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NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT
Sixth Edition
Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the
dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community.
SAGE publishes more than 1000 journals and over 800 new books each
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Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC |


Melbourne
NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT
Principles and Practice

Sixth Edition

Michael J. Worth

The George Washington University


Copyright © 2021 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, no part of


this work may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means,
or stored in a database or retrieval system, without permission in writing
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Worth, Michael J, author.

Title: Nonprofit management : principles and practice / Michael J. Worth, The George Washington
University.

Description: Sixth Edition. | Thousand Oaks : SAGE Publications, Inc, 2020. | Revised edition of
the author’s Nonprofit management, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020025074 | ISBN 9781544379982 (paperback) | ISBN 9781544379999


(epub) | ISBN 9781544380001 (epub) | ISBN 9781544380018 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Nonprofit organizations--Management.

Classification: LCC HD62.6 .W675 2020 | DDC 658/.048--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025074

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Acquisitions Editor: Anna Villarruel

Editorial Assistant: Lauren Younker

Production Editor: Tracy Buyan

Copy Editor: Karen Taylor

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Indexer: Integra

Cover Designer: Scott Van Atta

Marketing Manager: Jennifer Jones


BRIEF CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART I Understanding Nonprofit Management, the Nonprofit Sector,
and Nonprofit Organizations
Chapter 1 Nonprofit Management as a Profession and a Field of
Study
Chapter 2 Overview of the Nonprofit Sector
Chapter 3 Theories of the Nonprofit Sector and Nonprofit
Organizations
PART II Governing and Leading Nonprofit Organizations
Chapter 4 Nonprofit Governing Boards
Chapter 5 Executive Leadership
PART III Managing the Nonprofit Organization
Chapter 6 Ensuring Accountability and Measuring Performance
Chapter 7 Developing Strategy, Building Capacity, and
Managing Risk
Chapter 8 Collaborations, Partnerships, and Mergers
Chapter 9 Managing Staff and Service Volunteers
Chapter 10 Marketing and Communications
Chapter 11 Advocacy and Lobbying
PART IV Obtaining and Managing Resources
Chapter 12 Financial Management
Chapter 13 Philanthropic Fundraising
Chapter 14 Social Enterprise and Earned Income
Chapter 15 Government Grants and Contracts
PART V Special Topics
Chapter 16 Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Chapter 17 Governing and Managing International and Global
Organizations
Conclusion
Appendix: Cases for Discussion
References
Index
About the Author
DETAILED CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART I Understanding Nonprofit Management, the Nonprofit Sector,
and Nonprofit Organizations
Chapter 1 Nonprofit Management as a Profession and a Field of
Study
A Revolution in Management
A Distinct Profession
Nonprofit Management as a Field of Study
Toward a Balanced Approach
Proceeding With Realism and Pride
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Case
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles
Websites
Chapter 2 Overview of the Nonprofit Sector
America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Historical Overview
Searching for a Common Vocabulary
Alternatives to Nonprofit
Size of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector
Differentiating the Nonprofit Sector
National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities
IRS Classifications
Salamon’s Anatomy
The Spectrum of Organizations
Emerging New Models
The Commercialization Debate
Commercialization and Tax Exemption
Implications for Nonprofit Managers
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 2.1 The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative
Case 2.2 A Double Bottom Line: Ben & Jerry’s
Case 2.3 Burning Man
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles/Book Chapters
Websites
Chapter 3 Theories of the Nonprofit Sector and Nonprofit
Organizations
Explaining the Nonprofit Sector
Nonprofit Theory Across the Disciplines
The Failure Theories
Market and Government Failure
Nonprofits as Gap Fillers
Supply-Side Theories
Theories of Altruism and Giving
Theory of the Commons: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Changing Definitions of Private, Public, and Common
Explaining Nonprofit Organizations
Characteristics of Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofits as Open Systems
Resource Dependence
Isomorphism
Explaining Nonprofit Organizational Structures
Organizational Culture
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 3.1 The Smithsonian Institution and the Catherine B.
Reynolds Foundation
Case 3.2 The National Trust for Historic Preservation
Questions for Discussion
Appendix x
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles
PART II Governing and Leading Nonprofit Organizations
Chapter 4 Nonprofit Governing Boards
Types of Governing Boards
Elected Boards
Self-Perpetuating Boards
Appointed and Hybrid Boards
Advisory Councils
The Governing Board’s Responsibilities
The Governing Board’s Legal Responsibilities
The Governing Board’s Functional Responsibilities
The Board and the CEO
Carver’s Policy Governance Model
Chait, Ryan, and Taylor: Governance as Leadership
Herman and Heimovics: Psychological Centrality and
Board-Centered Leadership
Explaining Board Behavior
Managing Nonprofit Boards
Role of the Chair
Governance Committee
Board Professionals
Nonprofit Board Effectiveness
Critics of Board Performance
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The Search for Best Practices
The Challenge of Nonprofit Governance
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 4.1 Sweet Briar College
Case 4.2 The Hershey Trust
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books/Reports
Websites
Chapter 5 Executive Leadership
The CEO’s Job
Management and Leadership
Overview of Leadership Theories
An Evolution in Thinking
Transformational Leadership
Charismatic Leadership
The Effective Nonprofit CEO
Focus on Mission
Focus on the Board
Focus on External Relationships
Share Leadership and Empower Others
Focus on Key Roles and Priorities
Use the “Political Frame”
Right Person, Right Place, Right Time
Founder Syndrome
Executive Transitions
Leading Change
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 5.1 A Change in Leadership at Habitat for Humanity
Case 5.2 Challenge and Change at United Way
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books/Book Chapters
Articles
Websites
PART III Managing the Nonprofit Organization
Chapter 6 Ensuring Accountability and Measuring Performance
Defining and Ensuring Accountability
Mechanisms for Accountability
Requirements of Law
Self-Regulation: Standards and Accreditation
Transparency
Measuring and Managing Performance
Financial Ratios
Benchmarking
Outcomes
Balanced Scorecard
Social Return on Investment
Blended Value
Performance Measurement: The Continuing Debate
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 6.1 The Wounded Warrior Project
Case 6.2 Youth Villages
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles/Reports
Websites
Chapter 7 Developing Strategy, Building Capacity, and
Managing Risk
Understanding Strategy
Strategic Planning and Strategic Management
The Strategic Planning Process
Planning to Plan
Defining Mission, Vision, and Values
Assessing the Situation
Identifying Strategic Issues
Setting Goals
Developing Strategies
Setting Objectives
Writing the Strategic Plan
Developing an Operational Plan
Benefits and Limitations of Strategic Planning
Building Organizational Capacity
Defining and Understanding Capacity
Capacity Building in Action
A Model for Capacity Building
Capacity and Organizational Life Cycles
Capacity Building Evaluated
Managing Risk
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 7.1 Generation Hope Strategic Plan 2021
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books/Reports
Articles
Websites
Chapter 8 Collaborations, Partnerships, and Mergers
Growing Interest in Collaboration
A Continuum of Relationships
Exploring Collaborations and Mergers
Drivers of Collaborations and Mergers
Obstacles to Collaboration and Merger
Culture
Egos
Brand Identity
Community or Political Objections
Costs
Conditions for Success
Driven by Mission
Commitment From Top Leadership
Trust
Relatedness
Process
Collaborations and Mergers Within National Nonprofits
Cross-Sector Collaboration
A Continuum of Cross-Sector Collaboration
Advantages and Disadvantages of CSCs
Obstacles and Conditions for Success
Achieving Collective Impact
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 8.1 N Street Village and Miriam’s House
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles/Reports
Websites
Chapter 9 Managing Staff and Service Volunteers
Human Resources Management
Requirements of Law
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
An Overview of Management Theories
Understanding Human Motivations
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
McGregor: Theory X and Theory Y
McClelland: Three Needs Theory
Myers and Briggs: Personality Types
Herzberg: Motivators and Dissatisifiers
Motivations of Nonprofit Staff
Life Cycles and Generations
Applying Theories to Managing the Nonprofit Workforce
Managing Volunteers
Types of Volunteers
Motivations of Volunteers
Volunteer Program Practices
A Contingency Approach to Volunteer Stewardship
Volunteer Management as a Career Field
The Future of Volunteerism
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Cases 9.1–9.4 Staff and Volunteer Issues
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books/Book Chapters/Journals
Websites
Chapter 10 Marketing and Communications
Defining and Understanding Marketing
Marketing Serves the Mission
Marketing Means Action
Marketing as a Process
The Marketing Mix
Product
Place
Promotion
Market Segmentation
Price
Defining the Exchange
Building the Brand
Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)
Crafting an Effective Message
Crisis Communications
Social Media
From Gatekeepers to Connectors
Social Media Planning
Operational Questions
Evaluating Marketing and Communication
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 10.1 Rebranding 4-H
Case 10.2 Susan G. Komen Foundation
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books/Journals
Articles
Websites
Chapter 11 Advocacy and Lobbying
Basic Distinctions
Overview of Lobbying Law
Option I: Substantial Part Test
Option II: 501(h) Expenditure Test
Political Campaign Activity
Implementing an Advocacy Program
Using Social Media
Creating Movements for Social Change
Continuing Issues and Concerns
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 11.1 Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
Case 11.2 Housing First
Case 11.3 National Audubon Society
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Case
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles
Websites
PART IV Obtaining and Managing Resources
Chapter 12 Financial Management
Definitions of Key Concepts
Understanding Nonprofit Finances
Nonprofit Financial Statements
Statement of Financial Position
Statement of Activities
Statement of Cash Flows
Statement of Functional Expenses
Required Disclosures and Notes to Financial
Statements
Audits
Using Financial Ratios
Managing Endowment Funds
Developing and Managing the Budget
Financial Policies and Controls
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 12.1 Hull House
Case 12.2 The Newseum
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Newsletters
Websites
Chapter 13 Philanthropic Fundraising
Definitions and Distinctions
Motivations for Giving
Understanding Corporate Philanthropy
Foundation Giving
Motivations of Individual Donors
The Fundraising Process
Identifying Priorities and Developing the Case
Identifying and Qualifying Prospects
Cultivating Prospects
Soliciting the Gift
Acknowledging and Recognizing Donors
Stewarding the Gift and the Relationship
Individual Donor Life Cycles
Planned Giving
Campaigns
Managing Fundraising Programs
Advancement Services
Prospect Management
Fundraising Efficiency and Effectiveness
Staff Performance and Accountability
Ethics and Professional Standards
Tainted Donors and Tainted Money
Association of Fundraising Professionals Code
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Cases 13.1a–g Fundraising Ethics
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books/Book Chapters
Articles/Reports
Websites
Chapter 14 Social Enterprise and Earned Income
Defining Social Enterprise and Earned Income
Why Earned Income?
Partnerships With Business
Licensing
Sponsorships
Cause Marketing
Integrated Relationships
Operational Relationships
Putting Partnerships Together
Nonprofit Business Ventures
Identifying Business Opportunities
Feasibility Analysis and Business Planning
Earned-Income Strategies: Issues and Decisions
Sorting Out the Issues
Evaluating Opportunities Against Mission
A Continuing Debate
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 14.1 The National Geographic Society
Case 14.2 Aspire CoffeeWorks
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles
Websites
Chapter 15 Government Grants and Contracts
Changes in Sources and Patterns of Support
Grants, Contracts, and Fees
Government Support: Opportunities and Challenges
Seeking Government Support
Identifying Grant Opportunities
Evaluating Grant Opportunities
Preparing and Submitting an Application or Proposal
Nonprofits in the Policy Arena
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 15.1 SEED Foundation
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Case
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles
Websites
PART V Special Topics
Chapter 16 Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Defining and Understanding Social Entrepreneurship
Social Enterprise School
Social Innovation School
History of Social Entrepreneurship as a Field
Theories of Social Entrepreneurship
Social Entrepreneurship Across Fields and Around the
World
Building High-Impact Nonprofits
Sustaining Innovation
The Future of Social Entrepreneurship
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 16.1 KaBOOM!
Case 16.2 Harlem Children’s Zone
Questions for Discussion
Appendix Case
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Journals
Websites
Chapter 17 Governing and Managing International and Global
Organizations
Definitions and Scope of International Organizations
International Philanthropy and Fundraising
International Giving
Global Fundraising
International Nonprofit Governance and Management
Managing Across Cultures
Governing International and Global Organizations
Structuring International NGOs
Chapter Summary
Key Terms and Concepts
Case 17.1 Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without
Borders
Case 17.2 Haitian Earthquake Relief and Recovery
Questions for Discussion
Suggestions for Further Reading
Books
Articles
Websites
Conclusion
Appendix: Cases for Discussion
1. New York City Opera
2. Share Our Strength/No Kid Hungry
3. The Y
4. The Girl Scouts of the United States of America
References
Index
About the Author
PREFACE
The first edition of Nonprofit Management: Principles and Practice was
published by SAGE in 2009. The second edition was published in 2012,
the third in 2014, the fourth in 2017, and the fifth in 2019. It is striking how
much the landscape of the nonprofit sector has continued to change over
the years, requiring frequent updates to stay current with the state of the
field in nonprofit management. Changes reflected in this sixth edition of
the book include, most obviously, certain data but also trends, new
concepts and research, and new cases that have drawn attention since
the fifth edition was completed. The inevitable lag between research and
writing and publication often means that readers should be alert to recent
changes and events that may have occurred during the process of
publishing the book. Thus, even this sixth edition may have some
obsolescence by the time it reaches the reader. There are reminders of
this reality throughout the book, and it is recommended that students
consult referenced websites and other resources on points that seem
subject to change.

It is, of course, impossible to know what economic conditions will prevail


when this book reaches its readers. The recession that began in 2007,
what some people called the Great Recession, took a significant toll on
many nonprofit organizations, resulting in decreased financial resources
at a time when the demand for services was increasing. Most nonprofit
organizations survived the Great Recession, although the death rate was
higher among smaller organizations. Even larger organizations found it
necessary to reduce staff, programs, and expenditures (McKeever et al.,
2016). A decade later, by 2017, the economy had largely recovered. By
2019, unemployment was low and financial markets had reached historic
highs. Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the nation into
crisis, including a significant economic downturn. At the time of this
writing, it is impossible to predict what conditions may prevail by the time
this edition reaches its readers. Perhaps the economy will have
recovered or difficult conditions will continue. In either scenario, the Great
Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic have produced a heightened
awareness of financial uncertainty, of the need for nonprofits to use
resources efficiently and effectively, and of the importance of achieving
diverse revenue sources to weather various economic scenarios. Both
historical events have also demonstrated the critical importance of
nonprofits in meeting human and community needs.

Adding to the uncertainty of economic cycles, the federal tax law passed
in 2017 had possible implications for the nonprofit sector, including
reduced incentives for charitable giving. In the midst of the COVID-19
pandemic, emergency federal legislation was passed in 2020 to increase
tax incentives for charitable giving on a temporary basis. It is not possible
to predict at the time of this writing whether these changes will continue
beyond the emergency period. Whatever may unfold, history suggests
that the nonprofit sector will continue to face new opportunities and
challenges in the years ahead, requiring leadership by knowledgeable
and experienced professionals.
NEW TO THIS EDITION
This sixth edition includes a number of significant changes from the fifth.
First, chapter topics continued from the previous edition have been
updated to reflect new data, new research, and recent events. New
material, drawn from both the scholarly and practitioner literatures, is
incorporated at relevant points throughout the book.

In response to reviewer comments as well as the evolving landscape,


some topics from the previous edition have been expanded. They
include, for example, new material regarding diversity, equity, and
inclusion; volunteer stewardship; nonprofit executive transitions; models
for pursuing earned income; ethical dilemmas and controversial donors;
generational differences in the workplace; and the role of nonprofits in
advancing social movements. New cases have been developed for this
edition, including the Newseum, the National Geographic Society,
Generation Hope, and Burning Man. Cases that appeared in the fifth
edition have been updated to reflect recent events.
PHILOSOPHY OF THIS BOOK
A Balanced Approach
Students reading this book are likely to have varied backgrounds. Some
may be undergraduates who do not yet have substantial work experience
and perhaps wish to explore nonprofit management as a possible career
direction. Others may be graduate students who have an interest in
nonprofit careers but have not previously studied management. Still
others might have studied management but may have limited knowledge
of the unique values, characteristics, and circumstances of the nonprofit
sector or how the management principles they know can be applied in
the nonprofit environment. Yet others may be individuals with
considerable experience working in nonprofit organizations who are
pursuing further study to increase and broaden their understanding and
professional skills.

Some students reading this book may be undergraduates taking a course


that is an introduction to the nonprofit sector. Some may be enrolled in a
certificate program intended to increase the skills of nonprofit
professionals. Others may be enrolled in a program leading to a master’s
degree in nonprofit management. Some may be pursuing a master’s
degree in business, social work, public administration, or public policy,
with a concentration in nonprofit management. Still others may be taking
only one course in nonprofit management as an elective in their
undergraduate or graduate degree program, seeking only a broad and
general orientation to the field.

Given the diversity of backgrounds and goals often found among


students taking a course in nonprofit management, a textbook that seeks
to provide an overview of the field must include both theoretical concepts
and practical applications; it must cover some basics as well as
intellectually stimulating issues; it must be both rigorous and accessible
to students of varied academic backgrounds; and it must provide both a
foundation of knowledge that may serve as a springboard to more
advanced study and a comprehensive overview for those students whose
one experience with the field will consist of a single course.

This book strives to address all these diverse needs and interests, with
the author’s humble recognition that it may not succeed in meeting all of
them for all students. It attempts to provide a comprehensive exposure to
topics relevant to the field of nonprofit management, but it obviously must
be selective in its discussion of those topics. This intended balance
between comprehensiveness in topics and selectivity in their treatment
may disappoint some readers. Some may find their appetites whetted but
unsatisfied by the quick tour provided in some parts of the book. It is
possible that others may find that some chapters include ideas they have
seen before in other courses. Of course, some will find the discussion
just right for their level of previous knowledge and desire for new
understanding.

Students are encouraged to tailor their use of the book to their own
interests and backgrounds. Readers who, for example, already have
studied some of the organizational and management theories we will
discuss are encouraged to read relevant sections as a refresher but to
pay closer attention to material that is new to them. Those to whom the
theories are new, and who find their discussion in this book to be too
brief, are encouraged to explore the additional resources suggested
throughout the book. In sum, it is hoped that this book will provide a kind
of comprehensive menu, from which students may select the topics or
approaches on which they wish to “click” for more information. Both
novices and more experienced individuals may find it a foundation on
which they can build, seeking appropriate avenues for further information
and learning. Suggested additional readings are included at the end of
every chapter. And, in all likelihood, professors also will elaborate on
some topics and skip lightly over others, as they sense the tempo of their
individual classes.
Focus on Charitable Nonprofits
As will be discussed in Chapter 2, the nonprofit sector encompasses an
amazing array of organizations with different characteristics, structures,
and purposes. This book focuses primarily on that category known as
charitable nonprofits and, in particular, on those that provide services,
such as education and research, health care, arts and cultural programs,
and social and legal services. The following chapters will also sometimes
mention member-serving organizations—for example, trade and
professional associations—but primarily as points of contrast with
charitable nonprofits. Religious congregations make up a significant
component of the overall nonprofit sector, but religion is the subsector
that is the least professionalized—that is, it employs relatively few
professional managers. Thus, this book does not devote significant
discussion to the management of churches, synagogues, mosques, or
other religious congregations. We will discuss foundations, but primarily
as sources of support for service-providing nonprofits; we will not discuss
the management of foundations per se. This book does not exclude, but
also does not emphasize, those nonprofits that are primarily advocacy
organizations, also known as social welfare organizations. While they are
nonprofits, they are also different from charitable nonprofits in important
ways, as we will discuss further in Chapter 2. Of course, some principles
discussed in this book apply to all nonprofits and will be of relevance to
students intending to work in any component of the nonprofit world.
Focus on U.S. Nonprofits
This book includes a chapter on nonprofits in the global environment, but
it primarily addresses the management of nonprofit organizations in the
United States. The American nonprofit sector is the largest in the world; it
operates under unique cultural, economic, and legal circumstances. It is
where most American students of nonprofit management will pursue their
careers. In addition, as governments around the world seek to reduce
their expenditures and devolve many functions to nonprofit organizations,
many also are looking to relevant aspects of the American model in
developing their own nonprofit sectors. This is evidenced by the
significant number of international students who come to the United
States to study in this field. Previous editions of this book are in use in
countries outside of the United States; thus, even for students primarily
interested in working on the international stage, an understanding of
nonprofit management in the United States is both relevant and useful.
OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK
The first three chapters of this book provide an orientation to the nonprofit
sector and a theoretical foundation for the more applied topics
considered later. Chapter 1 introduces nonprofit management, both as a
profession and as an academic field of study, and offers a justification for
studying the topic as distinct from management in government or
business. Chapter 2 offers a look at the structure, boundaries, and
characteristics of the nonprofit sector and establishes some basic
definitions. It also discusses emerging new organizational forms that may
reshape the sector in the future. Chapter 3 expands our understanding of
the nonprofit sector by reviewing theories that explain its existence and
its role in relation to government and business. That chapter also
examines selected theories that describe the nature of nonprofit
organizations and explain their behavior.

The next two chapters, Chapters 4 and 5, consider the roles and
responsibilities of governing boards and nonprofit chief executive officers
(CEOs) and the ways in which these two vital actors interact in leading
organizations. The nonprofit governing board has functional, moral, and
legal responsibilities. Nonprofit chief executives, whether titled “executive
director,” “president,” “CEO,” or something else, lead their organizations
in a complex and dynamic environment that will be described. The
partnership between the CEO and the board is critical to a well-operating
and effective organization.

The next six chapters focus on applied aspects of nonprofit management.


Chapter 6 reviews the increasing demands for nonprofit accountability
and various approaches to measuring the performance of nonprofit
organizations. Chapter 7 discusses the development of organizational
strategy and the tools of strategic planning and strategic management
now employed by many nonprofits. Strategic planning is often the first
step in the larger undertaking of building the organization’s capacity or its
ability to achieve the goals identified in the plan; thus capacity building is
also considered in this chapter. The management of risk is a topic that
has gained more attention in recent years. Managing risk goes beyond
the simple avoidance of liability or loss, for example, protecting against
the possibility that a staff member brings a lawsuit or the building catches
fire. It is a broader concept that relates to uncertainty that could affect
achievement of the organization’s mission. It is thus related to the
development of strategy and maintaining a process for managing risk is
an important component of organizational capacity (Herman, 2011).

Chapter 8 explores collaborations and partnerships among nonprofit


organizations and those that cross the sectors. In addition, recent years
have brought mergers of nonprofit organizations, a topic that is also
considered in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 discusses both the theory and the
practice of human resource management in nonprofit organizations. This
edition includes an expanded discussion of the important topic of
diversity, equity, and inclusion and new materials related to volunteer
stewardship. One of the significant differences between many nonprofits
and business or government is the substantial employment of volunteers
to provide the organization’s core services. Management of an unpaid
workforce requires an understanding of human motivation and skill in
managing effective relationships between an organization’s volunteers
and its paid professional staff. Chapter 10 considers the management of
programs for communication and marketing, essential for organizations
that are highly interactive with and dependent on the world around them.
This section concludes with Chapter 11, which discusses advocacy and
lobbying, important activities for many nonprofit organizations that seek
to bring about social change. This sixth edition includes new material
regarding the role of nonprofits in building social movements.

The next section of the book, encompassing four chapters, is concerned


with the acquisition and management of resources. The securing of
revenue and the management of financial resources are interrelated
activities. Like many of the topics covered in this book, financial
management is large, complex, and important. Chapter 12 provides a few
basic concepts and directs students to additional sources from which
they can obtain the more detailed understanding they may seek. Chapter
13 discusses the principles of raising philanthropic funds from individual,
corporate, and foundation donors, and it includes a discussion of
controversial donors and tainted money, an issue that has gained wide
attention in recent years. Chapter 14 explores the subjects of social
enterprise and nonprofits’ earned income—that is, efforts to generate
revenue through activities other than traditional philanthropy. The chapter
examines the myriad and growing commercial partnerships between
nonprofit organizations and corporations, including cause-related
marketing, sponsorships, licensing agreements, joint ventures, and
others. It also considers nonprofit business ventures, the development of
revenue-generating activities that provide a stream of revenue to support
mission programs. This discussion has been expanded in this edition to
include models for relating earned-income to the nonprofit’s mission.
Chapter 15 considers the principles involved in securing and managing
grants and contracts from government, a significant source of revenue for
many nonprofits.

The final section of the book includes two chapters that address special
topics. Chapter 16 examines social entrepreneurship and social
innovation. Social entrepreneurship is not necessarily synonymous with
the generation of earned income revenue or even with the adoption of
business methods by nonprofit organizations. Nor is social
entrepreneurship always synonymous with the founding of new
organizations. Rather, by the definition used in this book, it includes
innovations that lead to “wide-scale change at the systemic level”
(Leviner, Crutchfield, & Wells, 2006, p. 89). In other words, social
entrepreneurship is related to social innovation, regardless of the specific
methods or financial sources that may be involved. These distinctions will
be explored fully in Chapter 16. Chapter 17 looks beyond the United
States to discuss the work of nonprofit and nongovernmental
organizations internationally. The conclusion offers some of the author’s
final reflections and observations.

Students may observe that the book does not include a chapter on
nonprofit law. Nonprofits are subject to a large and growing body of law
at the local, state, and federal levels. However, aspects of nonprofit law
are covered in the various chapters where they are most relevant rather
than in a separate chapter. The book provides references to other
resources for students who may want to know more. The book also does
not include a separate chapter on ethics; rather, ethical issues are
addressed at various points throughout the text. For example, ethical
points are included in the discussion of Chapter 6 concerning
accountability and in the discussion of fundraising in Chapter 13. The
discussion of ethics has been enhanced in this edition in all of the
relevant contexts, reflecting an increased emphasis on ethical behavior
throughout the sector.

Attentive readers will observe that there is some redundancy among the
chapters, that is, some points are repeated, at least in summary, in
various locations. The author has tried to minimize redundancy, but some
points are woven throughout various topics and require brief revisiting as
new discussions are introduced. In addition, some professors may not
assign all chapters and some repetition of key points is thus essential to
complete the discussion on some topics.

Again, all the following chapters draw on the theoretical and academic
literature as well as the writing of experienced practitioners and
consultants. Key points are illustrated with actual cases, some drawn
from the daily headlines. Students are encouraged to include the cases in
their reading of each chapter, to consider the questions suggested for
discussion of the cases, and to consider the broader “Questions for
Discussion” provided at the end of each chapter. The appendix includes
four cases that cut across the topics covered in various chapters but that
may have particular relevance to specific chapters as well. Students are
also encouraged to think about the relevance of what they are reading to
any nonprofit organizations with which they may have personal
experience. In addition, the daily news within the span of almost any
semester or academic year includes stories that relate to nonprofit
organizations and provide real-time cases that illustrate points discussed
in this book.
TEACHING RESOURCES
This text includes an array of instructor teaching materials designed to
save you time and to help you keep students engaged. To learn more,
visit sagepub.com or contact your SAGE representative at
sagepub.com/findmyrep.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a book is a collective enterprise, even when the book has one
author. Any author builds on the work of others, and this text reflects the
wisdom of the many scholars and practitioners who are cited throughout
it.

I am grateful to my SAGE/CQ Press editor, Anna Villarruel, who


supported my undertaking of this sixth edition.

I am grateful as well to those who have reviewed this text; their frank
comments have added immeasurably to this revision.

I have learned immensely from my students at the George Washington


University, from my faculty colleagues, and from the many nonprofit
executives who have participated in various classes of mine over the
years. I thank them for the education they have provided me and hope
that they will find this book to be a useful contribution to the field. I thank
Miranda Hines and Stephanie Palmer, graduate students at the George
Washington University Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public
Administration, for their administrative support in the preparation of this
edition.

Michael J. Worth

Professor of Nonprofit Management

The George Washington University

Washington, DC
PART I UNDERSTANDING
NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT, THE
NONPROFIT SECTOR, AND
NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Chapter 1 Nonprofit Management as a Profession and a Field of


Study

Chapter 2 Overview of the Nonprofit Sector

Chapter 3 Theories of the Nonprofit Sector and Nonprofit


Organizations
CHAPTER 1 NONPROFIT
MANAGEMENT AS A PROFESSION
AND A FIELD OF STUDY
Visitor center of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in
Seattle. The Gates Foundation, founded in 2000, focuses
its giving on world health and urban education in the United
States, among other areas.
Jacklee/CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)/Wikimedia
Commons
Chapter Outline

A Revolution in Management

A Distinct Profession

Nonprofit Management as a Field of Study

Toward a Balanced Approach

Proceeding With Realism and Pride

Chapter Summary
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should be able to

1. Describe the differences between management in the


nonprofit sector and management in other sectors.
2. Explain various approaches to the study of nonprofit
organizations.
3. Describe the growth of nonprofit management as a
professional field and a field of study.
4. Explain forces that have led to the professionalization of
nonprofit management.
5. Classify various authors in terms of their perspective on the
nonprofit sector.

This is a book about the management of nonprofit organizations. The


topic begs two fundamental questions: Why do nonprofit organizations
need to be managed? And, is management of a nonprofit organization
really different from management of a business or government agency?
In other words, is there really a need for a book like this, or is
management a generic activity that could be learned as well from a
textbook on business or public management?

Some may hold a perception of nonprofit organizations as primarily


collections of well-intentioned people who struggle with minimal
resources to meet human needs, without much attention to the bottom
line, and with some disdain for management as an unwelcome distraction
from the all-important work of delivering vital programs and services. This
stereotype, if ever true, does not describe all nonprofit organizations
today. Indeed, there has been a management revolution in the nonprofit
sector in recent decades, and many nonprofits face management
challenges no less complex than those faced by major corporations or
large government agencies.

For most people, the term “nonprofit” conjures up the image of a small
organization, perhaps run by a tiny band of volunteers more focused on
delivering services to people in need than on building or managing an
organization. Indeed, most nonprofit organizations are small, with
perhaps few, if any, professional staff, but there are also others with
activities that span the nation and the globe and that employ thousands
of people.

Mention the word “business” and people will likely think first of a large
corporation such as Walmart or Apple, although, in reality, most
businesses are small. But it is large business enterprises that are the
focus of most management texts and MBA case studies. That is
because, as in the nonprofit sector, the need for management varies with
the size and scope of activity. The corner dry cleaner needs few
management skills beyond basic accounting and a rudimentary
understanding of how to manage a few employees. The young
technology entrepreneur starting a new business in the family garage is
focused not on management but on development and delivery of a
product, much as the directors of small nonprofits are often more
concerned with delivering programs than with building or managing the
organization. As a company grows, requiring outside investment and
employing more people, its need for professional management increases.
Founding entrepreneurs are often replaced by MBAs who have formal
management training. So, too, as a nonprofit organization becomes
larger, it faces more complex and interesting management challenges,
especially if it comes to operate in more than one location across the
United States or internationally. This book includes some examples
drawn from small nonprofit organizations, but it is principally about
organizations that have at least some full-time paid staff, and it includes
examples and cases drawn from some of the nation’s largest and best-
known nonprofits.
A REVOLUTION IN MANAGEMENT
The nonprofit management revolution of recent decades has been driven
by several forces, including the introduction of competition resulting from
changes in funding patterns, the growth of the sector, and increasing
demands for accountability. The decades since the 1980s have seen
reductions in direct federal government funding for many social
programs, the devolution of funding to state governments, and increased
outsourcing of the delivery of social and human services by government
agencies to nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits have been forced to
compete for contracts against each other and, in some cases, against
for-profit firms. In addition, many government benefits are now provided
through voucher-type payments made directly to individuals, who are
thus transformed into customers, free to purchase the services they need
in the marketplace. Such customers can thus select the organizations
that will provide services based on perceptions of quality and other
considerations; this forces nonprofits to compete for their business. Like
the competition for contracts, the competition for empowered customers
has forced nonprofits to either become better managed or place their
survival at risk.

But government has not been the only force driving change. Other
funders, including foundations and even individual donors, have shown
an increased concern with the results achieved by nonprofits through the
programs they offer. This has been especially true of many newly wealthy
entrepreneurs who amassed their fortunes during the technology boom of
the 1990s, the thriving financial services and real estate industries of the
mid-2000s, and the booming stock market and social media businesses
of the 2010s. Many view their philanthropic giving as a type of investment
from which they expect to see a measurable return in the form of
effective programs and services. The requirement that nonprofits meet
such expectations for measurable results has also increased the need for
management.

In recent decades, there has also been a shift in thinking about nonprofit
organizations that focuses more on the organization itself rather than
merely on the programs and services it delivers. This new focus
emphasizes the capacity and sustainability of organizations, ideas we will
discuss later in this book. The 1990s brought searing critiques of
traditional philanthropy and the management of nonprofits. Among them
was a Harvard Business Review article by Christine Letts, William Ryan,
and Allen Grossman (1997), titled “Virtuous Capital: What Foundations
Can Learn From Venture Capitalists.” The article essentially was an
indictment of traditional foundations’ grant-making practices, arguing that
the short-term program grants made by most foundations were not
meeting the need for investment in the long-term capacity of nonprofit
organizations themselves. Letts et al. advocated an approach to
philanthropy that would parallel the approach of venture capitalists to
investing in companies, including a more sustained commitment to
support along with the requirement that organizations meet performance
standards. Bill Shore’s book The Cathedral Within (1999), published two
years after the article by Letts et al., expressed similar criticisms of
traditional philanthropy. Shore argued that funders’ emphasis on
programs rather than on building organizations was in fact preventing
many successful programs from “going to scale,” that is, growing to a
point that they could have significant impact, because the organizations
did not have the capacity to expand. A decade later, Ann Goggins
Gregory and Don Howard (2009) made similar points, identifying a
“nonprofit starvation cycle,” a term that became part of the vocabulary in
discussing nonprofits. It refers to a vicious cycle, in which organizations
minimize their overhead costs to please funders, which in turn reduces
their ability to produce the results that funders desire.

The ideas of Letts and colleagues, Shore, Gregory and Howard, and
others have contributed to a change in thinking about nonprofits, one that
shifts focus from the programs they offer to the strength and sustainability
of the organizations themselves. It was, in the words of Jim Collins and
Jerry Porras (1994), a shift of emphasis from “telling time” to “building
clocks.” This new emphasis on nonprofit organizational development has
also been a force in increasing the demand for professional nonprofit
management.

Some philanthropists have come to view nonprofit organizations as


vehicles through which they can address social problems that are of
particular interest and concern to them. With frustration about the
persistence of problems such as poverty, despite decades of government
efforts to overcome them, many entrepreneurial philanthropists believe
that private philanthropy and private, nonprofit organizations offer a more
promising strategy of attack. This is illustrated, for example, by the work
of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses its giving on world
health and urban education in the United States, among other areas, and
which has had significant impact by virtue of the substantial financial
resources at its disposal. This conflation of national issues and concerns
with the work of nonprofits has increased the importance of the sector
and contributed to the emphasis on measurable results (Brest, 2012).

Another reality is that the dramatic growth of the nonprofit sector and its
assets has simply raised the stakes. Fueled in part by a wave of
philanthropy based on the growing wealth of entrepreneurs and
investors, in part by the continued devolution of government programs,
and in part by an increased worldwide interest in voluntary action,
nonprofits now employ more people and control more resources than
ever before. The nonprofit sector has become a consequential part of the
American economy that cannot be ignored. Therefore, it has captured the
increasing attention of legislators, the media, and others who demand
that nonprofits be accountable for the assets entrusted to them and for
the results that they achieve with those assets. This reflects an increased
concern with accountability throughout American society, affecting
government agencies and businesses as well as nonprofits. Demands for
accountability and the need for systems and procedures to comply with
greater scrutiny and regulation have also contributed to the need for
trained managers.

In sum, if it were ever true that the typical nonprofit organization fit the
image of a well-intentioned but unmanaged endeavor, nonprofit
organizations today, other than perhaps the smallest, must be managed.
To be otherwise is not only to risk failure in meeting society’s needs and
expectations but also to place the organization’s survival at risk.
However, the question remains whether managing a nonprofit
organization is different from managing a government agency or a
business corporation. Is management generic, or is management in the
nonprofit sector a distinguishable endeavor?
A DISTINCT PROFESSION
Throughout most of the history of management as a recognized
discipline, most theorists have advocated a generic approach, arguing
that common management principles would apply equally to all
organizations, whether businesses, government agencies, or nonprofits.
And there remain some who are skeptical that management in the
nonprofit sector is unique or that it requires particularly distinctive skills.

At an operational level, surely management in the nonprofit sector


requires many of the same skills that are also important in government or
business management. There may not be a particularly nonprofit way of
processing payroll or implementing a new information system, and
indeed, many of the techniques of business management have been
adopted by nonprofit organizations as well. But this book is predicated on
the view that nonprofit management is different from management in the
business or governmental sector in a variety of ways, including the
following four.

First, as Robert Herman (2016) explains, nonprofit management requires


a unique set of trade-offs:

A [nonprofit] chief executive, in conjunction with the board, must


integrate the realms of mission, resource acquisition, and
strategy. To oversimplify but phrase the issue more memorably,
mission, money, and management are interdependent. Making
progress on mission achievement depends, in part, on the
potential for resource acquisition. Any mission, no matter how
worthy, is likely to fail if the organization lacks necessary and
sufficient resources to pursue it. Conversely, the acquisition of
some kinds of resources can influence the mission. Moreover,
decisions about strategies for acquiring resources must be
consistent with the mission and ethical values of the
organization. Actions in one realm affect the other realms. The
leadership challenge is to see that decisions and actions in one
realm are not only consistent with those in other realms but also
mutually reinforcing. (pp. 167–168)

Managers of government agencies generally have a single source of


revenue—for example, the U.S. Congress or a state legislature—and
carry out programs mandated by the law. Managers in business receive
revenue from the sale of products or services and have the freedom to
decide what goods or services they will provide and to which customers.
More sales translate into increased revenues, and activities that are not
profitable can be discontinued. The same relationships do not always
hold true for a nonprofit. Most nonprofits obtain resources from multiple
sources and, like businesses, have considerable freedom to determine
the activities in which they will engage. However, one important
difference is that increased activity may strain resources rather than
enhance them. That is because not all of a nonprofit’s customers may
pay the full cost of producing the good or service, and indeed, some may
not pay at all. Judy Vredenburgh, president and CEO of Girls Inc. and a
former executive of Big Brothers Big Sisters and the March of Dimes,
describes the dilemma: “Every time we in nonprofits satisfy customers,
we drain resources, and every time for-profits satisfy a customer, they get
resources. That sounds very simple, but it has huge implications”
(Silverman & Taliento, 2006, p. 41).

Thus, as Herman (2016) suggests, management of a nonprofit


organization requires constant trade-offs among the mission, the
acquisition of resources, and strategy. That distinguishes nonprofit
management from the management function in the business or public
sectors. Management in those sectors, while also complex, at least
begins with some fixed points of clear goals and positive relationships
between activities and revenues. Managing a nonprofit is more like
swimming in the air, with everything variable and in constant motion.

Second, the complex relationships among a nonprofit organization’s


stakeholders require management that is especially skilled in negotiation
and compromise, with a high tolerance for ambiguity. In corporations and
in government agencies, the flow of authority from the top down is
generally clear. But, as Helmut Anheier (2014) describes,
nonprofit organizations consist of multiple components and
complex, internal federations or coalitions among stakeholders
… [therefore] the structure of nonprofit organizations may
require a multi-faceted, flexible approach to management and
not the use of singular, ready-made models carried over from
the business world or from public management. (p. 328)

Jim Collins (2005) recounts a meeting between Frances Hesselbein,


chief executive officer (CEO) of the Girl Scouts of the United States of
America at the time, and a New York Times columnist, in which the CEO
addressed this unique characteristic of nonprofit management:

[The columnist] asked what it felt like to be on top of such a


large organization. With patience, like a teacher pausing to
impart an important lesson, Hesselbein proceeded to rearrange
the lunch table, creating a set of concentric circles radiating
outward—plates, cups, saucers—connected by knives, forks,
spoons. Hesselbein pointed to a glass in the middle of the table.
“I’m here,” she said. Hesselbein may have had the title of Chief
Executive Officer, but her message was clear: I’m not on top of
anything. (p. 9)

Nonprofit management is unique because nonprofit organizations are


different from businesses and governmental entities—often reliant on the
support of donors and the work of volunteers, pursuing missions derived
from values and principles about which there may be disagreement, and
engendering a sense of ownership and a desire for influence among
multiple constituencies both inside and outside the walls of the
organization itself. In this environment, a nonprofit CEO must provide
leadership as well as management, a distinction we will explore further in
Chapter 5. Robert Higgins, who worked as both a nonprofit executive and
a venture capitalist and thus was able to observe the differences between
the sectors firsthand, explains,
Another random document with
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When Toodles was left alone he started out on a tour of inspection.
The first objects of interest were the dead chicken and the peach-pit
basket, but his attention was soon detracted from these by the bright
pan that held the cream; it had been pushed to the edge of the table.
As Toodles approached it he saw the reflection of a chubby baby
face on the outside.
“Baby,” said Toodles. He smiled and the pan baby smiled, and he
concluded that the pan must be full of pretty, smiling babies, and he
wanted them to play with. He could just get his little fingers over the
edge of the pan. He pulled and tugged with all his might to get the
pan baby down.
He succeeded, for the pan toppled over and deluged the
immaculate Toodles with thick, yellow cream. His pretty curls were
filled with chunks of oily coagulation, and cream ran in rivulets down
his little back and bosom.
He seated himself in the middle of it and paddled and spattered in
great glee.
The calf pen took longer to fix than Jack had expected, and as he
neared the house he heard the clock striking twelve, and, looking
fieldward, he saw his wife coming to dinner.
“Jumping Jupiter! what will she say?” was his mental comment.
“But she will soon fix things, I’ll bet.”
As he entered the kitchen what a sight met his gaze. The room
was dark with smoke from burned prunes, the table piled full of
unwashed pans and dishes. The cream. Heavens, the cream! The
dead chicken lay in the middle of the floor and the pit-basket was
upset, as Toodles had left it for the pan baby. The open-mouthed
churn stared at him.
Mr. Telfer opened the oven door; his pie was a black mass.
“I can see now why women sit down and cry sometimes. I’m
blessed if I don’t feel like it myself,” he said.
Toodles, drenched but happy, called from the middle of his cream
puddle, “High me, papa; high me.”
Mrs. Telfer called out as she passed the house: “Hello! Dinner
ready? I’m awful hungry.” But her husband was not visible.
She had enjoyed her morning’s work and was in excellent spirits.
She watered and fed the team, then started for the house. The
novelty of the situation amused her. She expected Jack would have
some surprise ready, some extra dish for dinner, the table decorated
with flowers or, perhaps, be tricked out in one of her white aprons
with his hair curled and a pink ribbon around his neck to show how a
wife should greet her husband.
He was such a wag it was impossible to tell what he might do. As
she entered the house she stood dumb with amazement. Her eyes
took in the situation. The breakfast dishes, the burned pie, the
creamy Toodles, the dead chicken, the littered sitting-room with the
remains of Toodles’ toilet and the distracted-looking man.
“How soon will dinner be ready?” she asked. But her husband did
not answer; he was busy picking up peach pits. “I’ve got to get back
to work as soon as I can,” she continued.
Crossing the room, she took up a paper and went outside and sat
down in the shade to read.
Toodles, greasy and dripping, trotted after.
“Oh, baby, go to papa and get cleaned up. Go tell papa to clean
baby up, darling,” said his mother. And the little fellow hurried into
the house, saying: “Keen baby up, papa; keen baby up.”
Poor Jack, he had lost out. He was hopelessly balled up. He was
mad. He had felt somehow that his troubles were over when he saw
his wife coming, but when she took the paper and sat down to read,
leaving him in that awful muss, the iron entered his soul.
Yet he knew that was exactly the way he did, and only yesterday
when she asked him to get a pitcher of fresh water for dinner he had
said:
“It’s a pity a man can’t get a moment to rest without having to
chore around the house.”
“Keen baby up, papa; keen baby up!” reiterated Toodles. Jack
looked down at the greasy, smeary child with its cream-matted curls
and capitulated.
“Say, Jennie,” he called, “I’ll give up. I know when I’m worsted. It’s
my treat. If you’ll come in here and help me out of this mix-up you
can name your own price and I’ll pay it. I’ve worked all the morning
and haven’t done a blamed thing but get all balled up. I never would
have believed a woman had so much to do if I hadn’t tried it. I am
dead sore at the whole deal.”
“Why, Jack,” laughed his wife, as she came to his assistance, “you
don’t seem to like paper-flower work. I guess you forgot to tie one
hand behind you and so used both to throw time at the birds.”
“Now see here, Jennie, don’t strike a man when he’s down. I’ll
admit that I’m not nearly so smart as I thought I was this morning,
but how things ever got in this shape I can’t tell,” said Jack with a
grim smile.
Together they soon brought order out of chaos, and as they sat
eating their picked-up dinner Jack said:
“If it is all the same to you, Jennie, I’ll finish the orchard this
afternoon.”—The Los Angeles Times.

A BAD NIGHT
By J. Ross Browne
I gradually dropped off into a doze, a mere doze, for I scorn the
charge of having slept a wink that night. The grating of the
grindstones, the everlasting clatter of tongues, the dust, the chaff,
smoke, and fleas, to say nothing of the roar of the water down below,
were enough to banish all hope of sleep; I merely closed my eyes to
try how ridiculous it would feel. How long they remained closed I
scarcely know; it was not long, however, for I soon heard a heavy
breathing close by my head, and felt the warm breath of some
monster on my face. I knew it to be no Arab; it blew and snuffed
altogether unlike anything of the human kind. Thinking it might be all
fancy, I cautiously put out my hand in the dark and began to feel
around me. For some moments I could discover nothing, but in
waving my hand around I at length touched something—something
that sent the blood flying back to my heart a good deal quicker than it
ever flew before. To tell the honest truth, I never was so startled in all
the previous adventures of my life. The substance that I put my hand
on was bare and warm; it was wet also and slimy, and had large
nostrils which seemed to be in the act of smelling me, previous to the
act of mastication. With the quickness of lightning I jerked up my
hand, and felt it glide along a skin covered with long rough hair; the
next instant my ears were stunned by the most dreadful noises,
which resembled, as I thought in the horror of the moment, the
roaring of a full-grown lion. But it was not the roaring of a lion; it was
only the braying of an ass.—From The Mill of Malaha.

AN UNTHANKFUL ORPHAN
By Kate Langley Bosher
My name is Mary Cary. I live in the Yorkburg Female Orphan
Asylum. You may think nothing happens in an Orphan Asylum. It
does. The orphans are sure enough children, and real, much like the
kind that have Mothers and Fathers; but though they don’t give
parties or wear truly Paris clothes, things happen.
To-day I was kept in. Yesterday, too. I don’t mind, for I would rather
watch the lightning up here than be down in the basement with the
others. There are days when I love thunder and lightning. I can’t
flash and crash, being just Mary Cary; but I’d like to, and when it is
done for me it is a relief to my feelings.
The reason I was kept in was this: Yesterday Mr. Gaffney, the one
with a sunk eye and cold in his head perpetual, came to talk to us for
the benefit of our characters. He thinks it’s his duty, and, just
naturally loving to talk, he wears us out once a week anyhow.
Yesterday, not agreeing with what he said, I wouldn’t pretend I did,
and I was punished prompt, of course.
I don’t care for duty-doers, and I tried not to listen to him; but
tiresome talk is hard not to hear—it makes you so mad. Hear him I
did, and when, after he had ambled on until I thought he really was
castor-oil and I had swallowed him, he blew his nose and said:
“You have much, my children, to be thankful for, and for everything
you should be thankful. Are you? If so, stand up. Rise, and stand
upon your feet.”
I didn’t rise. All the others did—stood on their feet, just like he
asked. None tried their heads. I was the only one that sat, and when
his good eye stared at me in such astonishment, I laughed out loud. I
couldn’t help it, I truly couldn’t.
I’m not thankful for everything, and that’s why I didn’t stand up.
Can you be thankful for toothache, or stomachache, or any kind of
ache? You cannot. And not meant to be, either.
The room got awful still, and then presently he said:
“Mary Cary”—his voice was worse than his eye—“Mary Cary, do
you mean to say you have not a thankful heart?” And he pointed his
finger at me like I was the Jezebel lady come to life.
I didn’t answer, thinking it safer, and he asked again:
“Do I understand, Mary Cary”—and by this time he was real red-in-
the-face mad—“do I understand you are not thankful for all that
comes to you? Do I understand aright?”
“Yes, sir, you understand right,” I said, getting up this time. “I am
not thankful for everything in my life. I’d be much thankfuller to have
a Mother and Father on earth than to have them in heaven. And
there are a great many other things I would like different.” And down
I sat, and was kept in for telling the truth.
Miss Bray says it was for impertinence (Miss Bray is the Head
Chief of this Institution), but I didn’t mean to be impertinent. I truly
didn’t. Speaking facts is apt to make trouble, though—also writing
them. To-day Miss Bray kept me in for putting something on the
blackboard I forgot to rub out. I wrote it just for my own relief, not
thinking about anybody else seeing it. What I wrote was this:
“Some people are crazy all the time;
All people are crazy sometimes.”

That’s why I’m up in the punishment-room to-day, and it only


proves that what I wrote is right. It’s crazy to let people know you
know how queer they are. Miss Bray takes personal everything I do,
and when she saw that blackboard, up-stairs she ordered me at
once. She loves to punish me, and it’s a pleasure I give her often.
She thinks she could run this earth better than it’s being done, and
she walks around like she is the Superintendent of most of it.
But she’s taught me a good deal about Human Nature, Miss Bray
has. About the side I didn’t know. I think I will make a special study of
Human Nature. I thought once I’d take up Botany in particular, as I
love flowers; or Astronomy, so as to find out all about those million
worlds in the sky, so superior to earth, and so much larger; but I
think, now, I’ll settle on Human Nature. Nobody ever knows what it is
going to do, which makes it full of surprises, but there’s a lot that’s
real interesting about it. I like it. As for its Bray side, I’ll try not to think
about it; but if there are puddles, I guess it’s well to know where, so
as not to step in them. I wish we didn’t have to know about puddles
and things! I’d so much rather know little and be happy than find out
the miserable much some people do. God is going to have a hard
time with Miss Bray. She’s right old to change, and she’s set in her
ways—bad ways.
Did you know I wrote poetry? Umhm. I do. Last week I wrote one.
This is it:

“In the winter, by the fireside, when the snow falls soft and white,
I am waiting, hoping, longing, but for what I don’t know quite.
And when summer’s sunshine shimmers, and the birds sing clear
and sweet,
I am waiting, always waiting, for the joy I hope to meet.

“It will be, I think, my husband, and the home he’ll make for me;
But of his coming or home-making, I as yet no signs do see.
But I still shall keep on waiting, for I know it’s true as fate,
When you really, truly hustle, things will come if just you’ll wait.”

Miss Bray was to get married. When I grow up I am going to marry


a million-dollar man, so I can travel around the world and have a
house in Paris with twenty bathrooms in it. And I’m going to have
horses and automobiles and a private car and balloons, if they are
working all right by that time. I hope they will be, for I want something
in which I can soar up and sit and look down on other people.
All my life people have looked down on me, passing me by like I
was a Juny bug or a caterpillar, and I don’t wonder. I’m merely Mary
Cary with fifty-eight more just like me. Blue calico, white dots for
winter, white calico, blue dots for summer. Black sailor hats and
white sailor hats with blue capes for cold weather, and no fire to
dress by, and freezing fingers when it’s cold, and no ice-water when
it’s hot.
Yes, I am going to marry a rich man. I will try to love him, but if I
can’t I will be polite to him and travel alone as much as possible. But
I am going to be rich some day, I am. And when I come back to
Yorkburg eyes will bulge, for the clothes I am going to wear will make
mouths water, they’re going to be so grand.
It seems like every time Miss Katherine goes away from the
’Sylum I’d be bad. Last time she hadn’t been gone two days till I’d
invented more trouble. It was this way: In the summer we have much
more time than in the winter, and the children kept coming to me
asking me to make up something, and all of a sudden a play came in
my mind. I just love acting. The play was to be the marriage of Dr.
Rudd and Miss Bray.
You see, Miss Bray is dead in love with Dr. Rudd—really addled
about him. And whenever he comes to see any of the children who
are sick she is so solitious and sweet and smiley that we call her, to
ourselves, Ipecac Mollie. Other days, plain Mollie Cottontail. It
seemed to me if we could just think him into marrying her, it would be
the best work we’d ever done, and I thought it was worth trying.
They say if you just think and think and think about a thing you can
make somebody else think about it, too. And not liking Dr. Rudd, we
didn’t mind thinking her on him, and so we began. Every day we’d
meet for an hour and think together, and each one promised to think
single, and in between times we got ready.
Becky Drake says love goes hard late in life, and sometimes
touches the brain. Maybe that accounts for Miss Bray.
She is fifty-three years old, and all frazzled out and done up with
adjuncts. But Dr. Rudd, being a man with not even usual sense, and
awful conceited, don’t see what we see, and swallows easy. Men are
funny—funny as some women.
I don’t think he’s ever thought of courting Miss Bray. But she’s
thought of it, and for once we tried to help her, and the play was a
corker; it certainly was. We chose Friday night because Miss Jones
always takes tea with her aunt that night, and Miss Bray goes to
choir practicing. I wish everybody could hear her sing! Gabriel ought
to engage her to wake the dead—only they’d want to die again.
Dr. Rudd is in the choir, and she just lives on having Friday nights
to look forward to.
The ceremony took place in the basement-room where we play in
bad weather. It’s across from the dining-room, the kitchen being
between, and it’s a right nice place to march in, being long and
narrow.
I was the preacher, and Prudence Arch and Nita Polley, Emma
Clark and Margaret Witherspoon were the bridesmaids.
Lizzie Wyatt was the bride, and Katie Freeman, who is the tallest
girl in the house, though only fourteen, was the groom.
Katie is so thin she would do as well for one thing in this life as
another, so we made her Dr. Rudd.
We didn’t have but two men. Miss Webb says they’re really not
necessary at weddings, except the groom and minister. Nobody
notices them, and, besides, we couldn’t get the pants.
I was an Episcopal minister, so I wouldn’t need any.
If anybody thinks that wedding was slumpy, they think wrong. It
was thrilly. When the bride and groom and the bridesmaids came in,
all the girls were standing in rows on either side of the walls, making
an aisle in between, and they sang a wedding-song I had invented
from my heart.
It was to the Lohengrin tune, which is a little wobbly for words, but
they got them in all right, keeping time with their hands. These are
the words:

Here comes the bride,


God save the groom!
And please don’t let any chil-i-il-dren come,
For they don’t know
How children feel,
Nor do they know how with children to deal.

She’s still an old maid,


Though she would not have been
Could she have mar-ri-ed any kind of man.
But she could not.
So to the Humane
She came, and caus-ed a good deal of pain.

But now she’s here


To be married, and go
Away with her red-headed, red-bearded beau.
Have mercy, Lord,
And help him to bear
What we’ve been doing this many a year!

And such singing! We’d been practicing in the back part of the
yard, and humming in bed, so as to get the words into the tune; but
we hadn’t let out until that night. That night we let go.
There’s nothing like singing from your heart, and, though I was the
minister and stood on a box which was shaky, I sang too. I led.
The bride didn’t think it was modest to hold up her head, and she
was the only silent one. But the bridegroom and bridesmaids sang,
and it sounded like the revivals at the Methodist church. It was
grand.
And that bride! She was Miss Bray. A graven image of her couldn’t
have been more like her.
She was stuffed in the right places, and her hair was frizzled just
like Miss Bray’s. Frizzled in front, and slick and tight in the back; and
her face was a purple pink, and powdered all over, with a piece of
dough just above her mouth on the left side to correspond with Miss
Bray’s mole.
And she held herself so like her, shoulders back, and making that
little nervous sniffle with her nose, like Miss Bray makes when she’s
excited, that once I had to wink at her to stop.
The groom didn’t look like Dr. Rudd. But she wore men’s clothes,
and that’s the only way you’d know some men were men, and almost
anything will do for a groom. Nobody noticed him.
We were getting on just grand, and I was marrying away, telling
them what they must do and what they mustn’t do. Particularly that
they mustn’t get mad and leave each other, for Yorkburg was very
old-fashioned and didn’t like changes, and would rather stick to its
mistakes than go back on its word. And then I turned to the bride.
“Miss Bray,” I said, “have you told this man you are marrying that
you are two-faced and underhand, and can’t be trusted to tell the
truth? Have you told him that nobody loves you, and that for years
you have tried to pass for a lamb, when you are an old sheep? And
does he know that though you’re a good manager on little and are
not lazy, that your temper’s been ruined by economizing, and that at
times, if you were dead, there’d be no place for you? Peter wouldn’t
pass you, and the devil wouldn’t stand you. And does he know he’s
buying a pig in a bag, and that the best wedding present he could
give you would be a set of new teeth? And will you promise to stop
pink powder and clean your finger-nails every day? And—”
But I got no further, for something made me look up, and there,
standing in the door, was the real Miss Bray.
All I said was—“Let us pray!”—Abridged from “Mary Cary,”
copyrighted by The Century Company, New York, and used by the
kind consent of author and publisher.

A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR A LADY


By Myra Kelly
It was the week before Christmas, and the First-Reader Class had,
almost to a man, decided on the gifts to be lavished on “Teacher.”
But Morris Mogilewsky, whose love for Teacher was far greater than
the combined loves of all the other children, had as yet no present to
bestow. The knowledge saddened all his hours and was the more
maddening because it could in no wise be shared by Teacher, who
noticed his altered bearing and tried with all sorts of artful
beguilements to make him happy and at ease. But her efforts served
only to increase his unhappiness and his love. And he loved her! Oh,
how he loved her! Since first his dreading eyes had clung for a
breath’s space to her “like man’s shoes” and had then crept timidly
up to her “light face,” she had been mistress of his heart of hearts.
That was more than three months ago. And well he remembered the
day!
His mother had washed him horribly, and had taken him into the
big, red schoolhouse, so familiar from the outside, but so full of
unknown terrors within.
He was then dragged through long halls and up tall stairs by a
large boy, who spoke to him disdainfully as “greenie,” so that his
spirit was quite broken and his nerves were all unstrung when he
was pushed into a room full of bright sunshine and of children who
laughed at his frightened little face. The sunshine smote his timid
eyes, the laughter smote his timid heart, and he turned to flee. But
the door was shut, the large boy gone, and despair took him for its
own.
Down upon the floor he dropped, and wailed, and wept, and
kicked. It was then that he heard, for the first time, the voice which
now he loved.
“Why, my dear little chap, you mustn’t cry like that. What’s the
matter?”
The hand was gentle and the question kind, and these, combined
with a faint perfume suggestive of drug-stores and barber-shops—
but nicer than either—made him uncover his hot little face. Kneeling
beside him was a lady, and he forced his eyes to that perilous
ascent; from shoes to skirt, from skirt to jumper, from jumper to face,
they trailed in dread uncertainty, but at the face they stopped. They
had found—rest.
Morris allowed himself to be gathered into the lady’s arms, and
held upon her knee, and when his sobs no longer rent the very
foundations of his pink and wide-spread tie, he answered her
question in a voice as soft as his eyes, and as gently sad.
“I ain’t so big, and I don’t know where is my mamma.”
Thereafter he had been the first to arrive every morning, and the
last to leave every afternoon; and under the care of Teacher, his
liege lady, he had grown in wisdom and love and happiness. But the
greatest of these was love. And now, when the other boys and girls
were planning surprises and gifts of price for Teacher, his hands
were as empty as his heart was full. Appeal to his mother met with
denial prompt and energetic.
“For what you go und make, over Christmas, presents?”
“All the other fellows buys her presents, und I’m loving mit her too;
it’s polite I gives her presents the while I’m got such a kind feeling
over her,” said Morris stoutly.
“Well, we ain’t got no money for buy nothings,” said Mrs.
Mogilewsky sadly. “No money, und your papa, he has all times a
scare he shouldn’t to get no more.”
So Morris was helpless, his mother poor, and Teacher all
unknowing.
And now the great day, the Friday before Christmas, came, and
the school was, for the first half-hour, quite mad. Room 18, generally
so placid and so peaceful, was a howling wilderness full of brightly
colored, quickly changing groups of children, all whispering, all
gurgling, and all hiding queer bundles.
Isidore Belchatosky was the first to lay tribute before Teacher. He
came forward with a sweet smile and a tall candlestick, and Teacher,
for a moment, could not be made to understand that all that length of
bluish-white china was really hers “for keeps.”
“It’s to-morrow holiday,” Isidore assured her; “and we gives you
presents, the while we have a kind feeling. Candlesticks could to
cost twenty-five cents.”
“It’s a lie! three for ten,” said a voice in the background; but
Teacher hastened to respond to Isidore’s test of her credulity.
“Indeed, they could. This candlestick could have cost fifty cents,
and it’s just what I want. It is very good of you to bring me a present.”
“You’re welcome,” said Isidore, retiring.
And then, the ice being broken, the First-Reader Class in a body
rose to cast its gifts on Teacher’s desk, and its arms around
Teacher’s neck.
Nathan Horowitz presented a small cup and saucer; Isidore
Applebaum bestowed a large calendar for the year before last; Sadie
Gonorowsky brought a basket containing a bottle of perfume, a
thimble, and a bright silk handkerchief; Sarah Schrodsky offered a
pen-wiper and a yellow celluloid collarbutton, and Eva Kidansky
gave an elaborate nasal douche, under the pleasing delusion that it
was an atomizer.
Jacob Spitsky pressed forward with a tortoise-shell comb of
terrifying aspect and hungry teeth, and an air showing forth a
determination to adjust it in its destined place. Teacher meekly
bowed her head; Jacob forced his offering into her long-suffering
hair, and then retired with the information “Costs fifteen cents,
Teacher.”
Meanwhile the rush of presentation went steadily on. Cups and
saucers came in wild profusion. The desk was covered with them.
The soap, too, became urgently perceptible. It was of all sizes,
shapes and colors, but of uniform and dreadful power of perfume.
Teacher’s eyes filled with tears—of gratitude—as each new piece or
box was pressed against her nose, and Teacher’s mind was full of
wonder as to what she could ever do with it all. Bottles of perfume
vied with one another and with the all-pervading soap, until the air
was heavy and breathing grew laborious. But pride swelled the
hearts of the assembled multitude. No other Teacher had so many
helps to the toilet. None other was so beloved.
When the wastepaper basket had been twice filled with wrappings
and twice emptied; when order was emerging out of chaos; when the
Christmas-tree had been disclosed and its treasures distributed, a
timid hand was laid on Teacher’s knee and a plaintive voice
whispered, “Say, Teacher, I got something for you”; and Teacher
turned quickly to see Morris, her dearest boy charge.
“Now, Morris dear,” said Teacher, “you shouldn’t have troubled to
get me a present; you know you and I are such good friends that—”
“Teacher, yiss, ma’am,” Morris interrupted, in a bewitching and
rising inflection of his soft and plaintive voice. “I know you got a kind
feeling by me, and I couldn’t to tell even how I got a kind feeling by
you. Only it’s about that kind feeling I should give you a present. I
didn’t”—with a glance at the crowded desk—“I didn’t to have no soap
nor no perfumery, and my mamma she couldn’t to buy none by the
store; but, Teacher, I’m got something awful nice for you by present.”
“And what is it, deary?” asked the already rich and gifted young
person. “What is my new present?”
“Teacher, it’s like this: I don’t know; I ain’t so big like I could to
know”—and, truly, God pity him! he was passing small—“it ain’t for
boys—it’s for ladies. Over yesterday on the night comes my papa to
my house, und he gives my mamma the present. Sooner she looks
on it, sooner she has a awful glad; in her eyes stands tears, und she
says, like that—out of Jewish—‘Thanks,’ un’ she kisses my papa a
kiss. Und my papa, how he is polite! He says—out of Jewish, too
—‘you’re welcome, all right,’ un’ he kisses my mamma a kiss. So my
mamma, she sets und looks on the present, und all the time she
looks she has a glad over it. Und I didn’t to have no soap, so you
could to have the present.”
“But did your mother say I might?”
“Teacher, no, ma’am; she didn’t say like that, und she didn’t to say
not like that. She didn’t to know. But it’s for ladies, un’ I didn’t to have
no soap. You could to look on it. It ain’t for boys.”
And here Morris opened a hot little hand and disclosed a tightly
folded pinkish paper. As Teacher read it he watched her with eager,
furtive eyes, dry and bright, until hers grew suddenly moist, when his
promptly followed suit. As she looked down at him, he made his
moan once more:
“It’s for ladies, and I didn’t to have no soap.”
“But, Morris dear,” cried Teacher, unsteadily, laughing a little, and
yet not far from tears, “this is ever so much nicer than soap—a
thousand times better than perfume; and you’re quite right, it is for
ladies, and I never had one in all my life before. I am so very
thankful.”
“You’re welcome, all right. That’s how my papa says; it’s polite.
Und my mamma,” he said insinuatingly—“she kisses my papa a
kiss.”
“Well?” said Teacher.
“Well,” said Morris, “you ain’t never kissed me a kiss, und I seen
how you kissed Eva Gonorowsky. I’m loving mit you too. Why don’t
you never kiss me a kiss?”
“Perhaps,” suggested Teacher mischievously, “perhaps it ain’t for
boys.”
“Teacher, yiss, ma’am; it’s for boys,” he cried, as he felt her arms
about him, and saw that in her eyes, too, “stands tears.”
Late that night Teacher sat in her pretty room and reviewed her
treasures. She saw that they were very numerous, very touching,
very whimsical, and very precious. But above all the rest she
cherished a frayed and pinkish paper, rather crumpled and a little
soiled. For it held the love of a man and a woman and a little child,
and the magic of a home, for Morris Mogilewsky’s Christmas present
for ladies was the receipt for a month’s rent for a room on the top
floor of a Monroe Street tenement.—From “Little Citizens,”
copyrighted by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, and used by
arrangement.

THE CAMP-MEETING AT BLUFF SPRINGS


By Justin Truitt Bishop
Bascom Barnard paused on the kitchen steps, and looked in at the
door with suspicion and irritation in his eyes.
“Bakin’ chickens, air ye?” he asked. “Now I’d like to know what
ye’re wastin’ chickens fur at this rate? An’ pies an’ lightbread an’
puddin’, well the land, Ma’ Jane, did ye think we was millionaires?”
“I didn’t know but ye’d change your mind about goin’ over to the
camp-meetin’ an’ it would help along to have most of the cookin’ for
Sunday done at home,” she said humbly.
“It does seem to me, Ma’ Jane, that it takes more talkin’ to
convince you of anything, than any other seventeen women I ever
have saw. I’ve tol’ you every day for the last week that we warn’t
goin’ to that dratted camp-meetin’—that we couldn’t both leave, and I
was bound to go over to the corners and see Bink Denny about that
land—that a woman’s business was at home, stid of gallivantin’
’round the country ’tendin’ camp-meetin’s; cain’t you ever learn
anything, Ma’ Jane?”
Ma’ Jane shut the oven door and stood up; she wiped the
perspiration from her face with a checked apron.
“I’ve been hopin’ for years that they’d have a camp-meetin’ near
enough for me to go. I’ve not ’tended since I was a girl. Mother
always had a tent an’ you was glad enough to come to camp-meetin’
then, Bascom, an’ this one’s not more’n six miles away—an’ I want
to go.”
“Well, you know good an’ well you cain’t. Somebody’s got to stay
on this place to take keer o’ things—an’ since it cain’t be me, it’s got
to be you.”
“Mary Hopkins tol’ me she’d save one end of her tent for me; it’s
built o’ boards—two rooms and a hall between—an’ there’s a big
shed at the back for a dining-room, an’ I wanted to go worse’n I ever
wanted to go anywheres, I guess.”
“Fur’s that’s concerned, I reckon I wanted to go, but you don’t see
me throwin’ our livin’ away so’s I could gallop off to every camp-
meetin’ that comes along, do ye?
“I won’t be back for three days,” he stated, as he went away. In
deep silence Ma’ Jane sat down and looked at the kitchen table. It
was heaped with the good things she had prepared for the great
Sunday dinner at the camp-ground, where it was the joy of every
tenter to keep open house and entertain all who would come.
True, Bascom had said all along that they could not go, yet she
had gone on cooking and planning. She had even packed most of
the things which she would need for housekeeping in the other end
of Mary Hopkins’s tent.
Ma’ Jane went out to the barn and looked at the cows, which were
ready to eat again, having been fed fully an hour before.
“Drat ye,” said she vindictively. Coming from Ma’ Jane, this might
have been considered mild profanity.
Her heart stood still for a moment, then she wept remorsefully on
the outstretched nose of the nearest cow. “It’s about time I was goin’
to camp-meetin’,” she said. “If I ain’t gettin’ to be a heathen, I dunno
who is.”
As she slowly walked out of the barn, the two cows followed her,
and it was at the barn-door that an inspiration came to Ma’ Jane
Barnard.
Her face paled a moment, and then flushed crimson. She put her
hand to her throat—“them cows lead like dogs,” she whispered.
Bascom Barnard’s work at the corners was over in less time than
he had contemplated. In fact, he met Bink Denny coming out of the
“First and Last Chance” in such a state of intoxication that Bascom
was glad to tear himself away and set forth on the homeward road.
He went slowly and sorrowfully, because if he went home, Ma’
Jane would insist on going to camp-meeting and he would be left
alone over Sunday. The few times when he had been left to look
after the house had been brief but memorable. Of course, it was no
trouble for Ma’ Jane to run the place. She was already reconciled to
the staying at home now, anyway, and did not expect to go to the
camp-meeting.
Bascom was silent on his way home—only two or three miles off
the road—and he really felt that it would do him good to see what a
camp-meeting was like once more. He felt that he might finish up the
day there at any rate, and then go home and give Ma’ Jane a
chance; or he might stay over Sunday at the camp-grounds, and
then go back to the corners, find Bink Denny sober, and transact his
business according to the first arrangement.
Bascom Barnard turned into the road that led to Bluff Springs. The
sound of hammering and sawing, and the merry clatter of tongues
proclaimed the camp-ground before he was in sight of it. He rode
into the busy little city where board and canvas tents were going up
like magic. Brother Wilkins, the minister, called cheerfully:
“Hello, Brother Barnard, where’s Sister Barnard, ain’t she
coming?”
“She kinder thot she wouldn’t come. Ma’ Jane sets a lot o’ store by
the cows and things, ye see—so she reckoned she’d stay.”
He rode hurriedly down the line of tents, where a fire of questions
met him at every turn.
“I jes couldn’t get Ma’ Jane to come,” he explained to Miss
Mirandy Barr. “It don’t suit her to come away and leave things at six’s
and seven’s, as she says, so she jes stays by the stuff, Ma’ Jane
does.”
Bascom Barnard began helping people to get their tents in order.
Before noon, he told his friends that Ma’ Jane didn’t know what
she was missing, and immediately after dinner—chicken-pie and
fixin’s—if they thought it would do any good, he would go after Ma’
Jane yet and make her come, whether or no.
Just before the afternoon service, he said it was an awful mistake
to have a body’s mind on worldly things.
In the still hours of the night Bascom reasoned it out. He had not
treated himself to a holiday this many a year, and now he felt he was
entitled to one. Ma’ Jane could take hers some other time; besides, a
woman’s work was never wearin’ like a man’s—keepin’ house was
like play compared with what he had been called upon to do. He
turned over on the fragrant hay mattress, with which Sister Clark had
provided him, and went comfortably to sleep.
The clear notes of a horn roused everybody for the sunrise prayer-
meeting, and Bascom hurried arbor-wards with the others.
“Will Brother Barnard please lead us in prayer?” said the minister,
when the first hymn had been sung. Brother Barnard found himself
on his knees stumbling over a few familiar phrases; as he went on
he gained confidence and his voice became assured. He remarked
upon the fact that our days are few and evil.
After a few similar remarks, he got in full swing—time was no
object—scraps of forgotten phrases from prayers heard in his youth
tumbled forth in picturesque confusion. The hour for prayer-meeting
to close had come when he began to pray for the heathen, and this
took time of itself. When he had worked around to the sinful and
depraved of our own land, everybody would have been impatient,
but for the fact that something had happened—something that
Bascom could not see, as his eyes were shut. There were some who
kept their eyes open when they prayed; these nudged each other
excitedly.
“An’ now, Lord,” pleaded Brother Bascom Barnard, pounding the
bench in front of him with a clenched fist, “be with all that’s near and
dear to them that’s gathered here to worship Thee. Be with them
that’s stayed by the stuff—an’ if they’ve stayed away from this
blessed place because they’re cold or hard-hearted—as we fear
some of ’em has—O Lord, melt their hearts of stone an’ make ’em
see that they’re hangin’ over eternal punishment prepared for the
devil and his angels.”
“Amen,” said a clear voice, undeniably feminine, which seemed in
some unaccountable way to come from the wrong direction.
Bascom was kneeling in the sawdust near the altar, and facing the
congregation. The voice came from behind him. Involuntarily he
looked back over his shoulder. At the same moment a faint giggle
arose somewhere down among the benches where the congregation
was kneeling.
An old horse and wagon had drawn up close at the edge of the
arbor, and Ma’ Jane, her best bonnet tied under her chin, held the
reins. The wagon was piled high with a medley of things pertaining to
housekeeping. Three coops of excited chickens topped the pile, the
anxious mewing of a cat came from a basket behind the seat, and
tied to the back of the wagon were two cows, both intimating that
something to eat would be quite acceptable. Under the wagon sat
the black puppy, its astonished head to one side as it viewed its
master under these unaccustomed circumstances.
Every one had arisen and was looking with might and main. The
minister hastily pronounced the benediction.
“I’m sorry to move in on Sunday,” explained Ma’ Jane, “but it’s took
me all night to get ready an’ to come. My husband couldn’t help me
because he was over to the corners, makin’ a trade with Bink Denny.
I warn’t goin’ to stay at home tendin’ the cows and things while
camp-meetin’ was goin’ on only six miles away, so I brung ’em all
along. ’Long as Bascom’s not here, if some of you would help me
unload at Mary Hopkins’s tent, I’d be thankful, an’ you’ll take dinner
with me to-day, Brother Wilkins—an’ as many more as can crowd in.”

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