Mrs. Budlongs Christmas Presents | Page 5

course, the merely commercial visitors she left to the hackmen at the station, but friends or relatives of prominent people could not escape Mrs. Budlong's well-meant attentions. It was sometimes embarrassing when relatives appeared--for everybody has Concealed Relatives that he is perfectly willing to leave in concealment.
Mrs. Alex. (pronounced Ellick) Stubblebine never forgave Mrs. Budlong for dragging into the limelight some obscure cousins of her husband's who had drifted into Carthage to borrow money on their farm. Mrs. Stubblebine was always bragging about her people, her own people that is. Her husband's people, of course, were after all only Stubblebines, while her maiden name was Dilatush; and the Dilatushes, as everybody knew, were related by marriage to the Tatums.
But these were Stubblebines that came to town. Mrs. Stubblebine could hardly slam the door in their faces, but she would fain have locked the doors after them. She would not even invite them out on the front porch. She told them the back porch was cosier and less conspicuous. And then Mrs. Budlong had to call up on the telephone and sing out in her telephoniest tone:
"Oh, my dear, I've just this minute heard you have guests--some of your dear husband's relatives. Now they must come to me to dinner to-morrow. Oh, it isn't the slightest trouble, I asSure you. I'm giving a little party anyway. I won't take no for an answer."
And she wouldn't. Mrs. Stubblebine fairly perspired excuses, but Mrs. Budlong finally grew so suspicious that she had to accept; or leave the impression that the relatives were burglars or counterfeiters in hiding. And they were not--they were pitifully honest.
The result was even worse than she feared. Mr. Stubblebine's cousin was so shy that he never said a word except when it was pulled out of him, and then he said, "Yes, ma'am"!
In Carthage when you are at a dinner party and you don't quite catch the last remark, you don't snap "What?" or "How?" or "Wha' jew say?" Whatever your home habits may be, at a dinner party or before comp'ny, you raise your eyebrows gracefully and murmur, "I beg your pardon."
But Mr. Stubblebine's rural cousin grunted "Huh?"--like an Indian chief trying to scare a white general. And he was perfectly frank about the intimate processes of mastication.
And when he dropped a batch of scalloped oysters into his watch pocket he solemnly fished them-out with a souvenir after-dinner coffee spoon having the Statue of Liberty for a handle and Brooklyn Bridge in the bowl.
And the wretch's wife was so nervous that she talked all the time about people the others had never seen or heard of. And she said she "never used tomattus." And she wasn't ashamed of what she was chewing either.
Mrs. Stubblebine would have felt much obliged to fate if she had been presented with an apoplectic stroke. But she had to sit the dinner out. From what she said to her poor husband afterward, however, one might have gathered that he picked out those relatives just to spite her, when as a matter of fact he had always loathed them and regretted them and the next day he borrowed enough money to lend them and send them back to the soil.
Mrs. Budlong had constituted herself Entertainment Committee for all sorts of visitors. If a young girl came home from boarding school with a classmate, the real hostess had hardly time to show her to the spare room, and say, "This is the bathroom, round here; watch out for the step. And if the water don't run just wait--" when the telephone would go Brrrrr! And there would be Mrs. Budlong brandishing an invitation to a dinner party.
When the supply of guests ran low she would visit the sick. If a worn-out housewife slept late some morning to catch up, Mrs. Budlong would hear of it and rush over with a broth or something. It is said that old Miss Malkin got out of bed with an unfinished attack of pneumonia, just to keep from eating any more of Mrs. Budlong's wine jellies.
In Carthage one pays for the telephone by the year. The company lost money on Mrs. Budlong's wire. As a telephoner she was simply interminable. She would spend a weekend at the instrument while the prisoner at the other extreme of the wire shifted from ear to ear, sagged along the wall, postponed household duties, made signals of distress to other members of the family, and generally cursed Mr. Alexander Graham Bell for his ingenuity.
Three wall telephones were changed to table phones on Mrs. Budlong's account, and Mrs. Talbot had hers put by the bed. She used to take naps while Mrs. Budlong talked and she trained herself to murmur, "Yes, dear," at intervals in her sleep.
By means like this Mrs. Budlong kept Carthage