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[Illustration:]
AUNT JANE
OF KENTUCKY
BY ELIZA CALVERT HALL
Author of "The Land of Long Ago."
WITH FRONTISPIECE AND PAGE DECORATIONS
BY BEULAH STRONG
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1899, 1900,
BY JOHN BRISBANE WALKER.
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY COSMOPOLITAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.
COPYRIGHT, 1907,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
* * * * *
TO
MY MOTHER AND FATHER
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
* * * * *
CHAPTERS
PAGE
I. SALLY ANN'S EXPERIENCE 1
II. THE NEW ORGAN 29
III. AUNT JANE'S ALBUM 53
IV. "SWEET DAY OF REST" 83
V. MILLY BAKER'S BOY 105
VI. THE BAPTIZING AT KITTLE CREEK 141
VII. HOW SAM AMOS RODE IN THE TOURNAMENT 169
VIII. MARY ANDREWS' DINNER-PARTY 193
IX. THE GARDENS OF MEMORY 247
* * * * *
"There is not an existence about us but at first seems
colorless, dreary, lethargic: what can our soul have in
common with that of an elderly spinster, a slow-witted
plowman, a miser who worships his gold?... But ... the
emotion that lived and died in an old-fashioned country
parlor shall as mightily stir our heart, shall as unerringly
find its way to the deepest sources of life as the majestic
passion that ruled the life of a king and shed its
triumphant luster from the dazzling height of a
throne."--_Maeterlinck_.
* * * * *
I
SALLY ANN'S EXPERIENCE
[Illustration: ]
"Come right in and set down. I was jest wishin' I had somebody to talk
to. Take that chair right by the door so's you can get the breeze."
And Aunt Jane beamed at me over her silver-rimmed spectacles and
hitched her own chair a little to one side, in order to give me the
full benefit of the wind that was blowing softly through the
white-curtained window, and carrying into the room the heavenliest
odors from a field of clover that lay in full bloom just across the
road. For it was June in Kentucky, and clover and blue-grass were
running sweet riot over the face of the earth.
Aunt Jane and her room together always carried me back to a dead and
gone generation. There was a rag carpet on the floor, of the
"hit-or-miss" pattern; the chairs were ancient Shaker rockers, some
with homely "shuck" bottoms, and each had a tidy of snowy thread or
crochet cotton fastened primly over the back. The high bed and bureau
and a shining mahogany table suggested an era of "plain living" far,
far remote from the day of Turkish rugs and Japanese bric-a-brac, and
Aunt Jane was in perfect correspondence with her environment. She wore
a purple calico dress, rather short and scant; a gingham apron, with a
capacious pocket, in which she always carried knitting or some other
"handy work"; a white handkerchief was laid primly around the wrinkled
throat and fastened with a pin containing a lock of gray hair; her cap
was of black lace and lutestring ribbon, not one of the butterfly
affairs that perch on the top of the puffs and frizzes of the modern
old lady, but a substantial structure that covered her whole head and
was tied securely under her chin. She talked in a sweet old treble
with a little lisp, caused by the absence of teeth, and her laugh was
as clear and joyous as a young girl's.
"Yes, I'm a-piecin' quilts again," she said, snipping away at the bits
of calico in her lap. "I did say I was done with that sort o' work;
but this mornin' I was rummagin' around up in the garret, and I come
across this bundle of pieces, and thinks I, 'I reckon it's intended
for me to piece one more quilt before I die;' I must 'a' put 'em there
thirty years ago and clean forgot 'em, and I've been settin' here all
the evenin' cuttin' 'em and thinkin' about old times.
"Jest feel o' that," she continued, tossing some scraps into my lap.
"There ain't any such caliker nowadays. This ain't your five-cent
stuff that fades in the first washin' and wears out in the second. A
caliker dress was somethin' worth buyin' and worth makin' up in them
days. That blue-flowered piece was a dress I got the spring before
Abram died. When I put on mournin' it was as good as new, and I give
it to sister Mary. That one with the green ground and white figger was
my niece Rebecca's. She wore it for the first time to the County Fair
the year I took the premium on my salt-risin' bread and sponge cake.
This black-an'-white piece Sally Ann Flint give me. I ricollect 'twas
in blackberry time, and I'd been out in the big pasture pickin' some
for supper, and I stopped in at Sally Ann's for a drink o' water on my
way back. She was cuttin' out this dress."
Aunt Jane broke off with a little soprano laugh.
"Did I ever tell you about Sally Ann's experience?" she said, as she
laid two three-cornered pieces together and began to sew with her
slender, nervous old fingers.
To find Aunt Jane alone and in a reminiscent mood! This was
delightful.
"Do tell me," I said.
Aunt Jane was silent for a few moments. She always made this pause
before beginning a story, and there was something impressive about it.
I used to think she was making an invocation to the goddess of Memory.
"'Twas forty years ago," she began musingly, "and the way of it was
this. Our church was considerably out o' fix. It needed a new roof.
Some o' the winder lights was out, and the floor was as bare as your
hand, and always had been. The men folks managed to git the roof
shingled and the winders fixed, and us women in the Mite Society
concluded we'd git a cyarpet. We'd been savin' up our money for some
time, and we had about twelve dollars. I ricollect what a argument we
had, for some of us wanted the cyarpet, and some wanted to give it to
furrin missions, as we'd set out to do at first. Sally Ann was the one
that settled it. She says at last--Sally Ann was in favor of the
cyarpet--she says, 'Well, if any of the heathen fails to hear the
gospel on account of our gittin' this cyarpet, they'll be saved
anyhow, so Parson Page says. And if we send the money and they do hear
the gospel, like as not they won't repent, and then they're certain to
be damned. And it seems to me as long as we ain't sure what they'll
do, we might as well keep the money and git the cyarpet. I never did
see much sense anyhow,' says she, 'in givin' people a chance to damn
theirselves.'
"Well, we decided to take Sally Ann's advice, and we was talkin' about
app'intin' a committee to go to town the follerin' Monday and pick out
the cyarpet, when all at once 'Lizabeth Taylor--she was our
treasurer--she spoke up, and says she, 'There ain't any use app'intin'
that committee. The money's gone,' she says, sort o' short and quick.
'I kept it in my top bureau drawer, and when I went for it yesterday,
it was gone. I'll pay it back if I'm ever able, but I ain't able now.'
And with that she got up and walked out o' the room, before any one
could say a word, and we seen her goin' down the road lookin' straight
before her and walkin' right fast.
"And we--we set there and stared at each other in a sort o' dazed way.
I could see that everybody was thinkin' the same thing, but nobody
said a word, till our minister's wife--she was as good a woman as ever
lived--she says, '_Judge not_.'
"Them two words was jest like a sermon to us. Then Sally Ann spoke up
and says: 'For the Lord's sake, don't let the men folks know anything
about this. They're always sayin' that women ain't fit to handle
money, and I for one don't want to give 'em any more ground to stand
on than they've already got.'
"So we agreed to say nothin' about it, and all of us kept our promise
except Milly Amos. She had mighty little sense to begin with, and
havin' been married only about two months, she'd about lost that
little. So next mornin' I happened to meet Sam Amos, and he says to
me, 'Aunt Jane, how much money have you women got to'rds the new
cyarpet for the church?' I looked him square in the face, and I says,
'Are you a member of the Ladies' Mite Society of Goshen church, Sam
Amos? For if you are, you already know how much money we've got, and
if you ain't, you've got no business knowin'. And, furthermore,' says
I, 'there's some women that can't keep a secret and a promise, and
some that can, and _I_ can.' And that settled _him_.
"Well, 'Lizabeth never showed her face outside her door for more'n a
month afterwards, and a more pitiful-lookin' creatur' you never saw
than she was when she come out to prayer-meetin' the night Sally Ann
give her experience. She set 'way back in the church, and she was as
pale and peaked as if she had been through a siege of typhoid. I
ricollect it all as if it had been yesterday. We sung 'Sweet Hour of
Prayer,' and Parson Page prayed, and then called on the brethren to
say anything they might feel called on to say concernin' their
experience in the past week. Old Uncle Jim Matthews begun to clear his
throat, and I knew, as well as I knew my name, he was fixin' to git up
and tell how precious the Lord had been to his soul, jest like he'd
been doin' every Wednesday night for twenty years. But before he got
started, here come 'Lizabeth walkin' down the side aisle and stopped
right in front o' the pulpit.
"'I've somethin' to say,' she says. 'It's been on my mind till I can't
stand it any longer. I've got to tell it, or I'll go crazy. It was me
that took that cyarpet money. I only meant to borrow it. I thought
sure I'd be able to pay it back before it was wanted. But things went
wrong, and I ain't known a peaceful minute since, and never shall
again, I reckon. I took it to pay my way up to Louisville, the time I
got the news that Mary was dyin'.'
"Mary was her daughter by her first husband, you see. 'I begged Jacob
to give me the money to go on,' says she, 'and he wouldn't do it. I
tried to give up and stay, but I jest couldn't. Mary was all I had in
the world; and maybe you that has children can put yourself in my
place, and know what it would be to hear your only child callin' to
you from her death-bed, and you not able to go to her. I asked Jacob
three times for the money,' she says, 'and when I found he wouldn't
give it to me, I said to myself, "I'm goin' anyhow." I got down on my
knees,' says she, 'and asked the Lord to show me a way, and I felt
sure he would. As soon as Jacob had eat his breakfast and gone out on
the farm, I dressed myself, and as I opened the top bureau drawer to
get out my best collar, I saw the missionary money. It come right
into my head,' says she, 'that maybe this was the answer to my prayer;
maybe I could borrow this money, and pay it back some way or other
before it was called for. I tried to put it out o' my head, but the
thought kept comin' back; and when I went down into the sittin'-room
to get Jacob's cyarpetbag to carry a few things in, I happened to look
up at the mantelpiece and saw the brass candlesticks with prisms all
'round 'em that used to belong to my mother; and all at once I seemed
to see jest what the Lord intended for me to do.
"'You know,' she says, 'I had a boarder summer before last--that lady
from Louisville--and she wanted them candlesticks the worst kind, and
offered me fifteen dollars for 'em. I wouldn't part with 'em then, but
she said if ever I wanted to sell 'em, to let her know, and she left
her name and address on a cyard. I went to the big Bible and got out
the cyard, and I packed the candlesticks in the cyarpetbag, and put on
my bonnet. When I opened the door I looked up the road, and the first
thing I saw was Dave Crawford comin' along in his new buggy. I went
out to the gate, and he drew up and asked me if I was goin' to town,
and said he'd take me. It looked like the Lord was leadin' me all the
time,' says she, 'but the way things turned out it must 'a' been
Satan. I got to Mary just two hours before she died, and she looked up
in my face and says, "Mother, I knew God wouldn't let me die till I'd
seen you once more."'"
Here Aunt Jane took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.
"I can't tell this without cryin' to save my life," said she; "but
'Lizabeth never shed a tear. She looked like she'd got past cryin',
and she talked straight on as if she'd made up her mind to say jest so
much, and she'd die if she didn't git to say it."
"'As soon as the funeral was over,' says she, 'I set out to find the
lady that wanted the candlesticks. She wasn't at home, but her niece
was there, and said she'd heard her aunt speak of the candlesticks
often; and she'd be home in a few days and would send me the money
right off. I come home thinkin' it was all right, and I kept expectin'
the money every day, but it never come till day before yesterday. I
wrote three times about it, but I never got a word from her till
Monday. She had just got home, she said, and hoped I hadn't been
inconvenienced by the delay. She wrote a nice, polite letter and sent
me a check for fifteen dollars, and here it is. I wanted to confess
it all that day at the Mite Society, but somehow I couldn't till I had
the money right in my hand to pay back. If the lady had only come back
when her niece said she was comin', it would all have turned out
right, but I reckon it's a judgment on me for meddling with the Lord's
money. God only knows what I've suffered,' says she, 'but if I had to
do it over again, I believe I'd do it. Mary was all the child I had in
the world, and I had to see her once more before she died. I've been a
member of this church for twenty years,' says she, 'but I reckon
you'll have to turn me out now.'
"The pore thing stood there tremblin' and holdin' out the check as if
she expected somebody to come and take it. Old Silas Petty was
glowerin' at her from under his eyebrows, and it put me in mind of the
Pharisees and the woman they wanted to stone, and I ricollect
thinkin', 'Oh, if the Lord Jesus would jest come in and take her
part!' And while we all set there like a passel o' mutes, Sally Ann
got up and marched down the middle aisle and stood right by 'Lizabeth.
You know what funny thoughts people will have sometimes.
"Well, I felt so relieved. It popped into my head all at once that we
didn't need the Lord after all, Sally Ann would do jest as well. It
seemed sort o' like sacrilege, but I couldn't help it.
"Well, Sally Ann looked all around as composed as you please, and says
she, 'I reckon if anybody's turned out o' this church on account o'
that miserable little money, it'll be Jacob and not 'Lizabeth. A man
that won't give his wife money to go to her dyin' child is too mean to
stay in a Christian church anyhow; and I'd like to know how it is that
a woman, that had eight hundred dollars when she married, has to go to
her husband and git down on her knees and beg for what's her own.
Where's that money 'Lizabeth had when she married you?' says she,
turnin' round and lookin' Jacob in the face. 'Down in that ten-acre
medder lot, ain't it?--and in that new barn you built last spring. A
pretty elder you are, ain't you? Elders don't seem to have improved
much since Susannah's times. If there ain't one sort o' meanness in
'em it's another,' says she.
"Goodness knows what she would 'a' said, but jest here old Deacon
Petty rose up. And says he, 'Brethren,'--and he spread his arms out
and waved 'em up and down like he was goin' to pray,--'brethren, this
is awful! If this woman wants to give her religious experience, why,'
says he, very kind and condescendin', 'of course she can do so. But
when it comes to a _woman_ standin' up in the house of the Lord and
revilin' an elder as this woman is doin', why, I tremble,' says he,
'for the church of Christ. For don't the Apostle Paul say, "Let your
women keep silence in the church"?'
"As soon as he named the 'Postle Paul, Sally Ann give a kind of snort.
Sally Ann was terrible free-spoken. And when Deacon Petty said that,
she jest squared herself like she intended to stand there till
judgment day, and says she, 'The 'Postle Paul has been dead ruther too
long for me to be afraid of him. And I never heard of him app'intin'
Deacon Petty to represent him in this church. If the 'Postle Paul
don't like what I'm sayin', let him rise up from his grave in
Corinthians or Ephesians, or wherever he's buried, and say so. I've
got a message from the Lord to the men folks of this church, and I'm
goin' to deliver it, Paul or no Paul,' says she. 'And as for you,
Silas Petty, I ain't forgot the time I dropped in to see Maria one
Saturday night and found her washin' out her flannel petticoat and
dryin' it before the fire. And every time I've had to hear you lead in
prayer since then I've said to myself, "Lord, how high can a man's
prayers rise toward heaven when his wife ain't got but one flannel
skirt to her name? No higher than the back of his pew, if you'll let
me tell it." I knew jest how it was,' said Sally Ann, 'as well as if
Maria'd told me. She'd been havin' the milk and butter money from the
old roan cow she'd raised from a little heifer, and jest because feed
was scarce, you'd sold her off before Maria had money enough to buy
her winter flannels. I can give my experience, can I? Well, that's
jest what I'm a-doin',' says she; 'and while I'm about it,' says she,
'I'll give in some experience for 'Lizabeth and Maria and the rest of
the women who, betwixt their husbands an' the 'Postle Paul, have about
lost all the gumption and grit that the Lord started them out with. If
the 'Postle Paul,' says she, 'has got anything to say about a woman
workin' like a slave for twenty-five years and then havin' to set up
an' wash out her clothes Saturday night, so's she can go to church
clean Sunday mornin', I'd like to hear it. But don't you dare to say
anything to me about keepin' silence in the church. There was times
when Paul says he didn't know whether he had the Spirit of God or not,
and I'm certain that when he wrote that text he wasn't any more
inspired than you are, Silas Petty, when you tell Maria to shut her
mouth.'
"Job Taylor was settin' right in front of Deacon Petty, and I reckon
he thought his time was comin' next; so he gets up, easy-like, with
his red bandanna to his mouth, and starts out. But Sally Ann headed
him off before he'd gone six steps, and says she, 'There ain't
anything the matter with you, Job Taylor; you set right down and hear
what I've got to say. I've knelt and stood through enough o' your
long-winded prayers, and now it's my time to talk and yours to
listen.'
"And bless your life, if Job didn't set down as meek as Moses, and
Sally Ann lit right into him. And says she, 'I reckon you're afraid
I'll tell some o' your meanness, ain't you? And the only thing that
stands in my way is that there's so much to tell I don't know where to
begin. There ain't a woman in this church,' says she, 'that don't know
how Marthy scrimped and worked and saved to buy her a new set o'
furniture, and how you took the money with you when you went to
Cincinnata, the spring before she died, and come back without the
furniture. And when she asked you for the money, you told her that she
and everything she had belonged to you, and that your mother's old
furniture was good enough for anybody. It's my belief,' says she,
'that's what killed Marthy. Women are dyin' every day, and the
doctors will tell you it's some new-fangled disease or other, when, if
the truth was known, it's nothin' but wantin' somethin' they can't
git, and hopin' and waitin' for somethin' that never comes. I've
watched 'em, and I know. The night before Marthy died she says to me,
"Sally Ann," says she, "I could die a heap peacefuler if I jest knew
the front room was fixed up right with a new set of furniture for the
funeral."' And Sally Ann p'inted her finger right at Job and says she,
'I said it then, and I say it now to your face, Job Taylor, you killed
Marthy the same as if you'd taken her by the throat and choked the
life out of her.'
"Mary Embry, Job's sister-in-law, was settin' right behind me, and I
heard her say, 'Amen!' as fervent as if somebody had been prayin'. Job
set there, lookin' like a sheep-killin' dog, and Sally Ann went right
on. 'I know,' says she, 'the law gives you the right to your wives'
earnin's and everything they've got, down to the clothes on their
backs; and I've always said there was some Kentucky law that was made
for the express purpose of encouragin' men in their natural
meanness,--a p'int in which the Lord knows they don't need no
encouragin'. There's some men,' says she, 'that'll sneak behind the
'Postle Paul when they're plannin' any meanness against their wives,
and some that runs to the law, and you're one of the law kind. But
mark my words,' says she, 'one of these days, you men who've been
stealin' your wives' property and defraudin' 'em, and cheatin' 'em out
o' their just dues, you'll have to stand before a Judge that cares
mighty little for Kentucky law; and all the law and all the Scripture
you can bring up won't save you from goin' where the rich man went.'
"I can see Sally Ann right now," and Aunt Jane pushed her glasses up
on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through
the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering
softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old
black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh
up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest _had to_.
I heard Dave Crawford shufflin' his feet and clearin' his throat while
Sally Ann was talkin' to Job. Dave's farm j'ined Sally Ann's, and they
had a lawsuit once about the way a fence ought to run, and Sally Ann
beat him. He always despised Sally Ann after that, and used to call
her a 'he-woman.' Sally Ann heard the shufflin', and as soon as she
got through with Job, she turned around to Dave, and says she: 'Do you
think your hemmin' and scrapin' is goin' to stop me, Dave Crawford?
You're one o' the men that makes me think that it's better to be a
Kentucky horse than a Kentucky woman. Many's the time,' says she,
'I've seen pore July with her head tied up, crawlin' around tryin' to
cook for sixteen harvest hands, and you out in the stable cossetin' up
a sick mare, and rubbin' down your three-year-olds to get 'em in trim
for the fair. Of all the things that's hard to understand,' says she,
'the hardest is a man that has more mercy on his horse than he has on
his wife. July's found rest at last,' says she, 'out in the graveyard;
and every time I pass your house I thank the Lord that you've got to
pay a good price for your cookin' now, as there ain't a woman in the
country fool enough to step into July's shoes.'
"But, la!" said Aunt Jane, breaking off with her happy laugh,--the
laugh of one who revels in rich memories,--"what's the use of me
tellin' all this stuff? The long and the short of it is, that Sally
Ann had her say about nearly every man in the church. She told how
Mary Embry had to cut up her weddin' skirts to make clothes for her
first baby; and how John Martin stopped Hannah one day when she was
carryin' her mother a pound of butter, and made her go back and put
the butter down in the cellar; and how Lije Davison used to make Ann
pay him for every bit of chicken feed, and then take half the egg
money because the chickens got into his garden; and how Abner Page
give his wife twenty-five cents for spendin' money the time she went
to visit her sister.
"Sally Ann always was a masterful sort of woman, and that night it
seemed like she was possessed. The way she talked made me think of the
Day of Pentecost and the gift of tongues. And finally she got to the
minister! I'd been wonderin' all along if she was goin' to let him
off. She turned around to where he was settin' under the pulpit, and
says she, 'Brother Page, you're a good man, but you ain't so good you
couldn't be better. It was jest last week,' says she, 'that the women
come around beggin' money to buy you a new suit of clothes to go to
Presbytery in; and I told 'em if it was to get Mis' Page a new dress,
I was ready to give; but not a dime was I goin' to give towards
puttin' finery on a man's back. I'm tired o' seein' the ministers
walk up into the pulpit in their slick black broadcloths, and their
wives settin' down in the pew in an old black silk that's been turned
upside down, wrong side out, and hind part before, and sponged, and
pressed, and made over till you can't tell whether it's silk, or
caliker, or what.'
"Well, I reckon there was some o' the women that expected the roof to
fall down on us when Sally Ann said that right to the minister. But it
didn't fall, and Sally Ann went straight on. 'And when it comes to the
perseverance of the saints and the decrees of God,' says she, 'there
ain't many can preach a better sermon; but there's some of your
sermons,' says she, 'that ain't fit for much but kindlin' fires.
There's that one you preached last Sunday on the twenty-fourth verse
of the fifth chapter of Ephesians. I reckon I've heard about a hundred
and fifty sermons on that text, and I reckon I'll keep on hearin' 'em
as long as there ain't anybody but men to do the preachin'. Anybody
would think,' says she, 'that you preachers was struck blind every
time you git through with the twenty-fourth verse, for I never heard a
sermon on the twenty-fifth verse. I believe there's men in this church
that thinks the fifth chapter of Ephesians hasn't got but twenty-four
verses, and I'm goin' to read the rest of it to 'em for once anyhow.'
"And if Sally Ann didn't walk right up into the pulpit same as if
she'd been ordained, and read what Paul said about men lovin' their
wives as Christ loved the church, and as they loved their own bodies.
"'Now,' says she, 'if Brother Page can reconcile these texts with what
Paul says about women submittin' and bein' subject, he's welcome to do
it. But,' says she, 'if I had the preachin' to do, I wouldn't waste
time reconcilin'. I'd jest say that when Paul told women to be subject
to their husbands in everything, he wasn't inspired; and when he told
men to love their wives as their own bodies, he was inspired; and I'd
like to see the Presbytery that could silence me from preachin' as
long as I wanted to preach. As for turnin' out o' the church,' says
she, 'I'd like to know who's to do the turnin' out. When the disciples
brought that woman to Christ there wasn't a man in the crowd fit to
cast a stone at her; and if there's any man nowadays good enough to
set in judgment on a woman, his name ain't on the rolls of Goshen
church. If 'Lizabeth,' says she, 'had as much common sense as she's
got conscience, she'd know that the matter o' that money didn't
concern nobody but our Mite Society, and we women can settle it
without any help from you deacons and elders.'
"Well, I reckon Parson Page thought if he didn't head Sally Ann off
some way or other she'd go on all night; so when she kind o' stopped
for breath and shut up the big Bible, he grabbed a hymn-book and says:
"'Let us sing "Blest be the Tie that Binds."'
"He struck up the tune himself; and about the middle of the first
verse Mis' Page got up and went over to where 'Lizabeth was standin',
and give her the right hand of fellowship, and then Mis' Petty did the
same; and first thing we knew we was all around her shakin' hands and
huggin' her and cryin' over her. 'Twas a reg'lar love-feast; and we
went home feelin' like we'd been through a big protracted meetin' and
got religion over again.
"'Twasn't more'n a week till 'Lizabeth was down with slow
fever--nervous collapse, old Dr. Pendleton called it. We took turns
nursin' her, and one day she looked up in my face and says, 'Jane, I
know now what the mercy of the Lord is.'"
Here Aunt Jane paused, and began to cut three-cornered pieces out of a
time-stained square of flowered chintz. The quilt was to be of the
wild-goose pattern. There was a drowsy hum from the bee-hive near the
window, and the shadows were lengthening as sunset approached.
"One queer thing about it," she resumed, "was that while Sally Ann was
talkin', not one of us felt like laughin'. We set there as solemn as
if parson was preachin' to us on 'lection and predestination. But
whenever I think about it now, I laugh fit to kill. And I've thought
many a time that Sally Ann's plain talk to them men done more good
than all the sermons us women had had preached to us about bein'
'shame-faced' and 'submittin'' ourselves to our husbands, for every
one o' them women come out in new clothes that spring, and such a
change as it made in some of 'em! I wouldn't be surprised if she did
have a message to deliver, jest as she said. The Bible says an ass
spoke up once and reproved a man, and I reckon if an ass can reprove a
man, so can a woman. And it looks to me like men stand in need of
reprovin' now as much as they did in Balaam's days.
"Jacob died the follerin' fall, and 'Lizabeth got shed of her
troubles. The triflin' scamp never married her for anything but her
money.
"Things is different from what they used to be," she went on, as she
folded her pieces into a compact bundle and tied it with a piece of
gray yarn. "My son-in-law was tellin' me last summer how a passel o'
women kept goin' up to Frankfort and so pesterin' the Legislatur',
that they had to change the laws to git rid of 'em. So married women
now has all the property rights they want, and more'n some of 'em has
sense to use, I reckon."
"How about you and Uncle Abram?" I suggested. "Didn't Sally Ann say
anything about you in her experience?"
Aunt Jane's black eyes snapped with some of the fire of her long-past
youth. "La! no, child," she said. "Abram never was that kind of a man,
and I never was that kind of a woman. I ricollect as we was walkin'
home that night Abram says, sort o' humble-like: 'Jane, hadn't you
better git that brown merino you was lookin' at last County Court
day?'
"And I says, 'Don't you worry about that brown merino, Abram. It's
a-lyin' in my bottom drawer right now. I told the storekeeper to cut
it off jest as soon as your back was turned, and Mis' Simpson is goin'
to make it next week.' And Abram he jest laughed, and says, 'Well,
Jane, I never saw your beat.' You see, I never was any hand at
'submittin'' myself to my husband, like some women. I've often
wondered if Abram wouldn't 'a' been jest like Silas Petty if I'd been
like Maria. I've noticed that whenever a woman's willin' to be imposed
upon, there's always a man standin' 'round ready to do the imposin'. I
never went to a law-book to find out what my rights was. I did my duty
faithful to Abram, and when I wanted anything I went and got it, and
Abram paid for it, and I can't see but what we got on jest as well as
we'd 'a' done if I'd a-'submitted' myself."
Longer and longer grew the shadows, and the faint tinkle of bells came
in through the windows. The cows were beginning to come home. The
spell of Aunt Jane's dramatic art was upon me. I began to feel that my
own personality had somehow slipped away from me, and those dead
people, evoked from their graves by an old woman's histrionism, seemed
more real to me than my living, breathing self.
"There now, I've talked you clean to death," she said with a happy
laugh, as I rose to go. "But we've had a real nice time, and I'm glad
you come."
The sun was almost down as I walked slowly away. When I looked back,
at the turn of the road, Aunt Jane was standing on the door-step,
shading her eyes and peering across the level fields. I knew what it
meant. Beyond the fields was a bit of woodland, and in one corner of
that you might, if your eyesight was good, discern here and there a
glimpse of white. It was the old burying-ground of Goshen church; and
I knew by the strained attitude and intent gaze of the watcher in the
door that somewhere in the sunlit space between Aunt Jane's door-step
and the little country graveyard, the souls of the living and the dead
were keeping a silent tryst.
[Illustration]
II
THE NEW ORGAN
[Illustration]
"Gittin' a new organ is a mighty different thing nowadays from what it
was when I was young," said Aunt Jane judicially, as she lifted a
panful of yellow harvest apples from the table and began to peel them
for dumplings.
Potatoes, peas, and asparagus were bubbling on the stove, and the
dumplings were in honor of the invited guest, who had begged the
privilege of staying in the kitchen awhile. Aunt Jane was one of
those rare housekeepers whose kitchens are more attractive than the
parlors of other people.
"And gittin' religion is different, too," she continued, propping her
feet on the round of a chair for the greater comfort and convenience
of her old knees. "Both of 'em is a heap easier than they used to be,
and the organs is a heap better. I don't know whether the religion's
any better or not. You know I went up to my daughter Mary Frances'
last week, and the folks up there was havin' a big meetin' in the
Tabernicle, and that's how come me to be thinkin' about organs.
"The preacher was an evangelist, as they call him, Sam Joynes, from
'way down South. In my day he'd 'a' been called the Rev. Samuel
Joynes. Folks didn't call their preachers Tom, Dick, and Harry, and
Jim and Sam, like they do now. I'd like to 'a' seen anybody callin'
Parson Page 'Lem Page.' He was the Rev. Lemuel Page, and don't you
forgit it. But things is different, as I said awhile ago, and even the
little boys says 'Sam Joynes,' jest like he played marbles with 'em
every day. I went to the Tabernicle three or four times; and of all
the preachers that ever I heard, he certainly is the beatenest. Why,
I ain't laughed so much since me and Abram went to Barnum's circus,
the year before the war. He was preachin' one day about cleanliness
bein' next to godliness, which it certainly is, and he says, 'You old
skunk, you!' But, la! the worse names he called 'em the better they
'peared to like it, and sinners was converted wholesale every time he
preached. But there wasn't no goin' to the mourners' bench and
mournin' for your sins and havin' people prayin' and cryin' over you.
They jest set and laughed and grinned while he was gittin' off his
jokes, and then they'd go up and shake hands with him, and there they
was all saved and ready to be baptized and taken into the church."
Just here the old yellow rooster fluttered up to the door-step and
gave a hoarse, ominous crow.
"There, now! You hear that?" said Aunt Jane, as she tossed him a
golden peeling from her pan. "There's some folks that gives right up
and looks for sickness or death or bad news every time a rooster crows
in the door. But I never let such things bother me. The Bible says
that nobody knows what a day may bring forth, and if I don't know, it
ain't likely my old yeller rooster does.
"What was I talkin' about? Oh, yes--the big meetin'. Well, I never was
any hand to say that old ways is best, and I don't say so now. If you
can convert a man by callin' him a polecat, why, call him one, of
course. And mournin' ain't always a sign o' true repentance. They used
to tell how Silas Petty mourned for forty days, and, as Sally Ann
said, he had about as much religion as old Dan Tucker's Derby ram.
"However, it was the organ I set out to tell about. It's jest like me
to wander away from the p'int. Abram always said a text would have to
be made like a postage stamp for me to stick to it. You see, they'd
jest got a fine new organ at Mary Frances' church, and she was tellin'
me how they paid for it. One man give five hundred dollars, and
another give three hundred; then they collected four or five hundred
amongst the other members, and give a lawn party and a strawberry
festival and raised another hundred. It set me to thinkin' o' the time
us women got the organ for Goshen church. It wasn't any light matter,
for, besides the money it took us nearly three years to raise, there
was the opposition. Come to think of it, we raised more opposition
than we did money."
And Aunt Jane laughed a blithe laugh and tossed another peeling to
the yellow rooster, who had dropped the role of harbinger of evil and
was posing as a humble suppliant.
"An organ in them days, honey, was jest a wedge to split the church
half in two. It was the new cyarpet that brought on the organ. You
know how it is with yourself; you git a new dress, and then you've got
to have a new bonnet, and then you can't wear your old shoes and
gloves with a new dress and a new bonnet, and the first thing you know
you've spent five times as much as you set out to spend. That's the
way it was with us about the cyarpet and the organ and the pulpit
chairs and the communion set.
"Most o' the men folks was against the organ from the start, and Silas
Petty was the foremost. Silas made a p'int of goin' against everything
that women favored. Sally Ann used to say that if a woman was to come
up to him and say, 'Le's go to heaven,' Silas would start off towards
the other place right at once; he was jest that mulish and contrairy.
He met Sally Ann one day, and says he, 'Jest give you women rope
enough and you'll turn the house o' the Lord into a reg'lar toy-shop.'
And Sally Ann she says, 'You'd better go home, Silas, and read the
book of Exodus. If the Lord told Moses how to build the Tabernicle
with the goats' skins and rams' skins and blue and purple and scarlet
and fine linen and candlesticks with six branches, I reckon he won't
object to a few yards o' cyarpetin' and a little organ in Goshen
church.'
"Sally Ann always had an answer ready, and I used to think she knew
more about the Bible than Parson Page did himself.
"Of course Uncle Jim Matthews didn't want the organ; he was afraid it
might interfere with his singin'. Job Taylor always stood up for
Silas, so he didn't want it; and Parson Page never opened his mouth
one way or the other. He was one o' those men that tries to set on
both sides o' the fence at once, and he'd set that way so long he was
a mighty good hand at balancin' himself.
"Us women didn't say much, but we made up our minds to have the organ.
So we went to work in the Mite Society, and in less'n three years we
had enough money to git it. I've often wondered how many pounds o'
butter and how many baskets of eggs it took to raise that money. I
reckon if they'd 'a' been piled up on top of each other they'd 'a'
reached to the top o' the steeple. The women of Israel brought their
ear-rings and bracelets to help build the Tabernicle, but we had jest
our egg and butter money, and the second year, when the chicken
cholery was so bad, our prospects looked mighty blue.
"When I saw that big organ up at Danville, I couldn't help thinkin'
about the little thing we worked so hard to git. 'Twasn't much
bigger'n a washstand, and I reckon if I was to hear it now, I'd think
it was mighty feeble and squeaky. But it sounded fine enough to us in
them days, and, little as it was, it raised a disturbance for miles
around.
"When it come down from Louisville, Abram went to town with his
two-horse wagon and brought it out and set it up in our parlor. My
Jane had been takin' lessons in town all winter, so's to be able to
play on it.
"We had a right good choir for them days; the only trouble was that
everybody wanted to be leader. That's a common failin' with church
choirs, I've noticed. Milly Amos sung soprano, and my Jane was the
alto; John Petty sung bass, and young Sam Crawford tenor; and as for
Uncle Jim Matthews, he sung everything, and a plenty of it, too. Milly
Amos used to say he was worse'n a flea. He'd start out on the bass,
and first thing you knew he'd be singin' tenor with Sam Crawford; and
by the time Sam was good and mad, he'd be off onto the alto or the
soprano. He was one o' these meddlesome old creeturs that thinks the
world never moved till they got into it, and they've got to help
everybody out with whatever they happen to be doin'. You've heard o'
children bein' born kickin'. Well, Uncle Jim must 'a' been born
singin'. I've seen people that said they didn't like the idea o' goin'
to heaven and standin' around a throne and singin' hymns for ever and
ever; but you couldn't 'a' pleased Uncle Jim better than to set him
down in jest that sort o' heaven. Wherever there was a chance to get
in some singin', there you'd be sure to find Uncle Jim. Folks used to
say he enjoyed a funeral a heap better than he did a weddin', 'cause
he could sing at the funeral, and he couldn't at the weddin'; and Sam
Crawford said he believed if Gabriel was to come down and blow his
trumpet, Uncle Jim would git up and begin to sing.
"It wouldn't 'a' been so bad if he'd had any sort of a voice; but he'd
been singin' all his life and hollerin' at protracted meetin's ever
since he got religion, till he'd sung and hollered all the music out
of his voice, and there wasn't much left but the old creaky machinery.
It used to make me think of an old rickety house with the blinds
flappin' in the wind. It mortified us terrible to have any of the
Methodists or Babtists come to our church. We was sort o' used to the
old man's capers, but people that wasn't couldn't keep a straight face
when the singin' begun, and it took more grace than any of us had to
keep from gittin' mad when we seen people from another church laughin'
at our choir.
"The Babtists had a powerful protracted meetin' one winter. Uncle Jim
was there to help with the singin', as a matter of course, and he
begun to git mightily interested in Babtist doctrines. Used to go home
with 'em after church and talk about Greek and Hebrew words till the
clock struck twelve. And one communion Sunday he got up solemn as a
owl and marched out o' church jest before the bread and wine was
passed. Made out like he warn't sure he'd been rightly babtized. The
choir was mightily tickled at the idea o' gittin' shed o' the old
pest, and Sam Crawford went to him and told him he was on the right
track and to go ahead, for the Babtists was undoubtedly correct, and
if it wasn't for displeasin' his father and mother he'd jine 'em
himself. And then--Sam never could let well enough alone--then he went
to Bush Elrod, the Babtist tenor, and says he, 'I hear you're goin'
to have a new member in your choir.' And Bush says, 'Well, if the old
idiot ever jines this church, we'll hold his head under the water so
long that he won't be able to spile good music agin.' And then he give
Uncle Jim a hint o' how things was; and when Uncle Jim heard that the
Presbyterians was anxious to git shed of him, he found out right away
that all them Greek and Hebrew words meant sprinklin' and infant
babtism. So he settled down to stay where he was, and hollered
louder'n ever the next Sunday.
"The old man was a good enough Christian, I reckon; but when it come
to singin', he was a stumblin'-block and rock of offense to the whole
church, and especially to the choir. The first thing Sally Ann said
when she looked at the new organ was, 'Well, Jane, how do you reckon
it's goin' to sound with Uncle Jim's voice?' and I laughed till I had
to set down in a cheer.
"Well, when the men folks found out that our organ had come, they
begun to wake up. Abram had brought it out Tuesday, and Wednesday
night, as soon as prayer-meetin' broke, Parson Page says, says he:
'Brethren, there is a little business to be transacted. Please remain
a few minutes longer.' And then, when we had set down again, he went
on to say that the sisters had raised money and bought an organ, and
there was some division of opinion among the brethren about usin' it,
so he would like to have the matter discussed. He used a lot o' big
words and talked mighty smooth, and I knew there was trouble ahead for
us women.
"Uncle Jim was the first one to speak. He was so anxious to begin, he
could hardly wait for Parson Page to stop; and anybody would 'a'
thought that he'd been up to heaven and talked with the Father and the
Son and the Holy Ghost and all the angels, to hear him tell about the
sort o' music there was in heaven, and the sort there ought to be on
earth. 'Why, brethren,' says he, 'when John saw the heavens opened
there wasn't no organs up there. God don't keer nothin',' says he,
'about such new-fangled, worldly instruments. But when a lot o' sweet
human voices git to praisin' him, why, the very angels stop singin' to
listen.'
"Milly Amos was right behind me, and she leaned over and says, 'Well,
if the angels'd rather hear Uncle Jim's singin' than our organ,
they've got mighty pore taste, that's all I've got to say.'
"Silas Petty was the next one to git up, and says he: 'I never was in
favor o' doin' things half-way, brethren; and if we've got to have the
organ, why, we might as well have a monkey, too, and be done with it.
For my part,' says he, 'I want to worship in the good old way my
fathers and grandfathers worshiped in, and, unless my feelin's change
very considerable, I shall have to withdraw from this church if any
such Satan's music-box is set up in this holy place.'
"And Sally Ann turned around and whispered to me, 'We ought to 'a' got
that organ long ago, Jane.' I like to 'a' laughed right out, and I
leaned over, and says I, 'Why don't you git up and talk for us, Sally
Ann?' and she says: 'The spirit ain't moved me, Jane. I reckon it's
too busy movin' Uncle Jim and Silas Petty.'
"Jest then I looked around, and there was Abram standin' up. Well, you
could 'a' knocked me over with a feather. Abram always was one o'
those close-mouthed men. Never spoke if he could git around it any way
whatever. Parson Page used to git after him every protracted meetin'
about not leadin' in prayer and havin' family worship; but the spirit
moved him that time sure, and there he was talkin' as glib as old
Uncle Jim. And says he: 'Brethren, I'm not carin' much one way or
another about this organ. I don't know how the angels feel about it,
not havin' so much acquaintance with 'em as Uncle Jim has; but I do
know enough about women to know that there ain't any use tryin' to
stop 'em when they git their heads set on a thing, and I'm goin' to
haul that organ over to-morrow mornin' and set it up for the choir to
practise by Friday night. If I don't haul it over, Sally Ann and
Jane'll tote it over between 'em, and if they can't put it into the
church by the door, they'll hist a window and put it in that way. I
reckon,' says he, 'I've got all the men against me in this matter, but
then, I've got all the women on my side, and I reckon all the women
and one man makes a pretty good majority, and so I'm goin' to haul the
organ over to-morrow mornin'.'
"I declare I felt real proud of Abram, and I told him so that night
when we was goin' home together. Then Parson Page he says, 'It seems
to me there is sound sense in what Brother Parish says, and I suggest
that we allow the sisters to have their way and give the organ a
trial; and if we find that it is hurtful to the interests of the
church, it will be an easy matter to remove it.' And Milly Amos says
to me, 'I see 'em gittin' that organ out if we once git it in.'
"When the choir met Friday night, Milly come in all in a flurry, and
says she: 'I hear Brother Gardner has gone to the 'Sociation down in
Russellville, and all the Babtists are comin' to our church Sunday;
and I want to show 'em what good music is this once, anyhow. Uncle Jim
Matthews is laid up with rheumatism,' says she, 'and if that ain't a
special providence I never saw one.' And Sam Crawford slapped his
knee, and says he, 'Well, if the old man's rheumatism jest holds out
over Sunday, them Babtists'll hear music sure.'
"Then Milly went on to tell that she'd been up to Squire Elrod's, and
Miss Penelope, the squire's niece from Louisville, had promised to
sing a voluntary Sunday.
"'Voluntary? What's that?' says Sam.
"'Why,' says Milly, 'it's a hymn that the choir, or somebody in it,
sings of their own accord, without the preacher givin' it out; just
like your tomatoes come up in the spring, voluntary, without you
plantin' the seed. That's the way they do in the city churches,' says
she, 'and we are goin' to put on city style Sunday.'
"Then they went to work and practised some new tunes for the hymns
Parson Page had give 'em, so if Uncle Jim's rheumatism didn't hold
out, he'd still have to hold his peace.
"Well, Sunday come; but special providence was on Uncle Jim's side
that time, and there he was as smilin' as a basket o' chips if he did
have to walk with a cane. We'd had the church cleaned up as neat as a
new pin. My Jane had put a bunch of honeysuckles and pinks on the
organ, and everybody was dressed in their best. Miss Penelope was
settin' at the organ with a bunch of roses in her hand, and the
windows was all open, and you could see the trees wavin' in the wind
and hear the birds singin' outside. I always did think that was the
best part o' Sunday--that time jest before church begins."