But to this suggestion Miss Benedict promptly shook her head:
I DISLIKE that way of doing things. People are being educated to suppose that they are engaged in a benevolent enterprise when they attend a benefit concert or entertainment. Those who can not afford to go ease their consciences by saying, 'Oh, well, it is for benevolence;' when it really isn't, you know; it is for self-gratification or self-improvement, and people who ought to give twenty-five dollars for a thing learn to tell themselves that they went to the twenty-five cent supper, or concert, and that is their share, they suppose. Let us invite them to come to our concert because we believe that we can entertain them, and that it will pay them to be present.
"The fact is, girls, the church of Christ doesn't _need_ any benefit. We degrade it by talking as though it did. No, we will divide the proceeds of the concert in shares among ourselves; that is we, the workers, will for the time being go into business and earn money that shall be ours. We will not plead poverty, or ask people to listen to us because of benevolence; we will simply give them a chance to hear a good thing if they want to, and the money shall be ours to do exactly what we please with. Of course, if we please to give every cent of it to the church, that is our individual affair."
New ground this, for those girls; they had never before heard the like; but there was an instant outgrowth of self-respect because of it.
"Then we can't _coax_ people to buy tickets?" said Nettie. "I'm so glad."
"Of course not. The very utmost that propriety will allow us to do will be to exhibit our goods for sale, so much for such an equivalent, and allow people the privilege of choosing what they will do, and where they will go."
The girls, each and all, agreed that from that standpoint they would as soon offer tickets for sale as not; and instantly they stepped upon that new platform and argued from it in the future, to the great amazement and somewhat to the bewilderment of some of their elders.
Thereafter, rehearsals for the concert became the daily order of things; not much time to spend each day, for nothing could be done until lessons were over and all regular duties honorably discharged. The more need then for promptness and diligence on the part of each helper, and the more glaringly improper it became to delay matters by having to stay behind for a half-prepared lesson. Never had the Academy, or the village, for that matter, been so full of eager, throbbing, healthy life, as those girls made it.