CHAPTER XII
LAURA'S PHILANTHROPY
"I wish you and Gretta had not forgotten my pup," said Miss Bradburycoming into the dining-room the morning after the departure of Margery."I still hear queer noises at night. I'm going to send down to town fora good dog. Jake Shale has offered me a beagle, and Peter Kuntz assuresme the one thing on earth I need is his old dog, half shepherd andseven-eighths cur, but I'm not convinced."
"What a very fractional dog, Miss Keren!" laughed Mrs. Scollard.
"Let me send down to mother to get a dog a friend of mine has,Miss Bradbury," suggested Ralph. "He's about two years old, andthoroughbred, a fine watchdog. They want to get him into the country,or they'd never give him up; he is out of place in New York, theythink."
"Everything is that wants to run and play," agreed Miss Bradbury."Two-legged or four. What sort of dog is this one?"
"A beauty collie," said Ralph. "I'm sure he can be had for the asking.His owners won't sell him, because they want to be sure of the sort ofhands he falls into. I'll write Snigs to go ask for him, if you'll takehim."
"I'll take him," said Miss Bradbury. "Tell Snigs to come up in time forthe Fourth, and bring him."
Ralph colored with pleasure. "Thanks, Miss Bradbury; you're awfullygood. Snigs would be delighted to come."
"And we to have him!" cried Happie. "You really are good, Aunt Keren!"
"At least that's better than being awful, as Ralph accuses me of being.Though you do seem to feel it necessary to affirm my goodness, which isnot complimentary," said Miss Bradbury. "I shall be obliged to Snigs ifhe can get the dog; I don't intend to hear noises dogless any longer."
"I wish, Laura, you'd come fix my torn buttonhole," said Polly from thedoorway. "Happie's going to do Margery's work and her own too, and Ican't keep my skirt fastened."
"Indeed I can't," said Laura, leaving the room before her mother couldinterfere to stop her. "I've got to go out."
Far away as Laura had always been from practical, every-day matters,of late she had been miles above the heads of her family, "soaringdown the milky way," Bob said, "when there were milk pails down belowneeding scalding." Bob had scant patience with Laura's nonsense at anytime, and he was working rather hard that summer.
It was trying; for at neither work nor play was Laura any use. She hada secret. What it was nobody knew--which was not strange, consideringthat it is the nature of secrets not to be known--but nobody couldconjecture what it was.
If her mother and Miss Keren has guessed, it is highly probablethat they would have interfered with her plan, but Laura, intent onproving to the world, and to her own family in particular, her entirecompetence to succeed in whatever she undertook, kept her own counseland went her mysterious way.
Up on the edge of the extreme boundary of Crestville stood a littlechapel served by a well-meaning, but illiterate young "preacher," asthey called him in the village. He it was whom Laura had selected asthe instrument of her plan, and to it the young man lent himself withan enthusiasm most refreshing to a lady of scarce thirteen, accustomedto the ridicule of a large and unappreciative home circle.
It was an extraordinary plan for a little girl to have laid, but thenLaura never did anything that one would expect from a girl of her age,and she had sufficient self-confidence to have equipped an Arcticexploring party.
The first requisite for her scheme was a place, a setting, and Laurapitched upon the little church on the edge of the woods as the best forher purpose.
So one day she had attired herself in her most becoming muslin, tooka book under her arm, and a roll of music in her hand--not that sheneeded them, but for dramatic effect--and sallied forth to win theyoung preacher to her way of thinking.
He lived not far from his church; when Laura knocked at the door hisgirl-wife opened it with her right hand, holding her baby in the hollowof that arm, while the left hand held a yellow bowl full of potatoeswhich she had just fetched from the cellar.
"See Mr. Buck?" she repeated after Laura, but with a strongPennsylvania Dutch accent that rendered the name "Book." "Yes, I guess.He's in the room. You go in through if you want. Wait a little; I'llcall him."
She disappeared, leaving Laura standing just across the threshold, andreturned followed by a young man with beady black eyes, who looked asif he could not have been more than twenty-two years old.
He greeted Laura with respect most cheering to her soul, and invitedher into "the room," which the little girl had already learned wasshort for "the best room," or "the sitting-room."
Laura placed herself with much dignity upon the figured lounge, whichwas arrayed in the brightest shades of all colors, deposited her rolland book beside her, crossed her feet, folded her hands and began withthe utmost self-possession to unfold her errand. "Mr. Buck," she said."I am the daughter of Mrs. Scollard, the lady from New York who isstaying with her friend who owns the Bittenbender place."
"Yes, I know," said Mr. Buck. "I have seen you and your sisters andbrothers already; we look in when we go by, my wife and I. You have itgood there yet."
"Oh, we don't like it!" returned Laura with a toss of her head. "It isbetter than it was, though. I came to talk to you about a plan I havefor entertaining the people of the--the people all around here who wantto improve themselves. I thought I would give an entertainment on theFourth of July, and invite everybody; just let everybody know they cancome if they want to."
"Free?" inquired the young preacher, as Laura paused for an instant forbreath.
"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Laura impatiently. "You know there isn'tanything here to improve people; you don't have any lectures, normusic, nor pictures, nor anything at all. I am--well, you see I writemusic and poetry, and I play and sing, and I want to do something forthese poor people. I want to give an entertainment on the Fourth ofJuly, and I want you to help me. Will you?"
"What a good girl you must be, and ain't you smart!" exclaimed theyoung man admiringly.
He was very simple, and it never occurred to him to question theability of this girl who spoke so beautifully, and was so very easyin her manners, to do exactly what she said she could do, and he washonestly grateful for her desire to do something for his flock. "Whatshould I do?" he asked. "Should I speak for you? I might make a speechafter your songs; should I? I guess that would go good."
"No, I don't think so," said Laura positively. Then, seeing thedisappointment in the young man's face, and not being without tactwhen she had an end in view, she added: "In entertainments they don'thave speeches; not in this kind of entertainment. What I want to do isimprove people, don't you see?"
Laura herself did not see the suggestion latent in her remark that Mr.Buck's speech might not be improving. Nor did he, for he accepted herdecision meekly, and asked: "What then should I do?"
"You can let me give the entertainment in your chapel, please," saidLaura grandly. "And you can let me come here to practice every day, sothey won't know at home that we are going to have this entertainment.You won't tell any one till just before the Fourth, will you?"
"No," said the little preacher. Then looking puzzled he inquired:"Don't they know at your house what you're doing? Ain't they going tohelp you yet?"
"No, indeed," cried Laura. "If they did I could give--no, I couldn'tgive the entertainment at home, because there wouldn't be room for allthe people who would come, but I could practice at home. It is to bea secret, so I want you, please, to let me practice on the organ, orwhatever you have in the church----"
"It's an organ," interrupted the little preacher, looking hurt for thefirst time. "The ladies of my congregation bought it saving up eggmoney and doing washing for city boarders one summer. It cost thirtydollars; it's a regular parlor organ, a good one. It sounds 'most sogood as a big organ; wait till you hear it once!"
"Yes," said Laura, a trifle impatiently, for she was not interested inthe organ, except as it served her end. "I'm glad it is a good one. I'dlike to practice every day
till the Fourth, and I came up to ask you ifyou didn't think my plan a beautiful one, and if you wouldn't be kindenough to help me? I knew that a minister would want to do anything hecould to improve people, and to make them happy," she added artfully.
"Of course," assented Mr. Buck heartily. "I'll give you the key to thechurch, and you can practice all the days you want. And you can givethe entertainment here. You must be smart if you can do it all alone,and sing, and make up poetry yet! And you are a kind young lady to wantto amuse folks."
Laura tried to look modest, but succeeded only in dropping her eyes inthe semblance of modesty; in her heart she felt that this praise wasmerited.
She arose to go with what she felt sure was a graceful, dignified andentirely grown-up manner.
"HE FOLLOWED LAURA TO THE FRONT DOOR"]
"Oh," she said, "I am glad to give the poor people a chance to heargood music. And I am not smart to make up music and poetry; it is atalent of mine, that's all. Good-bye, Mr. Buck. Thank you for helpingme, but of course I knew you would want to."
She gathered up the music and book which she had carried with a vagueintention of letting them prove her claim to music and poetry, andextended her hand with the air of an empress as she moved towards thedoor.
The honest little preacher grasped the hand heartily. "Good-bye," hesaid. "I am obliged to you for letting me help you out."
He followed Laura to the front door where he halted as a thought struckhim.
"Will it be funny, your show on the Fourth?" he asked. "Our folks likefunny things. Shall they laugh at it, say not?"
"Dear me, no," cried Laura, sincerely shocked. "They must learn to likesomething higher than funny things! Funny things are not improving."
Which statement proved how much she knew of human nature.
The little preacher looked wistful. "They gets pretty tired," he saiddoubtfully. "It's hard work farming, and these fields are stony yet! Inmy county we don't have to pick stones three days before we can ploughone day."
Laura smiled in a superior way, and turned to go. "I shouldn't feellike doing funny things, Mr. Buck," she said. "Good music is thesaddest thing! And all my poetry is very deep." With which statementshe went out of the little gate.
The awe-struck Bucks watched her depart. "How much would you give her,Anna?" asked the young husband. "She writes music and poetry, and she'sgoing to give folks a free concert, or something, in the church onFourth of July. For a little I thought she hadn't fourteen years."
"She ain't," said the nineteen-years-old wife positively.
"Do you guess she could do such a thing if she ain't?" queried herhusband.
"I guess. In New York girls get smart early, maybe. I wish you couldget a church there once, Alvah, when the baby's big enough. I'd like tohave her grow up with such smartness."
The object of these flattering remarks went her homeward way rejoicing,and it had been from that hour that her family had noticed that she wasuplifted higher than ever above their heads. Every day she had gone upthe road carrying a mysterious package, and had refused to explain themystery when Happie had tried to investigate it.
"Yes, I have a secret," Laura said, in reply to her sister's question."But that's the very reason I won't tell you; people generally don'ttell secrets. If you can wait a while, you will know what it is, andyou will find it was something worth waiting for."
"I don't know, motherums, but I imagine she carries her books andpaper off into the dampest, darkest spot by the brook and composespoetry and music out of doors. It would be just like her, and herpackages look like papers," said Happie, divided in her mind as usualbetween disgust, and sisterly pride in her talented junior.
This was before Margery had gone away, and the secret had not leakedout on the morning when Miss Bradbury had again announced her longingfor a dog. It was three days before the Fourth, and on that day,obedient to Laura's instructions, Mr. Buck began notifying the publicwhich he met on his way to and from the post-office, that Miss Scollardwas going to give an entertainment in the chapel on the evening of theFourth, without money and without price, solely for the love of herfellow creatures, who were invited to gather in large numbers to shareher bounty.
The first that her family knew of Laura's undertaking was when Bobreturned from the post-office, fuming with rage, yet convulsed with thefun of it, burdened with the following announcement which he had foundtacked up in the post-office:
"Miss Laura Scollard announces to the people in Crestville that she will give an entertainment in Mr. Buck's chapel on Fourth of July at half-past seven P. M. She will sing and play and read and give them a chance to hear good things, so she hopes they will all come. FREE."
"The last word was in big letters," said Bob as he finished reading hiscopy of the impressive announcement, and Ralph took a header into thecouch in fresh enjoyment of it. "And you can bet the very last thingthat you have, or ever hope to have that they'll come all right!"
"Come!" echoed Rosie. "Why, you couldn't keep 'em away! They'll thinkit's goin' to be something great, and that you all had a hand in it.What in creation do you s'pose she's a-goin' to do?"
"Sing and play, just as she says she is, and read to the audience--fromher own poems, most likely. Oh, mother, isn't it awful?" cried Happie,her sense of humor so overwhelmed by her mortification that she wasunable to get even as much as Bob's divided amusement out of thediscovery of Laura's scheme.
"It is the most absurd thing!" cried Mrs. Scollard, flushed andannoyed, yet half laughing. "I feel that I ought not to let the absurdchild go on; she is sure to make a little goose of herself, and thevillage people will take it all seriously, for they will certainlythink that I have helped her! Yet Laura's conceit needs a sharplesson, and she must be punished, in one way or another, for utterlyignoring her elders in this way. I feel confident that she will bepunished if we leave her to her own destruction, for she is abnormallythin-skinned. I really don't know what to do!"
"Let her go, mother; we can stand it, and I think she deserves to becalled down--the conceited little ninny!" said Bob vigorously. "And ifshe doesn't take a tumble this time, I'm no prophet."
"Don't you boys help her to 'take a tumble.' If we let her alone to goon, we must also let her alone to succeed, if she can," interposed Mrs.Scollard, mistrusting the boys' strength to resist the temptation totease, and dreading Laura's punishment, after all.
"Don't harbor misgivings, Charlotte," advised Miss Bradbury. "Let Lauralearn by experience. Country people are not the dunces she evidentlythinks them; if I'm not mistaken she will be both sadder and wiser onthe fifth of July."
"Yes, let her alone," Rosie said decidedly. "I'll see to it the placeknows you hadn't nothin' to do with this affair. Just see what she'llmake of it. My days, what kind o' jedgment has Preacher Buck to leaveher have the church?"
Ralph and Bob went down in the afternoon to bring up from the stationSnigs and the dog. It was a jubilant trio--quartette--that entered theArk in time for supper. Dundee, the collie, was nervous and tired, buthe was a beauty beast, and Miss Bradbury actually hurried through hersupper to make him a bed outside her door, "in case of further noises,"she explained.
No one spoke of the entertainment to Laura, but at dinner on theFourth, she officially announced it. "I suppose," she said graciously,"you have already heard of it, though we have not mentioned it.You will all come, won't you?"
"You bet your life!" cried Bob irrepressibly. But with that oneexception, the family received Laura's announcement as gravely as itwas made.
It was a group struggling hard to preserve its gravity that issued fromthe Ark and wended its way to the chapel after tea. Laura's familyseated themselves far enough back to be able to retreat if the ordealproved too trying.
Mrs. Scollard and Happie sympathized with each other's uneasiness andmortification, Miss Bradbury sat erect with a blank countenance, butthe three boys gave themselves up to unreserved glee, leaning on thebig sticks with which they had provided themselves for app
lause.
Gretta came late, and joined Happie in the seat which the latter hadsaved for her.
"Don't you worry," whispered Gretta. "Maybe she won't be so bad whenshe is giving an entertainment; maybe folks won't think she is silly."
This was the first intimation that Happie had received that her friendhad been privately regarding her gifted sister as foolish, when thatyoung person herself had fondly believed that she was impressing thecountry girl.
Laura came before the audience with a most serious face, but lookingher best, with her cheeks red from excitement, and her eyes shining.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she said with a little bow, "this is theFourth of July. I think we ought to begin by singing 'My Country, 'Tisof Thee.'"
"That is a good beginning," whispered Mrs. Scollard, with a breath oftemporary relief.
The audience arose and sang the first stanza of the national hymn withgusto, but in the second stanza very few were singing the words, and inthe third they gave up humming the air, and only Laura and Mr. Buck,who had books, were left singing.
"It's like the Peterkins and the Declaration of Independence,"whispered Ralph, and Bob nudged him joyfully.
"I will sing for you a hymn I wrote myself for this day," announcedLaura, seating herself at the organ.
The air had seemed to her when she was practicing it, sublime; now,heard with the consciousness of less partial ears, it developed alack of variety, and the accompaniment left much to be desired. Morethan that, in spite of her daily practice on that organ, now, in theexcitement of giving her composition to the public, Laura sometimesforgot to pump, and what accompaniment there was went off into a feeblesqueak.
The audience behaved beautifully; it sat solemnly listening, believingthat the tenants of the Ark, through their youthful representative,were trying to entertain it, and it politely tried to look entertained.
But somehow, probably through Rose Gruber, it began to be whisperedabout that the elder Scollards had nothing to do with the presentoccasion, and the attitude of the audience became less respectful.
When Laura came forward and recited an original poem, however, herhearers veered again towards respect for her. They were not critical;the lines rhymed; it seemed to them very wonderful that a girl scarcelyin her 'teens could write rhymes, and Laura was applauded heartily.
But when she returned to music, and especially when she prefaced hernext number by the information that she had taken pity on Crestville'sdarkness, the village people altered their minds about Laura and wereready to poke fun at whatever she might do. There was no doubt thatthere was plenty of chance for ridicule. The foolish little girl begana song of Gottschalk's--and broke down. Then, nothing daunted, sheessayed a solo on the organ, forgot to pump, lost her place, rememberedto pump, but forgot her fingers, struck false notes, and ended byknocking her music off the rack with such force that a whole snarl ofkeys growled at once, and an irreverent boy in the audience cried: "Sic'em! Catch 'em, Towse!" to the indecorous delight of all around him.
"I am not used to parlor organs," said Laura with tearful dignity andpurpling face.
"Only to hand organs?" inquired someone in the audience, and a woman'svoice said:
"Shame! Don't tease the little girl!" But several tittered.
"I'm going to recite a great poem for you," said Laura rallying to herprogramme with what really was pluck, though misdirected. "Poetry isgood for you to hear, because you all work so hard, and hear so littlethat is fine."
"How can she? How can a child of mine be so pompous and so foolish?"groaned her mother.
"It is only the artistic temperament, my dear," said Miss Bradburyphilosophically, her keen eyes twinkling.
Then Laura began to recite Paul Revere's ride; she explained afterwardsthat she had selected that because it was patriotic for the Fourthof July, and that she thought she would throw in a smattering ofhistorical teaching with the poetical training she was giving theCrestvillians.
What was her amazement to hear three voices join with hers in therecitation, and an additional voice occasionally shout out a word atthe end of a line, as if some of her audience knew what rhyme to expect!
"It's in the Reader," whispered Gretta to Happie, and then Happieunderstood.
As Laura's voice faltered on the last syllable of the familiar poem, abig boy jumped up on the platform and bowed ironically to Laura.
"I am appointed by the residents of Crestville to thank you forimproving them so much," he said. Then he turned to the audience, andadded: "Ladies and gentlemen, considering you live so far from thecity, and are a lot of hayseeds anyhow, I will recite for you a fewpoems, because poetry's good for you after haying. 'Hickory, dickorydock, the mouse ran up----'"
He could get no further. Instantly all the younger portion of theaudience was on its feet shouting Mother Goose rhyme after Mother Gooserhyme, sometimes in chorus, more often raggedly, each one, apparently,saying whatever rhyme presented itself, and young and old shouting withlaughter the while.
"Now don't you mind 'em!" whispered a kindly old lady to the Scollards."They don't mean nothin' hard--they're kinder making fun of your girl,but they don't mean nothin'!"
Mrs. Scollard smiled back, though a trifle tremulously. "It's hard onthe child--she took it all so seriously--but she needs being laughedat; I'm glad they are laughing. And they are not unkind. She deservesa lesson for being so conceited with her elders! Please tell everybodythe child did not consult us, we did not help her with this, and thatwe are grateful to Crestville for the way it is teaching her a fewimportant facts."
For a few moments Laura stood facing her mocking audience, now turnedentertainers in her stead. She could not grasp what had happened. Atlast the truth dawned upon her that she, Laura, the gifted, was beingridiculed, handled with no respect for her talents, nor for her socialsuperiority.
When she realized this painful fact, she turned as white as a littleghost, and fled from the church, the laughter of her audience followingher down the road as she ran towards home.