THE FEMALE DELEGATION
THERE was no question--Susan Barrows inspired and headed the female
delegation which early the next morning sallied forth to the district
schoolhouse to call on Miss Dunham. Also, there was no doubt in the
minds of any of its members before their call was made that the Yankee
teacher would hastily retreat as soon as she understood that the ladies
of Pennyroyal did not desire her presence among them and, furthermore,
would not have it. However, of the result of their visit no one was
informed during the ensuing hours of that day.
It was evening, before dark and yet some little time after supper, when
Ambrose, ruminating on his back kitchen steps and worrying over the
present situation, heard a noise of pots and pans that sounded like a
skirmish of light artillery proceeding from his neighbour's house next
door. So purposely assuming the expression of innocent solemnity that
seemed most to inflame Mrs. Susan, he cautiously stepped across from his
back yard to hers. On the door stoop he discovered Susan Jr., who, as
the occupant of a hard chair, had both white stockinged legs stuck
rebelliously out before her and, resting on her spinal column, held
"Fox's Book of Martyrs" open in her lap. However, she was _not_ reading
it.
Sensing his approach before ever he could speak, Mrs. Barrows made an
immediate appearance. She had a saucepan in her hand and her black eyes
were wary. They were well matched adversaries, she and Ambrose, and,
although already understanding perfectly the object of his visit, some
time must pass before the one or the other could be forced into a
surrender.
"Raisin' children is killin' work, Ambrose," Susan began at once,
darting a direful glance at her offspring.
And Ambrose's voice was honey: "Most anythin's killin' work, ain't it,
Susan?" he returned, depositing himself on the floor of her stoop so
that his long legs overhung the side allowing his feet to touch the
ground. "I've heard of folks lyin' in bed and doin' nothin' but singin'
psa'ms continuous, and yet comin' to the same end."
"It's a lot peacefuller way." Mrs. Barrows' interest was now so plainly
concentrated within her saucepan, whirling a kitchen towel around and
around in it until its revolutions were fairly dizzying, that nothing
could seem more remote from the remarks and behaviour of herself and her
neighbour than any introduction of the subject uppermost in both their
minds.
However, Susan Jr. did not belong to that noble army whose lives were at
the present instant recorded in her lap, for, shutting up "The Book of
Martyrs," she sniffed:
"I didn't do nothin' but laugh and tell the female delegation about the
King with his ten thousand men who marched up a hill and then marched
down again," she explained.
And in the face of this information what was the use of either Mrs.
Barrows or Ambrose trying further to avoid the issue? The time had come
for a voluntary surrender.
"She won't go, or at least she says she won't, though there ain't no
use in me tellin' you, Ambrose, bein's as from Susan Jr.'s words you've
already guessed," Susan struck in. "But when we ladies got out to the
district school this mornin' in the bilin' sun, what do you think, that
girl came a-runnin' out to meet us a-wavin' her hand and smilin' and
pretendin' she believed we'd come to welcome her to 'Pennyrile.' And
then before any of us ladies could speak and tell her our errand, why,
she began showin' us around the old school-house and sayin' she knew we
would understand, 'cause we were women too, how hard things would be for
her if we didn't help her, until most of the delegates either plumb
forgot the reason of our visitation or else was too skeered to speak up.
It wasn't so with me!"
Susan paused for a reply, but her neighbour continued his unusual
silence, the while pensively engaged in studying the toe of his boot.
Coming farther out on to her porch, Mrs. Barrows' belligerent black
curls fluttered like a war banner in the breeze.
"Course we women knowed you men tried to make this Miss Em'ly Dunham go,
and she wouldn't, but women ain't so easy turned from things they sets
out to do. So I told her we didn't want no Yankee school teacher in our
district, that we were talkin' things over and meant to get some one to
teach our little darkies ourselves. And that our intention in comin'
forth to see her had not been to say howdy, but good-bye."
Here the joy of battle, even though it had resulted in defeat, actually
spread a retrospective glow over the mind of the speaker, for, with her
saucepan resting on her one hip and her dishcloth on the other, she was
forgetting her work in the glory of narration.
"What do you think that girl done when I said them last words to her,
Ambrose? She put her head down on the doctor's wife's bosom, bein's as
she had more'n the rest of us, and actually shed tears, said she thought
that the war was over, and wouldn't we let her stay on for a time until
mebbe we'd like her better. And at this the ladies was so outdone they
kind of scurried off without gettin' down to anything definite. But I
fixed up matters on the way home. I told 'em that if Miss Dunham
wouldn't go polite fer the askin', why, 'Pennyrile' could try and see
what freezin' out would do, so there ain't a single woman or girl in
this here town goin' to exchange the time of day with that girl, ask her
to come in and set fer a spell or even bow to her on the street."
Still Ambrose remained silent. He knew that Mrs. Barrows was not unkind,
but that she loved a fight for its own dramatic sake, and yet what could
he do or say to her now that would not by the very force of opposition
make things worse for Miner's romance?
Susan was growing restless, for she was missing the clash of steel that
usually came from the striking of her neighbour's against hers.
"One of the ladies said we was boycottin'," she concluded, showing plain
evidences of her wish to retire into her own home for the night; "seemed
kind of foolish to me, bein's as there ain't so much as a boy in it."
Perforce Ambrose had now to withdraw. And yet he said nothing, although
as he moved slowly across her side yard Susan thought she heard him
mutter: "I was a stranger and you took me in."
Sternly then she ordered her offspring to bed, but, before following
her, lingered until the last vestige of her visitor's coat-tail had
disappeared, when in feminine fashion she had the final words:
"I reckon it's a good thing we ain't all took in so easy as Ambrose
Thompson."