Social War.--Longbow, Turtle & Co.--Bird, Swipes, Beagle & Co.--Mrs. Bird.--Mrs. Beagle.--Mrs. Swipes--Turkey and Aristocracy.--Scandal.--Husking-bees, and "such like."--The Calathumpian Band.--The Horse-fiddle.--The Giant Trombone.--The Gyastacutas.--Tuning up.--Unparalleled Effort.--Puddleford still a representative Place.
I have taken the liberty, in the preceding chapters, to speak freely of some of the leading characters of Puddleford. I have alluded to Longbow, Turtle, and Bigelow, not because they were the only people of the village, or the best; but because they were the rudder of society, and steered it along in the same way that ships are guided over stormy waters. Now, there were a great many more very excellent folks, who helped chink in and fill up around these more important personages, and make up an harmonious whole. Zeke Bird, the blacksmith, was one; Tom Beagle, the shoemaker, another; Lem Swipes, the tailor, still another. These men were among the first settlers of Puddleford, and had done as much towards its up-building as any other. They had immigrated from a place in Ohio, and consequently knew something about the world. All three families were cousins, or second cousins, to one another, and they acted in unison upon any public or social question.
They hated, with a supreme hatred, Longbow, Turtle & Co., because they were "aristocrats." Mrs. Bird, who was a very impulsive, peak-nosed sort of a woman, and who always wore a red flannel petticoat protruding beyond her dress, and her shoes slip-shod, used to often say, "that if there was anything she did despise it was a stick-up. She didn't believe old Mrs. Longbow, or any of her darters, were any better than common folks; and she'd see the whole pack on 'em pumpin' lightning at two cents a clap, before she'd skrouch to 'em!"
Mrs. Beagle was quite a different body. She was not so full of fire and fury as Mrs. Bird. She didn't allow her feelings to get the advantage of her malice. She moved more underground; yet she was always busy pecking away at that "up-street clique," as she called them.
Mrs. Beagle was a neat, tidy body, and wore an air of great sincerity about her face. She used to say that "nothing grieved her _so much_ as to be compelled to believe anything bad 'bout her neighbors," and that "she never spoke of nothing till it got all over, and there warn't no use of holding in any longer." She made it her business to watch the morals and religion of all the Longbows, and Turtleses, and Bateses, and report accordingly. She said "she didn't know but it was all right for a member of the Methodist church, like Miss Lavinia Turtle, to wear three bows to her bonnet on Sunday--she didn't _know_--she warn't going to say--'haps she hadn't orter say--but the way _she_ looked at religion, 'twas as wicked as Cain--for herself, she made no pretensions, but when folks did, she wanted to see 'em lived up to." She said, "she meant to have Mrs. Bates turned out of the church for riding out on Sunday, for she'd seen her several times with her own eyes, six miles from town; but she wouldn't speak of it, if it warn't such a scandal on her profession;" besides, she had it from good authority, that "she water'd her milk 'fore she sold it, but she wouldn't say who told her, 'cause she promised not to."