Part 24 (1/2)
A MATTER OF RIVALRY
BY OCTAVE THANET
It was the fifth afternoon of St. Kunagunda's fair. An interlude of semi-rest had come between the clearing up last night's debris of crowd and traffic, which had filled the morning, and the renewed crowd and traffic that would come with the lamps. The tired elderly women in charge of the supper had sunk into chairs before their clean linen and dazzling white stone-china dishes and fresh bunches of lilacs. The pretty young girls at the ”fancy table” were laughing and prattling rather loudly with two amiable young men who had been tacking home-made lace handkerchiefs and embroidered ”art centres” in the vacant s.p.a.ces left on the pink cambric wall by the departure of last night's purchases. A comely matron kept guard simultaneously over the useful but not perilously alluring wares of the ”household table” and the adjacent temptations of the flower-stand and the candy-booth. The last was indeed fair to see, having a magnificent pyramid of pop-corn b.a.l.l.s and entrancing heaps of bright-colored home-made French candy; and round and round its delights prowled a chubby and wistful boy, with hands in his penniless pockets, waiting for the chancellor of the exchequer.
Across the hall, the walls whereof were lavishly decked with red, white, and blue festoons of cambric, and had the green and gold of Erin's flag intertwined with the yellow and black of Germany, stood a table which had been the centre of interest for four nights, but which now was entirely deserted. There was no glory of color or pomp of bedizenment about it; nothing more taking to the eye than a ballot-box and a small show-case (the contents of the latter draped in newspapers at the present) and a neatly lettered sign above a blackboard, to one side. The sign simply demanded, ”Vote Here!” The blackboard in less trim script announced that ”For most popular business man” Mr. Timothy G. Finnerty had 305 votes, and three or four other candidates so few that there was no interest in deciphering the chalk figures; and that ”For most popular young lady” Miss Norah Murray had 842 votes, and Miss Freda Berglund had 603. At intervals some one of the score of people in the hall would saunter up to the show-case or to the blackboard, to peer into the one or to study the figures on the other--although, really, there was no one in the hall who did not know every line on the board, and who had not seen both the gold watch and the gold-headed cane of the show-case. Two women came from different quarters of the room at the same instant to look at the blackboard.
One was a comely dame in a silken gown that rustled and glittered with jet. She had just entered the hall, and was a little flushed with the climb up the stairs. The other was a stunted, wiry little Irish woman in black weeds of ancient make. She caught sight of the one in silk attire and paused. The first-comer also paused. Her color deepened; her head erected itself more proudly on her shoulders. Then she continued her progress, halting, with a dignified and elegant air, before the blackboard. The little Irish woman tossed her own head and appeared about to follow; however, her intention changed at a few words from the guardian of the ap.r.o.n table. She inclined her head, and with a glance of scorn at the silken back pa.s.sed on over to the ap.r.o.ns and quilts.
The matrons at the supper-table had viewed the incident with interest.
A little sigh of relief or regret rippled about the board.
”'Tis a great pity, that's sure,” said one.
”I was there when they had the words,” said another. ”Mrs. Conner was saying this voting business was all wrong--”
”Well, sure she ain't far out of the way, with this time,” interjected a voice; ”bad blood more'n in this instance it's raised; the whole town's taking sides on it, and there was two fights yesterday. Why didn't they jest raffle the watch off decent and peaceable?”
”There's some objects to raffling.”
”There's some objects to drinking tea an' coffee, they're so bigoted!
In a raffle there's n.o.body pays more'n their quarter, or maybe a dollar or two--”
”And that's it. Look at the power o' money we're gettin', Mrs. O'Brien dear! We'd _niver_ 'a' got nigh on to four hundred dollars for a gold watch rafflin'; and well you know it!”
”Maybe,” agreed Mrs. O'Brien, grimly, ”but neither would we have got fightin' out of the church and fightin' in it; nor Pat Barnes be having his head broke. 'Twas hurted awful bad he was. His own mother told me; and she said Fritz Miller was sick in bed from it; Pat paid him well for talkin' down ould Ireland; and poor Terry Flanagin, he lost his job at the saw-mill for maddin' the boss that's Dutch, and infidel Dutch at that; and there's quarrels on ivery side, G.o.d forgive 'em! They talk of it at the stores, and they talk of it at the saloon, where they do be going too often to talk it; and 'tis a shame an' a disgrace, down to that saloon the dirty Dutchman--”
”_Whisht_!” three or four mouths puckered in warning, and Mrs.
O'Brien caught the smouldering gaze of a flaxen-haired woman in very full black skirts and black basque of an antique cut, who had but now approached the group; with her race's nimbleness of wit she added, ”Sure there's dirty Germans and there's dirty Irish.”
”Dere is,” agreed the new-comer, with displeasing alacrity, ”und some is in _dis_ parish und dis sodality. I vas seen dem viping dishes mit a newsbaber. Dot's so. Yesterday night.”
An electric thrill ran through the circle, and two matrons, suddenly very red, answered at once:
”Would you have us wipe them on our _handkerchiefs_? The towels were all gone!”
”'Twas the awful crowd did it; an' 'twas only some saucers for the ice-cream.”
Mrs. O'Brien waved her hands, very clean, not very shapely, and worn by many an honest day's toil, persuading and pleading for peace at once. ”Sure,” says she, ”if you'd wurrk at fairs you'd know that you can't be doing things like you'd do them at home; and 'twas only for a minit they wiped the saucers with the paper napkins, clean tishy-paper napkins, Mrs. Orendorf; 'twas only two or three saucers got wiped with the newspaper, because the napkins was give out and they was shrieking and clamoring for saucers; and they're _terrible_, them young girls! waving their hands and jumpin' an' squealin'. 'Me first, Mrs.
O'Brien!' 'It's _my_ turn, Mrs. O'Brien!' 'Oh, Mrs. O'Brien, wait on _me_. I've got six people haven't had a bite in half an hour; and they're so cross!' Till your mind's goin'! No doubt we're makin'
money, but I'm for a smaller crowd an' more good falein'.”
”It's for der voting dey kooms,” grumbled the German woman, only half pacified. ”Dot vas bad mistake haf dot votin'. Vot vas dot dirty Deutchman you call him do dot make you so mad?”
”Oh, it wasn't so _much_”--Mrs. O'Brien was still bent on peace--”he jist telephoned to the next door an' got the returns, as he called them, and had 'em posted up in his saloon. An' if they was daughters of mine--I 'ain't got anny daughters, praise G.o.d! for since I seen the way these waiters go on, I'm mis...o...b..in' I niver could manage thim--but if they was daughters of mine, 'twould be the sorry day for me whin they'd their names posted up in a saloon!”
”Meine fader in der old country kept a saloon,” said the German woman, with extreme dryness of accent, ”und does you mean to say vun vurd against Freda Berglund?”