"I don"t understand you," she said. "Our position is perfectly logical."
She had borrowed that phrase from Myra Wilson, and it floored the elder. He got up, seized his hat, and strode from the room.
That night, at Jacob Wherrison"s store at the Corner, the Putney men talked over the new development. The social was certainly off--for a time, anyway.
"Best let "em alone, I say," said Wherrison. "They"re mad at us now and doing this to pay us out. But they"ll cool down later on and we"ll have the social all right."
"But if they don"t," said Andrew McKittrick gloomily, "who is going to pay for that carpet?"
This was an unpleasant question. The others shirked it.
"I was always opposed to this action of the session," said Alec Craig.
"It wouldn"t have hurt to have let the woman speak. "Tisn"t as if it was a regular sermon."
"The session knew best," said Andrew sharply. "And the minister--you"re not going to set your opinion up against his, are you, Craig?"
"Didn"t know they taught such reverence for ministers in Danbridge,"
retorted Craig with a laugh.
"Best let "em alone, as Wherrison says," said Abner Keech.
"Don"t see what else we can do," said John Wilson shortly.
On Sunday morning the men were conscious of a bare, deserted appearance in the church. Mr. Sinclair perceived it himself. After some inward wondering he concluded that it was because there were no flowers anywhere. The table before the pulpit was bare. On the organ a vase held a sorry, faded bouquet left over from the previous week. The floor was" unswept. Dust lay thickly on the pulpit Bible, the choir chairs, and the pew backs.
"This church looks disgraceful," said John Robbins in an angry undertone to his daughter Polly, who was president of the Flower Band. "What in the name of common sense is the good of your Flower Banders if you can"t keep the place looking decent?"
"There is no Flower Band now, Father," whispered Polly in turn. "We"ve disbanded. Women haven"t any business to meddle in church matters. You know the session said so."
It was well for Polly that she was too big to have her ears boxed.
Even so, it might not have saved her if they had been anywhere else than in church.
Meanwhile the men who were sitting in the choir--three ba.s.ses and two tenors--were beginning to dimly suspect that there was something amiss here too. Where were the sopranos and the altos? Myra Wilson and Alethea Craig and several other members of the choir were sitting down in their pews with perfectly unconscious faces. Myra was looking out of the window into the tangled sunlight and shadow of the great maples. Alethea Craig was reading her Bible.
Presently Frances Spenslow came in. Frances was organist, but today, instead of walking up to the platform, she slipped demurely into her father"s pew at one side of the pulpit. Eben Craig, who was the Putney singing master and felt himself responsible for the choir, fidgeted uneasily. He tried to catch Frances"s eye, but she was absorbed in reading the mission report she had found in the rack, and Eben was finally forced to tiptoe down to the Spenslow pew and whisper, "Miss Spenslow, the minister is waiting for the doxology. Aren"t you going to take the organ?"
Frances looked up calmly. Her clear, placid voice was audible not only to those in the nearby pews, but to the minister.
"No, Mr. Craig. You know if a woman isn"t fit to speak in the church she can"t be fit to sing in it either."
Eben Craig looked exceedingly foolish. He tiptoed gingerly back to his place. The minister, with an unusual flush on his thin, ascetic face, rose suddenly and gave out the opening hymn.
n.o.body who heard the singing in Putney church that day ever forgot it.
Untrained ba.s.ses and tenors, unrelieved by a single female voice, are not inspiring.
There were no announcements of society meetings for the forthcoming week. On the way home from church that day irate husbands and fathers scolded, argued, or pleaded, according to their several dispositions.
One and all met with the same calm statement that if a n.o.ble, self-sacrificing woman like Mrs. Cotterell were not good enough to speak in the Putney church, ordinary, everyday women could not be fit to take any part whatever in its work.
Sunday School that afternoon was a harrowing failure. Out of all the corps of teachers only one was a man, and he alone was at his post. In the Christian Endeavour meeting on Tuesday night the feminine element sat dumb and unresponsive. The Putney women never did things by halves.
The men held out for two weeks. At the end of that time they "happened" to meet at the manse and talked the matter over with the hara.s.sed minister. Elder Knox said gloomily, "It"s this way. Nothing can move them women. I know, for I"ve tried. My authority has been set at naught in my own household. And I"m laughed at if I show my face in any of the other settlements."
The Sunday School superintendent said the Sunday School was going to wrack and ruin, also the Christian Endeavour. The condition of the church for dust was something scandalous, and strangers were making a mockery of the singing. And the carpet had to be paid for. He supposed they would have to let the women have their own way.
The next Sunday evening after service Mr. Sinclair arose hesitatingly.
His face was flushed, and Alethea Craig always declared that he looked "just plain everyday cross." He announced briefly that the session after due deliberation had concluded that Mrs. Cotterell might occupy the pulpit on the evening appointed for her address.
The women all over the church smiled broadly. Frances Spenslow got up and went to the organ stool. The singing in the last hymn was good and hearty. Going down the steps after dismissal Mrs. Elder Knox caught the secretary of the Church Aid by the arm.
"I guess," she whispered anxiously, "you"d better call a special meeting of the Aids at my house tomorrow afternoon. If we"re to get that social over before haying begins we"ve got to do some smart scurrying."
The strike in the Putney church was over.
The Unhappiness of Miss Farquhar
Frances Farquhar was a beauty and was sometimes called a society b.u.t.terfly by people who didn"t know very much about it. Her father was wealthy and her mother came of an extremely blue-blooded family.
Frances had been out for three years, and was a social favourite.
Consequently, it may be wondered why she was unhappy.
In plain English, Frances Farquhar had been jilted--just a commonplace, everyday jilting! She had been engaged to Paul Holcomb; he was a very handsome fellow, somewhat too evidently aware of the fact, and Frances was very deeply in love with him--or thought herself so, which at the time comes to pretty much the same thing. Everybody in her set knew of her engagement, and all her girl friends envied her, for Holcomb was a matrimonial catch.
Then the crash came. n.o.body outside the family knew exactly what did happen, but everybody knew that the Holcomb-Farquhar match was off, and everybody had a different story to account for it.
The simple truth was that Holcomb was fickle and had fallen in love with another girl. There was nothing of the man about him, and it did not matter to his sublimely selfish caddishness whether he broke Frances Farquhar"s heart or not. He got his freedom and he married Maud Carroll in six months" time.
The Farquhars, especially Ned, who was Frances"s older brother and seldom concerned himself about her except when the family honour was involved, were furious at the whole affair. Mr. Farquhar stormed, and Ned swore, and Della lamented her vanished role of bridemaid. As for Mrs. Farquhar, she cried and said it would ruin Frances"s future prospects.
The girl herself took no part in the family indignation meetings. But she believed that her heart was broken. Her love and her pride had suffered equally, and the effect seemed disastrous.
After a while the Farquhars calmed down and devoted themselves to the task of cheering Frances up. This they did not accomplish. She got through the rest of the season somehow and showed a proud front to the world, not even flinching when Holcomb himself crossed her path. To be sure, she was pale and thin, and had about as much animation as a mask, but the same might be said of a score of other girls who were not suspected of having broken hearts.
When the summer came Frances a.s.serted herself. The Farquhars went to Green Harbour every summer. But this time Frances said she would not go, and stuck to it. The whole family took turns coaxing her and had nothing to show for their pains.
"I"m going up to Windy Meadows to stay with Aunt Eleanor while you are at the Harbour," she declared. "She has invited me often enough."
Ned whistled. "Jolly time you"ll have of it, Sis. Windy Meadows is about as festive as a funeral. And Aunt Eleanor isn"t lively, to put it in the mildest possible way."
"I don"t care if she isn"t. I want to get somewhere where people won"t look at me and talk about--that," said Frances, looking ready to cry.
Ned went out and swore at Holcomb again, and then advised his mother to humour Frances. Accordingly, Frances went to Windy Meadows.
Windy Meadows was, as Ned had said, the reverse of lively. It was a pretty country place, with a sort of f.a.g-end by way of a little fishing village, huddled on a wind-swept bit of beach, locally known as the "Cove." Aunt Eleanor was one of those delightful people, so few and far between in this world, who have perfectly mastered the art of minding their own business exclusively. She left Frances in peace.