CHAPTER XI

HOW LITTLE ARCADY WAS UPLIFTED

The winter that followed proved to be a season of unrest for our town.  Mrs. Aurelia Potts was a leaven of yeast that fermented its social waters, erstwhile calm, not to say stagnant.

Early in November an evening affair was held in her honor at the Eubanks home.  The Eubankses being our leading Presbyterians, and Mrs. Potts having allied herself with that church, it was felt that they were best fitted to give the lady her initial impression of Little Arcady’s society.  Not only were the three Eubanks girls talented, but the mother was a social leader, Eustace was travelled, having been one of an excursion party to the Holy Land, and the family had relatives living in Philadelphia.  None of the girls had married, nor had Eustace.  The girls, it was said, had not wished to marry.  Eustace had earnestly wished to, it was known; but two of our young women who had successively found favor in his sight had failed to please his mother and sisters, and Eustace was said to be watching and waiting for one upon whom all could agree, though every one but Eustace himself knew this was an utterly hopeless vigil.  Meantime the mother and sisters looked up to him, guarding him jealously from corrupting associations, saw that he wore his overshoes when clouds lowered, and knitted him chest protectors, gloves, and pulse warmers which he was not allowed to forget.  He taught the Bible Class in the Presbyterian Sabbath school, sang bass in the choir, and, on occasion, gave an excellent entertainment with his magic lantern, with views of the Holy Land, which he explained with a running fire of comment both instructive and entertaining.

The Eubanks home that evening was said by a subsequent Argus to have been “ablaze with lights” and “its handsome and spacious parlors thronged with the elite of the town who had gathered to do honor to the noted guest of the evening.”

There first occurred a piano duet, rendered expertly by the two younger Misses Eubanks, “Listen to the Mocking Bird,” with some bewildering variations of an imitative value, done by the Miss Eubanks seated at the right.

Then the front parlor was darkened and, after the consequent tittering among the younger set had died away, Eustace threw his pictures upon a hanging sheet and delivered his agreeable lecture about them, beginning with the exciting trip from Jaffa to Jerusalem.  Most of those present had enjoyed the privilege of this lecture enough times to know what picture was coming next and what Eustace would say about it.  But it was thought graceful now, considering the presence of a stranger, to simulate the expectancy of the uninformed, and to emit little gasps of astonished delight when Eustace would say, “Passing from the city gates, we next come upon a view that is well worthy a moment of our attention.”

With the lights up again, a small flask of water from the river Jordan was handed about, to be examined, by those who knew it too well, in the same loyal spirit of curiosity.  A guest would hold it reverently a moment, then glance up in search of some one to whom it might be heartily extended.