 Section 1 of Ms. Priscilla Hunter and My Daughter Susan. She Discusses the Situation She belonged to our church. That is really the first sentence to use by way of introduction, for if there was any one thing for which she was enlisted, heart and soul and body, it was our church. How did she look? Dear me, she never stopped to consider, and I am not sure that anyone else ever did, but a great many people knew how she acted, which is certainly much more to the point. The time of which I am about to tell you was one of special interests to our church. In fact affairs reached a crisis, and to come to the point at once I may as well tell you that we were in debt. Not largely, the sum was not above five thousand dollars all told. Neither was ours a struggling church, situated on the frontier, or set back in one of the by-ways of the world. On the contrary, it had its visible presence in a well-to-do eastern center, and was the largest and most flourishing of the many denominations represented in our town. We had a fair proportion of the muddied members of society, several bankers, half a dozen merchants, more than that number of grocers, and a long list belonging to that large and well-to-do class of people, known in aristocratic circles as the middle classes, whatever that term may mean. Nobody knew why we allowed that church debt to accumulate and swallow its hundreds in interest year by year. Can anybody tell why ninety-nine churches out of a hundred allow themselves to do that same thing? There were those in our congregation who shrewdly suspected that it was for convenience. It certainly was the most common thing in the world for certain parties when appealed to for contributions in aid of any object under the sun, whether foreign or home missions, church erection, church extension, ministerial relief, or food and clothing for the grasshopper regions of the west, to fall back solemnly and hopelessly into the arms of that church debt, and declare that people should be just before they are generous, and that honesty should come before benevolence, and all those solemn and truthful and interesting sentences which people are apt to quote when they don't want to give you any money. What is to be done with people, who, in the face of the most earnest appeal, that can be made for some object dear to the Christian heart, stoically declare to you that the debt ought to be paid, that it is high time the church set itself to work and sacrificed and strained every nerve towards the accomplishment of that end? This is all true. They mean it, and you agree with them. The question is, why don't you and they set to work and do it, instead of hugging the thing to talk about? Who stands ready to answer? I frankly confess to you that the debt on our church became our torment, our thorn in the flesh. It was everywhere present, popping up its hydrohead on every conceivable occasion. We needed new hymn books, but there was that debt. How could a church hope to prosper that bought new hymn books instead of paying its debts? We needed new library books, our Sabbath school was running behind on this very account, but think of the enormity of the sin of trying to raise money for library books when that $5,000 debt was hanging its millstone about our necks. We wanted to re-carpet our church and re-furnish our pulpit and the seats needed a pollstering, and the parsonage kitchen needed a new sink and drain and pump, and the parsonage grounds needed a new fence. The old one had been a source of humiliation to us for years. But who had the courage to talk about perpetrating such deeds of darkness as the getting and doing of all these things when that debt remained unpaid? By this time I hope you perceive that our church debt was an intolerable nuisance, and yet we clung to it. Well, all this is a digression. I was going to tell you about Miss Priscilla Hunter, how on a certain sunny morning, not many years ago, the wife of one of our deacons went with the wife of one of our doctors to call on her, their object being to see about some pants for the five-year-old deacon and the six-year-old doctor. Miss Priscilla, you must understand, was a tail arrest. I like your work better than the tailor's, said the doctor's wife. I can never get a tailor to make things look cunning and childish. They always turn out work that is fit only for great rough boys. Of course you do not need to be told that her boy was not a great rough one, but on the contrary was the most superior boy that ever lived. Be it known also in passing that Miss Priscilla's work was worthy of being liked by anybody, not a garment ever went from her careful hand until it was as neat and precise in all its details as skill and deftness could make it. From pants the talk drifted to church matters, wither Miss Priscilla's talk was sooner or later as sure to turn as the needle turns to the pole. They discussed the condition of the carpets and the holes that were showing in the cushions and the need there was of putting in a furnace before another winter, and they told how the children said that they had read every old book in that library a dozen times at the very least. Then their sympathies reached the parsonage, and they told each other how dreadful that rickety fence did look, and how ashamed they were of it the last time Governor Parker was in town and called there. And the doctor's wife told how the doctor had said again and again that it was actually attempting of providence for the parsonage grounds not to have better drainage. And the talk all ended, as it always did, with the woe be gone murmur. Oh, if we were only out of debt we might set about some of these things right away, but as it is—and then there followed an indescribable, thrice-echoed, long-drawn out sigh. I suppose if that sentence had been dolefully wind out once, it had been five hundred times by the different members of our church during the years in which we had been victims to that debt. After this there was a silence for several minutes. Miss Priscilla sewed very hard, snipping off her thread from time to time with an energetic whisk of her great, shining shears, piercing up her thin mouth in a way that told of a great many things which she would like to say, and of some which she would say before she was much older. Presently she burst forth. Now look here, Miss Baker! I'm tired of that kind of talk. My ears have ached for years with hearing so much of it, and I've just made up my mind it was time that debt was paid. It has hung over us and whined and groaned and howled at us long enough. There never was anything in our church that Satan liked so well as that abominable debt. And it's my opinion that he has been tickled with it as long as is good for him. Not a thing do we try to do from sending Bibles to the heathen to mending our rickety personage fence, but he swoops down on us and gets off a lot of what passes for pious groaning about that debt. It's all Satan from beginning to end, and it is time it was stopped. Now what I say is, let's pay that debt without any more fuss about it. For pity's sake! And why dear me? murmured the deacons wife and the doctors wife in a breath, according to their several natures. And Mrs. Dr. Baker added, I wish with all my heart it might be paid I am sure. I'd be willing to sacrifice a great deal, though Mercy knows I don't know what to sacrifice more than I'm doing. But I don't see any prospect of its ever being paid. For my part I am clear discouraged. Well, now that's no kind of a way to talk. You've no right to be discouraged. It's the Lord's church I reckon almost as much as its ours, and he don't want to see it disgraced with a debt any more than we do, to say the least. My proposition is to just put our shoulders to the wheel and lift it, and say no more about it. Priscilla Hunter! almost screamed Mrs. Deacon Jones. How is it going to be done? Now that is what I'd like to know. Why, we've strained every nerve and lifted and lifted, and all we've been able to do is just to pay the interest, and sometimes you know as well as I do that we have had to borrow money to do that. If our rich men would just take hold of it and give as they ought to give, it could all be wiped out in a day, but I have lost all hope in that direction. This from Mrs. Dr. Baker. Then Priscilla. Oh now, Ms. Baker, don't you go to making yourself believe that's Pious Talk? That's just Satan hanging round in nothing else. Not but what he hangs around the rich men and winds out his say, and I've no kind of doubt he says to them, if the sewing girls and tailoresses and hod carriers and cobblers would all just come up to the help of the Lord against this debt, no doubt we could lift it. I'll tell you it's one of his dodges to hang around people and wind out, if somebody else and his wife and children would only do their duty, we could swim through. Now I ain't one to say that the rich men couldn't pay the debt in our church if they were a mind to, for I believe they could, and what is more I know they could, but they don't do it, and as far as I can see they don't mean to. And Satan, he don't mean they shall, and he wants to keep me busy all the time groaning over their failings. Now, for my part, I'm tired of his company. I've shook him off. He won't groan to me on that subject again in a hurry. I say we give him the cold shoulder and just make an end of this thing. How fast Miss Priscilla could sew! Her fingers fairly flew over the seam, and her keen gray eyes flashed along the stitches like soldiers bayonets. The two collars looked at her in dumb amazement. The doctor's wife even wondering whether much stitching might not have made her mad. As for Mrs. Deacon Jones, she looked thoughtful. Land alive! she said. How are we to do it? We've had suppers and festivals and pound parties and all those things till people are sick of their very names. Oh, suppers! said Miss Priscilla, with a sniff of her long keen nose. Don't, for pity's sake, let me hear anything about them. They're nice enough in their way, for stomachs and sociability, and all that. I haven't got a word to say against them. But for paying a debt, humph! You set to work and bake a lot of cake, and use up butter and eggs and sugar and cream enough to make a dollar's worth at the very least. And then you carry it down to the church, and your husband comes and eats a piece of it, and a piece of turkey that somebody else has brought, and that costs two dollars, and a piece of chicken, and a slice of bread, and another slice of another kind of cake that somebody else has brought, and a piece of everything under the sun, and his stomach feels better after it all, maybe. Only I doubt it. But as for the money part, why he pays fifty cents for his supper, and it goes into the treasury, and after the broken dishes are paid for, and the things you had to buy to piece out with are paid for, and a dozen and one things that nobody ever thought of are paid for, why what's left of it goes towards paying the debt? That's social now, I dare say, but it isn't economical, and I don't expect to get out of debt by a hundred years of such management as that. There's only one way that's worse, and I'm thankful to remember that our church has never sunk so low as to try it. They have been doing it up in Circleville where I was sewing for a month. They had a debt of three hundred dollars, or at least they were behind that much. And how do they pay it? You'd never guess in the world. They got together and talked it up, and planned about what hard times it was, and how they ought to get out of debt now, or else they would surely be going deeper and deeper all the time. And finally they agreed to make a great sacrifice and pay that debt, so they sent a committee to the minister. Now these are hard times you know, says the committee, looking wise, and it becomes those in Zion to be willing to sacrifice and suffer if need be for the cause. We have made up our minds that this debt ought to be paid, and we have come to you, the watchmen upon the walls, as a proper person to set the example. And then they proceed to show him how. You see, there is a debt of about three hundred dollars, and your salary is fifteen hundred. Now these are very hard times, and a man ought to be willing to sacrifice for the good of the cause, you know, and we think by economy you could live on twelve hundred dollars, and then we would be out of debt, don't you see? And what a grand and glorious day that will be. Then they got eloquent and pathetic over that grand and glorious day. I sat and listened to all the talk about sacrifice and setting example, and at last I boiled over. It was none of my business, but I couldn't help it. Um, says I, live and learn. Now that's a new idea. We're in debt too, but we never thought of any such plan. I'll go home and tell our folks about it, and see if we can manage in some such way. Let me see, it is done by sacrificing. That is, the minister sacrifices enough salary to pay it all up, and you sacrifice him. That's the way, isn't it? I tell you, I was mad. Mr. Grimes looked pretty bleak over what I said, and says he. A minister certainly ought to be willing to set an example of sacrifice in these hard times. Of course, says I, but then I always thought an example was something for folks to follow. Now unless you have all pitched in and concluded to sacrifice him for your part of the work, I don't see how you have helped. And even then, that doesn't seem exactly following an example. It strikes me you are doing the leading off. I see through what the example is, says I. If you talked that stuff to your pastor, and he didn't ask you mildly to step out of his house and let him lock the front door, why, you've got an example of Christian forbearance to follow all the days of your life. I tell you, it is the easiest thing in the world to do other folks sacrificing for him. I'd just as soon give Mrs. Merchant's new dress for the church as not. But mine is another matter. Always provided I had a new one to give, which I never do have. It's a good deal easier for me to talk about giving it on that account. When the Mrs. Doctor and the Mrs. Deacon had had their laugh out over this remarkable story, the latter said, Well, as you say, we'll never descend to any such performance, I do hope. But I'm sure I don't see what we are to do. I do, then, said Miss Priscilla, sewing away faster than ever, and I can show you if you'll set to work and do it. You'll have a call from me about this very thing before the week is out. I want you both to go home and think of what you have said a hundred times and repeat it in my shop this very morning, that you are willing to sacrifice if the debt could only be paid. I want you to go down on your knees and ask the Lord what that word means, and mind I warn you, don't let Satan get your mind wandering off to the sacrificing of Mr. Merchant or Mr. Richie or any other of our rich men. That's easy. If I've paid the church debt for them once, I have a hundred times. But you see, neither of them being our minister, we can't go up to them and demand a sacrifice, so we have our planning for nothing. What I've made up my mind to do is just attend to my own self, get up my own sacrifices, or ask the Lord to get them up for me, make them so plain that if I shut my eyes I'll stumble over them. Now that's what I want you to do. And then, when your mind is made up, all I ask of you is to put it on paper for me and let me carry it around in my pocket a while as an evidence of what the Lord has showed to you. I see what I can do. Anyhow, I see one place plain enough. My time is my bread and butter, and my bread and butter are all I've got in this world. If I give them, it stands to reason that I can't do much more. I've made up my mind to give them, not but what I shall contrive to throw an odd dime or two into the bargain now and then. End of Section 1 Section 2 of Miss Priscilla Hunter and My Daughter Susan by Pansy. This Librabox recording is in the public domain. Miss Priscilla Hunter Chapter 2. She Throws New Light on Taxation That was the way it began. No, I mistake, it began back of that. One night with Priscilla Hunter on her knees, her soul heavy within her because of the disgrace lying heavy on our church. She prayed and then she crept back into bed and tossed and tumbled and thought, and finally flung aside the clothes and got on her knees again seeking for light. And at last, with a smile on her face as of one who had received light, smoothed her small rumbled pillow and laid her gray head on it and went quietly to sleep, since which time her plans had been maturing. Behold her one morning, instead of being seated at her accustomed corner by that little east window, with her lap board standing up beside her and her bit of wax and her black thread and gray thread and gleaming shears on a chair before her, and the great pressing goose heating itself on the coals in her bit of a kitchen. Behold her with her neat black bonnet and her neat black shawl and her neat black cotton gloves all donned, arrayed for walking, and in her window carefully printed out in letters so large and smooth that it had taken her half the afternoon before to accomplish them, this sentence. Gone on a three weeks vacation. Yet she didn't expect to leave the town, it was only her way of saying, you needn't expect a stitch of work from me for the next three weeks and that's all there is about it. Ten minutes after she had locked her door and clamped down the steep steps, she stood in Mr. Merchant's presence in the first national bank of our city. Good morning, she said, and then she dashed into her subject without hesitation or circumlocution. Mr. Merchant, we have made up our minds to pay that church debt. It has been on our hands long enough, and we are sick of it. The money is all to be raised now without fail in six months time. We want you to head the subscription. What will you give? Well, really, said Mr. Merchant, somewhat taken aback by this abrupt announcement and the peculiar manner of its wording. I am sure I am wonderfully glad that the debt is to be paid at last. Of course you are, everyone in his senses is. The question is, how much are you going to help? Well, as to that, how many times have I subscribed for that very thing, and how much money do you suppose I have sunk in in paying that debt? Not a cent, said Miss Priscilla, firmly. Never a cent! You have given a good deal, I suppose, in the last dozen years to some idiot who came around, trying to see how much money he could raise towards paying it. It has always gone towards paying it, mind you, and never to pay it. Women don't do business in that way. We are sick of forever going towards a thing and never reaching it. We've just walked up to this and taken it by the throat. Now, how much are you willing to give? Not to see it choked a little, mind you, with a fair prospect of coming to life again, but killed outright. Do you mean, asked Mr. Merchant, greatly amused, that unless you raise the whole amount I am not to be called on to pay my subscription? Well, if you like that namby-pamby way of putting it, you can have it so, but I won't take any unfair advantage of you. I'll say outright in plain English that whatever you put down will be called for, and you won't be asked to give anything again as long as you live for this debt, because it is going to be paid. Now, how much shall it be? Three hundred dollars? said Mr. Merchant at random. All right, put it down in black and white in this book. If I was your conscience, I should say you ought to make it five hundred at least. But seeing I'm not, I'll let that part alone, and take the three hundred and be on my way. Make it payable six months from today, if you please, at ten o'clock a.m. And in less time than it takes me to tell it, Miss Priscilla had received back her little red-covered book, whipped it into her pocket, made her best bow to the amused Mr. Merchant, and was off. I might as well made it a thousand to encourage her. He said, looking after her and laughing, it will never be collected. People are about tired of calls for the payment of that debt. Just what Mr. Merchant thought was going to become of the debt in that case, he did not state. On went Miss Priscilla on her self-appointed task. Her next call was at the house of one of the merchant princes of our church, Mr. Hordewell. Was there a faint sarcasm intended by his ancestors in forcing that name on him? Certainly if there was any one thing at which this man was an adept, it was the art of hoarding. That he certainly could do well. He put on his longest face the minute that Miss Priscilla told her errand, which she did in as rapid and straightforward away as she had used before. Well now, Miss Hunter, I appreciate your errand, and the motive which prompts you. Never mind about the motive or the appreciation, Mr. Hordewell, it is the check I'm after. There are a great many people to call on you now. I mean to give every man, woman, and child a chance. It is the last time. A faint smile illumined his sallow face. If one could only have your sanguine spirit, Miss Hunter, the debt ought to be paid. There is no question about that to my mind. It is a disgrace to our society that it isn't. I have said so a great many times. I know it. I've heard you say it in prayer meeting twenty times at the very lowest I should think. So there's no need of saying it again. Now's your chance to prove that you think so. There is nothing like proving sums, you know. Come, how much? Well, really, I am not in circumstances to give very liberally at this time. I have had heavy losses, and my taxes were never greater than they are this year. Almost any year since I have been in business I could do better than I can today. That's a pity. I wish you had done twice as much then five years ago as you are going to do today. But it is never too late to begin. What shall it be? You quiet people, Miss Hunter, who sit in your pleasant rooms outside of the bustle and fret of business have very little idea of the risks and losses. You always suppose us to be made of money. You have a good deal more risk of loss than I do, Mr. Hordwell. That's a fact. I appreciate it. Did you ever hear the story of the man who heard that a certain bank had failed and felt uneasy till he hurried home to see whether he had any money of theirs? But he found he hadn't a dollar on that bank or any other, and then he felt safe. I'm exactly in his circumstances. No risk of my houses burning down or a thief stealing my bonds. I'm as safe about all them things as though I was the only being on earth. And as for taxes, well, they don't trouble me either, never did. That is it, Miss Hunter, and you see the fact is people who don't have those drains on their purse have no idea what heavy ones they are. There's that one building of mine across the way. I don't believe you could imagine what it has cost me for one thing and another this past year. I don't suppose I could, said Miss Hunter, with a solemn face. It is a good big building. I should say it must have cost a great deal. I declare, now you speak of it, it doesn't seem hardly fair that you should have all the tax paying to do and so many of us go free from such trials. I wonder a different arrangement isn't made. I daresay nobody has thought of it. But I don't believe in that kind of thing. I think we ought to bear one another's burdens. I'll tell you what we'll do, Mr. Hordwell. You make that property over to the church, give them a fair right and title to it, you know, and we'll engage to pay all the taxes on it from this time forth. And what is more, you needn't pay a cent towards raising this debt. I should think not, exclaimed Mr. Hordwell, with a laugh and a significant sniff. Why, my dear woman, that property is very valuable. It would pay the debt three times over. That's neither here nor there, you know. What you are complaining of was the taxes on it, and if I understood what you were driving at, it was because of those taxes and some others that you couldn't make as large a contribution as you wanted to. Now if it really is a burden and you feel the weight of it, why not get rid of it and at the same time do a good deed to the church? We are willing to help you in this thing. I promise you that any more tax or any more repairs on that building is something that you needn't concern yourself with for the next hundred years if you will just give us a deed of it. Ha-ha-ha! laughed Mr. Hordwell. You ladies like your little jokes I see, that is very well put, I declare. Jokes! I was never more in earnest in my life. Why not? If it isn't a burden, if on the other hand it is so much wealth and you can afford to pay heavy taxes on it for the sake of the income which it brings you, then what in the name of common sense did you mean? Mr. Hordwell had certainly never looked at the matter in just that light before, and whatever other follies he was guilty of, it was a long time after that before he excused himself from benevolence on the plea of heavy taxes. It took more talk and a great deal of it, and even then I fear that Miss Priscilla would have walked away without her contribution but for unfailing good nature and unselfishness. I am sorry to take up so much of your time," said Mr. Hordwell, looking at his watch and fingering his hat. Really, how late it is getting! He understood all those little gentlemanly devices for getting rid of a troublesome collar, as well as a gentleman could. But I must say I don't feel this morning like, oh, no trouble in life! interrupted Miss Priscilla with good humor to lacquery. If you don't feel ready to decide this morning why I can call again just as well as not. I've set out to do this thing and I mean to do it. There are a good many to call on. I mean to give every man, woman and child a chance, and I'll have to pass here pretty often, so I can call as well as not. I'll just drop in every morning as I pass by, and whenever you have made up your mind you can just say the word, and in that way it won't take much of your time. How many such calls do you think even Mr. Hordwell stood? Let me tell you, just five. Absolutely it took him five days to make up his mind that it was impossible to avoid giving something. He couldn't comfort himself in the way that Mr. Merchant had, for he feared there was a possibility that sometime, away in the dim, distant future, he might be called upon to redeem his pledge. There! said Miss Priscilla, drawing alongside of relief one very rainy morning as she splashed down the walk from his door with his name on her list for one hundred dollars. If I haven't earned that money then I never did earn any in my life. I have a great mind to scratch out his name and put Priscilla Hunter there in its place. For if I didn't give it, who did? It's harder work than boys' pants at seventy-five cents a pair, but I've got it. End of Section 2 Section 3 of Miss Priscilla Hunter and My Daughter Susan by Pansy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Miss Priscilla Hunter Chapter 3 Being All Things to All Women Tramp! Tramp! How many miles did Miss Priscilla walk during that three weeks' vacation? She didn't know, and so her list grew she didn't care. But even she had not realized the magnitude of the task which she had undertaken. Once she sat and moralized about it in the darkness of her room, she was economizing coal oil for the sake of the church debt. It was a chink from which she saw that one of those odd dimes could drop, and such chinks were few in her life of toil and pinch. She sat there alone by a bit of a fire, for the autumn days were chill and frosty, when they were not damp and foggy in the extreme. She had made some curious calls that day. I don't wonder, she said, thinking aloud, according to her fashion. I don't wonder that old woman said it took all sorts of folks to make a world, and for her part she was glad she wasn't one of them. Sensible old woman. If one only needn't be one of them. If a body could climb up somewhere on a hill and look down on all these humans, and feel herself a hundred thousand miles above them, why then a body could breathe better? I wonder now if that ain't a little bit like what heaven is. Feeling in a good, glad, clean, comfortable sense, without a speck of pride in it, that you've got above it all, all the worry and fuss and pinches and scrimps and stings and bruises and meannesses, and debts for ever and ever. But then, dear me, the widow Dixon will get there, too. Well, that's nice, I'm sure. It is a blessed thing that someday she will get her soul clean out of that little cramped-up body of hers, and have room to breathe. How she will look down on herself, though, the part of her that she lived down here in the hollow. Well, for the matter of that, Priscilla Hunter, so will you. Don't you go to getting puffed up? Pity's sake, if you weren't going to be a better woman by ten thousand times when you get to heaven than you are here, why heaven would be an out-and-out disappointment, that's all. And there will be no such thing as that hateful word up there, bless the Lord. Haven't I his own word for it? Didn't he say we should be satisfied? I wonder what it feels like to be satisfied. There's a pair of shoes gone towards the debt. A hole clear through one of them, and a grinning place in the other that will be a hole long before I have tramped this town over many times more. Well now, Priscilla Hunter, what are you talking about? The Lord knows that you counted the cost, and then deliberately gave these three weeks, shoes and all, to the cause. I don't know that it makes any difference to you whether anybody else ever knows it or not. You needn't be a mite afraid about the shoes, either. He can manage to have you get a pair of shoes, I guess, when you need them. It is a mercy that you haven't got that to worry about. Miss Priscilla's interview with the widow Dixon, which lays somewhat heavily on her heart, is worthy of a word of detail. The widow Dixon belonged to that class of persons who, with house and garden and farm and cattle and barns well stored, and with a fair proportion of this world's goods converted into railroad and bank stock, yet apparently firmly expect to end their days in the poor house, or at least to come to poverty. Moreover, the widow Dixon knew what it was to understand other people's duties for them. It is a burning shame that they have let this debt hang on so, she exclaimed, waxing into the excited state the minute the subject was mentioned. I've said it a hundred times. The church needn't ever hope to prosper so long as it shirks its honest debts in the kind of way ours has, and I say it is a sin and a shame. So it is, interrupted Miss Priscilla in a soothing tone. What I say is, let's pay it now and be done with it. Oh yes, Miss Hunter, you and I who have nothing to pay with can talk that way till the next century, and it won't do any good. I say, let those who are rolling in wealth. So much money they don't know what to do with it. Shoulder the burden and carry it. That's the way to do it. But they won't shoulder it, Miss Dixon. I'm willing enough to have them use their shoulders, and I've been waiting for their shoulders till I'm sick and tired of it. Now I'm going to use my own, and you must put yours against mine and give a lift with the rest. Not I. I've said I wouldn't give a cent towards that debt, and I don't believe I will. It never ought to have been made in the first place, a church running in debt. I'm never in debt, and I don't run around the town coaxing people to put their shoulders to the wheel and help me pay my grocery bill. Of course you don't, Miss Dixon, and you are not going to begin it now at this late day. When your grocery bill comes due, you just put your hand in your pocket and bring out the money. And that's exactly what I want you to do today. This is your bill, a piece of it, as much as it is mine and Mr. Merchants and all the others. There's no benevolence about it, nor charity, nor nothing of that kind. I ain't around begging just now. I'm good at that, too, when the right time comes, and I mean to do some of it before long. But all in life I'm doing now is just presenting folks' bills and asking them to pay their debts. It's all mapped out, each one his and her share. Some of them won't pay their share, to be sure, and some others will have to come in and help pay their bills, just as we have to help pay the grocery bills for the town's poor. But you don't expect me, of course, to go to Deacon Jones or Mr. Merchant, and beg a little money to help pay your debt with. I reckon you're too honest a woman for that. You see, it's a mere matter of business, and what they give towards it has no more to do with your share than what I give towards paying my grocer's bill has to do with you paying yours. Don't you see? No, I don't. I must say you always could make white look black if you wanted to. What I say is, I'm too poor to give anything to the church this year. It is as much as I can do to support my family. It isn't as if I were rich. I'd be willing if I had the money that some have to pay the whole debt and be done with it. I wish to the life you had it then, just to shame some of those who won't pay their share, and make it necessary for somebody to go begging for them. It'll come to that, I daresay, because there's some folks that just won't pay their debts. And you can't help yourself, so I'm free to confess that I may have to come around again and get you to take a tug at other folks's duties. And then, of course, you'll have a chance to say which you will do, yes or no. But I'm not after anything of the kind today. Haven't got to it yet. All I want now is for you to pay your debt. The part of it that belongs to you and nobody else. That's every earthly thing that I'm after. So come, don't let me take any more of your time. And she actually befuddled that woman into putting down in black and white the sum that was her fair share of the debt in question. Her comment as she clicked the latch of that gate was, Well, well, St. Paul got along nicely being all things to all men, I daresay. But if he had tried being all things to all women, I ain't sure but he'd have given up in disgust. Not that I mean to, to be sure, but then I'm a woman. All sorts of people she dealt with. There was Miss Almena St. John, a gay young member of the church, who when accosted by Miss Priscilla answered, Oh horrors, I don't know anything about money or debts. I always send my bills to Papa and he pays them. And that is all I have to do with it. All right, said Miss Priscilla, whipping out her pencil from her great pocket. That's easy done. Just write a note directing him to pay your share of this debt, and I've no manner of doubt he'll do it. He's not the man to refuse a just bill. But I don't understand. What on earth are you talking about? Why don't you go to Papa for a subscription if you want money? What do I know about it or what is it to me? Why bless your heart child. I have been to him for his part. But I supposed young ladies like you had your pin money and out of it were supposed to pay your small debts. Your share isn't large to be sure, but it needs paying, just the same as though it were. I didn't understand that I was to take it to your father. If that's the way, just write your note and I'll tramp back there with it in a twinkling. What an idea! said Miss Almina thoughtfully. An idea really was beginning to penetrate through her frizzes. Send an order for Papa for a church debt. He would think I was demented. Why, Miss Priscilla, if he has subscribed there is an end of it I should think. I can't for the life of me see why. He didn't pay your share, only his own. If he eats his dinner, I suppose that isn't the end of it. You have to eat yours besides. There's the church and you own a share in it. You helped get it into debt. You step on the carpets and sit under the gas light and wear out the cushions every Sabbath day when you are not too tired or too sleepy or too something to come to church. Anyway, you have contrived to wear out the little share I've here put you down for. There's the strangest notions that I'm out on this tramp for the sake of benevolence. I haven't a benevolent idea in my head and don't mean to have till this debt is paid. It's justice we're after now. Honesty, common honesty. Are you going to pay your share, child, or shall I put you down on the popper list to be looked after by the church at large? Then the fair Almena laughed outright. What funny notions, she said. Let me see my share. The idea is that all that belongs to me? That's just a trifle. I have an allowance, of course, but it would be so comical to take any of it for such a purpose. Though, after all, as you say, I don't know why I shouldn't. Only it is so funny. If I do it, the girls all ought to. Don't you mean to make the girls all do it, Miss Priscilla? I make them, said Miss Priscilla, snapping her keen gray eyes at the fair, frizzled head. I make the girls in our church pay their debts. Have we any really dishonest ones among us? Of course, if they can pay anything, they'll pay this. Well, it's the funniest thing I ever did in my life, laughed Miss Almena. But she did it, wrote her aristocratic name in delicate, unreadable Latin tracery, and added in good honest figures the sum which Miss Priscilla had specified as her fair share of the debt. And thereafter she talked her idea to all the girls, to say nothing of the boys. Unwittingly Miss Priscilla had secured an ally, and greatly she rejoiced there at. Her scheme widened and lengthened as she tramped. She called one day on Mr. Leonard Phelps. Now Mr. Leonard Phelps was one of those good-natured young men who have fair salaries and can try to eat and drink and drive and smoke every cent of them up, until some day they get married, and then they pinch and twist and save and grumble for the rest of their lives. But as a rule they can try to eat and smoke and drive on. Mr. Phelps was in the middle stage of this disease. He was a clerk in a large dry goods house, a favourite clerk receiving a good salary and having at present no one besides himself and the young lady who chanced to take his passing fancy on which to spend his money. He was a favourite with Miss Priscilla. She liked him just as a good many others did. Without any definite reason save the fact that she couldn't help it. He is an idiot. She was apt to say, snapping her eyes and sewing fast. Just a born idiot and nothing else, wasting his time and his talents and frolicking through his life for all the world like the gaudy young butterfly that I used to read about when I went to school. But for all that I can't help liking him, though I can't see anything in life that ought to be liked about him. It was on this young man whom she called with her subscription paper. She found him alone at his counter in good humour as he generally was and engaged in whistling while he tried to determine in his own mind where to waste the evening which was drawing near and which fell to him as a leisure one. He parried Miss Priscilla's thrusts with the most good-natured skill for some time. Then, growing weary of her, said courteously, The truth is, Miss Hunter, I should like exceedingly well to help you. I don't know anything that would give me greater pleasure if I were able to do it. But the honest fact is that I haven't the money to spare. It is all I can do to live. These are hard times, you know. And what with this and that unexpected drain on my purse, for something is always coming up to take money, it is a regular struggle with me to keep out of debt. I feel almost worn out in the attempt. You do look thin, that's a fact, said Miss Priscilla in a significant tone, and she surveyed his large, well-proportioned, somewhat portly form with such an air of mock commiseration on her face that it provoked a burst of laughter from the gay young man. I don't want to be hard on you, continued his tormentor. I know you have a great many depending on you for food and clothes, and all that sort of thing. It is not to be expected that with your little bit of a salary. It takes me exactly three years and eight months, sewing ten hours a day, three hundred and thirteen days a year, to make it out of pants. So of course I know you can't have much to give. Let me have for the next six months what you know on your honor as a gentleman you would spend in smoke, and I'll let you off from the balance. Smoke, he said, taken somewhat aback. Oh now Miss Priscilla, you wouldn't be so hard-hearted as to have me give up my cigars. They are all the comfort I have in life. Poor fellow, getting comfort out of smoke. You are poor, that's a fact. And so you are willing to own that you care more for your puffs of smoke than you do for the Lord? Oh as to that, I'm not a professor of religion, you know. It is not expected of me to be governed by any such motives. Bless me, why not? Who doesn't expect it of you? That's the queerest way to talk I ever heard of. Suppose you were called on to help your father's family, would you say, Well now I don't pretend to belong to my father's family, I eat food of his providing to be sure, and wear clothes which his money furnishes, but I have never made any profession of belonging to the family, and I don't see how I can be expected to take an interest in them. Certainly this was a new way of putting a truth, and Mr. Leonard Phelps, who was not easily embarrassed, felt his face flush slightly as one who realized that his logic had put him into very close quarters. Well, but, Miss Hunter, he said, rallying, you will surely admit that there is a difference between people who profess religion and those who do not. I dare say there is, as much difference in fact as there is between a son who professes to love his father and one who doesn't. But if you mean there ought to be a difference, I can't see that I see how it takes away a son's obligation to behave himself because he doesn't profess to care for his father's family. You see, young man, it isn't a question that lies with you to settle whether you will have Mr. Marcus Phelps for your father or not. He is your father, and you can't help yourself, and you owe him your love whether he gets it or not is another thing. Now, what you need to remember is that the Lord is your father whether you choose to own him or not, and he has a right to your love and your help. Whether you give him his rights or not is your affair and his. But don't go to saying that a thing isn't expected of you because you don't do it. That's ruinous doctrine, and hasn't any common sense about it either. There's lots expected of people on the score of their having brains and souls and all that, and they seem to take delight some of them in disappointing all the expectations that their friends have. But, unless they are born idiots, they won't pretend that shirking their duty releases them from all responsibility in the matter. This was only a part of the conversation. It was continued at some length, and grew serious, developing more thought about these matters of obligation and fatherhood and sonship than this young man had ever given before. And we cannot yet tell whereunto this thing may grow. Certain it is, though, that he gave his promise, not to give up smoking indeed, that was perhaps too much for so voluptuous a nature to do on the sudden. But to hold himself to a strict account with his cigars, and whatever they cost him for the next six months, deliver that sum into the church fund for his share of the payment of the debt. Miss Priscilla readily agreed to that, and trudged away saying to herself with a satisfied nod, there's an honest penny towards paying the share of those who won't pay. He doesn't think he'll double his share by the means, but I know it. The talk had suggested a new idea to her busy brain, and before that day was done she had made several dashes at young men in the church and congregation, the result of which she entered in her book under the brief but expressive heading, in account with smoke so much. Tramp, tramp! The days went on, so did the work. Those who were amused at first, and eager, gradually lost interest, and as Miss Priscilla kept her own counsel as to results, ceased questioning her or talking about the new enterprise. And finally those who thought about it at all, contented themselves with the fund memory that they were not to be called on for the payment of their subscriptions unless the whole sum was raised. They had Miss Priscilla's word for that. The three weeks passed, and she took down her vacation sign and sat again in her one window with shears and buttons and thread around her, and sowed steadily a large share of the day, but regularly, as the light began to wane, donned shawl and bonnet and trudged off. Also she had many schemes not apparently connected with the church debt. Might as well kill two birds with one stone, she had begun to say early in her rounds, so she had planned and matured and actually started an enterprise whereby every woman in the church was pledged to make an apron or a towel or a stove holder or a pair of stockings, something with her own hands, and have ready for Miss Priscilla against a certain day of the month in a certain month of the year. This is charity, explained Miss Priscilla. This is for the heathen. But what are you going to do with them? The heathen don't want kitchen aprons and dish towels, they want bibles and tracts. Never you mind that, would Miss Priscilla return, followed with a peculiar pressure of her lips? There's many a heathen would be better for a good decent kitchen apron, long enough to cover her nicely, but that's neither here nor there. These things are for the heathen, and they'll get them in one shape or another, make them in sea. And behold it came to pass that when the young ladies held their annual fair of worsted dogs and cats, sitting on bright worsted cushions and tidies, Miss Priscilla had a corner of the room and a big table devoted to the use of the aprons and dish towels and stockings and holders. And whatever got possession of the people, whether it was the novelty of seeing something really useful for sale at a fair, or whether Miss Priscilla had awakened in their hearts some of her enthusiasm, or whether it was an answer to some of her earnest prayers up there in that little back room, certain it was that by eleven o'clock not a towel or apron or mitten or holder was left. Miss Priscilla counted her gains with quiet satisfaction, and the next day made a deposit in the first national bank. It is for the heathen, Mr. Merchant, she explained. Can it be entered in their name and be drawing interest while I am at work gathering up what is to go with it? So you have deserted the enlightened people of our city as hopeless have you, laughed Mr. Merchant, as he counted the dimes and five cent bits and coppers. Well, I guess you are wise, the heathen will make better returns. Yes, we'll give you five percent interest on this. The heathen are everywhere, was Miss Priscilla's brief comment as she took her bank book and departed. Every man, woman, and child. That had been her promise, and she kept it bravely. All the children were organized into a society which was called the penny club, not a child in the city who could by any shadow of reason be counted among the children of the church, but belonged to Miss Priscilla's club. All were pledged to give, some of them a penny a day, some of them a penny a week, and a few of them a penny a month, according to their several degrees of wealth or poverty. Each of them was to earn this money for himself, and those who were too poor to expect payment from their own families were fitted out with scraps from the many jackets and trousers that had accumulated in Miss Priscilla's back room, and instructed how to make pen wipers for the million. The boys were set to whittling, and many a spool holder and thimble stand were whittled out that would never have been thought of but for Miss Priscilla's wits. All these things found their place at the fair and found sale besides. If people will go to fairs to spend their money, said Miss Priscilla, as she fastened a ticket of price on each little pen wiper and whittled article, why let them, I'm willing, here's something for them to buy, and they bought them. Every child in the congregation reported her pennies and her earnings to Miss Priscilla on certain days of the week, each having her special day, and each kept the bit of a book, made by folding a half sheet of paper a number of times and putting a stitch of bright thread through it, and each child made her entry in neat schoolhand or crooked capitals according to the degree of education acquired, and nothing flourished better or was more productive of more fun to the young people themselves than Miss Priscilla's penny club. As for the money they pledged, and the money which they earned and brought that they had not pledged, Miss Priscilla, large faith though she had, was amazed at the amount. As she ran her eyes over the rows and rows of pennies and five cent pieces and dimes, and marked how they swelled and how they footed up, she murmured, Who would have thought that a few pennies gathered together would make so many? If the world was at work in a penny club for missions, we could pay the everlasting debt of the foreign boards. A penny a day, I declare I'm equal to that myself, now multiply me by a few million of people and how rich and powerful I am. How those boards exist being forever overdrawn is more than I can understand. Still, I'm free to confess that I don't want to go around with a subscription to help make them even, not yet a while anyhow. Section 5 of Miss Priscilla Hunter and My Daughter Susan by Pansy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Miss Priscilla Hunter Chapter 5 Attains to the Speechmaking Era Don't suppose that there were not in our church those who met Miss Priscilla halfway with eager hearts and open pockets. There were many who felt as she did, and who knew the meaning of sacrifice, in trifling ways indeed, but it is the trifling sacrifices that pinch. One can do a great thing now and then that he knows people will admire even though he has no such selfish motive in doing it. Still it helps and cheers to know that an appreciative world looks on and says, that was well done. But to go without a new dress all winter, to go to church and to society and occasionally to a tea party, wearing the cashmere or alpaca that has done duty as best for two years, and do it for the sake of the church and say nothing about it and know that people are ignorant of the reason and feel that they are wondering whether you are aware that your dress really begins to look rusty, that is sacrifice. There were those young couples who quietly gave up the money laid aside for concert tickets and lecture tickets, and even a new book now and then, gave them up with a little sigh to be sure, and yet they hid even the sigh from each other and said cheerily, it is only for one winter, when we get out of debt we shall feel so much better. Such people had faith in Miss Priscilla, they believed that the debt would be paid, weren't they helping to the best of their ability with prayerfully enlightened consciences? There were those who went down lower than that, and cut off the meat bill, and had hashes for dinner oftener, and codfish balls, and now and then baked potatoes and milk gravy and no meat at all, or apology for meat, because they wanted the church debt paid, such people knew it would be paid. There were tender little places too in Miss Priscilla's work. There was a mother who sat and thought, after she had given her little contribution, all she could afford, and wiped the tears that dropped slowly down her cheeks, and Miss Priscilla waited and wondered, and felt not at liberty to go lest there was something left unsaid that this mother wanted to say. And finally the mother arose hastily and went to her bureau drawer, and unlocked it, and drew from under piles of clothes a little box, and unlocked that with a tiny key she carried, and drew forth, what, a gold chain in clasps, a diamond ring, a jeweled bracelet? Oh no! a little wooden Noah's Ark with the paint fresh on the animals, and a look of newness about it all, though it had lain there for months. This was my little Jamie's, she said. He had it only a day or two before he went away. He loved it best of anything he had. And he was so careful, as he handled it, that there isn't a spot on anything nor a scratch. I never could bear to think of any other fingers touching it. But I believe I'll give it to you, and you can put it on that toy table you are going to have for the children. Put Jamie's name on it, and maybe somebody will buy it for his sake. He would like to be counted in with the children if he were here, and he shall the darling. And then the mother broke down utterly, and wept in bitterness of soul, because of the aching emptiness of her mother heart. And the father looked on with quivering lip, and eyes that dimmed constantly, and presently he drew his old-fashioned silver watch from his pocket, unfastened the black cord, and drew from it a silver half-dollar with a hole drilled in it. Here, he said with husky voice, I will not let you do all the sacrificing, Mary. This is Jamie's half-dollar. He had it when he was a baby, and he wore it for a watch as long as he lived. I have worn it since, but I shall give it as Jamie's share towards the church. And he dropped the shining thing into the box with Noah's ark, and then walked to the window and turned his back on them both, and leaned his head on the glass and struggled for calmness. And that was sacrifice. God bless you! murmured Miss Priscilla, and her voice was choked so that she could say no more. Indeed, she had no more to say. She went away at once, went home to her own little dark room. She threw off her bonnet and her rubbers, and then she laid the box on her poor little bed, and opened it, and got down before it, and she said, Oh Lord, thou seest this Noah's ark and this half-dollar. Thou knowest little Jamie. He is safe in thine arms this minute. Here are his gifts to our church. Lord bless Jamie's gift. Bless his father and mother with a blessing that shall be pressed down and running over in their hearts. And bless our church, thy church, Lord, but with thy precious blood. Honor our efforts, forgive our mistakes, forgive the efforts that we don't make, and make it all end for thy glory. Amen. After that, Miss Priscilla knew that the cause was won. So the winter passed. Not for one day did this woman's faith, or feat, fault her, or her courage fail. She tramped and talked, and planned, and worked, and saved, and prayed. And finally presented herself one morning at the door of the First National Bank, and with brisk movements produced from her pocket the note that Mr. Merchant had given her, made out according to his humor precisely as she had dictated, payable the 27th day of April, 18 blank, at 10 o'clock a.m. Read that, she said briefly. Remember it? I do certainly, Miss Hunter. All right then. It's the 27th day of April, I suppose you know, and it is 10 o'clock a.m., and here I am, waiting. But there is a clause to the note that you overlook. I was not to be asked for it, you will remember, unless the entire sum of five thousand dollars had been collected. How do you know I overlook it? My eyesight is good, when I get on my glasses, and my memory is without them. It's all right, of course, or I wouldn't be here. Count out your three hundred, if you please, for I am in a tremendous hurry. There is a great deal to do today. I shall not attempt to describe to you the dazed way in which Mr. Merchant retired behind his desk, and the puzzled air with which he said as he handed Miss Priscilla the three hundred dollars in crisp bank notes. I've no doubt this is all right, Miss Hunter. I would trust you with my entire purse, you know. Of course it is! she said, answering the first part of the sentence, I shall be after that money for the heathen in a few days. Now it is time they were looked after. I want to leave it as long as I can, though, for the sake of the interest. And then she tramped off. In a marvelously short time after this payment was made, considering the number of things that were done in the interim, there came a day when the entire congregation of our church was called together on a weekday to hear a report concerning the church debt. There was never a fuller meeting of our congregation. All the people from the country were there, and all the children were there, and those who had been for some time too feeble to go to church were there, and a general air of expectation prevailed. The meeting was called to order, and Mr. Merchant was elected chairman. His opening speech was not a brief one. He referred to the church debt, which certainly everybody knew about. He dwelt on the disgrace which it had been to them for so long, which everybody understood. He referred to their sister, Miss Priscilla Hunter, and the self-sacrificing spirit which she had shown, and the marvelous work which she had accomplished. And he did not hear how that self-sacrificing sister, who sat way back in a dark corner of the church under the gallery, muttered to herself, Bah, leave that part out! So he continued to enlarge upon it, till she declared afterwards that if it hadn't been for fear of helping to contract another church debt, she would have jumped through the stained glass window. But at last he did reach the actual report. Debt $5,462. Every child in the church knew these figures. Received on subscription $4,420. Proceeds from Young Ladies Fund donated voluntarily $287. Proceeds from chickens, butter, eggs, milk, cabbage, potatoes, cheese, pork, and other articles of produce donated by our country friends and sold by Miss Hunter at the highest market prices $132. Proceeds from livery horses not hired, and oysters not bought, and wines not ordered by our young men, $217. Proceeds from smoke, $169.80. Children's Fund earned by themselves in the penny club, $324.36. Proceeds from work done for the benefit of the heathen, $139.35. This amount, Mr. Merchant proceeded to explain, he was instructed by their sister Hunter to say, had been raised in the confident expectation that there would be some in our church, who, in refusing to provide for their own household, would be worse than the heathen according to scripture. But she desired to take this occasion to offer her apology for having thought so meanly of her brethren and sisters. It had come to pass that the heathen had all been converted. Not one remained in their borders. Not a name in the entire congregation, but was represented on the subscription list. Therefore the sum total of this collection is $5,819.51, leaving a surplus in the treasury of $357.51. Before he sat down, he would say that Miss Hunter and others equally interested, hoped to see the surplus appropriated without delay to the repairing of the parsonage drain and pump and woodshed, and the building of a new fence in front of the parsonage. Sanctuary though it was, and in the presence of deacons, elders, board of trustees, and dignitaries of all sorts, when this report was concluded the small boys began to stamp, and some way nobody seemed disposed to stop them. Instead, the older ones, some of them, followed this example, encouraged by the waving of many handkerchiefs in the hands of the ladies. Who could help it? The reproach of Israel was taken away, and the parsonage was to have a new fence. Actually, we had money in our pockets with which to pay for that fence. We were free. If we had only been a poor church, struggling for existence, and had made such a noble lift as this, how proud we could have been. But as it is, said Miss Priscilla, when I called on her the next morning to talk over all these wonderful results, Mr. Merchant, with his hundred thousands, and Mr. Richie with his stocks and bonds, and Mr. Hordwell with his real estate and taxes, were about the only ones who bubbled over into speeches about our noble effort. For my part I can't see that we have done anything but our duty, and the shame is that we didn't do it long ago without any fuss. Some of our folks, though, have done more than their duty. They have been generous, and can afford to rejoice. If I had a hundred thousand dollars, and had given one hundred of it, and my neighbor next door was working by the day at two dollars, and had given ten of them, somehow I don't believe I should have felt like making a big speech about our sacrifices. But that's neither here nor there. Speeches don't hurt anybody, especially after the work is done, and some folks like to make them. Let them do it, I say. I'm willing to listen. The debt is paid anyhow, and that old clattering fence around the parsonage that has been a regular thorn sticking into every bit of flesh on my body is to come down. You better believe that I'm glad of it. I can sew in peace now, and I'll burn two lamps at once every night for a week. See if I don't. That was the term by which I had always heard her mother designate her, and I had heard the term a great many times. It seems to be necessary for Mrs. Carlton to speak often of her daughter. I had never met the young lady, but I had a general idea of how she looked and acted. When I complimented Mrs. Carlton on the extreme evenness of her machine stitching, she was sure to reply, My daughter Susan runs the machine for me. She sews very nicely. If I commented on the delicacy of her sponge cake, instantly I heard the refrain, Yes, my daughter Susan rarely makes a mistake in her cake. If I said anything about the exquisite neatness that prevailed in the sitting-room where several little children were allowed full play, my friend would reply with a satisfied air. My daughter Susan always had a faculty for keeping things straight. I never could understand how she did it. Once I called for my friend to go on an important commission which had been entrusted to us, and as we passed down the street I said, I was fearful that you would not be able to go. Mr. Carlton said that your little Faye was not quite well. Oh! the mother answered with a relieved air and smile. My daughter Susan is at the helm. Faye is quite willing to exchange me for her at any time. What a blessed comfort a quiet, domestic, elderly daughter must be, fashioned like that sensible Susan of Mrs. Carlton's. This I said to my husband one evening as I fretted a bit over some jar in our domestic machinery. Now Mrs. Carlton never has any trouble. Her sewing and her housekeeping and her nursery arrangements move like clockwork, all because she has an elderly, sensible, homely daughter who is not the fashion and has no inclination to be. Really I think there is more comfort to be taken with that sort of daughter than any other. Did you ever see Mrs. Carlton? My husband asked, wheeling around to me with his necktie half arranged. No, I never did. Queer isn't it, but I know precisely how she looks and acts. Doesn't her mother quote her to me on every useful and commonplace occasion? My husband turned back to his necktie with a queer smile on his face and a sententious remark, when you make the young woman's acquaintance I should like to hear from you again. The fact of my not having met Miss Susan is easily explained. Her mother and I were watering-place acquaintances. We had grown intimate during our enforced absence from home and discovering that our homes were in the same city, we, on our return, continued the intimacy. At the time of which I write we had been at home but a few weeks and my calls at the Carlton mansion had all chance to be made at ours when the elder daughter was either absent or specially engaged. One sunny morning I dropped into my friend's nursery and chatted with her until their dinner bell rang. Come down to dinner, the lady said, with that cordial cheeriness of tone which carries a sense of hospitality in it. We are quite alone and my daughter Susan will be glad to meet you. She was remarking the other day that she ought to know you. She is in the dining-room now, I presume, giving a general oversight to things. She generally goes down ten minutes or so before the bell rings. Sometimes indeed she spends her morning there. She likes to have things arranged just right. As we descended those basement stairs I found myself wishing for the hundredth time that I had a daughter Susan or an elderly, sensible, useful relative of some sort, one who was grey-eyed and pugnosed and short-waisted and round-shouldered and thoroughly good and wise about kitchens and nurseries and cellars and garrets and all the bewildering train of responsibilities which come under the general name of housekeeper's duties. How did I happen to form that idea of this useful young lady's personal appearance? Well, really now I hardly know. Why is it that when one hears of a thoroughly efficient young woman one instinctively has an idea of a rather ungraceful, untasteful, shy, silent creature? I wonder if it can be because our pretty, graceful, tasteful, talkative girls are not inclined to be efficient about useful things. Miss Susan's very name impressed me. Had it been Evelyn or Alice or had it been Mamie or Fanny or even Susie I should perhaps have gotten a different idea. But the round, solid, uncompromising sound of Susan I found left its impression. My meditations were broken in upon by the sound of Mrs. Carlton's voice with a touch of motherly pride in it as she introduced my daughter Susan. Round-shouldered and short-waisted The lady who turned quickly from the redisposal of some dish and gave me cordial greeting was shapely enough and gracefully enough, even in the plainness of her morning dress to have graced her mother's elegant parlor instead of her kitchen. I noticed her nose at once. I always do. Why, it would perhaps be difficult to tell. But there wasn't the slightest touch of pug to it and she had those clear, strong eyes of a peculiar shade of brown that indicate strength and sweetness. From that introduction my daughter Susan became a curious study to me and it is certain little outgrowths from that study which I wish to present to you. I was not long in discovering that nature had intended the young lady for a leader that she could influence minds with which she came in contact by the force of her stronger will. Such being the case, the important question was, how did she please to influence those minds? I studied her to try to discover. Her wonderful executive ability was another element that gave her power. She could accomplish more in one day than any other woman that I ever knew. Watching her, it appeared that half the secret lay in her habit of planning ahead. She carried out a half-dozen schemes at once. This faculty shone conspicuously in all the minor household duties which fell to her lot. Did she have occasion to go up to her mother's room? It seemed to flash upon her that she should pass the jelly closet on her way and that certain jellies would be needed for dinner and that the linen closet was just across the hall and piles of clean table drapery lay ready to be sent there, which might as well go then. And a book that her mother would be inquiring for was on the parlor table. She would just take it along. And little Ted's tin horse she noticed on a shelf in the back kitchen. He would be sure to want it. She would step there and take it up to him. Thus her one journey accomplished half a dozen errands and her descent was equally triumphal. After a few days of careful watching, it ceased to be a wonder to me that everybody in that house from the father down to young Tim, the errand boy, called after, depended upon and quoted, my daughter Susan. One well-remembered day several things happened to make the peculiar traits of this young lady shine out with remarkable clearness. Of the events of that day you shall have a brief history. It was a long day. In fact, it began the evening before. My family being absent I was invited to spend the time with my friend. On the morning after my arrival at the Carlton homestead, as I made my toilet, I remember wondering how Miss Susan would look in a morning wrapper and if her hair would be in crimps or how. I went downstairs early and quietly, knowing that my habits were earlier than my friends and fearing lest I might disturb others of the family. But Miss Susan was in the back parlor, all the windows open, a gay handkerchief tied over her head and a duster in her hand. I'm almost through, she said, greeting me with a sunny smile, and I'll give you a comfortable spot in two minutes. I'm belated this morning. You are dressed for the street? I said in an inquiring tone, as I noticed her trim walking suit. If it is for a morning walk, may I accompany you? She laughed gaily. I must see to the cakes and the beef steak I am afraid instead of walking out for my health. Irish Nelly doesn't succeed in quite meeting father's ideas as yet in regard to those two items, though I have hopes of her. However, I presume I shall go soon after breakfast, something generally occurs to send me out of a morning. I am errand girl in general for this establishment. You are looking inquiringly at my street dress. I long ago gave up the practice of wearing wrappers. It required too many dressings. Did you give up the crimping pins for the same reason? I asked her, as she untied and shook out the gay handkerchief, and I saw that her hair was neatly and smoothly coiled. Well, yes, she answered brightly. At least I don't indulge in them very often. They are a sort of luxury that I keep for great occasions. My father thinks them so very unbecoming in the chrysalis state, you know, and one likes to appear well before one's father. We were just up from breakfast when the doorbell gave a quick, sharp ring, and a young gentleman was ushered into the sitting-room. He had inquired for Miss Susan, and she was promptly forthcoming, a large bib apron of neutral tinted calico which protected her dress, not having been removed. Good morning, Frank! she greeted him genially. And then, as if time-pressed, is everything right for this evening? Not exactly. He answered with a nervous little laugh. On the contrary, I am in the mood to feel that everything is wrong. I don't know what you will say to it. They have ordered wines among their refreshments. Indeed, who has? Well, young Saunders and Mr. Templeton are the leaders. I learned of it by accident, and it is, or was, the intention to keep them at her quiet from some of us. Miss Carlton mused. Her brown eyes seemed browner and larger than ever. She picked a bit of paper into tiny bits while she thought, and then, when ready to speak, threw them energetically into the grate. Frank, let's consider ourselves insulted. Which will require no very great strength of the imagination. He answered quickly. I am sure I feel so, but the question is what can we do about it? The first thing that occurs to me is something that we won't do. We won't go, shall we? Why, if you say not, but can you manage that? Aren't you pledged to sustain the entertainment? By no manner of means am I, with a quick flash of the brown eyes. My acceptance of the invitation was under the supposition that the invaders were gentlemen. This proves to be a mistake. My daughter imposed the mother's expostulating voice. Isn't that being a little too severe? I don't see that it is, mother, in these times, and especially when some of the invited guests are known to have taken a very strong ground in regard to the use of liquors. To produce them for entertainment seems to me not much short of insult. But, my dear, could you not hope to make a change in the program of refreshments? Is that matter beyond your control? It does not come within our line of work, mother, and indeed if we could, by special petition, succeed in prevailing on the gentleman to show ordinary courtesy to us, I don't think we are either of us in the mood to petition. We would rather show that we believe ourselves to have been discourteously treated. Am I right, Frank? Of course you are. You always are, for that matter. And yet, then he hesitated. Well, and yet what? You see trouble in the distance. What is it? Why I see those for whom we are just now specially anxious led into mischief with this thing, led farther, because you, for instance, are not to be there to help them. That is it, chimed in the mother. By making an effort to have the objectionable feature removed, you save some, or at least you have the opportunity to try to save some who are perhaps too weak to resist temptation. Don't you see? Mother, I don't see. If this were the only party we need expect for the entire season and a successful effort to suppress wine or champagne or any other of the forms which the creature takes, how many shapes does it appear in, Frank? Would suppress it for the entire season? Your suggestion would be better. But don't you both see that showing our willingness to be counted in with such company and honor their invitations, provided they will not use liquors in our presence, enters no protest against their doing it on any of the hundreds of occasions when we are absent. What I want is to show Mr. Saunders and Mr. Templeton and others of their stamp that we propose to associate with gentlemen. I see your point, said the young gentleman. But Susan, I am trembling for Charlie Davis and Leonard Burton and a half a dozen others. Fred Harrison, for instance, perhaps more than any of them. What can we do? Miss Susan chewed thoughtfully at the end of the lead pencil in her mouth and tried in an absent way to fit her toe to one of the triangles of the carpet and said nothing while the young man watched her as though she had been the president and he was awaiting an appointment. As for the mother, she regarded her daughter with a half-anxious, half-proud air and then turning to me, said in a sort of apologizing tone, the child does go to such lengths one never knows what to expect next. At last Miss Susan looked up with a bright flash of triumph in her eyes. Frank, she said, can't we be revenged on them for spoiling our pleasure in this inconsiderate way? Suppose we break up the party for them and preach an excellent sermon on temperance thereby. How? Oh, in a dozen ways. I think of seven young men, most of them in danger, whom I believe I can pledge to write notes of decline ature. Not only that, but I believe they will state why they decline. Now, of course, that rather depends on whether you will be responsible for as many young ladies. You are equal to seven young ladies, aren't you, Frank? The dismayed look on the said Frank's face caused Miss Susan to break into a merry laugh, which, however, she checked almost immediately, as she said, I assure you I don't feel like laughing. I am indignant. I know that we, just after the temperance movement here, and the stand that we have taken, should appear to be made party to such proceedings as this. I know it, but Susan, do you believe your plan will succeed? Gentlemen are sensitive where their invitations to special ladies are concerned. And besides, some of those who are most in danger will take offense the quickest at the thought that they are not strong enough to withstand a whole avalanche of temptation. Are you sure you can accomplish this thing, if you undertake it? No, she answered, in perfect good humor. Not at all. I don't know whether it will work or not. And what is more, I never shall know until I try. There has many a thing been accomplished in this world that never would have been had people settled it in their minds that it couldn't be done if they had made vigorous efforts to do it. What I am sure of is that I mean to try. Now, do you? Go ahead, General. He said with a queer smile on his face, I'm your obedient servant. Before the two parted, Miss Susan had made out a list of names for each of them, names of persons who were to be influenced, if possible, to withdraw their acceptance of invitations to an entertainment got up by the young gentlemen of the rival literary society. End of Section 6 Section 7 of Miss Priscilla Hunter and My Daughter Susan by Pansy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. My Daughter Susan, Chapter 2. Out on Duty. You are an intense temperance woman, I see. I said, smiling on Miss Susan as having laid aside her bib apron she made ready for a walk. No, ma'am, I'm not. I'm simply reasonable. I don't know that I feel more intense about temperance matters, or at least that I exhibit any more zeal about them than I do about the clothes I shall wear or a dozen other things that might be mentioned. There are a great many duties which take time and planning and trouble. Can't you go downtown with me? Mother is to be engaged with the dressmaker and the morning is lovely for a walk. As this was precisely what I wanted, namely to see what Miss Susan would do next and how she would do it, I was prompt in my acceptance. The same characteristics which marked her movements from room to room attended the preparation for this walk. Mother, she called at the foot of the stairs, I shall have to pass Mrs. Seymours while I am downtown. Do you want that pattern returned? Yes, indeed, daughter, came the gratefully toned answer from her mother's room. I am very glad you thought of it. Then Miss Susan put her head in at the door of the sewing-room. Miss Perry, I have to go downtown. Do you want me to match the silk you spoke of? Oh, yes, if you will be so kind! That was the grateful answer. On her way upstairs she caught up little fey for a parting kiss and whispered that sister had the dolly's measure and was going to stop and have some kid slippers cut this very morning. When we were fairly started I noticed that she had a tiny bouquet of home-blossomed flowers in her hand. I'm just going to call it Mrs. Smith's door with these, she said. I know, and she is a great lover of sweet-smelling flowers. Now Mrs. Smith was the wife of a reformed drunkard who lived in a certain little tumble-down house down a certain narrow lane of the city. We were but a few squares from the Carlton homestead when my young lady halted with a cheery smile and bow, having previously made hurried explanation to me. There is Charlie Davis. How fortunate! I expected to have gone half a mile out of my way to see him. Good morning, Charlie. You are just the person I want to see. I need you to help me be indignant. What's up? asked Charlie. You haven't heard then? I don't believe you could guess. And there followed a rapid explanation as to the new developments connected with the proposed entertainment. Miss Susan talked eagerly, throwing animation and indignation into her tones, and closed with, Did you ever hear of treating ladies in that manner? I consider myself personally insulted. Oh, but I am sure nothing was further from their intentions. It was Charlie's turn to be eager now, something in his tone and manner making me feel almost certain that he was not hearing of the plan for the first time. It is greatly to be deplored then that their acts should have fallen so far below their intentions. This was Miss Susan's quick response, given in a tone slightly tinged with sarcasm. Charlie assayed to explain. Well, now you know there are always some who must have their taste of such things, or they think they are not having refreshments at all. But I can assure you that it will not be produced in a manner that will be least offensive to the ladies. No, Charlie, certainly I didn't know any such thing. I mean, of course, among the gentlemen with whom we associate. I hope I do not number among my friends any who consider liquors a necessity to their proper entertainment, because then, of course, I could never entertain them. However, there will be no danger of any insult being offered to me this evening. I shall take care not to put myself in a position where that would be possible. Miss Susan, you surely are not going to withdraw your acceptance. The committee depend upon you. They are very foolish. I don't see how they can expect my presence in the face of these developments. Charlie, is it possible that you will attend? Do you mean to insult your temperance principles in that way? I didn't think it of you. Charlie began to look very much embarrassed. Well, you know, he said slowly, there is a lady in the case I can hardly do otherwise. You can hardly do otherwise than to give her a chance to escape an unladylike position. I hope you don't consider my friend Allie the sort of lady who would like to have her name associated with anything so questionable. Why, I thought you would resent it on her account. Gentlemen have strange ideas of ladies, it seems. Charlie's face grew momently longer. Do you really think that Alice will regard it in that light? He asked doubtfully. We know you are, well now, Miss Susan, you are perhaps just a trifle extreme on that point. I don't think Alice would mind so long as the thing wasn't of my planning. Try her, replied Miss Susan, with a sagacious nod of her shapely head. If you and she, when you talk the matter over together, don't come to the same conclusion that I have, why, I shall be very much disappointed in you both, that is all. Is your friend Alice so decidedly in sympathy with you that she is ready to give up a party for the cause? I asked, as we bowed our adduce to Charlie and passed on. She is, by this time, that is, if Frank Holden has seen her as I sincerely hope and trust he has. I asked him to make his first call on her. She is one of those pretty, softly little ladies having no idea of deciding a question for herself. She always has someone in view whom she determines shall act as her for the time being, and just at present I occupy that important post, so when she hears of my decision she will be a staunch, a little temperance woman as one need desire. At this point Miss Susan drew a quick little sigh. Oh dear me! She said, if girls would only take strong ground on this subject and keep it I believe we could reform the world. Why, just look at it. Every woman owns a little piece of the world. I do, so does everybody. Why can't each one look out for her own little corner? But what could they do? Do, dear me, first there are things that I want them to stop doing. I want the daughters all over the world to join hands and say they will not, they absolutely will not walk, ride, talk with a man who buys or sells or votes for the sale of anything that will intoxicate. I want them to stick to this position in the face of all opposition, all roughness and coarseness about petticoat government or leading strings or old made warnings. We have had isolated and spasmodic action in this direction, but if we could have abandoned together a concerted action all over the country, and at the same time be working with a will for the reformation of the poor fellows who are trying to be men, don't you see that in time there would have to be results? In other words, don't I see that the young ladies very largely control the young men of this world? Yes, practically I think they do, or could. But have you any hope of enlisting a large number of young ladies under your banner? Oh, as to that, I don't know. I hope a great deal and work towards my aim all the time, and rejoice over every new recruit and believe that at this point we were interrupted, being met by apparently a most thoroughly finished gentleman. At least so far as dress and air and bow were concerned. He almost halted before us as one who would not be at all adverse to other than the ordinary passing greetings, and his tone was suavity itself as he bowed his good morning, Miss Carleton. Miss Carleton paused in the midst of her sentence to me, raised her clear, strong eyes, looked the gentleman fully in the face, and walked past him with head erect and not the movement of a muscle. Wasn't that Senator Granger's son? I asked, amazed at so complete and ignoring of his presence. Yes, it was, and a man capable of greater meanness I do not know on the face of the earth. Only last evening I heard of his telling with much laughter how poor Timmy Baker had signed the pledge for the thirteenth time, and how he laid a wager with Dick Morris that Timmy would break his thirteenth pledge before he reached home, and then the interesting story was told of their following him to the nearest corner grocery, and teasing and tantalizing the weak liquor-crazed brain, until he took just one sip to please them, and went home as gloriously drunk as possible. That is the way in which the refined account concluded, that man to have the impudence to bow to me. I wouldn't speak to him if he were the president of the United States, and I was to be hanged tomorrow unless I asked him for a pardon. I despise the man, and wherever and whenever I can show him that I do I mean too. But is that spirit in accordance with the charity, which is long-suffering, which hopeth all things, and endureth all things, my hot-hearted young lady? Oh, now, dear madame, I have no credit for greater sense than to suppose you mean a word of that. There has been a sickly sentimentality of that sort talked until I know it by heart, and have as little patience with it as with any form of the non-temperance disease. In point of fact, you and I know that Senator Granger's son is not being ruined by lack of charity. He is much more likely to be ruined by thinking that he is the fellow that nobody can withstand him. I believe in charity of the sort too which suffereth long, and I know some sorrowful drunkard's wives and daughters who are living it. But there is a spurious kind that can be mis-talked as well as misplaced. Look at Mr. Granger now across the street. That is Miss Harper he has joined, and she is simpering with him with the tensions, and he is leading her brother right straight down to the gutter. On the whole, when I see such women as Miss Harper, I am for about five minutes discouraged. Why, good morning, Mr. Miller, I am glad to see you out again. Miss Susan paused suddenly, stretching forth a neatly gloved hand to grasp a somewhat rough one, ornamented with a frayed cuff and there followed a few minutes of pleasant talk, she stopping on the corner for the purpose. She inquired for his mother and his sister, and as to whether he was strong enough for business, and finally said, Mr. Miller, I have been looking for a call from you. Haven't you made any calls since your illness? He stammered an unintelligible reply, and she gaily added, I'm not a friend of yours, a real good hearty one, you know, until you call it my home expressly to see me. We shall be glad to welcome you there on almost any evening. As we passed on, I said, if my eyes do not strangely deceive me, that is Dick Miller. That is Dick Miller. Susan replied with a satisfied air and tone, his very self, though he does not look much as he used to. And you stop on the street and shake hands with him, and pass Senator Granger's son without even daining to bow. Well, Miss Susan, I don't know that I have great expectations of seeing the girls of this world follow your example. Why, I thought Dick Miller was pretty far down the road to the gutter. Didn't you see his blue ribbon? He has joined the noble army of his father's, and is fighting like the brave fellow that he is. Indeed, I shake hands with him on all occasions, and I am glad Mr. Granger was in sight to see me do it. Dick Miller has a cordial invitation to my father's house, and will be welcomed there whenever he chooses to call. And Mr. Granger will be denied if he attempts it, which he will hardly do after today. I will have respectable men for my calling acquaintances.