Rose of Old Harpeth Part 6

"Forgive me," answered Everett in quick distress. "I was only scoffing, as usual. He'll keep what you give him, never fear, Rose Mary; he's honor bound."

"Yes, that's what I want him to be--'honor bound.' You don't know about him, but to-night I want to tell you, because I somehow feel you love him--and us--and maybe if you know, some day you will help him.

Just after I came back into the Valley and found them all so troubled and--and disgraced, something came to me I thought I couldn't stand.

Always it seemed to me I had loved him, my cousin, Uncle Tucker's son, and I thought--I thought he had loved me. But when he went out into the world one of the village girls, Granny Satterwhite's daughter, had followed him and--yes, she had been his wife for all the time we thought she was working in the city. They had been afraid--afraid of Uncle Tucker and me--to acknowledge it. She was foolish and he criminally weak. After his--his tragedy she came back--and n.o.body would believe--that she was his wife. I found her lying on the floor in the milk-house and though I was hurt, and hard, I took her into my room--and in a few hours Stonie was born. When they gave him to me, so little and helpless, the hurt and hardness all melted for ever, and I believed her and forgave her and him. I never rested until I made him come back, though it was just to die. She stayed with us a year--and then she married Todd Crabtree and moved West. They didn't want Stonie, so she gave him to me. When my heart ached so I couldn't stand it, there was always Stonie to heal it. Do you think that heartaches are sometimes just growing pains the Lord sends when He thinks we have not courage enough?" And in the moonlight Rose Mary's tear-starred eyes gleamed softly and her lovely mouth began to flower out into a little smile. The sunshine of Rose Mary's nature always threw a bow through her tears against any cloud that appeared on her horizon.

"I don't believe your heart ever needed any growing pains, Rose Mary, and I resent each and every one," answered Everett in a low voice, and he lifted one of Rose Mary's strong slim hands and held it close for a moment in both his warm ones.

"Oh, but it did," she answered, curling her fingers around his like a child grateful for a caress. "I was romantic--and--and intense, and I thought of it as a castle for--for just one. Now it's grown into a wide, wing-spreading, old country house in Harpeth Valley, with vines over the gables and doves up under the eaves. And in it I keep sunshiny rooms to shelter all the folks in need that my Master sends.

Yours--is on the south side--corner--don't you want your supper now?"

CHAPTER V

THE HONORABLE GID

"Now, Amandy, stick them jack-beans in the ground round side upwards.

Do you want 'em to have to turn over to sprout?" demanded Miss Lavinia, as she stood leaning on her crotched stick over by the south side of the garden fence, directing the planting of her favorite vine that was to be trained along the pickets and over the gate. Little Miss Amanda, as usual, was doing her best to carry out exactly the behests of her older and a little more infirm sister. Miss Amanda was possessed of a certain amount of tottering nimbleness which she put at the disposal of Miss Lavinia at all times with the most cheery good-will. Miss Amanda was of the order of little sisters who serve and Miss Lavinia belonged to the sisterhood dominant by nature and by the consent of Miss Amanda and the rest of her family.

"It's such a long row I don't know as I'll hold out to finish it, Sister Viney, if I have to stop to finger the beans in such a way as that. But I'll try," answered the little worker, going on sticking the beans in with trembling haste.

"Let me help you, please, Miss Amanda," entreated Everett, who had come out to watch the bean planting with the intention of offering aid, with also the certainty of having it refused.

"No, young man," answered Miss Lavinia promptly and decidedly. "These jack beans must be set in by a hand that knows 'em. We can't run no risks of having 'em to fail to come up. I got the seed of 'em over to Springfield when me and Mr. Robards was stationed there just before the war. Mr. Robards was always fond of flowers, and these jack beans in special. He was such a proper meek man and showed so few likings that I feel like I oughter honor this one by growing these vines in plenty as a remembrance, even if he has been dead forty-odd years."

"Was your husband a minister?" asked Everett in a voice of becoming respect to the meek Mr. Robards, though he be demised for nearly half a century.

"He was that, and a proper, saddlebags-riding, torment-preaching circuit rider before he was made presiding elder at an astonishing early age," answered Miss Lavinia, a fading fire blazing up in her dark eyes. "He saved many a sinner in Harpeth Valley by preaching both heaven and h.e.l.l in their fitten places, what's a thing this younger generation don't know how to do any more, it seems like. A sermon that sets up heaven like a circus tent, with a come-sinner-come-all sign, and digs h.e.l.l no deeper than Mill Creek swimming pool, as is skeercely over a boy's middle, ain't no sermon at all to my mind. Most preaching in Sweetbriar are like that nowadays."

"But Brother Robards had a mighty sweet voice and he gave the call of G.o.d's love so as to draw answers from all hearts," said Miss Amanda in her own sweet little voice, as she jabbed in the beans with her right hand and drew the dirt over them with her left.

"Yes, husband was a little inclined to preach from Psalms more'n good rousing Proverbs, but I always belt him to the main meat of the Gospel and only let him feed the flock on the sweets of faith in proper proportion," answered Miss Lavinia, with an echo in her voice of the energy expended in keeping the presiding elder to a Jeremiah rather than a David role in his ministry.

"It was a mighty blow to the Methodist Church when he was taken away so young," said Miss Amanda gently. "I know I said then that they never would be--"

"Lands alive, if here ain't Miss Viney and Miss Amandy out planting the jack beans and I ain't got down not a square foot of summer turnip greens!" exclaimed a hearty voice as Mrs. Rucker hurried up across the yard to the garden gate. "Now I know I'm a behind-hander, for my ground's always ready, and in go the greens when you all turn spade for the bean vines. Are you a-looking for a little job of plowing, Mr. Mark? I'd put Mr. Rucker at it, but he give his left ankle a twist yestidy and have had to be kinder quiet, a-setting on the back porch or maybe a-hobbling over to the store."

"Yes, I'll plow, if you don't care whether your mule or plow or hame strings come out alive," answered Everett with a laugh. Miss Amanda had risen, hurried eagerly over to her favorite neighbor and held out her hand for the pan tendered her.

"Them's your sally luns, Miss Amandy, and they are a good chanct if I do say it myself. I jest know you and Rose Mary have got on the big pot and little kettle for Mr. Newsome, and I'm mighty proud to have the luns handed around with your all's fixings. I reckon Rose Mary is so comfusticated you can't hardly trust her with no supper rolls or such like. Have you seen him yet, Rose Mary?" she asked of Rose Mary, who had appeared at the garden gate.

"No; I've just come up from the milk-house," answered Rose Mary with a laughing blush. "When did Mr. Newsome come?"

"Just now," answered Mrs. Rucker, with further banter in her eyes.

"And none of Solomon's lilies in all they glory was ever arrayed like one of him. You better go frill yourself out, Rose Mary, for the men ain't a-going to be able to hold him chavering over there at the store very long."

"It will only take me a few minutes to dress," answered Rose Mary, with a continuation of the blush. "The Aunties are all ready for supper, and Stonie and Uncle Tucker. Mag has got everything just ready to dish up, and I'll take in the sally luns to be run in the stove at the last moment. Isn't it lovely to have company? Friends right at home you can show your liking for all the time, but you must be careful to save their share for the others to give to them when they come. Mr. Mark, don't you want to--"

But before Rose Mary had begun her sentence Mr. Mark Everett, of New York City, New York, was striding away across the yard with a long swing, and as he went through the front gate it somehow slipped out of his hand and closed itself with a bang. The expression of his back as he crossed the road might have led one versed in romantics to conclude that a half-unsheathed sword hung at his side and that he had two flintlocks thrust into his belt.

And over at the store he found himself in the midst of a jubilation.

Mr. Gideon Newsome, of Bolivar, Tennessee, stood in the doorway, and surrounding him in the store, in the doorway and on the porch was the entire masculine population of Sweetbriar.

Mr. Newsome was tall and broad and well on the way to portliness. His limbs were ma.s.sive and slow of movement and his head large, with a mane of slightly graying hair flung back from a wide, unfurrowed brow.

Small and very black eyes pierced out from crinkled heavy lids and a bulldog jaw shot out from under a fat beak of a nose. And over the broad expanse of countenance was spread a smile so sweet, so deep, so high that it gave the impression of obscuring the form of features entirely. In point of fact it was a thick and impenetrable veil that the Senator had for long hung before his face from behind which to view the world at large. And through his mouth, as through a rent in the smile, he was wont to pour out a volume of voice as musical in its drawl and intensified southern burr as the ba.s.s note on a well-seasoned 'cello.

He was performing the obligato of a prohibition hymn for the group of farmers around him when he caught sight of Everett as he came across the street. Instantly his voice was lowered to a honeyed conversational pitch as he came to the edge of the porch and held out a large, fat, white hand, into which Everett laid his own by courtesy perforced.

"I'm delighted to see you, Mr. Everett, suh, delighted!" he boomed.

"And in such evident improved health. I inquired for you at Bolivar as soon as I returned and I was informed that you had come over here to find perfect restoration to health in the salubrious climate of this wonderful town of Sweetbriar. I'm glad to see your looks confirm the answer to my anxious inquiries. And is all well with you?"

"Thank you, Senator, I'm in pretty good shape again," answered Everett with a counter smile. "Ten pounds on and I'm in fighting trim." The words were said pleasantly, but for the life of him Everett could not control the hostility of a quick glance that apparently struck harmlessly against the veil of smiles.

"That there ten pounds had oughter be twenty, Senator, at the rate of the Alloway feeding of him, from milk-house to cellar preserve shelf,"

said Mr. Crabtree from behind the counter where he was doing up a pound of tea for the poet, who found it impossible to take his eyes off the politician. "Miss Rose Mary ain't give me a gla.s.s of b.u.t.termilk for more'n a week, and they do say she has to keep a loaf handy in the milk-house to feed him 'fore he gets as far as Miss Amandy and the kitchen. We're going to run him in a fattening race with Mis' Rucker's fancy red hog she's gitting ready for the State Fair and the new Poteet baby, young Master Tucker Poteet of Sweetbriar."

"So there's a new Poteet young man, and named for my dear friend, Mr.

Alloway! My congratulations, Mr. Poteet!" exclaimed the senator as he pumped the awkward, h.o.r.n.y hand of the embarra.s.sed but proud Mr. Poteet up and down as if it were the handle of the town pump. "I must be sure to have an introduction to the young man. Want to meet all the voters," he added, shaking out the smile veil with energy.

And at this very opportune moment he looked down the Road and espied a procession of presentation approaching. The General in the midst of the Swarm was coming at a breakneck speed and clasped firmly in his arms he held a small blue bundle. On his right galloped Tobe with Shoofly swung at her usual dangerous angle on his hip, and Jennie Rucker supported his left wing, with stumbling Petie pulled along between her hand and that of small Peggy. Around and behind swarmed the rest of the Poteet seven, the Ruckers and the Nickols, with Mrs.

Sniffer and the five little dogs bringing up the rear.

"Well, well, and what have we here?" exclaimed the great man as he descended and stood in front of the lined-up cohorts.

"It's the Poteet baby," answered the General with precision. "We bringed him to show you. He's going to be a boy; they can't nothing change him now. Shoofly is a girl, but Mis' Poteet didn't fool us this time. Besides if he'd been a girl we wouldn't a-had him for nothing."

"Why, young man, you don't mean to discredit the girls, do you?"

demanded the Senator with a gallantly propitiating glance in the direction of Jennie, Peggy and the rest of the bunch of a.s.sorted pink and blue little calico petticoats. "Why could anything be finer than a sweet little girl?" And as he spoke he rested his hand on Jennie's tow-pigtailed head.

"Well, what's sweet got to do with it if we've got too many of 'em?"

answered the General in his usual argumentative tone. "Till little Tucker comed they was three more girls than they was boys, and it wasn't fair. Now they is just two more, and four of Sniffie's puppies is boys, so that makes it most even until another one comes, what'll just _have_ to be a boy." And the General cast a threatening glance in the direction of the calico bunch as he issued this ultimatum to feminine Sweetbriar.

"I'll ask Maw," murmured Jennie bashfully, but Miss Peggy turned up her small nose and switched her short skirts scornfully as the men on the porch laughed and the Senator emitted a very roar in his booming ba.s.s.

"Well, well, we'll have to settle that later," he said in his most propitiating urge-voter voice as he cast a smile over the entire Swarm. "Hadn't you better carry the young man back to his mother? He seems to be restless," he further remarked, taking advantage of a slight squirm in which young Tucker indulged himself, though he was not at all uncomfortable in Stonie's arms, accustomed as he was to being transported in any direction at any time by any one of his confreres. And with this skilful hint of dismissal the Senator bent down and bestowed the imperative political kiss on the little pink Poteet head, smattered one or two over Shoofly and Pete, landed one on the tip of Jennie Rucker's little freckled nose and started them all up the Road in good order as he turned once more to the men in the store.

But the advent of the Swarm had served to remind the group of his friends that the time for the roof-tree gathering was fast approaching, and Mr. Crabtree was busy filling half-forgotten supper orders for impatient waiters, while most of the men had gone up or down the Road in the wake of the scattering Swarm. For a few minutes the Senator and Everett were left on the porch steps alone.

"I hear from some of the men that you have been able to do some prospecting in the last weeks, Mr. Everett," remarked the Senator casually from behind the veil, as he accepted and lighted a cigar.

"Just knocked around a bit," answered Everett carelessly. "The whole Mississippi Valley is interesting geologically. There is quite a promise of oil here, but practically no outcrop."

"Your examination been pretty thorough--professional?" queried the Senator, still in an equally careless voice, though his little eyes gleamed out of their slits.

"Oh, yes, I thrashed it all out, especially Mr. Alloway's place. I'd like to have found oil for him--and the rest of Sweetbriar, too, but it isn't here." Everett spoke decidedly, and there was a note in his voice as if to end the discussion. His own eyes he kept down on his cigar and, as he lounged against a post he had an air of being slightly bored by an uninteresting shop topic. The Senator looked at him a few seconds keenly, started to make a trivial change in the conversation, then made a flank movement, bent toward Everett and began to speak in a suave and most confidential manner.