"There's just no doubt about it, if Tom Mayberry weren't my own son and I had occasion to know better I'd think he had teeth in his heels, from the looks of his socks. Every week Cindy darns them a spell and then I take a hand at it. Just look, Elinory, did you ever see a worser hole than this?" As Mother Mayberry spoke she held up for Miss Wingate's interested inspection a fine, dark blue sock. They were sitting on the porch in the late afternoon and the singer lady was again at work on a bit of wardrobe for the doll daughter of her friend Eliza.
"How does he manage such—such awful ones?" asked Miss Wingate with a laugh.
"That you can't never prove by me," answered his mother as she slipped a small gourd into the top of the sock and drew a thread through her needle.
"Sometimes I wish the time when I could turn him barefooted from May to November had never gone by. But a-wishing they children back in years is a habit most mothers have got in common, I reckon. When he's away from me I dream him often at all ages, but it's mostly from six to eleven I seem to want him. When he were six, with Doctor Mayberry gone, I took to steadying myself by Tom and at eleven I made up my mind to give him up."
"Give him up?" asked Miss Wingate as she raised her eyes from her work. "I don't think you seem to have given him up to any serious extent." And she smiled as she turned her head in the direction of the office wing, from which came a low whistled tune, jerkily and absorbedly rendered.
"Oh, he don't belong to me no more," answered his mother in a placid tone of voice as she rocked to and fro with her work. "I fought out all that fight when I took my resolve. I just figured something like this, Pa Lovell had been a-doctoring on Harpeth Hills for a lifetime and Doctor Mayberry had gave all his young-man life to answering the call, a-carrying the grace of God as his main remedy, so now I felt like the time had come for a Lovell and a Mayberry to go out and be something to the rest of the world, and Tom were the one to carry the flag. I seen that the call were on him since he helped me through a spell of May pips with over two hundred little chickens before he were five years old, and he cut a knot out of the Deacon's roan horse by the direction of a book when he weren't but eleven, as saved its life. That kinder settled it with me and the Deacon both, though we talked it back and forth for two more years. Then Deacon took to teaching of him regular and I set in to save all I could from the thin peeling of potatoes to worser darnings and patches than this. Would you think they could be any worser?" And she smiled up over her glasses at the girl opposite her.
"Tell me about it," demanded the singer lady interestedly. "Where did you send him to school first?"
"Right down here to the City. You see Doctor Mayberry left me this home, fifty acres and a small life insurance, so they was a little something to inch and pinch on. You can't save by trying to peel nothing, but the smallest potatoes have got a skin, and I peeled close them days. Tom did his part too and he run the plow deep and straight when he wasn't much taller than the handles. I had done talked it over with him and asked him would he, and he looked right in my eyes in his dependable way and said yes he would. That finished it and he wasn't but eleven; but I don't want to brag on him to you. If you listen to mothers' talk the world are full of heroes and none-suches." Again Miss Wingate received the smile from over Mother Mayberry's glasses and this time it was tinged with a whimsical pride.
"Please, Mrs. Mayberry, tell me about it; you know I want to hear," begged the girl, and she moved her chair nearer to Mother's and picked up the mate of the blue sock off her knee. "How old was he when he went to college?"
"Just sixteen, big and hearty and with enough in his head to get through the examinations. I packed him up, and him and the Deacon started down Providence Road at sun-up in the Deacon's old buggy. He looked both man and baby to me as he turned around to smile back; but I stood it out at the gate until they turned the bend, then I come on back to the house quick like some kind of hurted animal. But, dearie me, I never got a single tear shed, for there were Mis' Peavey with Buck in her arms, shaking him upside down to get out a brass button he hadn't swallowed. By the time we poured him full of hot mustard water and the button fell outen his little apron pocket, I had done got my grip on myself."
"I just can't stand it that you had to let him go," Miss Wingate both laughed and sobbed.
"Yes, but I ain't told you about the commencement, honey-bird. There's that tearIdidn't get to drop a-splashing outen your eyes on the doll's hat! That day was the most grandest thing that ever happened to anybody's mother, anywhere in this world. I didn't think I could go to see him get the diplomy, for with all his saving ways and working hard in the summer, it had been a pull to make buckle and tongue meet and there just wasn't nothing left for me to buy no stylish clothes to wear. I set here a-worrying over it, not that I minded, but it was hard on the boy to have to make his step-off in life and his mother not be there to see. And somehow I felt as if it would hurt Pa Lovell and Doctor Mayberry for me not to be with him. Then with thinking of Pa Lovell a sudden idea popped into my head. There was Seliny Lue Lovell right down to the Bluff, on the road to town, and with Aunt Lovell's fine black silk dress packed away in the trunk, as good as new, and me and Seliny Lue of almost the same figger as her mother. That just settled the question and I got up and washed out my water-waves in a little bluing water to make 'em extra white, dabbed buttermilk on my face to get off some of the tan and called over Mis' Peavey and Mis' Pike to let 'em know. The next morning I started off gay with everybody there to see and sending messages to Tom."
"Wasn't it fortunate you thought of the dress and lovely for you to be able to go right by and get it!" exclaimed Miss Wingate, her eyes as bright as Mother Mayberry's and her cheeks pink with excitement as the tale began to unfold its dramatic length.
"Yes, and Seliny Lue was glad enough to see me! We laughed and talked half the night, was up early, and she took a time to rig me out. It is a stiff black silk, as anybody would be proud of, cut liberal with real lace collar and cuffs. Seliny Lue said I looked fine in it. I wisht she could have gone with me, but they wasn't room for both of us inside the dress." And Mother laughed merrily at the memory of her borrowing escapade.
"Did Doctor Mayberry know you were coming?" asked the singer lady, hurrying on the climax of the recital.
"Not a word! He'd gone off the week before taking it sensible, but I could see hurt mightily about it. I got to the University Hall late, and 'most everybody in the world looked like they was there. I stood at the back and didn't hope to see or hear, just thankful to be near him, but I seen one of them young usher men a-looking hard at me and he came up and asked me if I wasn't Mr. Thomas Mayberry's mother. He had knew me by the favor. I told him yes and he took me up to the very front just as the singing begun. I soon got me and the silk dress settled, with the bokay all Providence had sent Tom on my knee, and looked around me. There next to me was the sweetest young-lady girl I have 'most ever saw, and she smiled at me real friendly. I was just about to speak when the music stopped and the addressing began by a tall thin kinder man. Elinory, child, did you ever hear one of them young men's life-commencement speeches made?" This time Mother Mayberry peered over the top of her glasses seriously and her needle paused suspended over the fast narrowing hole in the sock.
"Yes, but I don't think I ever listened very carefully," admitted Miss Wingate with a smile.
"Well, I felt that if the Lord had gave it to me to stand up there and say a word of start-off to all them boys setting solemn and listening, it wouldn't have been about no combination of things done by men dead and gone, that didn't seem to prove nothing in particular on nobody. I woulder read 'em a line of scripture and then talked honest dealing by one another, the measuring out of work according to the pay and always a little over, the putting of a shoulder under another man's pressing burden, the respect of women folks, the respect of theyselves and the looking to the Lord to see 'em through it all. That speech made me so mad I 'most forgot it was time for Tom's valediction. Honey-bird, I wisht you coulder seen him and heard him."
"I wish I could," answered Miss Wingate with a flush.
"Dearie me, but he was handsome and he spoke words of sense that the other gray-haired man seemed to have forgot! And they was a farewell sadness in it too, what got some of them boys' faces to working, and I felt a big tear roll down and splash right on the lace collar. Then he sat down and they was a to-do of hollering and clapping, but I just sat there too happy to take in the rest of what was did. Sometimes they is a kinder pride swell in a mother's heart that rises right up and talks to her soul in psalm words, and I heard mine that day." Mother's eyes softened and looked far away across to the blue hills.
"What did he do when he saw you?" asked Miss Wingate gently.
"Oh, I didn't pay much attention to him when he come up to me, or let on how I felt. That sweet child next to me had done found out I was his mother, I couldn't help telling her. And then she had sent for her father, who was the head Dean man, and about the time Tom came up, he was there shaking hands with me and telling me how proud the whole University was of Tom and about the great scholarship for him to go to New York to study he had got, and that he must go. It didn't take me hardly two seconds to think a mortgage on the house and fifty acres, the cows and all, so I answered right up on time that go he should. While I was a-talking Tom had gave the bokay from Providence to the girl, what he had been knowing all the time at her father's house. And she had her nose buried in one of Mis' Peavey's pink peonys, a-blushing as pretty as you please over it at that country bumpkin of mine with all his fine manners. That Miss Alford is one of the most sweet girls you ever have saw. She and me have been friends ever since. She comes out to see me in her ottermobile sometimes. She ain't down to the City now, for I had a picture card from some place out West from her, but when she comes back I'm a-going to ask her to come up and have a stay-a-week-in-the-house party for you; and she can bring her brother. You might like him. The four of you can have some nice junketings together. Won't that be fine?"
"Y-e-s," answered the singer lady slowly, "but I'm afraid I'm not able now to interest anybody, and my voice, when I speak—I—I—Will it be soon?" Her question had a trace of positive anxiety in it and her joy was most evidently forced.
"Oh, not till June rose time! And your voice now sounds like a angel's with a bad cold. I'll tell Tom about it, he'll be so pleased. Her father was such a friend to him and as proud of him now as can be."
"Did Doctor Mayberry stay in the City—after his graduation?" asked Miss Wingate, a trace of anxiety in her voice.
"That he didn't! He come on home with me that night, got into his overalls and begun to plow for winter wheat by sun-up the next morning. We made a good crop that year and the mortgage wasn't but a few hundred dollars, what we soon paid. We've been going up ever since. Tom reminds me of a kite, and I must make out to play tail for him until I can pick him out a wife."
"Have you thought of anybody in particular?" asked the lovely lady without raising her eyes from her work. She had commenced operations on the blue sock unnoticed by Mother, who was taken up in the unfolding of her tale.
"Not yet," answered she cheerfully. "I mustn't hurry. Marrying ain't no one-day summer junket, but a year round march and the woman to raise the hymn tune. I take it that after a mother have builded up a man, she oughter see to it that he's capped off fine with a wife, and then she can forget all about him. I've got my eyes open about Tom and I'm going to begin to hunt around soon."
"I wonder just what kind of a wife you—you will select for him," murmured Miss Wingate with her eyes still on the sock, which she was industriously sewing up into a tight knot on the left side of the heel.
"Well, a man oughter marry mostly for good looks and gumption; the looks to keep him from knowing when the gumption is being used on him. Tom's so say-nothing and shy with women folks that he won't be no hard proposition for nobody. But with that way of his'n I'm afraid of his being spoiled some. I have to be real stern with myself to keep from being foolish over him."
"But you want his wife to—to love him, don't you?" asked Miss Wingate, as she raised very large and frankly questioning eyes to Mother Mayberry, who was snipping loose threads from her completed task.
"Oh she'll do that and no trouble! But a man oughter be allowed to sense his wife have got plenty of love and affection preserved, only he don't know where she keeps the jar at. As I say, I don't want Tom Mayberry spoiled. What did I do with that other sock?" And Mother began to hunt in her darning bag, in her lap and on the floor.
"Here it is," answered Miss Wingate as she blushed guiltily. "I—darned it." And she handed her handiwork over to Mother Mayberry with trepidation in voice and expression.
"Well, now," said Mother, as she inspected the tight little wad on the blue heel. "It was right down kind of you to turn to and help me like this, but, honey-bird, Tom Mayberry would walk like a hop toad after he'd done got it on. You have drawn it bad. I don't know no better time to learn you how to darn your husband's socks than right now on this one of Tom's. You see you must begin with long cross stitches in the—Now what's all this a-coming!" And Mother Mayberry rose, looked down the Road and hurried to the sidewalk with the darning bag under her arm and her thimble still on her finger.
Up the middle of the Road came, in a body, the entire juvenile population of Providence at a break-neck speed and farther down the street they were followed by Deacon Bostick, coming as fast as his feeble old legs would bring him. Eliza Pike headed the party with Teether hitched high up en her arm and Martin Luther clinging to her short blue calico skirt. They all drew up in a semicircle in front of Mother Mayberry and Miss Wingate and looked at Eliza expectantly. On all occasions of excitement Eliza was both self-constituted and unanimously appointed spokesman. On this occasion she began in the dramatic part of the news without any sort of preamble.
"It's a circus," she said breathlessly, "a-moving over from Bolivar to Springfield and nelephants and camels and roar-lions and tigers and Mis' Pratt and Deacon and Mr. Hoover and everybody is a-going over to watch it pass—and we can't—we can't!" Her voice broke into a wail, which was echoed by a sob and a howl from across the street just inside the Pike gate, where Bud and Susie pressed their forlorn little bodies against the palings and looked out on the world with the despair of the incarcerated in their eyes.
"Why can't you?" demanded Mother.
"Oh, Maw have gone across the Nob to Aunt Elviry's and left Susie May and Bud being punished. They can't go outen the gate and I ain't a-going to no circus with my little brother and sister being punished, and I won't let Billy and Ez go either." By this time the whole group was in different stages of grief, for the viewing of a circus without the company of Eliza Pike had the flavor of dead sea fruit in all their small mouths. From the heart in Eliza's small bosom radiated the force that vivified the lives of the whole small-fry congregation, and a circus not seen through her eyes would be but a dreary vision.
"Now ain't that too bad!" said Mother Mayberry with compassion and irritation striving in her voice. "What did they do and just what did she say?"
"Susie hurted Aunt Prissy's feelings, by taking the last biscuit when they wasn't one left for her, and Maw said she would have to stay in the yard until she learned to be kind and respectful to Paw's sister, She didn't mean to be bad." And Eliza presented the case of her small sister with hopelessness in every tone.
"Well, Susie," said Mother Mayberry, "don't you feel kind to her yet?" There was a note of hope in Mother's voice that silenced all the wails, and they all fixed large and expectant eyes upon this friend who never failed them. By this time the Deacon had joined the group and his gentle old eyes were also fixed on Mother Mayberry's face, with the same confident hope that the children's expressed.
"I've done been kind to her," sniffed the culprit. "I let her cut all my finger-nails and wash my ears and never said a word. She have been working on me all afternoon and it hurt."
"Susie," said Mother Mayberry, "you can go over to the cross-roads and see that circus with the Deacon. They can't no little girl do better than that, and your Maw just told you to stay until you learned that lesson. You are let out! Now, what did you do, Bud?"
"I slid on the lean-to and tored all the back of my britches out. She couldn't stop to mend 'em and she said I could just stay front ways to folks until she come home, and they shouldn't nobody mend 'em for me." Bud choked with grief and mortification and edged back as little Bettie Pratt started in his direction on an investigating tour.
"Well course, Bud," said Mother with judicial eye, "you can't take them britches off." She paused and looked at him thoughtfully.
"I ain't a-going a step without him," reiterated the loyal Eliza, and the rest of the children's faces fell.
"Too bad," murmured the Deacon, and Miss Wingate could see that his distress at the plight of young Bud was as genuine as that of any of the rest.
"But," began Mother Mayberry slowly, having in the last second weighed the matter and made a decision, "your mother ain't said you couldn't go outen the yard and she ain't said I couldn't wrap you up in one of my kitchen aprons. That wouldn't be the same as changing the britches. She didn't know about this circus and if she was here you all know she woulder done as I asked her to do about Bud, so he ain't a-disobeying her and I ain't neither, Run get the apron hanging behind the door, Susie, and I'll fix him."
"Sister Mayberry," said the Deacon with a delighted smile in his kind eyes, but a twinkle in their corners, "your decision involves the interpretation of both the letter and the spirit of the law. I am glad it, in this case, rested with you."
"Well," answered Mother Mayberry, as she took the apron from Susie and started across the Road on her rescue mission, "a woman have got to cut her conscience kinder bias in the dealing with children. If they're stuffed full of food and kindness they will mostly forget to be bad, and oughtent to be made to remember they CAN be by being punished too long. Now, sonny, I'll get you fixed up so stylish with these pins and this apron that the circus will want to carry you off. Start on, Deacon, he's a-coming."
"I've got to get the baby's bonnet," said Eliza as the whole party started away in a trail after the Deacon, who led Martin Luther by one hand and little Bettie by the other. Over by the store they could see Mrs. Pratt waiting to marshal the forces on down the Road and Mr. Hoover stood ready as outstanding escort. He had brought the news of the passing of the circus train and she had promptly consented to taking the children and the Deacon over for a view.
"Please, Eliza, please don't take the baby! Leave him with me," said Miss Wingate and as she spoke she stretched out her arms to Teether. Teether was looking worn with the excitement of the day and his sympathetic friend felt the journey would be too much for him. He smiled and fell over on her shoulder with a sigh of contentment.
"Don't you think he oughter see them nelephants and things?" asked Eliza doubtfully, her loyalty to Teether warring with the relief of having him out of her thin little arms for the journey.
"He won't mind. Let me keep him here on the front porch until you come back. Now run along and have a good time," and Miss Wingate started up the front walk, as Eliza darted away to join the others.
"I do declare," said Mother Mayberry, as she watched the expedition wend its way down the white Road in the direction of the Bolivar pike, "the way the Deacon do love the children is plumb beautiful, and sad some too. I don't know what he would do without Jem or they without him. Seeing 'em together reminds me of that scraggy, old snowball bush in full bloom, leaning down to the little Stars of Bethlehem reaching up to it. What that good man have been to me only my Heavenly Father can know and Tom Mayberry suspicion. I tell you what I think I'll do; I'll take one of them little pans of rolls what Cindy have baked for supper, with a jar of peach preserves, and go down and set with Mis' Bostick while the Deacon are gone. We can run the pan of rolls in to get hot for him when he comes home and I know he likes the preserves. I want to stop in to see Mis' Tutt too and give her a little advice about that taking so much blue-mass. I don't see how anybody with a bad liver can have any religion at all, much less a second blessing. I know the Squire have his faults, but others has failings too. And, too, I'll have to stop in and pacify Miss Prissy about turning the children loose, before I go down the Road."
"Miss Prissy always seems to be getting the children into trouble. I wonder why," said the singer lady with a shade of resentment in her voice. The little Pikes had established themselves firmly in the heart of this new friend, and she found herself in an attitude of critical partisanship.
"I reckon Miss Prissy is what you call a kinder crank," answered Mother Mayberry as she paused at the foot of the steps. "A married woman have got to be the hub of a family-wheel, but a old maid can be the outside crank that turns the whole contraption backwards if she has a mind to. I wish Miss Prissy had a little more understanding of the children, 'cause the rub all comes on Mis' Pike, and she's fair wore out with it. But I must be a-going so as to be the sooner a-coming. I wisht you would tell Tom Mayberry to go and let you help him put the hens and little chickens to bed. Feed 'em two quarts of millet seed, and you both know how to do it right if you have a mind to. I'm going to compliment you by a-trusting you this once, and don't let me wish I hadn't! I'll be back in the course of time."
And so it happened that as Doctor Mayberry was in the act of swinging his microscope over a particularly absorbing new plate, a very lovely vision framed itself in his office door against the background of Harpeth Hill, which was composed of the slim singer girl with the baby nodding over her shoulder. The unexpectedness of the visit sent the color up under his tan and brought him to his feet with a delighted smile.
"I don't know how you are going to feel about it, but I bring the news of an honor which we are to share. Do you suppose, do you, that we can put the chickens to bed for Mrs. Mayberry? She says we are to try, and if we don't do it the right way she is never going to compliment us with her confidence again. Help, please! I'm weighted down by the responsibility." And as she spoke Miss Wingate's eyes shone across Teether's bobbing head with delighted merriment.
"Well, let's try," answered the Doctor with the air of being ready to do or dare, an attitude which a vision such as his eyes rested upon is apt to incite in any man thus challenged. "Will you take command? I'm many times proved incompetent on such occasions, and I feel sure Mother trusted to your generalship." And together they went through the garden and over into the chicken yard.
"Now," said Miss Wingate, "I think the thing to do is not to let them know we are afraid of them. Let's just take their going under the coops as a matter of course, and then, perhaps, they will go without any remonstrance."
"Sort of a mental influence dodge," answered the Doctor enthusiastically. "Let's try it on Spangles first. I somehow feel that she will be more impressionable than Old Dominick. You influence while I spread the millet seed in front of her coop." And he bent down in front of the half barrel and carefully laid a tempting evening meal, with his eye on Fuss-and-Feathers. Spangles hesitated, stood on one foot, clucked in an affected tone of voice to her huddling babies and coquettishly turned her head from one side to the other as if enthusing over his artistic service before accepting his hospitality. Then, just as she was poising one dainty foot ready for the first step in advance, and had sounded a forward note to the cheepers around her, Old Dominick calmly stalked forward, stepped right across the Doctor's coaxing hand held out to Spangles, and, settling herself in the coop, began, with her voracious band of little plebeians, to devour the grain with stolid appreciation.
Miss Wingate laughed merrily, Teether Pike gurgled and the Doctor looked up with baffled astonishment.
"That was your fault," he accused; "you influenced Dominick while I was expending my force in beguiling Spangles. Now, you try to get her in the next coop yourself. I shan't help you further than to spread the grain in front of all the coops." And in accordance with his threat the Doctor disposed of the rest of the food and stood with the empty pan in his hand. And, like the well-trained flock of biddies that they were, all the rest of the hen mothers clucked and cajoled their fluffy little families into their accustomed shelters and began to dispose of their suppers with contented clucks and cheeps. Only Mrs. Spangles stood afar and eyed the only vacant coop with evident disdain.
"I don't know what to do," murmured Miss Wingate pleadingly. But the Doctor stood firm, and regarded her with maliciously delighted eyes. Teether bobbed his head over her shoulder and giggled with ungrateful delight The poor little chicks peeped sleepily, but still Spangles held her ground. The truth of the matter was that Dominick had really taken the coop usually occupied by her ladyship, and with worldly determination, the scion of all the Wyandottes was holding out against the exchange.
With a glance out of the side of her eyes from under her lowered lashes in the direction of Doctor Mayberry in his stern attitude, the singer lady cautiously veered around to the rear of the insulted grandee, and, grasping her fluffy skirts in her free hand, she shook them out with a pleading "Shoo!" Instantly a perfect whirlwind of spangled feathers veered around and faced the cascade of frills, and a volume of defiant hisses fairly filled the air. Teether squealed and Miss Wingate retreated to the bounds of the fence. The Doctor laughed in the most heartless manner, and still Spangles held her ground.
To make matters worse, Mother Mayberry's jovial voice, mingled with the shrill treble of the combined circus party, who were trying all at once to tell her the wonders of the adventure, could be distinctly heard in an increasing volume that told of their rapid approach. The situation was desperate, and the loss of Mother Mayberry's faith in her seemed inevitable to the nonplussed singer lady as she leaned against the fence with Teether over her shoulder. Then the instinct that is centuries old presented to her the wile that is of equal antiquity and, raising her purple eyes to the defenseless Doctor, she murmured in a voice of utter helplessness, into which was judiciously mingled a tone of perfect confidence:
"Please, sir, get her in for me."
The response to which, being foreordained from the beginning of time, took Doctor Mayberry just one exciting half-minute grab and shove to accomplish, at the end of which a ruffled but chastened Spangles was forced to assemble her family and content herself behind the bars of the despised coop.
"Well," said Mother Mayberry as she hurried around the corner of the house with the depleted and milk-hungry Martin Luther trailing at her skirts, "did you make out to manage 'em? Why, ain't that fine; every one in and settled and Fuss-and-Feathers in that end coop where I have been wanting her to be for a week, seeing Dominick have got so many more chickens and needs that larger barrel. I didn't depend on Tom Mayberry, but I did on you, Elinory. This just goes to show that if you put a little trust in people they are mighty apt to rise in the pan to a occasion. You all look like you've been having a real good time!"
"Eat milk, thank ma'am, please, Mother Lady," demanded Martin Luther as he stood on the top step in front of Mother Mayberry, who, with Miss Wingate beside her, sat sewing away the early hours of the morning. A tiny blue-check shirt was taking shape under Mother's skilful fingers, and the singer lady was deep in the mysteries of the fore and aft of a minute pair of jeans trousers. The limitations of young Ez's wardrobe had necessitated the speedy construction of one for the little adopt, and Miss Wingate's education along the lines of needle control was progressing at what she considered a remarkable rate.
"Why, Martin Luther!" She looked down at him over a carefully poised needle. "How can you be hungry when you ate your breakfast not two hours ago?" she added with the intent to beguile him from his demand.
"All gone, thank ma'am, please," he answered, looking out from under his curl with a pathetic cast of his blue eyes, and at the same time spreading both hands over his entire vital region.
"I reckon maybe we'd better fill him up again," said Mother. "Them legs still look 'most too much like knitting-needles to suit me, and I kinder want to feel him to be sure his stomick haven't growed to his backbone. Anyway, you can't never measure a boy's food by his size. Please run and get him a glass of buttermilk and a biscuit, child, while I finish setting in this sleeve. Let me see them britches legs 'fore you put 'em down. Dearie me, if you ain't gone and made 'em both for the same leg! Too bad, with all them pretty baste-stitches!"
"Oh!" gasped Miss Wingate in dismay; "have I ruined them?"
"No, indeed, just turn the left leg inside out and hem it up again—or you might make two more right legs to sew on to these. It would be a good thing to double one failing mistake up into two successes, wouldn't it? Often bad luck turned inside out makes a cap that fits plumb easy. While you fill the boy up, I'll cut out his other legs for you to baste right this time. Take a peep around the garden before you come back to see if Spangles have got her chickens in the wet weeds. I hadn't oughter let her pretty feathers make me distrust her, but it do." And Mother went placidly on with her sewing as she watched the girl and the tot go hand-in-hand down the path to the spring-house under the hill. She had just placed in her sleeve and was regarding it with entire satisfaction, when the front gate clicked and she looked up with interest.
"Well, good morning, Mis' Mayberry," came in Bettie Pratt's hearty voice as she swung up the walk at a brisk pace. On one arm she held a bobbing baby in a white sunbonnet, a toddler clung to her skirts and a small boy trailed behind her with a puppy in his arms. She was buxom and rosy, was the Widow Pratt, with a dangerous dimple over the corner of her mouth, a decided come-hither in her blue eyes, and a smile that compelled a response.
"Why, Bettie child, how glad I am to see you!" exclaimed Mother, rendering the smile from out over her glasses. "I didn't see you all day yesterday and not the day before, neither. But I put it down to a work-hold on us both, and didn't worry none. And now here you are, with some of the little folks! Here's a empty spool for little Bettie," and she held out the treasure to the toddler, who sidled up to her knee with confidence to grasp the gift.
"I told Pattie Hoover if she would stay at home this morning and clean up some like her Pa wants her to that I'd let my Clara May help her and would bring the baby on up here to get him outen the way. 'Lias come along to get you to look at his puppy's foot, and I want you to see if you don't think the baby have fatted some since I've took holt and helped Pattie with the feeding of him."
"He have that," answered Mother heartily. "I can tell it without even feeling of his legs. You've got the growing hand with babies, Bettie, and I'm glad you don't hold it back from this little half-orphant. I don't know what the poor little Hoovers would do without you!"
"That's what poor Mr. Hoover says," answered Bettie with the utmost unconsciousness. "Show Mis' Mayberry the puppy's foot, 'Lias."
"Why, the pitiful little thing!" exclaimed Mother when a small, brown, crushed paw was presented to her inspection. "What happened to it?"
"Mr. Petway's horse stepped on it—he didn't care. He just got in the buggy and went on. I'm a-going to kill him with a gun when I get one." Tears of rage and grief welled up in 'Lias' eyes, but he choked them back with a resolution that boded ill for Mr. Petway when the time of reckoning came.
"You mustn't talk that way, 'Lias, though it are a shame," said Mother as she looked closely at the injured paw. "The bone's all crushed. I'll tell you what to do; just take him around to Doctor Tom's office and he'll fix it in no time for you, in a way I couldn't never do. He won't even limp, maybe." And Mother Mayberry made the offer of a piece of skilled surgery with the utmost generosity.
'Lias clasped the puppy closer, looked down and drew one of his bare toes along a crack in the floor. "I'd rather you'd do it," he said.
"Now, don't that just beat all!" exclaimed Mother with both amusement and exasperation in her face. "Looks like I can't even get Tom a puppy practice."
"Why, 'Lias Hoover, I'm ashamed of you not to want Doctor Tom to fix his foot, and thank you, too! Didn't Bud Pike tell you last night how he cut his little brother's mouth and didn't hurt him a bit, neither? Bud is going to get him to fix his next stubbed toe hisself. Bud ain't no bigger boy than you, but he knows a good doctor same as Mis' Mayberry and me does when he sees one." There are ways and ways of controverting masculine obstinancy, and evidently life had taught Mrs. Pratt the efficacy of beguilement. Without more reluctance 'Lias disappeared around the house in the direction of the office wing.
"I'm mighty glad you come along this morning, Bettie," said Mother Mayberry, as she threaded a new needle with a long thread. Little Bettie had seated herself on the floor and begun operations with the spool and a piece of string that vastly amused little Hoover, whom Mrs. Pratt deposited opposite her within reach of her own balancing foot, for the baby's age and backbone were both at a tender period. "I've got a kinder worry on my mind that I'd like to get a little help from you as to know what to do about. Have you noticed that both the Deacon and Mis' Bostick look mighty peaky? Course Deacon have been sick, and she have had a spell of nursing, but they don't neither of them pick up like they oughter. Mis' Bostick puts me in mind of a little, withered-up, gray seed pod when all the down have blowed away, and the Deacon's britches fair flap around his poor thin shanks. Something or other just makes me sense what is the matter."
"And me, too, Mis' Mayberry. I've been a-feeling of it for some time, since we all quit out with the nursing and taking 'em complimentary dishes of truck. They is—is hungry." Mrs. Pratt brought out the statement of the fact in a positively awestruck voice.
"That's what I'm afraid it is, Bettie," answered Mother, "and it hurts me hard to think how he have served the Lord and helped us all in our duty to Him and each other, she a-giving us of her bounty of sister-love, and now, when they's old and feeble, a-feeling the pinch of need. The young can reach out and help theyselves to they share of life, but it oughter be handed old folks with thoughtful respect. We've got to do something about it."
"Course we have," assented the widow heartily. "But how are we a-going to just give 'em things offen a cold collar? They're both so proud. With owning the house, the bit the church gives 'em would do the rest, but the Deacon have tooken that debt no-'count Will Bostick run off and left down in the City to pay, and it have left 'em at starvation's door. But that's neither here nor there; we've got to do something. They don't need much but food, and Mis' Bostick is most too weak now to cook it if they has the ingredients gave 'em to hand. They must be did for some way."
"And we've got to do it without a-giving them a single hurt feeling, either," said Mother. "Enough good-will jelly will hide any kind of charity pill, I say. Not as what we do for her and the Deacon can ever be anything but thanks rendered for the blessing of them. But you get to thinking, Bettie. The knees to my wits are getting old and stiff."
"Well, there's a donation party," suggested the widow thoughtfully. "Everybody could help, and it could be made real pleasant with the men asked to come in after supper. Everything could be gave from stovewood to the Deacon some new Sunday pants. We did that once before, five years ago to his birthday, and they was mighty pleased. Let's do it again."
"But that was before this disgrace of Will happened, and they didn't downright need the things then—it were all sort of complimentary. When needs are gave it's charity, but what you don't want is just a present. We've got to find a way to do up needs in a present package for 'em. I declare, I feel right put to know what to do." Mother Mayberry's voice was actually worried, and she paused with her scissors ready to snip a bit of the gingham into narrow bands.
"Well, we oughter be thankful we've got the things to give, and we'll find some sort of way to slip up on the blind side of them about the taking of them. The Deacon's britches is one pressing thing. Can't we take some of the church carpet money and get Mr. Hoover to buy him a pair when he hauls corn to town Monday?"
"Yes, indeed, we can," answered Mother Mayberry, radiant at the very thought of this relief proposition. "It's a heap more important to carpet the Deacon with britches than the church floor right now. Between them and her old bombersine, Mis' Bostick have spent the year with her patch-thimble on her finger."
"I declare, it hurts me so in church to look at her elbows and back seams that I can't hardly listen to the Deacon pray. Patching is the most worrisome job a woman has to do, according to my mind," said the widow, with an expression of distaste on her beaming face. "I've done patched two men, and I know what I'm talking about."
"It is a trial," answered Mother Mayberry, "and Mis' Bostick's life have been a patched one at the best, a-moving in the Methodist wagon from one station to another and a-trying every time to cut herself out by a new style to suit each congregation, Anyway, I reckon all women's lives have wored thin and had to be darned in some places, but patches on her garment of life ain't going to make no difference to a woman when she puts it on to meet her Lord, just so it's cut on the charity mantle pattern. And Mis' Bostick's was hung to cover the multitude. But a-talking here have made me sprout a idea: 'Liza Pike have blazed the trail for us, bless her little heart! Her mother don't never cook a single thing that 'Liza haven't got a dish handy to beg some for the Deacon and Mis' Bostick. And she don't stop at her own cook stove, but she's always here looking into what Cindy cooks with an eye to the old folk's sweet-tooths or chicken-hankers. I know, too, she gets what she wants from you for them, so there is our leading. The Deacon loves 'Liza, and she is such a entertainment to him that he'd eat ten meals a day at her dictation and no questions asked. And she do beat all with her mothering ways with them old folks. Last Wednesday night she had Deacon a-leading prayer meeting with a red flannel band around his throat for his croaks, and just yesterday she made Mis' Bostick stay in bed half the day, covered up head and ears, to sweat off a little nose-dripping cold. She's always a-consulting Tom and leaving me out. I think she's got her eye on my practice. They never was such a master-hand of a child in Providence before."
"There you are right," laughed the widow. "It's getting so that they ain't a child on the Road as will let its own mother look at a cut finger or a black bruise 'fore 'Liza have done had her say about what is to be did. I believe it is as you say, Mis' Mayberry, and 'Liza can play raven for us in fine style. I know Mis' Pike will push it on and more'n do her part in the filling of the child's covered dish."
"That she will," answered Mother Mayberry heartily. "Judy Pike spends a heap of time turning over life to find for certain which is the right and wrong of it, but once found, she sticks close to the top weave. We'll plan it all out at the Sewing Circle, and then get it down to days who's to send what regular. I'm thankful for this leading of how to take care of our old folks, and I know you are, too."
"Couldn't nobody be thankfuller," answered the rosy widow, "and the filling of that dish is a-going to give me a lot of good pride. But I'd better be going and seeing after them girls and the house cleaning. They are both master hands, but if Buck Peavey was to happen to tie hisself up to the front gate, it would be good-by dust-pan and mop for Pattie. Not that I don't feel for her in the liking of that rampaging boy of Mis' Peavey's, and it's mighty hard not to kinder saunter into a little chat when the men folks call you. How are Miss Elinory to-day? Ain't she the prettiest and most stylishest girl you have ever saw? I wonder if she would lend me that long-tailed waist she wears to get the pattern off to make me and Clara May and Pattie one?" As she spoke, Mrs. Pratt rose, picked up little Hoover and set Bettie on her little bare feet.
"I know she will be glad to, and such a head sewer as you are can copy it most exact. Here she are now! Child, Mis' Pratt have been so complimenting of your looks and clothes that I'm sorter set up with pride over you."
"Good morning, Mrs. Pratt," exclaimed the singer lady, as she appeared in the doorway with the resuscitated Martin Luther at her side. "The darling babies! You are not going, are you?" The widow and Miss Wingate had developed a decided attraction for each other, and their blossoming friendship delighted Mother Mayberry most obviously.
"I wish I didn't have to," answered Mrs. Pratt, beaming with smiles, which little Bettie echoed as she coquetted around her mother's skirts with Miss Wingate, "but it's most dinner-pot time, and I've got mouths to feed when the horn blows."
"Elinory, child, run get that pink, long-tailed waist of your'n to let Bettie make one by, please," said Mother Mayberry, with total unconsciousness of that very strong feminine predilection for exclusiveness of design in wearing apparel. The garment in question was a very lovely, simply-cut linen affair that bore a distinguished foreign trade-mark. "I know you feel complimented by her wanting to make one for herself by it, and maybe Clara May and Pattie, too. They ain't no worldly feeling as good as having your clothes admired, is they?"
"Indeed there isn't," answered Miss Wingate cordially, and if there was chagrin in her heart at the thought of seeing Providence in uniform with the precious pink blouse, her smile belied it. She immediately ascended to her room, and returned quickly with the treasure in her hand. "Let me come and see you fit them," she entreated. "I don't know how to sew one, but I can tell how it ought to look."
"Come spend the day next Monday. We'll all have a good time together and I'll make you some more of them fritters you liked for supper the other night." The widow fairly beamed like a headlight at the thought of the successful impromptu supper party a few nights before, when Doctor Mayberry had brought Miss Wingate down upon her unexpectedly with a demand to be invited to stay to supper for that especial dainty. As she spoke she was half-way down the walk, and looked back, smiling at them over the baby's bonnet.
"Yes, I heard Tom Mayberry disgraced himself over your maple syrup jug, Bettie Pratt," called Mother Mayberry after her. "That Hoover baby surely have growed. Good-by!"
"They ain't nothing in this world so comforting to a woman as good feeling with her sisters, one and all," Mother Mayberry said as she watched the last switch of the widow's skirt. "Mother, wife and daughter love is a institution, but real sistering is a downright covenant. Me and Bettie have held one betwixt us these many a year. But you and me have both put a slight on the kitchen since Cindy got back. Let's go see if dinner ain't most on the table."
And they found that from their neglect the dinner had suffered not at all. Cindy, a gaunt, black woman with a fire of service and devotion to Mother Mayberry in her eyes, and apparently nothing else to excuse existence, had accomplished the meal as a triumph.
She had set the table out on the side porch under the budding honeysuckle, and as Mother Mayberry and Miss Wingate, followed by Martin Luther, ever ready to do trencher duty, came out of the back hall Doctor Tom emerged from his office door.
"Why, I didn't see you come in, Tom," said Mother. "You muster used wings and lit."
"No, I came from across the fields and in the back way. I've had a patient and I'm puffed up with pride." As he spoke he smiled at Miss Wingate and his mother delightedly.
"'Lias Hoover's puppy," said Mother, stating the fact to Miss Wingate. "Was you able to fix him up, Tom?"
"Oh, yes; his puppyship will navigate normally in ten days, I think; but this was a real patient."
"Why, who, son? Don't keep me waiting to know, for I'm worried at the very thought of a Providence pain. Who's down now and what did you do for 'em?" And Mother bestowed upon the young doctor a glance of inter-professional inquiry. "Squire Tutt," answered her son promptly. "I met him up by the store and he asked me what I would do if a man had a snake bite out in the woods, ten miles from any hot-water kettle. I diagnosed the situation and prescribed with the help of Mr. Petway, and I think—I think, Mother, I've proselyted your patient."
"Now, Tom, don't make fun of the Squire. Them are real pains he has, and I don't think it is right for a doctor to have a doubting mind towards a patient. Sympathy will help worry any kinder bad dose down. You know I want you to do your doctoring in this life with love to be gave to help smooth all pain." Mother regarded him seriously over her glasses as she admonished.
"I will—I do, Mother," answered the Doctor, and his gray eyes danced before he veiled them with his black lashes as he looked down at his plate.
Miss Wingate flushed ever so slightly and busied herself with spreading butter on a large piece of bread for Martin Luther, an unnecessary attention, as she had performed that same office for him just the moment before, and even he had not been able to make an inroad thereon.
"I think you are right, Mrs. Mayberry," she said slowly after a second's rally of her forces. "The sympathy and—and regard of one's physician is very necessary at times and—and—" She paused, but not so much as a glance out of the corner of her purple black eyes did she throw in the direction of the Doctor.
"Course they ain't nothing so encouraging in the world as love, and I think the sick oughter have it gave to 'em in large and frequent doses! I'm thankful I've got so much in my heart that I can just prescribe it liberal when needed. Dearie me, could that shadow be a chicken-hawk? Just excuse me, children; finish your dinner while I go out and look after my feather babies." And Mother hurried away through the kitchen, leaving the singer lady and the Doctor sitting at the table under the fragrant vine, with the replete Martin Luther nodding his sleepy head down into his plate between them.
And thus deserted, the flush rose up under Miss Wingate's eyes and a dimple teased at the corner of her red lips, but she busied herself with removing the plate from under Martin Luther's yellow mop and making a pillow of her own bare arm, against which he nestled his chubby little cheek with a sigh of content, as he drifted off into his usual after-dinner nap.
The Doctor watched her from under his half-closed eyes, then he lit a cigarette, leaned his elbow on the table and sat silent for a few moments, while under her breath she hummed a little sleep song to the drifting baby.
"On the whole," he asked at last, the usual delightful courtesy with which he always addressed her striving with an unusual trace of gentle banter in his deep voice, "what do you think of Mother's philosophies?"
"I think," she answered as she ruffled the baby's curls with one white hand, "they are so true that no wonder they are—are more healing than—than your medicines."
She raised her eyes to his suddenly and they were filled to the brim with frank merriment.
"Don't tell me I'm going to lose my one and only star patient, Teether Pike and the puppy excepted!" he exclaimed with a laugh.
"Yes," she answered slowly, "I'm going to let you operate when the time comes—but it's your Mother that's healing me. Oh, can't you, can't you see what she's doing for me?" she turned to him and asked suddenly, the burr thrown across her voice heavily because of the passion in her tones. "I came to you a broken instrument—useless for ever, perhaps—unfit for all I knew of life unless you healed me, and now—now I can make things and do things—a pie and a good one, bread to feed and the butter thereto, and to-day two halves of a pair of trousers, no the halves of two pairs of trousers. What matter if I never sing again?" She stretched her white arm across the table and looked over the head of the sleeping baby straight into his eyes. Hers were soft with tears, and a divine shyness that seemed to question him.
He lifted the white hand, with its pink palm upward, gently into his own brown one, and placed the tip of one of his fingers on a tiny red scar on her forefinger.
"Do you know the story the drop of blood I took from this prick this morning told?" he asked with his eyes shining into hers. "A gain of over thirty percent in red corpuscles in less than a month. Yes, I admit it; Mother is building, but when she has you ready—I'm going to give it back to you, the wonderful voice. I don't know why I know, but I do."
"And I don't know why I know that you will—but I do," she answered with lowered voice and eyes. "When all the others tried I knew they would fail. The horrible thought clutched at my throat always, and there seemed no help. I don't feel it now at all. I'm too busy," she added with a catch in her laugh and a sudden mist in her eyes.
"Mother's treatment again," he laughed as he laid her hand gently back on the table.
"And yours—when directed by her—her philosophies," she ventured daringly, as she lifted Martin Luther into her arms, with a view to depositing him upon the haven of Mother's bed to finish his nap.
The Doctor looked at her a second, started to answer, thought better of it, took the heavy youngster out of her arms into his own and strode across the hall with him into Mother's room.
The singer lady walked to the edge of the porch, pulled down a spray of the fragrant vine and looked out through it to the blue hills beyond the meadows. She hummed a waltz-song this time, and her eyes were dancing as if she were meditating some further assault on the Doctor's imperturbability. He came back and stood beside her, and was just about to make a tentative remark when Mother Mayberry hurried around the side of the house.
"Children!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining, her cheeks pink with excitement, and the white curls flying in every direction; "I never did have such a time in my life! It WERE a chicken-hawk and he were right down amongst the hens and little chickens. Old Dominick was spread out like a featherbed over all hers and most of Spangles', and there Spangles was just a-contending with him over one of her little black babies. He had it in his claw, but she had him by a beak full of feathers and was a-swinging on for fare-you-well. Old Dominick was a-directing of her with squawks, and Ruffle Neck was just squatting over hers, batting her eyes with skeer, for all the world like she was a fine lady a-going into a faint. And there stood all four of the roosters, not a one of 'em a-turning of a feather to help her! They looked like they was petrified to stone, and I'm a great mind to make 'em every one up into pies and salad and such. They's a heap of men, come trouble, don't make no show, and the women folks have to lead the fight. But they might er helped her after she's took holt!"
"The brutes!" exclaimed Doctor Tom with real indignation. "When are you going to have the pie, Mother?" he added teasingly.
"Well, I've got no intentions of feeding no such coward truck to you, sir," answered his mother, still flurried with belligerency.
"But the little baby chicken—what DID become of it?" demanded Miss Wingate, and she, too, cast a glance of scorn at the Doctor.
"Why, he dropped it and flew away as soon as he caught sight of me. It ain't hurt a mite, and Spangles have hovered it and all the rest she could coax out from under Dominick. Now this do settle it! Good looks don't disqualify a woman from nothing; it's the men that can't stand extra long tail feathers and fluted combs. I'm a-going to put 'em all four in the pot before Wednesday."
"I apologize; I apologize, with emotion, for all my doubts, both expressed and unexpressed, of Mrs. Spangles!" the Doctor hastened to exclaim. "Neck under heel for the whole masculine fraternity and suffrage triumphant!"
"Well, it's not as bad as that," answered Mother in a jovially mollified tone of voice. "Meek, plain-favored men like you may be let live, with no attention paid 'em. Now go on over to Flat Rock and stop a-wasting me and my honey-bird's time with your chavering. Come back early for supper or you won't get none, for all three of us are a-going to prayer meeting."
"I'll be here, and thank you for-crumbs of attention," answered the Doctor, and, with a laughing glance at both his mother and Miss Wingate he took himself off in the direction of the barn, for the purpose of saddling his horse for his afternoon visit to his patients beyond the Nob.
"Ain't he good to look at?" asked Mother Mayberry as she watched his tall figure swing down the garden path. "Good looks in a man can be a heap of pleasure to a woman, but she mustn't let on to him."
"I believe," said Miss Wingate in an impersonally judicial tone of voice, "that Doctor Mayberry is the very handsomest man I ever saw. One would almost call him beautiful. It isn't entirely that he is so tall and grand and has such eyes, but—do you know I think it is because he is so like you that he is so lovely." And the singer lady tucked her hand into Mother Mayberry's with a shy blush.
"Liking folks kinder shines 'em up, same as furniture polish, honey-bird," laughed Mother Mayberry with delight at the compliment. "You're a-rubbing some on me and Tom Mayberry. But he were the best favored baby I 'most ever saw, if I do say it, as shouldn't."
"Oh!" said Miss Wingate delightedly, "I know he must have been lovely! What was he like?"
"Well," answered Mother reminiscently, "he were about like he are now. He come so ugly I cried when I seen him first, and Doctor Mayberry teased me about it to the day of his death. He called Tom 'Ugly' for short. But he mighty soon begun to sprout little pleasing ways, a-looking up under them black lashes and a-laughing acrost my breast. His cheeks was rosy, his back broad and his legs straight, same as now. He teethed easy, walked soon, have never learned to talk much yet, and had his measles and whooping-cough when his time come. I just thought he were something 'cause he were mine. All babies is astonishing miracles to they mothers."
"But I'm sure Doctor Mayberry was really wonderful," said Miss Wingate, instantly sympathetic. "Had he always such black hair?"
"Borned with it. Now, my little girl had beautiful yellow curls and I can show you one, by the Lord's mercy I've got it." Mother paused and an ineffable gentleness came into her lovely old face. "I want to tell you about it, honey-heart, 'cause it have got a strange sweetness to it. She wasn't but five years old when she died, tooken sudden with pneumony cruel bad. Nobody thought to cut me one of her curls before they laid her away, and when I come to myself I grieved over it more than I had oughter. But one day when the fall come on and the days was short and dark; and it looked like nothing couldn't light up the old house with that sunshine head gone, me almost a-feeling bitter and questioning why, Tom went out and picked up a robin's nest that had blowed down from a tree in the yard. And there, wound around inside it, was the little curl I had cut off in the spring, out on the porch, what had tagged into her eyes and worried her! The mother bird had used it to make the nest soft for her babies and now didn't need it no more. When I looked at it I took it as a message and a sign that my Lord hadn't forgot me, and I ain't never mistrusted Him again. Come, let me show it to you."