Rose of Old Harpeth Part 2

"Your friend, Mr. Gideon Newsome, said something about a rumor of paying phosphate here in the Harpeth bend when I met him over in Boliver before I came to Sweetbriar. In fact, I had tried to come to look over the fields just to kill time when I nearly killed myself and fell down upon you. Do you suppose he could have sent the prospector?"

Again Everett brought Uncle Tucker back to the uninteresting topic of what might lay under the fields, the top of which he was so interested in cultivating.

"Oh, I reckon not," answered Uncle Tucker, puffing away as he laid out his monkey-wrenches. "The Honorable Gid is up to his neck in this here no-dram wave what is a-sweeping around over the state and pretty nigh rising up as high as the necks of even private liquor bottles.

Gid's not to say a teetotaler, but he had to climb into the bandwagon skiff or sink outen sight. He's got to tie down his seat in the state house with a white ribbon, and he's got no mind for fooling with phosphate dirt. He's a mighty fine man, and all of Sweetbriar thinks a heap of him. Do you want to help me lift this wagon wheel on to this jack, so I can sorter grease her up against the next time I use her?"

"Say, Uncle Tuck, Aunt Viney says for you to come right there now and bring Mr. Mark and a spade and a long string with you," came just at the critical moment of balancing the notched plank under the revolving wagon wheel, in Stonewall Jackson's young voice, which held in it quite a trace of Miss Lavinia's decisive tone of command. Stonie stood in the barn door, poised for instant return along the path of duty to the front walk, only waiting to be sure his summons would be obeyed. Stonie was st.u.r.dy, freckled, and in possession of Uncle Tucker's big gray eyes, Rose Mary's curled mouth and more than a tinge of Aunt Viney's austerity of manner.

"Better come on," he further admonished. "Rose Mary can't hold that vine up much longer, and if she lets go they'll all fall down." And as he raced up the path Everett followed almost as rapidly, urged on by the vision of Rose Mary drooping under some sort of unsupportable burden. Uncle Tucker brought up the rear with the spade and a long piece of twine.

"Oh, I thought you would never come," laughed Rose Mary from half way up the step-ladder as she lowered herself and a great bunch of budding honeysuckle down into Everett's upstretched arms. "I held it up as long as I could, but I almost let it tear the whole vine down."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "That's what comes from letting that shoot run catawumpas"]

"That's what comes from letting that shoot run catawumpas three years ago. I told you about it at the time, Tucker," said Miss Lavinia with a stern glance at Uncle Tucker, who stood with spade and twine at the corner of the porch.

Miss Lavinia sat in a large, calico-cushioned rocking-chair at the end of the porch, and had been issuing orders to Rose Mary and little Miss Amanda about the readjustment of the fragrant vine that trailed across the end of the porch over her window and on out to a trellis in the side yard. Her high mob cap sat on her head in an angle of aggression always, and her keen black eyes enforced all commands issuing from her stern old mouth.

"Now, Amandy, train that shoot straight while you're about it," she continued. "It comes plumb from the roots, and I don't want to have to look at a wild-growing vine right here under my window for all my eighty-second and maybe last year."

"I've gone and misplaced my gla.s.ses and I can't hardly see," answered Miss Amanda in her sweet little quaver that sounded like a silver bell with a crack in it. "Lend me your'n, Tucker!"

"You are a-going to misplace your eyes some day, Sister Amandy. Then you'll be a-wanting mine, and I'll have to cut 'em out and give 'em to you, I suppose," said Uncle Tucker as he handed over his huge, steel-rimmed gla.s.ses.

"The Bible says 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' Tucker, but not in a borrowing sense of the word, as I remember," remarked Miss Lavinia in a meditative tone of voice. "And that would be the thing about my getting the new teeth. Don't either of you need 'em, and it would be selfish of me to spend on something they couldn't anybody borrow from me. Amandy, dig a little deeper around that shoot, I don't want no puny vine under my window!"

"I'm a-trying, Sister Viney," answered Miss Amanda propitiatingly.

"I've been a-bending over so long my knees are in a kinder tremble."

"Let me finish digging and put in the new dirt for you, Aunt Amandy,"

begged Rose Mary, who had given the armful of vine to Everett to hold while Uncle Tucker tied the strings in the exact angle indicated by Miss Lavinia. "I can do it in no time."

"No, child, I reckon I'd better do it myself," answered Miss Amanda as she sat back on the gra.s.s for a moment's rest. "I have dug around and trained this vine the last week in April for almost sixty years now.

Mr. Lovell brought it by to Ma one spring as he hauled his summer groceries over the Ridge to Warren County. By such care it's never died down yet, and I have made it my custom to give sprouts away to all that would take 'em. I'm not a-doubting that there is some of this vine a-budding out all over Harpeth Valley from Providence n.o.b to the River bend."

"No, Amandy," interrupted Aunt Viney, "it wasn't sixty years ago, it was jest fifty-seven. Mr. Lovell brought the switch of it with him the first year Mr. Roberts rode this circuit, and he was a-holding that big revival over to Providence Chapel. Mr. Lovell came into the fold with that very first night's preaching, and we all were rejoiced.

Don't you remember he brought you that Maiden Blush rose-bush over there at the same time he brought this vine to Ma? And one bloom came out on the rose the next year jest in time to put it in his coffin before we buried him when he was taken down with the fever on the Road and died here with us. Fifty-six years ago come June, and him so young to die while so full of the spirit of the Lord!"

Feebly Miss Amanda rose to her knees and went on with the digging around the roots of the vine, but Rose Mary knelt beside her and laid her strong, young arm around the bent and shaking little shoulders.

Uncle Tucker rested on his spade and looked away across the garden wall, where the little yard of graves was hid in the shadow of tall pine trees, and his big eyes grew very tender. Miss Lavinia fingered a shoot of the vine that had fallen across her thin old knees with a softened expression in her prophet-woman face, while something new and sweet stirred in Everett's breast and woke in his tired eyes, as across half a century was wafted the perfume of a shattered romance.

And then by the time the vine had been trained Miss Lavinia had thought of a number of other spring jobs that must be attended to along the front walk and around all the clumps of budding shrubs, so with one desperate glance toward the barn, his deserted haven, Uncle Tucker fell to with his spade, while Everett obtained a fork from the tool house and put himself under command. Rose Mary was sharply recalled and sent into the house to complete the arrangements for the festivities, when she had followed the forker down by the lilac hedge, rake in hand, with evident intention of being of great a.s.sistance in the gardening of the amateur.

"Pull the dirt up closter around those bleeding-hearts, Tucker,"

commanded Miss Lavinia from her rocker. "They are Rose Mary's I planted the identical day she was born, and I don't want anything to happen to 'em in the way of cutworms or such this summer."

"Well, I don't know," answered Uncle Tucker with a little chuckle in Everett's direction, who was turning over the dirt near a rose-bush in his close vicinity, "it don't do to pay too much attention to women's bleeding-hearts; let alone, they'll tie 'em up in their own courage and go on dusting around the place, while if you notice 'em too much they take to squeezing out more bleed drops for your sympathy. Now, I think it's best--"

"Mister Tucker, say, Mister Tucker," came in a giggle from over the front gate as Jennie Rucker's little freckled nose appeared just above the top plank, only slightly in advance of that of small Peggy's.

"Mis' Poteet's got a new baby, just earned, and she says she is sorry she can't come to Mis' Viney's party; but she can't."

"Now, fly-away, ain't that too bad!" exclaimed Uncle Tucker. "That baby oughter be sent back until it has got manners to wait until it's wanted. Didn't neither one of you all get here on anybody's birthday but your own." Uncle Tucker's sally was greeted by a duet of giggles, and the announcement committee hurried on across the street with its news.

"Tucker, you Tucker, don't you touch that s...o...b..ll bush with the spade!" came in a fresh and alarmed command from the rocker post of observation. "You know Ma didn't ever let that bush be touched after it had budded. You spaded around it onct when you was young and upty and you remember it didn't bloom."

"Muster been a hundred years ago if I was ever upty about this here flower job," he answered in an undertone to Everett as he turned his attention to the rose-bushes at which his apprentice had been pegging away. "At weddings and bornings and flower tending man is just a worm under woman's feet and he might as well not even hope to turn. All he can do is to--"

But it was just at this juncture when Uncle Tucker's patience was about to be exhausted, that a summons from Rose Mary came for a general getting ready for the birthday celebration.

And in a very few hours the festivities were in full swing. Miss Lavinia sat in state in her rocker and received the offerings and congratulations of Sweetbriar as they were presented in various original and characteristic forms. Young Peter Rucker, still a bit unsteady on his pink and chubby underpinning, was steered forward to present his glossy buckeye, hung on a plaited horse-hair string that had been constructed by small Jennie with long and infinite patience.

Miss Lavinia's commendations threw both donor and constructor into an agony of bashfulness from which Pete took refuge in Rose Mary's skirts and Jennie behind her mother's chair. But at this juncture the arrival on the scene of action of young Bob Nickols with a whole two-horse wagon-load of pine cones, which the old lady doted on for the freshing up of the tiny fires always kept smoldering in her andironed fireplace the summer through, distracted the attention of the company and was greeted with great applause. Bob had been from early morning over on Providence n.o.b collecting the treasures, and, seated beside him on the front of the wagon, was Louisa Helen Plunkett, blushing furiously and most obviously avoiding her mother's stern eye of inquiry as to where she had spent the valuable morning hours.

The sensation of young Bob's offering was only offset at the unpacking of the complacent Mr. Crabtree's gift, which he bore over from the store in his own arms. With dramatic effect he placed it on the floor at Miss Lavinia's feet and called for a hatchet for its opening. And as from their wrappings of paper and excelsior he drew two large gilt and gla.s.s bottles, one containing bay rum and the other camphor, that precious lotion for fast stiffening joints, little Miss Amanda heaved a sigh of positive rapture. Mr. Crabtree was small and wiry, with a hickory-nut countenance and a luscious peach of a heart, and, though of bachelor condition, he at all times displayed sympathetic and intuitive domestic inclinations. He kept the Sweetbriar store and was thus in position to know of the small economies practised by the two old ladies in the matter of personal necessities. For the months past they had not bought the quant.i.ty of lubricating remedies that he considered sufficient and this had been his tactful way of supplying enough to last for some time to come. And from over the pile of gifts heaped around her, Miss Lavinia beamed upon him to such an extent that he felt like following young Pete's example, committing the awful impropriety of hiding his embarra.s.sment in any petticoat handy, but just at this juncture up the front walk came the birthday cake navigating itself by the long legs of Mr. Caleb Rucker and attended by a riot of Sweetbriar youth, mad with excitement over its safe landing and the treat in prospect. In its wake followed Mrs. Rucker, complacent and beaming over the sensation caused by this her high triumph in the culinary line.

"Fly-away, if that's not Providence n.o.b gone and turned to a cake for Sister Viney's birthday," exclaimed Uncle Tucker, as amid generous applause the offering was landed on a table set near the rocker.

And again at this auspicious moment a huge waiter covered with little mountains of white ice-cream made its appearance through the front door, impelled by the motive power of Mr. Mark Everett's elegantly white-flannel-trousered legs, and guided to a landing beside the cake by Rose Mary, who was a pink flower of smiles and blushes.

Then it followed that in less time than one would think possible the company at large was busy with a spoon attached to the refreshments which to Sweetbriar represented the height of elegance. Out in the world beyond Old Harpeth ice-cream and cake may have lost caste as a fashionable afternoon refreshment, having been succeeded by the imported custom of tea and scones or an elaborate menu of reception indigestibles, but in the Valley nothing had ever threatened the supremacy of the frozen cream and white-frosted confection. The men all sat on the end of the long porch and accepted second saucers and slices and even when urged by Rose Mary, beaming with hospitality, third relays, while the Swarm in camp on the front steps, under the General's management, seconded by Everett, succeeded in obtaining supplies in a practically unlimited quant.i.ty.

"Looks like Miss Rose Mary's freezer ain't got no bottom at all," said Mr. Rucker in his long drawl as he began on a fourth white mound. "It reminds me of 'the snow, the snow what falls from Heaven to earth below,' and keeps a-falling." Mr. Rucker was a poet at heart and a husband to Mrs. Rucker by profession, and his flights were regarded by Sweetbriar at large with a mixture of pride and derision.

"Cal," said Mrs. Rucker sternly, "don't you eat more'n half that saucer. I've got no mind to top off this here good time with mustard plasters all around. Even rejoicings can get overfed and peter out into ginger tea. Jennie, you and Sammie and Pete stop eating right now. Lands alive, the sun has set and we all know Miss Viney oughter be in the house. Shoo, everybody go home to save your manners!" And with hearty laughs and further good-by congratulations the happy little company of farmer folk scattered to their own roof trees across and along Providence Road. The twilight had come, but a very young moon was casting soft shadows from the trees rustling in the night breezes and the stars were lighting up in compet.i.tion to the rays that shot out from window after window in the little village.

Uncle Tucker had hurried away to his belated barn duties and little Miss Amanda into the house to stir up Miss Lavinia's fire in preparation for their retirement, which was a ceremony of long duration and begun with the mounting of the chickens to their roosts.

Miss Lavinia sat with her hands folded in her lap over a collection of the smaller gifts of the afternoon and her eyes looked far away cross the Ridge, dim in the failing light, while her stern old face took on softened and very lovely lines. Rose Mary stood near to help her into the house and Everett leaned against a post close on the other side of the rocker.

"Children," she said with a little break in her usual austere voice, "I'm kinder ashamed of accusing the Lord of forgetting me this morning when I look at all these remembers of me here that my neighbors have given me. I found friends when I came here eighty-two years ago to-day and as they have died off He has raised up a new crop outen their seed for me. This rheumatism buckeye here is the present of the great grandson of my first beau, and this afternoon I have looked into the kind eyes of some of my friends dead and gone many a day, and have seen smiles come to life that have been buried fifty years. I'm a-feeling thankful to be here another summer to see my friends and flowers a-blooming onct more, and come next April I am a-going to want just such another infair as this one. Now help me into bed! Young man, you can lift me up some, I'm stiff with so long setting, and I'm a-going to want a power of rubbing this night, Rose Mary."

So, thus held by her duties of ministration, it was quite an hour later that Rose Mary came out of the house, which was dark and sleep-quiet, and found Everett still sitting on the front steps smoking and--waiting.

"Tired?" he asked as she sank down on to the step beside him and leaned her dark head back against one of the posts that supported the ma.s.s of honeysuckle vine.

"Not much--and a heap happy," she answered, looking up at him with reflected stars in her long-lashed blue eyes. "Wasn't it a lovely party?"

"Yes," answered Everett slowly as he watched the smoke curl up from his cigar and blow in the soft little night wind across toward Rose Mary; "yes, it was a nice party. I seriously doubt if anywhere on any of the known continents there could have been one just like it pulled off by any people of any nation. It was unique--in sentiment and execution; I'm duly grateful for having been a guest--even part honoree."

"I always think of old people as being the soft shadows that st.u.r.dy little children cast on the wall. They are a part of the day and sunshine, but just protected by the young folks that come between them and the direct rays. They are strangely like flowers, too, with their quaint fragrance. Aunt Viney is my tall purple flag, but Aunt Amandy is my bed of white cinnamon pinks. I--I want to keep them in bloom for always. I can't let myself think--that I can't." Rose Mary's voice trembled into a laugh as she caught a trailing wisp of honeysuckle and pressed a bunch of its buds to her lips.

"You'll keep them, Rose Mary. You could keep anything you--you really wanted," said Everett in a guardedly comforting voice. "And what are Mr. Alloway and Stonie in your flower garden?" he asked in a bantering tone.

"Oh, Uncle Tucker is the briar rose hedge all around the place, and Stonie is all the young shoots that I'm trying to prune and train up just like him," answered Rose Mary with a quick laugh. "You're my new-fashioned crimson-rambler from out over the Ridge that I'm trying to make grow in my garden," she added, with a little hint of both audacity and tenderness in her voice.

"I'm rooted all right," answered Everett quickly, as he blew a puff of smoke at her. "And you, Rose Mary, are the bloom of every rose-bush that I ever saw anywhere. You are, I verily believe, the only and original Rose of the World."

"Oh, no," answered Rose Mary lifting her long lashes for a second's glance at him; "I'm just the Rose of these Briars. Don't you know all over the world women are blooming on lovely tall stems, where they have planted themselves deep in home places and are drinking the Master's love and courage from both sun and rain. But if we don't go to rest some you'll wilt, Rambler, and I'll shatter. Be sure and take the gla.s.s of cream I put by your bed. Good night and good dreams!"