Elsie Venner Part 8

"Deacon Soper," said the Colonel, "here is some Madary Judge Thornton recommends. Let me fill you a gla.s.s of it."

The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent Christians who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to Timothy.

"A little good wine won't hurt anybody," said the Deacon. "Plenty, --plenty,--plenty. There!" He had not withdrawn his gla.s.s, while the Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill, and now it was running over.

--It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the mercy of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of nothing but C4, O2, H6. The Deacon's theology fell off several points towards lat.i.tudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. He had a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human nature included. The little accidents of humanity, known collectively to moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing sense of universal brotherhood and benevolence.

"It will all come right," the Deacon said to himself,--"I feel a joyful conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with a blessed peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' toward my fellow-creturs."

A l.u.s.ty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at that instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon the Deacon's toes.

"Aigh! What the d' d' didos are y' abaout with them great huffs o'

yourn?" said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not exactly that of peace and good-will to men. The l.u.s.ty young fellow apologized; but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his theology backed round several points in the direction of total depravity.

Some of the das.h.i.+ng young men in stand-up collars and extensive neckties, encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the "Ma,dary," and even induced some of the more stylish girls--not of the mansion-house set, but of the tip-top two-story families--to taste a little. Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and declared it was "perfectly horrid," with that aspect of veracity peculiar to their age and s.e.x.

About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick had quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better adjourn this court to the next room. There were signs of migration,--a loosening of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to hitch on to.

"Stop!" said the Colonel. "There's something coming yet.--Ice-cream!"

The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was only polite to stay and see it out. The word "ice-cream" was no sooner whispered than it pa.s.sed from one to another all down the tables. The effect was what might have been antic.i.p.ated. Many of the guests had never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and to all the two-story population of Rockland it was the last expression of the art of pleasing and astonis.h.i.+ng the human palate. Its appearance had been deferred for several reasons: first, because everybody would have attacked it, if it had come in with the other luxuries; secondly, because undue apprehensions were entertained (owing to want of experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and resolve itself with alarming rapidity into puddles of creamy fluid; and, thirdly, because the surprise would make a grand climax to finish off the banquet.

There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that it is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of great cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a certain emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her work of congelation in the face of her sultriest noon, might well inspire a timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against the Higher Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use of ether and chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it is well known that the announcement at any private rural entertainment that there is to be ice-cream produces an immediate and profound impression.

It may be remarked, as aiding this impression, that exaggerated ideas are entertained as to the dangerous effects this congealed food may produce on persons not in the most robust health.

There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table, everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and a.s.sailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off a slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, as if it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side, and it tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the Colonel.

"Permit me," said the Judge,--and he took the knife and struck a sharp slanting stroke which sliced off a piece just of the right size, and offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much admired by the company.

The tables were all alive again.

"Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream," said Silas Peckham.

"Come, Mahaly," said a fresh-looking young-fellow with a saucerful in each hand, "here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a celebration, us two." And the old green de-lame, with the young curves under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it.

"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff into your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, who, finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her down very nicely. "It's jest like eatin' s...o...b..a.l.l.s. You don't look very rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you."

"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit down here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you young folks do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's you or your older sister, but I know it 's somebody I call Carrie, and that I 've known ever since."

A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper.

"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him on the back!"

Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon felt as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up.

"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech, "he 's swallered somethin'

the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to him, can't ye?"

"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Doctor Kittredge, in a calm tone of voice. "He's not choking, my friends," the Doctor added immediately, when he got sight of him.

"It 's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick folks, --determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor.

"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge.

"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's his poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready."

"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge.--"Nothing serious, I think, Mrs. Soper. Deacon!"

The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary sound mentioned above. His features had immediately a.s.sumed an expression of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping his hands to his face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in speechless agony.

At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head.

"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That 's all. Very severe, but not at all dangerous."

The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the change in iris waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened.

The Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its distribution, had taken a large mouthful of it without the least precaution. The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or cold ones, which would hurt rather worse.

The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There were different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other folks.

The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon followed. Mr. Bernard had stayed an hour or two, and left soon after he found that Elsie Venner and her father had disappeared. As he pa.s.sed by the dormitory of the Inst.i.tute, he saw a light glimmering from one of its upper rooms, where the lady-teacher was still waking. His heart ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of gayety, or what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work in her little chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that they were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning like a red coal; the northern constellation was slanting downward about its central point of flame; and while he looked, a falling star slid from the zenith and was lost.

He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the Season.

CHAPTER VIII. THE MORNING AFTER.

Colonel Sprowle's family arose late the next morning. The fatigues and excitements of the evening and the preparation for it were followed by a natural collapse, of which somnolence was a leading symptom. The sun shone into the window at a pretty well opened angle when the Colonel first found himself sufficiently awake to address his yet slumbering spouse.

"Sally!" said the Colonel, in a voice that was a little husky,--for he had finished off the evening with an extra gla.s.s or two of "Madary,"

and had a somewhat rusty and headachy sense of renewed existence, on greeting the rather advanced dawn,--"Sally!"

"Take care o' them custard-cups! There they go!"

Poor Mrs. Sprowle was fighting the party over in her dream; and as the visionary custard-cups crashed down through one lobe of her brain into another, she gave a start as if an inch of lightning from a quart Leyden jar had jumped into one of her knuckles with its sudden and lively poonk!

"Sally!" said the Colonel,--"wake up, wake up. What 'r' y' dreamin'

abaout?"

Mrs. Sprowle raised herself, by a sort of spasm, sur son seant, as they say in France,--up on end, as we have it in New England. She looked first to the left, then to the right, then straight before her, apparently without seeing anything, and at last slowly settled down, with her two eyes, blank of any particular meaning, directed upon the Colonel.

"What time is 't?" she said.

"Ten o'clock. What y' been dreamin' abaout? Y' giv a jump like a hopper-gra.s.s. Wake up, wake UP! Th' party 's over, and y' been asleep all the mornin'. The party's over, I tell ye! Wake up!"

"Over!" said Mrs. Sprowle, who began to define her position at last,--"over! I should think 't was time 't was over! It's lasted a hundud year. I've been workin' for that party longer 'n Methuselah's lifetime, sence I been asleep. The pies would n' bake, and the blo'monje would n' set, and the ice-cream would n' freeze, and all the folks kep' comin' 'n' comin' 'n' comin',--everybody I ever knew in all my life,--some of 'em 's been dead this twenty year 'n' more,--'n' nothin'

for 'em to eat nor drink. The fire would n' burn to cook anything, all we could do. We blowed with the belluses, 'n' we stuffed in paper 'n'

pitch-pine kindlin's, but nothin' could make that fire burn; 'n' all the time the folks kep' comin', as if they'd never stop,--'n' nothin' for 'em but empty dishes, 'n' all the borrowed chaney slippin' round on the waiters 'n' chippin' 'n' crackin',--I would n' go through what I been through t'-night for all th' money in th' Bank,--I do believe it's harder t' have a party than t'"--