he’s stuck!”
But Beasley wasn’t: he was only deliberating.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began—“Mr. and Mrs. Hunchberg, Colonel Hunchberg and Aunt Cooley Hunchberg, Miss Molanna, Miss Queen, and Miss Marble Hunchberg, Mr. Noble, Mr. Tom, and Mr. Grandee Hunchberg, Mr. Corley Linbridge, and Master Hammersley:You see before you tonight, my person, merely the representative of your real host. Mister Swift. Mister Swift has expressed a wish that there should be a speech, and has deputed me to make it. He requests that the subject he has assigned me should be treated in as dignified a manner as is possible—considering the orator. Ladies and gentlemen”—he took a sip of water—“I will now address you upon the following subject: ‘Why we Call Christmas-time the Best Time.’
“Christmas-time is the best time because it is the kindest time. Nobody ever felt very happy without feeling very kind, and nobody ever felt very kind without feeling at least a little happy. So, of course, either way about, the happiest time is the kindest time—that’s this time. The most beautiful things our eyes can see are the stars; and for that reason, and in remembrance of One star, we set candles on the Tree to be stars in the house. So we make Christmas-time a time of stars indoors; and they shine warmly against the cold outdoors that is like the cold of other seasons not so kind. We set our hundred candles on the Tree and keep them bright throughout the Christmas-time, for while they shine upon us we have light to see this life, not as a battle, but as the march of a mighty Fellowship! Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you!”
He bowed to right and left, as to an audience politely applauding, and, lifting the table and its burden, withdrew; while old Bob again set his fiddle to his chin and scraped the preliminary measures of a quadrille.
Beasley was back in an instant, shouting as he came: “Take your pardners! Balance all!”
And then and there, and all by himself, he danced a quadrille, performing at one and the same time for four lively couples. Never in my life have I seen such gyrations and capers as were cut by that long-legged, loose-jointed, miraculously flying figure. He was in the wildest motion without cessation, never the fraction of an instant still; calling the figures at the top of his voice and dancing them simultaneously; his expression anxious but polite (as is the habit of other dancers); his hands extended as if to swing his partner or corner, or “opposite lady”; and his feet lifting high and flapping down in an old-fashioned step. “First four, forward and back!” he shouted. “Forward and salute! Balance to corners! Swing pardners! Gr-r-rand Right-and-Left!”
I think the combination of abandon and decorum with which he performed that “Grand Right-and-Left” was the funniest thing I have ever seen. But I didn’t laugh at it.
Neither did Miss Apperthwaite.
“Now do you believe me?” Peck was arguing, fiercely, with Mr. Schulmeyer. “Is he crazy, or ain’t he?”
“He is,” Grist agreed, hoarsely. “He is a stark, starin’, ravin’, roarin’ lunatic! And the nigger’s humorin’ him!”
They were all staring, open-mouthed and aghast, into the lighted room.
“Do you see where it puts us?” Simeon Peck’s rasping voice rose high.
“I guess I do!” said Grist. “We come out to buy a barn, and got a house and lot fer the same money. It’s the greatest night’s work you ever done, Sim Peck!”
“I guess it is!”
“Shake on it, Sim.”
They shook hands, exalted with triumph.
“This’ll do the work,” giggled Peck. “It’s about two-thousand per cent. better than the story we started to git. Why, Dave Beasley’ll be in a padded cell in a month! It’ll be all over town tomorrow, and he’ll have as much chance fer governor as that nigger in there!” In his ecstasy he smote Dowden deliriously in the ribs. “What do you think of your candidate now?”
“Wait,” said Dowden. “Who came in the hacks that Grist saw?”
This staggered Mr. Peck. He rubbed his mitten over his woollen cap as if scratching his head. “Why,” he said, slowly—“who in Halifax did come in them hacks?”
“The Hunchbergs,” said I.
“Who’s the Hunchbergs? Where—”
“Listen,” said Dowden.
“First couple, face out!” shouted Beasley, facing out with an invisible lady on his akimboed arm, while old Bob sawed madly at A New Coon in Town.
“Second couple, fall in!” Beasley wheeled about and enacted the second couple.
“Third couple!” He fell in behind himself again.
“Fourth couple, if you please! Balance—all!—I beg your pardon, Miss Molanna, I’m afraid I stepped on your train.—Sashay all!”
After the “sashay”—the noblest and most dashing bit of gymnastics displayed in the whole quadrille—he bowed profoundly to his invisible partner and came to a pause, wiping his streaming face. Old Bob dexterously swung A New Coon into the stately measures of a triumphal march.
“And now,” Beasley announced, in stentorian tones, “if the ladies will be so kind as to take the gentlemen’s arms, we will proceed to the dining-room and partake of a slight collation.”
Thereupon came a slender piping of joy from that part of the room screened from us by the Tree.
“Oh, Cousin David Beasley, that was the beautilfullest quadrille ever danced in the world! And, please, won’t you take Mrs. Hunchberg out to supper?”
Then into the vision of our paralyzed and dumfounded watchers came the little wagon, pulled by the old colored woman, Bob’s wife, in her best, and there, propped upon pillows, lay Hamilton Swift, Junior, his soul shining rapture out of his great eyes, a bright spot of color on each of his thin cheeks. He lifted himself on one elbow, and for an instant something seemed to be wrong with the brace under his chin.
Beasley sprang to him and adjusted it tenderly. Then he bowed elaborately toward the mantel-piece.
“Mrs. Hunchberg,” he said, “may I have the honor?” And offered his arm.
“And I must have Mister Hunchberg,” chirped Hamilton. “He must walk with me.”
“He tells me,” said Beasley, “he’ll be mighty glad to. And there’s a plate of bones for Simpledoria.”
“You lead the way,” cried the child; “you and Mrs. Hunchberg.”
“Are we all in line?” Beasley glanced back over his shoulder. “Hoo-ray! Now, let us on. Ho! there!”
“Br-r-ra-vo!” applauded Mister Swift.
And Beasley, his head thrown back and his chest out, proudly led the way, stepping nobly and in time to the exhilarating measures. Hamilton Swift, Junior, towed by the beaming old mammy, followed in his wagon, his thin little arm uplifted and his fingers curled as if they held a trusted hand.
When they reached the door, old Bob rose, turned in after them, and, still fiddling, played the procession
