COUSIN ROXY’S “SOCIAL”
The night of the entertainment down at the Town Hall finally arrived.
Doris said it was one of the specially nice things about Gilead, things
really did happen if you just waited long enough. There was not room
enough for all the family in the buggy or democrat with only one horse,
so the Judge sent Ben down to drive Mrs. Gorham over and the two
youngest. Shad took the rest with Princess. All along the road they met
teams coming from various side roads, and the occupants sent out
friendly hails as they passed. It was too dark to recognize faces, but
Kit seemed to know the voices.
“That’s Sally Peckham and her father,” she said. “And Billy’s on the
back seat with the boys. I heard him laugh. There’s Abby Tucker and her
father. I hope her shoes won’t pinch her the way they did at our lawn
party last year. And Astrid and Ingeborg from the old Ames place on the
hill. Hello, girls! And that last one is Mr. Ricketts and his family.”
“Goodness, Kit,” Jean cried. “You’re getting to be just like Cousin Roxy
on family history. I could never remember them all if I lived out here a
thousand years.”
“‘An I should live a thousand years, I ne’er should forget it,’” chanted
Kit, gaily. “Oh, I do hope there’ll be music tonight. Cousin Roxy says
she’s tried to hire some splendid old fellow, Cady Graves. Isn’t that a
queer name for a fiddler? He’s very peculiar, she says, but he calls out
wonderfully. He’s got his own burial plot all picked out and his
tombstone erected with his name and date of birth on it, and all the
decorations he likes best. Cousin Roxy says it’s square, and on one side
he’s got his pet cow sculptured with the record of milk it gave, and on
the other is his own face in bas relief.”
“It’s original anyway,” said Jean. “I suppose there is a lot of
satisfaction in fixing up your own last resting place the way you want
it to be.”
“Yes, but after he’d sat for the bas relief, there it was with a full
beard, and now he’s clean shaven, and Cousin Roxy says if he didn’t get
the stone cutter over to give the bas relief a shave too.”
Down Huckleberry Hill they drove with all its hollows and bumps and
“thank-ye-ma’ams.” These were the curved rises where the road ran over a
hidden culvert. Gilead Center lay in a valley, a scattered lot of white
houses set back from the road in gardens with the little church, country
store and Town Hall in the middle of it. The carriage sheds were already
filled with teams, so the horses were blanketed and left hitched outside
with a lot of others. Inside, the little hall was filled with people,
the boys perched up on the windowsills where they could get a good view
of the long curtained-off platform that was used as a stage.
Cousin Roxy was busy at her end of the room, preparing the supper behind
a partition, with Mrs. Peckham and Mrs. Gorham to help. Around the two
great drum stoves clustered the men and older boys, and the Judge seemed
to loom quite naturally above these as leader. Savory odors came from
the corner, and stray tuning up sounds from another corner, where Mr.
Graves sat, the center of an admiring group of youngsters. Flags were
draped and crossed over doorways and windows, and bunting festooned over
the top of the stage.
Jean took charge behind the curtain, getting the children ready for
their different parts in the tableaux. Then she went down to the old
tinkling, yellow keyed piano and everybody stood up to sing “My Country,
’Tis of Thee.”
“Land alive, it does grip the heartstrings, doesn’t it?” Cousin Roxy
exclaimed, once that was over. “I often wish I’d done something in my
life to give folks a happy holiday every time my birthday came ’round.”
Then the Judge rose and took the platform, so tall that his head just
missed the red, white and blue bunting overhead. And he spoke of Lincoln
until it seemed as if even the smallest children in the front rows must
have seen and known him too. Jean and Kit always enjoyed one of the
Judge’s speeches, not so much for what he said, as for the pleasure of
watching Cousin Roxy’s face. She sat on the end of a seat towards the
back now, all in her favorite gray silk, her spectacles half way down
her nose, her face upraised and smiling as she watched her sweetheart
deliver his speech.
“When you look at her you know what it means in the Bible by people’s
faces shining, don’t you?” whispered Kit, as the Judge finished in a
pounding applause in which hands, feet and chair legs all played their
part.
Next came the tableaux amid much excitement both before the curtain and
behind. First of all the curtain was an erratic and whimsical affair,
not to be relied on with a one-man power, so two of the older boys
volunteered to stand at either end and assist it to rise and fall at the
proper time in case it should fail to respond to the efforts of the
official curtain raiser, Freddie Herrick. But Fred’s mind was on the
next ten minutes when he was to portray the twelve-year-old schoolboy
Abe, and the crank failed to work, so the curtain went up with the
pulley lines instead, and showed the interior of the little cabin with
Dug Moffat industriously learning to read at Jean’s knee. And a very
fair, young Nancy she made too, with her dark hair arranged by Cousin
Roxy in puffs over her ears, and the plain stuff gown with its white
kerchief crossed in front. On the wall were stretched ’possum and
squirrel pelts, and an old spinning wheel stood beside the fireplace.
“You looked dear, Jean,” Helen whispered when the curtain fell. “Your
eyes were just like Mother’s. Is my hair all right?”
Jean gave it a few last touches, and then hurried to help with the music
that went in between the scenes. The school room scene was a great
success. Benches and an old desk made a good showing, with some old maps
hung around, and a resurrected ancient globe of the Judge’s.
Mr. Ricketts appeared in all his glory, with stock, skirted coat, and
tight trousers. And Fred, lean and lanky, his black forelock dangling
over his eyes as he bent over his books, made a dandy schoolboy Lincoln.
So they went on, each picture showing some phase in the life of the
Liberator. But the hit of the evening was Doris pleading for the life of
her sentinel brother. She had said she would surely cry real tears, and
she did. Kneeling beside the tall figure of the President, her little
old red fringed shawl around her, she did look so woe begone and
pathetic that Cousin Roxy said softly,
“Land sakes, how the child does take it to heart.”
Last of all came the tableau of the North and South being reunited by
Columbia, and Kit looked very stern and judicial as she joined their
reluctant hands, and gave the South back her red, white and blue banner.
It was all surprisingly good considering how few things they had had to
do with in the way of properties and scenery, but Cousin Roxy sprang a
last surprise before the dancing began. Up on the platform walked three
old men, Philly Weaver first, in his veteran suit, old Grandpa Bide
Tucker, Abby’s grandfather, and Ezra Hicks, the “boy” of seventy. Solemn
faced and self conscious they took their places, and there was the old
Gilead fife and drum corps back again.
“Oh, bless their dear old hearts,” cried Kit, her eyes filled with
sudden tears as the old hands coaxed out “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”
There was hardly a dry eye in the Town Hall by the time the trio had
finished their medley of war tunes. Many were there who could remember
far back when the little village band of boys in blue had marched away
with that same trio at its head, young Bide and Ezra at the drums, and
Philly at the fife. When it was over and the stoop-shouldered old
fellows went back to their benches, Cousin Roxy whispered to the Judge,
and he rose.
“Just one word more, friends and neighbors,” he said. “Mrs. Ellis
reminds me. A chicken dinner will be served after the dancing.”
The floor was cleared for dancing now, and Cady Graves took command. No
words could quite do justice to Cady’s manner at this point. He was
about sixty-four, a short, slender, active little man, with a perpetual
smile on his clean shaven face, and a rolling cadence to his voice that
was really thrilling, Helen said.
It was the girls’ first experience at a country dance. They sat around
Cousin Roxy watching the preparations, but not for long. Even Doris
found herself with Fred filling in to make up a set. When the floor was
full Cady walked around like a ringmaster, critically surveying them,
and finally, toe up, heel down hard ready to tap, fiddle and bow poised,
he gave the word of command.
“Sa-lute your partners!”
Jean thought she knew how to dance a plain quadrille before that night,
but by the time Cady had finished his last ringing call, she was reduced
to a laughing automaton, swung at will by her partner, tall young Andy
Gallup, the doctor’s son. Cady never remained on the platform. He
strolled back and forth among the couples, sometimes dancing himself
where he found them slowing down, singing his “calling out” melodiously,
quaintly, throwing in all manner of interpolated suggestions, smiling at
them all like some old-time master of the revels.
“Cousin Roxy, do you know he’s wonderful,” said Kit, sitting down and
fanning herself vigorously.
“Who? Cady?” Cousin Roxy laughed heartily. She had stepped off with the
Judge just as lightly as the girls. “Well, he has got a way with him,
hasn’t he? Cady’s more than a person up here. He’s an institution. I
like to think when he passes over the Lord will find a pleasant place
for him, he has given so much real happiness to everyone.”
Last of all came the chicken supper, served at long tables around the
sides of the hall. All of the girls were pressed into service as
waitresses, with Cousin Roxy presiding over the feast like a beaming
spirit of plenty.
“Land, do have some more, Mis’ Ricketts,” she would say, bustling around
behind the guests. “Just a mite of white meat, plenty of it. Mr. Weaver,
do have some more gravy. I shall think I missed making it right if you
don’t. There’s a nice drumstick, Dug.”
“Had two already, Mis’ Ellis,” Dug piped up honestly.
“Well, they’re good for you. Eat two more and maybe you’ll run like a
squirrel, who knows,” laughed Cousin Roxy.
“Kit,” Helen said once, as they rested a moment near the little kitchen
corner, “what a good time we’re having, and think of the difference
between this and an entertainment at home. Why is it?”
“Cousin Roxy,” answered Kit promptly. “Put her down there and she’d
bring people together and make them have a good time just as she does
here. Doesn’t Jean look pretty tonight? I don’t believe in praising the
family, of course, far be it from me,” she laughed, her eyes watching
Jean. “But I think my elder sister in her Nancy get-up looks perfectly
dear. She’s growing up, Helenita.”
Helen nodded her head in the old wise fashion she had, studying Jean’s
appearance judicially.
“Well, I don’t think she’ll ever be really beautiful,” she said, gently,
“but she’s got a wonderful way with her like Mother. I heard Cousin Beth
tell Father she had charm. What is charm, Kit?”
“Charm?” repeated Kit, thoughtfully. “I don’t know exactly. But Jean and
Mother and Doris have it, and you and I, Helenita, have only our looks.”