Hepsey Burke. Frank Nash Westcott
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–”
Here Virginia came to an abrupt stop, for there was a terrible racket somewhere overhead on the piazza roof; a rope was suddenly dropped over the edge of the eaves, and almost immediately a pair of very immodestly bare legs were lowered into view, followed by the rest of Nickey Burke’s person, attired in his nightshirt. It was the work of a moment for the nimble boy to slide down the rope onto the ground. But, as he landed on his feet, finding himself 79 in the august presence of the missionary circle, he remarked “Gee Whitaker bee’s wax!” and prudently took to his heels, and sped around the house as if he had been shot out of a gun.
Several segments of the circle giggled violently. The essayist, though very red, made a brave effort to ignore the highly indecorous interruption, and so continued with trembling tones:
“What more beautiful and touching thing is there, than the innocent, unsullied modesty of childhood? One might almost say–”
But she never said it, for here again she was forced to pause while another pair of immodest legs appeared over the eaves, much fatter and shorter than the preceding pair. These belonged to Nickey’s boon-companion, the gentle Oliver Wendell Jones. The rest of O. W. J. followed in due time; and, quite ignorant of what awaited him, he began his wriggling descent. Most unfortunately for him, the hem of his nightshirt caught on a large nail in the eaves of the roof; and after a frantic, fruitless, and fearful effort to disconnect himself, he hung suspended in the breeze for one awful moment, like a painted cherub on a Christmas tree, while his mother, recognizing her offspring, rose to go to his assistance.
Then there was a frantic yell, a terrible ripping 80 sound, and Oliver Wendell was seen to drop to the ground clad in the sleeves and the front breadth of his shirt, while the entire back of it, from the collar down, waved triumphantly aloft from the eaves. Oliver Wendell Jones picked himself up, unhurt, but much frightened, and very angry: presenting much the aspect of a punctured tire. Then suddenly discovering the proximity of the missionary circle and missing the rear elevation of his shirt about the same time, in the horror and mortification of the moment, he lost his head entirely. Notwithstanding the protests of his pursuing mother, without waiting for his clothes, he fled, “anywhere, anywhere out of the world,” bawling with wrath and chagrin.
The entire circumference of the missionary circle now burst into roars of laughter. His mother quickly overtook and captured Oliver, tying her apron around his neck as a concession to the popular prejudice against “the altogether.” The gravity of the missionary circle was so thoroughly demoralized that it was impossible to restore order; and Miss Bascom, in the excess of her mortification, stuffed the rest of her manuscript, its eloquent peroration undelivered, into her bag.
When the last guest had departed, Mrs. Burke proceeded to hunt up Nickey, who was dressed and sitting on the top of the corn-crib whittling a stick. His mother began:
“Nicholas Burke, what in the name of conscience does all this idiotic performance mean, I’d like to know?”
Nickey closed his knife. Gazing serenely down at his mother, he replied:
“How’d I know the blamed missionary push was goin’ to meet on the front porch, I’d like to know? Me and Oliver Wendell was just playin’ the house was on fire. We’d gone to bed in the front room, and then I told Ollie the fire was breakin’ out all around us, and the sparks was flyin’, and the stairs was burned away, and there was no way of ’scapin’ but to slide down the rope over the roof. I ’aint to blame for his nightshirt bein’ caught on a nail, and bein’ ripped off him. Maybe the ladies was awful shocked; but they laughed fit to split their sides just the same. Mr. Maxwell laughed louder than ’em all.”
Hepsey retired hastily, lest her face should relax its well-assumed severity.
Maxwell, in the meantime, felt it a part of his duty to console and soothe the ruffled feelings of his zealous and fluent parishioner, and to Virginia’s pride his offer of escort to Willow Bluff was ample reparation for the untoward interruption of her oratory. She 82 delivered into his hands, with sensitive upward glance, the receptacle containing her manuscript, and set a brisk pace, at which she insured the passing of the other guests along the road, making visible her triumph over circumstance and at the same time obviating untimely intrusion of a tete-a-tete conversation.
“You must have given a great deal of time and study to your subject,” remarked Maxwell politely.
“It is very near to my heart,” responded Virginia, in welling tones. “Home-life is, to me, almost a religion. Do you not feel, with me, that it is the most valuable of human qualities, Mr. Maxwell?”
“I do indeed, and one of the most difficult to reduce to a science,”—she glanced up at him apprehensively, whereupon, lest he seemed to have erred in fact, he added,—“as you made us realize in your paper.”
“It is so nice to have your appreciation,” she gurgled. “Often I feel it almost futile to try to influence our cold parish audiences; their attitude is so stolid, so unimaginative. As you must have realized, in the pulpit, they are so hard to lead into untrodden paths. Let us take the way home by the lane,” she added coyly, leading off the road down a sheltered by-way.
The lane was rough, and the lady, tightly and lightly 83 shod, stumbled neatly and grasped her escort’s arm for support—and retained it for comfort.
“What horizons your sermons have spread before us—and, yet,”—she hesitated,—“I often wonder, as my eyes wander over the congregation, how many besides myself, really hear your message, really see what you see.”
Her hand trembled on his arm, and Maxwell was a little at a loss, though anxious not to seem unresponsive to Virginia’s enthusiasm for spiritual vision.
“I feel that my first attention has to be given to the simpler problems, here in Durford,” he replied. “But I am glad if I haven’t been dull, in the process.”
“Dull? No indeed—how can you say that! To my life—you will understand?” (she glanced up with tremulous flutter of eyelids) “—you have brought so much helpfulness and—and warmth.” She sighed eloquently.
Maxwell was no egotist, and was always prone to see only an impersonal significance in parish compliments. A more self-conscious subject for confidences would have replied less openly.
“I am glad—very glad. But you must not think that the help has been one-sided. You have seconded my efforts so energetically—indeed I don’t know what I could have accomplished without such whole-hearted 84 help as you and Mrs. Burke and others have given.”
To the optimistic Virginia the division of the loaves and fishes of his personal gratitude was scarcely heeded. She cherished her own portion, and soon magnified it to a basketful—and soon, again, to a monopoly of the entire supply. As he gave her his hand at the door of Willow Bluff, she was in fit state to invest that common act of friendliness with symbolic significance of a rosy future.
CHAPTER VII
HEPSEY GOES A-FISHING
Mrs. Burke seemed incapable of sitting still, with folded hands, for any length of time; and when the stress of her attention to household work, and her devotion to neighborly good deeds relaxed, she turned to knitting wash-rags as a sportsman turns to his gun, or a toper to his cups. She seemed to find more stimulus for thought and more helpful diversion in the production of one wash-rag than most persons find in a trip abroad.
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