"And me, too, Mis' Mayberry. I've been a-feeling of it for some time, since we all quit out with the nursing and taking 'em complimentary dishes of truck. They is—is hungry." Mrs. Pratt brought out the statement of the fact in a positively awestruck voice.

"That's what I'm afraid it is, Bettie," answered Mother, "and it hurts me hard to think how he have served the Lord and helped us all in our duty to Him and each other, she a-giving us of her bounty of sister-love, and now, when they's old and feeble, a-feeling the pinch of need. The young can reach out and help theyselves to they share of life, but it oughter be handed old folks with thoughtful respect. We've got to do something about it."

"Course we have," assented the widow heartily. "But how are we a-going to just give 'em things offen a cold collar? They're both so proud. With owning the house, the bit the church gives 'em would do the rest, but the Deacon have tooken that debt no-'count Will Bostick run off and left down in the City to pay, and it have left 'em at starvation's door. But that's neither here nor there; we've got to do something. They don't need much but food, and Mis' Bostick is most too weak now to cook it if they has the ingredients gave 'em to hand. They must be did for some way."

"And we've got to do it without a-giving them a single hurt feeling, either," said Mother. "Enough good-will jelly will hide any kind of charity pill, I say. Not as what we do for her and the Deacon can ever be anything but thanks rendered for the blessing of them. But you get to thinking, Bettie. The knees to my wits are getting old and stiff."

"Well, there's a donation party," suggested the widow thoughtfully. "Everybody could help, and it could be made real pleasant with the men asked to come in after supper. Everything could be gave from stovewood to the Deacon some new Sunday pants. We did that once before, five years ago to his birthday, and they was mighty pleased. Let's do it again."

"But that was before this disgrace of Will happened, and they didn't downright need the things then—it were all sort of complimentary. When needs are gave it's charity, but what you don't want is just a present. We've got to find a way to do up needs in a present package for 'em. I declare, I feel right put to know what to do." Mother Mayberry's voice was actually worried, and she paused with her scissors ready to snip a bit of the gingham into narrow bands.

"Well, we oughter be thankful we've got the things to give, and we'll find some sort of way to slip up on the blind side of them about the taking of them. The Deacon's britches is one pressing thing. Can't we take some of the church carpet money and get Mr. Hoover to buy him a pair when he hauls corn to town Monday?"

"Yes, indeed, we can," answered Mother Mayberry, radiant at the very thought of this relief proposition. "It's a heap more important to carpet the Deacon with britches than the church floor right now. Between them and her old bombersine, Mis' Bostick have spent the year with her patch-thimble on her finger."

"I declare, it hurts me so in church to look at her elbows and back seams that I can't hardly listen to the Deacon pray. Patching is the most worrisome job a woman has to do, according to my mind," said the widow, with an expression of distaste on her beaming face. "I've done patched two men, and I know what I'm talking about."

"It is a trial," answered Mother Mayberry, "and Mis' Bostick's life have been a patched one at the best, a-moving in the Methodist wagon from one station to another and a-trying every time to cut herself out by a new style to suit each congregation, Anyway, I reckon all women's lives have wored thin and had to be darned in some places, but patches on her garment of life ain't going to make no difference to a woman when she puts it on to meet her Lord, just so it's cut on the charity mantle pattern. And Mis' Bostick's was hung to cover the multitude. But a-talking here have made me sprout a idea: 'Liza Pike have blazed the trail for us, bless her little heart! Her mother don't never cook a single thing that 'Liza haven't got a dish handy to beg some for the Deacon and Mis' Bostick. And she don't stop at her own cook stove, but she's always here looking into what Cindy cooks with an eye to the old folk's sweet-tooths or chicken-hankers. I know, too, she gets what she wants from you for them, so there is our leading. The Deacon loves 'Liza, and she is such a entertainment to him that he'd eat ten meals a day at her dictation and no questions asked. And she do beat all with her mothering ways with them old folks. Last Wednesday night she had Deacon a-leading prayer meeting with a red flannel band around his throat for his croaks, and just yesterday she made Mis' Bostick stay in bed half the day, covered up head and ears, to sweat off a little nose-dripping cold. She's always a-consulting Tom and leaving me out. I think she's got her eye on my practice. They never was such a master-hand of a child in Providence before."

"There you are right," laughed the widow. "It's getting so that they ain't a child on the Road as will let its own mother look at a cut finger or a black bruise 'fore 'Liza have done had her say about what is to be did. I believe it is as you say, Mis' Mayberry, and 'Liza can play raven for us in fine style. I know Mis' Pike will push it on and more'n do her part in the filling of the child's covered dish."

"That she will," answered Mother Mayberry heartily. "Judy Pike spends a heap of time turning over life to find for certain which is the right and wrong of it, but once found, she sticks close to the top weave. We'll plan it all out at the Sewing Circle, and then get it down to days who's to send what regular. I'm thankful for this leading of how to take care of our old folks, and I know you are, too."

"Couldn't nobody be thankfuller," answered the rosy widow, "and the filling of that dish is a-going to give me a lot of good pride. But I'd better be going and seeing after them girls and the house cleaning. They are both master hands, but if Buck Peavey was to happen to tie hisself up to the front gate, it would be good-by dust-pan and mop for Pattie. Not that I don't feel for her in the liking of that rampaging boy of Mis' Peavey's, and it's mighty hard not to kinder saunter into a little chat when the men folks call you. How are Miss Elinory to-day? Ain't she the prettiest and most stylishest girl you have ever saw? I wonder if she would lend me that long-tailed waist she wears to get the pattern off to make me and Clara May and Pattie one?" As she spoke, Mrs. Pratt rose, picked up little Hoover and set Bettie on her little bare feet.

"I know she will be glad to, and such a head sewer as you are can copy it most exact. Here she are now! Child, Mis' Pratt have been so complimenting of your looks and clothes that I'm sorter set up with pride over you."

"Good morning, Mrs. Pratt," exclaimed the singer lady, as she appeared in the doorway with the resuscitated Martin Luther at her side. "The darling babies! You are not going, are you?" The widow and Miss Wingate had developed a decided attraction for each other, and their blossoming friendship delighted Mother Mayberry most obviously.

"I wish I didn't have to," answered Mrs. Pratt, beaming with smiles, which little Bettie echoed as she coquetted around her mother's skirts with Miss Wingate, "but it's most dinner-pot time, and I've got mouths to feed when the horn blows."

"Elinory, child, run get that pink, long-tailed waist of your'n to let Bettie make one by, please," said Mother Mayberry, with total unconsciousness of that very strong feminine predilection for exclusiveness of design in wearing apparel. The garment in question was a very lovely, simply-cut linen affair that bore a distinguished foreign trade-mark. "I know you feel complimented by her wanting to make one for herself by it, and maybe Clara May and Pattie, too. They ain't no worldly feeling as good as having your clothes admired, is they?"

"Indeed there isn't," answered Miss Wingate cordially, and if there was chagrin in her heart at the thought of seeing Providence in uniform with the precious pink blouse, her smile belied it. She immediately ascended to her room, and returned quickly with the treasure in her hand. "Let me come and see you fit them," she entreated. "I don't know how to sew one, but I can tell how it ought to look."

"Come spend the day next Monday. We'll all have a good time together and I'll make you some more of them fritters you liked for supper the other night." The widow fairly beamed like a headlight at the thought of the successful impromptu supper party a few nights before, when Doctor Mayberry had brought Miss Wingate down upon her unexpectedly with a demand to be invited to stay to supper for that especial dainty. As she spoke she was half-way down the walk, and looked back, smiling at them over the baby's bonnet.

"Yes, I heard Tom Mayberry disgraced himself over your maple syrup jug, Bettie Pratt," called Mother Mayberry after her. "That Hoover baby surely have growed. Good-by!"

"They ain't nothing in this world so comforting to a woman as good feeling with her sisters, one and all," Mother Mayberry said as she watched the last switch of the widow's skirt. "Mother, wife and daughter love is a institution, but real sistering is a downright covenant. Me and Bettie have held one betwixt us these many a year. But you and me have both put a slight on the kitchen since Cindy got back. Let's go see if dinner ain't most on the table."

And they found that from their neglect the dinner had suffered not at all. Cindy, a gaunt, black woman with a fire of service and devotion to Mother Mayberry in her eyes, and apparently nothing else to excuse existence, had accomplished the meal as a triumph.

She had set the table out on the side porch under the budding honeysuckle, and as Mother Mayberry and Miss Wingate, followed by Martin Luther, ever ready to do trencher duty, came out of the back hall Doctor Tom emerged from his office door.

"Why, I didn't see you come in, Tom," said Mother. "You muster used wings and lit."

"No, I came from across the fields and in the back way. I've had a patient and I'm puffed up with pride." As he spoke he smiled at Miss Wingate and his mother delightedly.

"'Lias Hoover's puppy," said Mother, stating the fact to Miss Wingate. "Was you able to fix him up, Tom?"

"Oh, yes; his puppyship will navigate normally in ten days, I think; but this was a real patient."

"Why, who, son? Don't keep me waiting to know, for I'm worried at the very thought of a Providence pain. Who's down now and what did you do for 'em?" And Mother bestowed upon the young doctor a glance of inter-professional inquiry. "Squire Tutt," answered her son promptly. "I met him up by the store and he asked me what I would do if a man had a snake bite out in the woods, ten miles from any hot-water kettle. I diagnosed the situation and prescribed with the help of Mr. Petway, and I think—I think, Mother, I've proselyted your patient."

"Now, Tom, don't make fun of the Squire. Them are real pains he has, and I don't think it is right for a doctor to have a doubting mind towards a patient. Sympathy will help worry any kinder bad dose down. You know I want you to do your doctoring in this life with love to be gave to help smooth all pain." Mother regarded him seriously over her glasses as she admonished.

"I will—I do, Mother," answered the Doctor, and his gray eyes danced before he veiled them with his black lashes as he looked down at his plate.

Miss Wingate flushed ever so slightly and busied herself with spreading butter on a large piece of bread for Martin Luther, an unnecessary attention, as she had performed that same office for him just the moment before, and even he had not been able to make an inroad thereon.

"I think you are right, Mrs. Mayberry," she said slowly after a second's rally of her forces. "The sympathy and—and regard of one's physician is very necessary at times and—and—" She paused, but not so much as a glance out of the corner of her purple black eyes did she throw in the direction of the Doctor.

"Course they ain't nothing so encouraging in the world as love, and I think the sick oughter have it gave to 'em in large and frequent doses! I'm thankful I've got so much in my heart that I can just prescribe it liberal when needed. Dearie me, could that shadow be a chicken-hawk? Just excuse me, children; finish your dinner while I go out and look after my feather babies." And Mother hurried away through the kitchen, leaving the singer lady and the Doctor sitting at the table under the fragrant vine, with the replete Martin Luther nodding his sleepy head down into his plate between them.

And thus deserted, the flush rose up under Miss Wingate's eyes and a dimple teased at the corner of her red lips, but she busied herself with removing the plate from under Martin Luther's yellow mop and making a pillow of her own bare arm, against which he nestled his chubby little cheek with a sigh of content, as he drifted off into his usual after-dinner nap.

The Doctor watched her from under his half-closed eyes, then he lit a cigarette, leaned his elbow on the table and sat silent for a few moments, while under her breath she hummed a little sleep song to the drifting baby.

"On the whole," he asked at last, the usual delightful courtesy with which he always addressed her striving with an unusual trace of gentle banter in his deep voice, "what do you think of Mother's philosophies?"

"I think," she answered as she ruffled the baby's curls with one white hand, "they are so true that no wonder they are—are more healing than—than your medicines."

She raised her eyes to his suddenly and they were filled to the brim with frank merriment.

"Don't tell me I'm going to lose my one and only star patient, Teether Pike and the puppy excepted!" he exclaimed with a laugh.

"Yes," she answered slowly, "I'm going to let you operate when the time comes—but it's your Mother that's healing me. Oh, can't you, can't you see what she's doing for me?" she turned to him and asked suddenly, the burr thrown across her voice heavily because of the passion in her tones. "I came to you a broken instrument—useless for ever, perhaps—unfit for all I knew of life unless you healed me, and now—now I can make things and do things—a pie and a good one, bread to feed and the butter thereto, and to-day two halves of a pair of trousers, no the halves of two pairs of trousers. What matter if I never sing again?" She stretched her white arm across the table and looked over the head of the sleeping baby straight into his eyes. Hers were soft with tears, and a divine shyness that seemed to question him.

He lifted the white hand, with its pink palm upward, gently into his own brown one, and placed the tip of one of his fingers on a tiny red scar on her forefinger.

"Do you know the story the drop of blood I took from this prick this morning told?" he asked with his eyes shining into hers. "A gain of over thirty percent in red corpuscles in less than a month. Yes, I admit it; Mother is building, but when she has you ready—I'm going to give it back to you, the wonderful voice. I don't know why I know, but I do."

"And I don't know why I know that you will—but I do," she answered with lowered voice and eyes. "When all the others tried I knew they would fail. The horrible thought clutched at my throat always, and there seemed no help. I don't feel it now at all. I'm too busy," she added with a catch in her laugh and a sudden mist in her eyes.

"Mother's treatment again," he laughed as he laid her hand gently back on the table.

"And yours—when directed by her—her philosophies," she ventured daringly, as she lifted Martin Luther into her arms, with a view to depositing him upon the haven of Mother's bed to finish his nap.

The Doctor looked at her a second, started to answer, thought better of it, took the heavy youngster out of her arms into his own and strode across the hall with him into Mother's room.

The singer lady walked to the edge of the porch, pulled down a spray of the fragrant vine and looked out through it to the blue hills beyond the meadows. She hummed a waltz-song this time, and her eyes were dancing as if she were meditating some further assault on the Doctor's imperturbability. He came back and stood beside her, and was just about to make a tentative remark when Mother Mayberry hurried around the side of the house.

"Children!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining, her cheeks pink with excitement, and the white curls flying in every direction; "I never did have such a time in my life! It WERE a chicken-hawk and he were right down amongst the hens and little chickens. Old Dominick was spread out like a featherbed over all hers and most of Spangles', and there Spangles was just a-contending with him over one of her little black babies. He had it in his claw, but she had him by a beak full of feathers and was a-swinging on for fare-you-well. Old Dominick was a-directing of her with squawks, and Ruffle Neck was just squatting over hers, batting her eyes with skeer, for all the world like she was a fine lady a-going into a faint. And there stood all four of the roosters, not a one of 'em a-turning of a feather to help her! They looked like they was petrified to stone, and I'm a great mind to make 'em every one up into pies and salad and such. They's a heap of men, come trouble, don't make no show, and the women folks have to lead the fight. But they might er helped her after she's took holt!"

"The brutes!" exclaimed Doctor Tom with real indignation. "When are you going to have the pie, Mother?" he added teasingly.

"Well, I've got no intentions of feeding no such coward truck to you, sir," answered his mother, still flurried with belligerency.

"But the little baby chicken—what DID become of it?" demanded Miss Wingate, and she, too, cast a glance of scorn at the Doctor.

"Why, he dropped it and flew away as soon as he caught sight of me. It ain't hurt a mite, and Spangles have hovered it and all the rest she could coax out from under Dominick. Now this do settle it! Good looks don't disqualify a woman from nothing; it's the men that can't stand extra long tail feathers and fluted combs. I'm a-going to put 'em all four in the pot before Wednesday."

"I apologize; I apologize, with emotion, for all my doubts, both expressed and unexpressed, of Mrs. Spangles!" the Doctor hastened to exclaim. "Neck under heel for the whole masculine fraternity and suffrage triumphant!"

"Well, it's not as bad as that," answered Mother in a jovially mollified tone of voice. "Meek, plain-favored men like you may be let live, with no attention paid 'em. Now go on over to Flat Rock and stop a-wasting me and my honey-bird's time with your chavering. Come back early for supper or you won't get none, for all three of us are a-going to prayer meeting."

"I'll be here, and thank you for-crumbs of attention," answered the Doctor, and, with a laughing glance at both his mother and Miss Wingate he took himself off in the direction of the barn, for the purpose of saddling his horse for his afternoon visit to his patients beyond the Nob.

"Ain't he good to look at?" asked Mother Mayberry as she watched his tall figure swing down the garden path. "Good looks in a man can be a heap of pleasure to a woman, but she mustn't let on to him."

"I believe," said Miss Wingate in an impersonally judicial tone of voice, "that Doctor Mayberry is the very handsomest man I ever saw. One would almost call him beautiful. It isn't entirely that he is so tall and grand and has such eyes, but—do you know I think it is because he is so like you that he is so lovely." And the singer lady tucked her hand into Mother Mayberry's with a shy blush.

"Liking folks kinder shines 'em up, same as furniture polish, honey-bird," laughed Mother Mayberry with delight at the compliment. "You're a-rubbing some on me and Tom Mayberry. But he were the best favored baby I 'most ever saw, if I do say it, as shouldn't."

"Oh!" said Miss Wingate delightedly, "I know he must have been lovely! What was he like?"

"Well," answered Mother reminiscently, "he were about like he are now. He come so ugly I cried when I seen him first, and Doctor Mayberry teased me about it to the day of his death. He called Tom 'Ugly' for short. But he mighty soon begun to sprout little pleasing ways, a-looking up under them black lashes and a-laughing acrost my breast. His cheeks was rosy, his back broad and his legs straight, same as now. He teethed easy, walked soon, have never learned to talk much yet, and had his measles and whooping-cough when his time come. I just thought he were something 'cause he were mine. All babies is astonishing miracles to they mothers."

"But I'm sure Doctor Mayberry was really wonderful," said Miss Wingate, instantly sympathetic. "Had he always such black hair?"

"Borned with it. Now, my little girl had beautiful yellow curls and I can show you one, by the Lord's mercy I've got it." Mother paused and an ineffable gentleness came into her lovely old face. "I want to tell you about it, honey-heart, 'cause it have got a strange sweetness to it. She wasn't but five years old when she died, tooken sudden with pneumony cruel bad. Nobody thought to cut me one of her curls before they laid her away, and when I come to myself I grieved over it more than I had oughter. But one day when the fall come on and the days was short and dark; and it looked like nothing couldn't light up the old house with that sunshine head gone, me almost a-feeling bitter and questioning why, Tom went out and picked up a robin's nest that had blowed down from a tree in the yard. And there, wound around inside it, was the little curl I had cut off in the spring, out on the porch, what had tagged into her eyes and worried her! The mother bird had used it to make the nest soft for her babies and now didn't need it no more. When I looked at it I took it as a message and a sign that my Lord hadn't forgot me, and I ain't never mistrusted Him again. Come, let me show it to you."



CHAPTER V

THE LITTLE RAVEN AND HER COVERED DISH

Wednesday morning dawned clear and bright. From over Providence Nob the round red old sun looked jovially and encouragingly down upon Providence, up and stirring at an unusually early hour, for in the mid-week came Sewing Circle day and the usual routine of work must be laid by before the noon meal, and every housewife in condition to forgather at the appointed place on the stroke of one. Mrs. Peavey had aroused the protesting Buck at the peep of dawn, the Pikes were all up and breakfasting by the first rays of light that fell over the Ridge, and the Hoover biscuits had been baked in the Pratt oven and handed across the fence fifteen minutes agone. Down the road Mr. Petway was energetically taking down the store shutters and Mr. Mosbey was building the blacksmith shop fire. Cindy had milked and started breakfast and Mother Mayberry had begun the difficult task of getting the Doctor up and ready for the morning meal. Martin Luther had had a glass of warm milk and was ready for an energetic attack upon his first repast.

Above, in her room under the gables, the singer lady had been awakened by the brushing of a white-capped old locust bough against her casement as it attempted to climb with all its bloom into her dormer window. As she looked through the mist, a long golden shaft of light shot across the white flowers and turned the tender green leaves into a bright yellow. Suddenly a desire to get up and look across at the Nob possessed her, for the arrival of the sun upon the scene of action was a sight that held the decided charm of novelty. And on this particular morning she found it more than worth while. Providence lay at her feet like a great bouquet of lilacs, locust and fruit blossoms. The early mist was shot through with long spears of gold and the pale smoke curled up from the brick chimneys and mingled its pungent wood-odor with the perfume laden air. She drank in great drafts of exhilaration and delighted her eyes with the picture for a number of minutes, until an intoxicating breakfast aroma began to steal up from Cindy's domain. Then, spurred by a positive agony of hunger, it took the singer lady the fewest possible number of minutes to complete a dainty and most ravishing breakfast toilet.

"Why, honey-bird," exclaimed Mother Mayberry as she descended the steps and found them all at breakfast in the wide-open dining-room, "what did you get up so soon for? It's Wednesday and the Sewing Circle meets with me, so Cindy and us must be a-stirring, but I had a breakfast in my mind for you two hours from now. You hadn't oughter done it. Them ain't orders in your prescription."

"I'm so hungry," she pleaded with a most wickedly humble glance at the Doctor, who was busy consuming muffins and chicken gravy. "Can't I have a breakfast now, Doctor—and the other one two hours later? Please!"

"Yes," answered the Doctor, "but don't forget the two glasses of cream and dinner and some of the Sewing Party refreshments, to say nothing of supper-and are you going to make custards for us to eat before seeking our downy couches?"

"The cup custards are going to be part of the Sewing Circle refreshments," his mother answered him. "I want to show off my teaching to the Providence folks. Give the child some chicken, Tom Mayberry, and then you can go to your work. We don't want you underfoot."

"Don't you need my help?" asked the Doctor, as, in a disobedient frame of mind, he lingered at the table to watch the singer lady begin operations on her dainty breakfast.

"Well, you can set here and see that Elinory gets all she wants and more too, but I must be a-doing around. There cames the Deacon! I wonder what the matter is!" And Mother Mayberry hurried out of the house and down to the front gate to meet the Deacon who was coming slowly up the Road.

"Good morning, Sister Mayberry," he said cheerily enough, though there was an expression of anxiety on his gentle old face. "I thought I would find you up, even at this unusually early hour. Your lamp is always burning to meet emergencies. Mrs. Bostick is not well this morning and I came up to see if you could find a moment to step down to see her soon. I also wanted to ask Thomas to stop in for a moment on his way over to Flat Rock. I am sure that she is not at all ill, but I am just overly anxious."

"Why, of course, we will both come right away, Deacon! What did she eat last night for supper? She oughter be careful about her night eating."

"Let me see," answered the Deacon thoughtfully, "I think we both had a portion of milk and toast administered by our young sister, Eliza Pike. I recall I pleaded for some of the peaches, still in the jar you gave Mrs. Bostick, but was sternly denied." As he spoke the Deacon beamed with affectionate pride over having been vanquished by the stern Eliza.

Just at this moment from around the corner of the Pike home came the young woman in question, with a pitcher in one hand and a covered dish in the other. Ez followed her with a plate wrapped in a napkin, and Billy brought up the rear with a bucket of cool water which he sloshed over his bare feet with every step.

"Why, Deacon," demanded Eliza sternly, "you ain't gone and et breakfast with Mother Mayberry, when I told you about Maw making light rolls before she went to bed 'cause to-day is Wednesday?"

"No, Eliza," answered the Deacon meekly, with a delighted glance at Mother Mayberry out of the corner of his eye. "Neither Mrs. Bostick nor I would think of breakfasting without your superintendence. I was just starting over to tell you that she felt indisposed and would like to see you and Sister Mayberry, along with the Doctor, later in the day."

"Well," answered Eliza confidently, "I think I can tend to her if Mother Mayberry is too busy to come. I was a-going to watch for Doctor Tom and ask him in anyway. Please come on home, Deacon, 'fore the rolls get cold and the scrambled eggs set. Ez, hold the plate straight or the butter will run outen the rolls! Please come on, Deacon!"

"Yes, Deacon, go along with her right away," answered Mother Mayberry, as her eyes rested on the serious face of the ministering child with a peculiar tenderness tinged with respect. "And, 'Liza, honey, stop by and tell me how Mis' Bostick does when you come back, and let me know if you need me to help you any."

"Yes'm, Mother Mayberry," answered Eliza with a flash of pure joy shining in her devoted little face when she found that she was not to be supplanted in her attendance on her charges. "I was a-coming to see you this morning anyway about the place Mr. Mosbey burned his finger and I tied up last night. Please come on, Deacon!"

"And a little child shall lead them," said Mother Mayberry to herself, as she watched the breakfast party down the road. Martin Luther had come out from the table by this time and now trotted along at the Deacon's heels like a replete and contented puppy. Ez held the plate carefully and Billy seemed about sure of arriving at his destination with at least half the bucket of cool water. "Yes, a little child—but some children are borned with a full-growed heart."

And true to her promise Eliza appeared an hour or two later to hold serious consultation over the blacksmithing finger down the Road.

"'Liza," said Mother Mayberry as she prepared a stall for the finger and poured a cooling lotion in a small bottle for which the child waited eagerly, "you are a-doing the right thing to take nice things to Mis' Bostick and the Deacon and I'm proud of your being so kind and thoughtful. Do they ever ask you where you bring 'em from?"

"I always tell 'em, Mother Mayberry. Deacon said I oughtn't to get things from other folks to bring to 'em, but I told him that you and Mis' Pratt and Mis' Mosbey and Mis' Peavey would be mad at me if I just took things from Maw to 'em and slighted they cooking. I pick out the best things everybody makes. Maw's light rolls, Mis' Pratt's sunshine cake and cream potatoes, Cindy's chicken and Mis' Peavey for baked hash. I took the custards from Miss Elinory to please her; but Mis' Mosbey's is better. I wanted 'em to have the best they is on the Road, 'cause they is old and they is our'n."

"Bless your dear little heart, the best they shall have always!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry, as she hugged her small confrere close against her side and wiped away a tear with a quick gesture. "Now you can go fix up Nath Mosbey's finger to suit your mind, Sister Pike," she added with a laugh as she, bestowed the bottle.

The rest of the morning was filled to the minute for the Mayberry household, which seemed possessed with a frenzy of polishing and garnishing. After Cindy had done her worst with broom and mop, Mother Mayberry with feather duster and cloth, Miss Wingate threw her energies with abandon into the accomplishing of a most artistic scheme of decoration. She set tall jars of white locust blossoms in the hall which shone out mystically in the cool dusk. She mingled lilac and red bud, cherry blossoms and narcissus and trailed long vines of honeysuckle over every possible place.

"Dearie me," said Mother Mayberry, as she paused in her busy manoeuvers to take in what Miss Wingate proudly declared to be the completed effect, "everybody will think they have walked into a flower show. I'm sorry I never thought of inviting in the outdoors to any of my parties before. I wonder if some of the meek folks, that our dear Lord told about being invited in from the byways and hedges, mightn't a-brought some of the hedge blooms along into the feast with 'em. Thank you, child, the prettiness will feed everybody's eye, I know, but you'd better run along and get to whipping on that custard for they stomicks. This here is a Mission Circle, but it have got a good knife and fork by-law to it. Make a plenty and if we feel well disposed toward Tom Mayberry, come bedtime, we may feed him a half dozen."

And in accordance with time-honored custom the stroke of one found the Providence matrons grouped along the Road and up Mother Mayberry's front walk, in the act of assembling for the good work in hand.

"Come in, everybody," exclaimed Mother Mayberry, as she welcomed them from the front steps. "I'm mighty glad all are on time, for I have got the best of things to tell, as I have been saving by the hardest for three days. A woman holding back news is mighty like root-beer, liable to pop the cork and foam over in spite of all."

"I'm mighty glad to hear something good," said Mrs. Peavey in a doleful tone. "Looks like the world have got into astonishing misery. Did you all read in the Bolivar Herald last week about that explode in a mine in Delyware; a terrible flood in Louisianny and the man that killed his wife and six children in Kansas? I don't know what we're a-coming to. I told Mr. Peavey and Buck this morning, but they ain't either of 'em got any sympathy. They just went on talking about the good trade Mr. Hoover made in hogs over to Springfield and the fine clover stand they have got in the north field."

By this time the assembly had removed their hats, laid them on Mother Mayberry's snowy bed and settled themselves in rocking-chairs that had been collected from all over the house for the occasion. Gay sewing bags had been produced and the armor of thimbles and scissors had been buckled on. Mother Mayberry still stood in the center of the room watching to see that all of her guests were comfortably seated.

"Them were mighty bad happenings, Mis' Peavey, and I know we all feel for such trouble being sent on the Lord's people," said Mother Mayberry seriously, though a smile quirked at the corners of the Widow Pratt's pretty mouth and young Mrs. Nath Mosbey bent over to hunt in her bag for an unnecessary spool of thread. Mrs. Peavey's nature was of the genus kill-joy, and it was hard to steer her into the peaceful waters of social enjoyment.

"I don't think any of that is as bad as three divorce cases I read about in a town paper that Mr. Petway wrapped up some calico for me in," answered Mrs. Peavey, continuing her lamentations over conditions in general, which they all knew would get to be over conditions in particular if something did not intervene to stop the tide of her dissatisfaction.

"Divorces oughtn't to be allowed by the United States," answered Mrs. Pike decidedly. "They are too many people in the world that don't seem to be able to hitch up together, without letting folks already geared roam loose again. But what's the news, Sister Mayberry?" There came times when only Judy Pike's uncompromising veto could lay Mrs. Peavey on the table.

"Well, what do you think! Tom Mayberry have got this Providence Meeting-house Sewing Circle a good big sewing order from the United States Government. Night drawers and aprons and chimeses and all sorts of things and—"

"Lands alive, Sister Mayberry, you must be outen your head!" exclaimed Mrs. Peavey with her usual fear-the-worst manner. "What earthly use can the United States Government have for night drawers and chimeses?"

"Now, Hettie Ann, you didn't let me have my say out," remonstrated Mother Mayberry as they all laughed merrily at Mrs. Peavey's scandalized remonstrance. "They are for them poor misfortunates over at Flat Rock what the Government have sent Tom down here to study about, so he can find the bug that makes the disease and stop it from spreading everywhere. While he's a-working with 'em he has to see that they are provided for; and they condition are shameful. He wants outfits for the women and children and Mr. Petway have the order to buy the men's things down in the City for him. He's a-going to pay us good prices for the work and it will mean a lot of money for the carpet and the repair fund. A quarter apiece for the little night drawers without feet to 'em is good money. He wanted to give us fifty cents but I told him no, I wasn't a-going to cheat my own country for no little child's night rigging. A quarter is fair to liberal, I say."

"That it is, Mis' Mayberry, and thank Doctor Tom, too, for giving us the order," answered Widow Pratt heartily. "When can we begin? I'll cut 'em all out at home, so as to save time, if you'll give me the goods. I can cut children's clothes out with my eyes shut and sew 'em with my left hand if needs be."

"Well, if all we hear be true, Bettie Pratt, it's a good thing it comes easy to you. The sewing for seventeen might be a set-back to any kind of co'ting, but seeing as you likes it so, why, maybe—" Mrs. Peavey paused and peered at the blushing widow with goading curiosity in her keen eyes.

"Well, it hasn't been a bit to me and Mr. Hoover, Mis' Peavey," she answered with dancing eyes and a lovely rose color mounting her cheeks. "Looks like all the love we have got for each other's orphant children have mixed itself up into a wedding cake for the family. I had laid off to tell you all about it this afternoon, and here's a box of peppermints Mr. Hoover sent everybody. He said to make you say sweet things about him to me. Have one, Mis' Peavey, and pass the box!"

With which a general laugh and buzz of inquiry went around with the box of sweets provided by the wily widower.

"Well, we think we'll just build a long, covered porch acrost the fronts of the two houses to connect 'em up," answered Mrs. Pratt to a friendly inquiry about her future domestic arrangements.

"I know it will look sorter like a broke-in-two steamboat but I can put the boys all over into one house and take the girls with me. We can rent a room in the boys' house to Mr. Petway and he'll look after them if need be, though 'Lias Hoover and my Henny Turner are getting big, dependable boys already. I'm so glad the children match out in pairs. I always did want twins and now I'm going to have eight pairs and the baby over. I don't think I ever was so happy before." And pretty Bettie fairly radiated lovingness from her big, motherly heart.

"Bettie Pratt, you are a regular Proverbs, last chapter and tenth to thirtieth verse woman and your husband's heart is a-going to 'safely rejoice' in you," said Mother Mayberry as she beamed across the little sleeve she was basting in an apron. "And this brings me to the mention of another little Bible character we have a-running about amongst us. It's 'Liza Pike, as should be called one of God's own little ravens arid you all know why."

"Yes, we do, Sister Mayberry," spoke up Mrs. Mosbey quickly. "And I've just caught on to her doings, and thankful I am to her for letting in the light to us before it were too late maybe."

"Why, what have my child been a-doing to be spoke of this way?" asked her mother with both pride and uneasiness in her tone, for Eliza, as is the way of all geniuses, especially those of a philanthropic turn of mind, was apt often to confront those responsible for her with the unexpected.

"Just seeing what we was failing to notice, that Mis' Bostick and the Deacon was in need of being tooken care of and, without a word to anybody, starting out with a covered dish and a napkin to do the providing for 'em. And in the right spirit, too, walking into each kitchen and taking the best offen the stove—no left-over scraps in her offering to the Lord, and she have gave a lesson to grown-ups. We all love the old folks and was ready to do, but 'Liza have proved that love must be mixed with a little gumption to make wheels go round. And ain't she cute about it? She told the Deacon that she had to bring something from everybody's kitchen or hurt all our feelings. They is a way of putting what-oughter-be into words that makes it a truth, and she did it that time." As she delivered her little homily on the subject of the absent small Sister Pike, Mother Mayberry's face shone with emotion and there was a mist in her eyes that also dimmed the vision of some of the others.

"And the way of her," laughed the widow softly. "Told me yesterday I didn't brown my hoe-cake enough on both sides for the Deacon's greens—that Mis' Peavey's was better."

"Why, Mis' Pratt, 'Liza oughtn't to speak that way to you; it ain't manners," her mother hastened to say as they all laughed, even the misanthrope, who was much pleased over this public acknowledgment of the superiority of her handiwork.

"Now, Judy honey, don't you say one word to 'Liza about that! She have got the whole thing fixed up for us now, and it won't do to get her conscious like in her management of the old folks. The thing for us to do is to make our engagements for truck with her regular and take her dictation always about what is sent. Keep it in her mind how complimented we are to be let give to the Deacon and she'll manage him, pride and all, in a sorter game. We'll make it a race with her which pleases him most. And now," Mother paused and looked from the face of one hearty country woman to another with a wealth of affection for each and every one, "let's don't none of us forget to take the child up to the throne with us each night in the arms of prayer, as one of His ministers!—Well it's time for us to walk out to the dining-room and see what kind of a set-out Cindy and Elinory have got for us. Yes, Mis' Nath, did you ever see such a show of decorations? She must a-kinder sensed the wedding in the air in compliment to you, Bettie. Come in, one and all!"

And the cheerful company assembled around the hospitable Mayberry board put into practice the knife and fork by-law of the Circle with hearty good will. Cindy's austerity relaxed noticeably at the compliments handed her in return for her offer of the various viands she had prepared for their delectation, and Miss Wingate blushed and beamed upon them all with the most rapturous delight when her efforts met with like commendation. She had insisted on helping Cindy wait on them and was such a very lovely young Hebe that they could scarcely eat for looking at her.

"Sakes, Mis' Mayberry," said Mrs. Pike, who had unbent from her reserve over her second cup of tea to a most remarkable degree, "it were hard enough to ask Doctor Tom in to pot-luck with my chicken dumplins, that he carries on over, a-knowing about what you and Cindy could shake up in the kitchen, but with Miss Elinory's cooking added I'm a-going to turn him away hungry next time."

"Oh, please don't!" exclaimed Miss Wingate. "Yours is the next place he has promised to take me to supper. And Bud and Eliza have both invited me."

"I'll set a day with him this very night," responded Mrs. Judy, all undone with pride. Nothing in the world could have pleased the hospitable country women more than the parties that Doctor Tom had been improvising for the amusement of the singer girl. Before each visit he openly and boldly made demands of each friend for her CHEF-D'OEUVRE and consumed the same heartily and with delight in the stranger's growing appetite.

"If you folks don't stop spoiling Tom Mayberry I won't never be able to get him a wife. I'll have to take little Bettie to raise and teach her how to bit and bridle him," laughed Mother Mayberry, as they all rose and flocked to the front porch.

In the Road in front of the house had congregated the entire school of small-fry, drawn by the mother lode, but too well trained to think of making any kind of interruption to the gathering. They were busily engaged in a tag and tally riot which was led on one side by Eliza and the other by Henny Turner, whose generalship could hardly be said to equal that of his younger and feminine opponent. Teether and little Hoover sat in the Pike wheelbarrow which was drawn up beside the Pike gate, and attached thereto by long gingham strings were Martin Luther and little Bettie. They champed the gingham bits drawn through their mouths and pranced with their little bare feet in the dust, as Eliza found time every minute or two to call out "whoa" or cut at them with a switch as she flashed past them. They were distinctly of the game and were blissfully unconscious of the fact that they were not in it. This arrangement for keeping them happy, though out of the way, had been of Eliza's contriving and did credit to her wit in many senses of the word.

At the appearance of their be-hatted parents on Mother Mayberry's front walk they all swooped over and stood in a circle around the gate. A mother who has many calls in the life-complicated to take her out of reach of the children is different from a mother who is always in the house, kitchen, garden or at a convenient neighbor's, and this weekly three-hour separation occasionally had disastrous results.

"Have anything happened, 'Liza?" asked her mother, as she ran a practised eye over her group and detected not a loose end. Eliza and Bud had rolled over the wheelbarrow, led by the prancing team.

"No'm," answered Eliza, "everybody's been good and the Deacon have told us three Bible tales, and my side have beat Henny's five catches and one loose. But Henny played his'n good," she added, with a worthy victor's generosity to the fallen foe.

"Here's a whole bucket of cakes Cindy and Miss Elinory made in case we found a good passel of children when the meeting was over," said Mother Mayberry as she tendered the crisp reward of merit to Bud Pike, who stood nearest her.

"Thank you, ma'am," answered Bud, mindful of his manners. "Say, 'Liza, let's all go down and set on the pump and eat 'em, and we can drink water, too, so they will last longer."

"All right," answered Eliza, and she set about unharnessing the young team, who immediately scampered after the rest. She handed little Hoover to Mrs. Pratt and was preparing to set off with Teether in the wake of the cake bucket, when the widow called to her.

"'Liza, honey," she said, "here's some peppermints for you. They wasn't enough to give some to all the children, but I want you to get a bite, anyway."

"Thanky, ma'am, but I don't like the fresh air taste of 'em in my mouth," answered Eliza. "But can you give me five of 'em? I want one for Deacon and Mis' Bostick and I want one for Squire Tutt, 'cause he do love peppermint so. He wouldn't take the medicine Mother Mayberry fixes for him if she didn't put peppermint in it. He says so. He's porely and have got his head all tied up in a shawl, 'cause prayer meeting day Mis' Tutt sings hymns all the time and music gives him misery in his ears. I want to give her one, too, and I want one for Cindy."

"I'll save all in the box for you, sweetie," assented Mrs. Pratt heartily. "Now run along, for you might get left out of that cake eating."

"No, ma'am, I won't," answered Eliza with confidence; "they won't begin till I get there. It wouldn't be fair." And she hurried down the Road to where the group waited impatiently but loyally around the town pump.

"Ain't they all the Lord's blessings?" asked Mother Mayberry, as she looked down the Road at the little swarm with tender pride in her eyes.

"That they are," answered the widow, with an echo of the pride in her own rich voice, "and to think that pretty soon seventeen of 'em will be mine!"

And it was an hour or two later that the old red sun had reluctantly departed across the west meadows, just as a soft lady moon rose languidly over Providence Nob. Providence suppers had all been served, the day's news discussed with the men folk, jocularly eager to get the drippings of excitement from the afternoon infair, and the Road toddlers put to bed, when the soft-toned Meeting-house bell droned out its call for the weekly prayer meeting. Very soon the Road was in a gentle hum of conversation as the congregation issued from their house doors and wended their way slowly toward the little church, which, back from the Road in an old cedar glade, brooded over its peaceful yard of graves. The men had all donned their coats and exchanged field hats for stiff, uncomfortable, straight-brimmed straw, and their wives still wore the Sewing Circle gala attire. The older children walked decorously along, each group in wake of the heads of their own family, though Buck Peavey had managed to annex himself to the Hoover household.

"Well, I don't know just what to do with you all," said Mother Mayberry, as she came out on the front porch, sedately bonneted, with her Bible and hymn-book under her arm and fortified with a huge palm-leaf fan. "It's my duty to make you both come with Cindy and me to prayer meeting, but I don't hold with a body using they own duty as a stick to fray out other folks with. I reckon I'll have to let you two just set here on the steps and see if you can outshine the moon in your talk, which you can't, but think you can."

"Oh, we'll come with you! I was just going to get my hat," exclaimed the singer lady as she rose from the steps upon which Doctor Tom kept his seat and puffed a ring of his cigar smoke at his mother daringly.

"No, honey-bird, you've had a long day since your sun-up breakfast and I'll excuse you. I'd LET Tom Mayberry go only I have to make him stay to keep care of you. Put that lace fascination around your throat if a breeze blows up! Tom, try to make out, with Elinory's help, to bring a fresh bucket of water from the spring for the night. Good-by, both of you; I'm a-going to bring you a blessing!"

"Yourself, mother," called the Doctor after her.

"Honey-fuzzle," called Mother back from the gate. "Better keep it, son, you'll need it some day."

"Was there ever, ever anybody just like her?" asked Miss Wingate, as she sank back on the step beside the Doctor.

"I think not," he answered with a hint of tenderness in his voice; "but then, really, Mother is one of a type. A type one has to get across a continent from Harpeth Hills to appreciate. She's the result of the men and women who blazed the wilderness trail into Tennessee, and she has Huguenot puritanism contending with cavalier graces of spirit in her nature."

"Well, she's perfectly darling and the little town is just an exquisite setting for her. Do you know what this soft moonlight aspect of Providence reminds me of, with those tall poplars down the Road and the wide-roofed houses and barns? The little village in Lombardy where—where I met—my fate."

"Met your fate?" asked the Doctor quickly after a moment. His face was in the shadow and not a note in his voice betrayed his anxiety.

"Yes," answered the singer lady in a dreamy, reminiscent voice. The moon shone full down into her very lovely face, fell across her white throat and shimmered into the faint rose folds of her dainty gown. Her close, dark braids showed black against the fragrant wistaria vines and her eyes were deep and velvety in the soft light. "Yes, it was the summer I was eighteen and I had gone over with my father for a month or two of recuperation for him after a long extra session of Congress. Monsieur LaTour was staying in the little village, also recuperating. He heard me singing to father, and that night my fate was sealed. It was a wonderful thing to come to me—and I was so young."

"Tell me about it," said the Doctor quietly, and his voice was perfectly steady, though his heart pounded like mad and his cigar shook in his fingers.

"My father died at the end of the summer, after only a few day's illness, and he had grown to believe what LaTour said of my voice, and to have great confidence in my future. I had no near relatives and in his will he left me to Monsieur LaTour and Madame, his wife. She is an American and her father had been in the Senate with father for years. Monsieur is a very great teacher, perhaps the greatest living. Madame wanted to come to Providence with me, but Doctor Stein insisted that I come alone. I—I'm very glad she didn't, though they both love me and await—" She paused and leaned her flower head back against the wistaria vine.

And the great breath that Doctor Thomas Mayberry of Providence drew might have cracked the breast of a giant. In this world no record is kept of the great moments when a private individual's universe collides with his far star and of the crash that ensues.

"I rather thought you meant another—another kind of fate. I was preparing for confidences," he managed to say in a very small voice for so large a man.

"Mais, non, Monsieur, jamais—never!" she exclaimed quickly. "I—I—have been tempted to think sometimes I might like that sort—of a—fate, but I haven't had the time. It was work, work, sleep, eat, live for the voice! And—and once or twice it has seemed worth while. My debut night in Paris when I sang the Juliette waltz-song-just the moment when I realized I could use it as I would and always more volume—and the people! And again the night in New York when I had made it incarnate Elizabeth as she sings to Tannhauser—the night it went away." And as she spoke she dropped her head on her arms folded across her knees.

"Have you picked out the song you are going to sing first when it comes back?" demanded the very young Doctor with a quick note of tenderness in his voice, still under a marvelous control.

"Yes," she answered as she turned her head and peeped up at him with shining eyes, a delicious little burr of a laugh in her throat, "Rings on my fingers, bells on my toes, for Teether Pike. He is wild about my humming it, and dances with his absurd, chubby little legs at the first note. What will he do if I can really sing it? And I'll sing Beulah Land for Cindy, and I'm sitting on the stile, Mary, for your mother, perhaps, Oh, the kingdom of my heart for Buck, and Drink to me only, for Squire Tutt, hymns for the Deacon—and a paean for you, if I have to order one from New York."

"Do you know," said the Doctor after a long pause in which he lit his cigar and again began to puff rings out into the moonlight, "I'd like to say that you are—are a—perfect wonder."

"You may," she answered with a laugh. Then suddenly she stretched out her hand to him and, as he took it into his, she asked very quietly with just the one word, "When?"

"In a few weeks, I hope," he answered her just as quietly, comprehending her instantly.

"I'll be good—and wait," she answered him in a Hone of voice that would have done credit to little Bettie Pratt. "Let's hurry and get that bucket of water; don't you hear them singing the doxology?"



CHAPTER VI

THE PROVIDENCE TAG-GANG

"Miss Elinory, do you think getting married and such is ketching, like the mumps and chickenpox?" asked Eliza Pike as she sat on the steps at the daintily shod feet of the singer lady, who sat in Mother Mayberry's large arm-chair, swinging herself and Teether slowly to and fro, humming happily little vagrant airs that floated into her brain on the wings of their own melody. Teether's large blue eyes looked into hers with earnest rapture and his little head swayed on his slender neck in harmony with her singing.

"Why, Eliza, I'm sure I don't know. Do you think so?" answered Miss Wingate, as she smiled down into the large eyes raised to hers. The heart-to-heart communions, which she and Eliza found opportunities to hold, were a constant source of pleasure to Miss Wingate, and the child's quaint little personality unfolded itself delightedly in the sunshine of appreciation from this lady of her adoration.

"Yes'm, I believe I do. Mis' Pratt and Mr. Hoover started it, and last night Mr. Petway walked home with Aunt Prissy and Maw set two racking-chairs out on the front porch for 'em. Paw said he was more'n glad to set in the back yard and smoke his pipe. Maw wouldn't put Teether to bed, but rocked him in her lap 'cause he might wake up and disturb 'em. She let me set up with her and Paw and he told tales on the time he co'ted her. She said hush up, that co'ting was like mumps and chickenpox and he was about to get a second spell. Does it make you want a beau too, Miss Elinory?"

"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."

"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."