CHAPTER II.

THE next spasm that seized them started in the choir. They would give an entertainment, musical and literary. No such gross and material things as food for the body should intrude. Committee meetings were again the order of the day. It was soon found that even in preparing for "a feast of reason and a flow of soul," differences of opinion would arise. Should it be the cantata of Queen Esther, or the operetta of the Milkmaid, or something lighter than either, say, the Dance of the Fairies? There were those who thought a series of tableaux would be better than any of these, and there were those who thought there was talent enough in the Penn Avenue Church to get up a genuine play, instead of one of these milk-and-water affairs. At last, after some plain speaking, and a few heart-burnings, it was decided that the cantata of Esther should have the right of way, the casting vote in its favor being made because there was a young man visiting at the Judsons' who had just graduated from the theological seminary, and would make a "magnificent Haman." Then began rehearsals. Music was to be interspersed between the various scenes, and certain sopranos were asked to prepare choice selections, such as: "I think only of thee, love," and "My heart's dearest treasure," and "Ever thine own, love," and a few other of those gems which we hear screamed out by seraphic voices to large and appreciative audiences. I have never heard it explained why so much of our popular music should be wedded to words which the performer would blush to repeat in prose to an audience of more than one; but the fact, I suppose, is indisputable.

Oh, those rehearsals! Why are they attended with so many trials? Does Satan make special arrangements to be present at all efforts of this kind? And, if so, why? Does his superior genius recognize in these gatherings fruitful soil for the developments dear to his heart, I wonder?

Miss Minnie Coleman was general-in-chief of this particular entertainment, and she dropped a limp heap among the cushions one evening and recounted her trials to sympathetic ears: "Such a time, mamma! You never saw anything like it. It really is enough to discourage one with any attempt at doing good! Who do you suppose wants to be Vashti? That ridiculous little Kate Burns! She says she knows more than half of the part already, because she helped them get this up in the Vesey Street social; the idea! Everything she did was to prompt at one of the rehearsals! She is too dumpy for a queen; and she has a simpering little voice. Oh! It would be just too ridiculous for anything, and yet she is bent on it; she has talked with each one of the committee separately, and hinted that we ought to propose her. Then there's that Jennie Harmon, vexed because she hasn't been chosen for Esther. She makes all manner of fun of Essie (whom everybody says is just the one for the part), and I'm really afraid Essie will hear of it, and refuse to act; the girls are so hateful, mamma, you haven't an idea! They get so excited about things that don't go just as they want them; they burst right out with whatever is in their minds. Three of the committee went home crying to-night just because of things that they had overheard said; and I'd cry, too, if I were not so provoked. It does seem too bad when we are working for benevolence, and trying our best to make a little money, to have people go and spoil things in this way. (Jessie Morrison is fretting, too; she doesn't like her part; says her mother thinks the dress is unbecoming. 'What of it?' I asked her, somebody had to wear it, and it might as well be she as any one; well, she said her mother did not think it was exactly a proper dress to appear in, in public. So absurd!) I am just tired of the whole thing. I told Fannie to-night I would give anything if we were safely out of it all, and if I once get through I shall wash my hands of all benevolent enterprises in the future. Fannie was a poor one to talk to, though; she is so vexed because she hasn't been asked to sing a solo that she could tear everything to pieces. I'm sure I hope those library books, if we ever get them, will do a great deal of good; they ought to, such a world of trouble as they have made."

Ah, well, they lived through it. It is surprising how many trials we do succeed in pushing through and coming out alive on the other side!

The cantata argued and frowned and sparred and grumbled its way into perfection. The large hall was engaged for two evenings, because a complete rehearsal at the hall was a necessity. The town was duly placarded, inviting the public to the unique entertainment gotten up by the energetic young people of the Penn Avenue Church. The usual number of street jokes floated through the air, about the "Penn Avenue Theatre," or the "religious opera," sent afloat by that large class of irreligious young men who inhabit every town and city, and who seem to know by instinct just what is appropriate to a religious body, and just what is not. When the church and the world start out to walk hand in hand, it is a curious thing that it is always the world that sees the inconsistencies, and laughs, and always the church that is blind.

The modern Queen Esther did hear of the trouble, and, unlike her great namesake, faltered and pouted and would have nothing to do with the affair, so at a late hour a new queen had to be hastily chosen, who marred the occasion by forgetting some of her parts; and this is only a hint of the sea of trials which encompassed the executive committee that evening. Still, as I said, they lived, and came to the hour when they sat down to count their gains. From this exercise they rose up sadder and wiser girls. The costumes had been so unique, and so rich, and were of such brilliant colors that, being available for the occasion only, many things had to be bought, and the bills sent to the treasurer. The purchases did not seem many nor heavy, as they were bought by different people, at different times, but they counted up so mercilessly when the figures were set in those inexorable rows! Then the charge for the hall was simply enormous. The poor committee looked at each other and said this a dozen times during the counting up; the idea of charging as much for the use of the hall for the rehearsal as they did for the regular evening! Who would have imagined such a thing! Then the bills of the piano lenders were more than they had supposed possible, and the printer's bill was another ruinous item. Will it not be easily credited by the great army of the initiated that nineteen dollars and two cents gave the sum of the net proceeds of all these weeks of outlay! Actually nineteen dollars and two cents! "There!" said the treasurer, tossing down her pencil with a determined air, "I shall not add that column again! I've begun at the top, and in the middle, and added the fives and the nines separately, and done everything I can think of, and it comes every time to that miserable little nineteen dollars and two cents! Let's take the nineteen dollars to pay for the shoe leather we've worn-out, and hand in the two cents to the library committee, and then go and drown ourselves."

They laughed, as girls will, at almost anything, if somebody will only lead off. But when they reached home they, every one of them, cried. Poor things! My heart aches for them. There is no class of workers more utterly to be pitied than those who struggle and toil, making bricks often times without straw, and who find at the close that, some way, the bricks seem not to have been worth the cost.

It was months afterward, winter indeed, before the library association gasped again. Then up rose the women, the respectable, middle-aged, matronly women. The library must be replenished, money must be raised. It would not do to set girls at it; girls always got into trouble, they were so sensitive, so quick to take offence, so lacking in self-control. They—the matrons—would do this thing speedily and quietly. They would have an oyster supper on a large scale, make preparation for a great many guests, furnish oysters in every possible style, and with them such coffee as only they could make, to say nothing of the inevitable cake and cream, and side dishes, for those who did not relish oysters. So they went to work, quietly, skillfully, expeditiously. Baking, broiling, frying, stewing! What tales could not the kitchens and pantries have told during those days! They got through to the weary end, not without heart-burnings and a few tears, and much pressure of lips lest they speak unadvisedly, and occasional home confidences not flattering to their fellow workers, and I protest that in this age of the world, with Satan so manifestly at the helm as he is, it is not possible to get up a church fair, festival, opera, or what not, without these, but the matrons were as they had promised to be, on the whole, discreet, forbearing, and silent; no open breaches came.

The evening of the supper came. Dark!—was it ever darker? Rain!—not a fitful dash with gleams of moonlight between. Just a steady, pelting, pitiless rain, mud at every crossing, pools of water at some. Warm—so warm that, to the average oyster eater, the very thought of one of those bivalves was disgusting. A few damp yet resolute people stood around in the corners of the great room, and steadily ate large dishes of oysters, double dishes, some of them, and the minister, the one who perhaps could afford it least, ushered in from the dark outer world, in the course of the evening, seven wet, hungry newsboys, and gave them such a supper as they will tell of twenty years hence, and paid the bills! Meantime the cooked oysters in huge quantities were sent out to the deserving poor, and the uncooked ones were forgotten and left in the warm room all night, and by morning were not fit for the deserving poor, or any other poor! In the early forenoon of the next day, while the rain was thus falling drearily, a few draggled and discouraged females wended their way homeward, laden with soup tureens, cooking utensils, and a loaf each of cake! And this was the outcome of Penn Avenue's third effort!

Now you are not to suppose that this church was poor. It was not wealthy in the sense that some city churches are, which need only to mention a want to have it supplied from a full treasury; but its members, the great majority of them, lived in comfortable, and some of them in elegant homes; none of them ever arranged for himself to have a supper brought in by his friends, and eaten by his friends, and paid for by his friends, in order to help him through with the current expenses of the year. Not one of them had ever been known to solicit articles for a fancy fair in order to help pair house rent, or even pew rent. All of them were in the habit of putting their hands in their pockets and furnishing the money with which to meet all these reasonable needs. Why, then, did they resort to such pitiable devices to replenish their church library? Is there any person who can give a satisfactory answer to that question?

I want also to be understood about those young ladies. They were by no means working for self-gratification; they were honest in their desire to raise money for the cause; neither were they of a more quarrelsome disposition than others of their age and position. The simple fact was, that the unusual surroundings, the endless rehearsals, the posing in characters strange to them, the curious costumes which made them feel unlike themselves, the need for haste, and undue exertion, the necessity for planning for so many contingencies, the sense of responsibility, the consciousness of criticism freely offered, the possibility of failure, all these strained heavily on young nerves unused to great strains, and produced the highly wrought condition of nervous irritability which made molehills loom up like mountains, and made the things that would on ordinary occasions have raised a merry laugh start the quick tears instead. I take the bold ground that misunderstandings, and heart-burnings, and coldnesses, sometimes far-reaching in their influences and results, are almost necessary accompaniments to work of this character; there are notable exceptions, but exceptions emphasize rules. Really now, how many church festivals, fairs, concerts, cantatas, Christmas dramas, and what not, have you watched closely from their inception to their close, without hearing of a jar which did more or less harm?

What does this prove? I am not proposing to prove anything by it, I am only stating certain facts. Also, I am advocating the cause of the Penn Avenue Church; it was like unto other churches.