Rose of Old Harpeth Part 13

"That women folks are the touch-off to the whole explosion of life is a hard lesson to learn for some men, and Stonie Jackson is one of that kind," observed Uncle Tucker as he looked with a quizzical expression after the small procession. "Want me to read that letter and tell you what's in it?" he further remarked, shifting both expression and attention on to Rose Mary, who stood at his side.

"No, I'll read it myself and tell you what's in it," answered Rose Mary with a blush and a smile. "I haven't written him about our troubles, because--because he hasn't got a position yet and I don't want to trouble him while he is lonely and discouraged."

"Well, I reckon that's right," answered Uncle Tucker still in a bantering frame of mind that it delighted Rose Mary to see him maintain under the situation. "Come trouble, some women like to blind a man with cotton wool while they wade through the high water and only holler for help when their petticoats are down around their ankles on the far bank. We'll wait and send Everett a photagraf of me and you dishing out mola.s.ses and lard as grocer clerks. And glad to do it, too!" he added with a sudden fervor of thankfulness rising in his voice and great gray eyes.

"Yes, Uncle Tucker, glad and proud to do it," answered Rose Mary quickly. "Oh, don't you know that if you hadn't seen and understood because you loved me so, I would have felt it was right to do--to do what was so horrible to me? I will--I will make up to you and them for keeping me from--it. What do you suppose Mr. Newsome will do when he finds out that you have moved and are ready to turn the place over to him, even without any foreclosure?"

"Well, speculating on what men are a-going to do in this life is about like trying to read turkey tracks in the mud by the spring-house, and I'm not wasting any time on Gid Newsome's splay-footed impressions.

Come to-morrow night I'm a-going to pull the front door to for the last time on all of us and early next morning Tom Crabtree's a-going to take the letter and deed down to Gid in his office in the city for me. Don't n.o.body have to foreclose on me; I hand back my debt dollar for dollar outen my own pocket without no duns. To give up the land immediate are just simple justice to him, and I'm a-leaving the Lord to deal with him for trying to _buy_ a woman in her time of trouble.

We haven't told it on him and we are never a-going to. I wisht I could make the neighbors all see the jestice in his taking over the land and not feel so spited at him. I'm afraid it will lose him every vote along Providence Road. 'Tain't right!"

"I know it isn't," answered Rose Mary. "But when Mrs. Rucker speaks her mind about him and Bob chokes and swells up my heart gets warm. Do you suppose it's wrong to let a friend's trouble heat sympathy to the boiling point? But if you don't need me I'm going down to the milk-house to work out my last batch of b.u.t.ter before they come to drive away my cows." And Rose Mary hurried down the lilac path before Uncle Tucker could catch a glimpse of the tears that rose at the idea of having to give up the beloved Mrs. b.u.t.ter and her tribe of gentle-eyed daughters.

And as she stood in the cool gray depths of the old milk-house Rose Mary's gentle heart throbbed with pain as she pressed the great cakes of the golden treasure back and forth in the blue bowl, for it was a quiet time and Rose Mary was tearing up some of her own roots. Her sad eyes looked out over Harpeth Valley, which lay in a swoon with the midsummer heat. The lush blue-gra.s.s rose almost knee deep around the grazing cattle in the meadows, and in the fields the green grain was fast turning to a harvest hue. Almost as far as her eyes could reach along Providence Road and across the pastures to Providence n.o.b, beyond Tilting Rock, the land was Alloway land and had been theirs for what seemed always. She could remember what each good-by to it all had been when she had gone out over the Ridge in her merry girlhood and how overflowing with joy each return. Then had come the time when it had become still dearer as a refuge into which she could bring her torn heart for its healing.

And such a healing the Valley had given her! It had poured the fragrance of its blooming springs and summers over her head, she had drunk the wine of forgetfulness in the cup of long Octobers and the sting of its wind and rain and snow on her cheeks had brought back the grief-faded roses. The arms of the hearty Harpeth women had been outheld to her, and in turn she had had their babies and troubles laid on her own breast for her and their comforting. She had been mothered and sistered and brothered by these farmer folk with a very prodigality of friendship, and to-day she realized more than ever with positive exultation that she was brawn of their brawn and built of their building.

And then to her, a woman of the fields, had come down Providence Road over the Ridge from the great world outside--the _miracle_. She slipped her hand into her pocket for just one rapturous crush of the treasure-letter when suddenly it was borne in upon her that it might be that even that must come to an end for her. Stay she must by her nest of helpless folk, and was it with futile wings he was breasting the great outer currents of which she was so ignorant? His letters told her nothing of what he was doing, just were filled to the word with half-spoken love and longing and, above all, with a great impatience about what, or for what, it was impossible for her to understand. She could only grieve over it and long to comfort him with all the strength of her love for him. And so with thinking, puzzling and sad planning the afternoon wore away for her and sunset found her at the house putting the household in order and to bed with her usual cheery fostering of creaking joints and c.u.mbersome retiring ceremonies.

At last she was at liberty to fling her exhausted body down on the cool, patched, old linen sheets of the great four-poster which had harbored many of her foremothers and let herself drift out on her own troubled waters. Wrapped in the compa.s.sionate darkness she was giving way to the luxury of letting the controlled tears rise to her eyes and the sobs that her white throat ached from suppressing all day were echoing on the stillness when a voice came from the little cot by her bed and the General in disheveled nightshirt and rumpled head rose by her pillow and stood with uncertain feet on his own springy place of repose.

"Rose Mamie," he demanded in an awestruck tone of voice that fairly trembled through the darkness, "are you a-crying?"

"Yes, Stonie," she answered in a shame-forced gurgle that would have done credit to Jennie Rucker in her worst moments of abas.e.m.e.nt before the force of the General.

"Does your stomach hurt you?" he demanded in a practical though sympathetic tone of voice, for so far in his journey along life's road his sleep had only been disturbed by retributive digestive causes.

"No," sniffed Rose Mary with a sob that was tinged with a small laugh.

"It's my heart, darling," she added, the sob getting the best of the situation. "Oh, Stonie, Stonie!"

"Now, wait a minute, Rose Mamie," exclaimed the General as he climbed up and perched himself on the edge of the big bed. "Have you done anything you are afraid to tell G.o.d about?"

"No," came from the depths of Rose Mary's pillow.

"Then don't cry because you think Mr. Mark ain't coming back, like Mis' Rucker said she was afraid you was grieving about when she thought I wasn't a-listening. He's a-coming back. Me and him have got a bargain."

"What about, Stonie?" came in a much clearer voice from the pillow, and Rose Mary curled herself over nearer to the little bird perched on the edge of her bed.

"About a husband for you," answered Stonie in the reluctant voice that a man usually uses when circ.u.mstances force him into taking a woman into his business confidence. "Looked to me like everybody here was a-going to marry everybody else and leave you out, so I asked him to get you one up in New York and I'd pay him for doing it. He's a-going to bring him here on the cars his own self lest he get away before I get him." And the picture that rose in Rose Mary's mind, of the reluctant husband being dragged to her at the end of a tether by Everett, cut off the sob instantly.

"What--what did you--he say when you asked him about--getting the husband--for you--for me?" asked Rose Mary in a perfect agony of mirth and embarra.s.sment.

"Let me see," said Stonie, and he paused as he tried to repeat Everett's exact words, which had been spoken in a manner that had impressed them on the General at the time. "He said that you wasn't a-going to have no husband but the best kind if he had to kill him--no, he said that if he was to have to go dead hisself he would come and bring him to me, when he got him good enough for you by doing right and such."

"Was that all?" asked Rose Mary with a gurgle that was well nigh ecstatic, for through her had shot a quiver of hope that set every pulse in her body beating hot and strong, while her cheeks burned in the cool linen of her pillow and her eyes fairly glowed into the night.

"About all," answered the General, beginning to yawn with the interrupted slumber. "I told him your children would have to mind me and Tobe when we spoke to 'em. He kinder choked then and said all right. Then we bear-hugged for keeps until he comes again. I'm sleepy now!"

"Oh, Stonie, darling, thank you for waking up and coming to comfort Rose Mamie," she said, and from its very fullness a happy little sob escaped from her heart.

"I tell you, Rose Mamie," said the General, instantly, again sympathetically alarmed, "I'd better come over in your bed and go to sleep. You can put your head on my shoulder and if you cry, getting me wet will wake me up to keep care of you agin, 'cause I am so sleepy now if you was to holler louder than Tucker Poteet I wouldn't wake up no more." And suiting his actions to his proposition the General stretched himself out beside Rose Mary, buried his touseled head on her pillow and presented a diminutive though st.u.r.dy little shoulder, against which she instantly laid her soft cheek.

"You scrouge just like the puppy," was his appreciative comment of her gentle nestling against his little body. "Now I'm going to sleep, but if praying to G.o.d don't keep you from crying, then wake me up,"

and with this generous and really heroic offer the General drifted off again into the depths, into which he soon drew Rose Mary with him, comforted by his faith and lulled in his strong little arms.

CHAPTER X

IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND

And the next morning a threatening, scowling, tossed-cloud dawn brought the day over the head of Old Harpeth down upon little Sweetbriar, which awakened with one accord to a sense of melancholy oppression. A cool, dust-laden wind blew down Providence Road, twisted the branches of the tall maples along the way, tore roughly at the festoons of blooming vines over the gables of the Briars, startled the nestled doves into a sad crooning, whipped mercilessly at the row of tall hollyhocks along the garden fence, flaunted the long spikes of jack-beans and carried their quaint fragrance to pour it over the bed of sober-colored mignonette, mixing it with the pungent zinnia odor and flinging it all over into the clover field across the briar hedge. The jovial old sun did his very best to light up the situation, but just as he would succeed in getting a ray down into the Valley a great puffy cloud would cast a gray shadow of suppression over his effort and retire him sternly for another half hour.

And on the wings of the intruding, out-of-season wind came a train of ills. Young Tucker Poteet waked at daylight and howled dismally with a pain that seemed to be all over and then in spots. When he went to take down the store shutters Mr. Crabtree smashed one of his large, generous-spreading thumbs and Mrs. Rucker's breakfast eggs burned to a cinder state while she tied it up in camphor for him. In the night a mosquito had taken a bite out of the end of Jennie's small nose and it was swelled to twice its natural size, and Peter, the wise, barked a plump shin before he was well out of the trundle bed. One of young Bob's mules broke away and necessitated a trip half way up to Providence for his capture, and Mrs. Plunkett had Louisa Helen so busy at some domestic manoeuvers that she found it impossible to go with him.

And before noon the whole village was in a fervid state of commotion.

Mrs. Rucker had insisted on moving Mr. Crabtree and all his effects over into the domicile of his prospective bride, regardless of both her and his abashed remonstrance.

"Them squeems are all foolishness, Lou Plunkett," she had answered a faint plea from the widow for a delay until after the ceremony for this material mingling of the to-be-united lives. "It's all right and proper for you and Mr. Crabtree to be married at night meeting Sunday, and his things won't be unmarried in your house only through Sat.u.r.day and Sunday. I'm a-going to pack up his Sunday clothes, a pair of clean socks, a shirt and other things in this basket. Then I'll fix him up a shake-down in my parlor to spend Sat.u.r.day night in, and I'll dress him up nice and fine for the wedding you may be sure. We ain't got but this day to move him out and clean up the house good to move Rose Mary and the old folks into early Sat.u.r.day morning, so just come on and get to work. You can shut your eyes to his things setting around your house for just them one day or two, can't you?"

"They ain't nothing in this world I couldn't do to make it just the littlest mite easier for Rose Mary and them sweet old folks, even to gettin' my house into a unseemly married condition before hand,"

answered Mrs. Plunkett as she brushed a tear away from her blue eyes.

"That's the way we all feel," said Mrs. Rucker. "Now if I was you I'd give Mr. Crabtree that middle bureau drawer. Men are apt to poke things away careless if they has the top, and the bottom one is best to use for your own things. Mr. Satterwhite always kept his clothes so it were a pleasure to look at 'em, but Cal Rucker prefers a pair of socks separated across the house if he can get them there. I found one of his undershirts full of mud and stuck away in the kitchen safe with the cup towels last week. There comes Mis' Poteet to help at last! I never heard anything yell like Tucker has been doing all morning. Is he quiet at last, Mis' Poteet?"

"Yes, I reckon he's gave out all the holler that's in him, but I'm afraid to put him down," and Mrs. Poteet continued the joggling, swaying motion to a blue bundle on her breast that she had been administering as a continuous performance to young Tucker since daylight. "I'm sorry I couldn't come help you all with the moving, but you can count on my mop and broom over to the store all afternoon, soon as I can turn him over to the children."

"We ain't needed you before, but now we have got Mr. Crabtree all settled down here with Mrs. Plunkett we can get to work on his house right after dinner. Have you been over to the Briars to see 'em in the last hour?"

"Yes, I come by there, but they didn't seem to need me. Miss Viney has got Miss Amandy and Tobe and the General at work, and Rose Mary has gone down to the dairy to pack up the last batch of b.u.t.ter for Mr.

Crabtree to take to the city in the morning. Mr. Tucker's still going over things in the barn, and my feelings riz so I had to come away for fear of me and little Tucker both busting out crying."

And over at the Briars the scenes of exodus being enacted were well calculated to touch a heart sterner than that of the gentle, sympathetic and maternal Mrs. Poteet. Chilled by the out-of-season wind Miss Lavinia had awakened with as bad a spell of rheumatism as she had had for a year and it was with the greatest difficulty that Rose Mary had succeeded in rubbing down the pain to a state where she could be propped up in bed to direct little Miss Amanda and the children in the last sad rites of getting things into shape to be carried across the road at the beginning of the morrow, which was the day Uncle Tucker had sternly set as that of his abdication.

Feebly, Miss Amanda tottered about trying to carry out her sister's orders and patiently the General and Tobe labored to help her, though their hearts were really over at the store, where the rest of the Swarm were, in the midst of the excitement of Mr. Crabtree's change of residence. In all their young lives of varied length they had never before had an opportunity to witness the upheaval of a moving and this occasion was frought with a well-nigh insupportable fascination. The General's remaining at the post of family duty and his command of his henchman to the same sacrifice was indeed remarkable, though in a way pathetic.

"You, Stonewall Jackson, don't handle those chiny vases careless!"

commanded Aunt Viney in a stern voice. "Put 'em in the basket right side up, for they were your great grandmother's wedding-present from Mister Bradford from Arkansas."

"Yes'm," answered Stonie, duly impressed. "But I've done packed 'em in four different baskets for you, and if this one don't do all right, can't me and Tobe together carry 'em over the Road to-morrow careful for you, Aunt Viney?"

"Well, yes, then you can take 'em out and set 'em back in their places," answered Miss Lavinia, which order was carried out faithfully by the General, with a generous disregard of the fact that he had been laboring over them under a fire of directions for more than a half-hour.

"Now, Amandy, come away from those flower cans and get out the grave clothes from the bureau drawers and let the boys wrap them in that old sheet first and then in the newspapers and then put 'em in that box trunk with bra.s.s tacks over there!" directed Miss Lavinia as Miss Amandy wandered over by the window, along which stood a row of tomato cans into which were stuck slips of all the vines and plants on the land of the Briars, ready for transportation across Providence Road when the time came. There was something so intensely pathetic in this effort of the fast-fading little old woman to begin to bud from the old life flower-plants to blossom in a new one, into which she could hardly expect to make more than the shortest journey, that even the General's young and inexperienced heart was moved to a quick compa.s.sion.

"I'm a-going to carry the flowers over and plant 'em careful for you, Aunt Amandy," he said as he sidled up close to her and put his arm around her with a protective gesture. "We'll water 'em twice a day and just _make_ 'em grow, won't we, Tobe?"