The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories by Owen Wister (the best novels to read TXT) 📗

speech of Burke's; but I hope for the best. It narrows down, it narrows down. Guy Jeffries and Leola Mattern are the two.”

“The parents seem to take keen interest,” said I.

Mr. Eastman smiled at Stuart. “We have no reason to suppose they have changed since last year,” said he. “Why, sir,” he suddenly exclaimed, “if I did not feel I was doing something for the young generation here, I should leave Sharon to-morrow! One is not appreciated, not appreciated.”

He spoke fervently of various local enterprises, his failures, his hopes, his achievements; and I left his house honoring him, but amazed—his heart was so wide and his head so narrow; a man who would purify with simultaneous austerity the morals of Lochinvar and of Sharon.

“About once a month,” said Stuart, “I run against a new side he is blind on. Take his puzzlement as to whether they prefer verse or prose. Queer and dumb of him that, you see. Sharon does not know the difference between verse and prose.”

“That's going too far,” said I.

“They don't,” he repeated, “when it comes to strawberry night. If the piece is about something they understand, rhymes do not help or hinder. And of course sex is apt to settle the question.”

“Then I should have thought Leola—” I began.

“Not the sex of the speaker. It's the listeners. Now you take women. Women generally prefer something that will give them a good cry. We men want to laugh mostly.”

“Yes,” said I; “I would rather laugh myself, I think.”

“You'd know you'd rather if you had to live in Sharon. The laugh is one of the big differences between women and men, and I would give you my views about it, only my Sunday-off time is up, and I've got to go to telegraphing.”

“Our ways are together,” said I. “I'm going back to the railroad hotel.”

“There's Guy,” continued Stuart. “He took the prize on 'The Jumping Frog.' Spoke better than Leola, anyhow. She spoke 'The Wreck of the Hesperus.' But Guy had the back benches—that's where the men sit—pretty well useless. Guess if there had been a fire, some of the fellows would have been scorched before they'd have got strength sufficient to run out. But the ladies did not laugh much. Said they saw nothing much in jumping a frog. And if Leola had made 'em cry good and hard that night, the committee's decision would have kicked up more of a fuss than it did. As it was, Mrs. Mattern got me alone; but I worked us around to where Mrs. Jeffries was having her ice-cream, and I left them to argue it out.”

“Let us adhere to that policy,” I said to Stuart; and he replied nothing, but into the corner of his eye wandered that lurking smile which revealed that life brought him compensations.

He went to telegraphing, and I to revery concerning strawberry night. I found myself wishing now that there could have been two prizes; I desired both Leola and Guy to be happy; and presently I found the matter would be very close, so far at least as my judgment went. For boy and girl both brought me their selections, begging I would coach them, and this I had plenty of leisure to do. I preferred Guy's choice—the story of that blue-jay who dropped nuts through the hole in a roof, expecting to fill it, and his friends came to look on and discovered the hole went into the entire house. It is better even than “The Jumping Frog”—better than anything, I think—and young Guy told it well. But Leola brought a potent rival on the tearful side of things. “The Death of Paul Dombey” is plated pathos, not wholly sterling; but Sharon could not know this; and while Leola most prettily recited it to me I would lose my recent opinion in favor of Guy, and acknowledge the value of her performance. Guy might have the men strong for him, but this time the women were going to cry. I got also a certain other sort of entertainment out of the competing mothers. Mrs. Jeffries and Mrs. Mattern had a way of being in the hotel office at hours when I passed through to meals. They never came together, and always were taken by surprise at meeting me.

“Leola is ever so grateful to you,” Mrs. Mattern would say.

“Oh,” I would answer, “do not speak of it. Have you ever heard Guy's 'Blue-Jay' story?”

“Well, if it's anything like that frog business, I don't want to.” And the lady would leave me.

“Guy tells me you are helping him so kindly,” said Mrs. Jeffries.

“Oh yes, I'm severe,”' I answered, brightly. “I let nothing pass. I only wish I was as careful with Leola. But as soon as she begins 'Paul had never risen from his little bed,' I just lose myself listening to her.”

On the whole, there were also compensations for me in these mothers, and I thought it as well to secure them in advance.

When the train arrived from El Paso, and I saw our strawberries and our ice-cream taken out, I felt the hour to be at hand, and that whatever our decision, no bias could be laid to me. According to his prudent habit, Eastman had the speakers follow each other alphabetically. This happened to place Leola after Guy, and perhaps might give her the last word, as it were, with the people; but our committee was there, and superior to such accidents. The flags and the bunting hung gay around the draped stage. While the audience rustled or resoundingly trod to its chairs, and seated neighbors conferred solemnly together over the programme, Stuart, behind the bunting, played “Silver Threads among the Gold” upon a melodeon.

“Pretty good this,” he said to me, pumping his feet.

“What?” I said.

“Tune. Sharon is for free silver.”

“Do you think they will catch your allusion?” I asked him.

“No. But I have a way of enjoying a thing by myself.” And he pumped away, playing with tasteful variations until the hall was full and the singing-class assembled in gloves and ribbons.

They opened the ceremonies for us by rendering “Sweet and Low” very happily; and I trusted it was an omen.

Sharon was hearty, and we had “Sweet and Low” twice. Then the speaking began, and the speakers were welcomed, coming and going, with mild and friendly demonstrations. Nothing that one would especially mark went wrong until Reuben Gadsden. He strode to the middle of the boards, and they creaked beneath his tread. He stood a moment in large glittering boots and with hair flat and prominently watered. As he straightened from his bow his suspender-buttons came into view, and remained so for some singular internal reason, while he sent his right hand down into the nearest pocket and began his oratory.

“It is sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France,” he said, impressively, and stopped.

We waited, and presently he resumed:

“It is sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France.” He took the right hand out and put the left hand in.