"This here are a curious spell of weather," remarked Mother Mayberry, as she paused beside the singer lady who was holding Martin Luther up on the broad window-sill, and with him was looking disconsolately down the Road. "June's gone to acting like a woman with nerves that cries just because she can. I'm glad all the chicken babies are feathered out and can shed rain. Them little Hoosier pullets have already sprouted tail feathers. They ain't a one of 'em a-going into the skillet no matter how hungry Tom Mayberry looks after 'em. If I don't hold you and Cindy back from spoiling him with chicken-fixings three times a day he'll begin to show pin feathers hisself in no time."
"He likes chicken better than anything else," murmured Miss Wingate as she buried a blush in Martin Luther's topknot.
"Well, wanting ain't always a reason for being gave to," said the Doctor's mother with a chuckle as she admired the side view of the blush. "But, seeing that he about half feeds hisself by looking at me and you at the table, I reckon I'll have to let him have two chickens a day to keep up his strength. Honey-fuzzle are a mighty satisfying diet, though light, for a growed man. Reckon we can persuade him to try a couple of slices of old ham onct in a while so as to give a few broilers time to get legs long enough to fry?"
"We can try," answered the singer lady in a doubtful tone of voice, for the Doctor's penchant for young chicken was very decided.
"Dearie me, it do beat all how some plans of life fall down in the oven," said the Doctor's mother, as she eyed Miss Wingate with her most quizzical smile quirking up the corners of her humorous mouth. "Here I put myself to all manner of troubles to go out into the big world to get a real managing wife for Tom Mayberry and I might just as well have set cross-handed and waited for Susie Pike or little Bettie to grow up to the spoiling of him. I thought seeing that you'd been raised with a silver spoon in your mouth and handed life on a fringed napkin, so to speak, you would make him stand around some, but for all I can see you're going to make another Providence wife. Ain't you got none of the suffering-women new notions at all?"
"I can't help it," answered the singer lady, ducking her head behind Martin Luther again, but smiling up out of the corners of her eyes.
"Are you just going to drop over into being a poor, down-trodden, miserable, man-bossed Harpeth Hill's wife, without trying a single new-fashioned husband remedy on him, with so many receipts for managing 'em being written down by ladies all over the world, mostly single ones?" demanded Mother Mayberry, fairly bubbling over with glee at the singer lady's abashment.
"Yes, I am," answered Miss Wingate sturdily. "I want him to have just what he wants."
"This are worse and more of it," exclaimed the Doctor's delighted Mother. "You are got a wrong notion, child! Marriage ain't no slow, plow-team business these days; it's hitched at opposite ends and pulling both ways for dear life. Don't you even hope you will be; able to think up no kind of tantrums to keep Tom Mayberry from being happy?"
"I don't want to," laughed the infatuated bride prospective.
"Then I reckon I'll have to give up and let you settle down into being one of these here regular old-fashioned, primping-for-a-man, dinner-on-the-table-at-the-horn-blow, hanging-over-the-front-gate-waiting kind of wives. I thought I'd caught a high-faluting bird of Paradise for him and you ain't a thing in the world but a meadow dove. But there comes Bettie scooting through the rain with little Hoover under her shawl. Providence folks have got duck blood, all of 'em, and the more it pours out they paddles. Come in and shake your feathers, Bettie."
"Howdy all," exclaimed the rosy Mrs. Hoover. "This here rain on the corn is money in everybody's pocket. I just stopped in to show you this pink flowered shirt-waist I have done finished for Miss Prissy Pike. Ain't it stylish?"
"It surely are, Bettie!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry. "I'm so glad you got it pink."
"And it don't run neither. I tried it," said the proud designer of the admired garment.
"That's a good sign for the wedding. You can rub happiness that's fast dyed through any kinder worry suds and it'll come out with the color left. Any news along the Road?" asked Mother Mayberry, as she handled the rosy blouse with careful hands.
"Well, Henny Turner says that Squire Tutt are in bed covered up head and ears with the quilts, but 'Lias says that it are just 'cause Mis' Tutt have got a happy spell on her and have been exorting of him. She called all three of them boys in, Bud and Henny and 'Lias, and made 'em learn a Bible verse a-piece, and I was grateful to her for her interest, but the Squire cussed so to 'em while she went to get 'em a cake that I'm afraid the lesson were spoiled for the chaps."
"I don't reckon it were, Bettie. Good salts down any day, while Evil don't ever keep long. But I do wish we could get the Squire and Mis' Tutt to be a little more peaceably with one another. It downright grieves me to have 'em so spited here in they old age." And Mother Mayberry's eyes took on a regretful look and she peered over her glasses at the happy bride. On her buoyant heart she ever carried the welfare of every soul in Providence and the crabbed old couple down the Road was a constant source of trouble to her.
"You shan't worry over 'em, Mis' Mayberry," answered pretty Bettie quickly, "You get every Providence trouble landed right on your shoulders as soon as one comes. You don't get a chance to do nothing but deal out ease to other people's bodies and souls, too."
"Well, a cup of cold water held to other folks' mouths is a mighty good way to quench your own thirst, Bettie child, and I'm glad if it are gave to me to label out the blessing of ease. But have you been in to the Deacon's this morning?"
"No'm, I'm a-going to stop as I go along home," answered Bettie. "I have seed the little raven paddling back and forth, so I guess they is all right. I must hurry on now, for I see Miss Prissy at the window looking for me. Ain't my baby a-growing?" she asked, as she picked little Hoover off of the floor and again enveloped the bobbing head under her own shawl.
"Yes, it are, and Mr. Hoover's a-smiling hisself fat by the day, child," answered Mother Mayberry with a smile. "Do you pass on the word to Elinory here that Providence husbands wear good, both warp and woof?"
"That they do, Miss Elinory, and I never seed nothing like 'em in my travels," called back the bride from the door, as she reefed in her skirts and sailed out in the downpour.
"Well, your mind oughter be satisfied, child, for Bettie muster seen a good deal of the world in that three weeks' bridal trip in the farm wagon," laughed Mother Mayberry at the singer lady by the window. "Now I'm a-going to swim out to gather eggs and I'll be back if I don't drown." With which she left the girl and the tot to resume their watch down the Road for a horse and rider due in not over two hours' time.
And indeed the last of old June's days seemed in danger of dripping away from her in tears of farewell. Rain clouds hung low over Harpeth Hills and drifted down to the very top of Providence Nob. A steady downpour had begun in the night and held on into the day and seemed to increase in volume as the hours wore away. The tall maples were standing depressed-boughed and dripping and the poplar leaves hung sodden and wet, refusing a glimpse of their silver lining. A row of bleeding-hearts down the walk were turning faint pink and drooping to the ground, while every rose in the yard was shattered and wasted away.
"Rain, rain!" wailed Martin Luther under his breath, as he pressed his cheek to the window-pane and looked without interest at a forlorn rooster huddled with a couple of hens under the snowball bush.
"Don't you want a cake and some milk?" asked the singer lady, as she gave him a comforting hug and essayed consolation by the offer of a material distraction.
"No milk, no cake; L-i-z-a, thank ma'am, please," he sobbed a disconsolate demand for what he considered a good substitute sunbeam.
"There she comes now, darling," exclaimed the singer lady, with as much pleasure coming into her face as lit the doleful cherub's at her side. And from the Pike front door there had issued a small figure, also enveloped in an old shawl, which made its way across the puddles with splashing, bare feet. She had her covered dish under her arm and a bucket dangled from one hand. She answered Martin Luther's hail with a flash of her white teeth and sped across the front porch.
And in the course of just ten minutes the experienced young pacifier had established the small boy as driver to Mother Mayberry's large rocking-chair, mounted him on the foot of the bed with snapping switch to crack and thus secured a two-hour reign of peace for his elders.
"Miss Elinory," she said, as she came and stood close to the singer lady seated in the deep window, "I'm mighty glad you got Doctor Tom; and it were fair to the other lady, too. He couldn't help loving you best, 'cause you are got a sick throat and she ain't. Do you reckon she'll be satisfied to take Sam Mosbey when she comes again? I'm sorry for her."
"So am I, Eliza," laughed Miss Wingate softly, as the rose blush stole up over her cheeks, "but I don't believe she'll need Mr. Mosbey. Don't you suppose she—that—is—there must be some one down in the City whom she likes a lot."
"Yes'm, I reckon they is. Then I'll just take Sam myself when I grow up if nobody else wants him," answered Eliza comfortably. "I'm sorry to be glad that your throat didn't get well, but Mis' Peavey says that you never in the world woulder tooken Doctor Tom if you coulder gone away and made money singing to people. I don't know what me or him or Mother Mayberry woulder done without you, but we couldn'ter paid you much to stay. You won't never go now, will you?"
"Never," answered the singer lady, as she drew the little ingenue close to her side. "And let me whisper something to you, Eliza—I never—would—have—gone—any—way. I love you too much, you and Mother Mayberry—and Doctor Tom."
"And Mis' Bostick and Deacon," exclaimed the loyal young raven. "Miss Elinory, I get so scared about Mis' Bostick right here," she added, laying her hand on her little throat. "She won't eat nothing and she can't talk to me to-day. Maw and Mis' Nath Mosbey are there now and waiting for Doctor Tom to come back. They said not to tell Mother Mayberry until the rain held up some, but they want her, too. Can't loving people do nothing for 'em, Miss Elinory?" and with big, wistful eyes the tiny woman put the question, which has agonized hearts down the ages.
"Oh, darling, the—loving itself helps," answered the singer lady quickly with the mist over her eyes.
"I believe it do," answered Eliza thoughtfully.
"I hold the Deacon's other hand when he sets by Mis' Bostick! He wants me, and she smiles at us both. I don't like to leave 'em for one single minute. I have to wait now for Cindy to get the dinner done, but then I'm a-going to run. Why, there goes Mother Mayberry outen the gate under a umbrella! And Aunt Prissy asked me to get a spool of number fifty thread from her to sew some lace on a petticoat Mis' Hoover have done finished for her. If I was to go to get married I'd make some things for my husband, too, and not so much for myself. I wouldn't want so many skirts unless I knewed he had enough shirts."
"But, Eliza," remonstrated Miss Wingate, slightly shocked at this rather original idea of providing a groom with a trousseau, "perhaps he would rather get things for himself."
"No'm, he wouldn't," answered Eliza positively. "I ain't a-going to say anything to Aunt Prissy about it 'cause you never can tell what will hurt her feelings, but I want you to get Mis' Hoover to show you how and make three nice shirts for Doctor Tom, so you can wash one while he wears the other and keep one put away for Sunday. That is the way Maw does for Paw and all the other folks on the Road does the same for they men. Mis' Peavey can show you how to iron them nice, for she does the Deacon's for me and Mother Mayberry is too busy to bother with such things 'count of always having to go to sick folks even over to the other side of the Nob. Cindy don't starch good. You'll do for Doctor Tom nice, now you've got him, won't you?"
"Yes, Eliza, I will," answered the singer lady meekly, as this prevision of the life domestic rose up and menaced her. She even had a queer little thrill of pleasure at the thought of performing such superhuman tasks for what was to be her individual responsibility among Providence men along the Road. The certainty that she would never be allowed to perform such offices at machine and tub actually depressed her, for the thought had brought a primitive sense of possession that she was loath to dismiss; the passion for service to love being an instinct that sways the great lady and her country sister alike. "Do you think he—will let me?" she asked of her admonisher.
"Just go on and do it and don't ask him," was the practical answer. "There he comes now leading his horse and he have been to see Mis' Bostick. I can get the dinner and run on to meet him and hear how he thinks she are," she exclaimed as she seized her dish and bucket and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
And a few minutes later, as Doctor Mayberry was unsaddling his horse in the barn a lithe figure enveloped as to head and shoulders in one of Cindy's kitchen aprons darted under the dripping eaves and stood breathless and laughing in the wide door.
"I saw you come up the Road," said the singer lady, as she divested herself of the gingham garment, "and I was dying to get out in the rain, much to Cindy's horror. You are late."
"Not much," answered the young Doctor, slipping out of his rain coat and coming over to stand beside her in the door. "What have you been doing all morning?"
"I've been being—being lectured," she answered, as she looked up in his face with dancing dark eyes.
"Who did it to you?" he asked, taking her fingers into his and drawing her farther back from the splash of the rain drops.
"Your Mother and then Eliza Pike," she answered with a low laugh. "Eliza is afraid I won't 'do for you' in proper Providence style and I'm very humble and—I—I want to learn. She thinks I ought to begin on some—some shirts for you right now and I'm going to. What color do you prefer?"
"Horrors!" exclaimed the Doctor, positively blushing at the thought of the very lovely lady engaged in such a clothing mission.
"I knew you wouldn't have any confidence in them," answered Miss Wingate mournfully, "and I haven't myself, but still I was willing to try."
"Oh, yes, I have!" the young Doctor hastened to exclaim. "Better make them suitable for traveling, for I've got marching orders in the noon mail. Are you ready to start to Italy on short notice and then on to India?"
"What?" demanded the singer lady with alarmed astonishment.
"Yes," answered the young Doctor coolly. "The Commission writes that my reports on Pellagra down here are complete enough now for them to send some chap down to continue them, while I go on to Southern Italy for a study of similar conditions there and then on to India for a still more exhaustive examination. The Government is determined to stamp this scourge out before it gets a hold, and it's work to put out the fire before it spreads. Better hurry the shirts and pack up your own fluff."
"But I'm not going a step or a wave," answered the singer girl defiantly. "I'm too busy here now. I don't ever intend to leave Mother as long as I live. I don't see how you can even suggest such a thing to me."
"Do you know what leaving Mother is like?" asked the young Doctor, as he looked down on her with tenderness in his gray eyes and Mother Mayberry's own quizzical smile on his lips. "It's like going to sleep at night with a last look at Providence Nob,—you wake up in the morning and find it more there than ever. She was THERE on sunny mornings over in Berlin and THERE on gray days in London and I had her on long hard hospital nights in New York. Just come with me on this trip and I promise she and Old Harpeth will be here when we get back. Please!"
"I don't know," answered Miss Wingate in a small voice as she rubbed her cheek against the arm of his coat. "I'm in love with Tom Mayberry of Providence Road. I don't know that I want to go traveling with a distinguished physician on an important Government mission and attend Legation dinners and banquets and—I don't want to leave my Mother," and there was a real catch in the laugh she smothered in his coat sleeve.
"Dearie girl," he exclaimed, looking down with delight at a small section of blush left visible against the rough blue serge of his coat, "you and Mother are—"
"Sakes, you folks, I wish you'd try to listen when you are called at!" came in a sharp voice as Mrs. Peavey looked down upon them from over the wall near the barn. "One of them foolish Indiany chickens are stretched out kicking most drowned in a puddle right by the barn door, and there you both stand doing nothing for it. Tom Mayberry, pick it up this minute and give it to me! I'm a-going to put it behind my stove until Mis' Mayberry comes home. I've got some feeling for her love of chickens,Ihave."
"Oh, I didn't see it!" exclaimed Miss Wingate, in an agony of regret. "The dear little thing! Give it to me and I'll take care of it."
"Fiddlesticks! Chickens ain't 'dear little things,' and I wouldn't trust neither one of you to take care of a flea of mine, with your philandering. Hand it here to me, Tom Mayberry, like I tell you!" And the Doctor hastened to pick up the little gasping bunch of drenched feathers, which Mrs. Peavey tucked in the corner of her shawl "Did you all hear that a car busted into another one down in the City day before yesterday and throwed the driver and broke a lady's arm and cut a baby's leg shameful? It was in the morning paper I saw down to the store; and a wind storm blew off a man's roof too."
"I haven't read the paper yet," answered the singer lady in the subdued voice she always used in addressing Mother Mayberry's pessimistic neighbor.
"Well, you oughter take interest in accidents if you are a-going to be a Doctor's wife. It'll be all in the family then and you can hear it all straight and maybe see some folks mended," answered Mrs. Peavey, and she failed to notice Miss Wingate's horrified expression at such a prospect. "How's Mis' Bostick, Tom? That is, how do your Mother say she are, for I couldn't trust your notion in such a case as her'n."
"I think Mother feels worried over her to-day," answered the Doctor gently, with not a trace of offense at his neighbor's outspoken question. "Her heart is very weak and it is impossible to stimulate her further. Mother is up there now and I'll come tell you what she says when she comes home to dinner."
"Well, I'm always thankful for news, bad as it mostly are," answered Mrs. Peavey in gloomy gratitude for his offer of a report from Mother Mayberry. "You all had better go on in the house now and put Miss Elinory's wet feet in the stove, for they won't be no use in her dying on Mis' Mayberry's hands with pneumony at this busy time of the year. Them slippers is too foolish to look at." With which the shawled head disappeared from the top of the wall.
"Do you know, I had a strange dream last night," said the singer lady, as the Doctor hung up his bridle and shut the feed-room door preparatory to following out Mrs. Peavey's injunction as to carrying Miss Wingate away to be dry shod. "I dreamed that I was singing to Mrs. Bostick and the Deacon, REALLY singing, and just as it rose clear and strong Mrs. Peavey called to me to 'shut up' and it stopped so suddenly that I waked up—and the strange part of it is that I heard, really heard, I thought, my own voice die away in an echo up in the eaves. For a second I seemed awake and listening—and it was lovely—lovely!"
"Dear," said the Doctor, as he took her hand in his and held it against his breast, "I would give all life has to offer me to get it back for you. I will hope against hope! I haven't written Doctor Stein yet. I can't make myself write. Perhaps we will find some one on this trip who has some theory or treatment or something to offer. I've been praying that help will come!"
"Would you—like me any better if I had it back?" she asked with a happy little laugh as she laid her cheek against their clasped hands. "Would you want L'ELEONORE more than you do just plain Elinor Wingate, care Mother Mayberry, Providence, Tennessee?"
"I'm going to carry you in the house so you can put on dry stockings," answered the Doctor with a spark in his gray eyes that scorned her question, and without any discussion he picked her up, strode through the rain with her and deposited her in the kitchen door.
And over by the long window they found Mother Mayberry standing with her hand on Cindy's shoulder, who sat with her head bowed in her apron sobbing quietly, while Martin Luther stood wide-eyed and questioning, with his little hand clutching Mother's skirts.
"Children," said Mother quietly as she came and stood beside them in the doorway, while Martin Luther nestled up to Doctor Tom, "I've come down the Road to tell you that it are all over up at the Deacon's. It were very beautiful, for Mis' Bostick just give us a smile and went to meet her Lord with the love of us all a-shining on her face. We didn't hardly sense it at first, for she had just spoke to 'Liza, and the Deacon were over by the window. I ain't got no tears to shed for her and Deacon are so stunned he don't need 'em yet."
"Mother," exclaimed the Doctor, as he took her hand in his, while the singer lady crept close and rested against her strong shoulder.
"Yes, son," answered his Mother gently, "it come so sudden I couldn't even send for you, but go on up there now and see what you can do for Deacon. He'll want you for the comfort of your presence, you and 'Liza."
"And Eliza!" exclaimed Miss Wingate with a sob, "it'll break her little heart."
"They never was such a child as 'Liza Pike in the world," said Mother Mayberry softly and for the first time a film of tears spread over her eyes. "She have never said a word, but just stands pressed up close with her arm 'round the Deacon's shoulders as he sits with his Good Book acrost his knees. She give one little moan when she understood, but she ain't made a mite of child-fuss, just shed her baby tears like a woman growed to sorrow. Her little bucket and dish of dinner is a-setting cold on the table and a little draggled rose she had brung in not a hour back is still in Mis' Bostick's fingers, and the other one pinned on the Deacon's coat. When Judy and Betty wanted to begin to fix things she understood without a word, led the Deacon out into the hall and are just a-standing there a-keeping him up in his daze by the courage in her own loving little heart. The good Lord bless and keep the child! Now, go on, Tom, and see what you can do! Yes, Cindy will run right over and tell Mis' Peavey. And stop in and see Squire Tutt, for Henny Turner says he are down to-day and a-asking for you. Come into my room, honey-bird, I've got to look for something."
"Somehow, I don't feel about dying as lot of folks do," she remarked to the singer lady, as she stood in front of the tall old chest of drawers in her own room a few minutes later. "Death ain't nothing but laying down one job of work and going to answer the Master when He calls you to come take up another. Mis' Bostick have worked in His vineyard early and late, through summer sun and winter wind, and now He have summoned her in for some other purpose. He'll find her well-tried and seasoned to go on with whatever plans He have for her in His Kingdom."
"It's wonderful to believe that," answered the singer girl through her tears. "It seems to supply a reason for what happens to us here—if we can go on with it later."
"Course we can," answered Mother Mayberry, as she began to search in her top drawer for something. "I hope He have got some good big job cut out for Tom Mayberry and me; but course it will have to be something different, for they won't be no more sickness or death or sorrowing for us doctors to tend on. But Pa Lovell and Doctor Mayberry have found something by this time and maybe it will be for me and Tom to work at it alongside of 'em. It might be you will have the beautiful voice back and come sing for us all, as have never heard you in this world. Then, too, I believe He'll give it to little Sister Pike to tend on the prophets and maybe I'll be there to see!"
"This is the first time I ever could take—take any interest in Heaven at all," confessed Miss Wingate, lifting large, comforted eyes to Mother Mayberry's face. "When I was so desperate and didn't know what to do, before I came and found out that there was a place for me in this world even if I couldn't sing any more, I used to dread the thought of Heaven, even if I might some day be good enough to go there."
"Well, a stand-around, set-around kind of Heaven may be for some people as wants it, but a come-over-and-help-us kind is what I'm hoping for. I want to have a good lot of honest acts to pack up and take into the judgment seat to prove my character by and then be honored with some kind of telling labor to do. I'm looking for something white to put at Mis' Bostick's neck, for we are a-going to lay her in her grave in the old dress with its honorable patches, but with a little piece of fine white to match her sweet soul. Here it is."
"Will you let me know if I can do anything for anybody or the Deacon later?" asked the singer lady gently.
"I know you will be a comfort to him, child, after a while. You can look after my chickens and things for me, for Cindy's a-going with me and that leaves you to feed the two boys, Tom and Martin Luther, for dinner. And don't you never forget that you are the apple-core of your Mother Mayberry's heart and she's a-going to hold you to her tender, even unto them Glory days we've been a-planning for, with Death here in the midst of Life."
"In all my long life it have never been gave to me to see anything like Deacon Bostick and his Providence children," said Mother Mayberry, as she stood on the end of the porch with the singer girl's hand in hers. "He are a-setting on his bench under the tree right by her window, like he always did to listen for her, and every child in the Road is a-huddled up against him like a forlorn lot of little motherless chickens. He have got little Bettie and Martin Luther on his knees and the rest are just crowded up all around him. He don't seem to notice any of the rest of us, but looks to 'Liza for everything. She got him to go to bed at nine o'clock and when Buck and Mr. Petway went to set up for the night they found she'd done made 'Lias and Henny and Bud all lie down by him, one on each side and Bud acrost the foot. He wanted 'em to stay and the men let 'em do it. Judy says she were up by daylight and gone down the Road to see about his breakfast and things. And now she are just a-standing by him waiting for the bell to toll for the funeral. The Deacon have surely followed his Master in the suffering of little children to draw close to him in this life and now he are becoming as one of 'em before entering the Kingdom."
"This soft, misty, sun-veiled day seems just made for Mrs. Bostick," said Miss Wingate with unshed tears in her voice.
"It may be just a notion of mine, honey-bird, but it looks like up here in Harpeth Hills the weather have got a sympathy with us folks. Look how Providence Nob have drawed a mist of tears 'twixt it and the faint sun. When troubles are with us I've seen clouds boil up over the Ridge and on the other hand we ain't scarcely ever had rain on a wedding or church soshul day. I like to feel that maybe the good Lord looks special after us of His children living out in the open fields and we have got His word that He tempers the winds. People in the big cities can crowd up and keep care of one another, but out here we are all just in the hollow of His hand. Here comes Mis' Peavey. I asked her to go along to the funeral with me and you. It are most time now."
"Howdy, all," said Mrs. Peavey in an utterly gray tone of voice. "Mis' Mayberry, that Circuit Rider have never come from Bolivar yet. Do you reckon his horse have throwed him or is it just he don't care for us Providence folks and don't think it worth his while to come say the words over Sister Bostick?"
"Oh, he come 'most a half-hour ago, Hettie Ann," answered Mother Mayberry quickly. "Bettie had a little snack laid out for him 'count of his having to make such a early start to get here. He was most kind to the Deacon and professed much sorrow for us all. How are your side this morning?"
"I got out that foolish dry plaster Tom made me more'n a month ago and put it on last night, 'cause I didn't want to disturb you, and to my surprise they ain't a mite of pain hit me since. But I guess it are mostly the clearing weather that have stopped it."
"Maybe a little of both," answered the Doctor's mother with a smile, "but anyway, it's good that you ain't a-suffering none. We must all take good care of each other's pains from now on, 'cause we are most valuable one to another. Friends is one kind of treasure you don't want to lay up in Heaven."
"I spend most of my time thinking about folks' accidents and hurts and pains," answered Mrs. Peavey in all truth. "Miss Elinory, did you gargle your throat with that slippery-ellum tea I thought about to make for you last week?"
"Yes, Mrs. Peavey, I did," answered Miss Wingate quickly, for she had performed that nauseous operation actuated by positive fear of Mrs. Peavey if she should discover a failure to follow her directions.
"It'll cure you, maybe," answered the gratified neighbor. "There's the bell and let's all go on slow and respectful."
And the sweet-toned old Providence Meeting-house bell was tolling its notes for the passing of the soul of the gentle little Harpeth woman of many sorrows as her friends and neighbors walked quietly down the Road, along the dim aisle and took their places in the old pews with a fitting solemnity on their serious faces. The young Circuit Rider spoke to them from a full heart in sympathetically simple words and Pattie Hoover led the congregation from behind the little cabinet organ in a few of the Deacon's favorite hymns.
Then the little procession wound its way among the graves over to a corner under an old cedar tree, where the stout young farmers laid their frail burden down for its long sleep. The Deacon stood close by and the children clung around his thin old legs, to his hands, and reached to grasp at a corner of his coat. Eliza laid her head against his shoulder and Henny and 'Lias crowded close on the other side, while Bud held the old black hat he had taken from off his white hair, in careful, shaking little hands. The singer lady, with the Doctor at her side and her hand in Mother Mayberry's, stood just opposite and the others came near.
The simple service that the Church has instituted for the committing of its dead to the grave had been read by the Circuit Rider, the last prayer offered, and as a long ray of sunlight came through the mist and fell across the little assembly, he turned expectantly to Pattie Hoover, who stood between her father and Buck at the other end of the grave. He had read the first lines of the hymn and he expected her to raise the tune for the others to follow. But when a woman's heart is very young and tender, and attuned to that of another which is throbbing emotionally close by, her own feelings are apt to rise in a tidal wave of tears, regardless of consequences; and as Buck Peavey choked off a sob, Pattie turned and buried her head on her father's arm. There was a long pause and nobody attempted to start the singing. They were accustomed to depend on Pattie or her organ and their own throats were tight with tears. The unmusical young preacher was helpless and looked from one to another, then was about to raise his hands for the benediction, when a little voice came across the grave.
"Ain't nobody going to sing for Mis' Bostick?" wailed Eliza, as her head went down on the Deacon's arm in a shudder of sobs.
Then suddenly a very wonderful and beautiful thing happened in that old churchyard of Providence Meeting-house under Harpeth Hills, for the great singer lady stepped toward the Deacon a little way, paused, looked across at the old Nob in the sunlight, and high and clear and free-winged like that of an archangel, rose her glorious voice in the
"Hail, holy, holy, holy Lord,"
which she had set for him and the gentle invalid to the wonderful motif of the Song of the Master's Grail. Love and sorrow and a flood of tears had relieved a pressure somewhere, the balance had been recovered and her muted voice freed. And on through the verses to the very end she sang it, while the little group of field people held their breath in awe and amazement. Then, while they all stood with bowed heads for the benediction, she turned and walked away through the graves, out of the churchyard and on up Providence Road, with an instinct to hide from them all for a moment of realization.
"And here I have to come and hunt the little skeered miracle out of my own feather pillows," exclaimed Mother Mayberry a little later with laughter, tears, pride and joy in her voice, as she bent over the broad expanse of her own bed and drew the singer girl up in her strong arms. "Daughter," she said, with her cheek pressed to the flushed one against her shoulder, "what the Lord hath given and taketh away we bless Him for and none the less what He giveth back, blessed be His name. That's a jumble, but He understands me. You don't feel in no ways peculiar, do you?" and as she asked the question the Doctor's mother clasped the slender throat in one of her strong hands.
"Not a bit anywhere," answered Miss Wingate, with the burr all gone from her soft voice. "Is it true?"
"Dearie me, I can't hardly stand it to hear you speak, it are so sweet!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry in positive rapture and again the tears filled her eyes, while her face crinkled up into a dimpled smile. "Don't say nothing where the mocking-birds will hear you, please, 'cause they'll begin to hatch out a dumb race from plumb discouragement. Come out on the porch where it ain't so hot, but I'm a-holding on to you to keep you from flying up into one of the trees. I'm a-going to set about building a cage for you right—"
"Now, didn't I tell you about that slippery-ellum!" came in a positively triumphant voile to greet them as they stepped out of the front door. Mrs. Peavey was ascending the steps all out of breath, her decorous hat awry, and her eyes snapping with excitement. "Course I don't think this can be no positive cure and like as not you'll wake up to-morrow with your voice all gone dry again, but it were the slippery-ellum that done it!"
"I think it must have helped some," answered the singer lady in the clear voice that still held its wonted note of meekness to her neighbor.
"Course it did! Tom Mayberry's experimenting couldn'ter done it no real good. His mother have been giving that biled bark for sore throat for thirty years and it was me that remembered it. But it were a pity you done it at the grave; that were Mis' Bostick's funeral and not your'n. Now look at everybody a-coming up the Road with no grieving left at all."
"Oh, Hettie Ann," exclaimed Mother Mayberry in quick distress, "it are a mean kind of sorrow that can't open its arms to hold joy tender. Think what it do mean to the child and—Look at Bettie!"
And indeed it was a sight to behold the pretty mother of the seventeen sailing up the front walk like a great full-rigged ship. Miss Wingate flew down the steps to meet her and in a few seconds was enveloped and involved with little Hoover in an embrace that threatened to be disastrous to all concerned. Judy Pike was close behind and, making a grab on her own part, stood holding the end of the singer lady's sash in her one hand while Teether, from her other arm, caught at the bright ribbons and squealed with delight. The abashed Pattie hung over the front gate and Buck grinned in the rear.
"Lawsy me, child," Mrs. Hoover laughed and sobbed as she patted the singer lady on the back, little Hoover anywhere he came upmost and included Teether and Judy also in the demonstration, "I feel like it would take two to hold me down! You sure sing with as much style as you dress! And to think such a thing have happened to all of us here in Providence. We won't never need that phonygraph we all are a-hankering after now. Speak up to the child, Judy Pike!"
"I don't need to," answered the more self-contained Sister Pike, "she knows how I'm a-rejoicing for her. Just look at Mr. Hoover and Ez Pike a-grinning acrost the street at her and here do come the Squire and Mis' Tutt walking along together for the first time I almost ever seed 'em."
"Wheeuh," wheezed the Squire, "I done come up here to give up on the subject of that Tom Mayberry! He don't look or talk like he have got any sense, girl, but he are the greatest doctor anywhere from Harpeth Hills to Californy or Alasky. He have got good remedies for all. I reckon you are one of the hot water kind, but he can give bitters too. You'd better keep him to the bitters though for safety."
"There now! You all have done heard the top testimony for Tom Mayberry," exclaimed Mother, fairly running over with joy.
"Glory!" was the one word that rose to the surface of Mrs. Tutt's emotions, but it expressed her state of beatitude and caused the Squire to peer at her with uneasiness as if expecting an outburst of exhortation on the next breath. Mrs. Peavey's experienced eye also caught the threatened downpour and she hastened to admonish the group of women.
"Sakes, you all!" she exclaimed, untying the strings of her bonnet energetically, "they won't be a supper cooked on the Road if we don't go get about it. A snack dinner were give the men and such always calls for the putting on of the big pot and the little kettle for supper. Miss Elinory will be here for you all to eat up to-morrow morning, 'lessen something happens to her in the night, like a wind storm. Go on everybody!"
"Oh," exclaimed Mother Mayberry, as she stood on the top step looking down at them all, "look how the sun have come out on us all, with its happiness after the sorrow we have known this day. I thank you, one and all, for your feeling with me and my daughter Elinory. The rejoicing of friends are a soft wind to folks' spirit wings and we're all flying high this night. Get the children bedded down early, for they have had a long day and need good sleep. Bettie, let Mis' Tutt walk along with you and the Squire can come on slow. Don't nobody forget that it are Sewing Circle with Mis' Mosbey to-morrow."
And, with more congratulations to the singer lady, laughs with Mother Mayberry, and the return of a shot or two with Mrs. Peavey, the happy country women dispersed to their own roof trees. The sorrow that had come they had endured for the night and now they were ready to rise up and meet joy for the morning. In the children of nature the emotions maintain their elemental balance and their sense of the proportions of life is instinctively true.
"Look, honey-bird, who's coming!" said Mother Mayberry, just as she was turning to seat herself in her rocking-chair, tired out as she was with the strain of the long day. "Run, meet 'em at the gate!" And up Providence Road came the old Deacon and Eliza hand in hand, with Martin Luther trailing wearily behind them. When she saw Miss Wingate at the gate, Eliza, for the first time during the day, loosed her hold on her old charge and darted forward to hide her head on the singer lady's breast as her thin little arms clasped around her convulsively.
"Now," she wailed, "Mis' Bostick are dead and you'll be goned away too. Can't you stay a little while, till we can stand to let you go? Poor Doctor Tom! Please, oh, please!"
"Darling, darling, I'm never going to leave you!" exclaimed Miss Wingate, as she hugged the small implorer as closely as possible and held out one hand to the Deacon as he came up beside them. "I'm going to stay and sing for you and the Deacon whenever you want me—if it will help!"
"Child," said the old patriarch, with an ineffable sweetness shining from his sad old face, "out of my affliction I come to add my blessing to what the Lord has given to you this day. And I take this mercy as a special dispensation to me and to her, as it came when you were performing one of His offices for us. No sweeter strain could come from the Choir Invisible that she hears this night, and if she knows she rejoices that it will be given at other times to me, to feed my lonely soul."
"The songs are yours when you want them, Deacon," said the singer girl in her sweet low voice as she held his hand in hers gently.
"And it are true what the Deacon says, they ain't no help like music," said Mother Mayberry who had come down the walk and stood leaning against the gate near them. "A song can tote comfort from heart to heart when words wouldn't have no meaning. It's a high calling, child, and have to be answered with a high life."
"I know Pattie and Buck and Aunt Prissy will let you always sing in the choir if Deacon asks 'em," said Eliza in a practical voice as she again took hold of the Deacon's hand, "and Mr. Petway are a-going to buy a piano for Aunt Prissy when they get married and sometimes you can sing by it if Doctor Tom can't save up enough to get you one. But I want Deacon to come home now, 'cause he are tired." And without more ado she departed with her docile charge, leaving the tired Martin Luther with his hands clasped in Mother Mayberry's.
"Mother," faltered Miss Wingate as she and Mother Mayberry were slowly ascending the steps, assisting the almost paralyzed young missionary to mount between them, "where do you suppose—HE is?" For some minutes back the singer lady had been growing pale at the realization that the Doctor had not come to her since she had left his side in the churchyard and her eyes were beginning to show a deep hurt within.
"I don't know, Elinory, and I've been a-wondering," answered Mother Mayberry as she sank down on the top step and took the tired child in her arms.
"Oh," said Miss Wingate as she stood before her on the lower step and clasped her white hands against her breast, "do you suppose he is going to—to hurt me now?"
"Child," answered the Doctor's mother quietly, with a quick sadness spreading over her usually bright face, "they ain't nothing in the world that can be as cruel as true love when it goes blind. Tom Mayberry is a good man and I borned, nursed and raised him, but I won't answer for him about no co'ting conniptions. A man lover are a shy bird and they can't nothing but a true mate keep him steady on any limb. You ain't showed a single symptom of managing Tom yet, but somehow I've got confidence in you if you just keep your head now."
"But what can the matter be?" demanded Miss Wingate in a voice that shook with positive terror.
"Well," answered Mother Mayberry slowly, "I sorter sense the trouble and I'll tell you right out and out for your good. Loving a woman are a kinder regeneration process for any man, and a good one like as not comes outen it humbler than a bad most times. Tom have wrapped you around with some sorter pink cloud of sentiments, tagged you with all them bokays the world have give you for singing so grand, turned all them lights on you he first seen you acrost and now he's afraid to come nigh you. I suspect him of a bad case of chicken-heart and I'm a-pitying of him most deep. He's just lying down at your feet waiting to be picked up."
"I wonder where he is!" exclaimed Miss Wingate as a light flashed into her eyes and a trace of color came back to her cheeks.
"You'll find him," answered the Doctor's mother comfortably, "and when you do I want you to promise me to put him through a good course of sprouts. A wife oughtn't to stand on no pedestal for a man, but she have got no call to make squaw tracks behind him neither. Go on and find him! A woman have got to come out of the pink cloud to her husband some time, but she'd better keep a bit to flirt behind the rest of her life. Look in the office!"
"Well; Martin Luther," remarked Mother a few minutes later, as she lifted the absolutely dead youngster in her arms and rose to take him into the house, "life are all alike from Harpeth Hills to Galilee. A woman can shape up her dough any fancy way she wants and it's likely to come outen the oven a husband. All Elinory's fine songs are about to end in little chorus cheeps with Tom under Mother Mayberry's wings, the Lord be praised!"
And over in the office wing the situation was about as Mother Mayberry's experienced intuitions had predicted. Miss Wingate found the young Doctor sitting in the deep window and looking out at Providence Nob, which the last rays of the sun were dying blood red, with his strong young face set and white. The battle was still on and his soul was up in arms.
"Where have you been?" she asked quietly as she came and stood against the other side of the casement. The pain in his gray eyes set her heart to throbbing, but she had herself well in hand.
"When I came up the Road the others were all here and I waited to see you until they were gone," he answered her, just as quietly and in just as controlled a voice and with possibly just as wild a throb in his heart "I have been writing to Doctor Stein and there are the Press bulletins, subject to your approval," He pointed to some letters on the table which she never deigned to notice. She had drawn herself to her slim young height and looked him full in the face with a beautiful stateliness in her manner and glance. Her dark eyes never left his and she seemed waiting for him to say something further to her.
"You know without my telling you how very glad I am for you," he said gently and his hand trembled on the window ledge.
"Are you?" she asked in a low tone, still with her eyes fixed on his face, but her lips pressed close with a sharp intake of breath.
"Yes," he answered quickly, and this time the note of pain would sound clearly in his voice. "Yes, no matter what it means to me!"
The pain of it, the haggard gray eyes, the firm young mouth and the droop of the broad shoulders were too much for the singer girl and she smiled shakily as she held out her arms.
"Tom Mayberry," she pleaded with a little laugh, "please, please don't treat me this way. I promised your mother to be stern with you but—I can't! Don't you see that it can only mean to me what it means to your happiness—if—do you, could you possibly think it would make any difference to me? Do you suppose for all the wide world I would throw away what I have found here in Providence under Harpeth Hills—my Mother and you? Ah, Tom, I'll be good, I'll go to Italy and India with you! I'll—I'll 'do for' you just the best I can!"
"But, dear, it isn't right at all," whispered the young Doctor to the back of the singer lady's head, as he laid his cheek against the dark braids. "Your voice belongs to the world—there must be no giving it up. I can't let you—I—"
"Listen," said the singer girl as she raised her head and looked up into his face. "For all your life you will have to go where pain and grief call you, won't you? Can't you take my voice with you and use it—as one of your—remedies? Your Mother says songs can comfort where words fail; let me go with you! Your father brought her and her herb basket to Providence, won't you take me and my songs out into the world with you? Don't send me back to sing in the dreadful crowded theaters to people who pay to hear me. Let me give it all my lifelong, as she has given herself here in Providence. Please, Tom, please!" And again she buried her head against his coat.
And as was his wont, the silent young doctor failed to answer a single word but just held her close and comforted. And how long he would have held her, there is no way to know, because the strain had been too great on Mother Mayberry and in a few minutes she stood calmly in the door and looked at the pair of children with happy but quizzical eyes.
"It's just as well you got Tom Mayberry straightened out quick, Elinory," she remarked in her most jovial tone. "I've been getting madder and madder as I put Martin Luther to bed and though I ain't never had to whip him yet, I'd just about made up my mind to ask him out in the barn and dress him down for onct. Now are you well over your tantrum, sir?" she demanded as she eyed the shamefaced young Doctor delightedly.
"Mother!" he exclaimed as he turned his head away and the color rose under his tan.
"Have you done made up your mind to travel from town to town with Elinory and take in the tickets at the door and make yourself useful to her the rest of your life? Are you a-going to follow her peaceable all over Europe, Asia and Africa?" And her eyes fairly over-danced themselves with delight.
"Mother!" and this time the exclamation came from Miss Wingate as she came over to rest her cheek against Mother Mayberry's arm. She also blushed, but her eyes danced with an echo of the young Doctor's mother's laugh as she beheld his embarrassment.
"Yes," answered the Doctor, rallying at last, "yes, I'm ready to go with her. Will you go too, Mother, as retained physician?"
"Well, I don't know about that," answered his Mother with a laugh; "not till 'Liza Pike have growed up to take my place here. But I'm mighty glad to see you take your dose of humble pie so nice, Tom, and I reckon I'll have to tell you how happy I am about my child here. It was kinder smart of you to cure her and then claim her sweet self as a fee, wasn't it?"
"I do feel that way, Mother, and I don't see how I can let her make the sacrifice. Her future is so brilliant and I—I—"
"Son," said Mother Mayberry with the banter all gone from her rich voice and the love fairly radiating from her face as she laid a tender hand on the singer lady's dark head on her shoulder, "I don't have to ask my honey-bird the choice she have made. A woman don't want to wear her life-work like no jewelry harness nor yet no sacrificial garment, but she loves to clothe herself in it like it were a soft-colored, homespun dress to cover the pillow of her breast and the cradle of her arms to hold the tired folks against. Take her to India's coral strand if you must, for it's gave a wife to follow the husband-star. Long ago I vowed you to the Master's high call and now with these words I dedicates my daughter the same. She have waded through much pain and sorrow, but do it matter along how hard a Road folks travels if at last they come to they Providence?"