Kate Beaumont :: :: University of Virginia Library

Is there any possible reader of this story,
who does not know what a church fair is?
The Presbyterian church of Hartland has
no steeple, except a little, undignified, rusty-white
bob of a belfry, which puts irreverent
people in mind of a wart, or a baby's
nose, or a docked puppy-dog's tail. After
having slumbered for years over the pointless
state of their tabernacle, the members
of the congregation have suddenly awakened
to a sense of the absurdity of its appearance,
and have resolved (as one old
farmer expressed it) to grow a steeple.
Every one of them has built imaginary
spires in his soul, and has perhaps tumbled
out of them in dreams. The result of all
this longing is a church fair in the court-house.

The court-house is not only the palais de
justice and the hôtel de ville of a Southern shire
town, but is also its political club-room, its
theatre, opera, lecture-hall, and coliseum. In
it the party leaders shout, “Fellow-citizens,
we have arrived at a national crisis,” with
other words to that effect. In it the scientific
or historic or theologic gentlemen, who
have been “invited” by the village lyceum,
wipe their spectacles, look at their manuscripts,
and begin, “Ladies and gentlemen
of Hartland,” or whatever the place may
be. In it the musical concerts, tableaux vivants
and charades of native talent unfold
their enchantments. In it strolling actors,
nigger or other minstrels, black-art magicians
and exhibitors of panoramas, make
enough to pay their hotel bills and get on
to the next town. In short, the court-house
is the academe of all exceptional instruction
and amusement.

On the ground that the pews of the
church will not give free circulation to the
business of a fair, and on the further ground
that the prosperity of every religious body
is intimately connected with the public
good, that crafty and potent seigneur,
Judge McAlister, has secured the court-room
gratis for the use of his society, notwithstanding
much dumb jealousy on the
part of Methodists, Baptists, etc. The
greasy wooden seats have been “toted off”;
the tobacco-stained floor has been scrubbed
into a speckled cleanliness; there are plenty
of gayly decked tables, with pretty girls
smiling over them; there are alcoves of
greenery, glowing with other pretty girls;
the walls are fine with flowers, drapery, and
festooned paper: it is a very lively and very
pleasant spectacle. The squeezing, buying,
prattling, laughing, and staring crowd enjoys

the scene heartily. A decent and civil crowd
it is, although far from being purely aristocratic,
for it exhibits many plain people,
many unfashionable garments and some
homespun ones. No negroes, barring a few
as attendants: the slave population is to
have an evening by itself; then there will
be goggling wonder and roaring laughter.

Even now there is plenty of noisy amusement,
for the Howling Gyascutus is on exhibition,
and what a funny beast it is!

“The howling gyascutus, ladies and gentlemen!”
calls one of the junior managers
from a stage at the upper end of the hall, —
“the howling gyascutus!” he proclaims,
leading out what seems to be a hairy quadruped,
with very thick and long hind legs
and very short fore ones. “I have the honor,
ladies and gentlemen, to be the first to exhibit
to the human race this remarkable animal.
The howling gyascutus is the wonder of
the age, — at least for the present occasion.
He humps himself up to the dizziest summits
of the persimmon-tree, and devours
green persimmons by the peck without
puckering, — a feat accomplished by no other
living creature. He has been known to
eat a pickaninny from wool to heel, as if he
were a card of gingerbread. His strength
is supposed to be equal to that of Samson,
and he would pull down a temple of Dagon
if he could find one, which he cannot in
this virtuous community. His howl is the
envy of auctioneers, deputy-sheriffs, and
congressmen.” (Here the nondescript roars
in a manner which may be described as
nothing less than human.) “It is not recorded
that any other specimen of the breed
has ever been captured. It is not believed
that this one could have been overcome and
brought here, but for his lurking desire to
look at the beautiful ladies whom I see before
me.” (Loud applause from the dandies
of Hartland, every one glancing at his particular
Dulcinea.) “Such is the force of
the howling gyascutus that he defies the
unassisted power of the human biceps and
other more unnamable muscles. If I should
let him loose, you would see this magnificent
court-house” (“Hi! hi!” from the bigger
boys, appreciating the irony of the adjective)
“disappear in his jaws like the
bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim and
break on the lips they 're meeting. There
would be a scene of destruction which the
past cannot parallel, and which the future
would look upon with a palpitation of the
heart and other sentimental organs. I assure
you, ladies and gentlemen, that, notwithstanding
this enchanted chain and other
favorable influences too numerous to be mentioned,
it takes all my strength to hold
him.”

Here of course the gyascutus went into
a paroxysm. He ran at the shins of his
keeper; he stood five feet eight in his
boots, and pawed the kerosene-lit air; he
howled in his manly fashion until the blood
of small urchins curdled with horror. A
terrible nondescript; long gray fur, such as
one sees in travelling-rugs; a head wonderfully
like that of a stuffed bear; the tail of
an alligator. After much roaring and clanking,
and a good deal more of speechifying
from his exhibitor, he was led away behind
a green cambric curtain, followed by laughter,
stamping, and clapping.

A little later, Wallace McAlister, next
oldest of the breed to Frank, strolled out
from unknown recesses, his pleasant, plain
face unusually flushed, and his prematurely
bald crown damp with perspiration.

“O Wally!” laughed his sister Mary,
beckoning him to her alcove. “How could
you make such a guy of yourself! But
really, it was funny.”

“Just to get it done,” said Wallace, — a
good-natured reason, which was quite characteristic
of him. “Everybody else was
afraid of being undignified. But, after I
had volunteered to be gyascutus,” he added,
looking a little disgusted, “the fools put in
Bent Armitage as keeper. I did n't know
who was holding the chain till it was too
late.”

“Was n't it stupid in them!” murmured
Mary. “But never mind.”

It must be understood that Bentley Armitage
was a connection of the Beaumonts,
and so not entirely to the taste of the McAlisters.

“Somebody had to be gyascutus and start
the thing,” continued Wallace, apologizing
for himself. “A fellow must do something
to get the fair along.”

“O, it 's very well,” nodded Mary, cheeringly.
“You howled to perfection. Now
go and buy something. Do buy something
of Jenny Devine, — won't you?”

Mary's eyes were very appealing. Jenny
Devine was her friend, her pet, her wonder.
It was odd, too, or rather it was not
at all odd. for Mary was quiet and very
good, while Jenny was rather hoydenish and
over-coquettish. There she was, peeping
out of an alcove of hemlock a few steps farther
on, a dangerous looking fairy, rather of
the brunette order, sparkling with black
eyes, glistening with white teeth, and one
shoulder poked high out of her dress for a
temptation.

“What does Jenny Devine want of me?”
mumbled modest Wallace. “A bald old
fellow like me!”

“You are not old,” whispered Mary, coloring
with sympathy for his mortification as
he alluded to his defect. “Do go!”

For Mary wanted to bring about a match
between this brother whom she loved and
Jenny Devine whom she also loved.

“Stop! don't go now,” she hastily added,
“Vincent Beaumont is talking to her.”

“Oh!” returned Wallace, casting a sidelong
glance, rather watchful than hostile,
toward the representative of the inimical
race.

It may as well be explained here that at
this period the men of the rival houses did
speak to each other when they met by
chance in society, but that they met as little
as possible and their speaking was of the
briefest description. As for their respective
women folks, no communication ever passed
between them.

Until Vincent Beaumont goes his way,
and Wallace can find a chance to drop into
the toils of Jenny Devine, let us amuse and
instruct ourselves by studying Judge Donald
McAlister. How bland and benignant
this mighty personage looks as he paces
grandly from table to table, and says a few
no doubt fitting words to every lady, not to
mention intermediate hand-shakings with
every male creature! He a fighter of duels,
a champion of a family feud, an obstacle to
the millennium of peace! Why, bless you,
he is obviously one solid chunk of goodness;
his philanthropy shines out of his large face
like a Drummond light out of the lantern of
a lighthouse; his very accessories, as, for
instance, his scratch and spectacles, beam
amity. One would say, after taking a cursory
glance at him, that here is an incarnation
of the words, “Peace on earth and good-will
to men.”

His very figure has outlines which seem
to radiate promises of tranquillity and mercy.
It is not that he is corpulent, for although
he weighs at least two hundred and thirty,
he is so tall that he carries his avoirdupois
well. But get behind him; notice the feminine
slope of his shoulders; survey the
womanly breadth of his hips. Is that a
form, lofty and vigorous as it is, which one
couples with the idea of pugnacity? It is
the build, not of a gladiator, but of a “gentle
giant,” and that too of the female order.
Even his walk is matronly; the great
“second joints” wheeling slowly and with
dignity; the large knees almost touching as
they pass each other; the deliberate feet
pointing tranquilly outwards; the coat-tails
swinging like petticoats. Not that the
Judge is ludicrous, unless it be to very
light-minded persons, such as would “speak
disrespectfully of the equator.” He is not, —
it must be emphatically repeated, — he is
not fat nor clumsy. He simply has the
form which is most common to tall men who
have developed into a certain measure of
portliness.

It is proper to state that he has a blander
air than usual. His wife has managed the
fair successfully, and he sympathizes with
her satisfaction. His only daughter is look
ing her best amid the evergreens of her
alcove, and Heaven has not been chary to
him of the pride and love of a father. Furthermore
(very characteristic, this) he has
carefully calculated what the fair will cost
him, and finds it barely one half of what he
would have been expected to pay, had the
expense of the steeple been raised by subscription.
Finally, it is his ancient, deliberate,
and judicious custom to look especially
benignant upon public occasions.

But the Judge must not at this time be
described fully. If we should attempt to
do him justice, he would betray us into
great lengths. An exhaustive study of him
would fill a bigger volume than the pyramid
of Cheops. We must let this monument
go; we must open the door for him as he
swings out of the court-room; we must turn
to more manageable personages.

“Great is avoirdupois,” said Vincent
Beaumont to Jenny Devine, as he watched
the departure of the somewhat ponderous
senior.

“What do you mean?” asked the young
lady, suspecting one of Vincent's sarcasms
and not willing to lose the full flavor of it.

“Character goes by weight. Every large
man gets a certain amount of reverence
which does n't fairly belong to him. There
is the Judge, for instance. Just because he
is an inch or so over six feet, and exhibits
the outlines of an elephant when he stoops to
pick up his hat, even I feel inclined to fall
into his wake.”

“He is a much finer man than you think,”
said Miss Jenny, one of those young ladies
who rule by pertness.

“Thank Heaven!”

“And he is a much older man than
you.”

“Thank Heaven again!”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a chance that he won't last my
time.”

“Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Mr.
Beaumont?”

It was a common phrase with Jenny, and
she meant almost nothing by it. In reality
Vincent's sub-acid prattle gave her vast
amusement and pleasure. Sarcasm was the
young man's strong point in conversation,
causing a few to admire him immensely and
a great many to dislike him. A born trait
in him, the legacy perhaps of his French
ancestors, he had greatly increased his proficiency
in it by familiarity with a certain
chaffing French society, for he had studied
medicine in Paris. A doctor, by the way,
he would not be called, for he had cut the
profession immediately on returning home,
and never prescribed unless for one of his
father's negroes.

“And there is our downy friend, the
gyascutus,” he continued, glancing with a

scornful languor at Wallace McAlister.
“As he weighs eighty pounds less than his
father, I suppose I may say a word about
him.”

“You may praise him as much as you
like,” said Jenny, an audacious conquette,
who liked to play off one man against
another.

Vincent was annoyed; not that he cared
about Jenny Devine, but that he wanted
her to care about him; for he too was a
flirt, and a flintily selfish one. He could
scarce forbear turning his satire upon the
girl herself.

“I mean to praise him,” he replied. “His
humility in playing gyascutus deserves
eulogium. And that he should accept my
relative — the relative of a Beaumont, remember
— for his keeper! I can't imagine a
more graceful and delicate advance towards
a reconciliation of the families. I should
like to pat him on the head, as one does a
fuzzy-crowned baby. Do you think he
would let me?”

All this was nuts to Jenny, amused by
the satire and delighted with the jealousy.
Not a bad-hearted girl, but a decidedly mischievous
one; something of the pet monkey
in her brilliant composition; fond of making
a sensation and of being a torment.
Resolving on a great blow for notoriety, she
poked up one of her bare shoulders with a
saucy air of power which a more experienced
belle would not have ventured, and
throwing out a rosy hand authoritatively,
beckoned Wallace to come to her. What a
triumph it would be if she could make a
Beaumont and a McAlister stand side by
side before her table and meekly play the
rivals! No other girl in Hartland District
had ever attempted such a feat.

The unwilling but fascinated Wallace approached.
Vincent, anxious to avoid the
meeting, was held fast by an idea that it
would be ridiculous to go. It was like the
nearing of two ships of war, each of whom
is a stranger to the other's purpose, and is
therefore silently clearing for action. Persons
in the crowd looked on with anxious
surprise, querying whether the young men
were about to draw pistols, or whether the
millennium were at hand.

“Mr. Beaumont — Mr. McAlister,” said
the triumphant, reckless, dangerous Miss
Jenny.

The two men bowed; there could be no
quarrelling before ladies: they were as courteous
as if they were friends.

“I want you two to bid against each
other for this pair of gloves,” said the mischief-maker.
Then the thought of the
trouble that such a contest might cause
dropped into her giddy head, and she hastily
added, “The bidding is not to go above
ten dollars.”

“I bid ten dollars at once,” calmly remarked
Vincent, looking Jenny gravely in
the face.

“So do I,” said Wallace, his loose blue
eyes wandering in a troubled way, for he
thought all of a sudden that the girl might
make a bad wife.

“Here, take each one,” returned Jenny.
“Five dollars apiece.”

There was a moment of hesitation during
which each man queried whether he
were not bound to demand the pair. Then
Wallace's good-nature put down his irritated
sense of honor, and handing Jenny
a five-dollar piece, he took a single glove.
Vincent did the same, thrust his glove petulantly
into a pocket, bowed in silence to
the lady, and turned to go.

“Wait, Mr. Beaumont,” called Jenny,
who saw the eyes of fifty women fixed on
her triumph, and was not willing to let it
end so abruptly. “Trading is over, and we
are about to talk. Both you gentlemen love to
talk dearly. So do I. Let us have a delightful
time of it. Mr. Beaumont, we are very
much obliged to you for coming here. Considering
that you are an Episcopalian, and
don't believe that our church is a church,
your conduct is very liberal, and we ought
to thank you. Don't you think so, Mr. McAlister?”

“I do indeed,” assented the much-enduring
Wallace.

He said it to please the lady, but he said
it stiffly and dryly, for the situation was not
an agreeable one to him. Moreover he did
not like the habitual sneer which played
around Vincent's flexible mouth. All the
Beaumonts were unpleasant to him, and
especially this would-be witty mocker.

“I have been exceedingly entertained,”
returned Vincent, with a slight, Frenchified
bow, half a shrug. “Mr. McAlister here
has been good enough to be very amusing.”

The young Beaumont, it must be explained,
had conceived an inflammatory
suspicion that these two were in combination
to put him at a disadvantage, with the
purpose of laughing at him after his departure.

Wallace colored at the reference to his
undignified exhibition as a gyascutus.

“I had no special intention of troubling
you to laugh, Mr. Beaumont,” he observed
in a rather too positive tone.

“We are often most amusing when we
least mean it,” was the snaky answer. “I
have seen people who never knew how
comic they were,” added Vincent, his pugnacity
rising as he tasted first blood.

Wallace, who was not quick at repartee
(unless thinking of a retort next day
can be called quick), simply stared his indignation.
Jenny Devine saw that there
was a quarrel, and rushed in with some of

her girlish prattle, hoping to make things
pleasant again. But the mischief was done;
the smouldering fire of the old feud had
been blown to a flame; the two young men
were in a state of mind to shoot each other.
Jenny saw so much of the ill-humor, and
was so far alarmed by it, that when Vincent
again bowed himself away she did not
detain him. She now talked to Wallace,
with the intention of keeping him from
following the other. But he was moody;
he could not answer her, and hardly heard
her; and at last, in a girlish pet, she let
him go.

Knowing that he had been satirized, and
feeling that he had been insulted, Wallace
watched Vincent until he left the hall and
then hastened after him.

“Mr. Beaumont,” he called, when they
were both in the moonlit street.

“Well, sir?” returned Vincent, facing
about.

“I don't know exactly how to take what
you have said to me,” continued Wallace.

“I don't find that I am bound to assist
you, sir,” was the cool reply.

Wallace's hot temper immediately boiled
over; he muttered some indistinct but
evidently angry words.

“Perhaps you would be good enough to
say something comprehensible,” sneered
Vincent.

“Yes, sir!” burst out Wallace. “I will
be kind enough to say that I consider your
style of innuendo not gentlemanly. Do
you hear me, sir? Not gentlemanly!”

“I comprehend perfectly,” replied Vincent,
in a furious rage at once, but still preserving
the clear even tone of his tenor
voice. “I will send you my answer.”

“Very good,” said Wallace, and the two
separated without another word, the one
mounting his horse and riding away, the
other turning to re-enter the court-house.

Meantime Mary McAlister had rushed at
Jenny Devine, whispering, “Where is my
brother?”

“I don't know,” answered the flirt, suddenly
very much alarmed, but trying to
smile. “He is about somewhere.”

“He is n't. What did you make him
talk with that Mr. Beaumont for? O Jenny!
I thought you were a friend.”

Jenny rustled out of her alcove, caught
Mary by the arm and hurried her towards
the door, saying, “Let us look for him.”

On the stairway they met Wallace, slowly
ascending. He was very grave, but at sight
of them a smile came over his homely,
pleasant face, and he said cheerily, “What
now? Do you want anything?”

Mary flew to him. “Is there any trouble,
Wally?” she whispered. “You know how
our mother would feel. O Wally, if there
is any trouble, do stop it!”

“All right,” laughed Wallace, putting his
arm around her waist and helping her up
stairs. “It's all right, Molly.”

There was dire trouble, of course; but, as
he believed, he could not stop it; and that
being the case, he would say nothing about
it!