THE PEONY-GIRL AND THE BUMPKIN
"There's just no doubt about it, if Tom Mayberry weren't my own son and
I had occasion to know better I'd think he had teeth in his heels, from
the looks of his socks. Every week Cindy darns them a spell and then I
take a hand at it. Just look, Elinory, did you ever see a worser hole
than this?" As Mother Mayberry spoke she held up for Miss Wingate's
interested inspection a fine, dark blue sock. They were sitting on the
porch in the late afternoon and the singer lady was again at work on a
bit of wardrobe for the doll daughter of her friend Eliza.
"How does he manage such--such awful ones?" asked Miss Wingate with a
laugh.
"That you can't never prove by me," answered his mother as she slipped
a small gourd into the top of the sock and drew a thread through her
needle.
"Sometimes I wish the time when I could turn him barefooted from May to
November had never gone by. But a-wishing they children back in years
is a habit most mothers have got in common, I reckon. When he's away
from me I dream him often at all ages, but it's mostly from six to
eleven I seem to want him. When he were six, with Doctor Mayberry gone,
I took to steadying myself by Tom and at eleven I made up my mind to
give him up."
"Give him up?" asked Miss Wingate as she raised her eyes from her work.
"I don't think you seem to have given him up to any serious extent."
And she smiled as she turned her head in the direction of the office
wing, from which came a low whistled tune, jerkily and absorbedly
rendered.
"Oh, he don't belong to me no more," answered his mother in a placid
tone of voice as she rocked to and fro with her work. "I fought out all
that fight when I took my resolve. I just figured something like this,
Pa Lovell had been a-doctoring on Harpeth Hills for a lifetime and
Doctor Mayberry had gave all his young-man life to answering the call,
a-carrying the grace of God as his main remedy, so now I felt like the
time had come for a Lovell and a Mayberry to go out and be something to
the rest of the world, and Tom were the one to carry the flag. I seen
that the call were on him since he helped me through a spell of May
pips with over two hundred little chickens before he were five years
old, and he cut a knot out of the Deacon's roan horse by the direction
of a book when he weren't but eleven, as saved its life. That kinder
settled it with me and the Deacon both, though we talked it back and
forth for two more years. Then Deacon took to teaching of him regular
and I set in to save all I could from the thin peeling of potatoes to
worser darnings and patches than this. Would you think they could be
any worser?" And she smiled up over her glasses at the girl opposite
her.
"Tell me about it," demanded the singer lady interestedly. "Where did
you send him to school first?"
"Right down here to the City. You see Doctor Mayberry left me this
home, fifty acres and a small life insurance, so they was a little
something to inch and pinch on. You can't save by trying to peel
nothing, but the smallest potatoes have got a skin, and I peeled close
them days. Tom did his part too and he run the plow deep and straight
when he wasn't much taller than the handles. I had done talked it over
with him and asked him would he, and he looked right in my eyes in his
dependable way and said yes he would. That finished it and he wasn't
but eleven; but I don't want to brag on him to you. If you listen to
mothers' talk the world are full of heroes and none-suches." Again Miss
Wingate received the smile from over Mother Mayberry's glasses and this
time it was tinged with a whimsical pride.
"Please, Mrs. Mayberry, tell me about it; you know I want to hear,"
begged the girl, and she moved her chair nearer to Mother's and picked
up the mate of the blue sock off her knee. "How old was he when he went
to college?"
"Just sixteen, big and hearty and with enough in his head to get
through the examinations. I packed him up, and him and the Deacon
started down Providence Road at sun-up in the Deacon's old buggy. He
looked both man and baby to me as he turned around to smile back; but I
stood it out at the gate until they turned the bend, then I come on
back to the house quick like some kind of hurted animal. But, dearie
me, I never got a single tear shed, for there were Mis' Peavey with
Buck in her arms, shaking him upside down to get out a brass button he
hadn't swallowed. By the time we poured him full of hot mustard water
and the button fell outen his little apron pocket, I had done got my
grip on myself."
"I just can't stand it that you had to let him go," Miss Wingate both
laughed and sobbed.
"Yes, but I ain't told you about the commencement, honey-bird. There's
that tear _I_ didn't get to drop a-splashing outen your eyes on the
doll's hat! That day was the most grandest thing that ever happened to
anybody's mother, anywhere in this world. I didn't think I could go to
see him get the diplomy, for with all his saving ways and working hard
in the summer, it had been a pull to make buckle and tongue meet and
there just wasn't nothing left for me to buy no stylish clothes to
wear. I set here a-worrying over it, not that I minded, but it was hard
on the boy to have to make his step-off in life and his mother not be
there to see. And somehow I felt as if it would hurt Pa Lovell and
Doctor Mayberry for me not to be with him. Then with thinking of Pa
Lovell a sudden idea popped into my head. There was Seliny Lue Lovell
right down to the Bluff, on the road to town, and with Aunt Lovell's
fine black silk dress packed away in the trunk, as good as new, and me
and Seliny Lue of almost the same figger as her mother. That just
settled the question and I got up and washed out my water-waves in a
little bluing water to make 'em extra white, dabbed buttermilk on my
face to get off some of the tan and called over Mis' Peavey and Mis'
Pike to let 'em know. The next morning I started off gay with everybody
there to see and sending messages to Tom."
"Wasn't it fortunate you thought of the dress and lovely for you to be
able to go right by and get it!" exclaimed Miss Wingate, her eyes as
bright as Mother Mayberry's and her cheeks pink with excitement as the
tale began to unfold its dramatic length.
"Yes, and Seliny Lue was glad enough to see me! We laughed and talked
half the night, was up early, and she took a time to rig me out. It is
a stiff black silk, as anybody would be proud of, cut liberal with real
lace collar and cuffs. Seliny Lue said I looked fine in it. I wisht she
could have gone with me, but they wasn't room for both of us inside the
dress." And Mother laughed merrily at the memory of her borrowing
escapade.
"Did Doctor Mayberry know you were coming?" asked the singer lady,
hurrying on the climax of the recital.
"Not a word! He'd gone off the week before taking it sensible, but I
could see hurt mightily about it. I got to the University Hall late,
and 'most everybody in the world looked like they was there. I stood at
the back and didn't hope to see or hear, just thankful to be near him,
but I seen one of them young usher men a-looking hard at me and he came
up and asked me if I wasn't Mr. Thomas Mayberry's mother. He had knew
me by the favor. I told him yes and he took me up to the very front
just as the singing begun. I soon got me and the silk dress settled,
with the bokay all Providence had sent Tom on my knee, and looked
around me. There next to me was the sweetest young-lady girl I have
'most ever saw, and she smiled at me real friendly. I was just about to
speak when the music stopped and the addressing began by a tall thin
kinder man. Elinory, child, did you ever hear one of them young men's
life-commencement speeches made?" This time Mother Mayberry peered over
the top of her glasses seriously and her needle paused suspended over
the fast narrowing hole in the sock.
"Yes, but I don't think I ever listened very carefully," admitted Miss
Wingate with a smile.
"Well, I felt that if the Lord had gave it to me to stand up there and
say a word of start-off to all them boys setting solemn and listening,
it wouldn't have been about no combination of things done by men dead
and gone, that didn't seem to prove nothing in particular on nobody. I
woulder read 'em a line of scripture and then talked honest dealing by
one another, the measuring out of work according to the pay and always
a little over, the putting of a shoulder under another man's pressing
burden, the respect of women folks, the respect of theyselves and the
looking to the Lord to see 'em through it all. That speech made me so
mad I 'most forgot it was time for Tom's valediction. Honey-bird, I
wisht you coulder seen him and heard him."
"I wish I could," answered Miss Wingate with a flush.
"Dearie me, but he was handsome and he spoke words of sense that the
other gray-haired man seemed to have forgot! And they was a farewell
sadness in it too, what got some of them boys' faces to working, and I
felt a big tear roll down and splash right on the lace collar. Then he
sat down and they was a to-do of hollering and clapping, but I just sat
there too happy to take in the rest of what was did. Sometimes they is
a kinder pride swell in a mother's heart that rises right up and talks
to her soul in psalm words, and I heard mine that day." Mother's eyes
softened and looked far away across to the blue hills.
"What did he do when he saw you?" asked Miss Wingate gently.
"Oh, I didn't pay much attention to him when he come up to me, or let
on how I felt. That sweet child next to me had done found out I was his
mother, I couldn't help telling her. And then she had sent for her
father, who was the head Dean man, and about the time Tom came up, he
was there shaking hands with me and telling me how proud the whole
University was of Tom and about the great scholarship for him to go to
New York to study he had got, and that he must go. It didn't take me
hardly two seconds to think a mortgage on the house and fifty acres,
the cows and all, so I answered right up on time that go he should.
While I was a-talking Tom had gave the bokay from Providence to the
girl, what he had been knowing all the time at her father's house. And
she had her nose buried in one of Mis' Peavey's pink peonys, a-blushing
as pretty as you please over it at that country bumpkin of mine with
all his fine manners. That Miss Alford is one of the most sweet girls
you ever have saw. She and me have been friends ever since. She comes
out to see me in her ottermobile sometimes. She ain't down to the City
now, for I had a picture card from some place out West from her, but
when she comes back I'm a-going to ask her to come up and have a
stay-a-week-in-the-house party for you; and she can bring her brother.
You might like him. The four of you can have some nice junketings
together. Won't that be fine?"
"Y-e-s," answered the singer lady slowly, "but I'm afraid I'm not able
now to interest anybody, and my voice, when I speak--I--I--Will it be
soon?" Her question had a trace of positive anxiety in it and her joy
was most evidently forced.
"Oh, not till June rose time! And your voice now sounds like a angel's
with a bad cold. I'll tell Tom about it, he'll be so pleased. Her
father was such a friend to him and as proud of him now as can be."
"Did Doctor Mayberry stay in the City--after his graduation?" asked
Miss Wingate, a trace of anxiety in her voice.
"That he didn't! He come on home with me that night, got into his
overalls and begun to plow for winter wheat by sun-up the next morning.
We made a good crop that year and the mortgage wasn't but a few hundred
dollars, what we soon paid. We've been going up ever since. Tom reminds
me of a kite, and I must make out to play tail for him until I can pick
him out a wife."
"Have you thought of anybody in particular?" asked the lovely lady
without raising her eyes from her work. She had commenced operations on
the blue sock unnoticed by Mother, who was taken up in the unfolding of
her tale.
"Not yet," answered she cheerfully. "I mustn't hurry. Marrying ain't no
one-day summer junket, but a year round march and the woman to raise
the hymn tune. I take it that after a mother have builded up a man, she
oughter see to it that he's capped off fine with a wife, and then she
can forget all about him. I've got my eyes open about Tom and I'm going
to begin to hunt around soon."
"I wonder just what kind of a wife you--you will select for him,"
murmured Miss Wingate with her eyes still on the sock, which she was
industriously sewing up into a tight knot on the left side of the heel.
"Well, a man oughter marry mostly for good looks and gumption; the
looks to keep him from knowing when the gumption is being used on him.
Tom's so say-nothing and shy with women folks that he won't be no hard
proposition for nobody. But with that way of his'n I'm afraid of his
being spoiled some. I have to be real stern with myself to keep from
being foolish over him."
"But you want his wife to--to love him, don't you?" asked Miss Wingate,
as she raised very large and frankly questioning eyes to Mother
Mayberry, who was snipping loose threads from her completed task.
"Oh she'll do that and no trouble! But a man oughter be allowed to
sense his wife have got plenty of love and affection preserved, only he
don't know where she keeps the jar at. As I say, I don't want Tom
Mayberry spoiled. What did I do with that other sock?" And Mother began
to hunt in her darning bag, in her lap and on the floor.
"Here it is," answered Miss Wingate as she blushed guiltily. "I--darned
it." And she handed her handiwork over to Mother Mayberry with
trepidation in voice and expression.
"Well, now," said Mother, as she inspected the tight little wad on the
blue heel. "It was right down kind of you to turn to and help me like
this, but, honey-bird, Tom Mayberry would walk like a hop toad after
he'd done got it on. You have drawn it bad. I don't know no better time
to learn you how to darn your husband's socks than right now on this
one of Tom's. You see you must begin with long cross stitches in
the--Now what's all this a-coming!" And Mother Mayberry rose, looked
down the Road and hurried to the sidewalk with the darning bag under
her arm and her thimble still on her finger.
Up the middle of the Road came, in a body, the entire juvenile
population of Providence at a break-neck speed and farther down the
street they were followed by Deacon Bostick, coming as fast as his
feeble old legs would bring him. Eliza Pike headed the party with
Teether hitched high up en her arm and Martin Luther clinging to her
short blue calico skirt. They all drew up in a semicircle in front of
Mother Mayberry and Miss Wingate and looked at Eliza expectantly. On
all occasions of excitement Eliza was both self-constituted and
unanimously appointed spokesman. On this occasion she began in the
dramatic part of the news without any sort of preamble.
"It's a circus," she said breathlessly, "a-moving over from Bolivar to
Springfield and nelephants and camels and roar-lions and tigers and
Mis' Pratt and Deacon and Mr. Hoover and everybody is a-going over to
watch it pass--and we can't--we can't!" Her voice broke into a wail,
which was echoed by a sob and a howl from across the street just inside
the Pike gate, where Bud and Susie pressed their forlorn little bodies
against the palings and looked out on the world with the despair of the
incarcerated in their eyes.
"Why can't you?" demanded Mother.
"Oh, Maw have gone across the Nob to Aunt Elviry's and left Susie May
and Bud being punished. They can't go outen the gate and I ain't
a-going to no circus with my little brother and sister being punished,
and I won't let Billy and Ez go either." By this time the whole group
was in different stages of grief, for the viewing of a circus without
the company of Eliza Pike had the flavor of dead sea fruit in all their
small mouths. From the heart in Eliza's small bosom radiated the force
that vivified the lives of the whole small-fry congregation, and a
circus not seen through her eyes would be but a dreary vision.
"Now ain't that too bad!" said Mother Mayberry with compassion and
irritation striving in her voice. "What did they do and just what did
she say?"
"Susie hurted Aunt Prissy's feelings, by taking the last biscuit when
they wasn't one left for her, and Maw said she would have to stay in
the yard until she learned to be kind and respectful to Paw's sister,
She didn't mean to be bad." And Eliza presented the case of her small
sister with hopelessness in every tone.
"Well, Susie," said Mother Mayberry, "don't you feel kind to her yet?"
There was a note of hope in Mother's voice that silenced all the wails,
and they all fixed large and expectant eyes upon this friend who never
failed them. By this time the Deacon had joined the group and his
gentle old eyes were also fixed on Mother Mayberry's face, with the
same confident hope that the children's expressed.
"I've done been kind to her," sniffed the culprit. "I let her cut all
my finger-nails and wash my ears and never said a word. She have been
working on me all afternoon and it hurt."
"Susie," said Mother Mayberry, "you can go over to the cross-roads and
see that circus with the Deacon. They can't no little girl do better
than that, and your Maw just told you to stay until you learned that
lesson. You are let out! Now, what did you do, Bud?"
"I slid on the lean-to and tored all the back of my britches out. She
couldn't stop to mend 'em and she said I could just stay front ways to
folks until she come home, and they shouldn't nobody mend 'em for me."
Bud choked with grief and mortification and edged back as little Bettie
Pratt started in his direction on an investigating tour.
"Well course, Bud," said Mother with judicial eye, "you can't take them
britches off." She paused and looked at him thoughtfully.
"I ain't a-going a step without him," reiterated the loyal Eliza, and
the rest of the children's faces fell.
"Too bad," murmured the Deacon, and Miss Wingate could see that his
distress at the plight of young Bud was as genuine as that of any of
the rest.
"But," began Mother Mayberry slowly, having in the last second weighed
the matter and made a decision, "your mother ain't said you couldn't go
outen the yard and she ain't said I couldn't wrap you up in one of my
kitchen aprons. That wouldn't be the same as changing the britches. She
didn't know about this circus and if she was here you all know she
woulder done as I asked her to do about Bud, so he ain't a-disobeying
her and I ain't neither, Run get the apron hanging behind the door,
Susie, and I'll fix him."
"Sister Mayberry," said the Deacon with a delighted smile in his kind
eyes, but a twinkle in their corners, "your decision involves the
interpretation of both the letter and the spirit of the law. I am glad
it, in this case, rested with you."
"Well," answered Mother Mayberry, as she took the apron from Susie and
started across the Road on her rescue mission, "a woman have got to cut
her conscience kinder bias in the dealing with children. If they're
stuffed full of food and kindness they will mostly forget to be bad,
and oughtent to be made to remember they CAN be by being punished too
long. Now, sonny, I'll get you fixed up so stylish with these pins and
this apron that the circus will want to carry you off. Start on,
Deacon, he's a-coming."
"I've got to get the baby's bonnet," said Eliza as the whole party
started away in a trail after the Deacon, who led Martin Luther by one
hand and little Bettie by the other. Over by the store they could see
Mrs. Pratt waiting to marshal the forces on down the Road and Mr.
Hoover stood ready as outstanding escort. He had brought the news of
the passing of the circus train and she had promptly consented to
taking the children and the Deacon over for a view.
"Please, Eliza, please don't take the baby! Leave him with me," said
Miss Wingate and as she spoke she stretched out her arms to Teether.
Teether was looking worn with the excitement of the day and his
sympathetic friend felt the journey would be too much for him. He
smiled and fell over on her shoulder with a sigh of contentment.
"Don't you think he oughter see them nelephants and things?" asked
Eliza doubtfully, her loyalty to Teether warring with the relief of
having him out of her thin little arms for the journey.
"He won't mind. Let me keep him here on the front porch until you come
back. Now run along and have a good time," and Miss Wingate started up
the front walk, as Eliza darted away to join the others.
"I do declare," said Mother Mayberry, as she watched the expedition
wend its way down the white Road in the direction of the Bolivar pike,
"the way the Deacon do love the children is plumb beautiful, and sad
some too. I don't know what he would do without Jem or they without
him. Seeing 'em together reminds me of that scraggy, old snowball bush
in full bloom, leaning down to the little Stars of Bethlehem reaching
up to it. What that good man have been to me only my Heavenly Father
can know and Tom Mayberry suspicion. I tell you what I think I'll do;
I'll take one of them little pans of rolls what Cindy have baked for
supper, with a jar of peach preserves, and go down and set with Mis'
Bostick while the Deacon are gone. We can run the pan of rolls in to
get hot for him when he comes home and I know he likes the preserves. I
want to stop in to see Mis' Tutt too and give her a little advice about
that taking so much blue-mass. I don't see how anybody with a bad liver
can have any religion at all, much less a second blessing. I know the
Squire have his faults, but others has failings too. And, too, I'll
have to stop in and pacify Miss Prissy about turning the children
loose, before I go down the Road."
"Miss Prissy always seems to be getting the children into trouble. I
wonder why," said the singer lady with a shade of resentment in her
voice. The little Pikes had established themselves firmly in the heart
of this new friend, and she found herself in an attitude of critical
partisanship.
"I reckon Miss Prissy is what you call a kinder crank," answered Mother
Mayberry as she paused at the foot of the steps. "A married woman have
got to be the hub of a family-wheel, but a old maid can be the outside
crank that turns the whole contraption backwards if she has a mind to.
I wish Miss Prissy had a little more understanding of the children,
'cause the rub all comes on Mis' Pike, and she's fair wore out with it.
But I must be a-going so as to be the sooner a-coming. I wisht you
would tell Tom Mayberry to go and let you help him put the hens and
little chickens to bed. Feed 'em two quarts of millet seed, and you
both know how to do it right if you have a mind to. I'm going to
compliment you by a-trusting you this once, and don't let me wish I
hadn't! I'll be back in the course of time."
And so it happened that as Doctor Mayberry was in the act of swinging
his microscope over a particularly absorbing new plate, a very lovely
vision framed itself in his office door against the background of
Harpeth Hill, which was composed of the slim singer girl with the baby
nodding over her shoulder. The unexpectedness of the visit sent the
color up under his tan and brought him to his feet with a delighted
smile.
"I don't know how you are going to feel about it, but I bring the news
of an honor which we are to share. Do you suppose, do you, that we can
put the chickens to bed for Mrs. Mayberry? She says we are to try, and
if we don't do it the right way she is never going to compliment us
with her confidence again. Help, please! I'm weighted down by the
responsibility." And as she spoke Miss Wingate's eyes shone across
Teether's bobbing head with delighted merriment.
"Well, let's try," answered the Doctor with the air of being ready to
do or dare, an attitude which a vision such as his eyes rested upon is
apt to incite in any man thus challenged. "Will you take command? I'm
many times proved incompetent on such occasions, and I feel sure Mother
trusted to your generalship." And together they went through the garden
and over into the chicken yard.
"Now," said Miss Wingate, "I think the thing to do is not to let them
know we are afraid of them. Let's just take their going under the coops
as a matter of course, and then, perhaps, they will go without any
remonstrance."
"Sort of a mental influence dodge," answered the Doctor
enthusiastically. "Let's try it on Spangles first. I somehow feel that
she will be more impressionable than Old Dominick. You influence while
I spread the millet seed in front of her coop." And he bent down in
front of the half barrel and carefully laid a tempting evening meal,
with his eye on Fuss-and-Feathers. Spangles hesitated, stood on one
foot, clucked in an affected tone of voice to her huddling babies and
coquettishly turned her head from one side to the other as if enthusing
over his artistic service before accepting his hospitality. Then, just
as she was poising one dainty foot ready for the first step in advance,
and had sounded a forward note to the cheepers around her, Old Dominick
calmly stalked forward, stepped right across the Doctor's coaxing hand
held out to Spangles, and, settling herself in the coop, began, with
her voracious band of little plebeians, to devour the grain with stolid
appreciation.
Miss Wingate laughed merrily, Teether Pike gurgled and the Doctor
looked up with baffled astonishment.
"That was your fault," he accused; "you influenced Dominick while I was
expending my force in beguiling Spangles. Now, you try to get her in
the next coop yourself. I shan't help you further than to spread the
grain in front of all the coops." And in accordance with his threat the
Doctor disposed of the rest of the food and stood with the empty pan in
his hand. And, like the well-trained flock of biddies that they were,
all the rest of the hen mothers clucked and cajoled their fluffy little
families into their accustomed shelters and began to dispose of their
suppers with contented clucks and cheeps. Only Mrs. Spangles stood afar
and eyed the only vacant coop with evident disdain.
"I don't know what to do," murmured Miss Wingate pleadingly. But the
Doctor stood firm, and regarded her with maliciously delighted eyes.
Teether bobbed his head over her shoulder and giggled with ungrateful
delight The poor little chicks peeped sleepily, but still Spangles held
her ground. The truth of the matter was that Dominick had really taken
the coop usually occupied by her ladyship, and with worldly
determination, the scion of all the Wyandottes was holding out against
the exchange.
With a glance out of the side of her eyes from under her lowered lashes
in the direction of Doctor Mayberry in his stern attitude, the singer
lady cautiously veered around to the rear of the insulted grandee, and,
grasping her fluffy skirts in her free hand, she shook them out with a
pleading "Shoo!" Instantly a perfect whirlwind of spangled feathers
veered around and faced the cascade of frills, and a volume of defiant
hisses fairly filled the air. Teether squealed and Miss Wingate
retreated to the bounds of the fence. The Doctor laughed in the most
heartless manner, and still Spangles held her ground.
To make matters worse, Mother Mayberry's jovial voice, mingled with the
shrill treble of the combined circus party, who were trying all at once
to tell her the wonders of the adventure, could be distinctly heard in
an increasing volume that told of their rapid approach. The situation
was desperate, and the loss of Mother Mayberry's faith in her seemed
inevitable to the nonplussed singer lady as she leaned against the
fence with Teether over her shoulder. Then the instinct that is
centuries old presented to her the wile that is of equal antiquity and,
raising her purple eyes to the defenseless Doctor, she murmured in a
voice of utter helplessness, into which was judiciously mingled a tone
of perfect confidence:
"Please, sir, get her in for me."
The response to which, being foreordained from the beginning of time,
took Doctor Mayberry just one exciting half-minute grab and shove to
accomplish, at the end of which a ruffled but chastened Spangles was
forced to assemble her family and content herself behind the bars of
the despised coop.
"Well," said Mother Mayberry as she hurried around the corner of the
house with the depleted and milk-hungry Martin Luther trailing at her
skirts, "did you make out to manage 'em? Why, ain't that fine; every
one in and settled and Fuss-and-Feathers in that end coop where I have
been wanting her to be for a week, seeing Dominick have got so many
more chickens and needs that larger barrel. I didn't depend on Tom
Mayberry, but I did on you, Elinory. This just goes to show that if you
put a little trust in people they are mighty apt to rise in the pan to
a occasion. You all look like you've been having a real good time!"