Books: The Road To Providence
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Maria Thompson Daviess >> The Road To Providence
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"Has the Doctor come back from the City this soon?" demanded the
singer lady, with a queer thump in her cardiac region that almost
smothered her voice.
"Well now, to tell the truth, Tom Mayberry haven't been to no City,"
answered his mother with a chuckle as she looked at Miss Wingate
over Martin Luther's head on her shoulder where he had buried it
with a demand for "milk, milk, thank ma'am, please." "I don't think
he wants you to know what he have been having happen to him, but I
can't keep from telling you 'cause I'm tickled clean to my funny
bone. Dave Hanks come over here at daylight wanting a doctor quick,
and I had a cramp in my leg what I forgot to tie a yarn string
around before I went to bed, so I had to let Tom hurry on over there
'count of the push they was in. Then I got to studying it over and
while I knewed how Tom had had a lot of practice in such things in a
hospital, I thought it was just as well to let him get a little
Harpeth experience along that line and sorter prove his character to
Squire Tutt and the rest. About dinner time, though, I got sorry for
him and hitched up and went over there to see how they was a-getting
along, without telling you or Cindy anything about it. And what did
I find? That Tom Mayberry and Dave Hanks out on the back porch, Dave
taking a drink outen a bottle and Tom with two babies wrapped up in
a shawl showing 'em to a neighbor woman, proud as a peacock over
'em. He most dropped 'em when he seen me and I promised not to tell
you about it at all, but if you coulder seen him!" And the tried and
proven young AEsculapius' mother fairly rolled in her chair with
mirth at the recollection.
"Oh," gasped the singer girl, as she sank weakly down upon the top
step and leaned her head against the convenient post. "It was awful-
-I--I--" she caught herself quickly in the expression of the
intensity of her relief.
"No, it wasn't awful," answered Mother Mayberry, fortunately losing
the trend of the exclamation. "They are mighty sweet little babies,
both girls. The joke is mostly on me getting uneasy and following
Tom up. When I pick out his wife, I must be sure and see she are a
girl what don't worry none about what he is up to. A trouble-hunting
wife is a rock sinker to any man, but around a doctor's neck she'll
finish him quick. Don't let on to the shame-faced thing when he
comes! He asked me what you'd been a-doing all day, and I told him I
thought maybe you had a few custards in your mind for him to-night
when he gets back from Flat Rock. Don't you want to beat up some
with Cindy's help? And they is a bunch of pink peonies he sent you
from Mis' Hank's bushes, sticking in a bucket on the back porch. Pin
one in your hair to sorter compliment him after all the trouble he
have had this day, poor Tom!"
CHAPTER VII
PRETTY BETTIE'S WEDDING DAY
And even old Dame Nature of Harpeth Hills aroused herself for the
occasion and took in hand the wedding day of pretty Bettie Pratt on
Providence Road. In the dark hours before dawn she spread a light
film of clouds over the stars, from which she first puffed a stiff
dust-cleansing breeze and then proceeded to sprinkle a good washing
shower which took away the last trace of wear and tear of the past
hot days, so by the time she brought the sun out for a final shine
up, the village looked like it had been having a most professional
laundering. And after an hour or two of his warm encouragement, the
roses lifted their buds and began to blow out with joyous
exuberance. Mother Mayberry's red-musks tumbled over the wall almost
on to the head of Mrs. Peavey's yellow-cluster, and Judy Pike's
pink-cabbage fairly flung blossoms and buds over into the Road. The
widow's own moss-damask nodded and beckoned hospitably to Mrs.
Tutt's Maryland tea, and Pattie Hoover's Maiden's Blush mingled its
sweetness with that of the dainty white-cluster that climbed around
Mrs. Bostick's window. A haunting perfume from the new-mown clover
fields drifted over it all and the glistening silver poplar leaves
danced in the breezes.
"Was they ever such a day before!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry as she
stood on the front steps with the singer lady, who was as blooming
herself as any rose on the Road. "And everything is well along
towards ready when it's turned twelve. The children have all been
washed from skin out and just need a last polish-off. I've put 'em
all on honor not to get dirty again and I think every shoe will be
on by marching time."
"The baskets and the tubs of roses are in the milk house, and I will
arrange them at the last minute so they won't wilt," answered Miss
Wingate with enthusiasm that matched Mother Mayberry's. "Do you
suppose there is anything I can do to help anybody anywhere? I never
was so excited before."
"I don't believe they is a loose end to tie up on the Road, child.
Even Bettie herself have finished for the day and have gone over to
set a quiet hour with Mis' Bostack. Clothes is all laid out on beds,
and cold lunch snacks put on kitchen tables. They ain't to be a
dinner cooked on the Road this day 'cept what 'Liza and Cindy are a-
stewing up for the Deacon and Mis' Bostick. Looks like everything is
on greased wheels, and--but there comes the child running now! I do
hope they haven't nothing flew the track."
"Mother Mayberry, please ma'am, tell me what to do about Mis' Tutt!"
Eliza exclaimed with anxiety spread all over her little face, which
was given a comic cast by a row of red flannel rags around her head
over which were rolled prospective curls, due to float out for the
festivities. "She says she won't go to the wedding 'cause it's
prayer meeting night, and it were a sin to put off the Lord's
meeting 'till to-morrow night. I didn't know she were a-going to do
this way! I got out her dress for her yesterday. The Squire is so
mad he says tell Doctor Tom to come do something for him quick and
not to bring no hot water kettle neither."
"Dearie me," said Mother Mayberry with mild exasperation in her
voice. "You run along, 'Liza, and don't you worry with Mis' Tutt.
I'll come down there tereckly and see if I can't kinder persuade her
some. Go around there and give that message to Doctor Tom yourself.
I don't take no stock in such doctoring as he does to the Squire
these days."
"Isn't it too bad for Mrs. Tutt to feel that way and miss the
wedding?" asked Miss Wingate with a trace of the same exasperation
in her voice that had sounded in Mother Mayberry's tones.
"It are that," answered Mother regretfully. "Looks like religion
oughter be tooken as a cooling draft to the soul and not stuck on
life like a fly blister. But I think we can kinder fix Mis' Tutt
some. And that reminds me, I want you to undertake a job of using a
little persuading on Tom Mayberry for me. He have got the most
lovely long tail coat, gray britches, gray vest and high silk hat up
in his press, and he says he are a-going to wear his blue Sunday
clothes same as usual, when I asked him careless like about it this
morning. I'm fair dying to behold him just onct in them good clothes
he wears out in the big world and thinks Providence people will make
fun of him to see, but I wouldn't ask him outright to put 'em on for
me, not for nothing."
"Do you know, Mrs. Mayberry, you really--really flirt with the
Doctor?" laughed Miss Wingate as she rubbed her delicate little nose
against Mother Mayberry's shoulder with Teether Pike's exact
nozzling gesture.
"Well, it's a affair that have been a-going on since the first time
I laid eyes on Ugly, and they ain't nothing ever a-going to stop it
'lessen his wife objects," answered Mother Mayberry as she glanced
down quizzically at the face against her shoulder.
"She's sure to--to adore it," answered the singer lady as she buried
her head in Mother's tie so only the rosy back of her neck showed.
"Yes, I think she will understand," answered the Doctor's mother
with a sweet note in her rich voice as she bestowed a little hug on
the slender body pressed close to hers. "You see, child, the tie
twixt a woman and her own man-child ain't like anything on earth,
and I feel it must hold between Mary and her Son in Heaven. I felt
it pull close like steel when mine weren't fifteen minutes old, and
it won't die when I do neither. And that Tom Mayberry are so serious
that a-flirting with him gets him sorter on his blind side and works
to a finish. Can't you try to help me out about that coat and the
silk hat?"
"Yes," answered Miss Wingate with a dimpling smile, "I'll try. I'll
ask him what I shall wear and then maybe--maybe--"
"That's the very idea, honey-bird!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry
delightedly. "Tell him you are a-going to put on your best bib and
tucker and it'll start the notion in him to keep you company. If a
woman can just make a man believe his vanity are proper pride, he
will prance along like the trick horse in a circus. Now s'pose you
kinder saunter round careless like to--"
"Mis' Mayberry," came in a doleful voice over the wall near the
porch, and Mrs. Peavey's mournful face appeared, framed in the lilac
bushes. "I've just been reading the Tuesday Bolivar Herald, and
Bettie Pratt's own first husband's sister-in-law's child died last
week out in Californy, where she moved when she married the second
time. I hate to tell Bettie and have the wedding stopped, but I feel
it are my duty not to let her pay no disrespect to her Turner
children by having a wedding with some of they law-kin in trouble."
"Well, Hettie Ann, I don't believe I'd tell her, for as bad as that
would be on the Turner children, think how much the Pratts and
Hoovers would lose in pleasure, so as they are the majority, it's
only fair they should rule." Mother Mayberry had for a moment stood
aghast at the idea of the misanthrope's descent upon happy Bettie
with even this long distance shadow to cast across her joy, but
dealing with her neighbor for years had sharpened her wits and she
knew that a sense of fair play was one of Mrs. Peavey's redeeming
traits that could always be counted upon.
"Yes, I reckon that are so," she answered grudgingly. "Then we'll
have to keep the bad news to tell her when she gets back from the
trip. Did you know that spangled Wyandotte hen have deserted all
them little chickens and is a-laying again out in the weeds behind
the barn? Told you them foreign poultry wasn't no good," with which
she disappeared behind the top stone of the wall.
"Poor Spangles! she carried them chickens a week longer than could
be expected and now don't get no credit for it," said Mother
Mayberry, as the singer lady gave vent to the giggle she had been
suppressing for a good many minutes. "Now run on, sweet child, and
use them beguilements on Tom for me, while I go try to rub some
liniment on Mis' Tutt's conscience. Fill up Martin Luther sometime
soon, will you?"
And in accordance with directions, after a few minutes spent before
Mother Mayberry's old-fashioned mirror in tucking three very perfect
red-musk buds in the belt of her white linen gown, the singer lady
descended upon the unwitting victim, in the north wing and began the
machinations according to promise. Doctor Mayberry, unfortunately
for him, showed extravagant signs of delight at the very sight of
the enemy, for it was almost the first voluntary visit she had ever
paid him, and thus he gave her the advantage to start with.
"You aren't busy, are you?" she asked as she glanced around the
book-lined room and into the laboratory beyond. "This is only a
semi-professional consultation. Could I stay just a few minutes?"
and the lift of her dark lashes from her eyes was most effectively
unfair. As she spoke she settled herself in his chair, while he
leaned against the table looking down upon her with a very shy
delight in his gray eyes and a very decided color in his tan cheeks.
"As long as you will," he answered. "I never can prescribe from a
hurried consultation. It always takes several hours for me to locate
anything. I'm very slow, you know."
"Why, I rather thought you treated your patients with--with very
little time spent in consultation," a remark which she, herself,
knew to be a dastardly manoeuver. "You attended to Squire Tutt's
trouble in a very few minutes, it seems," she hastened to add, as
she glanced at a flask that lay on the corner of the table.
"The Squire's trouble is chronic, and simply calls for refilled
prescriptions," he laughed, his generosity giving over the retort
that was his due. "I somehow think this matter of yours will prove
obscure and will call for time."
"It's a wedding dress I want you to prescribe for me," she hazarded
a bit too hurriedly, for before she could catch up with her own
words he had flashed her an answer.
"That depends!" was the victim's most skilful parry.
"Would you wear a white embroidery and lace or a rose batiste? A
rose hat and parasol go with the batiste, but the white is perfectly
delicious. You haven't seen either one, so I want you to choose by
guess." Only the slightest rose signal in her cheeks showed that she
had been pricked by his quick thrust. She had taken one of the
damask buds from her belt and was daintily nibbling at the folded
leaves. Over it, her eyes dared him to follow up his advantage.
"I don't know--I'll have to think about it," he answered her, weakly
capitulating, but still on guard. "If I choose one for to-day, when
will you wear the other? Soon?" he bargained for his forbearance.
"Whenever you want me to if you'd like to see it," she answered with
what he ought to have known was dangerous meekness. "What are you
going to wear?" she asked, putting the direct question with
disarming boldness.
"Blue serge Sunday-go-to-meetings," he answered carelessly, as if it
were a matter to be dismissed with the statement. "Let's see--say
them over again--white dress, pink parasol, rose hat, how did they
go?"
"Once, not long ago, I was in your room with Mrs. Mayberry hunting
for the kittens the yellow cat had hidden in the house, and I caught
a glimpse of a most beautiful frock coat--it made me feel partyfied
then, and I thought of the rose gown I have never worn and--and--"
she paused to let that much sink in well. "I thought I would ask
you," she ended in a pensive tone, as she kept her eyes fixed on the
rose determinedly.
"You don't have to ask me things--just tell me!" he answered with an
exquisite hint of something in his voice which he quickly
controlled. "The frock coat let it be--and shall we say the rose
gown? Then the high gods protect Providence when it beholds!" he
added with a laugh.
"Oh, will you really?" she asked, overwhelmed with the ease with
which the battle had been won.
"I will," he answered, "only don't let Mother tease me, please!"
At which pathetically ingenuous demand the conquering singer lady
tossed him the rose and laughed long and merrily.
"You and your Mother are perfect--" she was observing with delighted
dimples, when Mother Mayberry herself stood in the doorway with
well-concealed eagerness as to the outcome of the mission, in her
face.
"Well," she observed with a laugh, "I'm glad to see somebody that
has time to stand-around, set-around, passing the news of the day.
Did you all know that Bettie Pratt were a-going to get married in
about two hours and a half?"
"We did," answered her son as he drew her a chair close to that of
Miss Wingate. "We were just discussing in what garb we could best
grace the occasion. Did you succeed in getting Mrs. Tutt to change
her mind about honoring the festivities?"
"Oh, yes, she just wanted to be persuaded some. It's a mighty dried-
up mind that can't leaf out in a change onct in a while, and it's
mostly men folks that take a notion, then petrify to stone in it.
But you all oughter see what is a-going on down the Road."
"What?" they both demanded of her at the same second.
"It's that 'Liza Pike again. Just as soon as that child hatches a
idea, the whole town takes to helping her feather it out. She got
Mis' Bostick's bed moved to the front window, and then found that
Nath Mosbey's fence kept her from seeing the Road where the
procession are a-going into the Meeting-house yard. But that didn't
down her none at all, for when I left she had Nath and Buck and Mr.
Petway a-knocking down the two panels of fence, and leaving Mis'
Bostick a clean sweep of view, Did you ever?" and mother Mayberry
chuckled over the small sister's triumph over what to the rest of
Providence would have seemed an insurmountable obstacle.
"It's just like her, the darling!" exclaimed the singer lady
appreciatively.
"And she have got the Deacon all tucked out until he is a sight to
behold. She have made Mis' Peavey starch his white tie until it sets
out on both sides like cat whiskers, and have pinned a bokay on his
coat 'most as big as the bride's. Then she have reached his forelock
up on his head so he looks like Martin Luther, and she have got him
a-settin' down, so as not to get out of gear none. Mis' Bostick is
a-wearing a little white rose pinned on her night-gown, and they is
honeysuckle trailed all over the bed. But here am I a-chavering with
you all, with time a-flying and no chance of putting salt on her
tail this day. Please, Tom Mayberry, go down to the store and buy a
nickel's worth of starch, and it's none of your business how I want
to use it. I'm gaing to look a surprise for you myself, before
sundown."
"Well, how did you get along with him, honeybird?" she asked
eagerly, as they ascended the front steps together, while the Doctor
strode down the Road on his errand.
"Beautifully!" exclaimed the singer lady with enthusiasm and the
very faintest of blushes.
"I thought so from his looks," answered the beguiled young Doctor's
wily mother. "A man always do have that satisfied martyr-smile when
he thinks he are doing something just to please a woman. Now, honey-
child, you ain't got nothing to do but frill out your own sweet
self; and make a job of it while you are about it." With which
command Mother Mayberry dismissed Miss Wingate up the stairs to her
dormer-window room.
And it is safe to say that no two such teeming hours ever fleeted
their seconds away on Providence Road as did those ensuing. The
whole village buzzed and bumbled and swarmed in and out from house
to house like a colony of clover-drunken bees on an August
afternoon. Laughter floated on the air and mingled with banter and
song, while the aroma of flesh pots and fine spices drifted from
huge waiters being hurriedly carried from down and up the Road and
into the Pratt gate. The wedding supper was being laid on improvised
tables in Bettie's side yard, with Judy Pike in command, seconded by
Mrs. Peavey with her skirts tucked up out of possible harm and her
mind on the outlook for any possible disaster, from the wilting of
the jelly mold to a sad streak in the bride's cake, baked by the
bride herself with perfectly happy confidence.
Then on the heels of the excitement came a quiet half-hour devoted
to the completing of all toilets behind closed family doors. A
shrill squeal issuing now and then from an open window told its tale
of tortures being undergone, and a smothered masculine ejaculation
added a like testimony.
At exactly a quarter to five, Miss Wingate issued from her room
after a completely satisfactory seance with her mirror, and from the
front steps looked down in dismay upon a scene of rebellion, that
threatened at any moment to become one of riot.
On the grass beside the porch stood a group of little girls all
starched, frilled, curled and beribboned until they resembled a
large bouquet of cabbage roses themselves. Each one clasped
carefully a gaily decorated basket filled with roses, and from each
and every pair of eyes there danced sparks of rage, aimed at a
huddled company of small boys who were returning their indignation
by sullen scorn mixed with determination in their polished, freckled
faces. Half way between each group stood Eliza Pike, a glorified
Eliza, from a halo of curls to brand new small shoes. She had
evidently been carrying on a losing series of negotiations, for her
usually sanguine face had an expression of utter hopelessness,
tinged with some of the others' feminine indignation.
"Miss Elinory," she exclaimed as the singer lady came to the edge of
the porch, "I don't know what to make of the boys, they never did
this way before!"
"Why, what is the matter?" asked Miss Wingate, something of Eliza's
panic communicating itself to her own face and voice.
The boys all suddenly found interest in their own feet or the cracks
in the pavement, so Eliza as usual became the spokesman for the
occasion.
"They say they just won't carry baskets of flowers, because it makes
them look silly like girls. They will march with us if you make 'em
do it, but they won't carry no baskets for nobody. I don't want Mis'
Pratt to find out how they is a-acting, for three of 'em are hers
and five Hoovers, and it is they own wedding." Eliza's voice almost
became a wail in which Miss Wingate felt inclined to join.
At this juncture, Martin Luther took it upon himself to create a
further diversion and to add fuel to the flame. By a mistake, and
through a determination to follow instructions, he had clung to
little Bettie's hand, and when she picked up one of the tiny baskets
provided for the two tots, so had he, and thus he found himself
humiliatingly equipped and on the wrong side of the yard and
question. Disengaging himself from the wide-eyed Bettie, he marched
to the center of the middle ground and cast the despised basket upon
the grass.
"No girl--BOY, thank ma'am, please!" he announced with a defiant
glance at the singer lady up from under the rampant curl, and that
he did not fail in his usual shibboleth of courtesy was due to his
habitual use of it, rather than a desire to soften the effect of his
announcement.
Miss Wingate sank down upon the steps in helpless dismay, and tears
began to drop from Eliza's eyes, when Mother Mayberry appeared upon
the scene of action, stiff and rustling as to black silk gown,
capped with a cobweb of lace over the water-waves and most imposing
as to mien.
"Now what's all these conniptions about?" she demanded, and eyed the
boys with an expression of reserving judgment that did her credit,
for a forlorn and surly sight they presented.
And again Eliza stated the case of the culprits in brief and not
uncertain terms.
"Well, well," said Mother Mayberry, and a most delicious laugh fell
on the overcharged air and in itself began to clear the atmosphere,
"so you empty-handed, cross-faced boys think you look more stylisher
for the wedding than the girls look, do you?"
"No'm, we never said that," answered young Bud with a grin coaxing
at his wide mouth. "We just don't want to carry no baskets. Buck
said he wouldn't, and Sam Mosbey said they had oughter tie a sash
around the middle of all of us for a show. We think the girls look
fine," and he cast an uneasy glance at his sister,
"Well, seeing as you came down as far as to pass a compliment on
'em, I reckon the girls will have to forgive you for talking about
them that way. I am willing to ask Miss Elinory here to give you
each a little bunch of roses to carry in your hand instead of a
basket, and to let you walk along beside the girls, though nobody
will look at you anyway or know you are there. Is that a bargain and
is everybody ready to step into line?"
And almost instantly there was a relieved and amicable settling of
the difficulties, a sorting of bunches from the despised baskets,
and a quick line-up.
"Now start on down! Don't you hear Miss Prissy playing the organ for
you?" exclaimed Mother Mayberry from the steps. "Billy, lift up your
feet, and Henny, you throw the first rose just where Miss Elinory
told you to. Everybody watch Henny and throw a flower whenever he
does. Aim them at the ground and not at each other or the company.
We'll be just behind you. Now, Martin Luther, take Bettie by the
hand and don't go too fast!"
"A little fun poked at the right time will settle most man
conniptions," she added, in an aside to the relieved and admiring
singer lady, as they prepared to follow in the wake of the bridal
train.
And among all the weddings over all the land, that fill to a joyous
overflowing almost every hour of the month of June, none could have
been more lovely or happier than that of pretty Bettie Pratt, and
the embarrassed but adoring Mr. Hoover on Providence Road. The train
of solemn, wide-eyed little flower bearers was received by the
wedding guests, who were assembled around the Meeting-house door,
with a positive wave of rapture and no hint of the previous
hurricane of rebellion showed in their rosy, cherubic countenances.
They separated at the designated point and according to instructions
took their stand along the side of the walk from the gate to the
steps. Billy stepped high, roly-poly little Bettie steered Martin
Luther into place and Eliza had the joy of catching a glimpse of the
pale face across the store-yard, peering out of the window with the
greatest interest.
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