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The Road To Providence
by
Maria Thompson Daviess
CONTENTS
I THE DOCTORS MAYBERRY, MOTHER AND SON
II THE SINGER LADY AND THE BREAD-BOWL
III THE PEONY GIRL AND THE BUMPKIN
IV LOVE, THE CURE-ALL
V THE LITTLE RAVEN AND HER COVERED DISH
VI THE PROVIDENCE TAG-GANG
VII PRETTY BETTIE'S WEDDING DAY
VIII THE NEST ON PROVIDENCE NOB
IX THE LITTLE HARPETH WOMAN OF MANY SORROWS
X THE SONG OF THE MASTER'S GRAIL
CHAPTER I
THE DOCTORS MAYBERRY, MOTHER AND SON
"Now, child, be sure and don't mix 'em with a heavy hand! Lightness is
expected of riz biscuits and had oughter be dealt out to 'em by the
mixer from the start. Just this way--"
"Mother, oh, Mother," came a perturbed hail in Doctor Mayberry's voice
from the barn door, "Spangles is off the nest again--better come quick!"
"Can't you persuade her some, Tom?" Mother called back from the kitchen
door as she peered anxiously across the garden fence and over to the
gray barn where the Doctor stood holding the door half open, but ready
for a quick close-up in case of an unexpected sally. "My hands is in
the biscuits and I don't want to come now. Just try, Tom!"
"I have tried and I can't do it! She's getting the whole convention
agitated. You'd better come on, Mother!"
"Dearie me," said Mrs. Mayberry, as she rinsed her hands in the
wash-pan on the shelf under tin cedar bucket, "Tom is just as helpless
with the chickens at setting time as a presiding elder is at a sewing
circle; can't use a needle, too stiff to jine the talk and only good
when it comes to the eating, from broilers to frying size. Just go on
and mix the biscuits with faith, honey-bird, for I mistrust I won't be
back for quite a spell."
"Now let me see what all these conniptions is about," she said in a
commanding voice, as she walked boldly in through her son's cautiously
widened door gap.
And a scene of confusion that was truly feminine met her capable
glance. Fuss-and-Feathers, a stylish young spangled Wyandotte, was
waltzing up and down the floor and shrieking an appeal in the direction
of a whole row of half-barrel nests that stretched along the dark and
sequestered side of the feed-room floor, upon which was established
what had a few minutes before been a placid row of setting hens. Now
over the rim of each nest was stretched a black, white, yellow or gray
head, pop-eyed with alarm and reproach. They were emitting a chorus of
indignant squawks, all save a large, motherly old dominick in the
middle barrel who was craning her scaly old neck far over toward the
perturbed young sister and giving forth a series of reassuring and
commanding clucks.
"I didn't do a thing in the world to them, Mother," said Doctor Tom in
a deprecatory tone of voice, as if he were in a way to be blamed for
the whole excitement. "I was across the barn at the corn-crib when she
hopped off her nest and went on the rampage. Just a case of the modern
feminine rebellion, I wager."
"No such thing, sir! They ain't nothing in the world the matter with
her 'cept as bad a case of young-mother skeer as I have ever had before
amongst all my hens. Don't you see, Tom, two of her setting have pipped
they shells and the cheepings of the little things have skeered the
poor young thing 'most to death. Old Dominick have took in the case and
is trying her chicken-sister best to comfort her. These here pullet
spasms over the hatching of the first brood ain't in no way unusual.
The way you have forgot chicken habits since you have growed up is most
astonishing to me, after all the helping with them I taught you." As
she spoke, Mother Mayberry had been rearranging the deserted nest with
practised hand and had tenderly lifted two feeble, moist little
new-borns on her broad palm to show to the Doctor.
"What are you going to do with them, Mother?" he asked, for though his
education in chicken lore seemed to have been in vain he was none the
less sympathetically interested in his mothers practice of the
hen-craft.
"I'm just going to give 'em to Old Dominick to dry out and warm up for
her while I persuade her back on the nest. As she gets used to hearing
the cheepings from under another hen she'll take the next ones that
come with less mistrust." And suiting her actions to her words Mother
Mayberry slipped the two forlorn little mites under a warm old wing
that stretched itself out with gentleness to receive and comfort them.
Some budding instinct had sent the foolish fluff of stylish feathers
clucking at her skirts, so she bent down and with a gentle and
sympathetic hand lifted the young inadequate back on the nest.
"I really oughter put on a cover and make her set on the next," she
said doubtfully, "but it do seem kinder to teach her hovering a little
at a time. Course all women things has got mothering borned into 'em,
but it comes easier to some than to others. I always feel like giving
'em a helping hand at the start off."
"You have a great deal of faith if you feel sure of that universally
maternal instinct in these days, Mother," said the Doctor with a
teasing smile as he handed her a quart cup of oats from the bin. "Oh, I
know what you're talking about," answered Mother, as she scattered a
little grain in front of each nest and prepared to leave in peace and
quiet the brooding mothers. "It's this woman's rights and wrongs
question. I've been so busy doctoring Providence Road pains and trying
to make a good, proper husband outen you for some nice girl, what some
other woman have been putting licks on to get ready for you, that I've
been too pushed to think about the wrongs being did to me. But not
knowing any more about it than I do, I think this woman's rumpus all
sounds kinder like a hen scratching around in unlikely and contrary
corners for the bread of life, when she knows they is plenty of crumbs
at the kitchen door to be et up. But if you're going to ride over to
Flat Rock this evening you'd better go on and get back in time for some
riz biscuits as Elinory is a-making for you this blessed minute."
"She's not making them for me," answered the young Doctor with the
color rising under his clear, tanned skin up to his very forelock. As
he spoke he busied himself with bridling his restless young mare.
"Of course she is," answered his mother serenely. "Women don't take no
interest in cooking unless they's a man to eat the fixings. Left to
herself she'd eat store bread and cheese with her head outen the window
for the birds to clean up the crumbs. Stop by and ask after Mis'
Bostick and the Deacon. And if you bring me a little candy from the
store with the letters, maybe I'll eat it to please you. Now be a-going
so as to be a-coming the sooner." With which admonition Mother took her
departure down the garden path.
She was tall and broad, was Mother Mayberry, and in her walk was left
much of the lissome strength of her girlhood to lighten the matronly
dignity of her carriage. Her stiffly starched, gray-print skirts swept
against a budding border of jonquils and the spring breezes floated an
end of her white lawn tie as a sort of challenge to a young cherry
tree, that was trying to snow out under the influence of the warm sun.
Her son smiled as he saw her stoop to lift a feeble, over-early hop
toad back under the safety of the jonquil leaves, out of sight of a
possible savage rooster. He knew what expression lay in her soft gray
eyes that brooded under her Wide, placid brow, upon which fell abundant
and often riotous silver water-waves. His own eyes were very like them
and softened as he looked at her, a masculine version of one of her
quick dimples quirked at the corner of his clean-cut mouth.
"The bread of life--she's found it," he said to himself musingly as he
slipped the last buckle in his bridle tight.
"Elinory," called Mother Mayberry from the kitchen steps, "come out
here and sense the spring. Everywhere you look they is some young thing
a-peeping up or a-reaching out or a-running over or wobbling or
bleating or calling. Looks like the whole world have done broke out in
blooms and babies."
"I can't--I wish I could," came an answer in a low, beautiful voice
with a queer, husky note. "It's all sticking to my hands, flour and
everything, and I don't know what to do!"
"Dearie me, you've put in the milk a little too liberal! Wait until I
sift on a mite more flour. Now rub it in light! See, it's all right,
and most beautiful dough. Don't be discouraged, for riz biscuits is
most the top test of cooking. Keep remembering back to those cup
custards you made yesterday, what Tom Mayberry ate three of for supper
and then tried to sneak one outen the milk-house to eat before he went
to bed."
"Oh, did he?" asked Miss Wingate with delight shining in her dark eyes
and a beautiful pink rising up in her pale cheeks. "I wish I COULD do
something to please him and make him feel how--how--grateful I am--for
the hope he's given me. I was so hopeless and unhappy--and desperate
when I came. But I believe my voice is coming back! Every day it's
stronger and you are so good to me and make me so happy that I'm not
afraid any more. You give me faith to hope--as well as to mix
biscuits." And a pearly tear splashed on the rolling-pin.
"Yes, put your trust in the Heavenly Father, child, and some in Tom
Mayberry. Before you know it you'll be singing like the birds out in
the trees; but I can't let myself think about the time's a-coming for
you to fly away to the other people's trees to sing. When Tom told me
about Doctor Stein's wanting to send a great big singer lady, what had
lost her voice, down here to see if he couldn't cure her like he did
that preacher man and the politics speaker, I was skeered for both him
and me, for I knew things was kinder simple with us here and I was
afraid I couldn't make you happy and comfortable. But then I remembered
Doctor Stein had stayed 'most two weeks when he came South with Tom for
a visit and said he had tacked ten years on to the end of his life by
just them few days of Providence junketings and company feedings, so I
made up my mind not to be proud none and to say for you to come on.
I've got faith in my boy's doctoring same as them New York folks has,
and I wanted him to try to cure you. Then I knew you didn't have no
mother to pet up the sick throat none. A little consoling comfort is a
good dose to start healing any kind of trouble with. I knew I had
plenty of that in my heart to prescribe out to help along with your
case; so here you are not three weeks with us, a-mixing riz biscuits
for Tom's supper and like to coax the heart outen both of us. I told
him--Dearie me, somebody's calling at the front gate!"
"Mis' Mayberry! Oh, Mis' Mayberry!" came a high, quavering old voice
from around the corner of the house, and Squire Tutt hove in sight. He
was panting for breath and trembling with rage as he ascended the steps
and stood in the kitchen door.
Mother hastened to bring him a chair into which he wheezingly subsided.
"Why, Squire," she questioned anxiously, "have anything happened? Is
Mis' Tutt tooken with lumbago again?"
"No!" exploded the Squire, "she's well--always is! I'm the only really
sick folks in Providence, though I don't git no respect for it. In pain
all the time and no respect--no respect!"
"Now, Squire, everybody in Providence have got sympathy for your tisic,
and just yesterday Mis' Pike was a-asking me--"
"Tisic! I ain't talking about tisic now! It's this pain in my stomick
that that young limb of satan of your'n insulted me about not a hour
ago. Me a-writhing in tormint with nothing less'n a cancer--insulted
me!" As the Squire projected his remark toward Mother Mayberry he bent
double and peered expectantly up into her sympathetic face.
"Why, what did he do, Squire?" demanded Mother, with a glance at Miss
Wingate, who still stood at the biscuit block cutting out her dough.
She regarded the old man with alarmed wonder.
"Told me to drink two cups of hot water and lie down a hour--me in
tormint!" The Squire fairly spit his complaint into the air.
"Dearie me, Tom had oughter known better than that about one of your
spells," said Mother. "Why, I've been a-curing them for years for you
myself with nothing more'n a little drop of spirits, red pepper and
mint. He had oughter told you to take that instead of hot water. I'm
sorry--"
"Oughter told me to take spirits--told me to TAKE spirits! Don't you
know, Mis' Mayberry, a man with a sanctified wife can't TAKE no
spirits; they must be GAVE to him by somebody not a member of the
family. Me a-suffering tormints--two cups of hot water--tormints,
tormints!"
The old man's voice rose to a perfect wail, but came down a note or two
as Mother hastily reached in the press and drew out a tall, old
demijohn and poured a liberal dose of the desired medicine into a
glass. She added a dash of red pepper and a few drops of peppermint.
This treatment of the Squire's dram in Mother's estimation turned a
sinful beverage into a useful medicine and served to soothe her
conscience while it disturbed the Squire's appreciation of her
treatment not at all. He swallowed the fiery dose without as much as
the blink of an eyelid and on the instant subsided into comfortable
complacency.
"Please forgive Tom for not having more gumption, Squire, and next time
you're took come right over to me same as usual. Course I know all the
neighbors feel as how Tom is young and have just hung out his shingle
here, and I ain't expectin' of 'em to have no confidence in him. I
think it my duty to just go on with my usual doctoring of my friends. I
hope you won't hold this mistake against Tom."
"Well," said the Squire in a mollified tone of voice, "I won't say no
more, but you must tell him to stop fooling with these here Providence
people. Stopped Ezra Pike's wife feeding her baby on pot-liquor and
give it biled milk watered with lime juice. It'll die--it'll die!"
"Oh no, Squire, it's a-getting well--jest as peart as can be," Mother
said in a mollifying tone of voice.
"It'll die--it'll die! Cut one er the lights outen Sam Mosbey's
side--called it a new fangled impendix name--but he'll die--he'll die!"
"Sam's a-working out there on the barn roof right this minute, Squire,
good and alive," said Mother Mayberry with a good-humored smile, while
Miss Wingate cast a restrained though indignant glance at the doubting
old magistrate.
"And old Deacon Bostick drinking cow-hot milk and sucking raw eggs! He
looks like a mixed calf and shanghai rooster! So old he'd oughter
die--and he'll do it! Hot water and me in tormint! Hot water on his
middle in a rubber bag and nothing inside er him! He'll die-he'll die!"
"Oh no, Squire, the good Lord have gave Deacon Bostick back to us from
the edge of the grave; Tom a-working day and night but under His
guidance. He have gained ten pounds and walks everywhere. It were low
typhus, six weeks running, too! I'm glad it were gave to me to see my
son bring back a saint to earth from the gates themselves. Have you
been by to see him?"
"Yes," answered the Squire as he rose much more briskly than he had
seated himself, and prepared to take his departure. "Yes, and it was
you a-nussing of him that did it--muster slipped him calimile--but I
ain't a-disputing! Play actor, ain't you, girl?" he demanded as he
paused on his way out of the door and peered over at Miss Wingate with
his beetling, suspicious eyes.
"Yes," answered the singer lady as she went on putting her biscuit into
the pan. If her culinary manoeuvers were slow they were at least sure
and the "riz" biscuits looked promising.
"Dearie me," said Mother as she returned from guiding her guest down
the front walk and into the shaded Road, "it do seem that Squire Tutt
gets more rantankerous every day. Poor Mis' Tutt is just wore out with
contriving with him. It's a wonder she feels like she have got any ease
at all, much less a second blessing. Now I must turn to and make a dish
of baked chicken hash for supper to be et with them feather biscuits of
your'n. I want to compliment them by the company of a extra nice dish.
If they come out the oven in time I want to ask Sam Mosbey to stop in
and get some, with a little quince preserves. He brought his dinner in
a bucket, which troubled me, for who's got foot on my land, two or
four, I likes to feed myself. I expected he was some mortified at your
being here. He's kinder shy like in the noticing of girls."
"That seems to be a failing with the Providence young--with Providence
people," ventured Miss Wingate with ambiguity.
"Oh, country boys is all alike," answered Mother comfortingly, only in
a measure taking in the tentative observation. "They're all kinder
co'ting tongue-tied. They have to be eased along attentive, all 'cept
Buck Peavey, who'd like to eat Pattie up same as a cannibal, I'm
thinking, and don't mind who knows it. Now the supper is all on the
simmer and can be got ready in no time. Let's me and you walk down to
the front gate and watch for Tom to come around the Nob from Flat Rock
and then we can run in the biscuits. Maybe we'll hear some news; I
haven't hardly seen any folks to-day and I mistrust some mischief are
a-brewing somewhere."
And Mother Mayberry's well trained intuitions must have been in
unusually good working order, for she met her expected complications at
the very front gate. She was just turning to point out a promise of an
unusually large crop of snowballs on the old shrub by the gate-post
when a subdued sniffling made itself heard and caused her to
concentrate her attention on the house opposite across the Road. And a
sympathy stirring scene met her eyes. Perched along the fence were all
five of the little Pikes clinging to the top board in forlorn
despondency. On the edge of the porch sat Mr. Pike in his shirt sleeves
with his pipe in one hand and the Teether Pike balanced on his knee.
His expression matched that of the children in the matter of gloom, and
like them he glanced apprehensively toward the door as if expecting
Calamity to issue from his very hearthstone.
"Why, what's the matter?" demanded Mother as she hurried to the edge of
the sidewalk followed by the singer lady, whose acquaintance with the
young Pikes had long before ripened to the stage of intimate
friendship. At the sight of her sympathetic face, Eliza, the first
Pike, slipped to the ground and buried her head in her new but valued
friend's dainty muslin skirt. Bud, the next rung of the stair steps
licked out his tongue to dispose of a mortifying tear and little Susie
sobbed outright. At this juncture, just as Mother was about to demand
again an explanation of such united woe, Mrs. Pike came to the door,
and a large spoon and a bottle full of amber, liquid grease made
further inquiry unnecessary.
"Sakes, Mis' Mayberry, I certainly am glad you have came over to back
me up in getting down these doses of oil. Ez," with an indignant and
contemptuous glance at her sullen husband, "don't want me to give it to
'em. He'd rather they'd up and die than to stand the ruckus, but I
ain't a-going to let my own children perish for a few cherry seeds with
a bottle of oil in the house and Doctor Tom Mayberry's prescription to
give 'em a spoonful all around." Mrs. Pike was short and stout, but
with a martial and determined eye, and as she spoke she began to
measure out a first dose with her glance fixed on young Bud, who turned
white around his little mouth and clung to the fence. Susie's sobs rose
to a wail and Eliza shuddered in Miss Wingate's skirt.
"Wait a minute, Mis' Pike," said Mother hurriedly, "are you sure they
have et cherry seeds? Cherries ain't ripe yet, and--"
"We didn't--we didn't!" came in a perfect chorus of wails from the
little fence birds.
"Of course they did, Mis' Mayberry!" exclaimed their mother
relentlessly. "It was two jars of cherry preserves that Prissy put up
and clean forgot to seed 'fore she biled 'em, and the children done
took and et 'em on the sly. Now they're going to suffer for it."
"We all spitted the seeds out, and we was so hungry, too!" Eliza took
courage to sob from Miss Wingate's skirt. Bud managed to echo her
statement, while Susie and the two little boys gave confirmation from
their wide-open, terror-stricken eyes.
"Well, now, maybe they did, Mis' Pike," said Mother, coming near to
argue the question. Her hand rested sustainingly on one of the brave
young Bud's knees which jutted out from the fence.
"Can't trust 'em, Mis' Mayberry, fer if they'll steal they'll lie,"
said Mrs. Pike in a voice tinged with the deepest melancholy for the
fallen estate of her family. "They'll have to suffer for both sins
whether they did or didn't," and again the bottle was poised.
"Now hold on, Mis' Pike," again exclaimed Mother Mayberry as her face
illumined with a bright smile. "If they throwed away the cherry pits
they must be where they throwed 'em and they can go find 'em to prove
they character. They ain't nothing fairer than that. Where did you eat
the preserves, children?" she asked, but there was a wild rush around
the corner of the house before her question was answered.
"Now," exclaimed the astonished mother, "I never thought of that and if
they thought to spit out one stone they did the balance. But Doctor Tom
was so kind to tell me about the oil and I paid fifteen cents down at
the store for it, that I'm a mind to give it to 'em anyway."
"I'll be blamed if you do," ejaculated her indignant husband as he
shouldered Teether and strode into the house, unable longer to restrain
his rage.
"Ain't that just like him!" said his wife in a resigned voice. "And I
was just going to try to make him take this spoonful I've poured out.
It won't hurt him none and it's a pity to pour it back, it wastes so.
Do either of you all need it?" she asked hospitably.
Miss Wingate was dissenting with an echo of Eliza's shudder and Mother
Mayberry with a laugh, when the reprieved criminals raced back around
the house, each dirty little fist inclosing a reasonable number of
grubby cherry stones.
"Well," assented their mother reluctantly, "I'll let you off this time,
but don't any of you never take nothing to eat again without asking,
and I'm a-going to punish you by making you every one wash your feet in
cold water and go to bed. Now mind me and all stand to once in the tub
by the pump and tell your Paw I say not to touch that kettle of hot
water. I don't want you to have a drop. Go right on and do as I say."
The threatened punishment had been too great for the youngsters to mind
this lesser and accustomed penalty, so they retired with cheerfulness
and spirits and in a few seconds a chorus of squeals and splashes came
from the back yard.
After an exchange of friendly good-bys Mrs. Pike entered her front door
and Mother and the singer lady returned to their own front gate.
"Dearie me," said Mother in a tone of positive discouragement, "I don't
know what I will do if I have to undo another one of Tom Mayberry's
prescriptions to-day. But you couldn't expect a man to untangle a
children quirk like that; and oil woulder been the thing for the cherry
stones in children's stomachs, but not for ones throwed on the back
walk. I hope the Squire won't hear about it," she added with a laugh.
"I think," said Miss Wingate with her dark eyes fixed on Mother's face
with positive awe, "I think you are wonderful with everybody. You know
just what to do for them, and what to say to them and--"
"Well," interrupted Mother with a laugh, "it are gave to some women to
be called on the Lord's ease mission, and I reckon I'm of that band.
Don't you know I'm the daughter of a doctor, and the wife of a doctor
and the mother of one as good as either of the other two? I can't
remember the time when I didn't project with the healing of ailments.
When I married Doctor Mayberry and come down over the Ridge from Warren
County with him, he had his joke with me about my herb-basket and
a-setting up opposition to him. It's in our blood. My own cousin Seliny
Lue Lovell down at the Bluff follows the calling just the same as I do.
I say the Lord were good to me to give me the love of it and a father
and a husband and now a son to practise with."
"The Doctors Mayberry, Mother and Son, how interesting that sounds,
Mrs. Mayberry," exclaimed Miss Wingate with a delightful laugh, "And no
wonder Doctor Mayberry is so gifted that he gets National commissions
to study Pellagra and--and has a troublesome singer lady sent all the
way from New York to patch up."
"Yes, it do look like that Tom Mayberry gets in a good chanct
everywhere he goes. Some folks picks a friend offen every bush they
passes and Tom's one. He was honored considerable in New York and then
sent over to Berlin, Europe, and beyont to study up about people's
skins. And then here he comes back, sent by the Government right down
to Flat Rock, on the other side of Providence Nob, to study out about
that curious corn disease they calls Pellagra, what I don't think is a
thing in the world but itch and can be cured by a little sulphur and
hog lard. But I'm blessing the chanct that brought him back to me, even
if I know it are just for a spell. And, too, he oughter be happy to
have brung his mother such a song bird as you. I'm so used to you and
your helping me with Cindy away to Springfield, that I don't see how I
ever got along without you or ever will." As she spoke, Mother Mayberry
smiled delightedly at the singer girl and drew her closer. Mother's
voice at most times was a delicious mixture of banter and caress.
"Perhaps I'll stay always," said the singer lady as she drew close
against the gray print shoulder. "When I look around me I feel as if I
had awakened in a beautiful world with no more dirty, smoky cities that
hurt my throat, no more hot, lighted theaters, no noises, and
everything is just a great big bouquet of soft smells and colors."
As she spoke, Elinor Wingate, who was just a tired girl in the circle
of Mother Mayberry's strong arm, let her great dark eyes wander off
across the meadow to where a dim rim of Harpeth Hills seemed to close
in the valley. Her glance returned to the low, wing-spreading, brick
farm-house, which, vine-covered, lilac-hedged and maple-shaded, seemed
to nestle against the breast of Providence Nob, at whose foot clustered
the little settlement of Providence and around whose side ran the old
wilderness trail called Providence Road. And her face was soft with a
light of utter contentment, for under that low-gabled roof she was
finding strength to hope for the recovery of her lost treasure, without
which life would seem a void. Then for a moment she looked down the
village Road, across which the trees were casting long afternoon
shadows and along which was flowing the tide of late afternoon social
life. Women hung over the front gates to greet men in from the fields
or from down the Road, girls laughed and chaffed one another or the
blushing country boys, and the children played tag and hop-scotch back
and forth along the way.
"It's all lovely," she said again with a contented little sigh. When
she spoke softly there was not a trace of the burr in her voice and it
was as sweet as a dove note.
"Days like these we had oughter take the world as a new gift from God,"
said Mother musingly. "It were a day like this I come with Doctor
Mayberry along the Road to Providence to live, and stopped right at
this gate under this very maple tree, thirty-five years ago; and thirty
of 'em have I lived lonesome without him. I had a baby at my breast and
Tom by my knee when he went away from us, and I know now it was the
call laid on me to take up his work that saved me. When I got back from
the funeral and had laid the baby on the bed Mis' Jim Petway come
a-running up the road crying that Ellen, her youngest child, were
a-choking to death with croup. I never had a thought but to take his
saddle-bags and follow her, and somehow the good Lord guided my hand
amongst his medicines, and with what I had learned from him and Pa I
fought a good fight and saved the little thing's life, though it took
the night to do it. And in one of them dark hours a sister-to-woman
sense was born in me what I ain't never lost. A neighbor took Tom and
they brought my baby to me and I stayed by Mis' Petway until they
weren't no more danger. Next day it were Squire Tutt's first wife
tooken down with the fever and not the week passed before that very Sam
Mosbey were borned. We was too poor to have a doctor come and live here
and they was a doctor over to Springfield took up my husband's county
practice, so I jest naturally had to do the healing myself, only
a-sending for him in the worst cases. They was a heap of teethers that
summer and it kept me busy looking after 'em. I expect I made mistakes
but I kept up me and the patients' courage by sympathizing and
heartening. It didn't cost nobody nothing and we wasn't so prosperous
then that it wasn't a help for me to do the doctoring when I could, and
I mostly were able. I were glad of the work and did it with a thankful
mind; not as they wasn't times when I felt sick at heart, and in danger
of questioning why, but I tried to steady myself with prayer until I
could find the Everlasting Arm to lean on that is always held out to
the widow and the fatherless. And so a-leaning I have got me and Tom
Mayberry along until now."
"And the whole rest of the world leaning on you," said the lovely lady
as she drew nearer and caught Mother Mayberry's strong hand in her own
slender fingers.
"Well," answered Mother, as she shaded her eyes with her other hand to
look far up the Road toward the Ridge over which they were waiting for
the Doctor's horse to appear, "looks like often hands a-reaching out
for help gives strength before they takes any, and a little hope
planted in another body's garden is apt to fly a seed and sprout in
your own patch. There he is--let's hurry in the biscuits!"