A Forest Hearth. Charles Major
the knot."
"You are not a knot," cried Rita indignantly.
"Rita," said Dic, "you know the walnut knot, while it shows the roughest bark, has the finest grain in the tree."
"I am going home if you don't stop that sort of talking," said Billy, pleased to his toes, but pretending to be annoyed.
A fortnight before Dic's intended departure for New York an opportunity presented itself of which the young man, after due consideration, determined to take advantage. He walked over one evening to see Tom, but, as usual, found Rita. After a few minutes in which to work his courage up, he said:—
"There is to be a church social at Scott's to-morrow night—the Baptists. I wonder if you would like—that is, would want to—would be willing to go with me?"
"I would be glad to go," answered the girl; "but mother won't let me."
"We'll go in and ask her, if you wish," he replied.
"There's no use, but we can try. Perhaps if she thinks I don't want to go, she will consent."
Into the house they went, and Dic made his wants known to the head of the family.
"No," snapped the good lady, "she can't go. Girls of sixteen and seventeen nowadays think they are young ladies."
"They are dull, anyway," said Rita, referring to church socials. "I have heard they are particularly dull at Scott's—the Baptists are so religious. Sukey Yates said they did nothing but preach and pray and sing psalms and take up a collection at the last social Scott gave. It's just like church, and I don't want to go anyway." She had never been to a church social, but from what she had heard she believed them to be bacchanalian scenes of riotous enjoyment, and her remarks were intended to deceive.
"You should not speak so disrespectfully of the church," said the Chief Justice, sternly. "The Lord will punish you for it, see if He doesn't. Since I think about it, the socials held at Scott's are true, religious, God-fearing gatherings, and you shall go as a punishment for your sacrilegious sneers. Perhaps if you listen to the Word, it may come back after many days." Margarita, Sr., often got her Biblical metaphors mixed, but that troubled her little. There was, she thought, virtue in scriptural quotations, even though entirely inapplicable to the case in point.
"Come for her to-morrow evening, Dic," said Mrs. B. "She shall be ready." Then turning to Rita: "To speak of the Holy Word in that manner! You shall be punished."
Dic and Rita went out to the porch. Dic laughed, but the girl saw nothing funny.
"It seems to me just as if I had told a story," she said. "One may act a story as easily as tell it."
"Well, you are to be punished," laughed Dic.
"But you know I want to go. I have never been to a social, and it will not punish me to go."
"Then you are to be punished by going with me," returned the stalwart young fisherman. She looked up to him with a flash of her eyes—those eyes were worse than a loose tongue for tattling—and said:—
"That is true."
Dic, who was fairly boiling with pleasant anticipations, went to town next day and boiled over on Billy Little.
"I'm going to take Rita to Scott's social this evening," he said.
"Ah, indeed," responded Billy; "it's her first time out, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"I envy her, by George, I do, and I envy you," said Billy. He did not envy Dic; but you may remember my remarks concerning bachelor hearts and their unprotected condition in this cruel world. There may be pain of the sort Billy felt without either envy or jealousy.
"Dic, I have a mind to send Rita a nice ribbon or two for to-night. What do you think about it?" asked Billy.
"She would be delighted," answered Dic. "She would accept them from you, but not from me."
"There is no flattery in that remark," answered Billy, with a touch of sharpness.
"Why, Billy Little, what do you suppose I meant?" asked Dic.
"I know you spoke the truth. She would accept a present from the little old knot, but would refuse it from the straight young tree."
"Why, Billy Little, I meant nothing of the sort."
"Now, not another word," interrupted Billy. "Give these ribbons to her when you ride home, and tell her the knot sends them to the sweetbrier." Then turning his face to the shelves on the wall, and arranging a few pieces of goods, he hummed under his breath his favorite stanza, "Maxwelton's braes," and paid no further attention to his guest.
Rita came out as Dic rode up to the gate. He did not dismount, but handed her the ribbons across the fence, saying: "Billy Little sends you these for to-night. He said they were from the knot to the sweetbrier."
The girl's suppressed delight had been troubling her all day. Her first party, her first escort, and that escort Dic! What more could a girl desire? The ribbons were too much. And somebody was almost ready to weep for joy. She opened the little package and her eyes sparkled. When she felt that speech was entirely safe, she said:—
"The little package is as prim and neat as Billy Little himself. Dear, sweet, old Billy Little."
Dic, whose heart was painfully inflamed, was almost jealous of Billy, and said:—
"I suppose you would not have accepted them from me?"
"Why not?" she responded. "Of course I would." Her eyes grew wide when she looked up to him and continued, "Did you get them for me and tell me that Billy Little sent them?"
"No," answered Dic, regretfully, as he began to see possibilities, even on Blue. One possibility, at least, he saw clearly—one that he had lost.
"It was more than a possibility," he said to himself, as he rode homeward. "It was a ready-made opportunity, and I did not see it. The sooner I go to New York or some place else and get my eyes opened, the better it will be for me."
The church social opened with a long, sonorous prayer by the Baptist preacher, Mr. Wetmore. Then followed a psalm, which in turn was followed by a "few words." After the few words, Rev. Wetmore said in soft, conciliatory tones, "Now, brethren, if Deacon Moore will be so kind as to pass the hat, we will receive the offering."
Wetmore was not an ordained minister, nor was he recognized by the church to which he claimed to belong. He was one of the many itinerant vagabonds who foisted themselves upon isolated communities solely for the sake of the "offering."
Deacon Moore passed his hat, and when he handed it to Wetmore that worthy soul counted out two large copper pennies. There were also in the hat two brass buttons which Tom, much to Sukey's amusement, had torn from his clothing for the purpose of an offering. Sukey laughed so inordinately at Tom's extravagant philanthropy that she convinced De Triflin' he was a very funny fellow indeed; but she brought upon her pretty flaxen head a reprimand from Wetmore.
"Undue levity," said he, "ill becomes even frivolous youth at this moment. Later you will have ample opportunity to indulge your mirth; but for the present, the Lord's business—" at the word "business" he received the hat from Deacon Moore, and looked eagerly into it for the offering. Disappointment, quite naturally, spread itself over his sallow face, and he continued: "Buttons do not constitute an acceptable offering to the Lord. He can have no use for them. I think that during the course of my life work in the vineyard I have received a million buttons of which I—I mean the Lord—can have no possible use. If these buttons had been dollars or shillings, or even pennies, think of the blessings they would have brought from above."
The reverend man spoke several times with excusable asperity of "buttons," and after another psalm and a sounding benediction the religious exercises were finished, and the real business of the evening, the spelling-bee and the kissing games, began.
At these socials many of the old folks took part in the spelling-bee,