LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

letter commendatory and introductory from the city pastor to Rev. Dr. Harrison, the pastor of the Marlborough church, and the annual church affair had been postponed a week that it might be had on the night of his arrival, that he might be the guest of honor and be welcomed into their midst properly. Not a few of the girls in the Christian Endeavor had new dresses for the occasion, and the contributions for the dinner had been many and unusually generous. It seemed that all the girls were willing to make cakes galore, and each vied with the other to have the best confection of the culinary art that could be produced. Some of the mothers had offered their best linen and silver to make the tables gorgeous, and there had been much preparation for the program, music, speeches, and even a dramatic monologue. The vice president, who was poetically inclined, had written a poem that was intended as a sort of address of welcome to the stranger, and an introduction to their members, and many a clever hit and pun upon names embellished its verses. No one who had come to town in years had had the welcome that was being prepared for Allan Murray, the new teller in the Marlborough National Bank, and State Secretary of the Christian Endeavor Society in his home state.

      The big basement dining room of the church was all in array with tables set in a hollow square. Two girls were putting on the finishing touches.

      “Anita, oh, Anita! Has Hester May’s sponge cake come yet?” called the taller of the two, a girl rather apt to wear many beads.

      “Yes, it’s here, Jane, real gummy chocolate frosting on top. Mmmm! Mmmm! I could hardly keep from cutting it. It looks luscious. Is your mother going to get here in time to make the coffee?”

      “Oh yes, she’ll be here in half an hour. You ought to put an apron on, Anita. You’ll get something on that lovely blue crêpe dress. My, but you look scrumptious with that great white collar over the blue. Did you make that collar yourself? It’s wonderful! Say, how did you embroider that? Right through the lace border and all? Oh, I see! My, I wish I was clever like you, Anita!”

      “Oh, cut it, Jane! We haven’t time for flattery! I’ve got to finish setting this table. Are the forks over there? Where’s Joseph? Go ask him if we haven’t any more forks. He washed them after the Ladies’ Aid luncheon. Perhaps he put them away.”

      “They’re in the lower drawer. I saw them when I got out the napkins to fold. Here they are. Wouldn’t it be dreadful if the guest of honor didn’t get here after all, when everything is coming out so fine? Did you know Mrs. Price was sending roses out of her conservatory? A great armful. I brought down mother’s cut-glass bowl to put them in, and we’ll put them at the speaker’s table, right in front of Mr. Harrison and the guest. Oh dear, I hope he gets here all right!”

      “Why, why shouldn’t he, Jane? What an idea! Didn’t he write and say he expected to arrive this afternoon? Mrs. Summers said she had his room all ready, and his trunk came last night, so of course he’ll be here.”

      “But there’s been an awful wreck on the road. Didn’t you hear about it, Anita? Yes, it’s terrible, they say. Doctor Jarvis telephoned he couldn’t come to lunch. He went on a special relief train. It’s somewhere down around Smith’s Crossing. The rails spread, or something, and the express telescoped the way train, or else it was the other way round, and a lot of people got hurt, and some killed, or at least there was a rumor they did.”

      “Mercy!” said Anita, stopping in her work. “Why, that’s awful! Allan Murray might have been on the train, you know.”

      “No, I guess not,” said Jane. “He telegraphed last night he was arriving here late in the afternoon. That would mean he would take the train at Alton at noon. This wreck was the morning train. But then, he might have been delayed by it. You know it takes a long time to clear the tracks. Oh well, he’s likely at Mrs. Summers’ now unpacking, or we would have heard. We ought to stop talking and get to work. The celery has to be put in the glasses and the nuts in the dishes. One of those nut dishes is broken, too. Isn’t there another dish up on that high shelf that will do?”

      “I brought over some silver nut dishes. They will do for the middle table. Did they say any Marlborough people were on that train?”

      “Yes, Dick Foster and some college friend coming home for the weekend, but they phoned they were all right. They were in the last car and only a little shaken up. Mr. Foster took the car and ran down to Smith’s Crossing after them. Then there was that lame shoemaker from under the drugstore, that little shop, you know, and Mrs. Bly, the seamstress. Nobody knows anything about them. At least I didn’t hear.”

      “Oh, Mrs. Bly,” said Anita sympathetically. “I hope no harm came to her, poor thing. She’s sewed for us ever since I was a child. Say, Jane, does your brother know this Mr. Murray? He went to the same college, didn’t he?”

      “Yes, but it was after Allan Murray left. He saw him once though. He was just adored in college. He was a great athlete, though very slender and wiry, Bob says, and he was awfully clever. Made Phi Beta Kappa and all that, and was president of the YMCA, and head of the student gov, and stunningly handsome. Bob didn’t say that though. It was Marietta’s cousin said that. Her brother was in Allan Murray’s class and brought him home once, and she thought him just a perfect Greek god, to hear her talk, but when I asked Bob about it, he said, oh yes, he was a looker he guessed. He never took particular notice. And I simply couldn’t get a description, though I tried hard enough. He couldn’t even remember the color of his eyes, said they were just eyes, and what difference did it make. But Marietta said he was dark and had very large dark eyes, slenderno, lean, that was the world she usedand awfully tanned and fit. She said he had a smile, too, that you never could forget, and fine white teeth, and was careful about his appearance, but not much of a dresser. She said he had worked his way through college. His father had lost money, and he was going in for thrift and didn’t give much time to social things but was awfully good company.”

      “Hmm! That’s just about what the minister said when he told us he wanted us to make him feel at home. I don’t really approve of it myself, this taking a stranger and carrying him around on a little throne before you’ve tried him out, but when Mr. Harrison asked us to arrange this Christian Endeavor banquet on the night of his arrival to give him a kind of welcome to our town, why of course it had to be done. And of course Mr. Harrison knows what he’s talking about, or he wouldn’t suggest it. But it makes it just a little embarrassing for us girls to seem to be so very eager to welcome another young man into our midst that we fall all over ourselves to let him know it right off the first night.”

      “Now, Anita! You’re always so fussy and prudish! As if he would think anything about it at all. Besides, his having been an active Christian Endeavorer in his home church and his father having been a member of our church years ago when he was a boy makes it kind of differentdon’t you think?”

      “Oh, I suppose so,” said Anita thoughtfully. “Only I do hope he won’t be stuck on himself. The young men are all so sure of their welcome anyhow these days, it doesn’t seem as if it was hardly necessary. And it’s enough to turn a young man’s head anyway to have the whole town bowing down to him this way. Teller in the town bank, taken in to board at one of the best houses in town just because Mrs. Summers knew his mother when she was a girl, and given a church supper on the night of his arrival. I’m sure I hope he will be worth it all, and that we won’t spoil him right at the start.”

      “Oh, Anita! You’re so funny! What do you care if he is spoiled, anyway, if we have a good time out of it? I’m sure I don’t. And it’ll be nice to have another fellow around; so many of our boys have gone off to college or to work in the city. And those that are left don’t care a cent for the church affairs. I have to fairly hire Bob and Ben to come to anything we have here, and this Murray man, they say, is crazy about church work. If it proves true, I think the society will grow by leaps and bounds.”

      “Well, what kind of a growth is that? Just following after a new man! That’s not healthy growth. When he goes, they’ll go with him if that’s what they come for. Who is that outside? Perhaps it’s the man with the ice cream. It ought to be here by this time. Go out and look. It may be some of those tormenting boys that live across the street. And the cakes and rolls are all under that window. I declare,

Скачать книгу