VIII
The spring of the plains is not a reluctant virgin but brazen
and soon away. The mud roads of a few days ago are powdery
dust and the puddles beside them have hardened into lozenges
of black sleek earth like cracked patent leather.
Carol was panting as she crept to the meeting of the
Thanatopsis program committee which was to decide the subject for
next fall and winter.
Madam Chairman (Miss Ella Stowbody in an
oyster-colored blouse) asked if there was any new business.
Carol rose. She suggested that the Thanatopsis ought to
help the poor of the town. She was ever so correct and modern.
She did not, she said, want charity for them, but a chance of
self-help; an employment bureau, direction in washing babies
and making pleasing stews, possibly a municipal fund for
home-building. "What do you think of my plans, Mrs. Warren?"
she concluded.
Speaking judiciously, as one related to the church by
marriage, Mrs. Warren gave verdict:
"I'm sure we're all heartily in accord with Mrs. Kennicott
in feeling that wherever genuine poverty is encountered, it is
not only noblesse oblige but a joy to fulfil our duty to the less
fortunate ones. But I must say it seems to me we should
lose the whole point of the thing by not regarding it as charity.
Why, that's the chief adornment of the true Christian and the
church! The Bible has laid it down for our guidance. `Faith,
Hope, and Charity,' it says, and, `The poor ye have
with ye
always,' which indicates that there never can be anything to
these so-called scientific schemes for abolishing charity, never!
And isn't it better so? I should hate to think of a world in
which we were deprived of all the pleasure of giving. Besides,
if these shiftless folks realize they're getting charity, and not
something to which they have a right, they're so much more
grateful."
"Besides," snorted Miss Ella Stowbody, "they've been
fooling you, Mrs. Kennicott. There isn't any real poverty here.
Take that Mrs. Steinhof you speak of: I send her our washing
whenever there's too much for our hired girl—I must have
sent her ten dollars' worth the past year alone! I'm sure Papa
would never approve of a city home-building fund. Papa says
these folks are fakers. Especially all these tenant farmers
that pretend they have so much trouble getting seed and
machinery. Papa says they simply won't pay their debts. He
says he's sure he hates to foreclose mortgages, but it's the only
way to make them respect the law."
"And then think of all the clothes we give these people!"
said Mrs. Jackson Elder.
Carol intruded again. "Oh yes. The clothes. I was going
to speak of that. Don't you think that when we give clothes
to the poor, if we do give them old ones, we ought to mend
them first and make them as presentable as we can? Next
Christmas when the Thanatopsis makes its distribution,
wouldn't it be jolly if we got together and sewed on the clothes,
and trimmed hats, and made them—"
"Heavens and earth, they have more time than we have!
They ought to be mighty good and grateful to get anything,
no matter what shape it's in. I know I'm not going to sit
and sew for that lazy Mrs. Vopni, with all I've got to do!"
snapped Ella Stowbody.
They were glaring at Carol. She reflected that Mrs. Vopni,
whose husband had been killed by a train, had ten children.
But Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks was smiling. Mrs. Wilks was
the proprietor of Ye Art Shoppe and Magazine and Book Store,
and the reader of the small Christian Science church. She
made it all clear:
"If this class of people had an understanding of Science and
that we are the children of God and nothing can harm us,
they wouldn't be in error and poverty."
Mrs. Jackson Elder confirmed, "Besides, it strikes me the
club is already doing enough, with tree-planting and the
anti-fly campaign and the responsibility for the rest-room—to say
nothing of the fact that we've talked of trying to get the
railroad to put in a park at the station!"
"I think so too!" said Madam Chairman. She glanced
uneasily at Miss Sherwin. "But what do you think, Vida?"
Vida smiled tactfully at each of the committee, and
announced, "Well, I don't believe we'd better start anything
more right now. But it's been a privilege to hear Carol's dear
generous ideas, hasn't it! Oh! There is one thing we must
decide on at once. We must get together and oppose any move
on the part of the Minneapolis clubs to elect another State
Federation president from the Twin Cities. And this Mrs.
Edgar Potbury they're putting forward—I know there are
people who think she's a bright interesting speaker, but I
regard her as very shallow. What do you say to my writing
to the Lake Ojibawasha Club, telling them that if their district
will support Mrs. Warren for second vice-president, we'll
support their Mrs. Hagelton (and such a dear, lovely, cultivated
woman, too) for president."
"Yes! We ought to show up those Minneapolis folks!"
Ella Stowbody said acidly. "And oh, by the way, we must
oppose this movement of Mrs. Potbury's to have the state clubs
come out definitely in favor of woman suffrage. Women
haven't any place in politics. They would lose all their daintiness
and charm if they became involved in these horried plots
and log-rolling and all this awful political stuff about scandal
and personalities and so on."
All—save one—nodded. They interrupted the formal
business-meeting to discuss Mrs. Edgar Potbury's husband,
Mrs. Potbury's income, Mrs. Potbury's sedan, Mrs. Potbury's
residence, Mrs. Potbury's oratorical style, Mrs. Potbury's
mandarin evening coat, Mrs. Potbury's coiffure, and Mrs. Potbury's
altogether reprehensible influence on the State Federation of
Women's Clubs.
Before the program committee adjourned they took three
minutes to decide which of the subjects suggested by the
magazine Culture Hints, Furnishings and China, or The Bible
as Literature, would be better for the coming year. There
was one annoying incident. Mrs. Dr. Kennicott interfered
and showed off again. She commented, "Don't you think
that we already get enough of the Bible in our churches and
Sunday Schools?"
Mrs. Leonard Warren, somewhat out of order but much
more out of temper, cried, "Well upon my word! I didn't
suppose there was any one who felt that we could get enough
of the Bible! I guess if the Grand Old Book has withstood
the attacks of infidels for these two thousand years it is worth
our slight consideration!"
"Oh, I didn't mean—" Carol begged. Inasmuch as she
did mean, it was hard to be extremely lucid. "But I wish,
instead of limiting ourselves either to the Bible, or to anecdotes
about the Brothers Adam's wigs, which Culture Hints seems
to regard as the significant point about furniture, we could
study some of the really stirring ideas that are springing up
today—whether it's chemistry or anthropology or labor problems—
the things that are going to mean so terribly much."
Everybody cleared her polite throat.
Madam Chairman inquired, "Is there any other discussion?
Will some one make a motion to adopt the suggestion of Vida
Sherwin—to take up Furnishings and China?"
It was adopted, unanimously.
"Checkmate!" murmured Carol, as she held up her hand.
Had she actually believed that she could plant a seed of
liberalism in the blank wall of mediocrity? How had she
fallen into the folly of trying to plant anything whatever in a
wall so smooth and sun-glazed, and so satisfying to the happy
sleepers within?