LILAC TIME
To the knowing and observant and the loyal Green Valley is dear at all
times. But what most touches and wakens a Green Valley heart is lilac
time.
There are on the Green Valley calendar many red-letter days beside the
regularly recurring national holidays, but lilac time, or Lilac Sunday,
is Green Valley's very own glad day. It is in the spring what
Thanksgiving is in the fall and wanderers who can not get home for
Thanksgiving and Christmas ease their homesick hearts with promises of
lilac time in the old town.
On this particular Lilac Sunday, Nan, radiant and dressed in the sort
of clothes that only Nan knew how to buy and wear, was on her way to
church. She was early and decided to pass the Churchill place. She
always did at lilac time, for then it was fairly embedded in fragrance
and flowery glory. She had cut the blooms from her own bushes and sent
them on. She carried only a few of her most perfect sprays. She saw
that the Churchill gardens too had been trimmed but plenty of beauty
remained.
She stopped a moment to admire the wonderful old red-brick house
glowing through the tender greens of spring. Her eyes drank in its
beauty and then fell on two huge perfect lilac plumes on the bush
nearest her. They were larger and lovelier than her own.
With a little smile Nan reached out to gather them. She broke off the
first and was about to gather the other when Cynthia's son came slowly
and laughingly from around the bush.
"Let me get it for you. You will soil your glove."
Nan was startled and unaccountably embarrassed. She flushed with
something like annoyance.
"Mercy! I had no idea you were anywhere about. I suppose I'm greedy
but these did seem lovelier than mine. This is Lilac Sunday and I
thought--perhaps nobody told you--that as long as you had so many you
wouldn't mind--I hope you don't think--"
She was so very evidently bothered over the whole affair, so
disconcerted, she who was always so coolly dignified, that he laughed
with boyish delight.
"Oh--don't explain, I understand," he begged.
The red in Nan's cheeks deepened. She stiffened and half turned away.
"Goodness," she exclaimed to no one in particular, "how I _do_ dislike
ministers. They always understand everything. You just can't tell
them anything. How I loathe them! They're insufferable."
It was his turn to look a little startled and embarrassed.
"But you don't have to like me as a minister. I don't want to be
_your_ minister."
She looked up to see just what he meant. But he seemed to have
forgotten her, for the smile had gone from his eyes and though he
looked at her she knew that he didn't see her; that he was looking
beyond her at some one, something else. When he spoke it was with a
winning gravity and a wistfulness that Nanny tried not to hear.
"I miss my mother more than any one here can guess. Grandma Wentworth
is wonderful. She is so wise and good and I love her. But my mother
was young and gay and very beautiful. She played and laughed and
talked with me. She was the loveliest soul I ever knew. You are very
much like her. I have wanted you for a friend. I never had a sister
but if I could have had I should have asked for a girl like you."
Oh, Nanny sensed the pitiful, childish loneliness of that plea! The
wistfulness of the boy stabbed through her really tender heart. But
Nanny Ainslee was a joyous, laughter-loving creature. And the idea of
this boy whom already she half loved asking her to be his _friend_, his
_sister_! Oh, it was childishly funny. How her father would chuckle
if he knew that she who had dismissed so many suitors with platonic
friendliness and sisterly solicitude was now being offered that same
platonic friendliness and brotherly love. It was too much for Nanny's
sense of humor!
So Nanny giggled. She giggled disgracefully and could not stop
herself,--giggled even though she knew that the tall boy beside her was
flushing a painful red and slowly freezing into a hurt and painful
silence. But she could not save herself or him.
"You had better let me cut you a few more sprays," he said at last
curtly.
She let him lay them in her arms and they walked to church in absolute
silence. Nanny never knew that any living man could be so stubbornly
silent. She was sorry and she wanted to tell him so. But he gave her
no chance. It seemed he was a young man who never asked for things
twice. Nanny was sorry but she was also, for some incomprehensible
reason, angry. And the sorrier she grew the angrier she became.
Cynthia's son seemed not to notice. He walked straight on into the
church but Nanny stayed outside and held open court under the big horse
chestnuts in front of the church door.
She had left the olive groves and almond groves, the thick roses and
the blue waters of Italy, in order to be at home in time to see her
native town wrapped up in its fragrant lilac glory.
She stayed out now, her arms full of lilac plumes, watching the little
groups of her townspeople coming down the village streets toward the
church whose bell was tolling so sweetly through the warm, spring air.
Here came Mrs. Dustin with Peter and Joe Baldwin with his two boys and
Colonel Stratton with his sweet-faced wife. From the opposite
direction came the Reverend Alexander Campbell with his wife in black
silk, his sister in gray silk, his elderly niece in blue silk and his
wife's second cousin in lavender. There was Joshua Stillman and his
quiet daughter, Uncle Tony and Uncle Tony's brother William, with his
four girls and Seth Curtis' wife, Ruth.
Seth never went to church, having a profound scorn for the clergy. But
he always fixed things so his wife could go. He said ministers were
poor business men, selfish husbands and proverbially poor fathers, from
all he'd seen of them. Somehow Seth was a singularly unfortunate man
in the matter of seeing things. But there was no denying the fact that
he was an unusual husband. He had been caught time and again by his
men friends and neighbors on a Sunday morning with one of his wife's
aprons tied about him, holding the baby in one arm, while he stirred
something on the stove with the other, and in various other ways
superintending his household while Ruth was at church. But neither
jeers nor sympathy ever upset him.
"No, I can't say that I've ever hankered for sermons much. They don't
generally tally with what I've seen and know of life. But Ruth now can
get something helpful out of even a fool's remarks and comes home
rested and cheerful. I figure that a woman as smart as Ruth about
working and saving sure earns her right to a bit of a church on Sunday
if she wants it. And furthermore, I aim to give my wife anything in
reason that she wants. It doesn't hurt any man to learn from a little
personal experience that babies aren't just little blessings full of
smiles and dimples but darn little nuisances, let me tell you. This
little kid is as good as they make them but he gives me a backache all
over, puts bumps on my temper and ties my nerves up in knots. And I've
discovered that just watching bread or pies or pudding is work. And
when a man's peeled the potatoes and set the table and sliced the bread
and filled the water glasses and opened the oven a dozen times and
strained and stirred and mashed and salted and peppered, he begins to
understand why his wife is so tired after getting a Sunday dinner. And
when he thinks of other days, washing days and ironing and baking and
scrubbing and sewing days, why, if he's anyway decent he begins to
suspect that he's darn lucky to get a full-grown woman to do all that
work for just her room and board. And when he stops to count the times
she's tied his necktie, darned his socks and patched his clothes,
besides giving him a clean bed, a pretty sitting room to live in,
children to play with and brag about, and a bank book to make him sleep
easy on such nights as the storms are raging outside, why, a man just
don't have to go to church to believe in God. He's got proofs enough
right in his kitchen. It's the wife who ought to go if it's only to
sit still for an hour and get time to tell herself that there is a God
and that some day the work will let up maybe and her back won't ache
any more and Johnny won't be so hard on his shoes and Sammy on his
stockings. Why, I tell you I'm afraid to keep Ruth from church, afraid
that if she loses her belief in a married woman's heaven she'll leave
me for somebody better or get so discouraged that she'll just hold her
breath and die."
So Ruth Curtis went to church every Sunday. And Seth saw to it that
she always looked pretty. This particular Lilac Sunday she was wearing
the sprigged dimity that Seth bought her over in Spring Road at
Williamson's spring sale.
Softly the bell tolled and the last stragglers came hurrying leisurely,
every soul carrying the lovely fragrant plumes so that the church would
be sweet with the breath of spring. Later, these armfuls of beauty
would be packed into huge boxes and shipped to the city hospitals to
gladden pain-racked bodies and weary hearts.
Nanny Ainslee was still outside waiting for Grandma Wentworth. Lilac
Sunday Nanny always waited for Grandma and always sat with her, because
of a certain story that Grandma had told her once when the lamps were
not yet lit and the soft summer moonlight lay in windowed squares on
Grandma's sitting room floor. Nanny began to inquire of the last
comers. But Tommy and Alice Winston, still bridey and shy, said they
had seen nothing of her, and even Roger Allan supposed of course that
she must be in her favorite pew, known to the oldtimers as Inspiration
Corner. For it had been observed that all ministers sooner or later
delivered their discourses to Grandma Wentworth. They were always sure
of her undivided attention. Other people's eyes and minds might
wander, some might be even openly bored, but Grandma's uplifted face
was always kindly and encouraging, even though the sermon was
hopelessly jumbled. She was the surest, severest critic and yet each
man preached to her feeling that with the criticism would come
kindliness and the sort of mother comfort that Grandma somehow knew how
to give to the meanest and most blundering of creatures. Indeed, it
was the least successful of Green Valley's ministers who had designated
Grandma's seat as Inspiration Corner. And then had in a final burst of
wrath told Green Valley that like Sodom and Gomorrah it was doomed,
that no mere man preacher could save it, that its only hope lay in
Grandma Wentworth, who alone understood its miserable, petty orneriness.
He meant to leave town a sputtering, raging man, that minister,--full
of what he called righteous wrath. But he went to say good-by to
Grandma and experienced a change of heart.
He began his farewell by unburdening his heart and soul of all the
ponderous doctrines that sunny, joyful Green Valley had refused to
listen to. He spoke earnestly of the world's terrible need of
salvation, the fearful necessity for haste and wholesale repentance and
the awful menace of God's wrath. And the fact that he was a man
entering his forties instead of his thirties made matters worse.
But Grandma listened patiently and when he was emptied of all his
sorrows and worriments she took him out into her herb-garden, seated
him where he could see the sunset hills and then she preached a
marvellous sermon to just this one man alone. No one but he knows what
she told him but he went forth a humble, tired, quiet man, filled to
the brim with a sudden belief in just life as it is lived by a few
hundred million humans. Five years later word came to Green Valley
that this same man was a much loved pastor somewhere in the mountains.
And Green Valley, perennially young, unthinking, joyous Green Valley,
laughed incredulously as a sweet-hearted but wrongly educated child
always laughs at a true fairy tale or a simple miracle.
"If I had the making and raising of ministers," Grandma was heard to
say, apropos of this clergyman, "about the first thing I'd set them to
learning would be to laugh, first at themselves and then at other
people. And as for this repentance and exhortation business I believe
it is worn out. Humans have gotten tired of that 'last call for the
paradise express.' They like this world and its life and they know
they could be pretty decent if somebody would only explain a few little
things to them. It isn't that they hate religion but they want to be
allowed to grow into it naturally and sanely. Religion getting ought
to be the quietest, happiest process, just pleasant neighboring like
and comparing of ideas, with every now and then a holy hush when men
and women have suddenly sensed some big beauty in life. All this noise
is unnecessary, for every living soul of us, barring idiots, repents
several times a day even though we don't admit it in so many words.
And as for righteous wrath--it's a good thing and I believe in it, but
like cayenne pepper it wants to be used sparingly and only at the right
place and on the right person. Any one would think to hear some
ministers talk that the Almighty was a combination of Theodore
Roosevelt, the Kaiser and a New York Police Commissioner working the
third degree.
"I wonder what the colleges can be thinking of, turning loose such
stale foolishness and old canned stuff on a mellow, sunny little home
town like Green Valley that's full of plain, blundering but
well-meaning, God-fearing people who work joyfully at their business of
living and turn up more religion when they plow a furrow or make over
the wedding dress for the baby than these ministers can dig up out of
all their musty books. I've prayed for all kinds of qualities in
ministers but I've come to the point where I ask nothing more of a
preacher than a laugh now and then, some horse sense and health.
"I used to think that only mature men ought to be sent out but now I
shall be glad to see a boy in the pulpit to show us the way to
salvation,--a boy it may be with a head full of foolish notions that
old folks say are not practical and some of which won't of course stand
wear; but a boy, with a glad young face, eyes full of faith and dreams
and the sort of insane courage and daring that only the young know.
Such a boy needs considerable education in certain earthly matters, of
course, but he's lovable and teachable and will in time grow into a
real, God-knowing, truth-interpreting man."
Oh, Grandma Wentworth was an authority on ministers--ministers and
babies. And it was a baby that had kept her away from church this
Lilac Sunday; a little, merry, red-headed boy baby that had come in the
early morning to make glad the heart of unbusinesslike Billy Evans and
his neat businesslike wife. For several hours Doc Philipps and Grandma
had despaired of both baby and mother, but when the pink dawn came
smiling over the world's rim Billy's little son was born alive and
unblemished and Billy's wife crept back from the Valley of the Shadow
and smiled a bit into Billy's white, stricken face. And Billy looked
deep down into the brown eyes of the girl and the terrible numbness
went out of his muscles and the icy hardness from around his heart and
he slipped out into the morning world to thank the Great Spirit that
moved it for His mercy and wonderful gift. He just stood on his front
doorstep and, looking about his pretty home and remembering the miracle
within the house, poured a great prayer into the heart of the glad
morning.
Billy's house was one of the most picturesque of the many pretty homes
in Green Valley. It had been a ramshackle, tumbled-down old cabin lost
in a tangle of bushes and hidden from the road by a shabby, unsightly
row of old willows. Billy was going to rent it for temporary barn
purposes but his wife, who had a nimble and a prophetic eye, made him
buy it. Then, under her supervision Billy enlarged and remodeled it
and Billy's wife waved some sort of a fairy wand over it, for it became
over night a lovely, story-book home. When everything was ready she
had the unsightly willows cut, revealing a gently rising stretch of
mossy sward ending in a cluster of old trees from which the cozy house
peeped roguishly, tantalizingly. Two old walnuts guarded the little
footpath to the door and two huge lilac bushes screened the porch from
the too curious gaze of travelers on the road below. Indeed, so
altogether taking and fascinating a bit of property did it become after
its transformation that it was said that two of Green Valley's real
estate men never went down that road without doing sums in their heads
and calling themselves names for overlooking such a bargain. It takes
constructive imagination to be successful in real estate.
And now around this cozy home spot Billy wandered deliriously,
aimlessly. It was the tolling of the church bell and the smell of the
lilacs that recalled to him the significance of the day.
"Why, he was born on Lilac Sunday and he's red-headed just like Her.
Gosh--I must a bin born lucky!"
Billy looked once more all about his story-book home and then his eyes
strayed away to Petersen's Woods, fairy green and already full of deep
shadowed aisles, full of fretted beauty and solemnity. Beyond them lay
the creek, a pool of silver draped in misty morning veils.
"Gosh--I wish to God I was religious!" suddenly, contritely murmured
Billy Evans. In high heaven the angels, and in Billy's kitchen Grandma
Wentworth, overheard and smiled.
When Hank Lolly came up from the livery barn for a late breakfast, his
face drawn and eyes full of fear for the man and woman who had been
family and home to him, Billy went down the footpath to meet him.
"It's all right, Hank! He's here, red hair and all," Billy informed
him in the merest breath of a whisper. Hank wiped his face in limp
relief and sat down quite suddenly on the grass beside the path.
Instinctively Billy sat down with him.
They said nothing for a time, just looked and looked at the wide blue
sky, the green sweet world, tried for perhaps the millionth time to
sense Eternity and the what-and-why-and-how of it all and then gave it
up and like children accepted the day, the little new life, the whole
wonder of it as happy children accept it all, on faith and with
untainted joy. It was just good to be there and there was no doubting
the perfect May day. So they sat reverently until Billy, looking again
at that mass of shimmering greens and into those church-like aisles,
said:
"Hank, some one of us had ought to go to church to-day. I wish to God
I had kep' up going to Sunday school. Mother got me started but she
died before she could get me started in on church. So I never went.
It's a terrible thing for a man not to learn religion along with his
reading and writing and 'rithmetic. I used to think it was nobody's
business whether I had any religion or not after mother died. I knew
that where she was she'd understand. But I see now it was a terrible
mistake thinking that way and not laying in a supply of religion. A
man thinks he owns himself and that certain things are nobody's
business, but by-and-by along comes a wife or a red-headed baby and
things happen different from what you've ever expected, things that you
just got to have religion for, and gosh--what are you going to do then
if you ain't got any?"
This terrible situation being beyond the mental powers of Hank, that
soul just sat still until Billy puzzled a way out.
"Somebody'd ought to go to church from out this house to-day," went on
Billy in a low voice. "Grandma Wentworth can't go on account of Her
and It. I can't go because--gosh--I'm so kind of split, my head going
one way and my legs another, that as likely as not I'd wind up in the
blacksmith shop or the hotel or fall in the creek. I ain't safe on the
streets to-day, Hank. And, anyway, I've got to keep up fires and water
boiling and them dumb'd frogs under the willows from croaking so's She
can sleep to-night. That leaves nobody but you, Hank."
Billy hesitated, realizing the enormity of the request he was about to
make.
"Hank--I wish to God, you'd go and sort of settle the bill up for me.
Just go, Hank, and tell Him, that's the Big Boss, how darned thankful
we all are about what's happened to-day and that we'll do right by the
little shaver and that we'll try to run the livery business so's He
won't find too many mistakes when He gets around to looking over the
books Barney and you and me's keeping. And you might mention how we've
always made it a point to treat our horses well but will do better in
the future. And tell Him I'll see that the Widow Green's spring
plowing is done sooner after this. It was a darn shame her being left
last like that but that she never asked me, me being so easy-going and
she so neat, until the rest of them left her in the lurch. And tell
Him I'll take the sheriff's job, though if there's one thing I can't do
it's watching people and jumping on them. Just talk to Him that way,
Hank. Put in any little thing you happen to think of and go as far as
you like in promises and subscriptions. The business is moving and
what promises you and I can't keep She'll find a way to pay off. And
here's a ten-dollar gold piece to drop in the hat when it comes around.
You--"
But Hank was standing now and looking at his employer with such terror
in every line of his weather-beaten face that Billy paused again.
"My God--Billy! You ain't asking me--_me_--to--to--to--to go to
_church_?" Hank's voice fairly squeaked and stuttered with the horror
that clutched him.
"Hank, if there was any one else--"
But Hank, shaking in every joint and muscle of his still flabby body,
wagged his head in utter misery.
"Billy, I'll do anything else for you and Mrs. Evans and little
Billy--anything but that. I'll jump into Wimple's pond, get drunk,
sign the pledge--anything but that. What you're a-wanting, Billy,
ain't to be thought of. You're forgetting, Billy, what I was and what
I am. Why, Billy, that there church belongs to the best people in this
town and it ain't for the likes of me to go into such vallyable places,
a-tramplin' on that there expensive carpet we both of us hauled free of
charge last September. There's Doc Philipps and Tony and Grandma
Wentworth and any number of good friends of mine in there. And do you
think I want to shame them and insult them by coming into their church,
disturbing the doings? You just let things be and when Mrs. Evans is
up and around again she'll go like she always does when she's got
enough vittles cooked up for us men folks. I'm a miserable, no-account
drunk, that's what I am, Billy Evans, and I ain't no proper person to
send on an errand to the Lord. Why, church ain't for the likes of
me--it's--it's--"
But at this point language failed Hank entirely, and the enormity of
the proposed undertaking once more sweeping over him, Hank searched for
his bandanna and wiped the beads of cold sweat from around his mouth
and the back of his stringy neck.
Billy was silent. He knew that Hank was right and that he had asked an
impossible service of his faithful helper. Still there in the morning
sun glistened the green grove and through the holiness of the spring
morning tolled the old church bell. So Billy rose and walked slowly
and a little sadly up the narrow path. And Hank walked up with him.
It was in silence that they sat down to their late breakfast. But in
the act of swallowing his tenth cornmeal pancake dripping with maple
syrup Hank had a sudden inspiration. The misery in his face gave place
to a grim determination.
"Billy," he offered remorsefully, "I can't go to church for you, but
I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go to the dentist's and have these
bad teeth fixed that Doc and Mrs. Evans and you have been at me about.
Next to going to church that's the awfullest thing I know of and I'll
do it. Doc says that bad teeth make a bad stomach and a bad stomach
makes a bad man and it may be so. And as for that ten-dollar gold
piece, I don't see why you can't send that by Barney, same as you'd
send him to the bank for change or to Tony's to pay the gas bill. When
I go back now I'll just send Barney along with it, and then I'll go see
Doc Mitchell and let him kill me with that there machine of his."
That's how it happened that a little thin hand caught Nanny Ainslee's
just as she was entering the church door and Barney of the spindle legs
begged frenziedly for assistance.
"Aw, Nan--look at this!" and he held out the gold piece. "Billy Evans'
got a little baby down to his house and he's clean crazy. Grandma
Wentworth's bossing the baby show and she says for you to take the
minister home to dinner. And Billy's sent this here and wants me to
put it in the collection box and I don't dast. Why, say, old man
Austin that passes the collection plate would have me pinched if he saw
me drop that in it.
"And, anyhow, I ain't been liked around here ever since last Christmas
when I got three boxes of candy by mistake. And, gee--Nan, I don't
know what to do about it. Billy Evans is the best man in this here
town and I'd do most anything for him, but he's such a good guy himself
he don't see that church ain't any place for a kid like me and that it
was a mistake to send me with this coin."
Nan's amazement gave way to sudden enlightenment. She knew now why
Grandma Wentworth had not put in an appearance, and knowing Billy Evans
well, she instantly comprehended the situation.
"Barney, what in the world are you talking about, saying this church is
no place for you. This is just the place for a boy who gets several
boxes of Christmas candy by mistake. You come right along with me."
"Aw, Nan, why can't you drop it in for me? I just ain't got the nerve.
I'd rather get all my teeth pulled like Hank is going to do. Why, say,
Nan, just the sight of old Austin makes my hair curl. I tell ya he
don't like me and I'll be pinched--"
But Nan had already drawn Billy's spindle-legged assistant inside and
as no man yet had been known to show anything but quiet pride when
escorting Nanny Ainslee, Barney straightened manfully and with an
outward serenity that amazed even himself he gracefully slid into a
seat, having first gallantly stepped aside to permit his gracious lady
to be seated. And life being that morning especially a thing of tender
humor, they had no sooner settled themselves comfortably when Fanny
Foster, the last comer, sank down beside them, breathing heavily.
Fanny Foster was always late for church, not from any notion that a
late entrance was fashionable but because of some hitch in her domestic
affairs. She always explained to the congregation afterward just what
had caused her delay and the congregation was always ready to listen to
her excuses, for they were as a rule highly original ones.
Fate was always sending Fanny the most thrilling experiences at the
most improper times. The children were always falling into the cistern
or setting the barn afire as she was about to start out somewhere. And
such things as buttonhooks and hairpins had a way of disappearing just
when she was in the greatest hurry. Not that the lack of these toilet
necessities ever stopped Fanny from attending any town function.
If the buttonhook could not be found she set out with her shoes
unbuttoned, borrowing the necessary implement on the way. If she had
no hairpins she put her hair up temporarily with two knitting needles
or lead pencils or anything like that that came handy, stopped at
Jessup's, bought her hairpins, and while reporting news in Mrs. Green's
kitchen did up her hair without the aid of brush, comb or mirror.
This trait Fanny came by naturally. She had had a droll grandmother.
It was authentic history that once at the very moment when she was
getting ready to attend a Green Valley funeral this grandmother's false
teeth broke, leaving her somewhat dazed. But only for a moment, for
she was a woman with a perfect memory. She suddenly remembered that
the wife of the deceased had an old emergency set; so, slipping through
the back streets, she arrived at the house of grief, borrowed the new
widow's old teeth and wept as copiously and sincerely, albeit a little
carefully, over the remains as any one else there.
Now, scarcely waiting to regain her breath, Fanny turned to Nanny with
the usual explanations, only stopping to exclaim over Barney--"Land
sakes, Barney, what are you doing here!" A breath and then in sibilant
whispers:
"Well--I thought I'd never get here. When I come to dress I found the
children had cut up my corset into a harness for the dog and Jessup's
said they hadn't anybody to send up with a new one and John said he
couldn't go because his foot's bad, him having stepped on the rake
yesterday afternoon and not wanting to irritate it, so's he could go to
work tomorrow as usual. And Grandma's up to Billy Evans' trying to
keep him from going crazy or I could have borrowed one of hers. So I
'phoned Central to see if she couldn't hunt up somebody to bring me
that new corset from Jessup's. Well, who does she get hold of but
Denny, just as he's going past with a telegram for Jocelyn Brownlee.
He brought the corset with the string gone and the box broken and asked
me to help him figure out what that telegram meant. It said,
"'Coming better call it phyllis
BOB.'
"There's few men that can write a proper letter. We had to give it up.
And as if that wasn't enough, when I got to the creamery I met
Skinflint Holden and he told me there was a lot of disease amongst the
cattle and the men all got together and had a meeting and made Jake
Tuttle deputy marshal or something. It's a wonder Jake wouldn't say
something. I suppose he thinks the few old cows we have here in town
ain't worth saving.
"Well, anyhow, I was hurrying along so's not to be late and just as I
turned Tumley's hedge didn't Bessie come out with her face swollen so
she looked homelier than Theresa Meyer. It seems she had a birthday
and Alex brought her a big box of chocolates and they give her the
toothache. She went to Doc Mitchell but he put her off because he was
regulating and pulling every tooth in Hank Lolly's head. She was just
sick to think she had to miss Lilac Sunday and Mr. Courtney's last
sermon, but she told me to be sure and listen and if he let on he was
sorry he was leaving not to believe him, because he's had everything
except the parlor furniture crated for a month. They've been eating
off tin plates and drinking out of two enamel cups on the kitchen
table. Bessie thinks that for a minister he's full of sin and
self-pride. But I say even a minister--"
But at this point the hymn singing was over, the congregation settled
itself in comfortable attitudes, and the careful Mr. Courtney rose to
deliver his farewell sermon.
It was a sermon that stirred nobody. Green Valley was as glad to see
the Reverend Courtney departing as he was to go. His one cautious
reference to their pastorless state, for he did not know that Green
Valley had already selected its new minister, brought not a line of
worry to the faces turned so politely to the pulpit, for on Lilac
Sunday and to a farewell sermon Green Valley was ever polite.
Green Valley, listening, thought with relief of the Sundays ahead and
felt very much the way a hospitable housewife feels when an uncongenial
guest departs and the home springs back to its old cheery order and
family peace.
When the services were over Green Valley strolled out into the May
sunshine in twos and threes and stood about as always in little groups
to exchange the week's news. Billy Evans' new happiness, the
ten-dollar gold piece and all its attending incidents were duly talked
over. Under the horse chestnuts Max Longman was telling Colonel
Stratton how the day before Sam Ellis had at last leased the hotel to a
Chicago man. It was reported that there was to be no new barber shop,
but that over on West Street a poolroom, also run by a city stranger,
was already doing business. Several people had passed it that morning
on their way to church and all said it had a peculiar appearance.
"Looks like one of those woebegone city dens, with its green plush
curtains so you can't see what's going on inside. All it needs is fly
specks on the windows and a strong smell at its side door. That'll
come with time. I hear you can play billiards and pool in there and
there's some slot machines for those too young to take a hand at cards."
So said Jake Tuttle, who now that he was a deputy sheriff on the watch
for diseases threatening his and his neighbors' cattle, suddenly
realized that there might be such a thing as a deputy sheriff to look
out for the physical and moral health of humans.
Green Valley listened to Max Longman's announcement and Jake's comment
and made up its mind to go around and see. Sam Ellis' withdrawal from
business made Green Valley folks a little uneasy. The hotel in other
hands might become a strange place. For a moment an uncomfortable
feeling gripped those who heard. Sam, an old friend and a neighbor,
with his genial good sense and old-fashioned hotel was one thing. A
stranger from the big and wicked city was another.
Green Valley almost began to worry a bit. But on the way home this
feeling wore off. How could things change? Why, there were the
Spencer boys taking turns at the ice-cream freezer on the back porch.
There was Ella Higgins coming out with a saucer of milk for her cat.
Downer's barn door was open and any one could see by the new buggy that
stood in it that Jack Downer's brother and family had driven in from
the farm for a Sunday dinner and visit. Williamson's dog, Caesar, was
tied up,--a sure sign that Mel and Emmy had gone off to see Emmy's
folks over in Spring Road. The chairs in Widow Green's orchard told
plainly that her sister's girls had come in from the city for the
week-end. On the Fenton's front porch sat pretty Millie Fenton,
waiting to put a flower in Robbie Longman's buttonhole. While
everybody knew that just next door homely Theresa Meyer was putting an
extra pan of fluffy soda biscuits into the oven as the best preparation
for _her_ beau.
So Green Valley looked and smiled and went joyously home to its
fragrant, old-fashioned Sunday dinner. New elements might and would
come but this smiling town would absorb them, mellow them to its own
golden hue and go on its way living and rejoicing.
Cynthia's son went to dinner with the Ainslees. He walked with Mr.
Ainslee while Nan and her brother went on ahead. Nan was almost
noisily gay but no one seemed to be at all aware of it.
The dinner was delicious and went off without the least bit of
embarrassment. At the table Nan was as suddenly still as she had been
noisily gay. She let the men do the talking while she scrupulously
attended to their wants. Once she forgot herself and while he was
talking studied the face of Cynthia's son. Her father caught her at it
and smiled. This made her flush and to even up matters she
deliberately put salt instead of sugar into her father's after-dinner
cup of coffee. Whereupon he, tasting the salt, made an irrelevant
remark about handwriting on the wall.