“You hear me, Sarah Ann,” said Ophelia Davis to her friend, “you hear me, that Mary Jane Robberson means trouble. She’s down on the aristocracy; she don’t ’tend to give the minister a show over them prizes, an’ you an’ me’s got to keep a whip han’ over her somehow. The minister’s goin’ to git a new suit o’ clo’s out o’ this, an’ you an’ me’s gwine to have thet pianny! Lord knows whether there’ll be one brick o’ this chuch lef’ on another when this fair is done, but she ain’t gwine ter walk on me, you hyar me. I’m a-studyin’ fer her, an’ ef she runs up agin me thar’ll be trouble.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Robinson and her coterie stood around and looked at the unique ideas for a fair which had been developed, and wondered how it was that the “400” people and their followers always had such a happy knack of getting everything just right. Her committee had intended to have nothing but a plain dining-room, but after seeing the gorgeous display made by Mrs. Davis and Mrs. White, a hurried meeting was called to consult about ways and means of defeating the enemy. All the other women stopped their work, too, and came to admire the effects gained by the introduction of the lights and the tête-à-tête tables.
“A very happy thought,” said Mrs. Willis, as she glanced approvingly about her. “Where did you get the idea?”
“I got it up to Mis’ Mason’s when Molly Mason was merried.”
“That’s where you lived so long, wasn’t it, Mrs. Davis?” asked one of the girls, as she paused a moment in her work of arranging festoons of evergreens, and stood back to note the effect.
“I lived there an’ nowhere else the first fifteen years I was up North,” replied Mrs. Davis proudly.
“Were they very wealthy? Do you ever see them nowadays?” asked Mrs. Willis.
“Mis’ Mason was wurth her millions, an’ Molly was her only chile,” replied Mrs. Davis, now fairly launched on her favorite subject. “The Mason wedding” had passed into a proverb among the young people who were acquainted with Mrs. Davis. “You see, when Molly was merried, Mis’ Mason took it into her head to have a caterer from Boston do the work of feeding the guests. She was livin’ in Worcester then. Even the servants were invited to the weddin’. She had a house that matched her money, you may jes’ reckon, and the whole o’ her lawn was used fer feeding an’ fer dancin’. There were two acres o’ lan’ nuthin’ but lawn, an’ all among the trees you could see little tables set out an’ plenty o’ lanterns, although in the dancin’ pavilion they jes’ connected a gas-pipe with the main one, an’ had the place lit with gas jes’ as ef you was in the house.”
“You ought to ask them to contribute to the fair, and help you out with your table,” remarked Mrs. Willis.
Mrs. Davis cocked her head on one side and said, with a knowing wink at Mrs. Willis: “Now, ain’t yer talkin’, honey, an’ mebe I ain’t writ to her an’ tol’ her all ’bout Mary Jane Robberson! Jes’ yer hol’ on, chile, tell yer sees me paralyze her.”
“Did you go to the wedding, Mrs. Davis?” asked Sappho, who, being something of a stranger, did not know all the little points about the wedding.
“Who, me?” exclaimed Mrs. Davis; “yes’m, I jes’ did! Lor’, chile, but Mis’ Mason’s a lady borned; she don’t know how to be like some o’ yer Northern people. Sho! these ladies up here are so ’fraid thet the black’ll rub off. Down South the big white folks has nussed so meny black mammies thet they don’ know nuthin’ else fer their chillun. It don’ matter how black you is ef yer willin’ to keep in the mud. Up here it’s diffurunt; you can do all right and live all right, but don’t put yer han’ on a white man or woman, or they’ll have a fit fer fear the black’ll rub off.”
“I suppose you went to the wedding dressed to kill,” said one of the girls.
“Lor’, chile, I had to have a new light silk fer that, I tell yer. An’ sech a time as I had when I went to git me a pair o’ paten’ leather shoes. Clorindy, gal,” she called to a young woman who was placing trees in position, “what kin’ o’ way do you call that to put them trees? You ain’t got a bit o’ eye fer bein’ an artis’, your ferpendicler is all crooked. Bring me a cheer thar, some one o’ you gals, and let me fix thet tree right.” Having straightened out the matter of the trees, she returned panting and puffing to the refreshment bar. “As I was sayin’, the man said he didn’t hev a shoe in the shop thet would fit me. I tol’ him I knowed better; he jes’ said thet ’cause I was a colored ’ooman. Then he went to the show-window and took out a pair, an’ tol’ me to set down an’ he’d try ’em on me an’ see ef they’d do, an’ ef they would I might have ’em, an’ he’d git another pair thet’d do fer signs jes’ as well as them. I tol’ him I didn’t care a bit ef they was signs; why didn’t he trot ’em out when I asked him fer ’em fust? ‘Well,’ he says, ‘they’s number ’levens, an’ I didn’t want ter insult yer. ‘Insult nuthin’,’ says I, ‘as long as I can git
