and says she: 'I declare, I'm ashamed to tell you all. I reckon Satan
himself must 'a' been in me last Sunday. You know,' says she,'there's
some days when everything goes wrong with a woman, and last Sunday was
one o' them days. I got up early,' says she, 'and dressed the children
and fed my chickens and strained the milk and washed up the milk
things and got breakfast and washed the dishes and cleaned up the
house and gethered the vegetables for dinner and washed the children's
hands and faces and put their Sunday clothes on 'em, and jest as I was
startin' to git myself ready for church,' says she, 'I happened to
think that I hadn't skimmed the milk for the next day's churnin'. So
I went down to the spring-house and did the skimmin', and jest as I
picked up the cream-jar to put it up on that shelf Sam built for me,
my foot slipped,' says she, 'and down I come and skinned my elbow on
the rock step, and broke the jar all to smash and spilled the cream
all over creation, and there I was--four pounds o' butter and a
fifty-cent jar gone, and my spring-house in such a mess that I ain't
through cleanin' it yet, and my right arm as stiff as a poker ever
since.'
"We all had to laugh at the way Milly told it; and Sally Ann says,
'Well, that was enough to make a saint mad.' 'Yes,' says Milly, 'and
you all know I'm far from bein' a saint. However,' says she, 'I picked
up the pieces and washed up the worst o' the cream, and then I went to
the house to git myself ready for church, and before I could git
there, I heard Sam hollerin' for me to come and sew a button on his
shirt; one of 'em had come off while he was tryin' to button it. And
when I got out my work-basket, the children had been playin' with it,
and there wasn't a needle in it, and my thimble was gone, and I had to
hunt up the apron I was makin' for little Sam and git a needle off
that, and I run the needle into my finger, not havin' any thimble,
and got a blood spot on the bosom o' the shirt. Then,' says she,
'before I could git my dress over my head, here come little Sam with
his clothes all dirty where he'd fell down in the mud, and there I had
him to dress again, and that made me madder still; and then, when I
finally got out to the wagon,' says she, 'I rubbed my clean dress
against the wheel, and that made me mad again; and the nearer we got
to the church, the madder I was; and now,' says she, 'do you reckon
after all I'd been through that mornin', and dinner ahead of me to
git, and the children to look after all the evenin', do you reckon
that I felt like settin' up there and singin' "Welcome, sweet day o'
rest"?' Says she, 'I ain't seen any day o' rest since the day I
married Sam, and I don't expect to see any till the day I die; and if
Parson Page wants that hymn sung, let him git up a choir of old maids
and old bachelors, for they're the only people that ever see any rest
Sunday or any other day.'
"We all laughed, and said we didn't blame Milly a bit for not singin'
that hymn; and then Milly said: 'I reckon I might as well tell you all
the whole story. By the time church was over,' says she, 'I'd kind o'
cooled off, but when I heard Sam askin' Brother Hendricks to go home
and take dinner with him, that made me mad again; for I knew that
meant a big dinner for me to cook, and I made up my mind then and
there that I wouldn't cook a blessed thing, company or no company.
Sam'd killed chickens the night before,' says she, 'and they was all
dressed and ready, down in the spring-house; and the vegetables was
right there on the back porch, but I never touched 'em,' says she. 'I
happened to have some cold ham and cold mutton on hand--not much of
either one--and I sliced 'em and put the ham in one end o' the big
meat-dish and the mutton in the other, with a big bare place between,
so's everybody could see that there wasn't enough of either one to go
'round; and then,' says she, 'I sliced up a loaf o' my salt-risin'
bread and got out a bowl o' honey and a dish o' damson preserves, and
then I went out on the porch and told Sam that dinner was ready.'
"I never shall forgit how we all laughed when Milly was tellin' it.
'You know, Aunt Jane,' says she, 'how quick a man gits up when you
tell him dinner's ready. Well, Sam he jumps up, and says he, "Why,
you're mighty smart to-day, Milly; I don't believe there's another
woman in the county that could git a Sunday dinner this quick." And
says he, "Walk out, Brother Hendricks, walk right out."'"
Here Aunt Jane paused to laugh again at the long-past scene that her
words called up.
"Milly used to say that Sam's face changed quicker'n a flash o'
lightnin' when he saw the table, and he dropped down in his cheer and
forgot to ask Brother Hendricks to say grace. 'Why, Milly,' says he,
'where's the dinner? Where's them chickens I killed last night, and
the potatoes and corn and butter-beans?' And Milly jest looked him
square in the face, and says she, 'The chickens are in the
spring-house and the vegetables out on the back porch, and,' says she,
'do you suppose I'm goin' to cook a hot dinner for you all on this
"sweet day o' rest"?'"
Aunt Jane stopped again to laugh.
"That wasn't a polite way for anybody to talk at their own table," she
resumed, "and some of us asked Milly what Brother Hendricks said. And
Milly's face got as red as a beet again, and she says: 'Why, he
behaved so nice, he made me feel right ashamed o' myself for actin' so
mean. He jest reached over and helped himself to everything he could
reach, and says he, "This dinner may not suit you, Brother Amos, but
it's plenty good for me, and jest the kind I'm used to at home." Says
he, "I'd rather eat a cold dinner any time than have a woman toilin'
over a hot stove for me."' And when he said that, Milly up and told
him why it was she didn't feel like gittin' a hot dinner, and why she
didn't sing in the voluntary; and when she'd got through, he says,
'Well, Sister Amos, if I'd been through all you have this mornin' and
then had to git up and give out such a hymn as "Welcome, sweet day o'
rest," I believe I'd be mad enough to pitch the hymn-book and the
Bible at the deacons and the elders.' And then he turns around to Sam,
and says he, 'Did you ever think, Brother Amos, that there ain't a
pleasure men enjoy that women don't have to suffer for it?' And Milly
said that made her feel meaner'n ever; and when supper-time come, she
lit the fire and got the best hot supper she could--fried chicken and
waffles and hot soda-biscuits and coffee and goodness knows what else.
Now wasn't that jest like a woman, to give in after she'd had her own
way for a while and could 'a' kept on havin' it? Abram used to say
that women and runaway horses was jest alike; the best way to manage
'em both was to give 'em the rein and let 'em go till they got tired,
and they'll always stop before they do any mischief. Milly said that
supper tickled Sam pretty near to death. Sam was always mighty proud
o' Milly's cookin'.
"So that's how we come to call that hymn Milly Amos' hymn, and as long
as Milly lived folks'd look at her and laugh whenever the preacher
give out 'Welcome, sweet day o' rest.'"
The story was over. Aunt Jane folded her hands, and we both
surrendered ourselves to happy silence. All the faint, sweet sounds
that break the stillness of a Sunday in the country came to our ears
in gentle symphony,--the lisp of the leaves, the chirp of young
chickens lost in the mazes of billowy grass, and the rustle of the
silver poplar that turned into a mass of molten silver whenever the
breeze touched it.
"When you've lived as long as I have, child," said Aunt Jane
presently, "you'll feel that you've lived in two worlds. A short life
don't see many changes, but in eighty years you can see old things
passin' away and new ones comin' on to take their place, and when I
look back at the way Sunday used to be kept and the way it's kept now,
it's jest like bein' in another world. I hear folks talkin' about how
wicked the world's growin' and wishin' they could go back to the old
times, but it looks like to me there's jest as much kindness and
goodness in folks nowadays as there was when I was young; and as for
keepin' Sunday, why, I've noticed all my life that the folks that's
strictest about that ain't always the best Christians, and I reckon
there's been more foolishness preached and talked about keepin' the
Sabbath day holy than about any other one thing.
"I ricollect some fifty-odd years ago the town folks got to keepin'
Sunday mighty strict. They hadn't had a preacher for a long time, and
the church'd been takin' things easy, and finally they got a new
preacher from down in Tennessee, and the first thing he did was to
draw the lines around 'em close and tight about keepin' Sunday. Some
o' the members had been in the habit o' havin' their wood chopped on
Sunday. Well, as soon as the new preacher come, he said that Sunday
wood-choppin' had to cease amongst his church-members or he'd have 'em
up before the session. I ricollect old Judge Morgan swore he'd have
his wood chopped any day that suited him. And he had a load o' wood
carried down cellar, and the nigger man chopped all day long down in
the cellar, and nobody ever would 'a' found it out, but pretty soon
they got up a big revival that lasted three months and spread 'way out
into the country, and bless your life, old Judge Morgan was one o'
the first to be converted; and when he give in his experience, he told
about the wood-choppin', and how he hoped to be forgiven for breakin'
the Sabbath day.
"Well, of course us people out in the country wouldn't be outdone by
the town folks, so Parson Page got up and preached on the Fourth
Commandment and all about that pore man that was stoned to death for
pickin' up a few sticks on the seventh day. And Sam Amos, he says
after meetin' broke, says he, 'It's my opinion that that man was a
industrious, enterprisin' feller that was probably pickin' up
kindlin'-wood to make his wife a fire, and,' says he, 'if they wanted
to stone anybody to death they better 'a' picked out some lazy,
triflin' feller that didn't have energy enough to work Sunday or any
other day.' Sam always would have his say, and nothin' pleased him
better'n to talk back to the preachers and git the better of 'em in a
argument. I ricollect us women talked that sermon over at the Mite
Society, and Maria Petty says: 'I don't know but what it's a wrong
thing to say, but it looks to me like that Commandment wasn't intended
for anybody but them Israelites. It was mighty easy for them to keep
the Sabbath day holy, but,' says she, 'the Lord don't rain down manna
in my yard. And,' says she, 'men can stop plowin' and plantin' on
Sunday, but they don't stop eatin', and as long as men have to eat on
Sunday, women'll have to work.'
"And Sally Ann, she spoke up, and says she, 'That's so; and these very
preachers that talk so much about keepin' the Sabbath day holy,
they'll walk down out o' their pulpits and set down at some woman's
table and eat fried chicken and hot biscuits and corn bread and five
or six kinds o' vegetables, and never think about the work it took to
git the dinner, to say nothin' o' the dish-washin' to come after.'
"There's one thing, child, that I never told to anybody but Abram; I
reckon it was wicked, and I ought to be ashamed to own it, but"--here
her voice fell to a confessional key--"I never did like Sunday till I
begun to git old. And the way Sunday used to be kept, it looks to me
like nobody could 'a' been expected to like it but old folks and lazy
folks. You see, I never was one o' these folks that's born tired. I
loved to work. I never had need of any more rest than I got every
night when I slept, and I woke up every mornin' ready for the day's
work. I hear folks prayin' for rest and wishin' for rest, but, honey,
all my prayer was, 'Lord, give me work, and strength enough to do
it.' And when a person looks at all the things there is to be done in
this world, they won't feel like restin' when they ain't tired.
"Abram used to say he believed I tried to make work for myself Sunday
and every other day; and I ricollect I used to be right glad when any
o' the neighbors'd git sick on Sunday and send for me to help nurse
'em. Nursing the sick was a work o' necessity, and mercy, too. And
then, child, the Lord don't ever rest. The Bible says He rested on the
seventh day when He got through makin' the world, and I reckon that
was rest enough for Him. For, jest look; everything goes on Sundays
jest the same as week-days. The grass grows, and the sun shines, and
the wind blows, and He does it all."
"'For still the Lord is Lord of might;
In deeds, in deeds He takes delight,'"
I said.
"That's it," said Aunt Jane, delightedly. "There ain't any religion in
restin' unless you're tired, and work's jest as holy in his sight as
rest."
Our faces were turned toward the western sky, where the sun was
sinking behind the amethystine hills. The swallows were darting and
twittering over our heads, a somber flock of blackbirds rose from a
huge oak tree in the meadow across the road, and darkened the sky for
a moment in their flight to the cedars that were their nightly resting
place. Gradually the mist changed from amethyst to rose, and the
poorest object shared in the transfiguration of the sunset hour.
Is it unmeaning chance that sets man's days, his dusty, common days,
between the glories of the rising and the setting sun, and his life,
his dusty, common life, between the two solemnities of birth and
death? Bounded by the splendors of the morning and evening skies, what
glory of thought and deed should each day hold! What celestial dreams
and vitalizing sleep should fill our nights! For why should day be
more magnificent than life?
As we watched in understanding silence, the enchantment slowly faded.
The day of rest was over, a night of rest was at hand; and in the
shadowy hour between the two hovered the benediction of that peace
which "passeth all understanding."
V
MILLY BAKER'S BOY
[Illustration]
It was the last Monday in May, and a steady stream of wagons,
carriages, and horseback riders had been pouring into town over the
smooth, graveled pike.
Aunt Jane stood on her front porch, looking around and above with
evident delight. This was her gala Monday; and if any thoughts of the
County Court days of happier years were in her mind, they were not
permitted to mar her enjoyment of the present. There were no waters of
Marah near her spring of remembrance.
"Clear as a whistle!" she exclaimed, peering through the tendrils of a
Virginia creeper at the sea of blue ether where fleecy white clouds
were floating, driven eastward by the fresh spring wind. "Folks'll
come home dry to-night; last time they was as wet as drowned rats.
Yonder comes the Crawfords, and there's Jim Amos on horseback in front
of 'em. How d'ye, Jim! And yonder comes Richard Elrod in his new
carriage. Jest look at him! I do believe he grows younger and
handsomer every day of his life."
A sweet-faced woman sat beside him, and two pretty girls were in the
seat behind them. Bowing courteously to the old woman on the
door-step, Richard Elrod looked every inch a king of the soil and a
perfect specimen of the gentleman farmer of Kentucky.
"The richest man in the county," said Aunt Jane exultingly, as she
followed the vanishing carriage with her keen gaze. "He went to the
legislatur' last winter; the 'Hon. Richard Elrod' they call him now.
And I can remember the time when he was jest Milly Baker's boy, and
nothin' honorable about it, either."
There was a suggestion of a story in the words and in the look in Aunt
Jane's eyes. What wonder that the tides of thought flowed back into
the channel of old times on a day like this, when every passing face
was a challenge to memory? It needed but a hint to bring forth the
recollections that the sight of Richard Elrod had stirred to life. The
high-back rocker and the basket of knitting were transferred to the
porch; and with the beauty and the music of a spring morning around us
I listened to the story of Milly Baker's boy.
"I hardly know jest where to begin," said Aunt Jane, wrinkling her
forehead meditatively and adjusting her needles. "Tellin' a story is
somethin' like windin' off a skein o' yarn. There's jest two ends to
the skein, though, and if you can git hold o' the right one it's easy
work. But there's so many ways o' beginning a story, and you never
know which one leads straightest to the p'int. I wonder many a time
how folks ever finds out where to begin when they set out to write a
book. However, I reckon if I start with Dick Elrod I'll git through
somehow or other.
"You asked me jest now who Richard Elrod was. He was the son o' Dick
Elrod, and Dick was the son of Richard Elrod, the old Squire. It's
curious how you'll name two boys Richard, and one of 'em will always
be called Richard and the other'll be called Dick. Nobody ever would
'a' thought o' callin' Squire Elrod 'Dick,' he was Richard from the
day he was born till the day he died. But his son was nothin' but Dick
all his life; Richard didn't seem to fit him somehow. And I've noticed
that you can tell what sort of a man a boy's goin' to make jest by
knowin' whether folks calls him Richard or Dick. I ain't sayin' that
every Richard is a good man and every Dick a bad one. All I mean is
that there's as much difference betwixt a 'Dick' and a 'Richard' as
there is betwixt a roastin' ear and a peck o' corn meal. Both of 'em's
corn, and both of 'em may be good, but they ain't the same thing by a
long jump. There's been a Richard in the Elrod family as far back as
you could track 'em; all of 'em good, steady, God-fearin' men till
Dick come along. He was an only child, and of course that made a bad
matter worse.
"There's some men that's born to git women into trouble, and Dick was
one of 'em. Jest as handsome as a picture, and two years ahead o' his
age when it come to size, and a way about him, from the time he put on
pants, that showed jest what kind of a man he was cut out for. If the
children was playin' 'Jinny, Put the Kittle on,' Dick would git
kissed ten times to any other boy's once; and if it was 'Drop the
Handkerchief,' every little gyirl in the ring'd be droppin' it behind
Dick to git him to run after her, and that was the only time Dick ever
did any runnin'. All he had to do was jest to sit still, and the
gyirls did the runnin'. It was that way all his life; and folks used
to say there was jest one woman in the world that Dick couldn't make a
fool of, and that was his cousin Penelope, the old Squire's brother's
child. She used to come down to the Squire's pretty near every summer,
and when Dick saw how high and mighty she was, he begun to lay himself
out to make her come down jest where the other women was, not because
he keered anything for her,--such men never keer for anybody but
theirselves,--he jest couldn't stand it to have a woman around unless
she was throwin' herself at his head or at his feet. But he couldn't
do anything with his cousin Penelope. She naturally despised him, and
he hated her. Next to Miss Penelope, the only girl that appeared to be
anything like a match for Dick was Annie Crawford, Old Man Bob
Crawford's daughter. Old Man Bob was one o' the kind that thinks that
the more children they've got the bigger men they are. Always made me
think of Abraham and the rest o' the old patriarchs to see him come
walkin' into church with them nine young ones at his heels, makin' so
much racket you couldn't hear the sermon. He was mighty proud of his
sons; but after Bob was born he wanted a daughter; and when they all
kept turnin' out boys, he got crazier and crazier for a gyirl. Annie
wasn't born till he was past sixty, and he like to 'a' lost his senses
with joy. It was harvestin' time, and he jest stopped work and set on
his front porch, and every time anybody passed by he'd holler, 'Well;
neighbor, it's a gal this time!' If I'd 'a' been in Ann 'Liza's place,
I'd 'a' gagged him. But la! she thought everything he did was all
right. It got to be a reg'lar joke with the neighbors to ask Old Man
Bob how many children he had, and he'd give a big laugh and say, 'Ten,
neighbor, and all of 'em gals but nine.'
"Well, of course Annie was bound to be spoiled, especially as her
mother died when she was jest four years old. How Ann 'Liza ever stood
Old Man Bob and them nine boys as long as she did was a mystery to
everybody. Ann 'Liza had done her best to manage Annie, with Old Man
Bob pullin' against her all the time, but after she died Annie took
the place and everything and everybody on it. Old Man Bob had raised
all his boys on spare-the-rod-and-spile-the-child principle, but when
Annie come, he turned his back on Solomon and give out that Annie
mustn't be crossed by anybody. Sam Amos asked him once how he come to
change his mind so about raisin' children, and Old Man Bob said he was
of the opinion that that text ought to read, 'Spare the rod and spile
the boy'; that Solomon had too much regyard for women to want to whip
a gal child. If ever there was an old idiot he was one; I mean Old Man
Bob, not Solomon; though Solomon wasn't as wise as he might 'a' been
in some things.
"Well, Annie was a headstrong, high-tempered child to begin with; and
havin' nobody to control her, she got to be the worst young one, I
reckon, in the State o' Kentucky. I used to feel right sorry for her
little brothers. They couldn't keep a top or a ball or marble or any
plaything to save their lives. Annie would cry for 'em jest for pure
meanness, and whatever it was that Annie cried for they had to give it
up or git a whippin'. She'd break up their rabbit-traps and their
bird-cages and the little wheelbarrers and wagons they'd make, and
they didn't have any peace at home, pore little motherless things. I
ricollect one day little Jim come runnin' over to my house draggin'
his wagon loaded up with all his playthings, his little saw and hammer
and some nails the cyarpenters had give him when Old Man Bob had his
new stable built, and says he, 'Aunt Jane, please let me keep my tools
over here. Annie says she's goin' to throw 'em in the well, and
pappy'll make me give 'em to her if she cries for 'em.' Them tools
stayed at my house till Jim outgrowed 'em, and he and Henry, the other
little one, used to come and stay by the hour playin' with my Abram.
"It was all Old Man Bob could do to git a housekeeper to stay with him
when Annie got older. One spring she broke up all the hen nests and
turkey nests on the farm, and they had to buy chickens all summer and
turkeys all next winter. They used to tell how she stood and hollered
for two hours one day because the housekeeper wouldn't let her put her
hand into a kittle o' boilin' lye soap. It's my belief that she was
all that kept Old Man Bob from marryin' again in less'n a year after
Ann 'Liza died. He courted three or four widders and old maids round
the neighborhood, but there wasn't one of 'em that anxious to marry
that she'd take Old Man Bob with Annie thrown in. As soon as she got
old enough, Old Man Bob carried her with him wherever he went. County
Court days you'd see him goin' along on his big gray mare with Annie
behind him, holdin' on to the sides of his coat with her little fat
hands, her sunbonnet fallin' off and her curls blowin' all around her
face,--like as not she hadn't had 'em combed for a week,--and in the
evenin' about sunset here they'd come, Annie in front fast asleep, and
Old Man Bob holdin' her on one arm and guidin' his horse with the
other. Harvestin' times Annie'd be out in the field settin' on a shock
o' wheat and orderin' the hands around same as if she was the
overseer; and Old Man Bob'd jest stand back and shake his sides
laughin' and say: 'That's right, honey. Make 'em move lively. If it
wasn't for you, pappy couldn't git his harvestin' done.'
"Every fall and spring he'd go to town to buy clothes for her, and
people used to say the storekeepers laid in a extry stock jest for Old
Man Bob, and charged him two or three prices for everything he bought.
He'd walk into Tom Baker's store with his saddle-bags on his arm and
holler out, 'Well, what you got to-day? Trot out your silks and your
satins, and remember that the best ain't good enough for my little
gal.'
"When Annie was twelve years old he took her off to Bardstown to git
her education. When he come to say good-bye to her, he cried and she
cried, and it ended with him settin' down and stayin' three weeks in
Bardstown, waitin' for Annie to git over her homesickness. Folks never
did git through plaguin' him about goin' off to boardin' school, and
as soon as Sam Crawford seen him he says, 'Well, Uncle Bob, when do
you reckon you'll git your diploma?'
"I never shall forgit the first time Annie come home to spend her
Christmas. The neighbors didn't have any peace o' their lives for Old
Man Bob tellin' 'em how Annie had growed, and how there wasn't a gal
in the state that could hold a candle to her. And Sunday he come
walkin' in church with Annie hangin' on to his arm jest as proud and
happy as if he'd got a new wife.