Rose of Old Harpeth Part 12

"Did he say--when--when he expected you to--give up the Briars?" asked Rose Mary in a guarded tone of voice, as if she wanted to be sure of all the facts before she told of the climax she saw had not been even suggested to Uncle Tucker.

"Oh, no; Gid handled the talk mighty kind-like. I think it's better to let folks always chaw their own hard tack instead of trying to grind it up friendly for them, cause the swalloring of the trouble has to come in the end; but Gid minced facts faithful for me, according to his lights. I didn't rightly make out just what he did expect, only we couldn't go on as we were--and that I've been knowing for some time."

"Yes, we've both known that," said Rose Mary, still suspending her announcement, she scarcely knew why.

"He talked like he was a-going to turn the Briars into a kinder orphan asylum for us old folks and spread-eagled around about something he didn't seem to be able to spit out with good sense. But I reckon I was kinder confused by the shock and wasn't right peart myself to take in his language." And Uncle Tucker sank into a chair, and Rose Mary could see that he was trembling from the strain. His big eyes were sunk far back into his head and his shoulders stooped more than she had ever seen them.

"Sweetie, sweetie, I can tell you what Mr. Newsome was trying to say to you--it was about me. I--I am going to be his wife, and you and the aunties are never, never going to leave the Briars. He has just left here and--and, oh, I am so grateful to keep it--for you--and them. I never thought of that--I never suspected such--a--door in our stone wall." And Rose Mary's voice was firm and gentle, but her deep eyes looked out over Harpeth Valley with the agony of all the ages in their depths.

But in hoping to conceal her tragedy Rose Mary had not counted on the light love throws across the dark places that confront the steps of those of our blood-bond, and in an instant Uncle Tucker's torch of comprehension flamed high with the pa.s.sion of indignation. Slowly he rose to his feet, and the stoop in his feeble old shoulders straightened itself out so that he stood with the height of his young manhood. His gentle eyes lost the mysticism that had come with his years of sorrow and baffling toil, and a stern, dignified power shone straight out over the young woman at his side. He raised his arm and pointed with a hand that had ceased to tremble over the valley to where Providence Road wound itself over Old Harpeth.

"Rose Mary," he said sternly in a quiet, decisive voice that rang with the virility of his youth, "when the first of us Alloways came along that wilderness trail a slip of an English girl walked by him when he walked and rode the pillion behind him when he rode. She finished that journey with bleeding feet in moccasins he had bought from an Indian squaw. When they came on down into this Valley and found this spring he halted wagons and teams and there on that hill she dropped down to sleep, worn out with the journey. And while she was asleep he stuck a stake at the black-curled head of her and one by the little, tired, ragged feet. That was the measure of the front door-sill to the Briars up there on the hill. Come generations we have fought off the Indians, we have cleared and tilled the land, and we have gone up to the state house to name laws and order. In our home we have welcomed traveler, man and beast, and come sun-up each day we have worshipped at the altar of the living G.o.d--but we've never sold one of our women yet!

The child of that English girl never leaves my arms except to go into those of a man she loves and wants. Yes, I'm old and I've got still older to look out for, but I can strike the trail again to-morrow, jest so I carry the honor of my women folks along with me. We may fall on the march, but, Rose Mary, you are a Harpeth Valley woman, and not for sale!"

CHAPTER IX

THE EXODUS

"Well, it just amounts to the whole of Sweetbriar a-rising up and declaring of a war on Gid Newsome, and I for one want to march in the front ranks and tote a blunderbuss what I couldn't hit nothing smaller than a barn door with if I waster try," exclaimed Mrs. Rucker as she waited at the store for a package Mr. Crabtree was wrapping for her.

"I reckon when the Senator hits Sweetbriar again he'll think he's stepped into a nest of yellar jackets and it'll be a case of run or swell up and bust," answered Mr. Crabtree as he put up the two boxes of baking-powder for the spouse of the poet, who stood beside his wife in the door of the store.

"Well," said Mr. Rucker in his long drawl as he dropped himself over the corner of the counter, "looks like the Honorable Gid kinder fooled along and let Cupid shed a feather on him and then along come somebody trying to pick his posey for him and in course it het him up. You all 'pear to forget that old saying that it's all's a fair fight in love and war."

"Yes, fight; that's the word! Take off his coat, strap his galluses tight, spit on his hands and fight for his girl, not trade for her like hogs," was the bomb of sentiment that young Bob exploded, much to the amazement of the gathering of the Sweetbriar clan in the store.

Young Bob's devotion to Rose Mary, admiration for Everett and own tender state of heart had made him become articulate with a vengeance for this once and he spat his words out with a vehemence that made a decided impression on his audience.

"That are the right way to talk, Bob Nickols," said Mrs. Rucker, bestowing a glance of approval upon the fierce young Corydon, followed by one of scorn cast in the direction of the extenuating-circ.u.mstances pleading Mr. Rucker. "A man's heart ain't much use to a woman if the muscles of his arms git string-halt when he oughter fight for her.

Come a dispute the man that knocks down would keep me, not the buyer,"

and this time the glance was delivered with a still greater accent.

"Shoo, honey, you'd settle any ruckus about you 'fore it got going by a kinder cold-word dash and pa.s.s-along," answered the poet propitiatingly and admiringly. "But I was jest a-wondering why Mr.

Alloway and Miss Rose Mary was so--"

"Tain't for n.o.body to be a-wondering over what they feels and does,"

exclaimed Mrs. Rucker defensively before the query was half uttered.

"They've been hurt deep with some kind of insult and all we have got to do is to take notice of the trouble and git to work to helping 'em all we can. Mr. Tucker ain't said a word to n.o.body about it, nor have Rose Mary, but they are a-getting ready to move the last of the week, and I don't know where to. I jest begged Rose Mary to let me have Miss Viney and Miss Amandy. I could move out the melojion into the kitchen and give 'em the parlor, and welcome, too. Mis' Poteet she put in and asked for Stonie to bed down on the pallet in the front hall with Tobe and Billy and Sammie, and I was a-going on to plan as how Mr. Tucker and Mr. Crabtree would stay together here, and I knew Mis' Plunkett would admire to have Rose Mary herself, but just then she sudden put her head down on my knee, her pretty arms around me, and held on tight without a tear, while I couldn't do nothing but rock back and forth.

Then Mis' Poteet she cried the top of Shoofly's head so soaking wet it give her a sneeze, and we all had to laugh. But she never answered me what they was a-going to do, and you know, Cal Rucker, I ain't slept nights thinking about 'em, and where they'll move, have I?"

"Naw, you sh.o.r.e ain't--nor let me neither," answered the poet in a depressed tone of voice.

"I mighter known that Miss Viney woulder taken it up-headed and a-lined it out in the scriptures to suit herself until she wasn't deep in the grieving no more, but little Mis' Amandy's a-going to break my heart, as tough as it is, if she don't git comfort soon," continued Mrs. Rucker with a half sob. "Last night in the new moonlight I got up to go see if I hadn't left my blue waist out in the dew, which mighter faded it, and I saw something white over in the Briar's yard. I went across to see if they had left any wash out that hadn't oughter be in the dew, and there I found her in her little, short old nightgown and big slippers with the little wored-out gray shawl 'round her shoulders a-digging around the Maiden Blush rose-bush, putting in new dirt and just a-crying soft to herself, all trembling and hurt. I went in and set down by her on the damp gra.s.s, me and my rheumatism and all, took her in my arms like she were Petie, and me and her had it out. It's the graves she's a-grieving over, we all a-knowing that she's leaving buried what she have never had in life, and I tried to tell her that no matter who had the place they would let her come and--"

"Oh, durn him, durn him! I'm a-going clear to the city to git old Gid and beat the liver outen him!" exclaimed young Bob, while his sunburned face worked with emotion and his gruff young voice broke as he rose and walked to the door.

"I wisht you would, and I'll make Cal help you," sobbed Mrs. Rucker into a corner of her ap.r.o.n. Her grief was all the more impressive, as she was, as a general thing, the balance-wheel of the whole Sweetbriar machinery. "And I don't know what they are a-going to do," she continued to sob.

"Well, I know, and I've done decided," came in Mrs. Plunkett's soft voice from the side door of the store, and it held an unwonted note of decision in its hushed cadences. A deep pink spot burned on either cheek, her eyes were very bright, and she kept her face turned resolutely away from little Mr. Crabtree, over whose face there had flashed a ray of most beautiful and abashed delight.

"Me and Mr. Crabtree were a-talking it all over last night while Bob and Louisa Helen were down at the gate counting lightning-bugs, they said. They just ain't no use thinking of separating Rose Mary and Mr.

Tucker and the rest of 'em, and they must have Sweetbriar shelter, good and tight and genteel, offered outen the love Sweetbriar has got for 'em all. Now if I was to marry Mr. Crabtree I could all good and proper move him over to my house and that would leave his little three-room cottage hitched on to the store to move 'em into comfortable. They have got a heap of things, but most of 'em could be packed away in the barn here, what they won't let us keep for 'em. If Mr. Crabtree has got to take holt of my farm it will keep him away from the store, and he could give Mr. Tucker a half-interest cheap to run it for him and that will leave Rose Mary free to help him and tend the old folks. What do you all neighbors think of it?"

"Now wait just a minute, Lou Plunkett," said Mr. Crabtree in a radiant voice as he came out from around the counter and stood before her with his eyes fairly glowing with his emotion. "Have you done decided _yourself_? This is twixt me and you, and I don't want no Sweetbriar present for a wife if I can help it. Have _you_ done decided?"

"Yes, Mr. Crabtree I have, and I had oughter stopped and told you, but I wanted to go quick as I could to see Mr. Tucker and Rose Mary. He gave consent immediately, and looked like Rose Mary couldn't do nothing but talk about you and how good you was. I declare I began to get kinder proud about you right then and there, 'fore I'd even told you as I'd have you." And the demure little widow cast a smile out from under a curl that had fallen down into her bright eyes that was so young and engaging that Mr. Crabtree had to lean against the counter to support himself. His storm-tossed single soul was fairly blinded at even this far sight of the haven of his double desires, but it was just as well that he was dumb for joy, for Mrs. Rucker was more than equal to the occasion.

"Well, glory be, Lou Plunkett, if that ain't a fine piece of news!"

she exclaimed as she bestowed a hearty embrace upon the widow and one almost as hearty upon the overcome Mr. Crabtree. "And you can't know till you've tried what a pleasure and a comfort a second husband can be if you manage 'em right. Single folks a-marrying are likely to gum up the marriage certificate with some kind of a mistake until it sticks like fly-paper, but a experienced choice generally runs smooth like melted b.u.t.ter." And with a not at all unprecedented feminine change of front Mrs. Rucker subst.i.tuted a glance of unbridled pride for the one of scorn she had lately bestowed upon the poet, under which his wilted aspect disappeared and he also began to bloom out with the joy of approval and congratulation.

"And I say marrying a widow are like getting a rose some other fellow have clipped and thorned to wear in your b.u.t.tonhole, Crabtree; they ain't nothing like 'em." Thus poet and realist made acknowledgment each after his and her own order of mind, but actuated by the identical feeling of contented self-congratulation.

"I'm a-holding in for fear if I breathe on this promise of Mis'

Plunkett's it'll take and blow away. But you all have heard it spoke,"

said the merry old bachelor in a voice that positively trembled with emotion as he turned and mechanically began to sort over a box of clothespins, mixed as to size and variety.

"Shoo, Crabbie, don't begin by bein' afraid of your wife, jest handle 'em positive but kind and they'll turn your flapjacks peaceable and b.u.t.ter 'em all with smiles," and Mr. Rucker beamed on his friend Crabtree as he wound one of his wife's ap.r.o.n strings all around one of his long fingers, a habit he had that amused him and he knew in his secret heart teased her.

"Now just look at Bob tracking down Providence Road a-whistling like a partridge in the wheat for Louisa Helen. They've got love's young dream so bad they had oughter have sa.s.saprilla gave for it," and the poet cast a further glance at the widow, who only laughed and looked indulgently down the road at the retreating form of the gawky young Adonis.

"Hush up, Cal Rucker, and go begin chopping up fodder to feed with come supper time," answered his wife, her usual att.i.tude of brisk generalship coming into her capable voice and eyes after their softening under the strain of the varied emotions of the last half hour in the store. "Let's me and you get mops and broom and begin on a-cleaning up for Mr. Crabtree before his moving, Lou. I reckon you want to go over his things before you marry him anyway, and I'll help you. I found everything Cal Rucker had a disgrace, with Mr.

Satterwhite so neat, too." And not at all heeding the flame of embarra.s.sment that communicated itself from the face of the widow to that of the sensitive Mr. Crabtree, Mrs. Rucker descended the steps of the store, taking Mrs. Plunkett with her, for to Mrs. Rucker the state of matrimony, though holy, was still an inst.i.tution in the realm of realism and to be treated with according frankness.

Meanwhile over in the barn at the Briars Uncle Tucker was at work rooting up the foundations upon which had been built his lifetime of lordship over his fields. In the middle of the floor was a great pile of odds and ends of old harness, empty grease cans, broken tools, and sc.r.a.ps of iron. Along one side of the floor stood the pathetically-patched old implements that told the tale of patient saving of every cent even at the cost of much greater labor to the fast weakening old back and shoulders. A new plow-shaft had meant a dollar and a half, so Uncle Tucker had put forth the extra strength to drive the dull old one along the furrows, while even the grindstone had worn away to such unevenness that each revolution had made only half the impression on a blade pressed to its rim and thus caused the sharpening to take twice as long and twice the force as would have been required on a new one. But grindstones, too, cost cents and dollars, and Uncle Tucker had ground on patiently, even hopefully, until this the very end. But now he stood with a thin old scythe in his hands looking for all the world like the incarnation of Father Time called to face the first day of the new regime of an arrived eternity, and the bewilderment in his eyes cut into Rose Mary's heart with an edge of which the old blade had long since become incapable.

"Can't I help you go over things, Uncle Tucker?" she asked softly with a smile shining for him even through the mist his eyes were too dim to discover in hers.

"No, child, I reckon not," he answered gently. "Looks like it helps me to handle all these things I have used to put licks in on more'n one good farm deal. I was just a-wondering how many big clover crops I had mowed down with this old blade 'fore I laid it by to go riding away from it on that new-fangled buggy reaper out there that broke down in less'n five years, while this old friend had served its twenty-odd and now is good for as many more with careful honing. That's it, men of my time were like good blades what swing along steady and even, high over rocks and low over good ground; but they don't count in these days of the four-horse-power high-drive, cut-bind-and-deliver machines men work right on through G.o.d's gauges of sun-up and down. But maybe in glory come He'll walk with us in the cool of the evening while they'll be put to measuring the jasper walls with a golden reed just to keep themselves busy and contented. How's the resurrection in the wardrobes and chests of drawers coming on?" And a real smile made its way into Uncle Tucker's eyes as he inquired into the progress of the packing up of the sisters, from which he had fled a couple hours ago.

"They are still taking things out, talking them over and putting them right back in the same place," answered Rose Mary with a faint echo of his smile that tried to come to the surface bravely but had a struggle. "We will have to try and move the furniture with it all packed away as it is. It is just across the Road and I know everybody will want to help me disturb their things as little as possible. Oh, Uncle Tucker, it's almost worth the--the pain to see everybody planning and working for us as they are doing. Friends are like those tall pink hollyhocks that go along and bloom single on a stalk until something happens to make them all flower out double like peonies. And that reminds me, Aunt Viney says be sure and save some of the dry jack-bean seed from last year you had out here in the seed press for--"

"Say, Rose Mamie, say, what you think we found up on top of Mr.

Crabtree's bedpost what Mis' Rucker were a-sweeping down with a broom?" and the General's face fairly beamed with excitement as he stood dancing in the barn door. Tobe stood close behind him and small Peggy and Jennie pressed close to Rose Mary's side, eager but not daring to hasten Stonie's dramatic way of making Rose Mary guess the news they were all so impatient to impart to her.

"Oh, what? Tell me quick, Stonie," pleaded Rose Mary with the eagerness she knew would be expected of her. Even in her darkest hours Rose Mary's sun had shone on the General with its usual radiance of adoration and he had not been permitted to feel the tragedy of the upheaval, but encouraged to enjoy to the utmost all its small excitements. In fact the move over to the store had appealed to a fast budding business instinct in the General and he had seen himself soon promoted to the weighing out of sugar, wrapping up bundles and delivering them over the counter to any one of the admiring Swarm sent to the store for the purchase of the daily provender.

"It were a tree squirrel and three little just-hatched ones in a bunch," Stonie answered with due dramatic weight at Rose Mary's plea.

"Mis' Rucker thought it were a rat and jumped on the bed and hollowed for Tobe to ketch it, and Peg and Jennie acted just like her, too, after Tobe and me had ketched that mouse in the barn just last week and tied it to a string and let it run at 'em all day to get 'em used to rats and things just like boys." And the General cast a look of disappointed scorn at the two pigtailed heads, downcast at this failure of theirs to respond to the General's effort to inoculate their feminine natures with masculine courage.

"I hollered 'fore I knewed what at," answered the abashed Jennie in a very small voice, unconsciously making further display of the force of her hopeless feminine heredity. But Peggy switched her small skirts in an entirely different phase of femininity.

"You never heard me holler," she said in a tone that was skilful admixture of defiance and tentative propitiation.

"'Cause you had your head hid in Jennie's back," answered the General coolly unbeguiled. "Here is the letter we comed to bring you, Rose Mamie, and me and Tobe must go back to help Mis' Rucker some more clean Mr. Crabtree up. I don't reckon she needs Peg and Jennie, but they can come if they want to," with which Stonie and Tobe, the henchman, departed, and not at all abashed the humble small women trailing respectfully behind them.