Aunt Jane of Kentucky
by Eliza Calvert Hall · English · Gutenberg #26728 · 350,218 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Aunt Jane of Kentucky
Author: Eliza Calvert Hall
Illustrator: Beulah Strong
Release date: September 30, 2008 [eBook #26728]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26728
Credits: Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUNT JANE OF KENTUCKY ***
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration:]
AUNT JANE
OF KENTUCKY
BY ELIZA CALVERT HALL
Author of "The Land of Long Ago."
WITH FRONTISPIECE AND PAGE DECORATIONS
BY BEULAH STRONG
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1899, 1900,
BY JOHN BRISBANE WALKER.
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY COSMOPOLITAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.
COPYRIGHT, 1907,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
* * * * *
TO
MY MOTHER AND FATHER
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
* * * * *
CHAPTERS
PAGE
I. SALLY ANN'S EXPERIENCE 1
II. THE NEW ORGAN 29
III. AUNT JANE'S ALBUM 53
IV. "SWEET DAY OF REST" 83
V. MILLY BAKER'S BOY 105
VI. THE BAPTIZING AT KITTLE CREEK 141
VII. HOW SAM AMOS RODE IN THE TOURNAMENT 169
VIII. MARY ANDREWS' DINNER-PARTY 193
IX. THE GARDENS OF MEMORY 247
* * * * *
"There is not an existence about us but at first seems
colorless, dreary, lethargic: what can our soul have in
common with that of an elderly spinster, a slow-witted
plowman, a miser who worships his gold?... But ... the
emotion that lived and died in an old-fashioned country
parlor shall as mightily stir our heart, shall as unerringly
find its way to the deepest sources of life as the majestic
passion that ruled the life of a king and shed its
triumphant luster from the dazzling height of a
throne."--_Maeterlinck_.
* * * * *
I
SALLY ANN'S EXPERIENCE
[Illustration: ]
"Come right in and set down. I was jest wishin' I had somebody to talk
to. Take that chair right by the door so's you can get the breeze."
And Aunt Jane beamed at me over her silver-rimmed spectacles and
hitched her own chair a little to one side, in order to give me the
full benefit of the wind that was blowing softly through the
white-curtained window, and carrying into the room the heavenliest
odors from a field of clover that lay in full bloom just across the
road. For it was June in Kentucky, and clover and blue-grass were
running sweet riot over the face of the earth.
Aunt Jane and her room together always carried me back to a dead and
gone generation. There was a rag carpet on the floor, of the
"hit-or-miss" pattern; the chairs were ancient Shaker rockers, some
with homely "shuck" bottoms, and each had a tidy of snowy thread or
crochet cotton fastened primly over the back. The high bed and bureau
and a shining mahogany table suggested an era of "plain living" far,
far remote from the day of Turkish rugs and Japanese bric-a-brac, and
Aunt Jane was in perfect correspondence with her environment. She wore
a purple calico dress, rather short and scant; a gingham apron, with a
capacious pocket, in which she always carried knitting or some other
"handy work"; a white handkerchief was laid primly around the wrinkled
throat and fastened with a pin containing a lock of gray hair; her cap
was of black lace and lutestring ribbon, not one of the butterfly
affairs that perch on the top of the puffs and frizzes of the modern
old lady, but a substantial structure that covered her whole head and
was tied securely under her chin. She talked in a sweet old treble
with a little lisp, caused by the absence of teeth, and her laugh was
as clear and joyous as a young girl's.
"Yes, I'm a-piecin' quilts again," she said, snipping away at the bits
of calico in her lap. "I did say I was done with that sort o' work;
but this mornin' I was rummagin' around up in the garret, and I come
across this bundle of pieces, and thinks I, 'I reckon it's intended
for me to piece one more quilt before I die;' I must 'a' put 'em there
thirty years ago and clean forgot 'em, and I've been settin' here all
the evenin' cuttin' 'em and thinkin' about old times.
"Jest feel o' that," she continued, tossing some scraps into my lap.
"There ain't any such caliker nowadays. This ain't your five-cent
stuff that fades in the first washin' and wears out in the second. A
caliker dress was somethin' worth buyin' and worth makin' up in them
days. That blue-flowered piece was a dress I got the spring before
Abram died. When I put on mournin' it was as good as new, and I give
it to sister Mary. That one with the green ground and white figger was
my niece Rebecca's. She wore it for the first time to the County Fair
the year I took the premium on my salt-risin' bread and sponge cake.
This black-an'-white piece Sally Ann Flint give me. I ricollect 'twas
in blackberry time, and I'd been out in the big pasture pickin' some
for supper, and I stopped in at Sally Ann's for a drink o' water on my
way back. She was cuttin' out this dress."
Aunt Jane broke off with a little soprano laugh.
"Did I ever tell you about Sally Ann's experience?" she said, as she
laid two three-cornered pieces together and began to sew with her
slender, nervous old fingers.
To find Aunt Jane alone and in a reminiscent mood! This was
delightful.
"Do tell me," I said.
Aunt Jane was silent for a few moments. She always made this pause
before beginning a story, and there was something impressive about it.
I used to think she was making an invocation to the goddess of Memory.
"'Twas forty years ago," she began musingly, "and the way of it was
this. Our church was considerably out o' fix. It needed a new roof.
Some o' the winder lights was out, and the floor was as bare as your
hand, and always had been. The men folks managed to git the roof
shingled and the winders fixed, and us women in the Mite Society
concluded we'd git a cyarpet. We'd been savin' up our money for some
time, and we had about twelve dollars. I ricollect what a argument we
had, for some of us wanted the cyarpet, and some wanted to give it to
furrin missions, as we'd set out to do at first. Sally Ann was the one
that settled it. She says at last--Sally Ann was in favor of the
cyarpet--she says, 'Well, if any of the heathen fails to hear the
gospel on account of our gittin' this cyarpet, they'll be saved
anyhow, so Parson Page says. And if we send the money and they do hear
the gospel, like as not they won't repent, and then they're certain to
be damned. And it seems to me as long as we ain't sure what they'll
do, we might as well keep the money and git the cyarpet. I never did
see much sense anyhow,' says she, 'in givin' people a chance to damn
theirselves.'
"Well, we decided to take Sally Ann's advice, and we was talkin' about
app'intin' a committee to go to town the follerin' Monday and pick out
the cyarpet, when all at once 'Lizabeth Taylor--she was our
treasurer--she spoke up, and says she, 'There ain't any use app'intin'
that committee. The money's gone,' she says, sort o' short and quick.
'I kept it in my top bureau drawer, and when I went for it yesterday,
it was gone. I'll pay it back if I'm ever able, but I ain't able now.'
And with that she got up and walked out o' the room, before any one
could say a word, and we seen her goin' down the road lookin' straight
before her and walkin' right fast.
"And we--we set there and stared at each other in a sort o' dazed way.
I could see that everybody was thinkin' the same thing, but nobody
said a word, till our minister's wife--she was as good a woman as ever
lived--she says, '_Judge not_.'
"Them two words was jest like a sermon to us. Then Sally Ann spoke up
and says: 'For the Lord's sake, don't let the men folks know anything
about this. They're always sayin' that women ain't fit to handle
money, and I for one don't want to give 'em any more ground to stand
on than they've already got.'
"So we agreed to say nothin' about it, and all of us kept our promise
except Milly Amos. She had mighty little sense to begin with, and
havin' been married only about two months, she'd about lost that
little. So next mornin' I happened to meet Sam Amos, and he says to
me, 'Aunt Jane, how much money have you women got to'rds the new
cyarpet for the church?' I looked him square in the face, and I says,
'Are you a member of the Ladies' Mite Society of Goshen church, Sam
Amos? For if you are, you already know how much money we've got, and
if you ain't, you've got no business knowin'. And, furthermore,' says
I, 'there's some women that can't keep a secret and a promise, and
some that can, and _I_ can.' And that settled _him_.
"Well, 'Lizabeth never showed her face outside her door for more'n a
month afterwards, and a more pitiful-lookin' creatur' you never saw
than she was when she come out to prayer-meetin' the night Sally Ann
give her experience. She set 'way back in the church, and she was as
pale and peaked as if she had been through a siege of typhoid. I
ricollect it all as if it had been yesterday. We sung 'Sweet Hour of
Prayer,' and Parson Page prayed, and then called on the brethren to
say anything they might feel called on to say concernin' their
experience in the past week. Old Uncle Jim Matthews begun to clear his
throat, and I knew, as well as I knew my name, he was fixin' to git up
and tell how precious the Lord had been to his soul, jest like he'd
been doin' every Wednesday night for twenty years. But before he got
started, here come 'Lizabeth walkin' down the side aisle and stopped
right in front o' the pulpit.
"'I've somethin' to say,' she says. 'It's been on my mind till I can't
stand it any longer. I've got to tell it, or I'll go crazy. It was me
that took that cyarpet money. I only meant to borrow it. I thought
sure I'd be able to pay it back before it was wanted. But things went
wrong, and I ain't known a peaceful minute since, and never shall
again, I reckon. I took it to pay my way up to Louisville, the time I
got the news that Mary was dyin'.'
"Mary was her daughter by her first husband, you see. 'I begged Jacob
to give me the money to go on,' says she, 'and he wouldn't do it. I
tried to give up and stay, but I jest couldn't. Mary was all I had in
the world; and maybe you that has children can put yourself in my
place, and know what it would be to hear your only child callin' to
you from her death-bed, and you not able to go to her. I asked Jacob
three times for the money,' she says, 'and when I found he wouldn't
give it to me, I said to myself, "I'm goin' anyhow." I got down on my
knees,' says she, 'and asked the Lord to show me a way, and I felt
sure he would. As soon as Jacob had eat his breakfast and gone out on
the farm, I dressed myself, and as I opened the top bureau drawer to
get out my best collar, I saw the missionary money. It come right
into my head,' says she, 'that maybe this was the answer to my prayer;
maybe I could borrow this money, and pay it back some way or other
before it was called for. I tried to put it out o' my head, but the
thought kept comin' back; and when I went down into the sittin'-room
to get Jacob's cyarpetbag to carry a few things in, I happened to look
up at the mantelpiece and saw the brass candlesticks with prisms all
'round 'em that used to belong to my mother; and all at once I seemed
to see jest what the Lord intended for me to do.
"'You know,' she says, 'I had a boarder summer before last--that lady
from Louisville--and she wanted them candlesticks the worst kind, and
offered me fifteen dollars for 'em. I wouldn't part with 'em then, but
she said if ever I wanted to sell 'em, to let her know, and she left
her name and address on a cyard. I went to the big Bible and got out
the cyard, and I packed the candlesticks in the cyarpetbag, and put on
my bonnet. When I opened the door I looked up the road, and the first
thing I saw was Dave Crawford comin' along in his new buggy. I went
out to the gate, and he drew up and asked me if I was goin' to town,
and said he'd take me. It looked like the Lord was leadin' me all the
time,' says she, 'but the way things turned out it must 'a' been
Satan. I got to Mary just two hours before she died, and she looked up
in my face and says, "Mother, I knew God wouldn't let me die till I'd
seen you once more."'"
Here Aunt Jane took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.
"I can't tell this without cryin' to save my life," said she; "but
'Lizabeth never shed a tear. She looked like she'd got past cryin',
and she talked straight on as if she'd made up her mind to say jest so
much, and she'd die if she didn't git to say it."
"'As soon as the funeral was over,' says she, 'I set out to find the
lady that wanted the candlesticks. She wasn't at home, but her niece
was there, and said she'd heard her aunt speak of the candlesticks
often; and she'd be home in a few days and would send me the money
right off. I come home thinkin' it was all right, and I kept expectin'
the money every day, but it never come till day before yesterday. I
wrote three times about it, but I never got a word from her till
Monday. She had just got home, she said, and hoped I hadn't been
inconvenienced by the delay. She wrote a nice, polite letter and sent
me a check for fifteen dollars, and here it is. I wanted to confess
it all that day at the Mite Society, but somehow I couldn't till I had
the money right in my hand to pay back. If the lady had only come back
when her niece said she was comin', it would all have turned out
right, but I reckon it's a judgment on me for meddling with the Lord's
money. God only knows what I've suffered,' says she, 'but if I had to
do it over again, I believe I'd do it. Mary was all the child I had in
the world, and I had to see her once more before she died. I've been a
member of this church for twenty years,' says she, 'but I reckon
you'll have to turn me out now.'
"The pore thing stood there tremblin' and holdin' out the check as if
she expected somebody to come and take it. Old Silas Petty was
glowerin' at her from under his eyebrows, and it put me in mind of the
Pharisees and the woman they wanted to stone, and I ricollect
thinkin', 'Oh, if the Lord Jesus would jest come in and take her
part!' And while we all set there like a passel o' mutes, Sally Ann
got up and marched down the middle aisle and stood right by 'Lizabeth.
You know what funny thoughts people will have sometimes.
"Well, I felt so relieved. It popped into my head all at once that we
didn't need the Lord after all, Sally Ann would do jest as well. It
seemed sort o' like sacrilege, but I couldn't help it.
"Well, Sally Ann looked all around as composed as you please, and says
she, 'I reckon if anybody's turned out o' this church on account o'
that miserable little money, it'll be Jacob and not 'Lizabeth. A man
that won't give his wife money to go to her dyin' child is too mean to
stay in a Christian church anyhow; and I'd like to know how it is that
a woman, that had eight hundred dollars when she married, has to go to
her husband and git down on her knees and beg for what's her own.
Where's that money 'Lizabeth had when she married you?' says she,
turnin' round and lookin' Jacob in the face. 'Down in that ten-acre
medder lot, ain't it?--and in that new barn you built last spring. A
pretty elder you are, ain't you? Elders don't seem to have improved
much since Susannah's times. If there ain't one sort o' meanness in
'em it's another,' says she.
"Goodness knows what she would 'a' said, but jest here old Deacon
Petty rose up. And says he, 'Brethren,'--and he spread his arms out
and waved 'em up and down like he was goin' to pray,--'brethren, this
is awful! If this woman wants to give her religious experience, why,'
says he, very kind and condescendin', 'of course she can do so. But
when it comes to a _woman_ standin' up in the house of the Lord and
revilin' an elder as this woman is doin', why, I tremble,' says he,
'for the church of Christ. For don't the Apostle Paul say, "Let your
women keep silence in the church"?'
"As soon as he named the 'Postle Paul, Sally Ann give a kind of snort.
Sally Ann was terrible free-spoken. And when Deacon Petty said that,
she jest squared herself like she intended to stand there till
judgment day, and says she, 'The 'Postle Paul has been dead ruther too
long for me to be afraid of him. And I never heard of him app'intin'
Deacon Petty to represent him in this church. If the 'Postle Paul
don't like what I'm sayin', let him rise up from his grave in
Corinthians or Ephesians, or wherever he's buried, and say so. I've
got a message from the Lord to the men folks of this church, and I'm
goin' to deliver it, Paul or no Paul,' says she. 'And as for you,
Silas Petty, I ain't forgot the time I dropped in to see Maria one
Saturday night and found her washin' out her flannel petticoat and
dryin' it before the fire. And every time I've had to hear you lead in
prayer since then I've said to myself, "Lord, how high can a man's
prayers rise toward heaven when his wife ain't got but one flannel
skirt to her name? No higher than the back of his pew, if you'll let
me tell it." I knew jest how it was,' said Sally Ann, 'as well as if
Maria'd told me. She'd been havin' the milk and butter money from the
old roan cow she'd raised from a little heifer, and jest because feed
was scarce, you'd sold her off before Maria had money enough to buy
her winter flannels. I can give my experience, can I? Well, that's
jest what I'm a-doin',' says she; 'and while I'm about it,' says she,
'I'll give in some experience for 'Lizabeth and Maria and the rest of
the women who, betwixt their husbands an' the 'Postle Paul, have about
lost all the gumption and grit that the Lord started them out with. If
the 'Postle Paul,' says she, 'has got anything to say about a woman
workin' like a slave for twenty-five years and then havin' to set up
an' wash out her clothes Saturday night, so's she can go to church
clean Sunday mornin', I'd like to hear it. But don't you dare to say
anything to me about keepin' silence in the church. There was times
when Paul says he didn't know whether he had the Spirit of God or not,
and I'm certain that when he wrote that text he wasn't any more
inspired than you are, Silas Petty, when you tell Maria to shut her
mouth.'
"Job Taylor was settin' right in front of Deacon Petty, and I reckon
he thought his time was comin' next; so he gets up, easy-like, with
his red bandanna to his mouth, and starts out. But Sally Ann headed
him off before he'd gone six steps, and says she, 'There ain't
anything the matter with you, Job Taylor; you set right down and hear
what I've got to say. I've knelt and stood through enough o' your
long-winded prayers, and now it's my time to talk and yours to
listen.'
"And bless your life, if Job didn't set down as meek as Moses, and
Sally Ann lit right into him. And says she, 'I reckon you're afraid
I'll tell some o' your meanness, ain't you? And the only thing that
stands in my way is that there's so much to tell I don't know where to
begin. There ain't a woman in this church,' says she, 'that don't know
how Marthy scrimped and worked and saved to buy her a new set o'
furniture, and how you took the money with you when you went to
Cincinnata, the spring before she died, and come back without the
furniture. And when she asked you for the money, you told her that she
and everything she had belonged to you, and that your mother's old
furniture was good enough for anybody. It's my belief,' says she,
'that's what killed Marthy. Women are dyin' every day, and the
doctors will tell you it's some new-fangled disease or other, when, if
the truth was known, it's nothin' but wantin' somethin' they can't
git, and hopin' and waitin' for somethin' that never comes. I've
watched 'em, and I know. The night before Marthy died she says to me,
"Sally Ann," says she, "I could die a heap peacefuler if I jest knew
the front room was fixed up right with a new set of furniture for the
funeral."' And Sally Ann p'inted her finger right at Job and says she,
'I said it then, and I say it now to your face, Job Taylor, you killed
Marthy the same as if you'd taken her by the throat and choked the
life out of her.'
"Mary Embry, Job's sister-in-law, was settin' right behind me, and I
heard her say, 'Amen!' as fervent as if somebody had been prayin'. Job
set there, lookin' like a sheep-killin' dog, and Sally Ann went right
on. 'I know,' says she, 'the law gives you the right to your wives'
earnin's and everything they've got, down to the clothes on their
backs; and I've always said there was some Kentucky law that was made
for the express purpose of encouragin' men in their natural
meanness,--a p'int in which the Lord knows they don't need no
encouragin'. There's some men,' says she, 'that'll sneak behind the
'Postle Paul when they're plannin' any meanness against their wives,
and some that runs to the law, and you're one of the law kind. But
mark my words,' says she, 'one of these days, you men who've been
stealin' your wives' property and defraudin' 'em, and cheatin' 'em out
o' their just dues, you'll have to stand before a Judge that cares
mighty little for Kentucky law; and all the law and all the Scripture
you can bring up won't save you from goin' where the rich man went.'
"I can see Sally Ann right now," and Aunt Jane pushed her glasses up
on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through
the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering
softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old
black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh
up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest _had to_.
I heard Dave Crawford shufflin' his feet and clearin' his throat while
Sally Ann was talkin' to Job. Dave's farm j'ined Sally Ann's, and they
had a lawsuit once about the way a fence ought to run, and Sally Ann
beat him. He always despised Sally Ann after that, and used to call
her a 'he-woman.' Sally Ann heard the shufflin', and as soon as she
got through with Job, she turned around to Dave, and says she: 'Do you
think your hemmin' and scrapin' is goin' to stop me, Dave Crawford?
You're one o' the men that makes me think that it's better to be a
Kentucky horse than a Kentucky woman. Many's the time,' says she,
'I've seen pore July with her head tied up, crawlin' around tryin' to
cook for sixteen harvest hands, and you out in the stable cossetin' up
a sick mare, and rubbin' down your three-year-olds to get 'em in trim
for the fair. Of all the things that's hard to understand,' says she,
'the hardest is a man that has more mercy on his horse than he has on
his wife. July's found rest at last,' says she, 'out in the graveyard;
and every time I pass your house I thank the Lord that you've got to
pay a good price for your cookin' now, as there ain't a woman in the
country fool enough to step into July's shoes.'
"But, la!" said Aunt Jane, breaking off with her happy laugh,--the
laugh of one who revels in rich memories,--"what's the use of me
tellin' all this stuff? The long and the short of it is, that Sally
Ann had her say about nearly every man in the church. She told how
Mary Embry had to cut up her weddin' skirts to make clothes for her
first baby; and how John Martin stopped Hannah one day when she was
carryin' her mother a pound of butter, and made her go back and put
the butter down in the cellar; and how Lije Davison used to make Ann
pay him for every bit of chicken feed, and then take half the egg
money because the chickens got into his garden; and how Abner Page
give his wife twenty-five cents for spendin' money the time she went
to visit her sister.
"Sally Ann always was a masterful sort of woman, and that night it
seemed like she was possessed. The way she talked made me think of the
Day of Pentecost and the gift of tongues. And finally she got to the
minister! I'd been wonderin' all along if she was goin' to let him
off. She turned around to where he was settin' under the pulpit, and
says she, 'Brother Page, you're a good man, but you ain't so good you
couldn't be better. It was jest last week,' says she, 'that the women
come around beggin' money to buy you a new suit of clothes to go to
Presbytery in; and I told 'em if it was to get Mis' Page a new dress,
I was ready to give; but not a dime was I goin' to give towards
puttin' finery on a man's back. I'm tired o' seein' the ministers
walk up into the pulpit in their slick black broadcloths, and their
wives settin' down in the pew in an old black silk that's been turned
upside down, wrong side out, and hind part before, and sponged, and
pressed, and made over till you can't tell whether it's silk, or
caliker, or what.'
"Well, I reckon there was some o' the women that expected the roof to
fall down on us when Sally Ann said that right to the minister. But it
didn't fall, and Sally Ann went straight on. 'And when it comes to the
perseverance of the saints and the decrees of God,' says she, 'there
ain't many can preach a better sermon; but there's some of your
sermons,' says she, 'that ain't fit for much but kindlin' fires.
There's that one you preached last Sunday on the twenty-fourth verse
of the fifth chapter of Ephesians. I reckon I've heard about a hundred
and fifty sermons on that text, and I reckon I'll keep on hearin' 'em
as long as there ain't anybody but men to do the preachin'. Anybody
would think,' says she, 'that you preachers was struck blind every
time you git through with the twenty-fourth verse, for I never heard a
sermon on the twenty-fifth verse. I believe there's men in this church
that thinks the fifth chapter of Ephesians hasn't got but twenty-four
verses, and I'm goin' to read the rest of it to 'em for once anyhow.'
"And if Sally Ann didn't walk right up into the pulpit same as if
she'd been ordained, and read what Paul said about men lovin' their
wives as Christ loved the church, and as they loved their own bodies.
"'Now,' says she, 'if Brother Page can reconcile these texts with what
Paul says about women submittin' and bein' subject, he's welcome to do
it. But,' says she, 'if I had the preachin' to do, I wouldn't waste
time reconcilin'. I'd jest say that when Paul told women to be subject
to their husbands in everything, he wasn't inspired; and when he told
men to love their wives as their own bodies, he was inspired; and I'd
like to see the Presbytery that could silence me from preachin' as
long as I wanted to preach. As for turnin' out o' the church,' says
she, 'I'd like to know who's to do the turnin' out. When the disciples
brought that woman to Christ there wasn't a man in the crowd fit to
cast a stone at her; and if there's any man nowadays good enough to
set in judgment on a woman, his name ain't on the rolls of Goshen
church. If 'Lizabeth,' says she, 'had as much common sense as she's
got conscience, she'd know that the matter o' that money didn't
concern nobody but our Mite Society, and we women can settle it
without any help from you deacons and elders.'
"Well, I reckon Parson Page thought if he didn't head Sally Ann off
some way or other she'd go on all night; so when she kind o' stopped
for breath and shut up the big Bible, he grabbed a hymn-book and says:
"'Let us sing "Blest be the Tie that Binds."'
"He struck up the tune himself; and about the middle of the first
verse Mis' Page got up and went over to where 'Lizabeth was standin',
and give her the right hand of fellowship, and then Mis' Petty did the
same; and first thing we knew we was all around her shakin' hands and
huggin' her and cryin' over her. 'Twas a reg'lar love-feast; and we
went home feelin' like we'd been through a big protracted meetin' and
got religion over again.
"'Twasn't more'n a week till 'Lizabeth was down with slow
fever--nervous collapse, old Dr. Pendleton called it. We took turns
nursin' her, and one day she looked up in my face and says, 'Jane, I
know now what the mercy of the Lord is.'"
Here Aunt Jane paused, and began to cut three-cornered pieces out of a
time-stained square of flowered chintz. The quilt was to be of the
wild-goose pattern. There was a drowsy hum from the bee-hive near the
window, and the shadows were lengthening as sunset approached.
"One queer thing about it," she resumed, "was that while Sally Ann was
talkin', not one of us felt like laughin'. We set there as solemn as
if parson was preachin' to us on 'lection and predestination. But
whenever I think about it now, I laugh fit to kill. And I've thought
many a time that Sally Ann's plain talk to them men done more good
than all the sermons us women had had preached to us about bein'
'shame-faced' and 'submittin'' ourselves to our husbands, for every
one o' them women come out in new clothes that spring, and such a
change as it made in some of 'em! I wouldn't be surprised if she did
have a message to deliver, jest as she said. The Bible says an ass
spoke up once and reproved a man, and I reckon if an ass can reprove a
man, so can a woman. And it looks to me like men stand in need of
reprovin' now as much as they did in Balaam's days.
"Jacob died the follerin' fall, and 'Lizabeth got shed of her
troubles. The triflin' scamp never married her for anything but her
money.
"Things is different from what they used to be," she went on, as she
folded her pieces into a compact bundle and tied it with a piece of
gray yarn. "My son-in-law was tellin' me last summer how a passel o'
women kept goin' up to Frankfort and so pesterin' the Legislatur',
that they had to change the laws to git rid of 'em. So married women
now has all the property rights they want, and more'n some of 'em has
sense to use, I reckon."
"How about you and Uncle Abram?" I suggested. "Didn't Sally Ann say
anything about you in her experience?"
Aunt Jane's black eyes snapped with some of the fire of her long-past
youth. "La! no, child," she said. "Abram never was that kind of a man,
and I never was that kind of a woman. I ricollect as we was walkin'
home that night Abram says, sort o' humble-like: 'Jane, hadn't you
better git that brown merino you was lookin' at last County Court
day?'
"And I says, 'Don't you worry about that brown merino, Abram. It's
a-lyin' in my bottom drawer right now. I told the storekeeper to cut
it off jest as soon as your back was turned, and Mis' Simpson is goin'
to make it next week.' And Abram he jest laughed, and says, 'Well,
Jane, I never saw your beat.' You see, I never was any hand at
'submittin'' myself to my husband, like some women. I've often
wondered if Abram wouldn't 'a' been jest like Silas Petty if I'd been
like Maria. I've noticed that whenever a woman's willin' to be imposed
upon, there's always a man standin' 'round ready to do the imposin'. I
never went to a law-book to find out what my rights was. I did my duty
faithful to Abram, and when I wanted anything I went and got it, and
Abram paid for it, and I can't see but what we got on jest as well as
we'd 'a' done if I'd a-'submitted' myself."
Longer and longer grew the shadows, and the faint tinkle of bells came
in through the windows. The cows were beginning to come home. The
spell of Aunt Jane's dramatic art was upon me. I began to feel that my
own personality had somehow slipped away from me, and those dead
people, evoked from their graves by an old woman's histrionism, seemed
more real to me than my living, breathing self.
"There now, I've talked you clean to death," she said with a happy
laugh, as I rose to go. "But we've had a real nice time, and I'm glad
you come."
The sun was almost down as I walked slowly away. When I looked back,
at the turn of the road, Aunt Jane was standing on the door-step,
shading her eyes and peering across the level fields. I knew what it
meant. Beyond the fields was a bit of woodland, and in one corner of
that you might, if your eyesight was good, discern here and there a
glimpse of white. It was the old burying-ground of Goshen church; and
I knew by the strained attitude and intent gaze of the watcher in the
door that somewhere in the sunlit space between Aunt Jane's door-step
and the little country graveyard, the souls of the living and the dead
were keeping a silent tryst.
[Illustration]
II
THE NEW ORGAN
[Illustration]
"Gittin' a new organ is a mighty different thing nowadays from what it
was when I was young," said Aunt Jane judicially, as she lifted a
panful of yellow harvest apples from the table and began to peel them
for dumplings.
Potatoes, peas, and asparagus were bubbling on the stove, and the
dumplings were in honor of the invited guest, who had begged the
privilege of staying in the kitchen awhile. Aunt Jane was one of
those rare housekeepers whose kitchens are more attractive than the
parlors of other people.
"And gittin' religion is different, too," she continued, propping her
feet on the round of a chair for the greater comfort and convenience
of her old knees. "Both of 'em is a heap easier than they used to be,
and the organs is a heap better. I don't know whether the religion's
any better or not. You know I went up to my daughter Mary Frances'
last week, and the folks up there was havin' a big meetin' in the
Tabernicle, and that's how come me to be thinkin' about organs.
"The preacher was an evangelist, as they call him, Sam Joynes, from
'way down South. In my day he'd 'a' been called the Rev. Samuel
Joynes. Folks didn't call their preachers Tom, Dick, and Harry, and
Jim and Sam, like they do now. I'd like to 'a' seen anybody callin'
Parson Page 'Lem Page.' He was the Rev. Lemuel Page, and don't you
forgit it. But things is different, as I said awhile ago, and even the
little boys says 'Sam Joynes,' jest like he played marbles with 'em
every day. I went to the Tabernicle three or four times; and of all
the preachers that ever I heard, he certainly is the beatenest. Why,
I ain't laughed so much since me and Abram went to Barnum's circus,
the year before the war. He was preachin' one day about cleanliness
bein' next to godliness, which it certainly is, and he says, 'You old
skunk, you!' But, la! the worse names he called 'em the better they
'peared to like it, and sinners was converted wholesale every time he
preached. But there wasn't no goin' to the mourners' bench and
mournin' for your sins and havin' people prayin' and cryin' over you.
They jest set and laughed and grinned while he was gittin' off his
jokes, and then they'd go up and shake hands with him, and there they
was all saved and ready to be baptized and taken into the church."
Just here the old yellow rooster fluttered up to the door-step and
gave a hoarse, ominous crow.
"There, now! You hear that?" said Aunt Jane, as she tossed him a
golden peeling from her pan. "There's some folks that gives right up
and looks for sickness or death or bad news every time a rooster crows
in the door. But I never let such things bother me. The Bible says
that nobody knows what a day may bring forth, and if I don't know, it
ain't likely my old yeller rooster does.
"What was I talkin' about? Oh, yes--the big meetin'. Well, I never was
any hand to say that old ways is best, and I don't say so now. If you
can convert a man by callin' him a polecat, why, call him one, of
course. And mournin' ain't always a sign o' true repentance. They used
to tell how Silas Petty mourned for forty days, and, as Sally Ann
said, he had about as much religion as old Dan Tucker's Derby ram.
"However, it was the organ I set out to tell about. It's jest like me
to wander away from the p'int. Abram always said a text would have to
be made like a postage stamp for me to stick to it. You see, they'd
jest got a fine new organ at Mary Frances' church, and she was tellin'
me how they paid for it. One man give five hundred dollars, and
another give three hundred; then they collected four or five hundred
amongst the other members, and give a lawn party and a strawberry
festival and raised another hundred. It set me to thinkin' o' the time
us women got the organ for Goshen church. It wasn't any light matter,
for, besides the money it took us nearly three years to raise, there
was the opposition. Come to think of it, we raised more opposition
than we did money."
And Aunt Jane laughed a blithe laugh and tossed another peeling to
the yellow rooster, who had dropped the role of harbinger of evil and
was posing as a humble suppliant.
"An organ in them days, honey, was jest a wedge to split the church
half in two. It was the new cyarpet that brought on the organ. You
know how it is with yourself; you git a new dress, and then you've got
to have a new bonnet, and then you can't wear your old shoes and
gloves with a new dress and a new bonnet, and the first thing you know
you've spent five times as much as you set out to spend. That's the
way it was with us about the cyarpet and the organ and the pulpit
chairs and the communion set.
"Most o' the men folks was against the organ from the start, and Silas
Petty was the foremost. Silas made a p'int of goin' against everything
that women favored. Sally Ann used to say that if a woman was to come
up to him and say, 'Le's go to heaven,' Silas would start off towards
the other place right at once; he was jest that mulish and contrairy.
He met Sally Ann one day, and says he, 'Jest give you women rope
enough and you'll turn the house o' the Lord into a reg'lar toy-shop.'
And Sally Ann she says, 'You'd better go home, Silas, and read the
book of Exodus. If the Lord told Moses how to build the Tabernicle
with the goats' skins and rams' skins and blue and purple and scarlet
and fine linen and candlesticks with six branches, I reckon he won't
object to a few yards o' cyarpetin' and a little organ in Goshen
church.'
"Sally Ann always had an answer ready, and I used to think she knew
more about the Bible than Parson Page did himself.
"Of course Uncle Jim Matthews didn't want the organ; he was afraid it
might interfere with his singin'. Job Taylor always stood up for
Silas, so he didn't want it; and Parson Page never opened his mouth
one way or the other. He was one o' those men that tries to set on
both sides o' the fence at once, and he'd set that way so long he was
a mighty good hand at balancin' himself.
"Us women didn't say much, but we made up our minds to have the organ.
So we went to work in the Mite Society, and in less'n three years we
had enough money to git it. I've often wondered how many pounds o'
butter and how many baskets of eggs it took to raise that money. I
reckon if they'd 'a' been piled up on top of each other they'd 'a'
reached to the top o' the steeple. The women of Israel brought their
ear-rings and bracelets to help build the Tabernicle, but we had jest
our egg and butter money, and the second year, when the chicken
cholery was so bad, our prospects looked mighty blue.
"When I saw that big organ up at Danville, I couldn't help thinkin'
about the little thing we worked so hard to git. 'Twasn't much
bigger'n a washstand, and I reckon if I was to hear it now, I'd think
it was mighty feeble and squeaky. But it sounded fine enough to us in
them days, and, little as it was, it raised a disturbance for miles
around.
"When it come down from Louisville, Abram went to town with his
two-horse wagon and brought it out and set it up in our parlor. My
Jane had been takin' lessons in town all winter, so's to be able to
play on it.
"We had a right good choir for them days; the only trouble was that
everybody wanted to be leader. That's a common failin' with church
choirs, I've noticed. Milly Amos sung soprano, and my Jane was the
alto; John Petty sung bass, and young Sam Crawford tenor; and as for
Uncle Jim Matthews, he sung everything, and a plenty of it, too. Milly
Amos used to say he was worse'n a flea. He'd start out on the bass,
and first thing you knew he'd be singin' tenor with Sam Crawford; and
by the time Sam was good and mad, he'd be off onto the alto or the
soprano. He was one o' these meddlesome old creeturs that thinks the
world never moved till they got into it, and they've got to help
everybody out with whatever they happen to be doin'. You've heard o'
children bein' born kickin'. Well, Uncle Jim must 'a' been born
singin'. I've seen people that said they didn't like the idea o' goin'
to heaven and standin' around a throne and singin' hymns for ever and
ever; but you couldn't 'a' pleased Uncle Jim better than to set him
down in jest that sort o' heaven. Wherever there was a chance to get
in some singin', there you'd be sure to find Uncle Jim. Folks used to
say he enjoyed a funeral a heap better than he did a weddin', 'cause
he could sing at the funeral, and he couldn't at the weddin'; and Sam
Crawford said he believed if Gabriel was to come down and blow his
trumpet, Uncle Jim would git up and begin to sing.
"It wouldn't 'a' been so bad if he'd had any sort of a voice; but he'd
been singin' all his life and hollerin' at protracted meetin's ever
since he got religion, till he'd sung and hollered all the music out
of his voice, and there wasn't much left but the old creaky machinery.
It used to make me think of an old rickety house with the blinds
flappin' in the wind. It mortified us terrible to have any of the
Methodists or Babtists come to our church. We was sort o' used to the
old man's capers, but people that wasn't couldn't keep a straight face
when the singin' begun, and it took more grace than any of us had to
keep from gittin' mad when we seen people from another church laughin'
at our choir.
"The Babtists had a powerful protracted meetin' one winter. Uncle Jim
was there to help with the singin', as a matter of course, and he
begun to git mightily interested in Babtist doctrines. Used to go home
with 'em after church and talk about Greek and Hebrew words till the
clock struck twelve. And one communion Sunday he got up solemn as a
owl and marched out o' church jest before the bread and wine was
passed. Made out like he warn't sure he'd been rightly babtized. The
choir was mightily tickled at the idea o' gittin' shed o' the old
pest, and Sam Crawford went to him and told him he was on the right
track and to go ahead, for the Babtists was undoubtedly correct, and
if it wasn't for displeasin' his father and mother he'd jine 'em
himself. And then--Sam never could let well enough alone--then he went
to Bush Elrod, the Babtist tenor, and says he, 'I hear you're goin'
to have a new member in your choir.' And Bush says, 'Well, if the old
idiot ever jines this church, we'll hold his head under the water so
long that he won't be able to spile good music agin.' And then he give
Uncle Jim a hint o' how things was; and when Uncle Jim heard that the
Presbyterians was anxious to git shed of him, he found out right away
that all them Greek and Hebrew words meant sprinklin' and infant
babtism. So he settled down to stay where he was, and hollered
louder'n ever the next Sunday.
"The old man was a good enough Christian, I reckon; but when it come
to singin', he was a stumblin'-block and rock of offense to the whole
church, and especially to the choir. The first thing Sally Ann said
when she looked at the new organ was, 'Well, Jane, how do you reckon
it's goin' to sound with Uncle Jim's voice?' and I laughed till I had
to set down in a cheer.
"Well, when the men folks found out that our organ had come, they
begun to wake up. Abram had brought it out Tuesday, and Wednesday
night, as soon as prayer-meetin' broke, Parson Page says, says he:
'Brethren, there is a little business to be transacted. Please remain
a few minutes longer.' And then, when we had set down again, he went
on to say that the sisters had raised money and bought an organ, and
there was some division of opinion among the brethren about usin' it,
so he would like to have the matter discussed. He used a lot o' big
words and talked mighty smooth, and I knew there was trouble ahead for
us women.
"Uncle Jim was the first one to speak. He was so anxious to begin, he
could hardly wait for Parson Page to stop; and anybody would 'a'
thought that he'd been up to heaven and talked with the Father and the
Son and the Holy Ghost and all the angels, to hear him tell about the
sort o' music there was in heaven, and the sort there ought to be on
earth. 'Why, brethren,' says he, 'when John saw the heavens opened
there wasn't no organs up there. God don't keer nothin',' says he,
'about such new-fangled, worldly instruments. But when a lot o' sweet
human voices git to praisin' him, why, the very angels stop singin' to
listen.'
"Milly Amos was right behind me, and she leaned over and says, 'Well,
if the angels'd rather hear Uncle Jim's singin' than our organ,
they've got mighty pore taste, that's all I've got to say.'
"Silas Petty was the next one to git up, and says he: 'I never was in
favor o' doin' things half-way, brethren; and if we've got to have the
organ, why, we might as well have a monkey, too, and be done with it.
For my part,' says he, 'I want to worship in the good old way my
fathers and grandfathers worshiped in, and, unless my feelin's change
very considerable, I shall have to withdraw from this church if any
such Satan's music-box is set up in this holy place.'
"And Sally Ann turned around and whispered to me, 'We ought to 'a' got
that organ long ago, Jane.' I like to 'a' laughed right out, and I
leaned over, and says I, 'Why don't you git up and talk for us, Sally
Ann?' and she says: 'The spirit ain't moved me, Jane. I reckon it's
too busy movin' Uncle Jim and Silas Petty.'
"Jest then I looked around, and there was Abram standin' up. Well, you
could 'a' knocked me over with a feather. Abram always was one o'
those close-mouthed men. Never spoke if he could git around it any way
whatever. Parson Page used to git after him every protracted meetin'
about not leadin' in prayer and havin' family worship; but the spirit
moved him that time sure, and there he was talkin' as glib as old
Uncle Jim. And says he: 'Brethren, I'm not carin' much one way or
another about this organ. I don't know how the angels feel about it,
not havin' so much acquaintance with 'em as Uncle Jim has; but I do
know enough about women to know that there ain't any use tryin' to
stop 'em when they git their heads set on a thing, and I'm goin' to
haul that organ over to-morrow mornin' and set it up for the choir to
practise by Friday night. If I don't haul it over, Sally Ann and
Jane'll tote it over between 'em, and if they can't put it into the
church by the door, they'll hist a window and put it in that way. I
reckon,' says he, 'I've got all the men against me in this matter, but
then, I've got all the women on my side, and I reckon all the women
and one man makes a pretty good majority, and so I'm goin' to haul the
organ over to-morrow mornin'.'
"I declare I felt real proud of Abram, and I told him so that night
when we was goin' home together. Then Parson Page he says, 'It seems
to me there is sound sense in what Brother Parish says, and I suggest
that we allow the sisters to have their way and give the organ a
trial; and if we find that it is hurtful to the interests of the
church, it will be an easy matter to remove it.' And Milly Amos says
to me, 'I see 'em gittin' that organ out if we once git it in.'
"When the choir met Friday night, Milly come in all in a flurry, and
says she: 'I hear Brother Gardner has gone to the 'Sociation down in
Russellville, and all the Babtists are comin' to our church Sunday;
and I want to show 'em what good music is this once, anyhow. Uncle Jim
Matthews is laid up with rheumatism,' says she, 'and if that ain't a
special providence I never saw one.' And Sam Crawford slapped his
knee, and says he, 'Well, if the old man's rheumatism jest holds out
over Sunday, them Babtists'll hear music sure.'
"Then Milly went on to tell that she'd been up to Squire Elrod's, and
Miss Penelope, the squire's niece from Louisville, had promised to
sing a voluntary Sunday.
"'Voluntary? What's that?' says Sam.
"'Why,' says Milly, 'it's a hymn that the choir, or somebody in it,
sings of their own accord, without the preacher givin' it out; just
like your tomatoes come up in the spring, voluntary, without you
plantin' the seed. That's the way they do in the city churches,' says
she, 'and we are goin' to put on city style Sunday.'
"Then they went to work and practised some new tunes for the hymns
Parson Page had give 'em, so if Uncle Jim's rheumatism didn't hold
out, he'd still have to hold his peace.
"Well, Sunday come; but special providence was on Uncle Jim's side
that time, and there he was as smilin' as a basket o' chips if he did
have to walk with a cane. We'd had the church cleaned up as neat as a
new pin. My Jane had put a bunch of honeysuckles and pinks on the
organ, and everybody was dressed in their best. Miss Penelope was
settin' at the organ with a bunch of roses in her hand, and the
windows was all open, and you could see the trees wavin' in the wind
and hear the birds singin' outside. I always did think that was the
best part o' Sunday--that time jest before church begins."
Aunt Jane's voice dropped. Her words came slowly; and into the story
fell one of those "flashes of silence" to which she was as little
given as the great historian. The pan of dumplings waited for the
sprinkling of spice and sugar, while she stood motionless, looking
afar off, though her gaze apparently stopped on the vacant whitewashed
wall before her. No mind reader's art was needed to tell what scene
her faded eyes beheld. There was the old church, with its battered
furniture and high pulpit. For one brief moment the grave had yielded
up its dead, and "the old familiar faces" looked out from every pew.
We were very near together, Aunt Jane and I; but the breeze that
fanned her brow was not the breeze I felt as I sat by her kitchen
window. For her a wind was blowing across the plains of memory; and
the honeysuckle odor it carried was not from the bush in the yard. It
came, weighted with dreams, from the blossoms that her Jane had placed
on the organ twenty-five years ago. A bob-white was calling in the
meadow across the dusty road, and the echoes of the second bell had
just died away. She and Abram were side by side in their accustomed
place, and life lay like a watered garden in the peaceful stillness of
the time "jest before church begins."
The asparagus on the stove boiled over with a great spluttering, and
Aunt Jane came back to "the eternal now."
"Sakes alive!" she exclaimed, as she lifted the saucepan; "I must be
gittin' old, to let things boil over this way while I'm studyin' about
old times. I declare, I believe I've clean forgot what I was sayin'."
"You were at church," I suggested, "and the singing was about to
begin."
"Sure enough! Well, all at once Miss Penelope laid her hands on the
keys and begun to play and sing 'Nearer, My God, to Thee.' We'd heard
that hymn all our lives at church and protracted meetin's and
prayer-meetin's, but we didn't know how it could sound till Miss
Penelope sung it all by herself that day with our new organ. I
ricollect jest how she looked, pretty little thing that she was; and
sometimes I can hear her voice jest as plain as I hear that robin out
yonder in the ellum tree. Every word was jest like a bright new piece
o' silver, and every note was jest like gold; and she was lookin' up
through the winder at the trees and the sky like she was singin' to
somebody we couldn't see. We clean forgot about the new organ and the
Baptists; and I really believe we was feelin' nearer to God than we'd
ever felt before. When she got through with the first verse, she
played somethin' soft and sweet and begun again; and right in the
middle of the first line--I declare, it's twenty-five years ago, but I
git mad now when I think about it--right in the middle of the first
line Uncle Jim jined in like an old squawkin' jay-bird, and sung like
he was tryin' to drown out Miss Penelope and the new organ, too.
"Everybody give a jump when he first started, and he'd got nearly
through the verse before we took in what was happenin'. Even the
Babtists jest looked surprised like the rest of us. But when Miss
Penelope begun the third time and Uncle Jim jined in with his
hollerin', I saw Bush Elrod grin, and that grin spread all over the
Babtist crowd in no time. The Presbyterian young folks was gigglin'
behind their fans, and Bush got to laughin' till he had to git up and
leave the church. They said he went up the road to Sam Amos' pasture
and laid down on the ground and rolled over and over and laughed till
he couldn't laugh any more.
"I was so mad I started to git up, though goodness knows what I could
'a' done. Abram he grabbed my dress and says, 'Steady, Jane!' jest
like he was talkin' to the old mare. The thing that made me maddest
was Silas Petty a-leanin' back in his pew and smilin' as satisfied as
if he'd seen the salvation of the Lord. I didn't mind the Babtists
half as much as I did Silas.
"The only person in the church that wasn't the least bit flustered was
Miss Penelope. She was a Marshall on her mother's side, and I always
said that nobody but a born lady could 'a' acted as she did. She sung
right on as if everything was goin' exactly right and she'd been
singin' hymns with Uncle Jim all her life. Two or three times when the
old man kind o' lagged behind, it looked like she waited for him to
ketch up, and when she got through and Uncle Jim was lumberin' on the
last note, she folded her hands and set there lookin' out the winder
where the sun was shinin' on the silver poplar trees, jest as peaceful
as a angel, and the rest of us as mad as hornets. Milly Amos set back
of Uncle Jim, and his red bandanna handkerchief was lyin' over his
shoulders where he'd been shooin' the flies away. She told me the next
day it was all she could do to keep from reachin' over and chokin' the
old man off while Miss Penelope was singin'.
"I said Miss Penelope was the only one that wasn't flustered. I ought
to 'a' said Miss Penelope and Uncle Jim. The old creetur was jest that
simple-minded he didn't know he'd done anything out o' the way, and he
set there lookin' as pleased as a child, and thinkin', I reckon, how
smart he'd been to help Miss Penelope out with the singin'.
"The rest o' the hymns went off all right, and it did me good to see
Uncle Jim's face when they struck up the new tunes. He tried to jine
in, but he had to give it up and wait for the doxology.
"Parson Page preached a powerful good sermon, but I don't reckon it
did some of us much good, we was so put out about Uncle Jim spilin'
our voluntary.
"After meetin' broke and we was goin' home, me and Abram had to pass
by Silas Petty's wagon. He was helpin' Maria in, and I don't know what
she'd been sayin', but he says, 'It's a righteous judgment on you
women, Maria, for profanin' the Lord's house with that there organ.'
And, mad as I was, I had to laugh when I thought of old Uncle Jim
Matthews executin' a judgment of the Lord. Uncle Jim never made more'n
a half-way livin' at the carpenter's trade, and I reckon if the Lord
had wanted anybody to help him execute a judgment, Uncle Jim would 'a'
been the last man he'd 'a' thought of.
"Of course the choir was madder'n ever at Uncle Jim; and when Milly
Amos had fever that summer, she called Sam to her the day she was at
her worst, and pulled his head down and whispered as feeble as a baby:
'Don't let Uncle Jim sing at my funeral, Sam. I'll rise up out of my
coffin if he does.' And Sam broke out a-laughin' and a-cryin' at the
same time--he thought a heap o' Milly--and says he, 'Well, Milly, if
it'll have that effect, Uncle Jim shall sing at the funeral, sure.'
And Milly got to laughin', weak as she was, and in a few minutes she
dropped off to sleep, and when she woke up the fever was gone, and she
begun to git well from that day. I always believed that laugh was the
turnin'-p'int. Instead of Uncle Jim singin' at her funeral, she sung
at Uncle Jim's, and broke down and cried like a child for all the mean
things she'd said about the pore old creetur's voice."
The asparagus had been transferred to a china dish, and the browned
butter was ready to pour over it. The potatoes were steaming
themselves into mealy delicacy, and Aunt Jane peered into the stove
where the dumplings were taking on a golden brown. Her story-telling
evidently did not interfere with her culinary skill, and I said so.
"La, child," she replied, dashing a pinch of "seasonin" into the peas,
"when I git so old I can't do but one thing at a time, I'll try to die
as soon as possible."
III
AUNT JANE'S ALBUM
[Illustration]
They were a bizarre mass of color on the sweet spring landscape, those
patchwork quilts, swaying in a long line under the elms and maples.
The old orchard made a blossoming background for them, and farther off
on the horizon rose the beauty of fresh verdure and purple mist on
those low hills, or "knobs," that are to the heart of the Kentuckian
as the Alps to the Swiss or the sea to the sailor.
I opened the gate softly and paused for a moment between the
blossoming lilacs that grew on each side of the path. The fragrance of
the white and the purple blooms was like a resurrection-call over the
graves of many a dead spring; and as I stood, shaken with thoughts as
the flowers are with the winds, Aunt Jane came around from the back of
the house, her black silk cape fluttering from her shoulders, and a
calico sunbonnet hiding her features in its cavernous depth. She
walked briskly to the clothes-line and began patting and smoothing the
quilts where the breeze had disarranged them.
"Aunt Jane," I called out, "are you having a fair all by yourself?"
She turned quickly, pushing back the sunbonnet from her eyes.
"Why, child," she said, with a happy laugh, "you come pretty nigh
skeerin' me. No, I ain't havin' any fair; I'm jest givin' my quilts
their spring airin'. Twice a year I put 'em out in the sun and wind;
and this mornin' the air smelt so sweet, I thought it was a good
chance to freshen 'em up for the summer. It's about time to take 'em
in now."
She began to fold the quilts and lay them over her arm, and I did the
same. Back and forth we went from the clothes-line to the house, and
from the house to the clothes-line, until the quilts were safely
housed from the coming dewfall and piled on every available chair in
the front room. I looked at them in sheer amazement. There seemed to
be every pattern that the ingenuity of woman could devise and the
industry of woman put together,--"four-patches," "nine-patches,"
"log-cabins," "wild-goose chases," "rising suns," hexagons, diamonds,
and only Aunt Jane knows what else. As for color, a Sandwich Islander
would have danced with joy at the sight of those reds, purples,
yellows, and greens.
"Did you really make all these quilts, Aunt Jane?" I asked
wonderingly.
Aunt Jane's eyes sparkled with pride.
"Every stitch of 'em, child," she said, "except the quiltin'. The
neighbors used to come in and help some with that. I've heard folks
say that piecin' quilts was nothin' but a waste o' time, but that
ain't always so. They used to say that Sarah Jane Mitchell would set
down right after breakfast and piece till it was time to git dinner,
and then set and piece till she had to git supper, and then piece by
candle-light till she fell asleep in her cheer.
"I ricollect goin' over there one day, and Sarah Jane was gittin'
dinner in a big hurry, for Sam had to go to town with some cattle,
and there was a big basket o' quilt pieces in the middle o' the
kitchen floor, and the house lookin' like a pigpen, and the children
runnin' around half naked. And Sam he laughed, and says he, 'Aunt
Jane, if we could wear quilts and eat quilts we'd be the richest
people in the country.' Sam was the best-natured man that ever was, or
he couldn't 'a' put up with Sarah Jane's shiftless ways. Hannah
Crawford said she sent Sarah Jane a bundle o' caliker once by Sam, and
Sam always declared he lost it. But Uncle Jim Matthews said he was
ridin' along the road jest behind Sam, and he saw Sam throw it into
the creek jest as he got on the bridge. I never blamed Sam a bit if he
did.
"But there never was any time wasted on my quilts, child. I can look
at every one of 'em with a clear conscience. I did my work faithful;
and then, when I might 'a' set and held my hands, I'd make a block or
two o' patchwork, and before long I'd have enough to put together in a
quilt. I went to piecin' as soon as I was old enough to hold a needle
and a piece o' cloth, and one o' the first things I can remember was
settin' on the back door-step sewin' my quilt pieces, and mother
praisin' my stitches. Nowadays folks don't have to sew unless they
want to, but when I was a child there warn't any sewin'-machines, and
it was about as needful for folks to know how to sew as it was for 'em
to know how to eat; and every child that was well raised could hem and
run and backstitch and gether and overhand by the time she was nine
years old. Why, I'd pieced four quilts by the time I was nineteen
years old, and when me and Abram set up housekeepin' I had bedclothes
enough for three beds.
"I've had a heap o' comfort all my life makin' quilts, and now in my
old age I wouldn't take a fortune for 'em. Set down here, child, where
you can see out o' the winder and smell the lilacs, and we'll look at
'em all. You see, some folks has albums to put folks' pictures in to
remember 'em by, and some folks has a book and writes down the things
that happen every day so they won't forgit 'em; but, honey, these
quilts is my albums and my di'ries, and whenever the weather's bad and
I can't git out to see folks, I jest spread out my quilts and look at
'em and study over 'em, and it's jest like goin' back fifty or sixty
years and livin' my life over agin.
"There ain't nothin' like a piece o' caliker for bringin' back old
times, child, unless it's a flower or a bunch o' thyme or a piece o'
pennyroy'l--anything that smells sweet. Why, I can go out yonder in
the yard and gether a bunch o' that purple lilac and jest shut my eyes
and see faces I ain't seen for fifty years, and somethin' goes through
me like a flash o' lightnin', and it seems like I'm young agin jest
for that minute."
Aunt Jane's hands were stroking lovingly a "nine-patch" that resembled
the coat of many colors.
"Now this quilt, honey," she said, "I made out o' the pieces o' my
children's clothes, their little dresses and waists and aprons. Some
of 'em's dead, and some of 'em's grown and married and a long way off
from me, further off than the ones that's dead, I sometimes think. But
when I set down and look at this quilt and think over the pieces, it
seems like they all come back, and I can see 'em playin' around the
floors and goin' in and out, and hear 'em cryin' and laughin' and
callin' me jest like they used to do before they grew up to men and
women, and before there was any little graves o' mine out in the old
buryin'-ground over yonder."
Wonderful imagination of motherhood that can bring childhood back from
the dust of the grave and banish the wrinkles and gray hairs of age
with no other talisman than a scrap of faded calico!
The old woman's hands were moving tremulously over the surface of the
quilt as if they touched the golden curls of the little dream children
who had vanished from her hearth so many years ago. But there were no
tears either in her eyes or in her voice. I had long noticed that Aunt
Jane always smiled when she spoke of the people whom the world calls
"dead," or the things it calls "lost" or "past." These words seemed to
have for her higher and tenderer meanings than are placed on them by
the sorrowful heart of humanity.
But the moments were passing, and one could not dwell too long on any
quilt, however well beloved. Aunt Jane rose briskly, folded up the one
that lay across her knees, and whisked out another from the huge pile
in an old splint-bottomed chair.
"Here's a piece o' one o' Sally Ann's purple caliker dresses. Sally
Ann always thought a heap o' purple caliker. Here's one o' Milly Amos'
ginghams--that pink-and-white one. And that piece o' white with the
rosebuds in it, that's Miss Penelope's. She give it to me the summer
before she died. Bless her soul! That dress jest matched her face
exactly. Somehow her and her clothes always looked alike, and her
voice matched her face, too. One o' the things I'm lookin' forward
to, child, is seein' Miss Penelope agin and hearin' her sing. Voices
and faces is alike; there's some that you can't remember, and there's
some you can't forgit. I've seen a heap o' people and heard a heap o'
voices, but Miss Penelope's face was different from all the rest, and
so was her voice. Why, if she said 'Good mornin'' to you, you'd hear
that 'Good mornin' all day, and her singin'--I know there never was
anything like it in this world. My grandchildren all laugh at me for
thinkin' so much o' Miss Penelope's singin', but then they never heard
her, and I have: that's the difference. My grandchild Henrietta was
down here three or four years ago, and says she, 'Grandma, don't you
want to go up to Louisville with me and hear Patti sing?' And says I,
'Patty who, child?' Says I, 'If it was to hear Miss Penelope sing, I'd
carry these old bones o' mine clear from here to New York. But there
ain't anybody else I want to hear sing bad enough to go up to
Louisville or anywhere else. And some o' these days,' says I, _'I'm
goin' to hear Miss Penelope sing._'"
Aunt Jane laughed blithely, and it was impossible not to laugh with
her.
"Honey," she said, in the next breath, lowering her voice and laying
her finger on the rosebud piece, "honey, there's one thing I can't git
over. Here's a piece o' Miss Penelope's dress, but _where's Miss
Penelope_? Ain't it strange that a piece o' caliker'll outlast you and
me? Don't it look like folks ought 'o hold on to their bodies as long
as other folks holds on to a piece o' the dresses they used to wear?"
Questions as old as the human heart and its human grief! Here is the
glove, but where is the hand it held but yesterday? Here the jewel
that she wore, but where is she?
"Where is the Pompadour now?
_This_ was the Pompadour's fan!"
Strange that such things as gloves, jewels, fans, and dresses can
outlast a woman's form.
"Behold! I show you a mystery"--the mystery of mortality. And an eery
feeling came over me as I entered into the old woman's mood and
thought of the strong, vital bodies that had clothed themselves in
those fabrics of purple and pink and white, and that now were dust and
ashes lying in sad, neglected graves on farm and lonely roadside.
There lay the quilt on our knees, and the gay scraps of calico seemed
to mock us with their vivid colors. Aunt Jane's cheerful voice called
me back from the tombs.
"Here's a piece o' one o' my dresses," she said; "brown ground with a
red ring in it. Abram picked it out. And here's another one, that
light yeller ground with the vine runnin' through it. I never had so
many caliker dresses that I didn't want one more, for in my day folks
used to think a caliker dress was good enough to wear anywhere. Abram
knew my failin', and two or three times a year he'd bring me a dress
when he come from town. And the dresses he'd pick out always suited me
better'n the ones I picked."
"I ricollect I finished this quilt the summer before Mary Frances was
born, and Sally Ann and Milly Amos and Maria Petty come over and give
me a lift on the quiltin'. Here's Milly's work, here's Sally Ann's,
and here's Maria's."
I looked, but my inexperienced eye could see no difference in the
handiwork of the three women. Aunt Jane saw my look of incredulity.
"Now, child," she said, earnestly, "you think I'm foolin' you, but,
la! there's jest as much difference in folks' sewin' as there is in
their handwritin'. Milly made a fine stitch, but she couldn't keep on
the line to save her life; Maria never could make a reg'lar stitch,
some'd be long and some short, and Sally Ann's was reg'lar, but all of
'em coarse. I can see 'em now stoopin' over the quiltin' frames--Milly
talkin' as hard as she sewed, Sally Ann throwin' in a word now and
then, and Maria never openin' her mouth except to ask for the thread
or the chalk. I ricollect they come over after dinner, and we got the
quilt out o' the frames long before sundown, and the next day I begun
bindin' it, and I got the premium on it that year at the Fair.
"I hardly ever showed a quilt at the Fair that I didn't take the
premium, but here's one quilt that Sarah Jane Mitchell beat me on."
And Aunt Jane dragged out a ponderous, red-lined affair, the very
antithesis of the silken, down-filled comfortable that rests so
lightly on the couch of the modern dame.
"It makes me laugh jest to think o' that time, and how happy Sarah
Jane was. It was way back yonder in the fifties. I ricollect we had a
mighty fine Fair that year. The crops was all fine that season, and
such apples and pears and grapes you never did see. The Floral Hall
was full o' things, and the whole county turned out to go to the
Fair. Abram and me got there the first day bright and early, and we
was walkin' around the amp'itheater and lookin' at the townfolks and
the sights, and we met Sally Ann. She stopped us, and says she, 'Sarah
Jane Mitchell's got a quilt in the Floral Hall in competition with
yours and Milly Amos'.' Says I, 'Is that all the competition there
is?' And Sally Ann says, 'All that amounts to anything. There's one
more, but it's about as bad a piece o' sewin' as Sarah Jane's, and
that looks like it'd hardly hold together till the Fair's over. And,'
says she, 'I don't believe there'll be any more. It looks like this
was an off year on that particular kind o' quilt. I didn't get mine
done,' says she, 'and neither did Maria Petty, and maybe it's a good
thing after all.'
"Well, I saw in a minute what Sally Ann was aimin' at. And I says to
Abram, 'Abram, haven't you got somethin' to do with app'intin' the
judges for the women's things?' And he says, 'Yes.' And I says, 'Well,
you see to it that Sally Ann gits app'inted to help judge the caliker
quilts.' And bless your soul, Abram got me and Sally Ann both
app'inted. The other judge was Mis' Doctor Brigham, one o' the town
ladies. We told her all about what we wanted to do, and she jest
laughed and says, 'Well, if that ain't the kindest, nicest thing! Of
course we'll do it.'
"Seein' that I had a quilt there, I hadn't a bit o' business bein' a
judge; but the first thing I did was to fold my quilt up and hide it
under Maria Petty's big worsted quilt, and then we pinned the blue
ribbon on Sarah Jane's and the red on Milly's. I'd fixed it all up
with Milly, and she was jest as willin' as I was for Sarah Jane to
have the premium. There was jest one thing I was afraid of: Milly was
a good-hearted woman, but she never had much control over her tongue.
And I says to her, says I: 'Milly, it's mighty good of you to give up
your chance for the premium, but if Sarah Jane ever finds it out,
that'll spoil everything. For,' says I, 'there ain't any kindness in
doin' a person a favor and then tellin' everybody about it.' And Milly
laughed, and says she: 'I know what you mean, Aunt Jane. It's mighty
hard for me to keep from tellin' everything I know and some things I
don't know, but,' says she, 'I'm never goin' to tell this, even to
Sam.' And she kept her word, too. Every once in a while she'd come up
to me and whisper, 'I ain't told it yet, Aunt Jane,' jest to see me
laugh.
"As soon as the doors was open, after we'd all got through judgin'
and puttin' on the ribbons, Milly went and hunted Sarah Jane up and
told her that her quilt had the blue ribbon. They said the pore thing
like to 'a' fainted for joy. She turned right white, and had to lean
up against the post for a while before she could git to the Floral
Hall. I never shall forgit her face. It was worth a dozen premiums to
me, and Milly, too. She jest stood lookin' at that quilt and the blue
ribbon on it, and her eyes was full o' tears and her lips quiverin',
and then she started off and brought the children in to look at
'Mammy's quilt.' She met Sam on the way out, and says she: 'Sam, what
do you reckon? My quilt took the premium.' And I believe in my soul
Sam was as much pleased as Sarah Jane. He came saunterin' up, tryin'
to look unconcerned, but anybody could see he was mighty well
satisfied. It does a husband and wife a heap o' good to be proud of
each other, and I reckon that was the first time Sam ever had cause to
be proud o' pore Sarah Jane. It's my belief that he thought more o'
Sarah Jane all the rest o' her life jest on account o' that premium.
Me and Sally Ann helped her pick it out. She had her choice betwixt a
butter-dish and a cup, and she took the cup. Folks used to laugh and
say that that cup was the only thing in Sarah Jane's house that was
kept clean and bright, and if it hadn't 'a' been solid silver, she'd
'a' wore it all out rubbin' it up. Sarah Jane died o' pneumonia about
three or four years after that, and the folks that nursed her said she
wouldn't take a drink o' water or a dose o' medicine out o' any cup
but that. There's some folks, child, that don't have to do anything
but walk along and hold out their hands, and the premiums jest
naturally fall into 'em; and there's others that work and strive the
best they know how, and nothin' ever seems to come to 'em; and I
reckon nobody but the Lord and Sarah Jane knows how much happiness she
got out o' that cup. I'm thankful she had that much pleasure before
she died."
There was a quilt hanging over the foot of the bed that had about it a
certain air of distinction. It was a solid mass of patchwork, composed
of squares, parallelograms, and hexagons. The squares were of dark
gray and red-brown, the hexagons were white, the parallelograms black
and light gray. I felt sure that it had a history that set it apart
from its ordinary fellows.
"Where did you get the pattern, Aunt Jane?" I asked. "I never saw
anything like it."
The old lady's eyes sparkled, and she laughed with pure pleasure.
"That's what everybody says," she exclaimed, jumping up and spreading
the favored quilt over two laden chairs, where its merits became more
apparent and striking. "There ain't another quilt like this in the
State o' Kentucky, or the world, for that matter. My granddaughter
Henrietta, Mary Frances' youngest child, brought me this pattern _from
Europe_."
She spoke the words as one might say, "from Paradise," or "from
Olympus," or "from the Lost Atlantis." "Europe" was evidently a name
to conjure with, a country of mystery and romance unspeakable. I had
seen many things from many lands beyond the sea, but a quilt pattern
from Europe! Here at last was something new under the sun. In what
shop of London or Paris were quilt patterns kept on sale for the
American tourist?
"You see," said Aunt Jane, "Henrietta married a mighty rich man, and
jest as good as he's rich, too, and they went to Europe on their
bridal trip. When she come home she brought me the prettiest shawl you
ever saw. She made me stand up and shut my eyes, and she put it on my
shoulders and made me look in the lookin'-glass, and then she says,
'I brought you a new quilt pattern, too, grandma, and I want you to
piece one quilt by it and leave it to me when you die.' And then she
told me about goin' to a town over yonder they call Florence, and how
she went into a big church that was built hundreds o' years before I
was born. And she said the floor was made o' little pieces o' colored
stone, all laid together in a pattern, and they called it mosaic. And
says I, 'Honey, has it got anything to do with Moses and his law?' You
know the Commandments was called the Mosaic Law, and was all on tables
o' stone. And Henrietta jest laughed, and says she: 'No, grandma; I
don't believe it has. But,' says she, 'the minute I stepped on that
pavement I thought about you, and I drew this pattern off on a piece
o' paper and brought it all the way to Kentucky for you to make a
quilt by.' Henrietta bought the worsted for me, for she said it had to
be jest the colors o' that pavement over yonder, and I made it that
very winter."
Aunt Jane was regarding the quilt with worshipful eyes, and it really
was an effective combination of color and form.
"Many a time while I was piecin' that," she said, "I thought about
the man that laid the pavement in that old church, and wondered what
his name was, and how he looked, and what he'd think if he knew there
was a old woman down here in Kentucky usin' his patterns to make a
bedquilt."
It was indeed a far cry from the Florentine artisan of centuries ago
to this humble worker in calico and worsted, but between the two
stretched a cord of sympathy that made them one--the eternal
aspiration after beauty.
"Honey," said Aunt Jane, suddenly, "did I ever show you my premiums?"
And then, with pleasant excitement in her manner, she arose, fumbled
in her deep pocket for an ancient bunch of keys, and unlocked a
cupboard on one side of the fireplace. One by one she drew them out,
unrolled the soft yellow tissue-paper that enfolded them, and ranged
them in a stately line on the old cherry center-table--nineteen
sterling silver cups and goblets. "Abram took some of 'em on his fine
stock, and I took some of 'em on my quilts and salt-risin' bread and
cakes," she said, impressively.
To the artist his medals, to the soldier his cross of the Legion of
Honor, and to Aunt Jane her silver cups. All the triumph of a humble
life was symbolized in these shining things. They were simple and
genuine as the days in which they were made. A few of them boasted a
beaded edge or a golden lining, but no engraving or embossing marred
their silver purity. On the bottom of each was the stamp: "John B.
Akin, Danville, Ky." There they stood,
"Filled to the brim with precious memories,"--
memories of the time when she and Abram had worked together in field
or garden or home, and the County Fair brought to all a yearly
opportunity to stand on the height of achievement and know somewhat
the taste of Fame's enchanted cup.
"There's one for every child and every grandchild," she said, quietly,
as she began wrapping them in the silky paper, and storing them
carefully away in the cupboard, there to rest until the day when
children and grandchildren would claim their own, and the treasures of
the dead would come forth from the darkness to stand as heirlooms on
fashionable sideboards and damask-covered tables.
"Did you ever think, child," she said, presently, "how much piecin' a
quilt's like livin' a life? And as for sermons, why, they ain't no
better sermon to me than a patchwork quilt, and the doctrines is right
there a heap plainer'n they are in the catechism. Many a time I've set
and listened to Parson Page preachin' about predestination and
free-will, and I've said to myself, 'Well, I ain't never been through
Centre College up at Danville, but if I could jest git up in the
pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make it a heap plainer to folks
than parson's makin' it with all his big words.' You see, you start
out with jest so much caliker; you don't go to the store and pick it
out and buy it, but the neighbors will give you a piece here and a
piece there, and you'll have a piece left every time you cut out a
dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that's like
predestination. But when it comes to the cuttin' out, why, you're free
to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o' pieces to
two persons, and one'll make a 'nine-patch' and one'll make a
'wild-goose chase,' and there'll be two quilts made out o' the same
kind o' pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest
the way with livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut 'em
out and put 'em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there's a
heap more in the cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the
caliker. The same sort o' things comes into all lives, jest as the
Apostle says, 'There hath no trouble taken you but is common to all
men.'
"The same trouble'll come into two people's lives, and one'll take it
and make one thing out of it, and the other'll make somethin' entirely
different. There was Mary Harris and Mandy Crawford. They both lost
their husbands the same year; and Mandy set down and cried and worried
and wondered what on earth she was goin' to do, and the farm went to
wrack and the children turned out bad, and she had to live with her
son-in-law in her old age. But Mary, she got up and went to work, and
made everybody about her work, too; and she managed the farm better'n
it ever had been managed before, and the boys all come up steady,
hard-workin' men, and there wasn't a woman in the county better fixed
up than Mary Harris. Things is predestined to come to us, honey, but
we're jest as free as air to make what we please out of 'em. And when
it comes to puttin' the pieces together, there's another time when
we're free. You don't trust to luck for the caliker to put your quilt
together with; you go to the store and pick it out yourself, any
color you like. There's folks that always looks on the bright side and
makes the best of everything, and that's like puttin' your quilt
together with blue or pink or white or some other pretty color; and
there's folks that never see anything but the dark side, and always
lookin' for trouble, and treasurin' it up after they git it, and
they're puttin' their lives together with black, jest like you would
put a quilt together with some dark, ugly color. You can spoil the
prettiest quilt pieces that ever was made jest by puttin' 'em together
with the wrong color, and the best sort o' life is miserable if you
don't look at things right and think about 'em right.
"Then there's another thing. I've seen folks piece and piece, but when
it come to puttin' the blocks together and quiltin' and linin' it,
they'd give out; and that's like folks that do a little here and a
little there, but their lives ain't of much use after all, any more'n
a lot o' loose pieces o' patchwork. And then while you're livin' your
life, it looks pretty much like a jumble o' quilt pieces before
they're put together; but when you git through with it, or pretty nigh
through, as I am now, you'll see the use and the purpose of everything
in it. Everything'll be in its right place jest like the squares in
this 'four-patch,' and one piece may be pretty and another one ugly,
but it all looks right when you see it finished and joined together."
Did I say that every pattern was represented? No, there was one
notable omission. Not a single "crazy quilt" was there in the
collection. I called Aunt Jane's attention to this lack.
"Child," she said, "I used to say there wasn't anything I couldn't do
if I made up my mind to it. But I hadn't seen a 'crazy quilt' then.
The first one I ever seen was up at Danville at Mary Frances', and
Henrietta says, 'Now, grandma, you've got to make a crazy quilt;
you've made every other sort that ever was heard of.' And she brought
me the pieces and showed me how to baste 'em on the square, and said
she'd work the fancy stitches around 'em for me. Well, I set there all
the mornin' tryin' to fix up that square, and the more I tried, the
uglier and crookeder the thing looked. And finally I says: 'Here,
child, take your pieces. If I was to make this the way you want me to,
they'd be a crazy quilt and a crazy woman, too.'"
Aunt Jane was laying the folded quilts in neat piles here and there
about the room. There was a look of unspeakable satisfaction on her
face--the look of the creator who sees his completed work and
pronounces it good.
"I've been a hard worker all my life," she said, seating herself and
folding her hands restfully, "but 'most all my work has been the kind
that 'perishes with the usin',' as the Bible says. That's the
discouragin' thing about a woman's work. Milly Amos used to say that
if a woman was to see all the dishes that she had to wash before she
died, piled up before her in one pile, she'd lie down and die right
then and there. I've always had the name o' bein' a good housekeeper,
but when I'm dead and gone there ain't anybody goin' to think o' the
floors I've swept, and the tables I've scrubbed, and the old clothes
I've patched, and the stockin's I've darned. Abram might 'a'
remembered it, but he ain't here. But when one o' my grandchildren or
great-grandchildren sees one o' these quilts, they'll think about Aunt
Jane, and, wherever I am then, I'll know I ain't forgotten.
"I reckon everybody wants to leave somethin' behind that'll last after
they're dead and gone. It don't look like it's worth while to live
unless you can do that. The Bible says folks 'rest from their labors,
and their works do follow them,' but that ain't so. They go, and
maybe they do rest, but their works stay right here, unless they're
the sort that don't outlast the usin'. Now, some folks has money to
build monuments with--great, tall, marble pillars, with angels on top
of 'em, like you see in Cave Hill and them big city buryin'-grounds.
And some folks can build churches and schools and hospitals to keep
folks in mind of 'em, but all the work I've got to leave behind me is
jest these quilts, and sometimes, when I'm settin' here, workin' with
my caliker and gingham pieces, I'll finish off a block, and I laugh
and say to myself, 'Well, here's another stone for the monument.'
"I reckon you think, child, that a caliker or a worsted quilt is a
curious sort of a monument--'bout as perishable as the sweepin' and
scrubbin' and mendin'. But if folks values things rightly, and knows
how to take care of 'em, there ain't many things that'll last longer'n
a quilt. Why, I've got a blue and white counterpane that my mother's
mother spun and wove, and there ain't a sign o' givin' out in it yet.
I'm goin' to will that to my granddaughter that lives in Danville,
Mary Frances' oldest child. She was down here last summer, and I was
lookin' over my things and packin' 'em away, and she happened to see
that counterpane, and says she, 'Grandma, I want you to will me
that.' And says I: 'What do you want with that old thing, honey? You
know you wouldn't sleep under such a counterpane as that.' And says
she, 'No, but I'd hang it up over my parlor door for a--"
"Portiere?" I suggested, as Aunt Jane hesitated for the unaccustomed
word.
"That's it, child. Somehow I can't ricollect these new-fangled words,
any more'n I can understand these new-fangled ways. Who'd ever 'a'
thought that folks'd go to stringin' up bed-coverin's in their doors?
And says I to Janie, 'You can hang your great-grandmother's
counterpane up in your parlor door if you want to, but,' says I,
'don't you ever make a door-curtain out o' one o' my quilts.' But la!
the way things turn around, if I was to come back fifty years from
now, like as not I'd find 'em usin' my quilts for window-curtains or
door-mats."
We both laughed, and there rose in my mind a picture of a
twentieth-century house decorated with Aunt Jane's "nine-patches" and
"rising suns." How could the dear old woman know that the same
esthetic sense that had drawn from their obscurity the white and blue
counterpanes of colonial days would forever protect her loved quilts
from such a desecration as she feared? As she lifted a pair of quilts
from a chair near by, I caught sight of a pure white spread in
striking contrast with the many-hued patchwork.
"Where did you get that Marseilles spread, Aunt Jane?" I asked,
pointing to it. Aunt Jane lifted it and laid it on my lap without a
word. Evidently she thought that here was something that could speak
for itself. It was two layers of snowy cotton cloth thinly lined with
cotton, and elaborately quilted into a perfect imitation of a
Marseilles counterpane. The pattern was a tracery of roses, buds, and
leaves, very much conventionalized, but still recognizable for the
things they were. The stitches were fairylike, and altogether it might
have covered the bed of a queen.
"I made every stitch o' that spread the year before me and Abram was
married," she said. "I put it on my bed when we went to housekeepin';
it was on the bed when Abram died, and when I die I want 'em to cover
me with it." There was a life-history in the simple words. I thought
of Desdemona and her bridal sheets, and I did not offer to help Aunt
Jane as she folded this quilt.
"I reckon you think," she resumed presently, "that I'm a mean, stingy
old creetur not to give Janie the counterpane now, instead o' hoardin'
it up, and all these quilts too, and keepin' folks waitin' for 'em
till I die. But, honey, it ain't all selfishness. I'd give away my
best dress or my best bonnet or an acre o' ground to anybody that
needed 'em more'n I did; but these quilts--Why, it looks like my whole
life was sewed up in 'em, and I ain't goin' to part with 'em while
life lasts."
There was a ring of passionate eagerness in the old voice, and she
fell to putting away her treasures as if the suggestion of losing them
had made her fearful of their safety.
I looked again at the heap of quilts. An hour ago they had been
patchwork, and nothing more. But now! The old woman's words had
wrought a transformation in the homely mass of calico and silk and
worsted. Patchwork? Ah, no! It was memory, imagination, history,
biography, joy, sorrow, philosophy, religion, romance, realism, life,
love, and death; and over all, like a halo, the love of the artist for
his work and the soul's longing for earthly immortality.
No wonder the wrinkled fingers smoothed them as reverently as we
handle the garments of the dead.
IV
"SWEET DAY OF REST"
[Illustration]
I walked slowly down the "big road" that Sunday afternoon--slowly, as
befitted the scene and the season; for who would hurry over the path
that summer has prepared for the feet of earth's tired pilgrims? It
was the middle of June, and Nature lay a vision of beauty in her
vesture of flowers, leaves, and blossoming grasses. The sandy road was
a pleasant walking-place; and if one tired of that, the short, thick
grass on either side held a fairy path fragrant with pennyroyal, that
most virtuous of herbs. A tall hedge of Osage orange bordered each
side of the road, shading the traveler from the heat of the sun, and
furnishing a nesting-place for numberless small birds that twittered
and chirped their joy in life and love and June. Occasionally a gap in
the foliage revealed the placid beauty of corn, oats, and clover,
stretching in broad expanse to the distant purple woods, with here and
there a field of the cloth of gold--the fast-ripening wheat that
waited the hand of the mower. Not only is it the traveler's manifest
duty to walk slowly in the midst of such surroundings, but he will do
well if now and then he sits down and dreams.
As I made the turn in the road and drew near Aunt Jane's house, I
heard her voice, a high, sweet, quavering treble, like the notes of an
ancient harpsichord. She was singing a hymn that suited the day and
the hour:
"Welcome, sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise,
Welcome to this reviving breast,
And these rejoicing eyes."
Mingling with the song I could hear the creak of her old
splint-bottomed chair as she rocked gently to and fro. Song and creak
ceased at once when she caught sight of me, and before I had opened
the gate she was hospitably placing another chair on the porch and
smiling a welcome.
"Come in, child, and set down," she exclaimed, moving the rocker so
that I might have a good view of the bit of landscape that she knew I
loved to look at.
"Pennyroy'l! Now, child, how did you know I love to smell that?" She
crushed the bunch in her withered hands, buried her face in it and sat
for a moment with closed eyes. "Lord! Lord!" she exclaimed, with
deep-drawn breath, "if I could jest tell how that makes me feel! I
been smellin' pennyroy'l all my life, and now, when I get hold of a
piece of it, sometimes it makes me feel like a little child, and then
again it brings up the time when I was a gyirl, and if I was to keep
on settin' here and rubbin' this pennyroy'l in my hands, I believe my
whole life'd come back to me. Honey-suckles and pinks and roses ain't
any sweeter to me. Me and old Uncle Harvey Dean was jest alike about
pennyroy'l. Many a time I've seen Uncle Harvey searchin' around in the
fence corners in the early part o' May to see if the pennyroy'l was up
yet, and in pennyroy'l time you never saw the old man that he didn't
have a bunch of it somewheres about him. Aunt Maria Dean used to say
there was dried pennyroy'l in every pocket of his coat, and he used to
put a big bunch of it on his piller at night. Sundays it looked like
Uncle Harvey couldn't enjoy the preachin' and the singin' unless he
had a sprig of it in his hand, and I ricollect once seein' him git up
durin' the first prayer and tiptoe out o' church and come back with a
handful o' pennyroy'l that he'd gethered across the road, and he'd set
and smell it and look as pleased as a child with a piece o' candy."
"Piercing sweet" the breath of the crushed wayside herb rose on the
air. I had a distinct vision of Uncle Harvey Dean, and wondered if the
fields of asphodel might not yield him some small harvest of his
much-loved earthly plant, or if he might not be drawn earthward in
"pennyroy'l time."
"I was jest settin' here restin'," resumed Aunt Jane, "and thinkin'
about Milly Amos. I reckon you heard me singin' fit to scare the crows
as you come along. We used to call that Milly Amos' hymn, and I never
can hear it without thinkin' o' Milly."
"Why was it Milly Amos' hymn?" I asked.
Aunt Jane laughed blithely.
"La, child!" she said, "don't you ever git tired o' my yarns? Here it
is Sunday, and you tryin' to git me started talkin'; and when I git
started you know there ain't any tellin' when I'll stop. Come on and
le's look at the gyarden; that's more fittin' for Sunday evenin' than
tellin' yarns."
So together we went into the garden and marveled happily over the
growth of the tasseling corn, the extraordinarily long runners on the
young strawberry plants, the size of the green tomatoes, and all the
rest of the miracles that sunshine and rain had wrought since my last
visit.
The first man and the first woman were gardeners, and there is
something wrong in any descendant of theirs who does not love a
garden. He is lacking in a primal instinct. But Aunt Jane was in this
respect a true daughter of Eve, a faithful co-worker with the
sunshine, the winds, the rain, and all other forces of nature.
"What do you reckon folks'd do," she inquired, "if it wasn't for
plantin'-time and growin'-time and harvest-time? I've heard folks say
they was tired o' livin', but as long as there's a gyarden to be
planted and looked after there's somethin' to live for. And unless
there's gyardens in heaven I'm pretty certain I ain't goin' to be
satisfied there."
But the charms of the garden could not divert me from the main theme,
and when we were seated again on the front porch I returned to Milly
Amos and her hymn.
"You know," I said, "that there isn't any more harm in talking about a
thing on Sunday than there is in thinking about it." And Aunt Jane
yielded to the force of my logic.
"I reckon you've heard me tell many a time about our choir," she
began, smoothing out her black silk apron with fingers that evidently
felt the need of knitting or some other form of familiar work. "John
Petty was the bass, Sam Crawford the tenor, my Jane was the alto, and
Milly Amos sung soprano. I reckon Milly might 'a' been called the
leader of the choir; she was the sort o' woman that generally leads
wherever she happens to be, and she had the strongest, finest voice in
the whole congregation. All the parts appeared to depend on her, and
it seemed like her voice jest carried the rest o' the voices along
like one big river that takes up all the little rivers and carries 'em
down to the ocean. I used to think about the difference between her
voice and Miss Penelope's. Milly's was jest as clear and true as Miss
Penelope's, and four or five times as strong, but I'd ruther hear one
note o' Miss Penelope's than a whole song o' Milly's. Milly's was jest
a voice, and Miss Penelope's was a voice and somethin' else besides,
but what that somethin' was I never could say. However, Milly was the
very one for a choir; she kind o' kept 'em all together and led 'em
along, and we was mighty proud of our choir in them days. We always
had a voluntary after we got our new organ, and I used to look forward
to Sunday on account o' that voluntary. It used to sound so pretty to
hear 'em begin singin' when everything was still and solemn, and I can
never forgit the hymns they sung then--Sam and Milly and John and my
Jane.
"But there was one Sunday when Milly didn't sing. Her and Sam come in
late, and I knew the minute I set eyes on Milly that somethin' was the
matter. Generally she was smilin' and bowin' to people all around, but
this time she walked in and set the children down, and then set down
herself without even lookin' at anybody, to say nothin' o' smilin' or
speakin'. Well, when half-past ten come, my Jane began to play
'Welcome, sweet day of rest,' and all of 'em begun singin' except
Milly. She set there with her mouth tight shut, and let the bass and
tenor and alto have it all their own way. I thought maybe she was out
o' breath from comin' in late and in a hurry, and I looked for her to
jine in, but she jest set there, lookin' straight ahead of her; and
when Sam passed her a hymn-book, she took hold of it and shut it up
and let it drop in her lap. And there was the tenor and the bass and
the alto doin' their best, and everybody laughin', or tryin' to keep
from laughin'. I reckon if Uncle Jim Matthews had 'a' been there, he'd
'a' took Milly's place and helped 'em out, but Uncle Jim'd been in his
grave more'n two years. Sam looked like he'd go through the floor, he
was so mortified, and he kept lookin' around at Milly as much as to
say, 'Why don't you sing? Please sing, Milly,' but Milly never opened
her mouth.
"I'd about concluded Milly must have the sore throat or somethin' like
that, but when the first hymn was give out, Milly started in and sung
as loud as anybody; and when the doxology come around, Milly was on
hand again, and everybody was settin' there wonderin' why on earth
Milly hadn't sung in the voluntary. When church was out, I heard Sam
invitin' Brother Hendricks to go home and take dinner with
him--Brother Hendricks'd preached for us that day--and they all drove
off together before I'd had time to speak to Milly.
"But that week, when the Mite Society met, Milly was there bright and
early; and when we'd all got fairly started with our sewin', and
everybody was in a good-humor, Sally Ann says, says she: 'Milly, I
want to know why you didn't sing in that voluntary Sunday. I reckon
everybody here wants to know,' says she, 'but nobody but me's got the
courage to ask you.'
"And Milly's face got as red as a beet, and she burst out laughin',
and says she: 'I declare, I'm ashamed to tell you all. I reckon Satan
himself must 'a' been in me last Sunday. You know,' says she,'there's
some days when everything goes wrong with a woman, and last Sunday was
one o' them days. I got up early,' says she, 'and dressed the children
and fed my chickens and strained the milk and washed up the milk
things and got breakfast and washed the dishes and cleaned up the
house and gethered the vegetables for dinner and washed the children's
hands and faces and put their Sunday clothes on 'em, and jest as I was
startin' to git myself ready for church,' says she, 'I happened to
think that I hadn't skimmed the milk for the next day's churnin'. So
I went down to the spring-house and did the skimmin', and jest as I
picked up the cream-jar to put it up on that shelf Sam built for me,
my foot slipped,' says she, 'and down I come and skinned my elbow on
the rock step, and broke the jar all to smash and spilled the cream
all over creation, and there I was--four pounds o' butter and a
fifty-cent jar gone, and my spring-house in such a mess that I ain't
through cleanin' it yet, and my right arm as stiff as a poker ever
since.'
"We all had to laugh at the way Milly told it; and Sally Ann says,
'Well, that was enough to make a saint mad.' 'Yes,' says Milly, 'and
you all know I'm far from bein' a saint. However,' says she, 'I picked
up the pieces and washed up the worst o' the cream, and then I went to
the house to git myself ready for church, and before I could git
there, I heard Sam hollerin' for me to come and sew a button on his
shirt; one of 'em had come off while he was tryin' to button it. And
when I got out my work-basket, the children had been playin' with it,
and there wasn't a needle in it, and my thimble was gone, and I had to
hunt up the apron I was makin' for little Sam and git a needle off
that, and I run the needle into my finger, not havin' any thimble,
and got a blood spot on the bosom o' the shirt. Then,' says she,
'before I could git my dress over my head, here come little Sam with
his clothes all dirty where he'd fell down in the mud, and there I had
him to dress again, and that made me madder still; and then, when I
finally got out to the wagon,' says she, 'I rubbed my clean dress
against the wheel, and that made me mad again; and the nearer we got
to the church, the madder I was; and now,' says she, 'do you reckon
after all I'd been through that mornin', and dinner ahead of me to
git, and the children to look after all the evenin', do you reckon
that I felt like settin' up there and singin' "Welcome, sweet day o'
rest"?' Says she, 'I ain't seen any day o' rest since the day I
married Sam, and I don't expect to see any till the day I die; and if
Parson Page wants that hymn sung, let him git up a choir of old maids
and old bachelors, for they're the only people that ever see any rest
Sunday or any other day.'
"We all laughed, and said we didn't blame Milly a bit for not singin'
that hymn; and then Milly said: 'I reckon I might as well tell you all
the whole story. By the time church was over,' says she, 'I'd kind o'
cooled off, but when I heard Sam askin' Brother Hendricks to go home
and take dinner with him, that made me mad again; for I knew that
meant a big dinner for me to cook, and I made up my mind then and
there that I wouldn't cook a blessed thing, company or no company.
Sam'd killed chickens the night before,' says she, 'and they was all
dressed and ready, down in the spring-house; and the vegetables was
right there on the back porch, but I never touched 'em,' says she. 'I
happened to have some cold ham and cold mutton on hand--not much of
either one--and I sliced 'em and put the ham in one end o' the big
meat-dish and the mutton in the other, with a big bare place between,
so's everybody could see that there wasn't enough of either one to go
'round; and then,' says she, 'I sliced up a loaf o' my salt-risin'
bread and got out a bowl o' honey and a dish o' damson preserves, and
then I went out on the porch and told Sam that dinner was ready.'
"I never shall forgit how we all laughed when Milly was tellin' it.
'You know, Aunt Jane,' says she, 'how quick a man gits up when you
tell him dinner's ready. Well, Sam he jumps up, and says he, "Why,
you're mighty smart to-day, Milly; I don't believe there's another
woman in the county that could git a Sunday dinner this quick." And
says he, "Walk out, Brother Hendricks, walk right out."'"
Here Aunt Jane paused to laugh again at the long-past scene that her
words called up.
"Milly used to say that Sam's face changed quicker'n a flash o'
lightnin' when he saw the table, and he dropped down in his cheer and
forgot to ask Brother Hendricks to say grace. 'Why, Milly,' says he,
'where's the dinner? Where's them chickens I killed last night, and
the potatoes and corn and butter-beans?' And Milly jest looked him
square in the face, and says she, 'The chickens are in the
spring-house and the vegetables out on the back porch, and,' says she,
'do you suppose I'm goin' to cook a hot dinner for you all on this
"sweet day o' rest"?'"
Aunt Jane stopped again to laugh.
"That wasn't a polite way for anybody to talk at their own table," she
resumed, "and some of us asked Milly what Brother Hendricks said. And
Milly's face got as red as a beet again, and she says: 'Why, he
behaved so nice, he made me feel right ashamed o' myself for actin' so
mean. He jest reached over and helped himself to everything he could
reach, and says he, "This dinner may not suit you, Brother Amos, but
it's plenty good for me, and jest the kind I'm used to at home." Says
he, "I'd rather eat a cold dinner any time than have a woman toilin'
over a hot stove for me."' And when he said that, Milly up and told
him why it was she didn't feel like gittin' a hot dinner, and why she
didn't sing in the voluntary; and when she'd got through, he says,
'Well, Sister Amos, if I'd been through all you have this mornin' and
then had to git up and give out such a hymn as "Welcome, sweet day o'
rest," I believe I'd be mad enough to pitch the hymn-book and the
Bible at the deacons and the elders.' And then he turns around to Sam,
and says he, 'Did you ever think, Brother Amos, that there ain't a
pleasure men enjoy that women don't have to suffer for it?' And Milly
said that made her feel meaner'n ever; and when supper-time come, she
lit the fire and got the best hot supper she could--fried chicken and
waffles and hot soda-biscuits and coffee and goodness knows what else.
Now wasn't that jest like a woman, to give in after she'd had her own
way for a while and could 'a' kept on havin' it? Abram used to say
that women and runaway horses was jest alike; the best way to manage
'em both was to give 'em the rein and let 'em go till they got tired,
and they'll always stop before they do any mischief. Milly said that
supper tickled Sam pretty near to death. Sam was always mighty proud
o' Milly's cookin'.
"So that's how we come to call that hymn Milly Amos' hymn, and as long
as Milly lived folks'd look at her and laugh whenever the preacher
give out 'Welcome, sweet day o' rest.'"
The story was over. Aunt Jane folded her hands, and we both
surrendered ourselves to happy silence. All the faint, sweet sounds
that break the stillness of a Sunday in the country came to our ears
in gentle symphony,--the lisp of the leaves, the chirp of young
chickens lost in the mazes of billowy grass, and the rustle of the
silver poplar that turned into a mass of molten silver whenever the
breeze touched it.
"When you've lived as long as I have, child," said Aunt Jane
presently, "you'll feel that you've lived in two worlds. A short life
don't see many changes, but in eighty years you can see old things
passin' away and new ones comin' on to take their place, and when I
look back at the way Sunday used to be kept and the way it's kept now,
it's jest like bein' in another world. I hear folks talkin' about how
wicked the world's growin' and wishin' they could go back to the old
times, but it looks like to me there's jest as much kindness and
goodness in folks nowadays as there was when I was young; and as for
keepin' Sunday, why, I've noticed all my life that the folks that's
strictest about that ain't always the best Christians, and I reckon
there's been more foolishness preached and talked about keepin' the
Sabbath day holy than about any other one thing.
"I ricollect some fifty-odd years ago the town folks got to keepin'
Sunday mighty strict. They hadn't had a preacher for a long time, and
the church'd been takin' things easy, and finally they got a new
preacher from down in Tennessee, and the first thing he did was to
draw the lines around 'em close and tight about keepin' Sunday. Some
o' the members had been in the habit o' havin' their wood chopped on
Sunday. Well, as soon as the new preacher come, he said that Sunday
wood-choppin' had to cease amongst his church-members or he'd have 'em
up before the session. I ricollect old Judge Morgan swore he'd have
his wood chopped any day that suited him. And he had a load o' wood
carried down cellar, and the nigger man chopped all day long down in
the cellar, and nobody ever would 'a' found it out, but pretty soon
they got up a big revival that lasted three months and spread 'way out
into the country, and bless your life, old Judge Morgan was one o'
the first to be converted; and when he give in his experience, he told
about the wood-choppin', and how he hoped to be forgiven for breakin'
the Sabbath day.
"Well, of course us people out in the country wouldn't be outdone by
the town folks, so Parson Page got up and preached on the Fourth
Commandment and all about that pore man that was stoned to death for
pickin' up a few sticks on the seventh day. And Sam Amos, he says
after meetin' broke, says he, 'It's my opinion that that man was a
industrious, enterprisin' feller that was probably pickin' up
kindlin'-wood to make his wife a fire, and,' says he, 'if they wanted
to stone anybody to death they better 'a' picked out some lazy,
triflin' feller that didn't have energy enough to work Sunday or any
other day.' Sam always would have his say, and nothin' pleased him
better'n to talk back to the preachers and git the better of 'em in a
argument. I ricollect us women talked that sermon over at the Mite
Society, and Maria Petty says: 'I don't know but what it's a wrong
thing to say, but it looks to me like that Commandment wasn't intended
for anybody but them Israelites. It was mighty easy for them to keep
the Sabbath day holy, but,' says she, 'the Lord don't rain down manna
in my yard. And,' says she, 'men can stop plowin' and plantin' on
Sunday, but they don't stop eatin', and as long as men have to eat on
Sunday, women'll have to work.'
"And Sally Ann, she spoke up, and says she, 'That's so; and these very
preachers that talk so much about keepin' the Sabbath day holy,
they'll walk down out o' their pulpits and set down at some woman's
table and eat fried chicken and hot biscuits and corn bread and five
or six kinds o' vegetables, and never think about the work it took to
git the dinner, to say nothin' o' the dish-washin' to come after.'
"There's one thing, child, that I never told to anybody but Abram; I
reckon it was wicked, and I ought to be ashamed to own it, but"--here
her voice fell to a confessional key--"I never did like Sunday till I
begun to git old. And the way Sunday used to be kept, it looks to me
like nobody could 'a' been expected to like it but old folks and lazy
folks. You see, I never was one o' these folks that's born tired. I
loved to work. I never had need of any more rest than I got every
night when I slept, and I woke up every mornin' ready for the day's
work. I hear folks prayin' for rest and wishin' for rest, but, honey,
all my prayer was, 'Lord, give me work, and strength enough to do
it.' And when a person looks at all the things there is to be done in
this world, they won't feel like restin' when they ain't tired.
"Abram used to say he believed I tried to make work for myself Sunday
and every other day; and I ricollect I used to be right glad when any
o' the neighbors'd git sick on Sunday and send for me to help nurse
'em. Nursing the sick was a work o' necessity, and mercy, too. And
then, child, the Lord don't ever rest. The Bible says He rested on the
seventh day when He got through makin' the world, and I reckon that
was rest enough for Him. For, jest look; everything goes on Sundays
jest the same as week-days. The grass grows, and the sun shines, and
the wind blows, and He does it all."
"'For still the Lord is Lord of might;
In deeds, in deeds He takes delight,'"
I said.
"That's it," said Aunt Jane, delightedly. "There ain't any religion in
restin' unless you're tired, and work's jest as holy in his sight as
rest."
Our faces were turned toward the western sky, where the sun was
sinking behind the amethystine hills. The swallows were darting and
twittering over our heads, a somber flock of blackbirds rose from a
huge oak tree in the meadow across the road, and darkened the sky for
a moment in their flight to the cedars that were their nightly resting
place. Gradually the mist changed from amethyst to rose, and the
poorest object shared in the transfiguration of the sunset hour.
Is it unmeaning chance that sets man's days, his dusty, common days,
between the glories of the rising and the setting sun, and his life,
his dusty, common life, between the two solemnities of birth and
death? Bounded by the splendors of the morning and evening skies, what
glory of thought and deed should each day hold! What celestial dreams
and vitalizing sleep should fill our nights! For why should day be
more magnificent than life?
As we watched in understanding silence, the enchantment slowly faded.
The day of rest was over, a night of rest was at hand; and in the
shadowy hour between the two hovered the benediction of that peace
which "passeth all understanding."
V
MILLY BAKER'S BOY
[Illustration]
It was the last Monday in May, and a steady stream of wagons,
carriages, and horseback riders had been pouring into town over the
smooth, graveled pike.
Aunt Jane stood on her front porch, looking around and above with
evident delight. This was her gala Monday; and if any thoughts of the
County Court days of happier years were in her mind, they were not
permitted to mar her enjoyment of the present. There were no waters of
Marah near her spring of remembrance.
"Clear as a whistle!" she exclaimed, peering through the tendrils of a
Virginia creeper at the sea of blue ether where fleecy white clouds
were floating, driven eastward by the fresh spring wind. "Folks'll
come home dry to-night; last time they was as wet as drowned rats.
Yonder comes the Crawfords, and there's Jim Amos on horseback in front
of 'em. How d'ye, Jim! And yonder comes Richard Elrod in his new
carriage. Jest look at him! I do believe he grows younger and
handsomer every day of his life."
A sweet-faced woman sat beside him, and two pretty girls were in the
seat behind them. Bowing courteously to the old woman on the
door-step, Richard Elrod looked every inch a king of the soil and a
perfect specimen of the gentleman farmer of Kentucky.
"The richest man in the county," said Aunt Jane exultingly, as she
followed the vanishing carriage with her keen gaze. "He went to the
legislatur' last winter; the 'Hon. Richard Elrod' they call him now.
And I can remember the time when he was jest Milly Baker's boy, and
nothin' honorable about it, either."
There was a suggestion of a story in the words and in the look in Aunt
Jane's eyes. What wonder that the tides of thought flowed back into
the channel of old times on a day like this, when every passing face
was a challenge to memory? It needed but a hint to bring forth the
recollections that the sight of Richard Elrod had stirred to life. The
high-back rocker and the basket of knitting were transferred to the
porch; and with the beauty and the music of a spring morning around us
I listened to the story of Milly Baker's boy.
"I hardly know jest where to begin," said Aunt Jane, wrinkling her
forehead meditatively and adjusting her needles. "Tellin' a story is
somethin' like windin' off a skein o' yarn. There's jest two ends to
the skein, though, and if you can git hold o' the right one it's easy
work. But there's so many ways o' beginning a story, and you never
know which one leads straightest to the p'int. I wonder many a time
how folks ever finds out where to begin when they set out to write a
book. However, I reckon if I start with Dick Elrod I'll git through
somehow or other.
"You asked me jest now who Richard Elrod was. He was the son o' Dick
Elrod, and Dick was the son of Richard Elrod, the old Squire. It's
curious how you'll name two boys Richard, and one of 'em will always
be called Richard and the other'll be called Dick. Nobody ever would
'a' thought o' callin' Squire Elrod 'Dick,' he was Richard from the
day he was born till the day he died. But his son was nothin' but Dick
all his life; Richard didn't seem to fit him somehow. And I've noticed
that you can tell what sort of a man a boy's goin' to make jest by
knowin' whether folks calls him Richard or Dick. I ain't sayin' that
every Richard is a good man and every Dick a bad one. All I mean is
that there's as much difference betwixt a 'Dick' and a 'Richard' as
there is betwixt a roastin' ear and a peck o' corn meal. Both of 'em's
corn, and both of 'em may be good, but they ain't the same thing by a
long jump. There's been a Richard in the Elrod family as far back as
you could track 'em; all of 'em good, steady, God-fearin' men till
Dick come along. He was an only child, and of course that made a bad
matter worse.
"There's some men that's born to git women into trouble, and Dick was
one of 'em. Jest as handsome as a picture, and two years ahead o' his
age when it come to size, and a way about him, from the time he put on
pants, that showed jest what kind of a man he was cut out for. If the
children was playin' 'Jinny, Put the Kittle on,' Dick would git
kissed ten times to any other boy's once; and if it was 'Drop the
Handkerchief,' every little gyirl in the ring'd be droppin' it behind
Dick to git him to run after her, and that was the only time Dick ever
did any runnin'. All he had to do was jest to sit still, and the
gyirls did the runnin'. It was that way all his life; and folks used
to say there was jest one woman in the world that Dick couldn't make a
fool of, and that was his cousin Penelope, the old Squire's brother's
child. She used to come down to the Squire's pretty near every summer,
and when Dick saw how high and mighty she was, he begun to lay himself
out to make her come down jest where the other women was, not because
he keered anything for her,--such men never keer for anybody but
theirselves,--he jest couldn't stand it to have a woman around unless
she was throwin' herself at his head or at his feet. But he couldn't
do anything with his cousin Penelope. She naturally despised him, and
he hated her. Next to Miss Penelope, the only girl that appeared to be
anything like a match for Dick was Annie Crawford, Old Man Bob
Crawford's daughter. Old Man Bob was one o' the kind that thinks that
the more children they've got the bigger men they are. Always made me
think of Abraham and the rest o' the old patriarchs to see him come
walkin' into church with them nine young ones at his heels, makin' so
much racket you couldn't hear the sermon. He was mighty proud of his
sons; but after Bob was born he wanted a daughter; and when they all
kept turnin' out boys, he got crazier and crazier for a gyirl. Annie
wasn't born till he was past sixty, and he like to 'a' lost his senses
with joy. It was harvestin' time, and he jest stopped work and set on
his front porch, and every time anybody passed by he'd holler, 'Well;
neighbor, it's a gal this time!' If I'd 'a' been in Ann 'Liza's place,
I'd 'a' gagged him. But la! she thought everything he did was all
right. It got to be a reg'lar joke with the neighbors to ask Old Man
Bob how many children he had, and he'd give a big laugh and say, 'Ten,
neighbor, and all of 'em gals but nine.'
"Well, of course Annie was bound to be spoiled, especially as her
mother died when she was jest four years old. How Ann 'Liza ever stood
Old Man Bob and them nine boys as long as she did was a mystery to
everybody. Ann 'Liza had done her best to manage Annie, with Old Man
Bob pullin' against her all the time, but after she died Annie took
the place and everything and everybody on it. Old Man Bob had raised
all his boys on spare-the-rod-and-spile-the-child principle, but when
Annie come, he turned his back on Solomon and give out that Annie
mustn't be crossed by anybody. Sam Amos asked him once how he come to
change his mind so about raisin' children, and Old Man Bob said he was
of the opinion that that text ought to read, 'Spare the rod and spile
the boy'; that Solomon had too much regyard for women to want to whip
a gal child. If ever there was an old idiot he was one; I mean Old Man
Bob, not Solomon; though Solomon wasn't as wise as he might 'a' been
in some things.
"Well, Annie was a headstrong, high-tempered child to begin with; and
havin' nobody to control her, she got to be the worst young one, I
reckon, in the State o' Kentucky. I used to feel right sorry for her
little brothers. They couldn't keep a top or a ball or marble or any
plaything to save their lives. Annie would cry for 'em jest for pure
meanness, and whatever it was that Annie cried for they had to give it
up or git a whippin'. She'd break up their rabbit-traps and their
bird-cages and the little wheelbarrers and wagons they'd make, and
they didn't have any peace at home, pore little motherless things. I
ricollect one day little Jim come runnin' over to my house draggin'
his wagon loaded up with all his playthings, his little saw and hammer
and some nails the cyarpenters had give him when Old Man Bob had his
new stable built, and says he, 'Aunt Jane, please let me keep my tools
over here. Annie says she's goin' to throw 'em in the well, and
pappy'll make me give 'em to her if she cries for 'em.' Them tools
stayed at my house till Jim outgrowed 'em, and he and Henry, the other
little one, used to come and stay by the hour playin' with my Abram.
"It was all Old Man Bob could do to git a housekeeper to stay with him
when Annie got older. One spring she broke up all the hen nests and
turkey nests on the farm, and they had to buy chickens all summer and
turkeys all next winter. They used to tell how she stood and hollered
for two hours one day because the housekeeper wouldn't let her put her
hand into a kittle o' boilin' lye soap. It's my belief that she was
all that kept Old Man Bob from marryin' again in less'n a year after
Ann 'Liza died. He courted three or four widders and old maids round
the neighborhood, but there wasn't one of 'em that anxious to marry
that she'd take Old Man Bob with Annie thrown in. As soon as she got
old enough, Old Man Bob carried her with him wherever he went. County
Court days you'd see him goin' along on his big gray mare with Annie
behind him, holdin' on to the sides of his coat with her little fat
hands, her sunbonnet fallin' off and her curls blowin' all around her
face,--like as not she hadn't had 'em combed for a week,--and in the
evenin' about sunset here they'd come, Annie in front fast asleep, and
Old Man Bob holdin' her on one arm and guidin' his horse with the
other. Harvestin' times Annie'd be out in the field settin' on a shock
o' wheat and orderin' the hands around same as if she was the
overseer; and Old Man Bob'd jest stand back and shake his sides
laughin' and say: 'That's right, honey. Make 'em move lively. If it
wasn't for you, pappy couldn't git his harvestin' done.'
"Every fall and spring he'd go to town to buy clothes for her, and
people used to say the storekeepers laid in a extry stock jest for Old
Man Bob, and charged him two or three prices for everything he bought.
He'd walk into Tom Baker's store with his saddle-bags on his arm and
holler out, 'Well, what you got to-day? Trot out your silks and your
satins, and remember that the best ain't good enough for my little
gal.'
"When Annie was twelve years old he took her off to Bardstown to git
her education. When he come to say good-bye to her, he cried and she
cried, and it ended with him settin' down and stayin' three weeks in
Bardstown, waitin' for Annie to git over her homesickness. Folks never
did git through plaguin' him about goin' off to boardin' school, and
as soon as Sam Crawford seen him he says, 'Well, Uncle Bob, when do
you reckon you'll git your diploma?'
"I never shall forgit the first time Annie come home to spend her
Christmas. The neighbors didn't have any peace o' their lives for Old
Man Bob tellin' 'em how Annie had growed, and how there wasn't a gal
in the state that could hold a candle to her. And Sunday he come
walkin' in church with Annie hangin' on to his arm jest as proud and
happy as if he'd got a new wife.
"Annie had improved wonderful. It wasn't jest her looks, for she
always was as pretty as a picture, but she was as nice-mannered,
well-behaved a gyirl as you'd want to see. There was jest as much
difference betwixt her then and what she used to be as there is
betwixt a tame fox and a wild one. Of course the wildness is all
there, but it's kind o' covered up under a lot o' cute little tricks
and ways; and that's the way it was with Annie. Squire Elrod's pew was
jest across the aisle from Old Man Bob's, and I could see Dick
watchin' her durin' church time. But Annie never looked one way nor
the other. She set there with her hands folded and her eyes straight
before her, and nobody ever would 'a' thought that she'd been ridin'
horses bare-back and climbin' eight-rail fences ever since she could
walk, mighty near.
"When she come back from school in June it was the same thing over
again, Old Man Bob braggin' on her and everybody sayin' how sweet and
pretty she was. Dick began to wait on her right away, and before long
folks was sayin' that they was made for each other, especially as
their farms jined. That's a fool notion, but you can't git it out o'
some people's heads.
"Things went on this way for two or three years, Annie goin' and
comin' and gittin' prettier all the time, and Dick waitin' on her
whenever she was at home and carryin' on between times with every
gyirl in the neighborhood. At last she come home for good, and Dick
dropped all the others in a hurry and set out in earnest to git Annie.
Folks said he was mightily in love, but accordin' to my way o'
thinkin' there wasn't any love about it. The long and the short of it
was that Annie knew how to manage him, and the other gyirls didn't.
They was always right there in the neighborhood, and it don't help a
woman to be always under a man's nose. But Annie was here and there
and everywhere, visitin' in town and in Louisville and bringin' the
town folks and the city folks home with her, and havin' dances and
picnics, and doin' all she could to make Dick jealous. And then I
always believed that Annie was jest as crazy about Dick as the rest o'
the gyirls, but she had sense enough not to let him know it. It's
human nature, you know, to want things that's hard to git. Why, if
fleas and mosquitoes was sceerce, folks would go to huntin' 'em and
makin' a big fuss over 'em. Annie made herself hard to git, and that's
why Dick wanted her instead o' Harriet Amos, that was jest as good
lookin' and better in every other way than Annie was. Everybody was
sayin' what a blessed thing it was, and now Dick would give up his
wild ways and settle down and be a comfort to the Squire in his old
age.
"Well, along in the spring, a year after Annie got through with
school, Sally Ann come to me, and says she, 'Jane, I saw somethin'
last night and it's been botherin' me ever since;' and she went on to
say how she was goin' home about dusk, and how she'd seen Dick Elrod
and little Milly Baker at the turn o' the lane that used to lead up to
Milly's house. 'They was standin' under the wild cherry tree in the
fence corner,' says she, 'and the elderberry bushes was so thick that
I could jest see Dick's head and shoulders and the top of Milly's
head, but they looked to be mighty close together, and Dick was
stoopin' over and whisperin' somethin' to her.'
"Well, that set me to thinkin', and I ricollected seein' Dick comin'
down the lane one evenin' about sunset and at the same time I'd caught
sight o' Milly walkin' away in the opposite direction. Our Mite
Society met that day, and Sally Ann and me had it up, and we all
talked it over. It come out that every woman there had seen the same
things we'd been seein', but nobody said anything about it as long as
they wasn't certain. 'Somethin' ought to be done,' says Sally Ann;
'it'd be a shame to let that pore child go to destruction right before
our eyes when a word might save her. She's fatherless, and pretty
near motherless, too,' says she.
"You see, the Bakers was tenants of old Squire Elrod's, and after
Milly's father died o' consumption the old Squire jest let 'em live on
the same as before. Mis' Elrod give 'em quiltin' and sewin' to do, and
they had their little gyarden, and managed to git along well enough.
Some folks called 'em pore white trash. They was pore enough, goodness
knows, but they was clean and hard-workin', and that's two things that
'trash' never is. I used to hear that Milly's mother come of a good
family, but she'd married beneath herself and got down in the world
like folks always do when they're cast off by their own people. Milly
had come up like a wild rose in a fence corner, and she was jest the
kind of a girl to be fooled by a man like Dick, handsome and smooth
talkin', with all the ways and manners that take women in. Em'ly
Crawford used to say it made her feel like a queen jest to see Dick
take his hat off to her. If men's manners matched their hearts, honey,
this'd be a heap easier world for women. But whenever you see a man
that's got good manners and a bad heart, you may know there's trouble
ahead for some woman.
"Well, us women talked it over till dark come; and I reckon if we had
app'inted a committee to look after Milly and Dick, somethin' might
have been done. But everybody's business is nobody's business, and I
thought Sally Ann would go to Milly and give her a word o' warnin',
and Sally Ann thought I'd do it, and so it went, and nothin' was said
or done at last; and before long it was all over the neighborhood that
pore little Milly was in trouble."
Aunt Jane paused, took off her glasses and wiped them carefully on a
corner of her gingham apron.
"Many's the time," she said slowly, "that I've laid awake till the
chickens crowed, blamin' myself and wonderin' how far I was
responsible for Milly's mishap. I've lived a long time since then, and
I don't worry any more about such things. There's some things that's
got to be; and when a person is all wore out tryin' to find out why
this thing happened and why that thing didn't happen, he can jest
throw himself back on the eternal decrees, and it's like layin' down
on a good soft feather bed after you've done a hard day's work. The
preachers'll tell you that every man is his brother's keeper, but
'tain't so. I ain't my brother's keeper, nor my sister's, neither.
There's jest one person I've got to keep, and that's myself.
"The Bible says, 'A word spoken in due season, how good it is!' But
when folks is in love there ain't any due season for speakin' warnin'
words to 'em. There was Emmeline Amos: her father told her if she
married Hal, he'd cut her name out o' the family Bible and leave her
clear out o' his will. But that didn't hinder her. She went right on
and married him, and lived to rue the day she did it. No, child,
there's mighty little salvation by words for folks that's in love. I
reckon if a word from me would 'a' saved Milly, the word would 'a'
been given to me, and the season too, and as they wasn't, why I hadn't
any call to blame myself.
"Abram and Sam Crawford did try to talk to Old Man Bob; but, la! you
might as well 'a' talked to the east wind. All he said was, 'If Annie
wants Dick Elrod, Annie shall have him.' That's what he'd been sayin'
ever since Annie was born. Nobody said anything to Annie, for she was
the sort o' girl who didn't care whose feelin's was tramped on, if she
jest had her own way.
"So it went on, and the weddin' day was set, and nothin' was talked
about but Annie's first-day dress and Annie's second-day dress, and
how many ruffles she had on her petticoats, and what the lace on her
nightgowns cost; and all the time there was pore Milly Baker cryin'
her eyes out night and day, and us women gittin' up all our old baby
clothes for Dick Elrod's unborn child."
Aunt Jane dropped her knitting in her lap, and gazed across the fields
as if she were seeking in the sunlit ether the faces of those who
moved and spoke in her story. A farm wagon came lumbering through the
stillness, and she gathered up the double thread of story and knitting
and went on.
"Annie always said she was goin' to have such a weddin' as the county
never had seen, and she kept her word. Old Man Bob had the house fixed
up inside and out. They sent up to Louisville for the cakes and
things, and the weddin' cake was three feet high. There was a solid
gold ring in it, and the bridesmaids cut for it; and every gyirl there
had a slice o' the bride's cake to carry home to dream on that night.
Annie's weddin' dress was white satin so heavy it stood alone, so they
said. And Old Man Bob had the whole neighborhood laughin', tellin' how
many heifers and steers it took to pay for the lace around the neck of
it.
"Annie and Dick was married in October about the time the leaves fell,
and Milly's boy was born the last o' November. Lord! Lord! what a
world this is! Old Man Bob wouldn't hear to Annie's leavin' him, so
they stayed right on in the old home place. In them days folks didn't
go a-lopin' all over creation as soon as they got married; they
settled down to housekeepin' like sensible folks ought to do. Old Lady
Elrod was as foolish over Dick as Old Man Bob was over Annie, and it
was laid down beforehand that they was to spend half the time at Old
Man Bob's and half the time at the Squire's, 'bout the worst thing
they could 'a' done. The further a young couple can git from the old
folks on both sides the better for everybody concerned. And besides,
Annie wasn't the kind of a gyirl to git along with Dick's mother. A
gyirl with the kind o' raisin' Annie'd had wasn't any fit
daughter-in-law for a particular, high-steppin' woman like Old Lady
Elrod.
"There was some people that expected a heap o' Dick after he married,
but I never did. If a man can't be faithful to a woman before he
marries her, he ain't likely to be faithful after he marries her. And
shore enough the shine wasn't off o' Annie's weddin' clothes before
Dick was back to his old ways, drinkin' and carryin' on with the women
same as ever, and the first thing we knew, him and Annie had a big
quarrel, and Old Man Bob had ordered him off the place. However, they
made it up and went over to the old Squire's to live, and things went
on well enough till Annie's baby was born. Dick had set his heart on
havin' a boy, but it turned out a girl, and as soon as they told him,
he never even asked how Annie was, but jest went out to the stable and
saddled his horse and galloped off, and nobody seen him for two days.
He needn't 'a' took on so, for the pore little thing didn't live but a
week. Annie had convulsions over Dick's leavin' her that way, and the
doctor said that was what killed the child. Annie never was the same
after this. She grieved for her child and lost her good looks, and
when she lost them, she lost Dick. It wasn't long before Dick was
livin' with his father, and she with hers. At last he went out West;
and in less than three years Annie died; and a good thing she did, for
a more soured, disappointed woman couldn't 'a' been found anywhere.
"Well, all this time Milly Baker's baby was growin' in grace, you
might say. And a finer child never was born. Milly had named him
Richard, and nature had wrote his father's name all over him. He was
the livin' image of Dick, all but the look in his eyes; that was
Milly's. Milly worshiped him, and there was few children raised any
carefuler and better than Milly Baker's boy; that was what we always
called him. Milly was nothin' but a child herself when he was born,
but all at once she appeared to turn to a woman; acted like one and
looked like one. It ain't time, honey, that makes people old; it's
experience. Some folks never git over bein' children, and some never
has any childhood; and pore little Milly's was cut short by trouble.
If she felt ashamed of herself or the child, nobody ever knew it. I
never could tell whether it was lack of sense, or whether she jest
looked at things different from the rest of us; but to see her walk in
church holding little Richard by the hand, nobody ever would 'a'
thought but what she was a lawful wife. No woman could 'a' behaved
better'n she did, I'm bound to say. She got better lookin' all the
time, but she was as steady and sober as if she'd been sixty years
old. Parson Page said once that Milly Baker had more dignity than any
woman, young or old, that he'd ever seen. It seems right queer to talk
about dignity in a pore gyirl who'd made the misstep she'd made, but I
reckon it was jest that that made us all come to treat her as if she
was as good as anybody. People can set their own price on 'emselves,
I've noticed; and if they keep it set, folks'll come up to it. Milly
didn't seem to think that she had done anything wrong; and when she
brought little Richard up for baptism there wasn't a dry eye in the
church; and when she joined the church herself there wasn't anybody
mean enough to say a word against it, not even Silas Petty.
"Squire Elrod give her the cottage rent free after her mother died,
and betwixt nursin' and doin' fine needlework she made a good livin'
for herself and the boy.
"Little Richard was a child worth workin' for from the start. Tall and
straight as a saplin', and carried himself like he owned the earth,
even when he was a little feller. It looked like all the good blood on
both sides had come out in him, and there wasn't a smarter, handsomer
boy in the county. The old Squire thought a heap of him, and nothin'
but his pride kept him from ownin' the child outright and treatin' him
like he was his own flesh and blood. Richard had an old head on young
shoulders, though he was as full o' life as any boy; and by the time
he was grown the old Squire trusted him with everything on the place
and looked to him the same as if he'd been a settled man. After Old
Lady Elrod died, he broke terrible fast, and folks used to say it was
a pitiful sight to see him when he'd be watchin' Richard overseein'
the hands and tendin' to things about the place. He'd lean on the
fence, his hands tremblin' and his face workin', thinkin' about Dick
and grievin' over him and wishin', I reckon, that Dick had been such a
man as Milly's boy was.
"All these years nobody ever heard from Dick. Once in a while
somebody'd come from town and say they'd seen somebody that had seen
somebody else, and that somebody had seen Dick way out in California
or Lord knows where, and that was all the news that ever come back.
We'd all jest about made up our minds that he was dead, when one
mornin', along in corn-plantin' time, the news was brought and spread
over the neighborhood in no time that Dick Elrod had come home and was
lyin' at the p'int of death. I remembered hearin' a hack go by on the
pike the night before, and wondered to myself what was up. I thought,
maybe, it was a runaway couple or some such matter, but it was pore
Dick comin' back to his father's house, like the Prodigal Son, after
twenty years. It takes some folks a long time, child, to git tired of
the swine and the husks.
"Well, of course, it made a big commotion, and before we'd hardly
taken it in, we heard that he'd sent for Milly, and her and Richard
had gone together up to the big house.
"Jane Ann Petty was keepin' house for the old Squire, and she told us
afterwards how it all come about.
"We had a young probationer preachin' for us that summer, and as soon
as he heard about Dick, he goes up to the big house without bein' sent
for to talk to him about his soul. I reckon he thought it'd be a
feather in his cap if he could convert a hardened sinner like Dick.
"Jane Ann said they took him into Dick's room, and he set down by the
bed and begun to lay off the plan o' salvation jest like he was
preachin' from the pulpit, and Dick listened and never took his eyes
off his face. When he got through Dick says, says he:
"'Do you mean to say that all I've got to do to keep out of hell and
get into heaven is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?' And Brother
Jonas, he says:
"'Yes, my dear brother, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved. The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from
all sin."'
"And they said Dick jest laughed a curious sort o' laugh and says he:
"'It's a pretty God that'll make such a bargain as that!' And says he,
'I was born bad, I've lived bad, and I'm dyin' bad; but I ain't a
coward nor a sneak, and I'm goin' to hell for my sins like a man. Like
a man, do you hear me?'
"Jane Ann said the look in his eyes was awful; and the preacher turned
white as a sheet. It was curious talk for a death-bed; but, when you
come to think about it, it's reasonable enough. When a man's got hell
in his heart, what good is it goin' to do him to git into heaven?"
"What, indeed?" I echoed, thinking how delightful it was that Aunt
Jane and Omar Khayyam should be of one mind on this subject.
"When Dick said this the young preacher got up to go, but Dick called
him back, and says he, 'I don't want any of your preachin' or prayin',
but you stay here; there's another sort of a job for you to do.' And
then he turned around to the old Squire and says, 'Send for Milly.'
"When we all heard that Milly'd been sent for, the first thing we
thought was, 'How on earth is Milly goin' to tell Richard all he's
got to know?' I never used to think we was anything over and above the
ordinary out in our neighborhood, but when I ricollect that Richard
Elrod come up from a boy to a man without knowin' who his father was,
it seems like we must 'a' known how to hold our tongues anyhow. There
wasn't man, woman, or child that ever hinted to Milly Baker's boy that
he wasn't like other children, and so it was natural for us to wonder
how Milly was goin' to tell him. Well, it wasn't any of our business,
and we never found out. All we ever did know was that Milly and
Richard walked over to the big house together, and Richard held his
head as high as ever.
"They said that Dick give a start when Milly come into the room. I
reckon he expected to see the same little girl he'd fooled twenty
years back, and when she come walkin' in it jest took him by surprise.
"'Why, Milly,' says he, 'is this you?'
"And he held out his hand, and she walked over to the bed and laid her
hand in his. Folks that was there say it was a strange sight for any
one that remembered what them two used to be. Her so gentle and
sweet-lookin', and him all wore out with bad livin' and wasted to a
shadder of what he used to be.
"I've seen the same thing, child, over and over again. Two people'll
start out together, and after a while they'll git separated, or,
maybe, they'll live together a lifetime, and when they git to the end
o' fifteen or twenty or twenty-five years, one'll be jest where he was
when they set out, and the other'll be 'way up and 'way on, and
they're jest nothin' but strangers after all. That's the way it was
with Milly and Dick. They'd been sweethearts, and there was the child;
but the father'd gone his way and the mother'd gone hers, and now
there was somethin' between 'em like that 'great gulf' the Bible tells
about. Well, they said Dick looked up at Milly like a hungry man looks
at bread, and at last he says:
"'I'm goin' to make an honest woman of you, Milly.'
"And Milly looked him in the eyes and said as gentle and easy as if
she'd been talkin' to a sick child: 'I've always been an honest woman,
Dick.'
"This kind o' took him back again, but he says, right earnest and
pitiful, 'I want to marry you, Milly; don't refuse me. I want to do
one decent thing before I die. I've come all the way from California
just for this. Surely you'll feel better if you are my lawful wife.'
"And they said Milly thought a minute and then she says: 'I don't
believe it makes any difference with me, Dick. I've been through the
worst, and I'm used to it. But if it'll make it any easier for you,
I'll marry you. And then there's my boy; maybe it will be better for
him.'
"'Where's the boy?' says Dick; 'I want to see him.'
"So Milly went and called Richard in. And as soon as Dick saw him he
raised up on his elbow, weak as he was, and hollered out so you could
hear him in the next room.
"'Why,' says he, 'it's myself! It's myself! Stand off there where I
can see you, boy! Why, you're the man I ought to have been and
couldn't be. These lyin' doctors,' says he, 'tell me that I haven't
got a day to live, but I'm goin' to live another lifetime in you!'
"And then he fell back, gaspin' for breath, and young Richard stood
there in the middle o' the floor with his arms folded and his face
lookin' like it was made of stone.
"As soon as Dick could speak, they said he pulled Milly down and
whispered something to her, and she went over to the chair where his
clothes was hangin' and felt in the pocket of the vest and got a
little pearl ring out. They said she shook like a leaf when she saw
it. And Dick says: 'I took it away from you, Milly, twenty years ago,
for fear you'd use it for evidence against me--scoundrel that I was;
and now I'm goin' to put it on your finger again, and the parson shall
marry us fair and square. I've got the license here under my pillow.'
And Milly leaned over and lifted him and propped him up with the
pillows, and the young parson said the ceremony over 'em, with Jane
Ann and the old Squire for witnesses.
"As soon as the parson got through, Dick says: 'Boy, won't you shake
hands with your father? I wouldn't ask you before.' But Richard never
stirred. And Milly got up and went to him and laid her hand on his arm
and says: 'My son, come and speak to your father.' And he walked up
and took Dick's pore wasted hand in his strong one, and the old Squire
set there and sobbed like a child. Jane Ann said he held on to
Richard's hand and looked at him for a long time, and then he reached
under the pillow and brought out a paper, and says he: 'It's my will;
open it after I'm gone. I've squandered a lot o' money out West, but
there's a plenty left, and that minin' stock'll make you a rich man.
It's all yours and your mother's. I wish it was more,' says he, 'for
you're a son that a king'd be proud of.'
"Them was about the last words he said. Dr. Pendleton said he wouldn't
live through the night, and sure enough he begun to sink as soon as
the young parson left, and he died the next mornin' about daybreak.
Jane Ann said jest before he died he opened his eyes and mumbled
somethin', and Milly seemed to know what he wanted, for she reached
over and put Richard's hand on hers and Dick's, and he breathed his
last jest that way.
"Milly wouldn't let a soul touch the corpse, but her and Richard. She
was a mighty good hand at layin' out the dead, and them two washed and
shrouded the body and laid it in the coffin, and the next day at the
funeral Milly walked on one side o' the old Squire and Richard on the
other, and the old man leaned on Richard like he'd found a prop for
his last days.
"I ain't much of a hand to believe in signs, but there was one thing
the day of the buryin' that I shall always ricollect. It had been
rainin' off and on all day,--a soft, misty sort o' rain that's good
for growin' things,--but while they were fillin' up the grave and
smoothin' it off, the sun broke out over in the west, and when we
turned around to leave the grave there was the brightest, prettiest
rainbow you ever saw; and when Milly and Richard got into the old
Squire's carriage and rode home with him, that rainbow was right in
front of 'em all the way home. It didn't mean much for Milly and the
Squire, but I couldn't help thinkin' it was a promise o' better things
for Richard, and maybe a hope for pore Dick.
"Milly didn't live long after this. They found her dead in her bed one
mornin'. The doctor said it was heart disease; but it's my belief that
she jest died because she thought she could do Richard a better turn
by dyin' than livin'. She'd lived for him twenty years and seen him
come into his rights, and I reckon she thought her work was done.
Dyin' for people is a heap easier'n livin' for 'em, anyhow.
"The old Squire didn't outlive Milly many years, and when he died
Richard come into all the Elrod property. You've seen the Elrod place,
ain't you, child? That white house with big pillars and porches in
front of it. It's three miles further on the pike, and folks'll drive
out there jest to look at it. I've heard 'em call it a 'colonial
mansion,' or some such name as that. It was all run down when Richard
come into possession of it, but now it's one o' the finest places in
the whole state. That's the way it is with families: one generation'll
tear down and another generation'll build up. Richard's buildin' up
all that his father tore down, and I'm in hopes his work'll last for
many a day."
Aunt Jane's voice ceased, and there was a long silence. The full
harvest of the story-telling was over; but sometimes there was an
aftermath to Aunt Jane's tale, and for this I waited. I looked at the
field opposite where the long, verdant rows gave promise of the autumn
reaping, and my thoughts were busy tracing backward every link in the
chain of circumstance that stretched between Milly Baker's boy of
forty years ago and the handsome, prosperous man I had seen that
morning. Ah, a goodly tale and a goodly ending! Aunt Jane spoke at
last, and her words were an echo of my thought.
"There's lots of satisfactory things in this world, child," she said,
beaming at me over her spectacles with the smile of the optimist who
is born, not made. "There's a satisfaction in roundin' off the toe of
a stockin', like I'm doin' now, and knowin' that your work's goin' to
keep somebody's feet warm next winter. There's a satisfaction in
bakin' a nice, light batch o' bread for the children to eat up.
There's a satisfaction in settin' on the porch in the cool o' the
evenin' and thinkin' o' the good day's work behind you, and another
good day that's comin' to-morrow. This world ain't a vale o' tears
unless you make it so on purpose. But of all the satisfactions I ever
experienced, the most satisfyin' is to see people git their just
deserts right here in this world. I don't blame David for bein' out o'
patience when he saw the wicked flourishin' like a green bay tree.
"I never was any hand for puttin' things off, whether it's work or
punishment; and I've never got my own consent to this way o' skeerin'
people with a hell and wheedlin' 'em with a heaven way off yonder in
the next world. I ain't as old as Methuselah, but I've lived long
enough to find out a few things; and one of 'em is that if people
don't die before their time, they'll git their heaven and their hell
right here in this world. And whenever I feel like doubtin' the
justice o' the Lord, I think o' Milly Baker's boy, and how he got
everything that belonged to him, and he didn't have to die and go to
heaven to git it either."
"'Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds
He all.'"
I quoted the lines musingly, watching meanwhile their effect on Aunt
Jane. Her eyes sparkled as her quick brain took in the meaning of the
poet's words.
"That's it!" she exclaimed,--"that's it! I don't mind waitin' myself
and seein' other folks wait, too, a reasonable time, but I do like to
see everybody, sooner or later, git the grist that rightly belongs to
'em."
[Illustration]
VI
THE BAPTIZING AT KITTLE CREEK
[Illustration]
"There's a heap o' reasons for folks marryin'," said Aunt Jane,
reflectively. "Some marries for love, some for money, some for a home;
some marries jest to spite somebody else, and some, it looks like,
marries for nothin' on earth but to have somebody always around to
quarrel with about religion. That's the way it was with Marthy and
Amos Matthews. I don't reckon you ever heard o' Marthy and Amos, did
you, child? It's been many a year since I thought of 'em myself. But
last Sunday evenin' I was over at Elnora Simpson's, and old Uncle Sam
Simpson was there visitin'. Uncle Sam used to live in the neighborhood
o' Goshen, but he moved up to Edmonson County way back yonder, I can't
tell when, and every now and then he comes back to see his
grandchildren. He's gittin' well on towards ninety, and I'm thinkin'
this is about the last trip the old man'll make till he goes on his
long journey. I was mighty glad to see him, and me and him set and
talked about old times till the sun went down. What he didn't remember
I did, and what I didn't remember he did; and when we got through
talkin', Elnora--that's his grandson's wife--says, 'Well, Uncle Sam,
if I could jest take down everything you and Aunt Jane said to-day,
I'd have a pretty good history of everybody that ever lived in this
county.'
"Uncle Sam was the one that started the talk about Marthy and Amos.
He'd been leanin' on his cane lookin' out o' the door at Elnora's
twins playin' on the grass, and all at once he says, says he, 'Jane,
do you ricollect the time they had the big babtizin' down at Kittle
Creek?' And he got to laughin', and I got to laughin', and we set
there and cackled like a pair o' old fools, and nobody but us two
seein' anything funny about it."
Aunt Jane's ready laugh began again at the mere remembrance of her
former mirth. I kept discreetly silent, fearing to break the flow of
reminiscence by some ill-timed question.
"Nobody ever could see," she continued, "how it was that Amos Matthews
and Marthy Crawford ever come to marry, unless it was jest as I said,
to have somebody always handy to quarrel with about their religion;
and I used to think sometimes that Marthy and Amos got more pleasure
that way than most folks git out o' prayin' and singin' and listenin'
to preachin'. Amos was the strictest sort of a Presbyterian, and
Marthy was a Babtist, and to hear them two jawin' and arguin' and
bringin' up Scripture texts about predestination and infant babtism
and close communion and immersion was enough to make a person wish
there wasn't such a thing as churches and doctrines. Brother Rice
asked Sam Amos once if Marthy and Amos Matthews was Christians.
Brother Rice had come to help Parson Page carry on a meetin', and he
was tryin' to find out who was the sinners and who was the
Christians. And Sam says, 'No; my Lord! It takes all o' Marthy's time
to be a Babtist and all o' Amos' to be a Presbyterian. They ain't got
time to be Christians.'
"Some folks wondered how they ever got time to do any courtin', they
was so busy wranglin' over babtism and election. And after Marthy had
her weddin' clothes all made they come to a dead stop. Amos said he
wouldn't feel like they was rightly married if they didn't have a
Presbyterian minister to marry 'em, and Marthy said it wouldn't be
marryin' to her if they didn't have a Babtist. I was over at Hannah
Crawford's one day, and she says, says she, 'Jane, I've been savin' up
my eggs and butter for a month to make Marthy's weddin' cake, and if
her and Amos don't come to an understandin' soon, it'll all be a dead
loss.' And Marthy says, 'Well, mother, I may not have any cake at my
weddin', and I may not have any weddin', but one thing is certain: I'm
not goin' to give up my principles.'
"And Hannah sort o' groaned--she hadn't had any easy time with Miles
Crawford--and says she, 'You pore foolish child! Principles ain't the
only thing a woman has to give up when she gits married.'
"I don't know whether they ever would 'a' come to an agreement if it
hadn't been for Brother Morris. He was the Presidin' Elder from town,
and a powerful hand for jokin' with folks. He happened to meet Amos
one day about this time, and says he, 'Amos, I hear you and Miss
Marthy can't decide betwixt Brother Page and Brother Gyardner. It'd be
a pity,' says he, 'to have a good match sp'iled for such a little
matter, and s'pose you compromise and have me to marry you.'
"And Amos says, 'I don't know but what that's the best thing that
could be done. I'll see Marthy and let you know.' And, bless your
life, they was married a week from that day. I went over and helped
Hannah with the cake, and Brother Morris said as pretty a ceremony
over 'em as any Presbyterian or Babtist could 'a' said.
"Well, the next Sunday everybody was on the lookout to see which
church the bride and groom'd go to. Bush Elrod bet a dollar that
Marthy'd have her way, and Sam Amos bet a dollar that they'd be at the
Presbyterian church. Sam won the bet, and we was all right glad that
Marthy'd had the grace to give up that one time, anyhow. Amos was
powerful pleased havin' Marthy with him, and they sung out of the same
hymn-book and looked real happy. It looked like they was startin' out
right, and I thought to myself, 'Well, here's a good beginnin',
anyhow.' But it happened to be communion Sunday, and of all the
unlucky things that could 'a' happened for Marthy and Amos, that was
about the unluckiest. I said then that if Parson Page had been a
woman, he'd 'a' postponed that communion. But a man couldn't be
expected to have much sense about such matters, so he goes ahead and
gives out the hymn,
''Twas on that dark and dreadful day;'
and everybody in church was lookin' at Amos and Marthy and watchin' to
see what she was goin' to do. While they was singin' the hymn the
church-members got up and went forward to the front seats, and Amos
went with 'em. That left Marthy all alone in the pew, and I couldn't
help feelin' sorry for her. She tried to look unconcerned, but anybody
could see she felt sort o' forsaken and left out, and folks all
lookin', and some of 'em whisperin' and nudgin' each other. I knew
jest exactly how Marthy felt. Abram said to me when we was on the way
home that day, 'Jane, if I'd 'a' been in Amos' place, I believe I'd
'a' set still with Marthy. Marthy'd come with him and it looks like
he ought to 'a' stayed with her.' I reckon, though, that Amos thought
he was doin' right, and maybe it's foolish in women to care about
things like that. Sam Amos used to say that nobody but God Almighty,
that made her, ever could tell what a woman wanted and what she didn't
want; and I've thought many a time that since He made women, it's a
pity He couldn't 'a' made men with a better understandin' o' women's
ways.
"Maybe if Amos'd set still that day, things would 'a' been different
with him and Marthy all their lives, and then again, maybe it didn't
make any difference. It's hard to tell jest what makes things go wrong
in this world and what makes 'em go right. It's a mighty little thing
for a man to git up and leave his wife settin' alone in a pew for a
few minutes, but then there's mighty few things in this life that
ain't little, till you git to follerin' 'em up and seein' what they
come to."
I thought of Pippa's song:
"Say not a small event! Why 'small'?
Costs it more pain that this, ye call
A great event, should come to pass,
Than that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!"
And Aunt Jane went serenely on:
"Anyhow, it wasn't long till Amos was goin' to his church and Marthy
to hers, and they kept that up the rest of their lives. Still, they
might 'a' got along well enough this way, for married folks don't have
to think alike about everything, but they was eternally arguin' about
their church doctrines. If Amos grumbled about the weather, Marthy'd
say, 'Ain't everything predestined? Warn't this drought app'inted
before the foundation of the world? What's the sense in grumblin' over
the decrees of God?' And it got so that if Amos wanted to grumble over
anything, he had to git away from home first, and that must 'a' been
mighty wearin' on him; for, as a rule, a man never does any grumblin'
except at home; but pore Amos didn't have that privilege. Sam Amos
used to say---Sam wasn't a church-member himself--that there was some
advantages about bein' a Babtist after all; you did have to go under
the water, but then you had the right to grumble. But if a man
believed that everything was predestined before the foundations of the
world, there wasn't any sense or reason in findin' fault with anything
that happened. And he believed that he'd ruther jine the Babtist
church than the Presbyterian, for he didn't see how he could carry on
his farm without complainin' about the weather and the crops and
things in general.
"If Marthy and Amos'd been divided on anything but their churches, the
children might 'a' brought 'em together; but every time a child was
born matters got worse. Amos, of course, wanted 'em all babtized in
infancy, and Marthy wanted 'em immersed when they j'ined the church,
and so it went. Amos had his way about the first one, and I never
shall forgit the day it was born. I went over to help wait on Marthy
and the baby, and as soon as I got the little thing dressed, we called
Amos in to see it. Now, Amos always took his religion mighty hard. It
didn't seem to bring him any comfort or peace o' mind. I've heard
people say they didn't see how Presbyterians ever could be happy; but
la, child, it's jest as easy to be happy in one church as in another.
It all depends on what doctrines you think the most about. Now you
take election and justification and sanctification, and you can git
plenty o' comfort out o' them. But Amos never seemed to think of
anything but reprobation and eternal damnation. Them doctrines jest
seemed to weigh on him night and day. He used to say many a time that
he didn't know whether he had made his callin' and election sure or
not, and I don't believe he thought that anybody else had made theirs
sure, either. Abram used to say that Amos looked like he was carryin'
the sins o' the world on his shoulders.
"That day the baby was born I thought to myself, 'Well, here's
somethin' that'll make Amos forgit about his callin' and election for
once, anyhow;' and I wrapped the little feller up in his blanket and
held him to the light, so his father could see him; and Amos looked at
him like he was skeered, for a minute, and then he says, 'O Lord! I
hope it ain't a reprobate.'
"Now jest think of a man lookin' down into a little new-born baby's
face and talkin' about reprobates!
"Marthy heard what he said, and says she, 'Amos, are you goin' to have
him babtized in infancy?'
"'Why, yes,' says Amos, 'of course I am.'
"And Marthy says, 'Well, hadn't you better wait until you find out
whether he's a reprobate or not? If he's a reprobate, babtizin' ain't
goin' to do him any good, and if he's elected he don't need to be
babtized.'
"And I says, 'For goodness' sake, Marthy, you and Amos let the
doctrines alone, or you'll throw yourself into a fever.' And I pushed
a rockin'-chair up by the bed and I says, 'Here, Amos, you set here by
your wife, and both of you thank the Lord for givin' you such a fine
child;' and I laid the baby in Amos' arms, and went out in the gyarden
to look around and git some fresh air. I gethered a bunch o'
honeysuckles to put on Marthy's table, and when I got back, Marthy and
the baby was both asleep, and Amos looked as if he was beginnin' to
have some little hopes of the child's salvation.
"Marthy named him John; and Sam Amos said he reckoned it was for John
the Babtist. But it wasn't; it was for Marthy's twin brother that died
when he was jest three months old. Twins run in the Crawford family.
Amos had him babtized in infancy jest like he said he would, and such
a hollerin' and squallin' never was heard in Goshen church. The next
day Sally Ann says to me, says she, 'That child must 'a' been a
Babtist, Jane; for he didn't appear to favor infant babtism.'
"Well, Marthy had her say-so about the next child--that one was a boy,
too, and they named him Amos for his father--and young Amos wasn't
babtized in infancy; he was 'laid aside for immersion,' as Sam Amos
said. Then it was Amos' time to have his way, and so they went on till
young Amos was about fifteen years old and Marthy got him converted
and ready to be immersed. The Babtists had a big meetin' that spring,
and there was a dozen or more converts to be babtized when it was
over. We'd been havin' mighty pleasant weather that March; I ricollect
me and Abram planted our potatoes the first week in March, and I would
put in some peas. Abram said it was too early, and sure enough the
frost got 'em when they was about two inches high. It turned off real
cold about the last o' March; and when the day for the babtizin' come,
there was a pretty keen east wind, and Kittle Creek was mighty high
and muddy, owin' to the rains they'd had further up. There was some
talk o' puttin' off the babtizin' till better weather, but Brother
Gyardner, he says: 'The colder the water, the warmer your faith,
brethren; Christ never put off any babtizin' on account of the
weather.'
"Sam Amos asked him if he didn't reckon there was some difference
between the climate o' Kentucky and the climate o' Palestine. Sam was
always a great hand to joke with the preachers. But the way things
went that day the weather didn't make much difference anyhow to young
Sam.
"The whole neighborhood turned out Sunday evenin' and went over to
Kittle Creek to see the big babtizin'. Marthy and Amos and all the
children was there, and Marthy looked like she'd had a big streak o'
good luck. Sam Amos says to me, 'Well, Aunt Jane, Marthy's waited a
long time, but she'll have her innin's now.'
"Bush Elrod was the first one to go under the water; and when two or
three more had been babtized, it was young Amos' time. I saw Marthy
pushin' him forward and beckonin' to Brother Gyardner like she
couldn't wait any longer.
"Nobody never did know exactly how it happened. Some folks said that
young Amos wasn't overly anxious to go under the water that cold day,
and he kind o' slipped behind his father when he saw Brother Gyardner
comin' towards him; and some went so fur as to say that Brother
Gyardner was in the habit o' takin' a little spirits after a babtizin'
to keep from takin' cold, and that time he'd taken it beforehand, and
didn't know exactly what he was about. Anyhow, the first thing we knew
Brother Gyardner had hold o' Amos himself, leadin' him towards the
water. Amos was a timid sort o' man, easy flustered, and it looked
like he lost his wits and his tongue too. He was kind o' pullin' back
and lookin' round in a skeered way, and Brother Gyardner he hollered
out, 'Come right along, brother! I know jest how it is myself; the
spirit is willin', but the flesh is weak.' The Babtists was shoutin'
'Glory Hallelujah' and Uncle Jim Matthews begun to sing, 'On Jordan's
stormy banks I stand,' and pretty near everybody j'ined in till you
couldn't hear your ears. The rest of us was about as flustered as
Amos. We knew in reason that Brother Gyardner was makin' a big
mistake, but we jest stood there and let things go on, and no tellin'
what might 'a' happened if it hadn't been for Sam Amos. Sam was a
cool-headed man, and nothin' ever flustered him. As soon as he saw how
things was goin' he set down on the bank and pulled off his boots; and
jest as Brother Gyardner got into the middle o' the creek, here come
Sam wadin' up behind 'em, and grabbed Amos by the shoulder and
hollered out, 'You got the wrong man, parson! Here, Amos, take hold o'
me.' And he give Amos a jerk that nearly made Brother Gyardner lose
his footin', and him and Amos waded up to the shore and left Brother
Gyardner standin' there in the middle o' the creek lookin' like he'd
lost his job.
"Well, that put a stop to the singin' and the shoutin', and the way
folks laughed was scandalous. They had to walk Amos home in a hurry
to git his wet clothes off, and Uncle Jim Matthews and Old Man Bob
Crawford went with him to rub him down. Amos was subject to
bronchitis, anyhow. Marthy went on ahead of 'em in the wagon to have
hot water and blankets ready. I'll give Marthy that credit; she
appeared to forgit all about the babtizin' when Amos come up so wet
and shiverin'. Sam couldn't git his boots on over his wet socks, and
as he'd walked over to the creek, Silas Petty had to take him home in
his spring wagon. Brother Gyardner all this time was lookin' round for
young Amos, but he wasn't to be found high nor low, and that set folks
to laughin' again, and so many havin' to leave, the babtizin' was
clean broke up. Milly come up jest as Sam was gittin' into Old Man
Bob's wagon, and says she, 'Well, Sam, you've ruined your Sunday pants
this time.' And Sam says, 'Pants nothin'. The rest o' you all can save
your Sunday pants if you want to, but this here's a free country, and
I ain't goin' to stand by and see a man babtized against his will
while I'm able to save him.' And if Sam'd saved Amos' life, instead o'
jest savin' him from babtism, Amos couldn't 'a' been gratefuler. When
Sam broke his arm the follerin' summer, Amos went over and set up
with him at night, and let his own wheat stand while he harvested
Sam's.
"Well, the next time the 'Sociation met, the Babtists had somethin'
new to talk about. Old Brother Gyardner got up, and says he,
'Brethren, there's a question that's been botherin' me for some time,
and I'd like to hear it discussed and git it settled, if possible;'
and says he, 'If a man should be babtized accidentally, and against
his will, would he be a Babtist? or would he not?' And they begun to
argue it, and they had it up and down, and some was of one opinion and
some of another. Brother Gyardner said he was inclined to think that
babtism made a man a Babtist, but old Brother Bascom said if a man
wasn't a Babtist in his heart, all the water in the sea wouldn't make
him one. And Brother Gyardner said that was knockin' the props clean
from under the Babtist faith. 'For,' says he, 'if bein' a Babtist in
the heart makes a man a Babtist, then babtism ain't necessary to
salvation, and if babtism ain't necessary, what becomes o' the Babtist
church?'
"Somebody told Amos about the dispute they was havin' over his case,
and Amos says, 'If them fool Babtists want that question settled, let
'em come to me.' Says he, 'My father and mother was Presbyterians,
and my grandfather and grandmother and great-grandfather and
great-grandmother on both sides; I was sprinkled in infancy, and I
j'ined the Presbyterian church as soon as I come to the age of
accountability, and if you was to carry me over to Jerusalem and
babtize me in the river Jordan itself, I'd still be a Presbyterian.'"
Here Aunt Jane paused to laugh again. "There's some things, child,"
she said, as she wiped her glasses, "that people'll laugh over and
then forgit; and there's some things they never git over laughin'
about. The Kittle Creek babtizin' was one o' that kind. Old Man Bob
Crawford used to say he wouldn't 'a' took five hundred dollars for
that babtizin'. Old Man Bob was the biggest laugher in the country;
you could hear him for pretty near half a mile when he got in a
laughin' way; and he used to say that whenever he felt like havin' a
good laugh, all he had to do was to think of Amos and how he looked
with Brother Gyardner leadin' him into the water, and the Babtists
a-singin' over him. Bush Elrod was another one that never got over it.
Every time he'd see Amos he'd begin to sing, 'On Jordan's stormy banks
I stand,' and Amos couldn't git out o' the way quick enough.
"Well, that's what made me and old Uncle Sam Simpson laugh so last
Sunday. I don't reckon there's anything funny in it to folks that
never seen it; but when old people git together and call up old times,
they can see jest how folks looked and acted, and it's like livin' it
all over again."
"I don't believe you can see it any plainer than I do, Aunt Jane," I
hastened to assure her. "It is all as clear to me as any picture I
ever saw. It was in March, you say, and the wind was cool, but the sun
was warm; and if you sat in a sheltered place you might almost think
it was the last of April."
"That's so, child. I remember me and Abram set under the bank on a
rock that kind o' cut off the north wind, and it was real pleasant."
"Then there must have been a purple haze on the hills; and, while the
trees were still bare, there was a look about them as if the coming
leaves were casting their shadows before. There were heaps of brown
leaves from last year's autumn in the fence corners, and as you and
Uncle Abram walked home, you looked under them to see if the violets
were coming up, and found some tiny wood ferns."
Aunt Jane dropped her knitting and leaned back in the high
old-fashioned chair.
"Why, child," she said in an awe-struck tone, "are you a
fortune-teller?"
"Not at all, Aunt Jane," I said, laughing at the dear old lady's
consternation. "I am only a good guesser; and I wanted you to know
that I not only see the things that you see and tell me, but some of
the things that you see and don't tell me. Did Marthy ever get young
Amos baptized?" I asked.
"La, yes," laughed Aunt Jane. "They finished up the babtizin' two
weeks after that. It was a nice, pleasant day, and young Amos went
under the water all right; but mighty little good it did him after
all. For as soon as he come of age, he married Matildy Harris (Matildy
was a Methodist), and he got to goin' to church with his wife, and
that was the last of his Babtist raisin'."
Then we both were silent for a while, and I watched the gathering
thunder-clouds in the west. A low rumble of thunder broke the
stillness of the August afternoon. Aunt Jane looked up apprehensively.
"There's goin' to be a storm betwixt now and sundown," she said, "but
I reckon them young turkeys'll be safe under their mother's wings by
that time."
"Don't you think a wife ought to join her husband's church, Aunt
Jane?" I asked with idle irrelevance to her remark.
"Sometimes she ought and sometimes she oughtn't," replied Aunt Jane
oracularly. "There ain't any rule about it. Everybody's got to be
their own judge about such matters. If I'd 'a' been in Marthy's place,
I wouldn't 'a' j'ined Amos' church, and if I'd been in Amos' place I
wouldn't 'a' j'ined Marthy's church. So there it is."
"But didn't you join Uncle Abram's church?" I asked, in a laudable
endeavor to get at the root of the matter.
"Yes, I did," said Aunt Jane stoutly; "but that's a mighty different
thing. Of course, I went with Abram, and if I had it to do over again,
I'd do it. You see the way of it was this: my folks was Campbellites,
or Christians they'd ruther be called. It's curious how they don't
like to be called Campbellites. Methodists don't mind bein' called
Wesleyans, and Presbyterians don't git mad if you call 'em Calvinists,
and I reckon Alexander Campbell was jest as good a man as Wesley and a
sight better'n Calvin, but you can't make a Campbellite madder than to
call him a Campbellite. However, as I was sayin', Alexander Campbell
himself babtized my father and mother out here in Drake's Creek, and
I was brought up to think that my church was _the_ Christian church,
sure enough. But when me and Abram married, neither one of us was
thinkin' much about churches. I used to tell Marthy that if a man'd
come talkin' church to me, when he ought to been courtin' me, I'd 'a'
told him to go on and marry a hymn-book or a catechism. I believe in
religion jest as much as anybody, but a man that can't forgit his
religion while he's courtin' a woman ain't worth havin'. That's my
opinion. But as I was sayin', me and Abram had the church question to
settle after we was married, and I don't believe either one of us
thought about it till Sunday mornin' come. I ricollect it jest like it
was yesterday. We was married in June, and you know how things always
look about then. I've thought many a day, when I've been out in the
gyarden workin' with my vegetables and getherin' my honeysuckles and
roses, that if folks could jest live on and never git old and it'd
stay June forever, that this world'd be heaven enough for anybody. And
that's the way it was that Sunday mornin'. I ricollect I had on my
'second-day' dress, the prettiest sort of a changeable silk, kind 'o
dove color and pink, and I had a leghorn bonnet on with pink roses
inside the brim, and black lace mitts on my hands. I stood up before
the glass jest before I went out to the gate where Abram was, waitin'
for me, and I looked as pretty as a pink, if I do say it. 'Self-praise
goes but a little ways,' my mother used to tell me, when I was a
gyirl; but I reckon there ain't any harm in an old woman like me
tellin' how she looked when she was a bride more'n sixty years ago."
And a faint color came into the wrinkled cheeks, while her clear, high
laugh rang out. The outward symbols of youth and beauty were gone, but
their unquenchable spirit lay warm under the ashes of nearly eight
decades.
"Well, I went out, and Abram helped me into the buggy and, instead o'
goin' straight on to Goshen church, he turned around and drove out to
my church. When we walked in I could see folks nudgin' each other and
laughin', and when meetin' broke and we was fixin' to go home, Aunt
Maria Taylor grabbed hold o' me and pulled me off to one side and says
she, 'That's right, Jane, you're beginnin' in time. Jest break a man
in at the start, and you won't have no trouble afterwards.' And I jest
laughed in her face and went on to where Abram was waitin' for me. I
was too happy to git mad that day. Well, the next Sunday, when we got
into the buggy and Abram started to turn round, I took hold o' the
reins and says I, 'It's my time to drive, Abram; you had your way last
Sunday, and now I'm goin' to have mine.' And I snapped the whip over
old Nell's back and drove right on to Goshen, and Abram jest set back
and laughed fit to kill.
"We went on that way for two or three months, folks sayin' that Abram
and Jane Parrish couldn't go to the same church two Sundays straight
along to save their lives, and everybody wonderin' which of us'd have
their way in the long run. And me and Abram jest laughed in our
sleeves and paid no attention to 'em; for there never was but one way
for us, anyhow, and that wasn't Abram's way nor my way; it was jest
_our_ way. There's lots of married folks, honey, and one of 'em's here
and one of 'em's gone over yonder, and there's a long, deep grave
between 'em; but they're a heap nearer to each other than two livin'
people that stay in the same house, and eat at the same table, and
sleep in the same bed, and all the time there's two great thick church
walls between 'em and growin' thicker and higher every day. Sam Amos
used to say that if religion made folks act like Marthy and Amos did,
he believed he'd ruther have less religion or none at all. But, honey,
when you see married folks quarrelin' over their churches, it ain't
too much religion that's the cause o' the trouble, it's too little
love. Jest ricollect that; if folks love each other right, religion
ain't goin' to come between 'em.
"Well, as soon as cold weather set in they started up a big revival at
Goshen church. After the meetin' had been goin' on for three or four
weeks, Parson Page give out one Sunday that the session would meet on
the follerin' Thursday to examine all that had experienced a change o'
heart and wanted to unite with the church. I never said a word to
Abram, but Thursday evenin' while he was out on the farm mendin' some
fences that the cattle had broke down, I harnessed old Nell to the
buggy and drove out to Goshen. All the converts was there, and the
session was questionin' and examinin' when I got in. When it come my
turn, Parson Page begun askin' me if I'd made my callin' and election
sure, and I come right out, and says I, 'I don't know much about
callin' and election, Brother Page; I reckon I'm a Christian,' says I,
'for I've been tryin' to do right by everybody ever since I was old
enough to know the difference betwixt right and wrong; but, if the
plain truth was told, I'm j'inin' this church jest because it's
Abram's church, and I want to please him. And that's all the testimony
I've got to give.' And Parson Page put his hand over his mouth to keep
from laughin'--he was a young man then and hadn't been married long
himself--and says he, 'That'll do, Sister Parrish; brethren, we'll
pass on to the next candidate.' I left 'em examinin' Sam Crawford
about his callin' and election, and I got home before Abram come to
the house, and the next day when I walked up with the rest of 'em
Abram was the only person in the church that was surprised. When
they'd got through givin' us the right hand o' fellowship, and I went
back to our pew, Abram took hold o' my hand and held on to it like he
never would let go, and I knew I'd done the right thing and I never
would regret it."
There was a light on the old woman's face that made me turn my eyes
away. Here was a personal revelation that should have satisfied the
most exacting, but my vulgar curiosity cried out for further light on
the past.
"What would you have done," I asked, "if Uncle Abram hadn't turned the
horse that Sunday morning--if he had gone straight on to Goshen?"
Aunt Jane regarded me for a moment with a look of pitying allowance,
such as one bestows on a child who doesn't know any better than to ask
stupid questions.
"Shuh, child," she said with careless brevity, "Abram couldn't 'a'
done such a thing as that."
[Illustration]
VII
HOW SAM AMOS RODE IN THE
TOURNAMENT
[Illustration]
"There's one thing I'd like mighty well to see again before I die,"
said Aunt Jane, "and that is a good, old-fashioned fair. The apostle
says we must 'press forward, forgetting the things that are behind,'
but there's some things I've left behind that I can't never forget,
and the fairs we had in my day is one of 'em."
It was the quietest hour of an August afternoon--that time when one
seems to have reached "the land where it is always afternoon"--and
Aunt Jane and I were sitting on the back porch, shelling butter-beans
for the next day's market. Before us lay the garden in the splendid
fulness of late summer. Concord and Catawba grapes loaded the vines on
the rickety old arbor; tomatoes were ripening in reckless plenty, to
be given to the neighbors, or to lie in tempting rows on the
window-sill of the kitchen and the shelves of the back porch; the
second planting of cucumber vines ran in flowery luxuriance over the
space allotted to them, and even encroached on the territory of the
squashes and melons. Damsons hung purpling over the eaves of the
house, and wasps and bees kept up a lively buzzing as they feasted on
the windfalls of the old yellow peach tree near the garden gate.
Nature had distributed her sunshine and showers with wise generosity
that year, and neither in field nor in garden was there lack of any
good thing. Perhaps it was this gracious abundance, presaging fine
exhibits at the coming fair, that turned Aunt Jane's thoughts towards
the fairs of her youth.
"Folks nowadays don't seem to think much about fairs," she continued;
"but when I was young a fair was something that the grown folks looked
forward to jest like children look for Christmas. The women and the
men, too, was gittin' ready for the fair all the year round, the women
piecin' quilts and knittin' socks and weavin' carpets and puttin' up
preserves and pickles, and the men raisin' fine stock; and when the
fair come, it was worth goin' to, child, and worth rememberin' after
you'd gone to it.
"I hear folks talkin' about the fair every year, and I laugh to myself
and I say, 'You folks don't know what a fair is.' And I set out there
on my porch fair week and watch the buggies and wagons goin' by in the
mornin' and comin' home at night, and I git right happy, thinkin'
about the time when me and Abram and the children used to go over the
same road to the fair, but a mighty different sort of fair from what
they have nowadays. One thing is, honey, they have the fairs too soon.
It never was intended for folks to go to fairs in hot weather, and
here they've got to havin' 'em the first week in September, about the
hottest, driest, dustiest time of the whole year. Nothin' looks pretty
then, and it always makes me think o' folks when they've been wearin'
their summer clothes for three months, and everything's all faded and
dusty and drabbled. That's the way it generally is in September. But
jest wait till two or three good rains come, and everything's washed
clean and sweet, and the trees look like they'd got a new set o'
leaves, and the grass comes out green and fresh like it does in the
spring, and the nights and the mornin's feel cool, though it's hot
enough in the middle o' the day; and maybe there'll come a touch of
early frost, jest enough to turn the top leaves on the sugar maples.
That's October, child, and that's the time for a fair.
"Lord, the good times I've seen in them days! Startin' early and
comin' home late, with the sun settin' in front of you, and by and by
the moon comin' up behind you, and the wind blowin' cool out o' the
woods on the side o' the road; the baby fast asleep in my arms, and
the other children talkin' with each other about what they'd seen, and
Abram drivin' slow over the rough places, and lookin' back every once
in a while to see if we was all there. It's a curious thing, honey; I
liked fairs as well as anybody, and I reckon I saw all there was to be
seen, and heard everything there was to be heard every time I went to
one. But now, when I git to callin' 'em up, it appears to me that the
best part of it all, and the part I ricollect the plainest, was jest
the goin' there and the comin' back home.
"Abram knew I liked to stay till everything was over, and he'd git
somebody to water and feed the stock, and then I never had any hot
suppers to git while the fair lasted; so there wasn't anything to
hurry me and Abram. I ricollect Maria Petty come up one day about
five o'clock, jest as we was lookin' at the last race, and says she,
'I'm about to drop, Jane; but I believe I'd ruther stay here and sleep
on the floor o' the amp'itheater than to go home and cook a hot
supper.' And I says, 'Don't cook a hot supper, then.' And says she,
'Why, Silas wouldn't eat a piece o' cold bread at home to save his
life or mine either.'
"There's a heap o' women to be pitied, child," said Aunt Jane,
dropping a handful of shelled beans into my pan with a cheerful
clatter, "but, of all things, deliver me from livin' with a man that
has to have hot bread three times a day. Milly Amos used to say that
when she died she wanted a hot biscuit carved on her tombstone; and
that if it wasn't for hot biscuits, there'd be a mighty small crop of
widowers. Sam, you see, was another man that couldn't eat cold bread.
But Sam had a right to his hot biscuits; for if Milly didn't feel like
goin' into the kitchen, Sam'd go out and mix up his biscuits and bake
'em himself. Sam's soda biscuits was as good as mine; and when it come
to beaten biscuits, why nobody could equal Sam. Milly'd make up the
dough as stiff as she could handle it, and Sam'd beat it till it was
soft enough to roll out; and such biscuits I never expect to eat
again--white and light as snow inside, and crisp as a cracker
outside. Folks nowadays makes beaten biscuits by machinery, but they
don't taste like the old-fashioned kind that was beat by hand.
"And talkin' about biscuits, child, reminds me of the cookin' I used
to do for the fairs. I don't reckon many women likes to remember the
cookin' they've done. When folks git to rememberin', it looks like the
only thing they want to call up is the pleasure they've had, the
picnics and the weddin's and the tea-parties. But somehow the work
I've done in my day is jest as precious to me as the play I've had. I
hear young folks complainin' about havin' to work so hard, and I say
to 'em, 'Child, when you git to be as old as I am, and can't work all
you want to, you'll know there ain't any pleasure like good hard
work.'
"There's one thing that bothers me, child," and Aunt Jane's voice sank
to a confidential key: "I've had a plenty o' fears in my life, but
they've all passed over me; and now there's jest one thing I'm afraid
of: that I'll live to be too old to work. It appears to me like I
could stand anything but that. And if the time ever comes when I can't
help myself, nor other folks either, I trust the Lord'll see fit to
call me hence and give me a new body, and start me to work again
right away.
"But, as I was sayin', I always enjoyed cookin', and it's a pleasure
to me to set and think about the hams I've b'iled and the salt-risin'
bread I've baked and the old-fashioned pound-cake and sponge-cake and
all the rest o' the things I used to take to the fair. Abram was
always mighty proud o' my cookin', and we generally had a half a dozen
or more o' the town folks to eat dinner with us every day o' the fair.
Old Judge Grace and Dr. Brigham never failed to eat with us. The old
judge'd say something about my salt-risin' bread every time I'd meet
him in town. The first year my bread took the premium, Abram sent the
premium loaf to him with the blue ribbon tied around it. After Abram
died I stopped goin' to the fairs, and I don't know how many years
it'd been since I set foot on the grounds. I hadn't an idea how
things'd changed since my day till, year before last, Henrietta and
her husband come down here from Danville. He'd come to show some
blooded stock, and she come along with him to see me. And says she,
'Grandma, you've got to go to the fair with me one day, anyhow;' and I
went more to please her than to please myself.
"I'm always contendin', child, that this world's growin' better and
better all the time; but, Lord! Lord! that fair come pretty near
upsettin' my faith. Why, in my day folks could take their children to
the fair and turn 'em loose; and, if they had sense enough to keep
from under the horses' feet, they was jest as safe at the fair as they
was at a May meetin'. But, la! the sights I saw that day Henrietta
took me to the fair! Every which way you'd look there was some sort of
a trap for temptin' boys and leadin' 'em astray. Whisky and beer and
all sorts o' gamblin' machines and pool sellin', and little boys no
higher'n that smokin' little white cigyars, and offerin' to bet with
each other on the races. And I says to Henrietta, 'Child, I don't call
this a fair; why, it's jest nothin' but a gamblin' den and a whisky
saloon. And,' says I, 'I know now what old Uncle Henry Matthews
meant.' I'd asked the old man if he was goin' to show anything at the
fair that year, and he said, 'No, Jane. Unless you've got somethin'
for the town folks to bet on, it ain't worth while.'
"But there was one thing I did enjoy that day, and that was the races.
There's some folks thinks that racin' horses is a terrible sin; but I
don't. It's the bettin' and the swearin' that goes with the racin'
that's the sin. If folks'd behave as well as the horses behaves, a
race'd be jest as religious as a Sunday-school picnic. There ain't a
finer sight to me than a blooded horse goin' at a two-forty gait round
a smooth track, and the sun a-shinin' and the flags a-wavin' and the
wind blowin' and the folks cheerin' and hollerin'. So, when Henrietta
said the races was goin' to begin, I says, says I, 'Here, child, take
hold o' my arm and help me down these steps; I'm goin' to see one more
race before I die.' And Henrietta helped me down, and we went over to
the grand stand and got a good seat where I could see the horses when
they come to the finish. I tell you, honey, it made me feel young
again jest to see them horses coverin' the ground like they did. My
father used to raise fine horses, and Abram used to say that when it
come to knowin' a horse's p'ints, he'd back me against any man in
Kentucky. I'll have to be a heap older'n I am now before I see the day
when I wouldn't turn around and walk a good piece to look at a fine
horse."
And the old lady gave a laugh at this confession of weakness.
"It was like old times to see the way them horses run. And when they
come to the finish I was laughin' and hollerin' as much as anybody.
And jest then somebody right behind me give a yell, and says he:
"'Hurrah for old Kentucky! When it comes to fine horses and fine
whisky and fine women, she can't be beat.'
"Everybody begun to laugh, and a man right in front o' me says, 'It's
that young feller from Lexin'ton. His father's one o' the biggest
horsemen in the state. That's his horse that's jest won the race.' And
I turned around to see, and there was a boy about the size o' my
youngest grandchild up at Danville. His hat was set on the back of his
head, and his hair was combed down over his eyes till he looked like
he'd come out of a feeble-minded school. He had a little white cigyar
in his mouth, and you could tell by his breath that he'd been
drinkin'.
"Now I ain't much of a hand for meddlin' with other folks' business,
but I'd been readin' about the Salvation Army, and how they preach on
the street; and it come into my head that here was a time for some
Salvation work. And I says to him, says I, 'Son, there's another thing
that Kentucky used to be hard to beat on, and that was fine men. But,'
says I, 'betwixt the fine horses and the fine women and the fine
whisky, some o' the men has got to be a mighty common lot.' Says I,
'Holler as much as you please for that horse out there; he's worth
hollerin' for. But,' says I, 'when a state's got to raisin' a better
breed o' horses than she raises men, it ain't no time to be hollerin'
"hurrah" for her.' Says I, 'You're your father's son, and yonder's
your father's horse; now which do you reckon your father's proudest of
to-day, his horse or his son?'
"Well, folks begun to laugh again, and the boy looked like he wanted
to say somethin' sassy, but he couldn't git his wits together enough
to think up anything. And I says, says I, 'That horse never touched
whisky or tobacco in his life; he's clean-blooded and clean-lived, and
he'll live to a good old age; and, maybe, when he dies they'll bury
him like a Christian, and put a monument up over him like they did
over Ten Broeck. But you, why, you ain't hardly out o' your short
pants, and you're fifty years old if you're a day. You'll bring your
father's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave, and you'll go to your own
grave a heap sooner'n you ought to, and nobody'll ever build a
monument over you.'
"There was three or four boys along with the Lexin'ton boy, and one of
'em that appeared to have less whisky in him than the rest, he says,
'Well, grandma, I reckon you're about right; we're a pretty bad lot.'
And says he, 'Come on, boys, and let's git out o' this.' And off they
went; and whether my preachin' ever did 'em any good I don't know, but
I couldn't help sayin' what I did, and that's the last time I ever
went to these new-fashioned fairs they're havin' nowadays. Fair time
used to mean a heap to me, but now it don't mean anything but jest to
put me in mind o' old times."
Just then there was a sound of galloping hoofs on the pike, and loud
"whoas" from a rider in distress. We started up with the eagerness of
those whose lives have flowed too long in the channels of stillness
and peace. Here was a possibility of adventure not to be lost for any
consideration. Aunt Jane dropped her pan with a sharp clang; I
gathered up my skirt with its measure of unshelled beans, and together
we rushed to the front of the house.
It was a "solitary horseman," wholly and ludicrously at the mercy of
his steed, a mischievous young horse that had never felt the bridle
and bit of a trainer.
"It's that red-headed boy of Joe Crofton's," chuckled Aunt Jane.
"Nobody'd ever think he was born in Kentucky; now, would they? Old Man
Bob Crawford used to say that every country boy in this state was a
sort o' half-brother to a horse. But that boy yonder ain't no kin to
the filly he's tryin' to ride. There's good blood in that filly as
sure's you're born. I can tell by the way she throws her head and uses
her feet. She'll make a fine saddle-mare, if her master ever gets hold
of her. Jest look yonder, will you?"
The horse had come to a stand; she gave a sudden backward leap, raised
herself on her hind legs, came down on all fours with a great clatter
of hoofs, and began a circular dance over the smooth road. Round she
went, stepping as daintily as a maiden at a May-day dance, while the
rider clung to the reins, dug his bare heels into the glossy sides of
his steed, and yelled "whoa," as if his salvation lay in that word.
Then, as if just awakened to a sense of duty, the filly ceased her
antics, tossed her head with a determined air, and broke into a brisk,
clean gallop that would have delighted a skilled rider, but seemed to
bring only fresh dismay to the soul of Joe Crofton's boy. His arms
flapped dismally and hopelessly up and down; a gust of wind seized his
ragged cap and tossed it impishly on one of the topmost boughs of the
Osage-orange hedge; his protesting "whoa" voiced the hopelessness of
one who resigns himself to the power of a dire fate, and he
disappeared ingloriously in a cloud of summer dust. Whereupon we
returned to the prosaic work of bean-shelling, with the feeling of
those who have watched the curtain go down on the last scene of the
comedy.
"I declare to goodness," sighed Aunt Jane breathlessly, as she stooped
to recover her pan, "I ain't laughed so much in I don't know when. It
reminds me o' the time Sam Amos rode in the t'u'nament." And she began
laughing again at some recollection in which I had no part.
"Now, that's right curious, ain't it? When I set here talkin' about
fairs, that boy comes by and makes me think o' how Sam rode at the
fair that year they had the t'u'nament. I don't know how long it's
been since I thought o' that ride, and maybe I never would 'a' thought
of it again if that boy of Joe Crofton's hadn't put me in mind of it."
I dropped my butter-beans for a moment and assumed a listening
attitude, and without any further solicitation, and in the natural
course of events, the story began.
"You see the town folks was always gittin' up somethin' new for the
fair, and that year I'm talkin' about it was a t'u'nament. All the
Goshen folks that went to town the last County Court day before the
fair come back with the news that there was goin' to be a t'u'nament
the third day o' the fair. Everybody was sayin', 'What's that?' a
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