Hepsey Burke

“You’ve got to introduce yourself, and get Louise’s confidence before she’ll give down. She thinks that you are too familiar on a short acquaintance. Now talk to her a bit, and be friendly.”

This was somewhat of a poser, as Louise and I really have not much in common, and I was at a loss 56 where to begin. But something had to be done, and so I made a venture and remarked:

“Louise, the wind is in the south; and if it doesn’t change, we shall certainly have rain within three days.”

This did not seem to have the desired effect. In fact, she ignored my remark in the most contemptuous fashion. Then Mrs. Burke suggested:

“Get up, and come round where she can see you. No lady wants to be talked to by a gentleman that’s out of sight.”

So I got up and went around by her head, fed her some clover, patted her on the neck, rubbed her nose, and began a little mild, persuasive appeal:

“Louise, I am really a man of irreproachable character. I am a son of the Revolution; I held three scholarships in Harvard; and I graduated second in my class at the General Sem. Furthermore, I’m not at all accustomed to being snubbed by ladies. Can’t you make up your mind to be obliging?”

Louise sniffed at me inquiringly, gazing at me with large-eyed curiosity. Then as if in token that she had come to a favorable conclusion, she ran out her tongue and licked my hand. When I resumed operations, the milk poured into the pail, and Mrs. Burke was just congratulating me on my complete success, 57 when, by some accident the stool slipped, and I fell over backwards, and the whole contents of the pail was poured on the ground. My! but wasn’t I disgusted? I thought Mrs. Burke would never stop laughing at me; but she was good enough not to allude to the loss of the milk!

Some day when we are married, and you come up here, I will take you out and introduce you to Louise, and she will fall in love with you on the spot.

My most difficult task is my Senior Warden—and it looks as if he would not make friends, do what I will to “qualify” according to his own expressed notions of what a country parson should be. But I rather suspect that he likes to keep the scepter in his own hands, while the clergy do his bidding. But that won’t do for me.

So you see the life up here is interesting from its very novelty, though I do get horribly lonesome, sometimes. If I had not pledged myself to the Bishop to stay and work the parish together into something like an organization, I am afraid I should be tempted to cut and run—back to you, sweetheart.

And there was a post script:

“I’ve not said half enough of how much Mrs. Burke’s wisdom has taught and helped me. She is a shrewd observer of human motives, and I expect 58 she has had a struggle to keep the sweetness of her nature at the top. She is, naturally, a capable, dominating character; and often I watch how she forces herself to let persuasiveness take precedence of combativeness. Her acquired philosophy, as applied to herself and others, is summed up in a saying she let drop the other day, modified to suit her needs: ‘More flies are caught with molasses than with vinegar—but keep some vinegar by you!’ Verb. Sap.!”

CHAPTER V

THE MINIATURE

It happened that the Reverend Donald Maxwell committed a careless indiscretion. When he went to his room to prepare for supper, he found that he had left the miniature of a certain young lady on the mantelpiece, having forgotten to return it to its hiding-place the night before. He quickly placed it in its covering and locked it up in his desk, but not without many misgivings at the thought that Mrs. Burke had probably discovered it when she put his room in order. 60

He was quite right in his surmise, for just as she was about to leave the room she had caught sight of the picture, and, after examining it carefully, she had exclaimed to herself:

“Hm! Hm! So that’s the young woman, is it? In a gilded frame set with real glass rubies and turquoises. I guessed those letters couldn’t come from his mother. She wouldn’t write to him every blessed day; she’d take a day off now and then, just to rest up a bit. Well, well, well! So this is what you’ve been dreaming about; and a mighty good thing too—only the sooner it’s known the better. But I suppose I’ll have to wait for his reverence to inform me officially, and then I’ll have to look mighty surprised! She’s got a good face, anyway; but he ought to wait awhile. Poor soul! she’d just die of loneliness up here. Well, I suppose it’ll be my business to look after her, and I reckon I’d best take time by the fetlock, and get the rectory in order. It isn’t fit for rats to live in now.”

Mrs. Burke’s discovery haunted her all day long, and absorbed her thoughts when she went to bed. If Maxwell was really engaged to be married, she did not see why he did not announce the fact, and have it over with. She had to repeat her prayers three times before she could keep the girl in the gilt frame out 61 of them; and she solved the problem by praying that she might not make a fool of herself.

The next morning she went over to Jonathan Jackson’s house to see what her friend and neighbor, the Junior Warden, would say about the matter. He could be trusted to keep silent and assist her to carry out some provisional plans. She knew exactly what she wished and what she intended to do; but she imagined that she wanted the pleasure of hearing some one tell her that she was exactly right.

Jonathan Jackson was precisely the person to satisfy the demand, as his deceased wife had never allowed him to have any opinion for more than fifteen minutes at a time—if it differed from hers; and when she had made a pretense of consulting him, he had learned by long experience to hesitate for a moment, look judicially wise, and then repeat her suggestions as nearly as he could remember them. So Jonathan made a most excellent friend and neighbor, when any crisis or emergency called for an expert opinion.

Mrs. Burke had been an intimate friend of Sarah Jackson, and just before Mrs. Jackson died she made Hepsey promise that after she was gone she would keep a friendly eye on Jonathan, and see that he did not get into mischief, or let the house run down, or 62 “live just by eatin’ odds and ends off the pantry shelf any old way.” Mrs. Jackson entertained no illusions in regard to her husband, and she trusted Hepsey implicitly. So, after Mrs. Jackson’s mortal departure, Hepsey made periodic calls on Jonathan, which always gave him much pleasure until she became inquisitive about his methods of housekeeping; then he would grow reticent.

“Good morning, Jonathan,” Hepsey called, as she presented herself at the woodshed door, where she caught Jonathan mending some of his underclothes laboriously.

“Well, I declare,” she continued, “I’m blessed if you ’aint sewin’ white buttons on with black thread. Is anybody dead in the family, or ’aint you feelin’ well as to your head this mornin’?”

His voice quavered with mingled embarrassment and resentment as he replied:

“What difference does it make, Hepsey? It don’t make no difference, as long as nobody don’t see it but me.”

“And why in the name of conscience don’t you get a thimble, Jonathan? The idea of your stickin’ the needle in, and then pressin’ it against the chair to make it go through. If that ’aint just like a helpless man, I wouldn’t say.”

“Well, of course sewin’ ’aint just a man’s business, anyway; and when he has just got to do it–”

“Why don’t you let Mary McGuire do it for you? You pay her enough, certainly, to keep you from becomin’ a buttonless orphan.”

Mary McGuire, be it said, was the woman who came in by the day, and cooked for Jonathan, and intermittently cleaned him out of house and home.

“She don’t know much about such things,” replied Jonathan confidentially. “I did let her do it for a while; but when my buttonholes got tore larger, instead of sewin’ ’em up, she just put on a larger button; and I’d be buttonin’ my pants with the covers of saucepans by now, if I’d let her go on.”

“It is curious what helpless critters men are, specially widowers. Now Jonathan, why don’t you lay aside your sewin’, and invite me into your parlor? You aren’t a bit polite.”

“Well, come along then, Hepsey; but the parlor aint just in apple-pie order, as you might say. Things are mussed up a bit.” He looked at her suspiciously.

When they entered the parlor Mrs. Burke gazed about in a critical sort of way.

“Jonathan Jackson, if you don’t get married again before long I don’t know what’ll become of you,” she remarked, as she wrote her name with the end of her 64 finger in the dust on the center-table. “Why don’t you open the parlor occasionally and let the air in? It smells that musty in here I feel as if I was attendin’ your wife’s funeral all over again.”

“Well, of course you know we never did use the parlor much, ’cept there was a funeral in the family, or you called, or things like that.”

“Thank you; but even so, you might put things away occasionally, and not leave them scattered all over the place.”

“What’s the use? I never can find anything when it’s where it belongs; but if it’s left just where I drop it, I know right where it is when I want it.”

“That’s a man’s argument. Sakes alive! The least you could do would be to shut your bureau drawers.”

“What’s the use shuttin’ bureau drawers when you’ve got to open ’em again ’fore long?” Jonathan asked. “It just makes so much more trouble; and there’s trouble enough in this world, anyway.”

“You wouldn’t dare let things go like this when Sarah was livin’.”

“No,” Jonathan replied sadly, “but there’s some advantages in bein’ a widower. Of course I don’t mean no disrespect to Sarah, but opinions will differ about some things. She’d never let me go up the 65 front stairs without takin’ my boots off, so as not to soil the carpet; and when she died and the relatives tramped up and down reckless like, I almost felt as if it was wicked. For a fact, I did.”

“Well, I always told Sarah she was a slave to dust; I believe that dust worried her a lot more than her conscience, poor soul. I should think that Mary McGuire would tidy up for you a little bit once in a while.”

“Well, Mary does the best she knows how. But I like her goin’ better than comin’. The fact is, a man of my age can’t live alone always, Hepsey. It’s a change to live this way, till–”

“Oh, heaven save the mark! I can’t stay here talkin’ all day; but I’ll tidy up a bit before I go, if you don’t mind, Jonathan. You go on with what you call your sewin’.”

“Go ahead, Hepsey. You can do anything you like,” he replied, beaming upon her.

Mrs. Burke opened the blinds and windows, shook up the pillows on the lounge, straightened the furniture, dusted off the chairs and opened the door to the porch. She made a flying trip to the garden, and returned with a big bunch of flowers which she placed in a large glass vase on the mantel. Then she hung Jonathan’s dressing gown over the back of a chair, 66 and put his slippers suggestively near at hand. In a few moments she had transformed the whole appearance of the room, giving it a look of homelike coziness which had long been foreign to it.

“There now, Jonathan! That’s better, isn’t it?”

Jonathan sighed profoundly as he replied:

“It certainly is, Hepsey; it certainly is. I wonder why a man can’t do that kind of thing like a woman can? He knows somethin’s wrong, but he can’t tell what it is.”

Hepsey had almost forgotten her errand; but now that her work was done it came back to her with sudden force; so, puckering up her lips and scowling severely at the carpet, she began:

“The fact is, Jonathan, I didn’t come over here to dust the parlor or to jolly you. I’ve come to have a confidential talk with you about a matter of great importance.”

“What is it, Hepsey?”

“Matrimony.”

Jonathan started eagerly, and colored with self-conscious embarrassment; and after clearing his throat, nervously inquired:

“Did you think of contemplatin’ matrimony again, Hepsey?—though this ’aint leap year.”

“I, contemplate matrimony? Oh, land of Gideon, 67 no. It’s about some one else. Don’t get scared. I’m no kidnapper!”

“Well, who is it, then?” Jonathan inquired, with a touch of disappointment.

“My adopted son.”

“You don’t say! I’ve heard rumors about Maxwell and Virginia Bascom; but I didn’t take no stock in ’em, knowin’ Virginia.”

“Virginia hasn’t nothin’ to do with it.”

“Well, who has then, for land’s sake!”

“I don’t know the girl’s name; but I saw her picture on his mantelpiece yesterday mornin’, and I’ve had my suspicions for some time.”

“Well, I suppose his marryin’ ’aint none of our business anyway, be it?”

“Yes, it is our business; if he’s goin’ to get married, the rectory’s got to be fixed over a whole lot ’fore it’s fit to live in. You know the Senior Warden won’t lift his finger, and you’ve got to help me do it.”

Jonathan sighed profoundly, knowing from past experience that Hepsey’s word carried more weight than all the vestry.

“I suppose I have, if you say so, Hepsey.”

“Yes sir, you’ve got to help me do it. No decent girl is goin’ into that house as it is, with my consent. It’s the worst old rat-trap I ever saw. I’ve got the 68 key, and I’m goin’ through it this afternoon, and then I’m goin’ to plan what ought to be done.”

“But it seems to me you’re venturin’ some. You don’t know they’re goin’ to be married.”

“No, but all the symptoms point that way, and we’ve got to be prepared for it.”

“But the people round town seem to think that Virginia has a first mortgage on the rector already.”

“No doubt she thinks she has; but it ’aint true. He’s made a blunder, though, not announcin’ his engagement, and I’m goin’ to tell him so the first chance I get. I don’t see why he should air his private affairs all over the town, but if he don’t announce his engagement before long, Virginia Bascom’ll make an awful row when he does.”

“Yes, and to the best of my knowledge and belief this’ll be her fifth row.”

“Well, you meet me at the rectory at two o’clock sharp.”

“But we ought to consult the vestry first,” the Junior Warden cautioned her.

“What for, I’d like to know?”

“’Cause they are the trustees of the property.”

“Then why don’t they ’tend to the property? The vestry are a lot of–” 69

“Sh! Hepsey, be careful. I’ll be there, I’ll be there!”

Mrs. Burke rose and started for the door; but Jonathan called out to her:

“Hepsey, can’t you stay to dinner? I’d like awful well to have you. It would seem so nice and homelike to see you sittin’ opposite me at the table.”

“Am I to consider this a proposal of marriage, Jonathan?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought of it in that light; but if you would, I’d be mighty thankful.”

But Hepsey was beating her retreat.

Jonathan stood for a minute or two in the middle of the room and looked very sober. Slowly he took off his coat and put on his dressing gown. Then he sat down, and cautiously put his feet in another chair. Next he lighted a cigar—gazing about the room as if his late wife might appear at any moment as an avenging deity, and drag him into the kitchen where he belonged. But nothing happened, and he began to feel a realization of his independence. He sat and thought for a long time, and a mighty hunger of the heart overwhelmed him. Before he knew it, a tear or two had fallen on the immaculate carpet; and then, suddenly recollecting himself, he stood up, saying to himself—such is the consistency of man: 70

“Sarah was a good soul accordin’ to her lights; but she’s dead, and I must confess I’m powerful reconciled. Hepsey Burke’s different. I wonder if–”

But he put he thought away from him with a “get thee behind me” abruptness, and putting on his coat, went out to water the stock.

CHAPTER VI

THE MISSIONARY TEA

“Hm!” Mrs. Burke remarked to Maxwell abruptly one day during supper. “We haven’t had a missionary tea since you came, and I think it’s high time we did.”

“What sort of a missionary tea do you mean?” the parson inquired.

“Well,” Mrs. Burke responded, “our missionary teas combine different attractions. We get together and look over each other’s clothes; that’s the first thing; then some one reads a paper reportin’ how 72 things is goin’ in Zanzibar, or what’s doin’ in Timbuctoo. Then we look over the old clothes sent in for missionaries, mend ’em up, and get ’em ready to send off. Then we have tea and cake. I’ve had my misgivin’ for some time that perhaps we cared more for the tea and cake than we did for the heathen; but of course I put such a wicked thought aside. If you value your reputation for piety, don’t you ever speak of a missionary tea here except in a whisper.”

“But I suppose the tea helps to get people together and be more sociable?”

“Certainly. The next best thing to religion is a cup of strong tea and a frosted cake, to make us country people friends. Both combined can’t be beat. But you ought to see the things that have been sent in this last week for the missionary box. There’s a smoking jacket, two pairs of golf-trousers, several pairs of mismated gloves, a wonderful lot of undarned stockings, bonnets and underclothes to burn, two jackets and a bathin’ suit. I wonder what people think missionaries are doin’ most of the time!”

On the day appointed for the missionary tea the ladies were to assemble at Thunder Cliff at four o’clock; and when Maxwell came home, before the advent of the first guest, he seemed somewhat depressed; and Mrs. Burke inquired: 73

“Been makin’ calls on your parishioners?”

“Yes, I have made a few visits.”

“Now you must look more cheerful, or somebody’ll suspect that you don’t always find parish calls the joy of your life.”

“It’s so difficult to find subjects of conversation that they are interested in. I simply couldn’t draw out Mrs. Snodgrass, for instance.”

“Well, when you’ve lived in the country as long as I have, you’ll find that the one unfailin’ subject of interest is symptoms—mostly dyspepsy and liver complaint. If you had known enough to have started right with Elmira Snodgrass, she would have thawed out at once. Elmira is always lookin’ for trouble as the sparks fly upwards, or thereabouts. She’d crawl through a barbed wire fence if she couldn’t get at it any other way. She always chews a pill on principle, and then she calls it a dispensation of Providence, and wonders why she was ever born to be tormented.”

“In that case,” laughed Maxwell, “I’d better get some medical books and read up on symptoms. By the by, is there any particular program for this missionary meeting, Mrs. Burke?”

“Yes, Virginia Bascom’s goin’ to read a paper called ‘The Christian Mother as a Missionary in her own Household.’ To be sure, Ginty’s no Christian 74 Mother, or any other kind of a mother; but she’s as full of enthusiasm as a shad is of bones. She’d bring up any child while you wait, and not charge a cent. There goes the bell, so please excuse me.”

The guests were received by Mrs. Burke. Miss Bascom entered the parlor with a portentous bundle of manuscript under her arm, and greeted Donald with a radiant smile. Pulling a pansy from a bunch in her dress, she adjusted it in his buttonhole with the happy shyness of a young kitten chasing its tail. After the others had assembled, they formed a circle to inspect the clothing which had been sent in. There was a general buzz of conversation.

As they were busily going through the garments, Virginia remarked, “Are all these things to go to the missionaries at Tien Tsin?” and she adjusted her lorgnette to inspect the heap.

“Yes,” Mrs. Burke responded wearily, “and I hope they’ll get what comfort they can out of ’em.”

“You don’t seem to be very appreciative, Mrs. Burke,” Virginia reproved.

“Well, I suppose I ought to be satisfied,” Hepsey replied. “But it does seem as if most people give to the Lord what they can’t use for themselves any longer—as they would to a poor relation that’s worthy, but not to be coddled by too much charity.” 75

“I think these things are quite nice enough for the missionaries,” Virginia retorted. “They are thankful for anything.”

“Yes, I know,” Mrs. Burke replied calmly. “Missionaries and their families have no business to have any feelings that can’t be satisfied with second-hand clothes, and no end of good advice on how to spend five cents freely but not extravagantly.”

“But don’t you believe in sending them useful things?” Virginia asked loftily.

“So I do; but I’d hate that word ‘useful’ if I was a missionary’s wife.”

“Might I inquire,” asked Miss Bascom meekly, “what you would send?”

“Certainly! I’d send a twenty-five-cent scent bag, made of silk and filled with patchouli-powder,” said Hepsey, squarely.

“Well,” Virginia added devoutly, “satchet bags may be well enough in their place; but they won’t feed missionaries, or clothe them, or save souls, you know, Mrs. Burke.”

“Did anybody say they would?” Mrs. Burke inquired. “I shouldn’t particularly care to see missionaries clothed in sachet bags myself; the smell might drive the heathen to desperation. But do we always limit our spending money to necessary clothes and 76 food? The truth is, we all of us spend anything we like as long as it goes on our backs, or down our throats; but the moment it comes to supportin’ missionaries we think ’em worldly and graspin’ if they show any ambition beyond second-hand clothes.”

“Do you live up to your preachin’, Mrs. Burke?” a little sallow-faced woman inquired from a dark corner of the room.

“Oh, no; it hits me just as hard as anybody else, as Martin Luther said. But I’ve got a proposition to make: if you’ll take these things you brought, back with you, and wear ’em for a week just as they are, and play you’re the missionaries, I’ll take back all I’ve said.”

As, however, there was no response to this challenge, the box was packed, and the cover nailed down.

(It is perhaps no proper part of this story to add, that its opening on the other side of the world was attended by the welcome and surprising fragrance of patchouli, emanating from a little silk sachet secreted among the more workaday gifts.)

The ladies then adjourned to the front piazza, where the supper was served.

When the dishes had been cleared away, the guests adjusted their chairs and assumed attitudes of expectant 77 attention while Virginia stood up and shyly unrolled her manuscript, with a placid, self-conscious smile on her countenance. She apologized for her youth and inexperience, with a moving glance towards her pastor, and then got down to business. She began with the original and striking remark that it was the chief glory and function of woman to be a home-maker. She continued with something to the effect that the woman who forms the character of her children in the sanctity of the home-life rules the destinies of the world. Then she made a fetching allusion to the “Mother of the Gracchi,” and said something about jewels. Nobody knew who the “Gracchi” were, but they supposed that they must be some relatives of Virginia’s who lived in Boston.

She asserted that the modern methods of bringing up children were all wrong. She drew a striking picture of the ideal home in which children always stood modestly and reverently by their parents’ chairs, consumed with anxiety to be of some service to their elders. They were always to be immaculately neat in their attire, and gentle in their ways. The use of slang was quite beneath them.

These ideal children were always to spend their evenings at home in the perusal of instructive books, and the pursuit of useful knowledge. Then, when 78 half-past seven arrived, they were to rise spontaneously and promptly, and bid their parents an affectionate good-night, and retire to their rooms, where, having said their prayers and recited the golden text, they were to get into bed.

Portions of Virginia’s essay were quite moving. Speaking of the rewards which good mothers reap, in the virtues and graces of their dutiful offspring, she said:

“What mother does not feel a thrill of exquisite rapture as she fondly gazes into the depths of her baby’s eyes and sees there the budding promise of glorious womanhood. What mother does not watch the development of her little son with wondering pride, as she notes his manly, simple ways, his gentle reverence, his tender, modest behavior. What mother–”