Life at High Tide Part 24

A MATTER OF RIVALRY

BY OCTAVE THANET

It was the fifth afternoon of St. Kunagunda's fair. An interlude of semi-rest had come between the clearing up last night's debris of crowd and traffic, which had filled the morning, and the renewed crowd and traffic that would come with the lamps. The tired elderly women in charge of the supper had sunk into chairs before their clean linen and dazzling white stone-china dishes and fresh bunches of lilacs. The pretty young girls at the "fancy table" were laughing and prattling rather loudly with two amiable young men who had been tacking home-made lace handkerchiefs and embroidered "art centres" in the vacant s.p.a.ces left on the pink cambric wall by the departure of last night's purchases. A comely matron kept guard simultaneously over the useful but not perilously alluring wares of the "household table" and the adjacent temptations of the flower-stand and the candy-booth. The last was indeed fair to see, having a magnificent pyramid of pop-corn b.a.l.l.s and entrancing heaps of bright-colored home-made French candy; and round and round its delights prowled a chubby and wistful boy, with hands in his penniless pockets, waiting for the chancellor of the exchequer.

Across the hall, the walls whereof were lavishly decked with red, white, and blue festoons of cambric, and had the green and gold of Erin's flag intertwined with the yellow and black of Germany, stood a table which had been the centre of interest for four nights, but which now was entirely deserted. There was no glory of color or pomp of bedizenment about it; nothing more taking to the eye than a ballot-box and a small show-case (the contents of the latter draped in newspapers at the present) and a neatly lettered sign above a blackboard, to one side. The sign simply demanded, "Vote Here!" The blackboard in less trim script announced that "For most popular business man" Mr. Timothy G. Finnerty had 305 votes, and three or four other candidates so few that there was no interest in deciphering the chalk figures; and that "For most popular young lady" Miss Norah Murray had 842 votes, and Miss Freda Berglund had 603. At intervals some one of the score of people in the hall would saunter up to the show-case or to the blackboard, to peer into the one or to study the figures on the other--although, really, there was no one in the hall who did not know every line on the board, and who had not seen both the gold watch and the gold-headed cane of the show-case. Two women came from different quarters of the room at the same instant to look at the blackboard.

One was a comely dame in a silken gown that rustled and glittered with jet. She had just entered the hall, and was a little flushed with the climb up the stairs. The other was a stunted, wiry little Irish woman in black weeds of ancient make. She caught sight of the one in silk attire and paused. The first-comer also paused. Her color deepened; her head erected itself more proudly on her shoulders. Then she continued her progress, halting, with a dignified and elegant air, before the blackboard. The little Irish woman tossed her own head and appeared about to follow; however, her intention changed at a few words from the guardian of the ap.r.o.n table. She inclined her head, and with a glance of scorn at the silken back pa.s.sed on over to the ap.r.o.ns and quilts.

The matrons at the supper-table had viewed the incident with interest.

A little sigh of relief or regret rippled about the board.

"'Tis a great pity, that's sure," said one.

"I was there when they had the words," said another. "Mrs. Conner was saying this voting business was all wrong--"

"Well, sure she ain't far out of the way, with this time," interjected a voice; "bad blood more'n in this instance it's raised; the whole town's taking sides on it, and there was two fights yesterday. Why didn't they jest raffle the watch off decent and peaceable?"

"There's some objects to raffling."

"There's some objects to drinking tea an' coffee, they're so bigoted!

In a raffle there's n.o.body pays more'n their quarter, or maybe a dollar or two--"

"And that's it. Look at the power o' money we're gettin', Mrs. O'Brien dear! We'd _niver_ 'a' got nigh on to four hundred dollars for a gold watch rafflin'; and well you know it!"

"Maybe," agreed Mrs. O'Brien, grimly, "but neither would we have got fightin' out of the church and fightin' in it; nor Pat Barnes be having his head broke. 'Twas hurted awful bad he was. His own mother told me; and she said Fritz Miller was sick in bed from it; Pat paid him well for talkin' down ould Ireland; and poor Terry Flanagin, he lost his job at the saw-mill for maddin' the boss that's Dutch, and infidel Dutch at that; and there's quarrels on ivery side, G.o.d forgive 'em! They talk of it at the stores, and they talk of it at the saloon, where they do be going too often to talk it; and 'tis a shame an' a disgrace, down to that saloon the dirty Dutchman--"

"_Whisht_!" three or four mouths puckered in warning, and Mrs.

O'Brien caught the smouldering gaze of a flaxen-haired woman in very full black skirts and black basque of an antique cut, who had but now approached the group; with her race's nimbleness of wit she added, "Sure there's dirty Germans and there's dirty Irish."

"Dere is," agreed the new-comer, with displeasing alacrity, "und some is in _dis_ parish und dis sodality. I vas seen dem viping dishes mit a newsbaber. Dot's so. Yesterday night."

An electric thrill ran through the circle, and two matrons, suddenly very red, answered at once:

"Would you have us wipe them on our _handkerchiefs_? The towels were all gone!"

"'Twas the awful crowd did it; an' 'twas only some saucers for the ice-cream."

Mrs. O'Brien waved her hands, very clean, not very shapely, and worn by many an honest day's toil, persuading and pleading for peace at once. "Sure," says she, "if you'd wurrk at fairs you'd know that you can't be doing things like you'd do them at home; and 'twas only for a minit they wiped the saucers with the paper napkins, clean tishy-paper napkins, Mrs. Orendorf; 'twas only two or three saucers got wiped with the newspaper, because the napkins was give out and they was shrieking and clamoring for saucers; and they're _terrible_, them young girls! waving their hands and jumpin' an' squealin'. 'Me first, Mrs.

O'Brien!' 'It's _my_ turn, Mrs. O'Brien!' 'Oh, Mrs. O'Brien, wait on _me_. I've got six people haven't had a bite in half an hour; and they're so cross!' Till your mind's goin'! No doubt we're makin'

money, but I'm for a smaller crowd an' more good falein'."

"It's for der voting dey kooms," grumbled the German woman, only half pacified. "Dot vas bad mistake haf dot votin'. Vot vas dot dirty Deutchman you call him do dot make you so mad?"

"Oh, it wasn't so _much_"--Mrs. O'Brien was still bent on peace--"he jist telephoned to the next door an' got the returns, as he called them, and had 'em posted up in his saloon. An' if they was daughters of mine--I 'ain't got anny daughters, praise G.o.d! for since I seen the way these waiters go on, I'm mis...o...b..in' I niver could manage thim--but if they was daughters of mine, 'twould be the sorry day for me whin they'd their names posted up in a saloon!"

"Meine fader in der old country kept a saloon," said the German woman, with extreme dryness of accent, "und does you mean to say vun vurd against Freda Berglund?"

"No, indade," cried Mrs. O'Brien.

"And do _you_ mean to say one word against Norah Murray?" a bolder partisan on the Celtic side struck in, with a determined air. Three or four voices murmured a.s.sent.

The German stood her ground. "I nefer seen her till yesterday"--thus without committing direct a.s.sault on the Murray supporters she avoided concession; "all I know of her is dot she nefer haf dot gold vatch!"

"Then you know more than _we_ do. Norah's ahead, and she'll be _more_ ahead this evening," retorted a Murray voter; "there's plenty more money to spend for old Ireland--ain't there, ladies?"

"Whisht!" called the peace-maker, in her turn. "Ain't it easy to see how Mrs. Conner and Mrs. Finn come to words and hard falein' when we're nigh that same ourselves, we that determined to kape out of the worry? They are both awful nice, pretty young ladies, and I'm sorry such a question come up between them; and 'tis _dreadful_, O'Brien says, the way the young men was spinding their money for Norah last night. Sure, an' it is that. 'Tis all a bad thing; I think that like Mrs. Conner."

Mrs. Orendorf was unable to adjust her mental view to the varying argument; she cast a sullen and puzzled eye on the amiable Irish woman, and said, grimly:

"It isn't joost yoong mans vot kan spend money. Freda don't have got no yoong mans, 'cause her Schatz vent to der var und die py der fever in Florida--"

"Sure he did that!" cried Mrs. O'Brien, "an' 'twas a fine man an' a fine carpenter he was. Aw, the poor girl! I mind how she looked the day Company E marched out of town, him turnin' his eyes up sidewises, an' her white as paper but a-smilin'!"

"G.o.d pity her!" chimed in another matron, with the ready response to sympathy of the Celt. There was a little murmur of a.s.sent. Mrs.

Orendorf's swelling crest fell a little; her tone was softer.

"But Freda got a fader, a goot man, _too_ goot and kind; he say he vunt haf his dochter look down on like she don't got no friends. He go and mortgage his farm, und he got drie--tree hunterd dollar"--she tapped the sum off her palm with solemn deliberation--"und he svear he vill in der votin' all, all spend, an' sie git dot vatch. _Ach Himmel! er ist verruckt!_ He say he got his pension and he got der insure on his life, und he 'ain't got n.o.body 'cept Freda, und he vunt haf Freda look down on. Und _sie_ don't know. Mans don't can talk mit him; he git mad. He git mad at _me_ 'cause I talk. _Dot's_ vat der fine votin' do!"

A little gasp from the audience meant more than agreement; their eyes ran to Mrs. O'Brien, who faced the German and could see what they saw; then back of Mrs. Orendorf to the crimson face of a young girl. Mutely they signalled consternation.

But the young girl did not speak; she walked away quickly, not turning her head as she pa.s.sed the voting-booth. She was a pretty girl, with fresh skin, the whiter and fresher against her abundant silky black hair and black-lashed violet eyes. She carried her dainty head a little haughtily, but her soft eyes had a wistful sweetness. Her big flowered hat and her white gown, brightened by blue ribbons, were as fresh as her skin and became her rich beauty. She walked with the natural light grace often seen in girls of her race, whatever their cla.s.s. No one could watch the winsome little figure pa.s.s and not feel the charm of youth and frank innocence and immeasurable hopes. More than one pair of elderly eyes that had seen the glory and freshness of the dream fade followed it kindly and with a pensive pride.

"Ain't she pretty and slim!" sighed a stout lady in silk (Mrs. Conner, the most important supporter of the parish, no less), "and think of me having a waist as little as hers when I was married! But I wish she hadn't let them drag her into this voting business, for it has caused trouble."

"Norah's as good and sweet's she's pretty," another elderly woman replied. "Just to think of that young thing supporting her mother and educating her brother for a priest with only those pretty little hands! But she won't be doing it long if the boys can one of them get their way. And what will we do for a dress-maker then? We never _did_ have such a stylish one!"

"That's so," Mrs. Conner agreed, cordially; "she's the only one I ever went to didn't make me look fleshier than I am. But I say it is all the more shame to make that innocent young creature talked about and fought over, and have jokes made in the saloon and at the stores, and quarrels outside the parish and in it, too."

"I guess it has gone farther than we thought," said the other. "Look!

there's Father Kelly and the Vicar-General; they're looking at the blackboard. I wish I could hear what they are saying."

Norah, indeed, was the only person who did not look at the two quiet gentlemen before the blackboard, curiously, and wonder the same, since the voting-booth had become a firebrand menacing the peace of the parish. Norah was too busy with her own thoughts even to see them; she only wanted to get past her wellwishers and be alone with her perplexities. If she did not see her spiritual guides, they saw her, and Father Kelly's tired face brightened. "You really can't blame the boys," he said, smiling; "and she's as good a daughter and sister, and as good a girl, too, as ever stepped."

The Vicar-General smiled faintly, but his eyes were absent. The parish at Clover Hill was the newest in the diocese--a feeble folk struggling to build a church, or rather help build it, and holding its first bazar. There were no rich people of their faith--unless one except the Conners, who owned the saw-mill and were well-to-do--not even many poor to club their mites; more disheartening yet, the parish roll held about an equal proportion of Irish and German names. The Vicar-General and the Bishop shook their heads at the yoking of the two races; but there was no church nearer than Father Kelly's, five miles away, and Father Kelly was not young, and his own great parish growing all the time; so the parish was made, and a young American priest, who had more sense than always goes with burning enthusiasm, was sent to guide the souls at Clover Hill and keep the peace. He kept it until the fair, when in an evil hour he consented to the voting-booth. He expected--they all expected--that the excitement would focus on the gold-headed cane, and that Mr. Michael Conner would lead the poll, although the popular Finnerty might give him a pretty race for his honors; the gold watch was but an incidental attraction to please the young people and attract outsiders; nor was there any suggestion of names. Alas! Michael Conner, a blunt man, dubbed the voting scheme a "d--- weather-breeder," and would not give the use of his name; hence there was a walkaway for Finnerty; and somehow, before any of the elders quite realized how it began, the Irish girl and the German girl were unconsciously setting the whole town by the ears, and imported voters from Father Kelly's were joyously mixing in the fight.

"There's no question about the _need_ of stopping it," said the Vicar-General, continuing his own train of thought aloud, "but how are we to do it? The feeling is a perfect dynamite factory now, and the least stumble on our part will bring an explosion. If we tried to give them the money back--and you know women have a tight grip on money --we shouldn't know where to give it. Positively we're like the family of the poor fellow who had the fit--one doctor said it would kill him to bring him to his senses, and the other said he would die if they didn't!"

"And Father Martin safe in his bed with pneumonia!" groaned Father Kelly.

Norah had found her progress barred by new-comers, and she had fled back to avoid them. Her cheeks reddened again, and the tears burned her eyelids; she went past too fast for more than a hurried salutation, at which Father Kelly shook his head. "That's the girl, isn't it?" said the Vicar-General. "I'm afraid the situation is a little too much for her, too; she looks excited."

"Not a bit, not a bit," cried Father Kelly, undaunted; "she's a bit impulsive, but she's got good sense."

"She wears too much jewelry."

Norah did not hear this; she was out of the hall, speeding back to Mrs. Conner's gown that awaited her finishing touches. Her mother, a little creature with sweet temper that made amends for an entire lack of energy, was rocking over some bastings, sawing the air with her forefinger as she discoursed on the weighty splendor of the gold watch and chain, ending in gush of parental complacency, "And Norah says it'll be as much mine 's hers!"