The Tinder-Box Part 13

"Yes, munic.i.p.al disgrace threatens the town, and the women must rise in their strength and avert it," she declaimed majestically with her dark eyes snapping.

"Yesterday afternoon James Hardin, who is the only patriotic male in Glendale, put before the Town Council a most reasonable and pride-bestirring proposition originated by Evelina Shelby, one of Glendale's leading citizens, though a woman. She wants to offer the far-famed hospitality of Glendale--which is the oldest and most aristocratic town in the Harpeth Valley, except perhaps Hillsboro, and which is not in the cla.s.s with a vulgarly rich, modern place like Bolivar, that has a soap-factory and streetcars, and was a mud-hole in the landscape when the first Shelby built this very house,--to the Commission of magnates who are to come down about the railroad lines that are to be laid near us. James agrees with her and urges that it is fitting and dignified that, when they are through with their vulgar trafficking over at insignificant Bolivar, they be asked to partake of real southern hospitality at its fountain head, especially as Evelina is obliged to invite two of them as personal friends. Do you not see it in that light?" And Aunt Augusta looked at us with the martial mien of a general commanding his army for a campaign.

"It would be nice," answered Mamie, as she turned little Ned over on his stomach across her knee and began to sway him and trot him at the same time, which was his signal to get off into a nap. "But Ned said last night that he had lost so much in the bond subscription, that he didn't feel like spending any more money for an entertainment, that wouldn't do one bit of good about the taxes or bonds or anything. The baby was beginning to fret, so I don't think I understood it exactly."

"I don't think you did," answered Aunt Augusta, witheringly, "That is not the point at all, and--"

"But Mr. Greenfield said last night, while he was discussing it with Father, that it would do no good whatever and probably be an embarra.s.sment to the Commission, our putting in a pitiful bid like that.

He--" but Caroline got no further with the feminine echo of her masculine opinion-former.

"Peter Shelby put that objection much more picturesquely than Lee Greenfield," Aunt Augusta snapped. "He said that licking those men's hands would turn his stomach, after swallowing that bond issue. However, all this has nothing to do with the case. I am trying to--"

"Polk said last night that he thought it would be much more spectacular for all the good looking women in town to go when we are invited to Mrs.

Henderson's tea for the big bugs, and dazzle 'em so that it would at least put Glendale on the map," said Nell, with spirit. "He made me so mad that I--"

"Mr. Haley thinks that we should be very careful not to feel malice or envy towards Bolivar, but to rejoice at their good fortune in getting both roads and the shops, even if it does mean a loss to us. What is material wealth in this world anyway when we can depend so on--"

Sallie's expression was so beautifully silly and like the Dominie's, that it was all that I could do not to give vent to an unworthy shout.

Nell saw it as I did and I felt her smother a giggle.

But before Aunt Augusta could get her breath to put the crux of the matter straight before her feminine tribunal, Aunt Martha beat her to it as she placidly rocked back and forth knitting lace for a petticoat for Henrietta.

"Of course, Glendale doesn't really care about the railroad; in fact, we would much rather not have our seclusion broken in upon, especially as they might choose the route they have prospected"--with a glance at Sallie--"but it is to show them our friendliness, more Bolivar than the actual Commission, and our desire to rejoice with them in their good fortune. It would be very mean spirited of us to ignore them and not a.s.sist them in entertaining their guests, especially as some of them must be invited. We've never been in such an att.i.tude as that to Bolivar!"

"Exactly, Martha," answered Aunt Augusta with relief. "The thought of proud old Glendale putting herself in an att.i.tude of munic.i.p.al sulks towards common Bolivar seemed an unbearable disgrace to me. Didn't we invite them up for a great fish-fry on the river when they opened that odious soap factory, and ask them to let us help take care of some of their delegates when they had the Methodist Conference? They sent one of the two bishops to you, you remember, Martha, and I am sure your entertainment of him was so lavish that he went home ill. No man said us nay in the exercising our right of religious hospitality, why should they in our civic? We must not allow the town to put us in such an att.i.tude! Must Not! It was for this that I called this meeting at Evelina's, as she was the one to propose this public-spirited and creditable plan."

"But what shall we do if they don't want to have it?" asked Mamie.

"I have asked, when did the men of Glendale begin to dictate to the women as to whom they should offer their hospitality?" answered Aunt Augusta, as she arose to her feet. "Are we free women, and have we, or have we not, command of our own storerooms and our own servants and our own time and strength?"

And as I looked up at the tall, fierce, white-haired old dame of high degree, daughter of the women of the Colonies and the women of the Wilderness days, I got exactly the same sensation I had when I saw the G.o.ddess of Liberty loom up out of the mist as I sailed into the harbor of my own land from a foreign one. And what I was feeling I knew every woman present was feeling in a greater or less degree, except perhaps Sallie, for her face was a puzzle of sore amazement and a pleading desire for further sleep.

"Have we or have we not?" Aunt Augusta again demanded, and just then a most wonderful thing happened!

Jane stood in our midst!

Oh, Jane, you were a miracle to me, but I must go on writing about it all calmly for the sake of the Five!

I made a mad rush from my rocker to throw myself into her arms, but she stopped me with one glance of her cold, official eye that quelled me, and stood attention before Aunt Augusta.

"Madam President," she said in her grandest parliamentary voice, "it was by accident that I interrupted the proceedings of what I take to be an official meeting. Have I your permission to withdraw? I am Miss Shelby's guest, Miss Mathers, and I can easily await her greetings until the adjournment of this body."

Oh, Jane, and my arms just hungry for you!

"Madam," answered Aunt Augusta, in her grandest manner and a voice so filled with cordiality that I hardly knew it, "it is the pleasure of the chair to interrupt proceedings and to welcome you. Evelina, introduce us all!"

It was all just glorious! I never saw anybody get a more lovely ovation than Jane did from my friends, for they had all heard about her, read with awe clippings I showed them about her speeches and--were about ready for her.

Sallie kissed her on both cheeks, Mamie laid the baby in her arms with a devout expression, and Nell clung to her with the rapture of the newly proselyted in her face. Aunt Martha made her welcome in her dearest manner and Caroline beamed on her with the return of a lot of the fire and spirit of the youth that hanging on the doled-out affections of Lee Greenfield had starved in her.

And it was characteristic of Jane and her methods that it took much less time than it takes me to write it, for her to get all the greetings over with, explain that she had sent me a letter telling me that she was coming that must have gone astray, get everybody named and ticketed in her mind, and get us all back to business.

Aunt Augusta explained the situation to her with so much feeling and eloquence that she swept us all off our feet, and when she was ready to put the question again to us as to our willingness to embark on our defiance of our fellow-townsmen, the answer of enthusiastic acquiescence was ready for her.

"Of course, as none of you have any official munic.i.p.al status, the invitation will have to be given informally, in a social way, to the Commission through Miss Shelby's friend, Mr. Richard Hall," said Jane, when Aunt Augusta had called on her to give us her opinion of the situation in general and the mode of procedure. "We find it best in all women-questions of the present, to do things in a perfectly legal and parliamentary way."

"Must we tell them about it or not?" asked Mamie, in a wavering voice, looking up devoutly at Jane, who had held young Ned against the stiff white linen shirt of her traveling dress just as comfortably as if he were her own seventh.

"Did they consult you before deciding to refuse your suggestion?" asked Jane, calmly and thoughtfully.

"They did not," trumpeted Aunt Augusta.

"Then wouldn't it be the most regular way to proceed to get an acceptance of the invitation from the Commission and then extend them one to be present?" p.r.o.nounced Jane, coolly, seemingly totally unconscious that she was exploding; a bomb sh.e.l.l.

"It would, and we will consider it so settled," answered Aunt Augusta, dominatingly.

This quick and revolutionary decision gave me a shock. I could see that a woman doesn't like to feel that there is a stick of dynamite between her and a man, when she puts her head down under his chin or her cheek to his, but advanced women must suffer that. Still I'm glad that the Crag is on our side of the fence. I felt sorry for Mamie and Caroline--and Sallie looked a tragedy.

In fact, a shade of depression was about to steal over the spirits of the meeting when Aunt Augusta luckily called for the discussion of plans for the rally.

Feeding other human beings is the natural, inst.i.tuted, physiological, pathological, metaphysical, and spiritual outlet for a woman's nature, and that is why she is so happy when she gets out her family receipt book for a called rehearsal for the functioning of her hospitality. The revolution went home happy and excited over the martialing of their flesh pots.

I'm glad Jane is asleep across the hall to-night. If I had had to shoulder all this outbreak by myself I would have compromised by inst.i.tuting a campaign of wheedling, the like of which this town never suffered before, and then when this glorious rally was finally pulled off, the cajoled masculine population would have fairly swelled with pride over having done it!

Of course, by every known test of conduct and economics, their att.i.tude in the matter is entirely right. Men work to all given points in straight, clear-cut, logical lines only to find women at the point of results waiting for them, with unforeseen culminations, which would have been impossible to them.

And I am also glad the Crag is partly responsible for starting, or at least unconsciously aiding, this scheme in high finance of mine; and he is also in reality the silent sponsor for this unhatched revolution. I am deeply contented to go to sleep with that comforting; thought tucked under my pillow.

CHAPTER VIII

AN ATTAINED TO-MORROW

I've changed my mind about a woman's being like a whirlwind. The women of now are the attained to-morrow that the world since the beginning has been trying to catch up with. Jane is that, and then the day after, too, and what she has done to Glendale in these two weeks has stunned the old town into a trance of delight and amazement. She has recreated us, breathed the breath of modernity into us, and started the machine up the grade of civilization at a pace that makes me hold my breath for fear of something jolting us.

She and Aunt Augusta have organized an Equality League, and that wheel came very near flying loose and being the finish of Uncle Peter.

He came to see me the morning of the first meeting and, when I saw him coming up the front walk, I got an astral vision of the chips on his shoulder enlarged to twice their natural size, and called to Jasper to mix the juleps very long and extra deep. But deep as they were, to the very top of the longest gla.s.ses, he couldn't drown his wrath in his.

"Women, women," he exploded from over the very mint sprig itself, "all fools, all fools from the beginning of time; made that way on purpose--on purpose--hey? World needs some sort of creature with no better sense than to want to spend their lives fooling with babies and the bread of life. Human young and religion are the only things in the world men can't attend to for themselves and that's what they need women for. Women with no brains--but all heart--all heart--hey?"

"Why should just a little brain hurt their heart-action. Uncle Peter?" I asked mildly. There is nothing in the world that I ever met that I enjoy any more than one of Uncle Peter's rages, and I always try to be meekly inflammatory.

"They're never satisfied with using them to run church societies and children's internal organs, but they want to use 'em on men and civilization in general. Where'd you get that Yankee school-marm--hey?

Why don't she get a husband and a baby and settle down? Ten babies, twenty babies if necessary--hey?"

"You are entirely mistaken as to the plans that Jane and Aunt Augusta have for the League they are forming this morning, Uncle Peter." I began to say with delight as to what was likely to ensue. "If you would only listen to Jane while she--"