THE LITTLE HARPETH WOMAN OF MANY SORROWS
"This here are a curious spell of weather," remarked Mother Mayberry,
as she paused beside the singer lady who was holding Martin Luther up
on the broad window-sill, and with him was looking disconsolately down
the Road. "June's gone to acting like a woman with nerves that cries
just because she can. I'm glad all the chicken babies are feathered out
and can shed rain. Them little Hoosier pullets have already sprouted
tail feathers. They ain't a one of 'em a-going into the skillet no
matter how hungry Tom Mayberry looks after 'em. If I don't hold you and
Cindy back from spoiling him with chicken-fixings three times a day
he'll begin to show pin feathers hisself in no time."
"He likes chicken better than anything else," murmured Miss Wingate as
she buried a blush in Martin Luther's topknot.
"Well, wanting ain't always a reason for being gave to," said the
Doctor's mother with a chuckle as she admired the side view of the
blush. "But, seeing that he about half feeds hisself by looking at me
and you at the table, I reckon I'll have to let him have two chickens a
day to keep up his strength. Honey-fuzzle are a mighty satisfying diet,
though light, for a growed man. Reckon we can persuade him to try a
couple of slices of old ham onct in a while so as to give a few
broilers time to get legs long enough to fry?"
"We can try," answered the singer lady in a doubtful tone of voice, for
the Doctor's penchant for young chicken was very decided.
"Dearie me, it do beat all how some plans of life fall down in the
oven," said the Doctor's mother, as she eyed Miss Wingate with her most
quizzical smile quirking up the corners of her humorous mouth. "Here I
put myself to all manner of troubles to go out into the big world to
get a real managing wife for Tom Mayberry and I might just as well have
set cross-handed and waited for Susie Pike or little Bettie to grow up
to the spoiling of him. I thought seeing that you'd been raised with a
silver spoon in your mouth and handed life on a fringed napkin, so to
speak, you would make him stand around some, but for all I can see
you're going to make another Providence wife. Ain't you got none of the
suffering-women new notions at all?"
"I can't help it," answered the singer lady, ducking her head behind
Martin Luther again, but smiling up out of the corners of her eyes.
"Are you just going to drop over into being a poor, down-trodden,
miserable, man-bossed Harpeth Hill's wife, without trying a single
new-fashioned husband remedy on him, with so many receipts for managing
'em being written down by ladies all over the world, mostly single
ones?" demanded Mother Mayberry, fairly bubbling over with glee at the
singer lady's abashment.
"Yes, I am," answered Miss Wingate sturdily. "I want him to have just
what he wants."
"This are worse and more of it," exclaimed the Doctor's delighted
Mother. "You are got a wrong notion, child! Marriage ain't no slow,
plow-team business these days; it's hitched at opposite ends and
pulling both ways for dear life. Don't you even hope you will be; able
to think up no kind of tantrums to keep Tom Mayberry from being happy?"
"I don't want to," laughed the infatuated bride prospective.
"Then I reckon I'll have to give up and let you settle down into being
one of these here regular old-fashioned, primping-for-a-man,
dinner-on-the-table-at-the-horn-blow,
hanging-over-the-front-gate-waiting kind of wives. I thought I'd caught
a high-faluting bird of Paradise for him and you ain't a thing in the
world but a meadow dove. But there comes Bettie scooting through the
rain with little Hoover under her shawl. Providence folks have got duck
blood, all of 'em, and the more it pours out they paddles. Come in and
shake your feathers, Bettie."
"Howdy all," exclaimed the rosy Mrs. Hoover. "This here rain on the
corn is money in everybody's pocket. I just stopped in to show you this
pink flowered shirt-waist I have done finished for Miss Prissy Pike.
Ain't it stylish?"
"It surely are, Bettie!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry. "I'm so glad you
got it pink."
"And it don't run neither. I tried it," said the proud designer of the
admired garment.
"That's a good sign for the wedding. You can rub happiness that's fast
dyed through any kinder worry suds and it'll come out with the color
left. Any news along the Road?" asked Mother Mayberry, as she handled
the rosy blouse with careful hands.
"Well, Henny Turner says that Squire Tutt are in bed covered up head
and ears with the quilts, but 'Lias says that it are just 'cause Mis'
Tutt have got a happy spell on her and have been exorting of him. She
called all three of them boys in, Bud and Henny and 'Lias, and made 'em
learn a Bible verse a-piece, and I was grateful to her for her
interest, but the Squire cussed so to 'em while she went to get 'em a
cake that I'm afraid the lesson were spoiled for the chaps."
"I don't reckon it were, Bettie. Good salts down any day, while Evil
don't ever keep long. But I do wish we could get the Squire and Mis'
Tutt to be a little more peaceably with one another. It downright
grieves me to have 'em so spited here in they old age." And Mother
Mayberry's eyes took on a regretful look and she peered over her
glasses at the happy bride. On her buoyant heart she ever carried the
welfare of every soul in Providence and the crabbed old couple down the
Road was a constant source of trouble to her.
"You shan't worry over 'em, Mis' Mayberry," answered pretty Bettie
quickly, "You get every Providence trouble landed right on your
shoulders as soon as one comes. You don't get a chance to do nothing
but deal out ease to other people's bodies and souls, too."
"Well, a cup of cold water held to other folks' mouths is a mighty good
way to quench your own thirst, Bettie child, and I'm glad if it are
gave to me to label out the blessing of ease. But have you been in to
the Deacon's this morning?"
"No'm, I'm a-going to stop as I go along home," answered Bettie. "I
have seed the little raven paddling back and forth, so I guess they is
all right. I must hurry on now, for I see Miss Prissy at the window
looking for me. Ain't my baby a-growing?" she asked, as she picked
little Hoover off of the floor and again enveloped the bobbing head
under her own shawl.
"Yes, it are, and Mr. Hoover's a-smiling hisself fat by the day,
child," answered Mother Mayberry with a smile. "Do you pass on the word
to Elinory here that Providence husbands wear good, both warp and woof?"
"That they do, Miss Elinory, and I never seed nothing like 'em in my
travels," called back the bride from the door, as she reefed in her
skirts and sailed out in the downpour.
"Well, your mind oughter be satisfied, child, for Bettie muster seen a
good deal of the world in that three weeks' bridal trip in the farm
wagon," laughed Mother Mayberry at the singer lady by the window. "Now
I'm a-going to swim out to gather eggs and I'll be back if I don't
drown." With which she left the girl and the tot to resume their watch
down the Road for a horse and rider due in not over two hours' time.
And indeed the last of old June's days seemed in danger of dripping
away from her in tears of farewell. Rain clouds hung low over Harpeth
Hills and drifted down to the very top of Providence Nob. A steady
downpour had begun in the night and held on into the day and seemed to
increase in volume as the hours wore away. The tall maples were
standing depressed-boughed and dripping and the poplar leaves hung
sodden and wet, refusing a glimpse of their silver lining. A row of
bleeding-hearts down the walk were turning faint pink and drooping to
the ground, while every rose in the yard was shattered and wasted away.
"Rain, rain!" wailed Martin Luther under his breath, as he pressed his
cheek to the window-pane and looked without interest at a forlorn
rooster huddled with a couple of hens under the snowball bush.
"Don't you want a cake and some milk?" asked the singer lady, as she
gave him a comforting hug and essayed consolation by the offer of a
material distraction.
"No milk, no cake; L-i-z-a, thank ma'am, please," he sobbed a
disconsolate demand for what he considered a good substitute sunbeam.
"There she comes now, darling," exclaimed the singer lady, with as much
pleasure coming into her face as lit the doleful cherub's at her side.
And from the Pike front door there had issued a small figure, also
enveloped in an old shawl, which made its way across the puddles with
splashing, bare feet. She had her covered dish under her arm and a
bucket dangled from one hand. She answered Martin Luther's hail with a
flash of her white teeth and sped across the front porch.
And in the course of just ten minutes the experienced young pacifier
had established the small boy as driver to Mother Mayberry's large
rocking-chair, mounted him on the foot of the bed with snapping switch
to crack and thus secured a two-hour reign of peace for his elders.
"Miss Elinory," she said, as she came and stood close to the singer
lady seated in the deep window, "I'm mighty glad you got Doctor Tom;
and it were fair to the other lady, too. He couldn't help loving you
best, 'cause you are got a sick throat and she ain't. Do you reckon
she'll be satisfied to take Sam Mosbey when she comes again? I'm sorry
for her."
"So am I, Eliza," laughed Miss Wingate softly, as the rose blush stole
up over her cheeks, "but I don't believe she'll need Mr. Mosbey. Don't
you suppose she--that--is--there must be some one down in the City whom
she likes a lot."
"Yes'm, I reckon they is. Then I'll just take Sam myself when I grow up
if nobody else wants him," answered Eliza comfortably. "I'm sorry to be
glad that your throat didn't get well, but Mis' Peavey says that you
never in the world woulder tooken Doctor Tom if you coulder gone away
and made money singing to people. I don't know what me or him or Mother
Mayberry woulder done without you, but we couldn'ter paid you much to
stay. You won't never go now, will you?"
"Never," answered the singer lady, as she drew the little ingenue close
to her side. "And let me whisper something to you, Eliza--I
never--would--have--gone--any--way. I love you too much, you and Mother
Mayberry--and Doctor Tom."
"And Mis' Bostick and Deacon," exclaimed the loyal young raven. "Miss
Elinory, I get so scared about Mis' Bostick right here," she added,
laying her hand on her little throat. "She won't eat nothing and she
can't talk to me to-day. Maw and Mis' Nath Mosbey are there now and
waiting for Doctor Tom to come back. They said not to tell Mother
Mayberry until the rain held up some, but they want her, too. Can't
loving people do nothing for 'em, Miss Elinory?" and with big, wistful
eyes the tiny woman put the question, which has agonized hearts down
the ages.
"Oh, darling, the--loving itself helps," answered the singer lady
quickly with the mist over her eyes.
"I believe it do," answered Eliza thoughtfully.
"I hold the Deacon's other hand when he sets by Mis' Bostick! He wants
me, and she smiles at us both. I don't like to leave 'em for one single
minute. I have to wait now for Cindy to get the dinner done, but then
I'm a-going to run. Why, there goes Mother Mayberry outen the gate
under a umbrella! And Aunt Prissy asked me to get a spool of number
fifty thread from her to sew some lace on a petticoat Mis' Hoover have
done finished for her. If I was to go to get married I'd make some
things for my husband, too, and not so much for myself. I wouldn't want
so many skirts unless I knewed he had enough shirts."
"But, Eliza," remonstrated Miss Wingate, slightly shocked at this
rather original idea of providing a groom with a trousseau, "perhaps he
would rather get things for himself."
"No'm, he wouldn't," answered Eliza positively. "I ain't a-going to say
anything to Aunt Prissy about it 'cause you never can tell what will
hurt her feelings, but I want you to get Mis' Hoover to show you how
and make three nice shirts for Doctor Tom, so you can wash one while he
wears the other and keep one put away for Sunday. That is the way Maw
does for Paw and all the other folks on the Road does the same for they
men. Mis' Peavey can show you how to iron them nice, for she does the
Deacon's for me and Mother Mayberry is too busy to bother with such
things 'count of always having to go to sick folks even over to the
other side of the Nob. Cindy don't starch good. You'll do for Doctor
Tom nice, now you've got him, won't you?"
"Yes, Eliza, I will," answered the singer lady meekly, as this
prevision of the life domestic rose up and menaced her. She even had a
queer little thrill of pleasure at the thought of performing such
superhuman tasks for what was to be her individual responsibility among
Providence men along the Road. The certainty that she would never be
allowed to perform such offices at machine and tub actually depressed
her, for the thought had brought a primitive sense of possession that
she was loath to dismiss; the passion for service to love being an
instinct that sways the great lady and her country sister alike. "Do
you think he--will let me?" she asked of her admonisher.
"Just go on and do it and don't ask him," was the practical answer.
"There he comes now leading his horse and he have been to see Mis'
Bostick. I can get the dinner and run on to meet him and hear how he
thinks she are," she exclaimed as she seized her dish and bucket and
disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
And a few minutes later, as Doctor Mayberry was unsaddling his horse in
the barn a lithe figure enveloped as to head and shoulders in one of
Cindy's kitchen aprons darted under the dripping eaves and stood
breathless and laughing in the wide door.
"I saw you come up the Road," said the singer lady, as she divested
herself of the gingham garment, "and I was dying to get out in the
rain, much to Cindy's horror. You are late."
"Not much," answered the young Doctor, slipping out of his rain coat
and coming over to stand beside her in the door. "What have you been
doing all morning?"
"I've been being--being lectured," she answered, as she looked up in
his face with dancing dark eyes.
"Who did it to you?" he asked, taking her fingers into his and drawing
her farther back from the splash of the rain drops.
"Your Mother and then Eliza Pike," she answered with a low laugh.
"Eliza is afraid I won't 'do for you' in proper Providence style and
I'm very humble and--I--I want to learn. She thinks I ought to begin on
some--some shirts for you right now and I'm going to. What color do you
prefer?"
"Horrors!" exclaimed the Doctor, positively blushing at the thought of
the very lovely lady engaged in such a clothing mission.
"I knew you wouldn't have any confidence in them," answered Miss
Wingate mournfully, "and I haven't myself, but still I was willing to
try."
"Oh, yes, I have!" the young Doctor hastened to exclaim. "Better make
them suitable for traveling, for I've got marching orders in the noon
mail. Are you ready to start to Italy on short notice and then on to
India?"
"What?" demanded the singer lady with alarmed astonishment.
"Yes," answered the young Doctor coolly. "The Commission writes that my
reports on Pellagra down here are complete enough now for them to send
some chap down to continue them, while I go on to Southern Italy for a
study of similar conditions there and then on to India for a still more
exhaustive examination. The Government is determined to stamp this
scourge out before it gets a hold, and it's work to put out the fire
before it spreads. Better hurry the shirts and pack up your own fluff."
"But I'm not going a step or a wave," answered the singer girl
defiantly. "I'm too busy here now. I don't ever intend to leave Mother
as long as I live. I don't see how you can even suggest such a thing to
me."
"Do you know what leaving Mother is like?" asked the young Doctor, as
he looked down on her with tenderness in his gray eyes and Mother
Mayberry's own quizzical smile on his lips. "It's like going to sleep
at night with a last look at Providence Nob,--you wake up in the
morning and find it more there than ever. She was THERE on sunny
mornings over in Berlin and THERE on gray days in London and I had her
on long hard hospital nights in New York. Just come with me on this
trip and I promise she and Old Harpeth will be here when we get back.
Please!"
"I don't know," answered Miss Wingate in a small voice as she rubbed
her cheek against the arm of his coat. "I'm in love with Tom Mayberry
of Providence Road. I don't know that I want to go traveling with a
distinguished physician on an important Government mission and attend
Legation dinners and banquets and--I don't want to leave my Mother,"
and there was a real catch in the laugh she smothered in his coat
sleeve.
"Dearie girl," he exclaimed, looking down with delight at a small
section of blush left visible against the rough blue serge of his coat,
"you and Mother are--"
"Sakes, you folks, I wish you'd try to listen when you are called at!"
came in a sharp voice as Mrs. Peavey looked down upon them from over
the wall near the barn. "One of them foolish Indiany chickens are
stretched out kicking most drowned in a puddle right by the barn door,
and there you both stand doing nothing for it. Tom Mayberry, pick it up
this minute and give it to me! I'm a-going to put it behind my stove
until Mis' Mayberry comes home. I've got some feeling for her love of
chickens, _I_ have."
"Oh, I didn't see it!" exclaimed Miss Wingate, in an agony of regret.
"The dear little thing! Give it to me and I'll take care of it."
"Fiddlesticks! Chickens ain't 'dear little things,' and I wouldn't
trust neither one of you to take care of a flea of mine, with your
philandering. Hand it here to me, Tom Mayberry, like I tell you!" And
the Doctor hastened to pick up the little gasping bunch of drenched
feathers, which Mrs. Peavey tucked in the corner of her shawl "Did you
all hear that a car busted into another one down in the City day before
yesterday and throwed the driver and broke a lady's arm and cut a
baby's leg shameful? It was in the morning paper I saw down to the
store; and a wind storm blew off a man's roof too."
"I haven't read the paper yet," answered the singer lady in the subdued
voice she always used in addressing Mother Mayberry's pessimistic
neighbor.
"Well, you oughter take interest in accidents if you are a-going to be
a Doctor's wife. It'll be all in the family then and you can hear it
all straight and maybe see some folks mended," answered Mrs. Peavey,
and she failed to notice Miss Wingate's horrified expression at such a
prospect. "How's Mis' Bostick, Tom? That is, how do your Mother say she
are, for I couldn't trust your notion in such a case as her'n."
"I think Mother feels worried over her to-day," answered the Doctor
gently, with not a trace of offense at his neighbor's outspoken
question. "Her heart is very weak and it is impossible to stimulate her
further. Mother is up there now and I'll come tell you what she says
when she comes home to dinner."
"Well, I'm always thankful for news, bad as it mostly are," answered
Mrs. Peavey in gloomy gratitude for his offer of a report from Mother
Mayberry. "You all had better go on in the house now and put Miss
Elinory's wet feet in the stove, for they won't be no use in her dying
on Mis' Mayberry's hands with pneumony at this busy time of the year.
Them slippers is too foolish to look at." With which the shawled head
disappeared from the top of the wall.
"Do you know, I had a strange dream last night," said the singer lady,
as the Doctor hung up his bridle and shut the feed-room door
preparatory to following out Mrs. Peavey's injunction as to carrying
Miss Wingate away to be dry shod. "I dreamed that I was singing to Mrs.
Bostick and the Deacon, REALLY singing, and just as it rose clear and
strong Mrs. Peavey called to me to 'shut up' and it stopped so suddenly
that I waked up--and the strange part of it is that I heard, really
heard, I thought, my own voice die away in an echo up in the eaves. For
a second I seemed awake and listening--and it was lovely--lovely!"
"Dear," said the Doctor, as he took her hand in his and held it against
his breast, "I would give all life has to offer me to get it back for
you. I will hope against hope! I haven't written Doctor Stein yet. I
can't make myself write. Perhaps we will find some one on this trip who
has some theory or treatment or something to offer. I've been praying
that help will come!"
"Would you--like me any better if I had it back?" she asked with a
happy little laugh as she laid her cheek against their clasped hands.
"Would you want L'ELEONORE more than you do just plain Elinor Wingate,
care Mother Mayberry, Providence, Tennessee?"
"I'm going to carry you in the house so you can put on dry stockings,"
answered the Doctor with a spark in his gray eyes that scorned her
question, and without any discussion he picked her up, strode through
the rain with her and deposited her in the kitchen door.
And over by the long window they found Mother Mayberry standing with
her hand on Cindy's shoulder, who sat with her head bowed in her apron
sobbing quietly, while Martin Luther stood wide-eyed and questioning,
with his little hand clutching Mother's skirts.
"Children," said Mother quietly as she came and stood beside them in
the doorway, while Martin Luther nestled up to Doctor Tom, "I've come
down the Road to tell you that it are all over up at the Deacon's. It
were very beautiful, for Mis' Bostick just give us a smile and went to
meet her Lord with the love of us all a-shining on her face. We didn't
hardly sense it at first, for she had just spoke to 'Liza, and the
Deacon were over by the window. I ain't got no tears to shed for her
and Deacon are so stunned he don't need 'em yet."
"Mother," exclaimed the Doctor, as he took her hand in his, while the
singer lady crept close and rested against her strong shoulder.
"Yes, son," answered his Mother gently, "it come so sudden I couldn't
even send for you, but go on up there now and see what you can do for
Deacon. He'll want you for the comfort of your presence, you and 'Liza."
"And Eliza!" exclaimed Miss Wingate with a sob, "it'll break her little
heart."
"They never was such a child as 'Liza Pike in the world," said Mother
Mayberry softly and for the first time a film of tears spread over her
eyes. "She have never said a word, but just stands pressed up close
with her arm 'round the Deacon's shoulders as he sits with his Good
Book acrost his knees. She give one little moan when she understood,
but she ain't made a mite of child-fuss, just shed her baby tears like
a woman growed to sorrow. Her little bucket and dish of dinner is
a-setting cold on the table and a little draggled rose she had brung in
not a hour back is still in Mis' Bostick's fingers, and the other one
pinned on the Deacon's coat. When Judy and Betty wanted to begin to fix
things she understood without a word, led the Deacon out into the hall
and are just a-standing there a-keeping him up in his daze by the
courage in her own loving little heart. The good Lord bless and keep
the child! Now, go on, Tom, and see what you can do! Yes, Cindy will
run right over and tell Mis' Peavey. And stop in and see Squire Tutt,
for Henny Turner says he are down to-day and a-asking for you. Come
into my room, honey-bird, I've got to look for something."
"Somehow, I don't feel about dying as lot of folks do," she remarked to
the singer lady, as she stood in front of the tall old chest of drawers
in her own room a few minutes later. "Death ain't nothing but laying
down one job of work and going to answer the Master when He calls you
to come take up another. Mis' Bostick have worked in His vineyard early
and late, through summer sun and winter wind, and now He have summoned
her in for some other purpose. He'll find her well-tried and seasoned
to go on with whatever plans He have for her in His Kingdom."
"It's wonderful to believe that," answered the singer girl through her
tears. "It seems to supply a reason for what happens to us here--if we
can go on with it later."
"Course we can," answered Mother Mayberry, as she began to search in
her top drawer for something. "I hope He have got some good big job cut
out for Tom Mayberry and me; but course it will have to be something
different, for they won't be no more sickness or death or sorrowing for
us doctors to tend on. But Pa Lovell and Doctor Mayberry have found
something by this time and maybe it will be for me and Tom to work at
it alongside of 'em. It might be you will have the beautiful voice back
and come sing for us all, as have never heard you in this world. Then,
too, I believe He'll give it to little Sister Pike to tend on the
prophets and maybe I'll be there to see!"
"This is the first time I ever could take--take any interest in Heaven
at all," confessed Miss Wingate, lifting large, comforted eyes to
Mother Mayberry's face. "When I was so desperate and didn't know what
to do, before I came and found out that there was a place for me in
this world even if I couldn't sing any more, I used to dread the
thought of Heaven, even if I might some day be good enough to go there."
"Well, a stand-around, set-around kind of Heaven may be for some people
as wants it, but a come-over-and-help-us kind is what I'm hoping for. I
want to have a good lot of honest acts to pack up and take into the
judgment seat to prove my character by and then be honored with some
kind of telling labor to do. I'm looking for something white to put at
Mis' Bostick's neck, for we are a-going to lay her in her grave in the
old dress with its honorable patches, but with a little piece of fine
white to match her sweet soul. Here it is."
"Will you let me know if I can do anything for anybody or the Deacon
later?" asked the singer lady gently.
"I know you will be a comfort to him, child, after a while. You can
look after my chickens and things for me, for Cindy's a-going with me
and that leaves you to feed the two boys, Tom and Martin Luther, for
dinner. And don't you never forget that you are the apple-core of your
Mother Mayberry's heart and she's a-going to hold you to her tender,
even unto them Glory days we've been a-planning for, with Death here in
the midst of Life."