Books: The Road To Providence
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Maria Thompson Daviess >> The Road To Providence
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"Well," answered Miss Wingate slowly with a candor that would have
been vouched no other soul save the sympathetic Eliza, "it might be
nice."
"I thought you would like one," answered Eliza enthusiastically,
"and you know I had done picked out Doctor Tom for you, but since I
saw him dress up so good this morning and go to Bolivar to take the
train to the City and he got the letter from Miss Alford day before
yesterday--that is, Aunt Prissy says Mr. Petway thinks it was from
her--I reckon it won't be fair to get him for you, when she had him
first last summer. Oughtn't you to be fair about taking folk's beaux
just like taking they piece of cake or skipping rope?" Eliza was
fast developing a code of morals that bade fair to be both original
and sound.
"Yes," answered Miss Wingate with the utmost gravity and not a
little perturbation in her voice, "yes, of course. When did Doctor
Mayberry go?"
"This morning before you came down-stairs. He give Mother Mayberry
some drops for Mis' Bostick and told me, too, how to give 'em to
her. Mother Mayberry is down there now and I'm a-going to stay with
her this afternoon. But I tell you what we can do, Miss Elinory,
there is Sam Mosbey--I believe you can get him easy. He picked up a
rose you dropped when you went in the store to get your letters the
other day, and when Mr. Petway laughed he got red even in his ears.
And just this week he have bought a pair of pink suspenders, some
sweet grease for his hair and green striped socks. He'll look lovely
when he gets fixed up and I hope you will notice him some." Eliza
spoke in the most encouraging of tones of the improvement in
appearance of the suitor she was advocating, and was just about to
continue her machinations by further enthusiasm when, from down the
road at the Bosticks, came Mother Mayberry's voice calling her, and
like a little killdee she darted away to the aid of her confrere.
And for several long minutes Miss Wingate sat perfectly still and
looked across the meadow to the sky-line with intent eyes. Teether
was busily engaged in drawing by degrees his own pink toes up to his
rosy lips in an effort to get his foot into his mouth, an ambition
that sways most mortals from their seventh to tenth month. A thin
wraith of Miss Alford's personality had been drifting through the
singer lady's consciousness for some days, but she was positively
stunned at this sudden materialization. There come moments in the
lives of most women when they get glimpses into the undiscovered
land of their own hearts and are appalled thereby. Suddenly she
hugged the chuckling baby very close and began a rapid rocking to
the humming accompaniment of a rollicking street tune, a seemingly
inexplicable but perfectly natural proceeding.
"Well, I'd like to know which is the oldest, you or the baby, honey-
bird!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry as she came up the steps in the
midst of the frolic. "You and him a-giggling make music like a nest
full of young cat-birds. Did you ever notice how 'most any down-
heart will get up and go a-marching to a laugh tune? I needed just
them chuckles to set me up again." As she finished speaking Mother
Mayberry seated herself on the top step and Miss Wingate slipped
down beside her with the baby in her arms.
"What is the trouble this morning, Mrs. Mayberry?" she asked, as she
moved a little closer, so Teether could reach out and nozzle against
Mother Mayberry's shoulder. "Anybody sick?"
"No, not to say sick much," answered Mother, with a touch of
wistfulness in her gentle eyes, "but it looks like, day by day, I
can see Mis' Bostick slipping away from us, same as one of the white
garden lilies what on the third day just closes up its leaves when
you ain't looking and when you go back is gone."
"She isn't so old she can't--can't recuperate when the lovely warm
days come to stay this summer, is she?" asked the singer lady with a
quick sympathy in her voice and eyes.
"No, she ain't so old as to die by old age, but what hurts me,
child, is that it is just her broke heart giving out. She have
always been quiet and gentle-smiling, but since the news of Will's
running off with that money came to Providence she have just been
fading away. A mother's heart don't break clean over a child, but
gets a jagged wound that won't often heal. When I think of her
suffering it puts a hitch in my enjoying of that Tom Mayberry." And
Mother blinked away the suspicion of a tear.
"But Mrs. Bostick and the Deacon both are so fond of Doctor Mayberry
that it must be a joy to have him such a comfort to them," said Miss
Wingate softly, as she carried one of Teether's pink hands to her
lips.
"Yes, child, I know he is all that. Somehow, here in Providence, we
women have all tried to put some of our own sister love for one
another in our young folks. I hold that when the whole world have
learned to cut sister and brother deep enough into they children's
hearts, then His kingdom is a-going to come in about one generation
from them. Now there's a picture that goes on the page with my
remarks! Bettie sure do look pretty with that white sunbonnet on her
head, and count how many Turners, Pratts, Hoovers and Pikes she have
got trailing peacefully behind her, all like full-blood brothers and
sisters. I'm so glad she's a-bringing her sewing to set a spell.
Come in, Bettie, here's a rocker a-holding out arms to you!" Little
Hoover was as usual bobbing in Bettie's arms and he gurgled at the
sight of Teether Pike as if in joy at this encounter with his side
partner and when deposited upon the floor beside him made a
brotherly grab at one of young Pike's pink feet in the most manifest
interest.
"Well, if this just ain't filling at the price," said the widow as
she settled herself in the rocker, and Mother Mayberry established
herself in one opposite, while Miss Wingate elected to remain on the
step by the babies. "I left Pattie over to my house helping Clara
May get a little weed-pulling outen 'Lias and Henny in my garden.
Buck Peavey have just passed by looking like the last of pea-time
and the first of frost. I do declare it were right down funny to see
Pattie toss her head at him, and them boys both giggled out loud. He
ain't spoke to Pattie for a week 'cause she sang outen Sam Mosbey's
hymn-book last Wednesday night at prayer meeting. He've got a long-
meter doxology face for sure."
"And he's a-suffering, too," answered Mother Mayberry with the
utmost sympathy in her placid face at the troubles of her favorite,
Buck, the lover. "To some folks love is a kinder inflammatory
rheumatism of the soul and a-deserving of pity."
A vision of a girl at a college commencement with her nose buried in
a pink peony, looking up and smiling, flashed across the
consciousness of the singer lady and she pressed her head between
little Hoover's chubby shoulders, and acknowledged herself a fit
subject for sympathy. To go and not even think of telling her good-
by was cruel, and a forlorn little sob stifled itself in the mite's
pink apron.
"Well, folks," broke in the widow's cheerful voice that somehow
reminded one of peaches and cream, "I come over to-day to get a
little help and encouragement about planning the wedding. I knowed
Miss Elinory would think it up stylish for me and Mis' Mayberry
would lend her head to help fitting notions to what can be did. Mr.
Hoover's clover hay will be laid by next week and he says they ain't
nothing more to keep us back. I've sewed up four bolts of light
caliker, two of domestic, one of blue jeans, and three of gingham
into a trousseau for us all to wear on the wedding trip, and Mr.
Petway are a-going to take measures and bring out new shoes and
tasty hats all 'round, next wagon, trip to town. I think we will
make a nice genteel show."
"Are you-going to take everybody on the trip?" asked Miss Wingate,
roused out of her woe by the very idea of the tour in the company of
the seventeen.
"That we are," responded the widow heartily, "but not all to onct.
We'll have to make two bites of the cherry. The day after the
wedding we are a-going to take the two-horse team, a trunk and the
ten youngest and go a-visiting over the Ridge at Mr. Hoover's
brother's, Mr. Biggers. We won't stay more'n a week and stop a day
or two coming back to see Andy and Carrie Louise. Then we'll drop
the little ones here on you neighbors and pick up the seven big
ones, add Buck for a compliment and go on down to the City for two
days' high jinks. We're going to take 'em up to the capitol and over
the new bridge and we hope to strike some kind of band music going
on somewhere for 'em to hear. We want a photygraft group of us all,
too. We are going to put up at the Teamsters' Hotel up on the Square
and Mr. Hoover have got party rates. He says he are a-going to get
that seven town-broke anyway, if it costs two acres of corn. Now
won't we have a good time?" The bright face of the prospective bride
fairly radiated with joy at the prospect--Miss Wingate could but be
sympathetically involved, and Mother Mayberry beamed with delight at
the plan.
"That'll be a junket that they won't never a one of 'em forget,
Bettie!" she exclaimed with approval. "They ain't nothing in the
world so educating as travel. And you can trust a country child to
see further and hear more than any other animal on earth. I wouldn't
trust Tom to go to town now without coming back pop-eyed over the
ottermobiles," and Mother Mayberry laughed at her own fling at the
sophisticated young Doctor. Another dart of agony entered the soul
of the singer lady and this time the vision of the girl and the
peony was placed in a big, red motor-car--why red she didn't know,
except the intensity of her feelings seemed to call for that color.
She was his patient and courtesy at least demanded that he should
tell her of his intended absence. What could--
"Well, to come out with the truth," Mrs. Pratt was going on to say
by the time Miss Wingate brought herself to the point of listening
again, "it's just the wedding itself that have gave me all these
squeems. Why, Mis' Mayberry, how on earth are we a-going to parade
all the seventeen into the Meeting-house without getting the whole
congregation into a regular giggle? I don't care, 'cause I know the
neighbors wouldn't give us a mean laugh, but I can see Mr. Hoover
have got the whole seventeen sticking in his craw at the thought,
and I'm downright sorry for him."
"Yes, Bettie, men have got sensitive gullets when it comes to
swollering a joke on theyselves," said Mother Mayberry, as she
joined in the widow's merry laugh at the plight of the embarrassed
widower. "Looks like when we all can trust Mr. Hoover to be so good
and kind to you and your children, after he have done waded into the
marrying of you, we oughter find some way to save his feelings from
being mortified. Can't you hatch out a idea, Elinory?"
"Oh, yes, I know, I know just what to do--it came to me in a flash!"
exclaimed the singer lady with pink-cheeked enthusiasm over the
inspiration that had risen from the depths at the call of Mrs. Pratt
and brought her up to the surface of life with it for a moment
anyway. "I saw a wedding once in rural England. All the children in
the village in a double line along the path to the church, each with
baskets of flowers from which they threw posies in front of the
bride as she came by them! Let's get all the children together and
mix them up and let them stand along the walk to the church door. It
will just make a beautiful picture with no--no thought of--of who
belongs to anybody. Everybody from Pattie and Buck down to little
Bettie and Martin Luther! Won't it be lovely? I can show them just
how to march, down the road with their baskets in their arms, and
Mrs. Pratt, you can come from your house with the Deacon and Mr.
Hoover can come out of the back of the store--with--with, who is
going to be his groomsman?"
"Lawsy me, I hadn't thought of that," answered the widow. "I'll tell
you, Mr. Pratt's brother is coming over from Bolivar to the wedding,
and as he is a-going to be a kinder relation in law by two marriages
with Mr. Hoover, I think it would be nice to ask him."
"Er--yes," assented the singer lady, controlling a desire to smile
at this mix-up of the bride's present and past relations to life.
"The little girls ought to have white dresses and the boys--well,
what could the little boys wear?" Miss Wingate felt reasonably sure
that white dresses for all the feminine youth of Providence would be
forthcoming, but she hesitated at suggesting a costume for the small
boys.
"Yes, all the little girls have got white dresses and ribbons and
fixings, but dressing up a herd of boys is another thing," answered
Mother Mayberry. "If just blue jeans britches could be made to do we
might make out to get the top of them rigged out in a white shirt
apiece; couldn't we, Bettie?"
"That we can," answered the bride heartily. "Give me a good day at
the sewing-machine, with somebody to cut and somebody to baste, and
I will get 'em all turned out by sundown. But they feet! Mis'
Mayberry, could we get Jem into shoes, do you reckon? About how many
bad stumped toes is they in Providence now?"
"Well," answered Mother Mayberry reflectively, "I don't know about
but two, but we can ask 'Liza Pike. Thank you for your plan, honey-
bird, and we're a-going to put it through so as to be a credit to
you. Children are sorter going out of style these days and I'm proud
to make a show of our'n. Women's leaving babies outen they
calculations is kinder like cutting buds offen the tree of life, and
I'm glad no sech fashion have struck Harpeth Hills yet."
"Now, ain't that the truth?" exclaimed the Widow Pratt. "Sometimes
when I read some of the truck about what women have took a notion to
turn out and do in the world, I get right skeered about what are a-
going to happen to the babies and men in the time to come."
"Don't worry about 'em, Bettie," laughed Mother Mayberry, with a
quizzical sparkle in her eyes. "Even when women have got that right
to march in the front rank with the men and carry some of the flags,
that they are a-contending for, they'll always be some foolish
enough to lag behind with babies on they breasts, a string of
children following and with always a snack in her pocket to feed the
broke down front-rankers, men or women. You'll find most Providence
women in that tag-gang, I'm thinking; but let's do our part in
whooping on the other sisters that have got wrongs to right."
"I suppose the world really has done women injustice in lots of
ways," said the singer lady plaintively, for she had very lately,
for the first time in her life, felt the sit-still-and-hold-your-
hands-while-he-rides-away grind, and it had struck in deep.
"Yes, I suppose so," answered Mother Mayberry, as she picked up
little Hoover, who was nodding like a top-heavy petunia in a breeze,
and stretched him across her lap for a nap. "But as long as she have
got the spanking of man sprouts from they one to ten years she
oughter make out to get in a vote to suit herself, as time comes
along, especially if she have picked her husband right."
"She--she can't--can't pick her husband," hazarded the singer lady
desperately.
"Yes, she can, honey-child," answered Mother Mayberry comfortably.
"The smile in her eye and the switch of her skirts is a woman's
borned-vote, and she can elect herself wife to any man she cares to
use 'em on. But what about the collation, Bettie? Everybody is going
to help you with the cooking and fixings, and let's have a never-
forget supper this onct."
"That we are," answered Mrs. Pratt emphatically. "Mr. Hoover says no
hand-around, stand-around for him; he wants a regular laid table
with a knife and fork set-down to it. He says we are a-going to feed
our friends liberal, if it takes three acres of timothy hay to do
it, and he's about right. We'll begin thinking about that and
deciding what the first of the week. But I must be a-going to see
that the dinner horn blows in time. I want to get my sparagrasses
extra tender, for 'Liza have notified me that she is going to stop
by to-day with the covered dish, and I want to fill it tasty for
her. Come visiting soon, Miss Elinory, for I've got something to
show you that are too foolish to speak about to Mis' Mayberry." And
the widow gave a delicious little giggle as she lifted the sleeping
baby from Mother Mayberry's lap and started down the steps.
"Dearie me, Bettie," answered Mother with a laugh, "don't you know
that poking up a woman's curiosity is mighty apt to start a yaller
jacket to buzzing? I'll be by your house sometime before sundown
myself."
"Some women's ship of life is a steamboat that stops to take on
passengers at every landing. Bettie's are one of them kind, and
she'll tie up with 'em all in glory when the time comes," remarked
Mother Mayberry as she watched the sturdy widow swing away down the
Road with the baby asleep over her shoulder.
Just at this moment, Cindy found occasion to summon Mother Mayberry
to the chicken yard on account of a dispute that had arisen between
old Dominick and one of the ungallant roosters that had resulted in
an injury to one of the small fry, which lay pitifully cheeping on
the back steps. Dominick, with every feather awry, was holding
command of the bowl of corn-meal while her family feasted, and the
Plymouth rooster stood at a respectful distance with a weather eye
on both the determined mother and Cindy's broom. Retribution in the
form of Mother Mayberry descended upon him swiftly and certainly,
and he lost no time in seeking seclusion under the barn.
And by the time order and peace were restored to the barn-yard,
Mother came in to dinner and spent an hour in interested hen-lore
with the singer lady, who was really fond of hearing about the
feathered families when she saw how her interest in them pleased
Mrs. Mayberry. The subject of the Doctor, his absence and the
probable time of his return was not mentioned by his mother, and for
the life of her Miss Wingate could not muster the courage for a
single question. She felt utterly unable to stand even the most mild
eulogy on the peony-girl and was glad that nothing occurred to turn
the conversation in that direction. She was silent for the most
part, and most assiduous in her attentions to Martin Luther, whose
rapidly filling outlines were making him into a chubby edition of
the Raphaelite angel. Martin had landed in the garden of the gods
and was making the most of the golden days. He bore his order of
American boyhood with jaunty grace, and the curl had assumed a
rampant air in place of the pathetic.
"Martin, do you want me to wash your face and hands and come go
visiting with me?" asked the singer lady, as she stood on the front
steps and watched Mother Mayberry depart in her old buggy on the way
to visit a patient over the Nob. A long, lonely afternoon was more
than she could face just now, and she felt certain that distraction,
if not amusement, could be found in a number of places along the
Road.
"Thank, ma'am, please," answered Martin Luther, who still clung to
the formula that he had found to be a perfectly good open sesame to
most of the pleasant things of life, when used as he knew how to use
it.
So, taking her rose-garden hat in one hand and Martin Luther's
chubby fist in the other, Miss Wingate started down Providence Road
for a series of afternoon calls, at the fashionable hour of one-
thirty. She was just passing by Mrs. Peavey's gate with no earthly
thought of going in when she beheld the disconsolate Buck stretched
full length on the grass under a tree, which was screened by a large
syringa bush from the front windows of the maternal residence. A hoe
rested languidly beside him, and it was a plain case of farm hookey.
"Oh, Miss Elinory," called his mother from the side steps, "did Mis'
Mayberry hear about that fire down in town that burned up two
firemen, a police and a woman?" At the sound of his mother's
strident voice, Buck curled up in a tight knot and with a despairing
glance rolled under the bush.
"I don't know, Mrs. Peavey, but I'll tell her," Miss Wingate called
back as she prepared to hasten on for fear Mrs. Peavey would come to
the gate for further parley, and thus discover the exhausted
culprit.
"And a man tooken pisen on account of a bank's failing in
Louisville," she added in a still shriller tone, which just did
carry across the distance to Mrs. Pike's front door, through which
Miss Wingate was disappearing. Her prompt flight had saved the day
for the disconsolate lover, who cautiously rolled from under the
bush again and went on with his interrupted nap.
She found Mrs. Pike and Miss Prissy at home, and spent a really
delightful hour in speculating and unfolding possible plans for the
Pratt-Hoover nuptials. Miss Prissy blushed and giggled at an
elephantine attempt at badinage that her sister-in-law directed at
her on the subject of Mr. Petway, and after a while Miss Wingate
went on her way, in a manner comforted by their wholesome merriment.
She hesitated at the front gate of the Tutt residence, but the sight
of the Squire pottering around in a diminutive garden at the side of
the house decided her to enter, for Squire Tutt held the charm for
her that a still-fused fire-cracker holds for a small boy.
"I ain't well at all," he exploded, in answer to her polite
question, asked in the meekest of voices. "Don't you set up to marry
Tom Mayberry, girl, if you don't wanter get a numbskull. Told me to
eat a passel of raw green stuff for my liver, like I was a head of
cattle. I'll die if I follow him. Everybody he doctors'll die. Snake
bite is the only thing he knows how to cure, and snakes don't crawl
until the last of the month. Don't marry him, I say, don't marry
him!"
And it took Miss Wingate several minutes after her hurried adieus to
get over the effect of the Squire's inhibitory caution. But the
haven for which she had been instinctively aiming was just across
the Road, and she found a peace and quiet which sank into her
perturbed soul like a benediction. The Deacon sat by Mrs. Bostick's
bed with his Bible across his thin old knees, and Eliza was crouched
on the floor just in front of him, with her knees in her embrace and
her eyes fixed on his gentle face. Little Bettie Pratt lay across
Mrs. Bostick's bed, deep in her afternoon nap, and Henny Turner was
stretched out full length on the floor in front of the window, while
'Lias sat with his back against the wall with the puppy in his arms.
The pale face of the sweet invalid was lit by a gentle smile, and
she held one of the sleeping child's warm little hands in her frail,
knotted, old fingers. Unnoticed, Miss Wingate and Martin Luther
paused a moment at the door.
"Golly, Deacon, but didn't he do him up at one shot, and nothing but
a little piece of rock in the gum-sling!" exclaimed 'Lias in
excitement over the climax of the tale the Deacon had just
completed. "I wisht I was that strong!"
"It was the strength the Lord gived to him, 'Lias Hoover, to special
kill the giant with," said Eliza in an argumentative tone of voice.
"Do you reckon He tooken the strength away from David the next
morning, Deacon, or let him keep it to use all the time?" Eliza's
extreme practicality showed at all times, even in those of deepest
excitement.
The Deacon was saved the strain of intellect involved in making
reply to this demand by his wife's low exclamation of pleasure as
she caught sight of the girl and the tot in the doorway. She smiled
softly as the singer lady seated herself on the side of the bed and
took both her hand and that of the sleeping baby in a firm, young
one. A peculiar bond of sympathy had arisen between the girl and the
gentle old invalid, both fighting pain and anxiety. Mrs. Bostick
would lie for hours drinking in tales of Miss Wingate's travels in
the world, which she had timidly but eagerly asked for from the
beginning of their friendship. The girl knew that the anxious
mother-heart vas using her descriptions to fare forth on quests for
the wanderer into the wide world beyond the Harpeth Hills, that had
all her life bounded her horizon, and she sat by her long hours,
leading the way into the uttermost parts. After a fatherly greeting,
the Deacon departed with the children to his bench under the trees
and left the two alone for their talk, and the long shadows were
stretched across the Road and the sun sinking beyond the Ridge
before the singer lady wended her way dejectedly home with the play-
wearied Martin Luther trailing beside her. She found Mother
Mayberry, much to her relieved astonishment, placidly rocking in her
accustomed place, with her palm-leaf ruffling the water-waves and a
fresh lawn tie blowing in the breeze.
"Come in, honey-hearts," she said eagerly, with bright tenderness
shining in her face for the girl and the barefoot young pilgrim; "I
have been setting here a-missing you both for a hour. With you and
my young mission boy both gone I'm like an old hawk-robbed hen. I
knew you was with Mis' Bostick, and I didn't come for you 'cause
somehow them rocking-chair-bed travels you and her take seems to
comfort her. I wouldn't interrupt one of 'em for the world, though I
was getting plumb lonesome. I was even a-hankering after that Tom
Mayberry what I left not over two hours ago."
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