Hepsey Burke

“And I agree with you,” he added presently, in a quiet voice: “I was a skinflint for fair!”

Almost Hepsey forgot herself so far as to clap thunderously: she caught her hands together just in time—recollecting that her demonstration would be taken too literally.

“But I would not have you misunderstand me: though it was for me to call myself a skinflint for that act, it was not for you to do so. You did so on wrong grounds. Those who in making money have been less successful than others, find it convenient to 303 leave all such obligations upon the shoulders of the richer man, and to say ‘it’s up to him; he can afford it.’ Is it any wonder that it makes the rich man sour on subscriptions and philanthropies? He has as much, or more, of inducement to apply his earnings and savings to his own ends and pleasures; why then, is it not up to all, in their own proportions to meet social needs? A good many years of such meanness among his neighbors makes even a rich man sour and mean, I guess. And that’s what it made me—and though that isn’t a justification of my act, it gave me as much right to call you skinflints as for you to call me: all except one of you, Hepsey Burke.”

The meeting quivered with tense excitement. What did it all mean? If a chicken had sneezed the whole gathering would have been dissolved in hysterics, it was so keyed up with a sense of the impending disclosure of a deep mystery. As for Hepsey, she sat motionless, though Jonathan believed that he caught sight of a tear glistening in its descent.

“Hepsey Burke had a right to call me a skinflint, because she knew what none of you knew; but because it was private knowledge she wouldn’t make use of it against me—not unless she couldn’t have done what was right any other way. And now I’m going to tell you what she knew: 304

“The rectory was my wife’s property, and she intended it as a gift to the parish, for the rectory of the church. I was preparing the deeds of transfer, when she died—suddenly, as some of you remember,” his voice made heroic efforts to keep clear and steady, “owing to her death before the transfer, that house passed to our daughter; and what I intended to do was to buy it of her and present it to the parish. I delayed, at first for good reasons. And I suppose as I got more and more lonesome and mixed less and less with people, I got sourer—and then I delayed from meanness. It would have been easy enough for me to buy it of my daughter, and she’d have been willing enough; but as I saw more and more put upon me, and less and less human recognition—I was ‘a rich man,’ and needed no personal sympathy or encouragement, it seemed—I held back. And I got so mean, I couldn’t make friends with the rector, even.”

He paused, and from the half smile on his face, and the hint of brightness that passed over his expression, the audience caught relief.

“I guess a good shaking up is good for a man’s liver: it cures a sour stomach—and as there are those that say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, perhaps it cures a sour heart. I got my shaking 305 up all right, as you know; and perhaps that’s been working a cure on me. Or perhaps it was the quiet ministrations of that little Mrs. Betty of yours”—applause—“or the infusion of some of the rector’s blood in my veins (he let himself be bled to keep me alive, after I’d lost what little blood I had, as you probably have never heard)”—shouts of applause—“or possibly what cured me was a little knitting-visit that Hepsey Burke paid me the other day, and during which she dropped some home-truths: I can’t say.

“Before I decided what I would do about the rectory, I wanted to see what you would do, under Mrs. Burke’s guidance, this evening. You’ve shouldered your share, as far as the rector’s salary is concerned. Well—I’ll add what I consider my fair share to that, fifty dollars. The arrears due on the mortgage interest is one hundred and twenty dollars. I shall hold you to your side of that bargain, to date. If you pay the rector the two hundred dollars due him on his salary, you will need to subscribe about another forty to make up the interest: that done, and paid to me, I will do my part, and present the rectory to the parish, in memory of my dear wife, as she desired.”

He sat down.

Hepsey rose and called out in a clear voice:

“He’s right; Mr. Bascom’s dead right; it’s up to 306 us to be business first, and clear ourselves of the debt on a business bargain; then we can accept the gift without too much worryin’.” And she sent a very friendly smile over to Bascom.

Again there was some cheering, in the midst of which Jonathan Jackson jumped to his feet beside Hepsey; and facing the room, with his arm through hers, he shouted:

“Hepsey Burke and me will make up the difference!”

Another cheer went up, and Hepsey’s face flamed scarlet amid the craning of necks and chaffing laughter—half puzzled, half understanding.

Sylvester Bascom rose to his feet, and there was silence. With assumed seriousness he addressed Hepsey, still standing:

“Mrs. Burke, so that it may be quite in order, do you endorse Mr. Jackson’s authority to speak for you in this matter?”

Every eye was turned upon them; but Hepsey could find not a word, so flabergasted was she by this sudden move of Jonathan’s. Jonathan himself colored furiously, but stuck to his guns, and Hepsey’s arm:

“Well, to tell the truth,” he replied in a jaunty voice, “Hepsey Burke and me’s goin’ to be married 307 right now, so I guess we’ll combine our resources, like.”

This announcement gave the coup de grace to any further attempt at orderliness, and the room became a seething chorus of congratulatory greetings aimed at Hepsey and Jonathan, in the midst of which Sylvester Bascom slipped out unnoticed.

CHAPTER XXIV

OMNIUM GATHERUM

When at last the room emptied, and she was free to do so, Hepsey, accompanied by the possessive Jonathan, found her way over to the Maxwells. Before she started to tell them the results of the meeting she cast a glance of whimsical affection at her palpitating fiance.

“I’d best let him get it off his chest—then we’ll get down to business,” she laughed.

So Jonathan, amid much handshaking and congratulation told his victorious story—until, when he seemed to Hepsey to become too triumphant, she broke in with: “Now that’s enough for you, Mr. Proudmouth. Let me just say a word or two, will you? The meetin’ wasn’t called for you and me, and I want to tell about more important happenin’s.”

When they had heard of all that had been accomplished, Mrs. Betty got up and put her arms round Hepsey’s neck and gave her such a hug, and a kiss on each cheek, that brought the tears to Mrs. Burke’s eyes. And Donald, moist-eyed in spite of himself, took her hand in both of his, and expressed his feelings and relieved the tension at the same time by saying:

“Hepsey Burke, for all your molasses and the little bit of vinegar you say you keep by you, ‘there are no flies on you’ as Nickey would put it.”

At which sally Jonathan slapped his knee, and ejaculated:

“No! there ’aint, by gum! There ’aint no flies on Hepsey, if I do say it myself.”

At which proprietory speech Hepsey wagged her head warningly, saying, as they left—“There’s no downin’ him, these days; I’m sure I don’t know what’s come over the man.”

On their way home Jonathan was urgent for fixing the day. 310

“You said you’d marry me right there and then, if the meetin’ came your way, now you know you did, Hepsey,” he argued. “So if we say to-morrow–”

But though Hepsey would never go back on a promise, she protested against too summary an interpretation of it, and insisted on due time to prepare herself for her wedding. So a day was set some two months hence.

Meanwhile, Sylvester Bascom’s truer and pristine nature blossomed forth in the sunnier atmosphere around him, and after he had delivered himself of his feelings to the Maxwells, in a visit which he paid them next day at their nomadic quarters, he begged leave to put the rectory in full repair before he handed it over to the parish, and the Maxwells returned to it.

And he was better than his word; for, with Hepsey and Virginia accompanying her, he insisted on Mrs. Betty taking a trip to the city a few days later for the purpose of selecting furnishings of various kinds dear to the hearts of housekeepers—Hepsey absorbing a share of the time in selecting her “trousseau.”

Meanwhile, in due course the rectory was made a new place, inside and out, and a few weeks after their return the transformed house, repainted inside and 311 out, papered and curtained and charmingly fitted with new furniture, was again occupied by the Maxwells.

That the interest of the parish should for a while be concentrated on the doings at the rectory, and diverted from her own important preparations, was a blessing to Hepsey—for she continually declared to Mrs. Betty that, little as she knew Jonathan in his new manner, she knew herself less!

It was decided that the wedding should be in the church, and a reception held after the ceremony, for the bride and bridegroom, at the rectory—and that, in this way, the whole parish would celebrate, in honor of the auspicious occasion, and of other happy results of Hepsey’s parish meeting.

The day before the wedding, while Mrs. Betty and Virginia were busily occupied at Thunder Cliff and the rectory, dividing their attentions between the last touches to Hepsey’s wardrobe, and preparing confections for the wedding guests, Donald Maxwell was closeted with Mr. Bascom at Willow Bluff for a considerable time. It was known that the Senior Warden was to support his colleague, Jonathan, at the morrow’s event, and it was presumed that the rector was prompting him in his duties for the occasion.

The ceremony next day at the church was a center of fervent and cordial good-will and thanksgiving, as 312 Jonathan, supported by Sylvester Bascom, took to wife Hepsey, given away by Mrs. Betty, with Virginia as a kind of maid of honor, hovering near. It was well for Donald Maxwell that his memory served him faithfully in conducting the service, for his eyes were in misty conflict with his bright smile. Nickey from the front pew, watched his mother with awestruck eyes, and with son-like amazement at her self-possessed carriage under the blaze of so much public attention.

There followed a procession from the church, and soon the rectory, house and garden, were alive with chattering groups, of all sorts and conditions, for the invitations had been general and public, irrespective of class or sect, at Hepsey’s special request. There was a constant line of friends, known and unknown, filing past bride and bridegroom, with congratulatory greetings and cordial good wishes. There were speeches from delegations of various local bodies, and from local notables of various degrees; and there were wedding presents, out-vying each other, as it seemed, in kindly personal significance rather than in costliness. Among them all, and arranged by Mrs. Betty at the very center, the Vestry’s gift to the bride stood easily first: a plated ice-water pitcher!

It was left to Maxwell to make the farewell speech, 313 as the company crowded round the automobile, lent by the Bascoms, in which Hepsey and Jonathan sat in smiling happiness, ready to drive to the station, on their way for a week’s honeymoon.

“Friends!” he said, in a voice that reached to the skirts of the assembled throng, “before we give a valedictory ‘three times three’ to the happy couple, I have to tell you of a plan that has been made to commemorate this day permanently—and so that Mrs. Jackson may not forget the place she holds in our hearts, and always will hold, as Hepsey Burke.

“It is Mr. Bascom’s idea, and I know it will give lasting pleasure to Mrs. Burke—I mean Mrs. Jackson,” he corrected, laughing, “as well as to all Durford, young and old. The beautiful piece of woodland, half a mile beyond Willow Bluff, is to-day presented by Mr. Bascom to the town, and we shall shortly repair there to watch the boys erect the tent now on the church plot, and which Mr. Jackson has kindly presented to the Boy Scouts.”

“Gee,” yelled Nickey, in astounded delight, and leading a cheer that interrupted the speaker for some moments.

Maxwell continued: “Mr. Bascom’s generous gift to the town will be kept in order by the Boy Scouts, as their permanent camping-ground—and I daresay 314 Nickey Burke will not be averse to occupying the tent with his corps, during the week or so that Mrs. Jackson is to be away. The place is to be called in her honor—‘Hepsey Burke Park.’ And now—Three cheers for the bride and groom.”

The cheers were given with whole-hearted fervor, as the man at the wheel tooted, and the auto started on its way with the smiling pair, followed by the people’s delighted shouts of approbation at the happy plan for perpetuating among them the cheerful name of Hepsey Burke.