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The Floating Press - Wilkins Freeman Mary E.

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103 pages

English

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Fans of Sinclair Lewis' Main Street will love Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's satirical novel The Butterfly House. The story is a hilarious send-up of the preposterous posturing and one-upmanship that runs amok among the members of a women's club in early-twentieth-century New Jersey.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 mai 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776670390
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE
* * *
MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN

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The Butterfly House First published in 1912 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-039-0 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-040-6 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX
Chapter I
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Fairbridge, the little New Jersey village, or rather city (for it hadwon municipal government some years before, in spite of the protestof far-seeing citizens who descried in the distance bonded debts outof proportion to the tiny shoulders of the place), was a misnomer.Often a person, being in Fairbridge for the first time, and beingdriven by way of entertainment about the rural streets, wouldinquire, "Why Fairbridge?"
Bridges there were none, except those over which the trains thunderedto and from New York, and the adjective, except to old inhabitantswho had a curious fierce loyalty for the place, did not seeminglyapply. Fairbridge could hardly, by an unbiassed person who did notdwell in the little village and view its features through the rosyglamour of home life, be called "fair." There were a few prettystreets, with well-kept sidewalks, and ambitious, although smallhouses, and there were many lovely bits of views to be obtained,especially in the green flush of spring, and the red glow of autumnover the softly swelling New Jersey landscape with its warm red soilto the distant rise of low blue hills; but it was not fair enough ina general way to justify its name. Yet Fairbridge it was, withoutbridge, or natural beauty, and no mortal knew why. The origin of thename was lost in the petty mist of a petty past.
Fairbridge was tragically petty, inasmuch as it saw itself great. InFairbridge narrowness reigned, nay, tyrannised, and was notrecognised as such. There was something fairly uncanny aboutFairbridge's influence upon people after they had lived there even afew years. The influence held good, too, in the cases of men whodaily went to business or professions in New York. Even Wall Streetwas no sinecure. Back they would come at night, and the terrible,narrow maelstrom of pettiness sucked them in. All outside interestwas as naught. International affairs seemed insignificant when onceone was really in Fairbridge.
Fairbridge, although rampant when local politics were concerned, hadno regard whatever for those of the nation at large, except as theyinvolved Fairbridge. Fairbridge, to its own understanding, was anucleus, an ultimatum. It was an example of the triumph of theinfinitesimal. It saw itself through a microscope and loomed upgigantic. Fairbridge was like an insect, born with the convictionthat it was an elephant. There was at once something ludicrous, andmagnificent, and terrible about it. It had the impressiveness of theabnormal and prehistoric. In one sense, it was prehistoric. It wasas a giant survivor of a degenerate species.
Withal, it was puzzling. People if pinned down could not say why, inFairbridge, the little was so monstrous, whether it depended uponlocal conditions, upon the general population, or upon a few who hadan undue estimation of themselves and all connected with them. WasFairbridge great because of its inhabitants, or were the inhabitantsgreat because of Fairbridge? Who could say? And why was Fairbridge soimportant that its very smallness overwhelmed that which, by thenature of things, seemed overwhelming? Nobody knew, or rather, sotremendous was the power of the small in the village, that nobodyinquired.
It is entirely possible that had there been any delicate gauge ofmentality, the actual swelling of the individual in his ownestimation as he neared Fairbridge after a few hours' absence, mighthave been apparent. Take a broker on Wall Street, for instance, or alawyer who had threaded his painful way to the dim light ofunderstanding through the intricate mazes of the law all day, as histrain neared his loved village. From an atom that went to make up themotive power of a great metropolis, he himself became an entirety. Hewas It with a capital letter. No wonder that under the circumstancesFairbridge had charms that allured, that people chose it for suburbanresidences, that the small, ornate, new houses with their perkylittle towers and æsthetic diamond-paned windows, multiplied.
Fairbridge was in reality very artistically planned as to the sitesof its houses. Instead of the regulation Main Street of the countryvillage, with its centre given up to shops and post-office, sidestreets wound here and there, and houses were placed with a view toeffect.
The Main Street of Fairbridge was as naught from a social point ofview. Nobody of any social importance lived there. Even thephysicians had their residences and offices in a more aristocraticlocality. Upon the Main Street proper, that which formed the centreof the village, there were only shops and a schoolhouse and one ortwo mean public buildings. For a village of the self-importance ofFairbridge, the public buildings were very few and very mean. Therewas no city hall worthy of the name of this little city which heldits head so high. The City Hall, so designated by ornate gilt lettersupon the glass panel of a very small door, occupied part of thebuilding in which was the post-office. It was a tiny building, twostories high. On the second floor was the millinery shop of Mrs.Creevy, and behind it the two rooms in which she kept house with herdaughter Jessy.
On the lower floor was the post-office on the right, filthy with thefoot tracks of the Fairbridge children who crowded it in a noisyrabble twice a day, and perpetually red-stained with the shale of NewJersey, brought in upon the boots of New Jersey farmers, who alwaysbore about with them a goodly portion of their native soil. On theleft, was the City Hall. This was vacant except upon the first Mondayof every month, when the janitor of the Dutch Reformed Church, whoeked out a scanty salary with divers other tasks, got himself towork, and slopped pails of water over the floor, then swept, andbuilt a fire, if in winter.
Upon the evenings of these first Mondays the Mayor and city officialsmet and made great talk over small matters, and with the labouring ofa mountain, brought forth mice. The City Hall was closed upon otheroccasions, unless the village talent gave a play for some localbenefit. Fairbridge was intensely dramatic, and it was popularlyconsidered that great, natural, histrionic gifts were squandered uponthe Fairbridge audiences, appreciative though they were. Outsidetalent was never in evidence in Fairbridge. No theatrical company hadever essayed to rent that City Hall. People in Fairbridge put thatsomewhat humiliating fact from their minds. Nothing would haveinduced a loyal citizen to admit that Fairbridge was too small gamefor such purposes. There was a tiny theatre in the neighbouring cityof Axminister, which had really some claims to being called a city,from tradition and usage, aside from size. Axminister was an ancientDutch city, horribly uncomfortable, but exceedingly picturesque.Fairbridge looked down upon it, and seldom patronised the shows (theynever said "plays") staged in its miniature theatre. When they didnot resort to their own City Hall for entertainment by local talent,they arrayed themselves in their best and patronised New York itself.
New York did not know that it was patronised, but Fairbridge knew.When Mr. and Mrs. George B. Slade boarded the seven o'clock train,Mrs. Slade, tall, and majestically handsome, arrayed most elegantly,and crowned with a white hat (Mrs. Slade always affected white hatswith long drooping plumes upon such occasions), and George B., nattyin his light top coat, standing well back upon the heels of his shinyshoes, with the air of the wealthy and well-assured, holding a beltedcigar in the tips of his grey-gloved fingers, New York was mostdistinctly patronised, although without knowing it.
It was also patronised, and to a greater extent, by little Mrs.Wilbur Edes, very little indeed, so little as to be almost symbolicof Fairbridge itself, but elegant in every detail, so elegant as toarrest the eye of everybody as she entered the train, holding up thetail of her black lace gown. Mrs. Edes doted on black lace. Hersmall, fair face peered with a curious calm alertness from under theblack plumes of her great picture hat, perched sidewise upon acarefully waved pale gold pompadour, which was perfection and wouldhave done credit to the best hairdresser or the best French maid inNew York, but which was achieved solely by Mrs. Wilbur Edes' ownnative wit and skilful fingers.
Mrs. Wilbur Edes, although small, was masterly in everything, fromwaving a pompadour to conducting theatricals. She herself was thestar dramatic performer of Fairbridge. There was a strong feeling inFairbridge that in reality she might, if she chose, rival Bernhardt.Mrs. Emerston Strong, who had been abroad and had seen Bernhardt onher native soil, had often said that Mrs. Edes reminded her of thegreat French actress, although she was much handsomer, and so moral!Mrs. Wilbur Edes was masterly in morals, as in everything else. Shewas much admired by the opposite sex, but she was a model wife andmother.
Mr. Wilbur Edes was an admired accessory of his wife. He was so verytall and slender as to suggest forcible elongation. He carried hishead with a deprecatory, sidewise air as if in accordanc