Hepsey Burke Part 31

I'm going to _talk_; perhaps you think that's nothing new. But you don't know how I can talk when once I get my dander up. Somebody's goin' to sit up and pay attention this time. Bascom'll conclude to preside at the meetin'; whichever way he means to act; and I've fixed it so Maxwell will be engaged on other duties. No; go 'way. I don't want to see you around here again until the whole thing's over."

"All right Hepsey, all right. I guess if it goes through the way you want you'll be that set up you'll be wantin' to marry old Bascom 'stead of me," chuckled Jonathan, as the lady of his choice turned to enter the house.

She faced round upon him as she reached the door, her features set with grim determination:

"If I get the whole caboodle, bag and baggage, from the meetin' and from Bascom, there's no knowin' but what I'll send for the parson and be married right there and then. There isn't a thing I could think of, in the line of a real expensive sacrifice, that'd measure up as compensation for winnin' out--not even marryin' you, Jonathan Jackson."

So Hepsey laid down lines for control of the meeting, ready with a different variety of expedients, from point to point in its progress, as Sylvester Bascom's att.i.tude at the time might necessitate. For she felt very little anxiety as to her ability to carry the main body of the audience along with her.

The night of the meeting the Sunday School Room, adjacent to the church, was filled full to a seat at least a quarter of an hour before the time announced for the meeting. Hepsey had provided herself with a chair in the center of the front row, directly facing the low platform to be occupied by the chairman. Her leather bag hung formidably on one arm, and a long narrow blank book was laid on her lap. She took little notice of her surroundings, and her anxiety was imperceptible, as she thrummed with a pencil upon the book, glancing now and then at the side door, watching for Bascom's entrance. The meeting buzzed light conversation, as a preliminary. Had she miscalculated on the very first move? Was he going to treat the whole affair with lofty disdain?

As the hour struck, dead silence reigned in the room, expectant; and Jonathan, who sat next her, fidgeted nervously.

"Five minutes' grace, and that's all; if he's not here by then, it'll be up to you to call the meetin' to order," whispered Hepsey.

"Sakes!" hissed the terrified Junior Warden, "you didn't say nothin'

about that, Hepsey," he protested.

She leveled a withering glance at him, and was about to reduce him to utter impotence by some scathing remark, when both were startled by a voice in front of them, issuing from "the chair." Silently the Senior Warden had entered, and had proceeded to open the meeting. His face was set and stern, and his voice hard and toneless. No help from that quarter, Hepsey mentally recorded.

"As the rector of this parish is not able to be present I have been asked to preside at this meeting. I believe that it was instigated--that is suggested, by some of the ladies who believe that there are some matters of importance which need immediate attention, and must be presented to the congregation without delay. I must beg to remind these ladies that the Wardens and Vestrymen are the business officers of the church; and it seems to my poor judgment that if any business is to be transacted, the proper way would be for the Vestry to take care of it. However, I have complied with the request and have undertaken to preside, in the absence of the rector. The meeting is now open for business."

Bascom sat down and gazed at the audience, but with a stare so expressionless as gave no further index to his mood. For some time there was a rather painful silence; but at last Hepsey Burke arose and faced about to command the audience.

"Brethren and sisters," she began, "a few of us women have made up our minds that it's high time that somethin' was done towards payin' our rector what we owe him, and that we furnish him with a proper house to live in."

At this point, a faint murmur of applause interrupted the speaker, who replied: "There. There. Don't be too quick. You won't feel a bit like applaudin' when I get through. It's a burnin' shame and disgrace that we owe Mr. Maxwell about two hundred dollars, which means a mighty lot to him, because if he was paid in full every month he would get just about enough to keep his wife and himself from starvin' to death. I wasn't asked to call this meetin'; I asked the rector to, and I asked the Senior Warden to preside. And I told the rector that some of us--both men and women--had business to talk about that wasn't for his ears. For all he knows, we're here to pa.s.s a vote of censure on him.

The fact is that we have reached the point where somethin' has got to be done right off quick; and if none of the Vestrymen do it, then a poor shrinkin' little woman like myself has got to rise and mount the band wagon. I'm no woman's rights woman, but I have a conscience that'll keep me awake nights until I have freed my mind."

Here Hepsey paused, and twirling her pencil between her lips, gazed around at her auditors who were listening with breathless attention.

Then she suddenly exclaimed with suppressed wrath, and in her penetrating tones:

"What is the matter with you men, anyway? You'd have to pay your butcher, or your baker, or your grocer, whether you wanted to or not.

Then why in the name of conscience don't you pay your parson?

Certainly religion that don't cost nothin' is worse than nothin'. I'll tell you the reason why you don't support your parson: It's just because your rector's a gentleman, and can't very well kick over the traces, or balk, or sue you, even if you do starve him. So you, prosperous, big-headed men think that you can sneak out of it. Oh, you needn't shuffle and look mad; you're goin' to get the truth for once, and I had Johnny Mullins lock the front door before I began."

The whole audience responded to this sally with a laugh, but the speaker relented not one iota. "Then when you've smit your rector on one cheek you quote the Bible to make him think he ought to turn his overcoat also." Another roar. "There: you don't need to think I'm havin' a game. I'm not through yet. Now let's get right down to business. We owe our rector a lot of money, and he is livin' in a tent because we neglected to pay the interest on the rectory mortgage held by the Senior Warden of our church. Talkin' plain business, and nothin' else, turned him out of house and home, and we broke our business contract with him. Yes we did! And now you know it.

"Some of us have been sayin'--and I was one of 'em till Mr. Maxwell corrected me--that it was mean of Mr. Bascom to turn the rector and his wife out of their house. But business is business, and until we've paid the last cent of our contributions, we haven't any right to throw stones at anyone. Wait till we've done our part, for that! We've been the laughing stock of the whole town because of our pesky meanness. That tent of ours has stuck out on the landscape like a horse fly on a pillow sham.

"It's not my business to tell how the rector and his wife have had to economize and suffer, to get along at all; or how nice and uncomplainin' they've been through it all. They wouldn't want me to say anythin' of that; sportsmen they are, both of 'em. The price of food's gone up, and the rector's salary gone down like a teeter on a log.

"Now, as I remarked before, let's get right down to business. The only way to raise that money is to raise it! There's no use larkin' all 'round Robin Hood's barn, or scampering round the mulberry bush any longer. I don't care for fairs myself, where you have to go and buy somethin' you don't want, for five times what it's worth, and call it givin' to the Lord. And I don't care to give a chicken, and then have to pay for eatin' the same old bird afterwards. I won't eat soda biscuit unless I know who made 'em. Church fairs are an invention of the devil to make people think they're religious, when they are only mighty restless and selfish.

"The only thing to do is to put your hands in your trousers pockets and pay, cash down, just as you would in any business transaction. And by cash, I don't mean five cents in the plate Sunday, and a dollar for a show on Tuesday. We've none of us any business to pretend to give to the Lord what doesn't cost a red cent, as the Bible says, somewheres.

Now don't get nervous. I'm going to start a subscription paper right here and now. It'll save lots of trouble, and you ought to jump at the chance. You'll be votin' me a plated ice-water pitcher before we get through, for bein' so good to you--just as a little souvenir of the evenin'."

A disjointed murmur of disapproval rose from sundry parts of the room at this summary way of meeting the emergency. Nelson, who had tried in vain to catch the eye of the chair, rose at a venture and remarked truculently:

"This is a most unusual proceeding, Mrs. Burke."

The chair remained immobile--but Hepsey turned upon the foe like a flash of lightning.

"Precisely, Mr. Nelson. And we are a most unusual parish. I don't claim to have any information gained by world-wide travel, but livin'

my life as I've found it here, in ths town, I've got to say, that this is the first time I ever heard of a church turnin' its rector out of house and home, and refusin' to give him salary enough to buy food for his family. Maybe in the course of your professional travels this thing has got to be an everyday occurrence to you,--but there's some of us here, that 'aint got much interest in such goings-on, outside of Durford."

"You have no authority to raise money for the church; I believe the Warden will concur in that opinion?" and he bowed towards Bascom.

"That is a point for the meeting to decide," he replied judicially, as Hepsey turned towards him.

"Seems to me," continued Mrs. Burke, facing the audience, "that authority won't fill the rector's purse so well as cash. It's awful curious how a church with six Vestrymen and two Wardens, all of them good business men--men that can squeeze money out of a monkey-wrench, and always get the best of the other fellow in a horse-trade, and smoke cigars enough to pay the rector's whole salary--get limp and faint and find it necessary to fall back on talkin' about 'authority'

when any money is to be raised. What we want in the parish is not authority, but just everyday plain business hustle, the sort of hustle that wears trousers; and as we don't seem to get that, the next best kind is the sort that wears skirts. I'd always rather that men shall do the public work than women; but if men won't, women must. What we need right here in Durford is a few full grown men who aren't s.h.i.+rks or quitters, who can put up prayers with one hand while they put down the cash with the other; and I don't believe the Lord ever laid it up against any man who paid first, and prayed afterwards.

"Now brethren, don't all speak at once. I'm goin' to start takin'

subscriptions. Who's goin' to head the list?"

A little withered old woman laboriously struggled to her feet, and in a high-pitched, quavering voice began:

"I'd like to give suthin' towards the end in view. Our rector were powerful good to my Thomas when he had the brown kitties in his throat. He came to see him mos' every day and read to him, and said prayers with him, and brought him papers and jelly. He certainly were powerful good to my Thomas; and once when Thomas had a fever our rector said that he thought that a bath would do my Thomas a heap of good, and he guessed he'd give him one. So I got some water in a bowl and some soap, and our rector he just took off his coat, and his vest, and his collar, and his cuffs, and our rector he washed Thomas, and he washed him, and he wa----"

"Well," Hepsey interrupted, to stay the flow of eloquence, "so you'd like to pay for his laundry now, would you Mrs. Sumner? Shall I put you down for two dollars? Good! Mrs. Sumner sets the ball rollin' with two dollars. Who'll be the next?"

As there was no response, Mrs. Burke glanced critically over the a.s.sembly until she had picked her man, and then announced:

"Hiram Mason, I'm sure you must be on the anxious bench?"

Hiram colored painfully as he replied:

"I don't know as I am prepared to say what I can give, just at present, Mrs. Burke."

"Well now let's think about it a little. Last night's _Daily Bugle_ had your name in a list of those that gave ten dollars apiece at St.

Bridget's fair. I suppose the Irish trade's valuable to a grocer like yourself; but you surely can't do less for your own church? I'll put you down for ten, though of course you can double it if you like."

"No," said Hiram, meditatively; "I guess ten'll do."

"Hiram Mason gives ten dollars. The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.

Thanks, Hiram."

Again there was a pause; and as no one volunteered, Hepsey continued:

"Sylvester Perkins, how much will you give?"

"I suppose I'll give five dollars," Sylvester responded, before Mrs.

Burke could have a chance to put him down for a larger sum. "But I don't like this way of doin' things a little bit. It's not a woman's place to hold up a man and rob him in public meetin'."

"No, a woman usually goes through her husband's pockets when he's asleep, I suppose. But you see I'm not your wife. Thanks, Mr. Perkins: Mr. Perkins, _five_ dollars," she repeated as she entered his subscription in the book. "Next?" she called briskly.

"Mrs. Burke, I'll give twenty dollars, if you think that's enough,"

called a voice from the back timidly.