Part 47 (1/2)
The walls rang with applause, men crowded laughingly around the Parson to shake his hand, and in ten minutes the room was silent and the company gone, ”every man to his tent,” as the happy Parson said, each one as ready for his noontide meal as it was for him.
L.
THE JAMBOREE
The social event of that midday was not the large family dinner where Mother Tombs sat between Hamlet and Lazarus, and Father Tombs between their wives; where Sister March was in the prettiest good humor conceivable and the puns were of the sort that need to be italicized, and the anecdotes were family heirlooms, and the mirth was as spontaneous as the wit was scarce, and not one bad conscience was hidden beneath it all. The true social event of that hour was the repast given by John March to Mr. Fair in Swanee Hotel, at which General Halliday, Captain Champion, and Dr. Coffin were on John's left, Ravenel sat at the foot of the board, and at John's right were Fair, in the place of honor, then Garnet, and then Shotwell in the seat appointed for Gamble, who had suddenly found he couldn't possibly stay.
Here were no mothers' quotations of their children's accidental wit, nor husbands' and wives' betrayals of silly sweetnesses of long-gone courts.h.i.+ps and honeymoons. Pa.s.sing from encomiums upon Parson Tombs's powers to the subject of eloquence in general, the allusions were mainly to Edmund Burke, John C. Calhoun, Sargent S. Prentiss, and Lorenzo Dow.
The examples of epigram were drawn from the times of Addison, those of poetic wisdom from Pope, of witty jest from Douglas Jerrold and Sidney Smith, of satire from Randolph of Roanoke. John March told, very successfully, how a certain great poet of the eighteenth century retorted impromptu upon a certain great lord in a double-rhymed and triple-punned repartee. Champion and Shotwell, in happy alternation, recited two or three incredible nonsense speeches attributed to early local celebrities, and Garnet and Halliday gave the unpublished inside histories of three or four hitherto inexplicable facts, or seeming facts, in the personal or political relations of Marshall, Jackson, Webster, and Clay. Burns and Byron were there in spirit, and John could have recited one of his mother's poems if anyone had asked for it.
As for Ravenel and Fair, they had their parts and performed them harmoniously with the rest, so that John could see that he himself and everyone else were genuinely interesting to those two and that they were growingly interesting to each other. Both possessed the art of provoking the others to talk; they furnished the seed of conversation and were its gardeners, while the rest of the company bore its fruits and flowers.
Ravenel seemed always to keep others talking for his diversion, Fair for his information.
John pointed this out to Miss Garnet that evening, at the Parson's golden wedding, and noticed that she listened to him with a perfectly beautiful eagerness.
”It's because I talked about Fair,” he said to himself as he left her--”Aha! there they go off together, now.”
The scene of this movement was that large house and grounds, the ”Usher home place,” just beyond the ruined bridge where Cornelius had once seen ghosts. A pretty sight it was to come out on the veranda, as John did, and see the double line of parti-colored transparencies meandering through the dark grove to the gate and the lane beyond. Shotwell met him.
”h.e.l.lo, March, looking for Fair? He's just pa.s.sed through that inside door with Miss Garnet.”
”I know it--I'm not looking for anyone--in particular.”
Out here on the veranda it was too cool for ladies; John heard only male voices and saw only the red ends of cigars; so, although he was not--of course he wasn't!--looking for anyone--in particular--he went back into the crowded house and buzzing rooms.
”Hunt'n' faw yo' maw, John?” asked Deacon s.e.xton as he leaned on his old friend Mattox; ”she's----”
”Why, I'm not hunting for anybody,” laughed March; ”do I look like I was?”
He turned away toward a group that stood and sat about Parson Tombs.
”I never suspicioned a thing,” the elated pastor was saying for the third or fourth time. ”I never suspicioned the first thing till Motheh Tombs and I got into ow gate comin' home fum the Graveses! All of a sudden there we _ware_ under a perfec' demonstration o' pine an' ceda'
boughs an' wreaths an' arborvitae faschoons! Evm then I never suspicioned but what that was all until Miss Fannie an' Miss Barb come in an' begin banterin' not only Motheh Tombs but _me_, if you'll believe it, to lie down an' rest a while befo' we came roun' here to suppeh! Still I 'llowed to myself, s'I, it's jest a few old frien's they've gotten togetheh. But when I see the grove all lightened up with those Chinee lanterns, I laughed, an' s'I to motheh, s'I, 'I don't know what it is, but whatev' it is, it's the biggest thing of its kind we've eveh treed in the fifty years that's brought us to this golden hour!' An' with that po' motheh, she just had to let go all ho-holts; heh--heh cup run oveh.
”You wouldn't think so now, to see heh sett'n' oveh there smilin' like a basket o' chips, an' that little baag o' gold dollahs asleep in heh lap, would you? But that smile ain't change' the least iota these fifty years. What a sweet an' happy thought it was o' John March, tellin' the girls to put the amount in fifty pieces, one for each year. But he's always been that original. Worthy son of a worthy motheh! Why, here he is! Howdy, John? I'm so proud to see Sisteh March here to-night; she told me at dinneh that she 'llowed to go back to Widewood this evenin'.”
”I see in the papeh she 'llowed to go this mawnin',” said Clay Mattox.
John showed apologetic amus.e.m.e.nt. ”That's my fault, I reckon, I understood mother to say she couldn't stay this evening.”
A finger was laid on his shoulder. It was Shotwell again. ”John, Miss Fannie Halliday wants Jeff-Jack. Do you know where he is?”
”No! Where is Miss Fannie?”
Shotwell lifted his hand again, with a soothing smile. ”Don't remove yo'
s.h.i.+rt; Ellen is saafe, fo' that thaynk Heavm, an' hopes ah faw the Douglas givm.”