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THE LOVES OF AMBROSE
[Illustration: "The young man put the honeysuckle in his buttonhole"]
THE LOVES OF AMBROSE
BY MARGARET VANDERCOOK
[Illustration]
_Illustrated by Gordon Grant_
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
1914
_Copyright, 1914, by_
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_
"_And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding
exceeding much, and largeness of
heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore._"
To
JOHN VANDERCOOK
CONTENTS
PART I
HIS FIRST WIFE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Departure 3
II. The Voice of the Turtle 22
III. "Peachy" 34
IV. "Even so, Love, even so! Whither thou
goest, I will go." 52
V. The Return 70
PART II
HIS SECOND WIFE
VI. Reconstruction 77
VII. "Em'ly Dunham" 92
VIII. The Female Delegation 100
IX. "The tides of love and laughter run
Increasing aye from sun to sun" 107
X. The Revelation 116
XI. Following His Advice 126
XII. A Light in Darkness 136
XIII. The Surprise Party 144
PART III
HIS THIRD WIFE
XIV. Thirty Years 153
XV. Original Sin 164
XVI. The Eternal Fire 171
XVII. The Revival Service 179
XVIII. Indian Summer 188
PART IV
HIS FOURTH WIFE
XIX. "'Lizabeth" 203
XX. "Giving in Marriage" 211
XXI. "I Shall Want My Em'ly" 224
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"The young man put the honeysuckle in
his buttonhole" _Frontispiece_
PAGE
"Leaping ditches, tearing across ploughed
fields, to the woods ahead" 5
"Miner rode slowly along on horseback, now
and then making inquiries of wayfarers" 25
"The Village" 45
"He stopped when the mouth of an old war
pistol was suddenly placed in front of
his shoulder" 112
"'Ain't you never goin' to stop mopin',
Ambrose Thompson? I'm sick of lookin'
at you.'" 131
"'You kin manage me now all you've a mind
to; I ain't worryin''" 198
"Thus it was that 'Lisabeth took up the
business of caring for Uncle Ambrose
Thompson" 214
PART ONE
HIS FIRST WIFE
"_Oh! lose the winter from thine heart, the darkness from
thine eyes,
And from the low hearth-chair of dreams, my Love-o'-May, arise,
And let the maidens robe thee like a white white, lilac tree.
Oh! hear the call of Spring, fair Soul,--and wilt thou
come with me?_"
CHAPTER I
THE DEPARTURE
AMBROSE THOMPSON opened his front door and looked out. It was May, the
sun had just risen over Pennyroyal, and before him lay Kentucky's
carnival of spring.
The boy drew a deep breath that seemed to rise and quiver over his face
like a breeze coming away at the end of his long, curiously emotional
nose.
"Glory, what a day!" he whispered; "seems about good enough to eat!" And
then he vanished, only to reappear five minutes afterward dressed as a
traveller and wearing a linen duster, a stovepipe hat, and carrying a
carpet-bag.
Out in the cinder path his glance embraced the quiet street.
"Right foot, left foot"--without a change of expression the boy broke
into an irrepressible jig. He was nineteen and stood six feet four in
his stocking feet; the wind tilted his tall hat, showing his high
forehead, his straight, straw-coloured hair, and solemn, light blue
eyes; it whipped back his linen duster, disclosing his lean legs clad in
tight trousers, his frock coat, and white stock. An indescribable air of
adventure enveloped him. So Abraham Lincoln may have looked on some
dress-occasion morning in his youth--all big bones and promises waiting
for something to happen.
"I sure am going to give 'em the slip this time," Ambrose panted,
stopping to readjust his costume and to take another careful survey of
the neighbourhood. In his garden several lilac bushes were in their
first bloom, and above his doorway an ardent, over-early honeysuckle had
blossomed in the night. The young man put the honeysuckle in his
buttonhole.
[Illustration: "Leaping ditches, tearing across ploughed fields, to the
woods ahead"]
"I reckon," he remarked, "there ain't nothin' sweet that don't grow in
Kentucky," and then with a smile whose shine radiated through his
homeliness and a blush that spread to the tips of his big ears, he
added: "I ain't just figurin' on the growth of flowers," and was off
tiptoeing down his garden walk and stepping across his gate to avoid
the creak of opening it.
This was fifty-five years ago in Kentucky, in a little village of some
three or four hundred inhabitants, shut in by hills and by inclination
in the southwestern part of the state; a community not to be confounded
with their high-living, high-stepping blue grass neighbours, for
dwellers in the "Pennyrile" were a plainer people, who perhaps drew some
of their characteristics from the bittersweet, pungent "Pennyrile" grass
that gave the locality its name.
As for the town itself, it rested primly in a cup-shaped hollow with
three main streets. One of them, travelling farther than the rest, led
in a way to the end of things for the residents of Pennyroyal as it
climbed a hill at the foot of the village, set thick with hardy
perennials, evergreens, and small white stones, while encircling this
hill was Peter's Creek, that by and by grew up to be a river, but it had
a tranquil movement, proceeding slowly on its course by reason of
sharing the Pennyroyalian distaste for getting any distance from home.
Then the houses in Pennyroyal: although the beautiful open country was
all about them, they crowded so close together that they seemed almost
to touch elbows, and now and then one of them had appeared to shove the
other back in its determination to get the best view of the street. They
were mostly cottages, with no front porches, but with sloping roofs and
little Gothic wooden fences, and painted white, with green outside
blinds, except Ambrose's, and his had been touched with a boy's
imagination, its intention being plainly rose colour.
Now in a double row along the outside wooden sidewalk this morning the
linden trees were dropping fragrant yellow plumes inches deep in the
ruts of the clay road, while over the chimneys whirled the last of the
spring's apple blossoms. Bees buzzed among the flowers, birds chattered,
flying nervously from one tree to another in an effort to be through
with breakfast before the disturbing human element should get about; and
hitched to a nearby post Ambrose's horse and gig were waiting.
The young man surveyed his equipage with the eyes of an idealist.
Old Liza had seen service, but her toilet had been made in the spirit
of the best foot foremost; her coat had been freshly curried, her gray
mane and tail carefully combed, and in her manner there was an air of
emotional anticipation.
With one foot hovering above the step of his gig, Ambrose suddenly
paused. The laprobe inside the carriage was quivering.
"Holy Moses!" Reaching underneath, the young man drew forth a small
black and brown object whose legs and tail were five upturned points of
supplication. Setting it upright on the ground, his face hardened.
"Ain't I told you you couldn't come with me, Moses?" he began sternly.
"Ef ever there was a crittur, human or otherwise, with a talent for
bein' where it wasn't wanted, it's you! Besides, ain't I just locked you
in the stable?"
The softening in his master's manner, visible in his last question, in
the twitching of his eyebrows, in the slight movement of the tip of his
long nose, was familiar to Moses. Casually he approached Ambrose's leg,
but midway there, sensing defeat and not being an amiable beast, he
planted his feet wide apart, barked as loudly as chronic hoarseness
permitted, and straightway the young man humbled himself before him.
"Fer the lands sakes don't give me away," he pleaded. "I ain't never had
such luck before this, getting off without being pestered." Down on his
knees, he patted the stiff bristles, apologetically whispering: "Sorry
not to be wishing your company, but Susan and Aunt Ca'line will look
after you. Ain't nothin' on God's earth that will keep Susan Barrows
from lookin' after every mortal thing she sets eyes on."
Without deigning a farewell, Moses trotted away. A ridiculous looking
animal with an ancestry as mixed as any son of Adam, yet he had an
enormous self-esteem. You see, though a dog, Moses possessed a
self-sustaining ego, which requires no special ancestry or talents to
uphold it. For there is a vanity that feeds itself, and many nobler
personalities go down before it. Invariably Ambrose's did. Merely
christened after the Hebrew lawmaker because of having been found amid
some bulrushes, yet Moses may have felt that the name carried its
anointment.
But now at last the traveller had fairly started. Swinging into his gig,
he arranged his long legs in a comfortable right-angle triangle, taking
a final hurried glance around him. "Move on, Liza, faster'n you can, or
it's all over with me," he urged, "for things is lookin' kind of
nervous."
Three times his wagon wheels had revolved in the clay road when a
shutter on the house next door banged open, and like the explosion of a
gun a child's voice rent the air.
"He's off! I tell you I see him. He's gettin' away unbeknownst." And a
thin, brown figure hopping out of the window on the grass ran toward the
street, twittering and moving its head from side to side like an excited
bird. An instant later from the same opening a second pair of legs
protruded--longer and thinner than the others, clad in white stockings
and black cloth gaiters. Like the feelers of a beetle turned over on its
back they waved in the air. And from behind a kind of barrel-shaped
opening came a voice so tragic and compelling that even old Liza,
stopping short, turned an inquiring eye toward the source of the
disturbance.
As for Ambrose, although filled with a boy's impatience at interruption,
the sight was overpowering. His reins dropped loosely, he stared,
gasped, and then shook with silent laughter. Susan Barrows was living in
the days of hoopskirts, and now in her effort to slide through the
window had been held fast.
Nevertheless, in her time, desire has probably removed as many mountains
as faith, so, notwithstanding her present difficulty, Susan's gave her
power soon to set herself upright on the ground, and still with her full
rigging to continue moving toward her goal like a ship with a full gale
behind it.
A thin middle-aged woman, Mrs. Barrows was, of medium height and of
terrific energy. The drama of her personal existence in a small town
with no outside interests being always insufficient, Susan had filled in
her hunger with an insatiate appetite for other people's affairs. Never
could her curiosity about her neighbours be wholly gratified, and yet,
like the possessor of any other great passion, its owner did her level
best to satisfy it.
Out in the road, with one hand she grasped Ambrose's coat sleeve while
the other was unconsciously raised toward heaven. Two bright spots of
colour burned on her high cheek bones, her bunches of black corkscrew
curls trembled with eagerness, her eyes challenged.
"Tell me where you be goin' and what you be a-goin' fer, Ambrose
Thompson. It ain't fair you stealin' off this way each year and nobody
findin' out where or why. Seems like us bein' neighbours and me seein'
to you since your ma's death, that you might leastways have put your
trust in me."
Removing her hand from his sleeve, Ambrose patted it gently before
returning it to its owner. "No, ma'am, I ain't goin' to tell you no more
this time than before," he replied. "And I was hopin' to get off once
without remarks."
During this temporary delay the younger Susan had been industriously
pecking and poking about in the lower part of their neighbour's gig. Now
as the young man moved on for the second time the child's voice again
rang after him.
"He's goin' courtin'; Ambrose Thompson is always runnin' after girls!
It's Peachy Williams, for I seen his leg under his duster, and he's
wearing his Sunday clothes!"
These last words were a triumph of evidence, but not for a moment would
Ambrose look back nor appear to have heard. A humorous affection he
might feel for the older Susan, but for the younger his dislike was to
last for more than fifty years. Nevertheless, a little later he did turn
around, and root and branch, the Susans had vanished, so that even now
the news of his departure was stirring through Pennyroyal as the wind
moves the leaves in a group of closely planted trees.
Something it is to know when one is beaten. Swearing a trifle and yet
grinning, the boy settled himself more comfortably in his gig. "Might as
well drive through town now kind of slow, and give folks a treat," he
relented. "Mebbe I was shirkin' duty in tryin' to sneak off. Pennyrile
ain't to say starvin' for food and clothes, but she certainly is pinin'
for excitement, and who says that ain't just as bad? Seems like
Christian charity for me to give this town something to talk about at
least once a year."
And truly these yearly spring migrations of young Ambrose Thompson had
aroused more interest and unrest in Pennyroyal than the yearly mystery
of the earth's rebirth. Because, for the past five years on a certain
May morning (and there never was a way of discovering just which morning
he might choose) Ambrose had set out, at first on foot and later with
his gig, and been away from his home eight and forty hours. Returning,
he had given no clue as to where he had been.
Now like the music of a calliope the squeak of his wagon wheels awoke
the village. Windows and doors flew open, heads in nightcaps and bald
heads and heads with curls were thrust forth, but to their volley of
questionings and accusations, Ambrose offered only the morning's
greetings.
Travelling with praiseworthy slowness, he neglected no street in
Pennyroyal, and, by the dozen, girls went fluttering in and out of
houses, to wave farewells to the adventurer, while bolder voices called
out Peachy Williams's name with every teasing inflection. One girl to
whom Ambrose threw the spray of honeysuckle from his buttonhole cast it
scornfully back, refusing to accept what she so plainly thought
another's spoils.
Then the young man drove past Brother Bibbs, the Baptist minister, who,
framed in the vestibule of his wooden church, beamed upon him with such
heavenly condescension toward earthly affection that his expression of
"Bless you, my children," was almost equivalent to a marriage ceremony.
Next, along his route, appeared three maiden sisters, the Misses Polly.
They stood in a line in their front yard, Miss Zeruiah, the literary
one, _always_ in advance, then Miss Narcissa, instructor in mathematics
and the sciences, and last and humblest because most useful of the
family trio, Miss Jane, the domestic one. Upon her Ambrose smiled with
especial kindness, remembering certain heart-shaped cookies presented in
early youth, which even in the form of sweet cakes held a kind of
romantic suggestion. The Mistress Polly were directors of the "Polly
Institute," where Ambrose and Peachy had started their technical
education at about the same time, and yet this youthful acquaintance
hardly justified the present arrangement of a love motif. Nevertheless
Ambrose distinctly heard the three ladies breathing in unison the name
of "Peachy" as he passed them by.
Two hours later, well away from Pennyroyal, having turned off the high
road to a less frequented lane, the traveller brought old Liza to her
first halt. Then, drawing out a large red handkerchief, he wiped his
moist brow and, removing his collar, gazed furtively about him.
The glory of his early morning face had departed; he looked older and
almost haggard.
"Ain't it awful, human curiosity!" he murmured. "Reckon I was most too
brave in tryin' to make things worse, and yet I never dreamed folks
would think I was runnin' after Peachy Williams this trip. She----"
Lower and lower Ambrose seemed to be gradually settling down into his
gig, although finding some trouble in disposing of so great a length of
leg.
Finally he sighed: "Kind of wish I had brought old Moses along fer
comp'ny." For the boy was feeling that need for companionship that comes
after all mental strain. "But then Moses ain't like dogs; he's so
bothersome he's most human--always either wantin' you to do something
fer him or to set up and take notice of what he is doin'."
Relapsing into silence after this, which was soon followed by a more
usual and serene state of mind, the young man shortly after took out
from his duster pocket a withered russet apple left over from the winter
store, and thoughtfully sunk his teeth in it. Then gradually his
tranquillity deepened, increased by the recollection of his having just
passed through the fire of the enemy and escaped. Behind him lay the
village of Pennyroyal, suspicious yet still unsatisfied, and before him
the open, empty, springtime road. At will Liza was cropping wayside
grass: the traveller's hands had let slip the reins, and sometimes his
eyes wandered to the far-off blue horizon and sometimes dwelt on the
closer beauty of the roadsides, where elderberry, sumach and Virginia
creeper were tangled in thick hedges, and where young grapevines hung
like silver-green garlands under their fine coating of May dust.
In a Kentucky landscape, to those who comprehend it, there is ever a
sense of generous growth, of nature's yielding herself gladly to life's
eternal purpose. Now dimly this country boy began to understand the
motive in the new beauties and new fragrances of each returning spring.
Again the eagerness of the dawn overtook him; and stiffening, he picked
up his reins, starting off again, when, turning in from an elbow up the
road, Ambrose beheld the one person whom above all others his desire had
been to escape.
The figure was occupying the entire seat of a buggy, but was driving
along apparently so lost in thought as to seem oblivious of anything or
anybody in his vicinity.
"Morning, Ambrose," Doctor Webb began, however, as he appeared directly
alongside the other gig, and yet there was nothing either in his tone or
manner to suggest that he thought it unusual for a young man to be
turning his back upon his natural field of labour at this hour of the
morning to drive off in exactly the opposite direction.
"Morning," Ambrose returned, warily attempting to creep past without
further conversation. For if the doctor should open the broadside of
his humour the secret of his journey might yet be wrested from him.
Nevertheless, although the older man had stopped his horse too
deliberately to be ignored, he showed no present desire to ask
questions. Indeed, the usual smile had disappeared from his kind face,
and his deeply lined eyes appeared anxious and worried. Just such a look
Ambrose had seen while the doctor sat watching by the bedside of a
critically ill patient.
"What troubles you, doctor?" he inquired.
In answer the man leaned across from his buggy, taking one of Ambrose's
lean hands in his, and, unaccustomed to a touch with such magnetic power
in it, a kind of electric thrill passed through the susceptible boy.
"It's you I've been troubling about lately, my son," Doctor Webb
answered, "and now it seems as if Providence had just sent you along for
me to speak to this morning. I've brought you out of children's
diseases, chicken pox, measles and the like, but I've been seein'
symptoms in you lately that have made me powerful uneasy, 'cause in this
trouble it ain't in my power to help you through."
Ambrose's tongue was thickening, and his Adam's apple moving
convulsively. "Is the disease so serious, then?" he whispered, feeling a
hitherto unsuspected though general weakness creeping over him.
The doctor bowed his great head until his double, treble chin rested
upon his shirt bosom, concealing his face from view. "Sometimes it's
fatal, my boy," he returned, appearing so moved that his big voice
sounded hoarse and unnatural. "It's true there's some that gets over it,
but nobody ain't ever _quite_ the same afterward."
Ambrose was trying to keep his knees from knocking together. "How have I
showed symptoms of the disease?" he asked.
And Doctor Webb's whole body rocked slowly back and forth. "My son,
you're showin' 'em uncommon bad this mornin'. I could notice 'em soon as
I was ridin' up toward you; your colour is a-comin' an' a-goin', your
eyes is shinin' unnatural bright, your heart is a-thumpin' too quick."
And here he sighed, so that Ambrose braced his lean shoulders for the
worst, although his lips were dry.
"Tell me quick, doctor; ef I kin bear it, what is it ails me?"
"Puppy love," the doctor shouted, and then giving his old horse an
unexpected cut with his clean willow switch, off he drove, shaking with
laughter.
"Puppy love!" Twice Ambrose repeated the words in a stupid fashion, and
then his laughter rang out until it sounded like an echo of the older
man's heavier roar. "Durn it," he said to himself, "ef that ain't just
another way of sayin' 'Peachy'!"
When finally the traveller entered the shelter of a certain group of low
hills near the Kentucky river, it was well past the middle of the
afternoon, and there in a hollow he fed and watered his horse and then
lay down behind a tree.