then looked up at the shields and saw nothing emblazoned on them or even
carved. Seems to me that I would have done something to have made me
worthy of that honour if I had _died_ for it!"
Something,--it may have been the soft, rich colour of the
jewel-broidered velvet the boy wore, or maybe the flush that rose to his
cheeks at the thrill of such noble thoughts,--something had brought an
unusual beauty into his face. As he stood there, with head held high,
his dark eyes flashing, his face glowing, and in that princely dress of
a bygone day, he looked every inch a nobleman. There was something so
pure and sweet, too, in the expression of his upturned face that the
light upon it seemed to touch it into an almost unearthly fairness.
The professor, who had been watching him with a tender smile on his
rugged old face, drew the child toward him, and brushed the hair back
on his forehead.
"Ach, liebchen," he said, in his queer broken speech, "thy shield will
never be blank and bare. Already thou hast blazoned it with the beauty
of a noble purpose, and like Galahad, thou too shalt find the Grail."
It was Keith's turn to be puzzled, but he did not like to ask for an
explanation; there was something so solemn in the way the old man put
his hand on his head as he spoke, almost as if he were bestowing a
blessing. Besides, it was time to go to the rehearsal at the college.
One of the servants had come to stay with Jonesy while the professor
went over to practise on his violin. He was to play behind the scenes, a
soft, low accompaniment to Miss Bond's reading.
By eight o'clock, the night of the Benefit, every seat in the house was
full. "That's jolly for Jonesy," exclaimed Malcolm, peeping out from
behind the curtain. "We counted up that ten cents a ticket would make
enough, if they were all sold, to pay his board till papa comes home,
and buy him all the new clothes he needs, too. Now every ticket
is sold."
"Hurry up, Malcolm," called Keith. "We are first on the programme, and
it is time to begin."
There was a great bustle behind the scenes for a few minutes, and then
"Beauty and the Beast" was announced. When the Little Colonel came on
the stage leading the great bear, such a cheering and clapping began
that they both looked around, half frightened; but the boys followed
immediately and the Little Colonel, dressed as a flower girl, danced out
to meet Keith, who came in clicking his castanets in time to Malcolm's
whistling. The bear was made to go through all his tricks and his
soldier drill.
The children in the audience stood on tiptoe in their eagerness to see
the great animal perform, and were so wild in their applause that the
boys begged to be allowed to take it in front of the curtain every time
during the evening when there was a long pause while some tableau was
being prepared.
Over the rustle of fluttering programmes and the hum of conversation
that followed the first number, there fell presently the soft, sweet
notes of the professor's violin, and Miss Bond's musical voice began the
story of the Vision of Sir Launfal.
"My golden spurs now bring to me,
And bring to me my richest mail,
For to-morrow I go over land and sea
In search of the Holy Grail."
Here the curtains were drawn apart to show Malcolm seated on his pony as
Sir Launfal, "in his gilded mail that flamed so bright." It was really
a beautiful picture he made, and his grandmother, leaning forward, her
face beaming with pride at the boy's noble bearing, compared him with
Arthur himself, "with lance in rest, from spur to plume a star of
tournament,"
The next tableau showed him spurning the leper at his gate, and turning
away in disgust from the beggar who "seemed the one blot on the summer
morn." How Miss Bond's voice rang out when "the leper raised not the
gold from the dust."
"Better to me the poor man's crust.
That is no true alms which the hand can hold.
He gives nothing but worthless gold
Who gives from a sense of duty."
In the next tableau it was "as an old bent man, worn-out and frail,"
that Sir Launfal came back from his weary pilgrimage. He had not found
the Holy Grail, but through his own sufferings he had learned pity for
all pain and poverty. Once more he stood beside the leper at his castle
gate, but this time he stooped to share with him his crust and wooden
bowl of water.
Then it happened on the stage just as was told in the poem.
A light shone round about the place, and the crouching leper stood up.
The old ragged mantle dropped off, and there in a long garment almost
dazzling in its whiteness, stood a figure--
"Shining and tall, and fair, and straight
As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful gate."
They could not see the face, it was turned aside; but the golden hair
was like a glory, and the uplifted arms held something high in air that
gleamed like a burnished star, as all the lights in the room were turned
full upon it, for a little space. It was a golden cup. Then the
voice again:
"In many climes without avail
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail.
Behold it is here--this cup, which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now.
The holy supper is kept indeed
In whatso we share with another's need."
It was an old story to most of the audience, worn threadbare by many
readings, but with these living illustrations, and Miss Bond's
wonderful way of telling it, a new meaning crept into the well-known
lines, that thrilled every listener.
"Could you understand that, Teddy?" asked old Judge Fairfax, patting his
little grandson on the head.
"Course!" exclaimed seven-year-old Ted, who had followed his sister
Sally to every rehearsal.
"When you give money to people just to get rid of 'em, and because you
feel you'd ought to, it doesn't count for anything. But if you divide
something you've got, and would like to keep it all yourself, because
you love to, and are sorry for 'em, then it counts a pile. Sir Launfal
would have popped Jonesy into a 'sylum when he first started out to find
that gold cup, but when he came back he'd 'a' worked like a horse
getting up a benefit for him, and would have divided his own home with
him, if he hadn't been living at his grandmother's, and couldn't."
An amused smile went around that part of the audience which overheard
Ted's shrilly given explanation.
Pictures from the "Idylls of the King" followed in rapid succession,
and then came the prettiest of all, being the one in which Keith was
made a knight. Virginia as queen, her short black hair covered by a
powdered wig, and a long court-train sweeping behind her, stood touching
his shoulder with the jewel-hilted sword, as he knelt at her feet. Lloyd
and Sally Fairfax, Julia Ferris, and a dozen other pretty girls of the
neighbourhood, helped to fill out the gay court scene, while all the
boys that could be persuaded to take part were dressed up for heralds,
guardsmen, pages, and knights. That tableau had to be shown four times,
and then the audience kept on applauding as if they never intended
to stop.
The last one in this series of tableaux was the Hall of the Shields, as
Keith had described it to Jonesy. A whole row of dazzling shields hung
across the back of the stage, emblazoned with the arms of all the old
knights whose names have come down to us in song or story. Then for the
first time that evening Miss Bond came out on the stage where she could
be seen, and told the story of the death of King Arthur, and the passing
away of the order of the Round Table. She told it so well that little
Ted Fairfax listened with his mouth open, seeming to see the great arm
that rose out of the water to take back the king's sword into the sea,
from which it had been given him. An arm like a giant's, "clothed in
white samite, mystic, wonderful, that caught the sword by the hilt,
flourished it three times, and drew it under the mere."
"True, 'the old order changeth,'" said Miss Bond, "but knighthood has
_not_ passed away. The flower of chivalry has blossomed anew in this new
world, and America, too, has her Hall of the Shields."
Just a moment the curtains were drawn together, and then were widely
parted again, as a chorus of voices rang out with the words:
"Hail, Columbia, happy land;
Hail, ye heroes, heaven-born band!"
In that moment, on every shield had been hung the pictured face of some
well-known man who had helped to make his country a power among the
nations; presidents, patriots, philanthropists, statesmen, inventors,
and poets,--there they were, from army and navy, city and farm, college
halls and humble cabins,--a long, long line, and the first was
Washington, and the last was the "Hero of Manila."
Cheer after cheer went up, and it might have been well to have ended the
programme there, but to satisfy the military-loving little Ginger, one
more was added.
"There ought to be a Goddess of Liberty in it," she insisted, "because
it is Washington's birthday; and if we had been doing it by ourselves we
were going to have something in it about Cuba, on papa's account."
So when the curtain rose the last time, it was on Sally Fairfax as a
gorgeous Goddess of Liberty, conferring knighthood on two boys who stood
for the Army and Navy, while a little dark-eyed girl knelt at their feet
as Cuba, the distressed maiden whom their chivalry had rescued.
It was late when the performance closed; later still when the children
reached home that night, for Mrs. MacIntyre had determined to have a
flash-light picture taken of them, and they had to wait until the
photographer could send home for his camera.
After they reached the house they could hardly be persuaded to undress.
Virginia trailed up and down the halls in her royal robes, Malcolm
clanked around in his suit of mail and plumed helmet, and Keith stood
before a mirror, admiring the handsome little figure it showed him.
"I hate to take it off," he said, fingering the dazzling collar, ablaze
with jewels. "I'd like to be a knight always, and wear a sword and spurs
every day."
"So would I," said Malcolm, beginning to yawn sleepily. "I wish that
Jonesy had been well enough to go to-night. Isn't it splendid that the
Benefit turned out so well? Aunt Allison says there is plenty of money
now to get Jonesy's clothes and pay his board till papa comes, and send
him back to Barney, too, if papa thinks best and hasn't any
better plan."
"I wish there'd been enough money to buy a nice little home out here in
the country for him and Barney. Wouldn't it have been lovely if there
had a-been?" cried Keith.
"Well, I should say!" answered Malcolm. "Maybe we can have another
benefit some day and make enough for that."
With this pleasant prospect before them, they laid aside their knightly
garments, hoping to put them on again soon in Jonesy's behalf, and
talked about the home that might be his some day, until they
fell asleep.
* * * * *
The flash-light pictures of the three children were all that the fondest
grandmother could wish. As soon as they came, Keith carried his away to
his room to admire in private. "It is so pretty that it doesn't seem it
can be me," he said, propping it up on the desk before him. "I wish that
I could look that way always."
The next time that Miss Allison went into the room she found that Keith
had written under it in his round, boyish hand, a quotation that had
taken his fancy the first time he heard it. It was in one of Miss Bond's
stories, and he repeated it until he learned it: "_Live pure,_ _speak
truth, right the wrong, follow the king; else wherefore born?_"
She asked him about it at bedtime. "Why, that's our motto," he
explained. "Malcolm has it written under his, too. We've made up our
minds to be a sort of knight, just as near the real thing as we can, you
know, and that is what knights have to do: live pure, and speak truth,
and right the wrong. We've always tried to do the first two, so that
won't be so hard. It's righting the wrong that will be the tough job,
but we have done it a little teenty, weenty bit for Jonesy, don't you
think, auntie? It was all wrong that he should have such a hard time and
be sent to an asylum away from Barney, when we have you all and
everything nice. Malcolm and I have been talking it over. If we could do
something to keep him from growing up into a tramp like that awful man
that brought him here, wouldn't that be as good a deed as some that the
real knights did? Wouldn't that be serving our country, too, Aunt
Allison, just a little speck?" He asked the question anxiously. Malcolm
said nothing, but also waited with a wistful look for her answer.
"My dear little Sir Galahads," she said, bending over to give each of
the boys a good-night kiss, "you will be 'really truly' knights if you
can live up to the motto you have chosen. Heaven help you to be always
as worthy of that title as you are to-night!"
Keith held her a moment, with both arms around her neck. "What does that
mean, auntie?" he asked. "That is what the professor said,
too,--Galahad."
"It is too late to explain to you to-night," she said, "but I will tell
you sometime soon, dear."
It was several days before she reminded them of that promise. Then she
called them into her room and told them the story of Sir Galahad, the
maiden knight, whose "strength was as the strength of ten because his
heart was pure." Then from a little morocco case, lined with purple
velvet, she took two pins that she had bought in the city that morning.
Each was a little white enamel flower with a tiny diamond in the centre,
like a drop of dew.
"You can't wear armour in these days," she said, as she fastened one on
the lapel of each boy's coat, "but this shall be the badge of your
knighthood,--'wearing the white flower of a blameless life.' The little
pins will help you to remember, maybe, and will remind you that you are
pledged to right the wrong wherever you find it, in little things as
well as great."
It was a very earnest talk that followed. The boys came out from her
room afterward, wearing the tiny white pins, and with a sweet
seriousness in their faces. A noble purpose had been born in their
hearts; but alas for chivalry! the first thing they did was to taunt
Virginia with the fact that she could never be a knight because she was
only a girl.
"I don't care," retorted Ginger, quickly. "I can be a--a--_patriot_,
anyhow, and that's lots better."
The boys laughed, and she flushed angrily.
"They ought to mean the same thing exactly in this day of the world,"
said Miss Allison, coming up in time to hear the dispute that followed.
"Virginia, you shall have a badge, too. Run into my room and bring me
that little jewelled flag on my cushion."
"I think that this is the very prettiest piece of jewelry you have,"
exclaimed Virginia, coming back with the pin. It was a little flag
whose red, white, and blue was made of tiny settings of garnets,
sapphires, and diamonds.
"You think that, because it is in the shape of a flag," said Miss
Allison, with an amused smile. "Well, it shall be yours. See how well it
can remind you of the boys' knightly motto. There is the white for the
first part, the 'live pure,' and the 'true blue' for the 'speak truth,'
and then the red,--surely no soldier's little daughter needs to be told
what that stands for, when her own brave father has spilled part of his
good red life-blood to 'right the wrong' on the field of battle."
"Oh, Aunt Allison!" was all that Virginia could gasp in her delight as
she clasped the precious pin tightly in her hand. "Is it mine? For my
very own?"
"For your very own, dear," was the answer.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Virginia, thanking her with a kiss. "I'd a
thousand times rather have it than one like the boys'. It means so
much more!"