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