“Well—we’ll soon see,” said Mrs. Phillips. And see they did in a way that didn’t suit St. Michaels folks at all.
The following Thursday the Ladies’ Aid met at Mrs. St. Anthony’s. They always met at Mrs. St. Anthony’s whenever they could—and that was nine times out of ten—because her home was just a few steps below the parsonage and they could see Rev. Steele whenever he came out or in or had visitors, and then being close—he sometimes dropped in and took tea with the ladies, only when he came they served cocoa and tea cakes because it was more fashionable.
But this Thursday they were doomed to disappointment because Rev. Steele came out his gate—and every girl and old maid’s heart beat a little faster, and each one either took her little chamois and touched up her nose a little for fear it might be shiny or patted her hair a little smoother or tucked a hair pin a little tighter—but with a gasp, of astonishment—instead of turning in at Mrs. St. Anthony’s and sauntering slowly up the walk as usual—he walked briskly by without so much as a glance at the house.
The Ladies’ Aiders sat as though paralyzed—and little Marie Phillips, who thought he was on the eve of proposing to her, said, “Well the nerve of him. I wonder where he can be going?”
“Well if you say so,” said Lillian Tucker, “I’ll run and ask him.”
“Now girls,” said Miss Sara Simpson “don’t get excited, you know a pastor of a church like ours has so many important duties to attend to that he can’t always attend our meetings.”
“Don’t make excuses Sara,” retorted Mrs. Phillips, “there isn’t anything more important than our meetings.”
“Stung,” laughed Lillian Tucker—“perhaps he has gone to see the great and beautiful widow Stark”—and as though she had been a prophetess—the widow and the pastor came into view quietly talking and seemingly interested only in each other.
Everybody looked and if only the pastor could have known each ones’ thought of him—who watched him so closely. The young girls were mostly amused but the spinsters and married women were not so charitably inclined.
Mrs. Stark was dressed in a fashionable tailor made suit with hat, gloves, and shoes to match and carried an armful of beautiful hot-house tea roses.
At his gate they stopped and she put out her hand and took his and put all the roses in them—and then she stooped and buried her face in them as though loath to part with them and when she raised her face he said something to her and buried his face in them as she had done.
“Look,” said Miss Sara Simpson with a look of disgust on her face—“he is kissing and caressing them because she did so—right out in the street isn’t it disgusting, and he seems to like her too and here last Sunday he took us to task about expensive clothes, and street walking and flirting and love-making in public and—”
“Do hush Sara,” said Mrs. St. Anthony. “Look at the bunch of roses, it hasn’t cost a cent less than $5. I imagine I can smell them here. I wonder if he really likes roses?”
Mrs. Tucker seemed genuinely amused at some unspoken thought and her quick light laugh—fell jarringly upon the members.
“Oh dear!” said one, “do keep quiet.”
“I don’t see anything to laugh about,” said another.
“Well he likes roses well enough to keep those,” said someone else.
“It seems so,” said another.
The gate clicked shut and Mrs. Stark walked along up the street, unconscious of the storm she had stirred up.
“If she is so intimate with him, it’s a wonder she wouldn’t come to church and help with the church work or join the society and help to do something, and she wouldn’t have time to flirt with the minister,” said Mrs. St. Anthony.
“Has anyone”—asked Mrs. Phillips—“asked Hannah Stark to join our society or one of our church clubs?”
No one had—
“I’ll do it now,” said Mrs. Phillips.
“Hurry or she’ll be out of sight,” they urged. They followed Mrs. Phillips to the door.
Mrs. Stark had gone by—but she came back with a smile on her face, and not a little amused at being accosted thus. Mrs. Phillips stood on the top step and resolved to do what she thought was her duty.
“I am Mrs. Phillips—Mrs. Stark, and remember you as Hannah Burke—we saw you talking to Rev. Steele”—she said by way of introduction—“We thought you might like to join our society or our young people’s Helping Hand Club.”
Mrs. Phillips was unaware how she spoke—her voice cut the air like a whip saw—and said plainly—we do not want you, but you should think it your duty, — and an honor, that I, Mrs. Lawyer Phillips, should ask you to join.
Mrs. Stark’s eyes snapped—and her head went up a little higher—“Thank you”—she said—“I feel honored. Does your pastor belong to these clubs and is he a member of the Church Aid Society?”
“No,” exclaimed indignant Mrs. Phillips.
“Then I’m sorry to decline the honor, but I can’t possibly belong to anything of which he is not a member, and not under his direct supervision.”
She was gone, and Mrs. Phillips had to be helped in the house to the couch, and Mrs. St. Anthony was so angry she was blue in the face. I thought she would explode, and poor Miss Sara Simpson fainted; in fact everybody was out of commission but Mrs. Tucker, who got on everybody’s nerves by laughing and saying—
“I like that woman. She’s got spunk and brains enough to give you a dose of nicely sugar-coated pills that helps immensely.”
Before night all St. Michaels had heard the story of the roses and the invitation to join the club and it did not lose anything in the telling.
Unconsciously, all St. Michaels formed a detective bureau to watch the pastor.
They played detective and they watched poor Rev. Steele’s every move and at last they had come to the conclusion that he was hopelessly in love with the widow.
Poor Mrs. Stark did she know how St. Michaels regarded her, or what they thought of her? If she did—no one in St. Michaels was any the wiser.
Then one Sunday morning just a few weeks before Xmas, Mrs. Stark appeared at church, and the Ladies’ Aid members that were present, I’m afraid paid more attention to Mrs. Stark than they did to the sermon, in fact I’m afraid they could not have given the sermon’s text if asked—but I’m sure they could have told you all about Mrs. Stark’s costume.
At the Thursday afternoon meeting following, Mrs. Stark was the topic as usual.
“What’s wrong with her now,” said Mrs. Tucker. “At first she was just a butterfly and a flirt, then she was haughty and proud, then she did not attend church, she was a heathen, now she attends church, you are still faultfinding and she is a hypocrite—what is wrong with her now?” she challenged.
“Well she is not a member,” said Mrs. Phillips, “and she just came to have the pastor walk her home.”
“Well whose business is it if she does. Don’t you think Rev. Steele is old enough to look after himself?” said Mrs. Tucker.
“Well, what do you expect of us? You’d be suspicious yourself—after those roses—if you were not so in love with both her and the pastor, that it takes all your time to champion her cause and snub your neighbors, all on account of a city woman, who is supposed to have plenty of money and fine clothes. I think she’s bewitched you,” remarked Mrs. Phillips, “as you have gone clean daft about her.”
“Well I’m satisfied,” retorted Mrs. Tucker. “My opinion of the matter that we will lose all the ground we’ve gained—and waste our profits—if we don’t stop this unseasonable, unreasonable squabbling—come to our senses and adjust the differences which have suddenly sprung up between the pastor and this society all on account of his attention to a woman, and we are not sure that he is paying special attention to her. Because a man calls on a woman or walks home with her is no sign he wants to marry her.”
“Quite a sermon Mrs. Tucker, have you taken the Rev. Steele’s place? Who elected you his champion,” sarcastically asked
Mrs. St. Anthony. “Perhaps the members here are not to your liking and you wish to resign.”
“I am not trying to take anyone’s place,” retorted Mrs. Tucker—“but three weeks from now is Xmas, and this is hold together time—not hold-up or split-up time. A similar opportunity to have a big Xmas fete in the church and to get and keep all the younger folks working may never occur again and I move we take time by the forelock and get busy.”
“The pastor gave those roses to old Mother Carey,” explained Mrs. Tucker triumphantly, “and I bet Mrs. Stark knew all about it—perhaps she sent them by him.”
“Humph!” said Miss Sara Simpson, “Jonathan Steele is a sly one—probably his pricking conscience told him the Ladies’ Aid was watching.”
Part II
“The marriageable women of our church are nice and would be a plus for any man. They are as pretty and dutiful as he’ll find elsewhere, but he won’t marry one of them. He can’t see the pot over the sill of the window for the rain,” said Mrs. Phillips. “If there was another church here we would leave, my husband says.”
“And I would follow you,” said Mrs. St. Anthony and Mrs. Ford in chorus—and then the trouble started.
Rev. Steele called a meeting of the Mite Society—and Ladies’ Aid Society—and organized a Young People’s Get-together for Wednesday evening at 7 o’clock.
Although the three organizations consisted of seventy-five or more members among them, only five young folks and three old ones turned out—Millie Brown, Mrs. Tucker and Mrs. Ford.
Rev. Steele made no comment on the presence or the absence of the members.
“Well,” said he, “this will be my first meeting with you, and as you have all been faithful the past seven months, I thought with your help—we will have a Xmas this year that will leave a sweet memory to every person at St. Michaels as long as life itself.”
“Are you willing to help?”
“We certainly are,” exclaimed Mrs. Tucker and the rest acquiesced.
Several committees were appointed and those who were absent, were notified of their appointments and the jobs they were expected to do.
Some agreed half-heartedly and some refused point blank to not only serve on the committees, but to attend church—and a split in the church of St. Michaels loomed large on the horizon.
Sunday morning two weeks before Xmas, Rev. Steele preached his second formal sermon in St. Michaels Church on “Gossip” and truly St. Michaels was in an up-heaval.
No one knew if he was aware of the feelings of his congregation or not. He had chosen “Gossip” for his subject, but in the middle of his sermon he told his congregation that no matter what happened—even if he was to render his resignation within the next twelve hours—he would have the satisfaction of knowing that he had been a p-a-s-t-o-r and not a figure head.
He got everyone to thinking and Mrs. St. Anthony wondered if “he could rightly know what had been said about him by the Ladies’ Aid.”
“It makes no difference if he does,” said Mrs. Phillips. “It would do him not to know what I think of him.”
“Humph,” said Mrs. Tucker, “much he cares for your opinion or any one of the rest of us, I’m thinking. He believed Rev. Butler to be led by the nose wheresoever a set of crazy men and women choose to lead him.”
When Frank Coombs resigned as superintendent of the Sunday School, they thought he’d be coaxed to remain, but when no one coaxed, only a few old heads—and Harry Young was asked to fill his place—it was like stirring up a hornet’s nest. “Mrs. Coombs and her sister, Mrs. Cook, do come to church—but I declare they would be better at home,” said Mrs. Ford.
“Mrs. Cook told me,” said Mrs. Phillips, “she looked at the pipes of the organ so long and so hard that she could tell every move on them and where, with her eyes shut, and it was no wonder they had not fallen down on her before this.”
“Old Mrs. Lake sits with the book up-side down—and pretends to read, when we all know she can’t tell A from B if they were a yard high. Even the members of the Trustees’ and Stewards’ Boards are at logger heads, because he appointed some young men, who have lately joined the church, on the boards and asked for the resignation of some of the old men on the board. They had been on the board so long they were moss-covered.”
“Well I can’t see,” said Mrs. St. Anthony, “why he wanted to change things around.”
“I can tell you,” said Mrs. Tucker, “he thinks if you want to keep young people in the church after they join—you should put them to work and make them feel they are wanted. You see it’s useless to try to hold young folks anywhere now-a-days unless they have something to do. There is too much of this wanting to be boss all the time and a few old fogies wanting the church to stay in a rut and keeping things like they were fifty years ago. Times are changing and you’ve simply got to change with them or get out of the running. A piece of antique china is admired for its age—but it is put upon the shelf for safe keeping and admired for what it was and is not for its present use. So it is with us, we must either help the younger folks along or stand to be put on the shelf. I say live and let live.”
“The whole thing in a nut-shell is he hasn’t paid the attention to our marriageable daughters we thought he should,” said Mrs. Tucker. “He goes among us—loves us—and thinks for our interest—which should make him loved by all—but it seems there must always be a few discontented ones among the flock.”
“What’s the use of jangling,” said Mrs. Todd. “Let us get busy. What will you give towards the Christmas fete, Mrs. Hunter?”
“I—oh, don’t know” said Mrs. Hunter—“I guess 2 quarts of cream and a chocolate cake.”
“What will you give, Mrs. Phillips?”
“Not one single thing,” she replied, “count me out of it. Mr. Phillips says we’ll not take part in the affair.”
“What will you give Mrs. Tucker.”
“A cake, a chicken, 2 lbs. of coffee and help to do whatever I can.”
“And you Mrs. Ford?”
“Oh—Mr. Ford says we’ll not take any part in it.”
“Look here ladies, before I go any further,” said Mrs. Todd, “let me ask you that won’t help, please do not hinder.”
“Goodness gracious—Margery Todd put that list up—and don’t use the Ladies’ Aid’s time for such foolishness,” said Mrs. Phillips.
“Alright,” said Mrs. Todd, “but I’ll call on every one of you tomorrow.”
“I can’t get over that sermon,” said Mrs. St. Anthony—hopping back to the old subject.
“Neither can I,” said Mrs. Phillips.
“There goes the Reverend and the widow now!” said Marie Phillips.
“Well that caps the climax,” said old Mrs. Ford bitterly, as the Reverend and the widow passed out of sight.
But she was mistaken. Something happened a few days later that threw the community into a tizzy. The whole community began to talk to each other through back doors, across to their neighbors, or talked across fences—back and front by the hour. They even called special meetings to discuss it, in fact everybody you met was talking about it and everybody held a squared white envelope which contained a beautifully printed square white card which was drawn out and compared with other cards just like it, and soon St. Michaels awoke to the fact that every member and non-member of St. Michaels, men, women and young people—was invited to an elaborate Christmas party.
In the words of Mrs. Tucker—“Mrs. Stark was giving a big Christmas blow out.”
After the first surprise was over, everybody was wondering why he or she had been invited and one and all came to the conclusion, to get in with St. Michaels’ folks—except the Ladies’ Aid—who said Mrs. Stark was taking this way to show she was sorry for the way she had acted.
Though, Mrs. Tucker says—“What she had to be sorry for was beyond her.”
Then came the getting ready for the party. The boy that blew the mouth organ thought his checkered pants and blue coat with his
new tan shoes was just the thing. The sexton’s wife bought a pretty white dimity dress—much too tight and which seemed to make her look twice as broad. But the leaders of the church—the—Ladies’ Aid—such a flurry—such a bustling.
Of course Mrs. St. Anthony, Mrs. Phillips—the lawyer’s wife, and the doctor’s wife, Mrs. Jameson—and Miss Simpson and Mrs. White, and their daughters could and did go to the city to get their outfit, and as Marie Phillips told Mrs. Tucker the dresses will be real creations of art.
But the rest of St. Michaels had to be content to buy in St. Michaels, and to trust to Millie Brown, Violet Cunningham, and old Mrs. Thomas to make them.
Said Mrs. Tucker—“I’m mighty glad I’m invited—and I’m satisfied with any old plum-colored silk, because it’s no use to go to that party trying to out dress Mrs. Stark, because she knows how to dress, and as Mr. Tucker says, she could put on my old plum-colored silk and look like an angel in it, with that mop of hair as black as a raven’s wing and eyes as black as coal and a complexion like a rose leaf—she looks like a big doll anyway. I’ll dress to suit Mrs. Tucker who is short and inclined to stoutness and past forty-five and not like Hannah,” with which common sense remarks.
Mrs. Tucker took her ancient plum-colored silk and sewed some real lace in the sleeves and fixed a dainty white fichu around the neck which would tend to make her look decidedly sweet and motherly and altogether lovely.
The wonderful night rolled around all too quickly, they went in conveyances of all kinds—wagons, ancient carriages, buggies, daytons, and autos, all carried their quota of guests.
But Mrs. Tucker and Mrs. Todd said the street cars were good enough for them so accompanied by Mr. Tucker and Mr. Todd, they wended their way there.
Everybody went—not one invitation was refused or ignored—they were there to eat, to listen, to enjoy, and above all to see how Rev. Steele and Mrs. Stark would act before the people of St. Michaels.
When they arrived, they were more than surprised at the display that met their gaze, and they were awed into silence—and as they gazed, they, one and all, thought how beautiful.
A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories Page 10
