earning a living for a whole family by one's wits. Sidney's house, the
poorest and smallest of all the village, was the last at that end of the
big road, and stood higher than the others, far up on the hillside. As
Miss Judy looked toward it that morning, she was not thinking of Sidney
but of Doris, her daughter, whom Miss Judy loved as her own child. At
the very thought of Doris a new light came into her blue eyes and a
lovelier flush overspread her fair cheeks. She stood still for a moment,
gazing wistfully, waiting and longing for the far-off glimpse of Doris,
which nearly always sweetened the beginning of the day. On that wet
March morning there was no flutter of a little white apron, no sign of a
wafted kiss. Miss Judy sighed gently as her gaze came back to her own
yard. There were two japonica bushes, one standing on either side of the
front gate, and as Miss Judy now glanced at them she was startled to see
what seemed to be a roseate mist floating among the bare, brown
branches, still dripping and shining with the night's rain.
III
PHASES OF VILLAGE LIFE
A rosy mist often floated between Miss Judy and the bare, brown things
of life. She knew it, realizing fully how many mistakes she made in
seldom seeing things as they actually were. She had never been able to
trust her own eyes, and now they were not even as strong as they used to
be, although they were as blue as ever. The japonica bushes were only a
few paces distant, the front yard being but the merest strip of earth;
yet the ground was very wet, and Miss Judy was wearing prunella gaiters.
They were the only shoes she had; they were also the only kind she had
ever known a lady to wear. Shoes made of leather, however fine, would
have seemed to Miss Judy--had she known anything about them--as much too
heavy, too stiff, and altogether too clumsy for the delicate, soundless
step of a gentlewoman.
Moving out on the sunken stone of the door-step, she was still unable to
tell with certainty whether the japonicas were actually budding. She
stood peering helplessly, almost frowning in her effort to see. It was
really important that she should know as soon as possible. The coming of
spring was important to everybody in the Pennyroyal Region, where every
man was a farmer--the merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, and even the
minister; and where every woman had a garden, large and rich like old
lady Gordon's, or small and poor as Miss Judy's was. And the buds of the
japonica were the gay little heralds of the spring, coming clad all in
scarlet satin, while the rest of nature wore dull and sombre robes.
Flashing out from their dark hiding-places at the first touch of the
sun, the sight of them stirred the ladies of Oldfield as nothing else
ever did. The men, too, always noticed this first sign of spring's
approach. But it was the burning of the tobacco-beds on the wooded
hillsides, the floating of long, thin banners of pale blue smoke across
a wintry sky, which moved the men. It was only in the breasts of the
gentle gardeners of Oldfield that the bursting forth of the japonica
buds, these vivid points of flame, always fired a perennial ambition.
For the housewife who could send a neighbor the earliest cool, green
lettuce, or the first warm, red radishes might well be a proud woman,
and was a personage to be looked up to and to be envied during all the
rest of the year. And was it not rather a pretty ambition and even a
laudable one? Have not most of us noted pettier ambitions and far less
laudable ones in a much larger world?
Aside from this public and universal interest and anxiety concerning
gardening time, Miss Judy had good private reasons for wishing to get an
early start. Early vegetables were more profitable than late ones in
Oldfield as elsewhere. Of course Miss Judy never thought of selling any
of the things that grew in her little garden. She would have been
shocked at the suggestion. No one in Oldfield ever sold anything, except
Mr. Pettus, who kept the general store, and who sold everything that the
Oldfield people needed. It is true that Miss Judy had a regular
engagement with Mr. Pettus to exchange green stuff for sugar or knitting
materials, or a yard of white muslin to make Miss Sophia a tucker, or a
bit of net to freshen her cap, and occasionally even some trifle for
herself. _That_, however, was an entirely different matter from vulgarly
selling things. Mr. Pettus understood the difference quite as clearly as
Miss Judy did, and he always took the greatest pains to show his
appreciation of her thoughtful condescension in letting him have the
vegetables. He was always most generous too in these delicate and
complicated transactions. It upset Miss Judy somewhat, at first, to find
him willing to give more sugar for onions than for genteeler vegetables,
especially in the spring. But it was never hard for Miss Judy to give up
when no real principle was involved; and necessity makes most of us do
certain things which we disapprove of. So that, sighing gently, Miss
Judy squeezed her heartsease and mignonette into a smaller space, and
planted more onion-sets.
She was thinking about those onion-sets as she looked at the japonica
bushes, trying to see whether they were actually budding. She could not,
as a lady, admit even to herself how largely her sister's living
depended upon the ignoble bulbs even more than upon the refined produce
of the little garden. Her own living also depended upon this bit of
earth; but that was not nearly so important, from her point of view.
Miss Sophia came first in everything, even in the annual consideration
of the problem of the onion-sets. Miss Judy, thinking that the house in
which gentlewomen lived should never smell of anything but dried rose
leaves, asked Miss Sophia if she did not think the same. Miss Sophia,
who had thought nothing about it, and who objected to the odor of onions
only because it made her very hungry, answered "Just so, sister Judy,"
very promptly and very decisively, as she always answered everything
that Miss Judy said. Consequently the tidy calico bag containing the
onion-sets was banished to the kitchen for the winter, to become a
source of secret uneasiness to Miss Judy the whole season through.
Merica, the cook, was not so dependable a personage as Miss Judy could
have wished her to be. There was indeed something disturbingly uncertain
in her very name. Miss Judy always thought it must be _A_-merica, but
Merica always stoutly insisted that her whole real true name was
Mericus-Ves-Pat-rick-One-of-the-Earliest-Settlers-of-Kentucky, and Miss
Judy gave up all further discussion of the subject simply because she
was overwhelmed, not because she was convinced.
Remembering that the onion-sets had been quite safe when she last looked
at them, Miss Judy felt a renewed anxiety to know certainly whether the
japonicas were budding. And the only way to know was to get her fathers
far-off spectacles. These were privately used by both the little sisters
upon great emergencies, such as this was. But they had never been put on
by either in public; and Miss Judy was much startled at the thought of
putting them on at the front door. Moreover, they were always kept
carefully hidden in the left-hand corner, at the very back of the top
drawer of the chest of drawers in the little sisters' room, and Miss
Sophia was still asleep. Miss Judy could tell by the way the sun touched
the sunken stone of the door-step that it wanted two or three minutes of
the time when she always rolled the cannon-ball which held the door
open, as a polite hint to Miss Sophia to get up. Under the unusual
circumstances, however, Miss Judy felt justified in rolling it at once.
It was a big ball weighing twenty-five pounds, and it was a good deal
battered by distinguished service. It had come indeed from the
battle-field at New Orleans, and there was a tradition that it was the
identical cannon-ball which had killed the British general. Miss Judy,
however, could never be brought to entertain any such dreadful belief.
She was quite content and very, very proud to know beyond a shadow of a
doubt that many of those gallant Kentuckians who rushed in at the last
desperate moment--travel-worn, starving, ragged, and armed only with
hunters' rifles--to do such valiant service in turning the tide of that
momentous battle, were true sons of the Pennyroyal Region. Miss Judy was
aware of the strange and unaccountable misstatement concerning the
conduct of the Kentuckians, made by General Jackson in his report of the
battle. But she was also aware that the general--who was not as a rule
very quick to take things back--had corrected that misstatement so
promptly and so thoroughly, that it had not been necessary for General
Adair to ride from Kentucky to New Orleans to fight a duel with him
about the slander, although that gallant Kentuckian was all ready and
eager to go.
And was there not also that remarkable song, celebrating the part taken
by "The Hunters of Kentucky" in the battle of New Orleans? Everybody was
singing it when Miss Judy was a girl; and although she could not sing
she had often hummed the ringing chorus:--
"Oh, dear Kentucky,
The Hunters of Kentucky;
Dear old Kentucky,
The Hunters of Kentucky."
And she had even repeated the five stirring verses without making a
single mistake:--
"You've read I reckon, in the prints,
How Pakenham attempted
To make Old Hickory wince
But soon his scheme repented;
For we with rifles ready cocked,
Thought such occasion lucky;
And soon around our general flocked
The Hunters of Kentucky.
"The British felt so very sure
The battle they would win it,
Americans could not endure
The battle not a minute;
And Pakenham he made his brag
If he in fight was lucky,
He'd have the girls and cotton bags
In spite of old Kentucky.
"But Jackson he was wide awake
And not scared at trifles,
For well he knew what aim to take
With our Kentucky rifles;
He led us to the cypress swamp,
The ground was low and mucky,
There stood John Bull in martial pomp
And here was old Kentucky.
"A bank was raised to hide our breast--
Not that we thought of dying--
But we liked firing from a rest
Unless the game was flying;
Behind it stood our little force,
None wished that it were greater,
For every man was half a horse
And half an alligator.
"They did not our patience tire,
Before they showed their faces,
We did not choose to waste our fire,
So snugly kept our places;
But when no more we saw them blink
We thought it time to stop 'em--
It would have done you good, I think,
To see Kentucky drop 'em."
Then gentle Miss Judy, repeating these lines, used to grow almost
bloodthirsty in trying to repeat the things which she had heard her
father say about this,--the part played by the hunters of Kentucky at
the battle of New Orleans,--as having been the first recognition of
marksmanship in warfare. Miss Judy had no clear understanding of what
her father had meant, but she usually repeated what he had said about
the sharpshooting of the hunters whenever she spoke of the battle. She
thrilled with patriotism every time she touched the cannon-ball. It was
so big that both her little hands were required to roll it into the
hollow which it had worn in the floor of the passage.
Miss Sophia obeyed the solemn rumble of the cannon-ball as she always
obeyed everything that she understood--docile little soul. She was
almost as slow of mind as of body. A round, heavy, dark, uninteresting
old woman, utterly unlike her sister, except in gentleness and goodness.
On Miss Sophia's side of the bed were three stout steps, forming a sort
of dwarf stairway, and down this she now came slowly, backwards and in
perfect safety. But Miss Sophia's getting to the floor was yet a long
way from being ready for breakfast. It was hard to see how so small a
body, so simply clothed, could get into such an intricate tangle of
strings and hooks and buttons on every morning of her life. Miss Judy's
sweet patience never wavered. She never knew that she was called upon to
exercise any toward Miss Sophia. The possibility of hurrying Miss Sophia
did not enter her mind even on that urgent occasion, when her need of
the far-off spectacles made it uncommonly hard to wait. Finally, there
being no indication of Miss Sophia's progress, other than the subdued
sounds of the struggle through which she was passing, Miss Judy timidly
approached the door of the bedroom. It was open, but she delicately
turned her head away as she tapped upon it to attract Miss Sophia's
attention, before asking permission to come in. Miss Sophia invited her
to enter, giving the permission as formally as Miss Judy had asked it.
Miss Judy apologized as she accepted the invitation, saying that she
hoped Miss Sophia would pardon her for keeping her back turned, which
she was very, very careful to continue to do. She did not say what it
was that she wanted to get out of the top drawer. The far-off spectacles
were rarely mentioned between the sisters, and Miss Sophia never
questioned anything that her sister wished to do.
Still scrupulously averting her gaze, Miss Judy found what she wanted,
and sidled softly from the room, thanking Miss Sophia and holding the
spectacles down at her side, hidden in the folds of her skirt. Stepping
out on the door-stone, she looked cautiously up and down the big road.
It was still deserted, not a human being was in sight. Only a solitary
cow went soberly past, with her bell clanging not unmusically on the
stillness. Nevertheless, Miss Judy gave another glance of precaution,
surveying the highway from end to end from the tavern on the north to
Sidney Wendall's on the south. As the little lady's eyes rested for a
moment upon the house on the hillside, a girl came out as though the
wistful gaze had drawn her forth. Miss Judy's blue eyes could barely
make out the slender young figure standing in the dazzling sunlight; but
she knew that it was Doris, and she did not need the sight of her sweet
old eyes to see the wafting of the kiss which the girl threw. Miss
Judy's own little hands flew up to throw two kisses in return. She
straightway forgot all about the spectacles. She no longer cared how
large the huge frames might look on her small face, nor how old they
might make her appear.
It was always so. At the sight of Doris, Miss Judy always ceased to be
an old maid and became a young mother. For there is a motherhood of the
spirit as well as the motherhood of the flesh, and the one may be truer
than the other.
IV
THE CHILD OF MISS JUDY'S HEART
It is among the sad things of many good lives, that those who love each
other most often understand each other least.
No mother was ever truer than Sidney Wendall, so far as her light led.
None ever tried harder to do her whole duty by her children, and none,
perhaps, could have come nearer doing it by Billy and Kate, given no
better opportunities than Sidney had.
It was Doris, the eldest child, and the one whom she loved best and was
proudest of--the darling of her heart, the very apple of her eye--that
Sidney never knew what to do with. From the very cradle she had found
Doris utterly unmanageable. Not that the child was unruly or
self-willed; she was ever the gentlest and most obedient of the three
children. It was only that the mother and the child could not understand
one another. That was all; but it was enough to send Sidney, whom few
difficulties daunted, to Miss Judy, almost in tears and quite in
despair, while Doris was hardly beyond babyhood.
"You can always tell a body in trouble what to do," she appealed to Miss
Judy. "Maybe you can even tell me what to do with that child. I know how
rough I am, but I don't know how to help it. I'm bound to bounce around
and make a noise. I don't know any other way of getting along. And then
there are Billy and Kate. They won't do a thing they're told unless
they're stormed at. Yet if I shout at them, there's Doris turning white,
and shaking, and looking as if she'd surely die. I tell you, Miss Judy,
I feel as if I'd been given a fine china cup to tote and might break it
any minute."
Miss Judy, the comforter of all the afflicted and the adviser of all the
troubled, said what she could to help Sidney. Doris _was_ different from
other children. There was no doubt about that and about its being
difficult to know how to deal with such a sensitive nature. Miss Judy
said that she did not believe, however, that any other mother would have
done any better than Sidney had--which comforted Sidney inexpressibly.
The little body could not think of anything to advise. She did not know
much about children, and she had not much confidence in her own judgment
in matters concerning them. So that, at last, after a long talk and for
lack of a clearer plan, Miss Judy proposed that Sidney should bring
Doris the next morning when setting out on her professional round, and
should leave the little one with Miss Sophia and herself. Miss Sophia
might think of the very thing to do; without living in the house with
Miss Sophia it was impossible to know how sound and practical her
judgment was--so Miss Judy told Sidney. The kind proposal lightened
Sidney's heart and she accepted it at once. She had her own opinion as
to the value of Miss Sophia's ideas, but she responded as she knew would
please Miss Judy; and she was sure at all events that Miss Judy, who was
just such another sensitive plant, would know what to do with Doris.
Miss Judy on her side was not nearly so confident. When Sidney had gone
and she began to realize what she had undertaken, she was a good deal
frightened. She not only knew almost nothing about children, as she had
confessed to this troubled poor mother; but she had always been rather
afraid of them. It had always seemed to her an appalling responsibility
to assume the forming of one of these impressionable little souls; she
had often wondered tremblingly at the lightness with which many mothers
assumed it. And here _she_ was--rushing voluntarily into the very
responsibility which she had always regarded with awe--almost with
terror. More and more disturbed and perplexed as she thought of her
foolish rashness, she nevertheless mechanically set about getting ready
for taking charge of Doris during the next day, and perhaps for many
other days, until she had at least tried to see what she could do for
the child. As a first step in the preparation she climbed the steep
stairs to the loft, which she had not entered for years, and brought
down an old doll of Miss Sophia's, and dusted it and straightened its
antiquated clothes; putting it in readiness for the ordeal of Doris on
the following morning.
"She can sit on the home-made rug, you know, sister Sophia," said Miss
Judy, nervously.
"Just so, sister Judy," promptly and firmly responded Miss Sophia, who
never noticed where anybody sat.
"And don't you think it would be a good idea to have Merica make a pig
and a kitten out of gingerbread? They might perhaps amuse the child, and
keep her from crying. A half pint of flour would be quite enough, and we
_have_ to have the fire anyway because it's ironing day. Then Merica
picked up a big basket of chips behind the cabinet-maker's shop this
morning."
"Just so, sister Judy," answered Miss Sophia, who left all provision for
fire and for everything else wholly to her sister. "And she might make
_us_ some gingerbread too, while she's about it."
"To be sure!" exclaimed Miss Judy, looking at Miss Sophia in loving
admiration. "So she can. How quick you are to see the right way, sister
Sophia. I never seem to think of things as you do."
But even as she spoke, a thought flashed uneasily across her mind,
causing her sweet old face to beam less brightly. What if the child
would _not_ sit on the home-made rug? She had never been used to
carpets--poor little thing. What if she crumbled the gingerbread all
over everything, as Miss Judy had seen children do, time and again! The
thought of such desecration of the carpet that her mother had made, for
which she had carded the wool and spun the warp and woven the woof, all
with her own dear little hands, made Miss Judy feel almost faint. The
risk of such danger threw her into more and more of a panic. She hardly
slept that night, troubled by dread of what she had so thoughtfully
undertaken. She was pale and trembling with fright when Sidney brought
Doris and left her early on the following day.
But the child sat quite still on the rug where her mother had placed
her; and she did not cry when Sidney went away, as Miss Judy feared she
would, although her lips quivered. She soon turned to look at the doll,
which Miss Judy hastened to give her to divert her attention,--looking
at it as tender little mothers look at afflicted babies. Then she gave
her attention to the gingerbread kitten, and, later, to the gingerbread
pig; and Miss Judy was pleased, though she could hardly have told why,
to notice that Doris ate the pig first and hesitated some time before
eating the kitten.
Miss Judy gave an involuntary sigh of relief when both the pig and the
kitten had disappeared without leaving a crumb. She instinctively turned
toward Miss Sophia with a pardonable little air of triumph, and was
disappointed to find her asleep in her chair. Thus Miss Judy and Doris
were left alone together, and presently the quiet child lifted her grave
brown eyes to the little lady's anxious blue ones and they exchanged a
first long, bashful look. Doris was not old enough to remember what she
thought of Miss Judy at that time; but Miss Judy always remembered how
Doris looked--such a wonderfully beautiful, gentle little creature--as
she sat there so gravely, looking up with her mites of hands folded on
her lap. After a time, as Miss Sophia slumbered peacefully on, the shy
child and the shyer old lady began to make timid advances to one
another. Doris undressed the forlorn old doll with cautious delight, and
Miss Judy dressed it again with exquisite care while Doris leaned on her
knee, hardly knowing what she did, so intense was her breathless
interest in what Miss Judy was doing. The shyest are always the most
trusting, if they trust at all. When Sidney, returning from her rounds,
came by at nightfall to take Doris home, the child was no longer in the
least afraid of Miss Judy; and Miss Judy was not nearly so much
frightened as she had been at first.
Yet it was, after all, surprising, considering how timid they both were,
that they should so soon have become tenderly and deeply attached to
each other. But every day that Sidney brought Doris and left her, she
was happier to come and more willing to stay; and erelong the day on
which she had not come would have been an empty one and dull indeed for
Miss Judy. One bright morning they had been very, very happy together.
Miss Sophia nodded as usual in her low rocking-chair, and Miss Judy was
darning her sister's stockings while Doris played at her feet.
"Miss Dudy," the child said suddenly, raising her large, serious eyes to
Miss Judy's sweet face with a puzzled look; "was it you or my mammy that
borned me?"
Miss Judy started,--blushing, smiling, looking like a beautiful
girl,--and bending down she gathered the little one in her arms and held
her for a long time very, very close. From that moment her love for
Doris assumed a different character.
It was a love which grew with the child's growth; which watched and
fostered every new beauty of character as the girl blossomed into early
womanhood, beautiful and sweet as a tall white flower. Gradually Doris
became as the sun and the moon to Miss Judy, the first object when she
arose in the morning, her last thought when she lay down at night. Yet
this devotion to Doris, and absorption in the girl's interests and
future, did not lessen in the least her devotion to Miss Sophia, her
ceaseless watchfulness over her welfare, her tender care for her
happiness. Her love for Doris never touched her love for her sister at
any point. The two loves were so distinct, so unlike, so widely apart
that there could be no conflict. It is true that Miss Judy's love for
Miss Sophia was also strongly and tenderly maternal. But Miss Judy's
gentle heart was so full of this mother-love--single and simple--that
some of it might have been given to the whole human race. Her love for
Doris was something much more exclusive, something infinitely more
subtle than this, which is shared in a measure by every womanly woman.
It was the romantic, poetic love which is given by loving age to lovable
youth when it recalls life's dawn-light to the twilight of a life which
has never known the full sunrise.