Hepsey Burke. Frank Nash Westcott

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СКАЧАТЬ of one’s position, you know. Many of the village people are well enough in their way, really quite amusing as individuals; but one cannot alter social distinctions.”

      “I see,” replied Donald, non-committally.

      Virginia was beginning to think that the new rector was rather dull in his perceptions, rather gauche, but, deciding to take a charitable view, she held out her hand with a beaming smile as she said:

      “Remember, you are to make Willow Bluff one of your homes. We shall always be charmed to see you.”

      When, after their respective shoppings were completed, Maxwell rejoined Mrs. Burke, and they had started on a brisk trot towards home, she remarked:

      “So you have had a visit with the Senior Warden.”

      “Yes, and with Miss Bascom. She came into the office while I was there.”

      “Hm! Well! She’s one of your flock!”

      “Would you call Miss Bascom one of my lambs?” asked Donald mischievously. 46

      “Oh, that depends on where you draw the line. Don’t you think she’s handsome?”

      “I can hardly say. What do you think about it?”

      “Oh, I don’t know. When she’s well dressed she has a sort of style about her; but isn’t it merciful that we none of us know how we really do look? If we did, we wouldn’t risk bein’ alone with ourselves five minutes without a gun.”

      “Is that one for Miss Bascom?”

      “No, I ought not to say a word against Virginia Bascom. She’s a good sort accordin’ to her lights; and then too, she is a disconnection of mine by marriage—once removed.”

      “How do you calculate that relationship?”

      “Oh, her mother’s brother married my sister. She suspected that he was guilty of incompatibility—and she proved it, and got a divorce. If that don’t make a disconnection of Ginty Bascom, then I don’t know what does. Virginia was born in Boston, though she was brought up here. It must be terrible to be born in Boston, and have to live up to it, when you spend your whole life in a place like Durford. But Ginty does her very best, though occasionally she forgets.”

      “You can hardly blame her for that. Memory is tricky, and Boston and Durford are about as unlike as two places well could be.” 47

      “Oh, no; I don’t blame her. Once she formed a club for woman’s suffrage. She set out to ‘form my mind’—as if my mind wasn’t pretty thoroughly formed at this time of day—and get me to protest against the tyranny of the male sex. I didn’t see that the male sex was troublin’ her much; but I signed a petition she got up to send to the Governor or somebody, asking for the right to vote. There was an opposition society that didn’t want the ballot, and they got up another petition.”

      “And you signed that too, I expect,” laughed Donald.

      “Sure thing, I did. I’m not narrow-minded, and I like to be obliging. Then she tried what she called slummin’, which, as near as I can see, means walkin’ in where you ’aint wanted, because people are poorer than you are, and leavin’ little tracts that nobody reads, and currant jelly that nobody eats, and clothes that nobody can wear. But an Irishman shied a cabbage at her head while she was tryin’ to convince him that the bath-tub wasn’t really a coal bin, and that his mental attitude was hindside before.

      “Then she got to be a Theosophist, and used to sit in her room upstairs projecting her astral body out of the window into the back yard, and pulling it in again like a ball on a rubber string—just for practice, 48 you know. But that attack didn’t last long.”

      “She seems to be a very versatile young woman; but she doesn’t stick to one thing very long.”

      “A rolling stone gathers no moss, you know,” Mrs. Burke replied. “That’s one of the advantages of bein’ a rolling stone. It must be awful to get mossy; and there isn’t any moss on Virginia Bascom, whatever faults she may have—not a moss.”

      For a moment Mrs. Burke was silent, and then she began:

      “Once Virginia got to climbin’ her family tree, to find out where her ancestors came from. She thought that possibly they might be noblemen. But I guess there wasn’t very much doin’ up the tree until she got down to New York, and paid a man to tell her. She brought back an illuminated coat of arms with a lion rampantin’ on top; but she was the same old Virginia still. What do I care about my ancestors! It doesn’t make no difference to me. I’m just myself anyway, no matter how you figure; and I’m a lot more worried about where I’m goin’ to, than where I came from. Virginia’s got a book called ‘Who’s Who,’ that she’s always studying. But the only thing that matters, it seems to me, is Who’s What.”

      “I wonder she hasn’t married,” remarked Donald, innocently. 49

      “Ah, that’s the trouble. She’s like a thousand others without no special occupation in life. She’s wastin’ a lot of bottled up interest and sympathy on foolish things. If she’d married and had seven babies, they would have seen to it that she didn’t make a fool of herself. However, it isn’t her fault. She’s volunteered to act as Deaconess to every unmarried parson we’ve had; and it’s a miracle of wonders one of ’em didn’t succumb; parsons are such—oh, do excuse me! I mean so injudicious on the subject of matrimony.”

      “But, Mrs. Burke, don’t you think a clergyman ought to be a married man?”

      “Well, to tell you the truth, t’aint me that’s been doin’ the thinkin’ along those lines, for most of the parsons we’ve had. I’ve been more of a first aid to the injured, in the matrimonial troubles of our parish, and the Lord only knows when love-making has got as far as actual injury to the parties engaged,—well thinkin’ ’aint much use. But there’s Ginty for example. She’s been worryin’ herself thin for the last five years, doin’ matrimonial equations for the clergy. She’s a firm believer in the virtue of patience, and if the Lord only keeps on sendin’ us unmarried rectors, Ginty is goin’ to have her day. It’s just naturally bound to come. I ’aint sure whether 50 she’s got a right to be still runnin’ with the lambs or not, but that don’t matter much,—old maids will rush in where angels fear to tread.”

      Maxwell smiled. “Old maids, and old bachelors, are pretty much alike. I know a few of the latter, that no woman on earth could make into regular human beings.”

      “Oh, yes; old bachelors aren’t the nicest thing the Lord ever made. Most of ’em are mighty selfish critters, take ’em as they run; and a man that’s never had a real great love in his life doesn’t know what life is.”

      “That’s quite true,” Donald responded, with such warmth that Mrs. Burke glanced at him suspiciously, and changed her tune, as she continued:

      “Seems to me a parson, or any other man, is very foolish to marry before he can support a wife comfortably, and lay by somethin’ for a rainy day, though. The last rector had five babies and seventeen cents to feed ’em with. Yes, there were little olive branches on all four sides of the table, and under the table too. The Whittimores seemed to have their quiver full of ’em, as the psalmist says. Mrs. Whittimore used to say to me, ‘The Lord will provide,’—just to keep her courage up, poor thing! Well, I suppose the Lord did provide; but I had to do a lot of hustlin’, just 51 the same. No sir, if a parson marries, he better find a woman who has outgrown her short skirts. Young things dyin’ to be СКАЧАТЬ