Part 12 (2/2)
But before she had watched the singer lady out of sight down the Road, with her spray of brown blossoms in her one hand and her garden hat in the other, she espied young Eliza rapidly approaching from up the Road and there was excitement in every movement of her slim, little body and in every swish of her short calico skirts, as well as in the way her long pigtail swung out behind.
”Mother Mayberry,” she exclaimed, as she sank breathless on the top step, ”they is a awful thing happened! Aunt Prissy was 'most disgraced 'bout a box of soap and Bud and 'Lias and Henny might have got killed and Buck too, because he sent one to Pattie and wrote what was on the card. I've been so scared I am in the trembles now, but you said always pray to the Lord and I did it while I was a-running down to the store to beg Mr. Petway not to make her jump off from Bee Rock on the n.o.b like the lady Mis' Peavey read about in the paper did because the man wouldn't marry her that she was in love with. Fast as I were a-running I reckon the Lord made out what I said and beat me to him and told him--”
”'Liza, 'Liza, honey, stop this minute and tell me what you are a-talking about,” demanded Mother Mayberry, with almost as much excitement in her voice as was trembling in that of the small talking machine at her feet. ”Now begin at the beginning and tell me just what is the matter with your Aunt Prissy?”
”Nothing now,” answered Eliza, taking a fresh breath, ”she's a-going to marry Mr. Petway, only she won't know it until to-night and I've promised him not to tell her.”
”What?” was all that Mother Mayberry managed to demand from the depths of her astonishment as she sank back in her rocking-chair and regarded Eliza with positive awe.
”Yes'um, and it were all about them two beautiful boxes of sweet-smelling soap that he bought in town and have had in the store window for a week. Buck bought one to send to Pattie for a birthday present and he wrote, 'When this you see, remember me,' on a card and put it in the box. I carried it over to her for him and Mr. Hoover jest laughed, and said Buck meant Pattie didn't keep her face clean. But Mis' Hoover hugged Pattie and whispered something to her and told Mr.
Hoover to shut up and go see how many children he could get to come in and be washed up for dinner. Buck was a-waiting for me around the corner of the store and when I told him how pleased Mis' Hoover and Pattie were, he--”
”But wait a minute, 'Liza,” interrupted Mother Mayberry with a laugh, ”them love jinks twixt Buck and Pattie is most interesting, but I'm waiting to hear about your Aunt Prissy and Mr. Petway. It's liable to be serious when two folks as old as they is--but go on with your tale, honey.”
”Well, Buck wrote two of them beautiful 'Remember me' verses on nice pieces of white paper, in them curlycues the Deacon taught him, before he got one to suit him and he left one on the counter, right by the cheese box. While we was gone, along come 'Lias and Bud and Henny and disgraced Aunt Prissy.”
”Why, what did them scamps do?” demanded Mother Mayberry, looking over her gla.s.ses in some perturbation as the end of the involved narration began to dawn upon her.
”They tooken the other box of soap outen the window and put the verse in it and carried it down to Aunt Prissy and told her Mr. Petway sent it to her. It was a joke they said, but they was good and skeered. I got home then and I seen her and Maw laughing about it and Aunt Prissy was just as pink and pleased and loving looking as Pattie were and Maw was a-joking of her like Mis' Pratt--no, Hoover--did Pattie and all of a sudden I knewed it were them bad boys, 'cause I seen 'em laughing in a way I knows is badness. Oh, then I was so skeered I couldn't swoller something in my throat 'cause I thought maybe Aunt Prissy would jump offen Bee Rock when she found she were so disgraced with Mr. Petway. I woulder done it myself, for I got right red in my own face thinking about it.” And the blush that was a dawn of the eternal feminine again rose to the little bud-woman's face.
”It were awful, Eliza child, and I don't blame you for being mortified over it,” said Mother Mayberry with a quick appreciation of the wound inflicted on the delicacy of the child, and the tale began to a.s.sume serious proportions in her mind as she thought of the probable result to the incipient affair between the elderly lovers that had been a subject of prayful hope to her for some time past. ”What did you do?”
”I prayed,” answered Eliza in a perfectly practical tone of voice, ”and as I prayed I ran to Mr. Petway as fast as I could. He was filling mola.s.ses cans at the barrel when I got there and they wasn't n.o.body in the store, only I seen Bud and Henny peeping from behind the blacksmith shop and they was right white, they was so skeered by that time. Then I told him all about it and begged him to let Aunt Prissy have the box of soap and think he sent it, so her feelings wouldn't get hurted. I told him I would give him my seventy-five cents from picking peas to pay for it and that Aunt Prissy cried so when her feelings was hurted, and she thought so much of him that she kept her frizzes rolled up all day when she hoped he might be coming that night to see her and got Maw to bake tea-cakes to pa.s.s him out on the front porch and he MIGHT let her have just that one little box of soap.”
”What did he say, child?” asked Mother Mayberry in a voice that was positively weak from anxiety and suppressed mirth at Eliza's own account of her management of the outraged lover.
”He didn't say a thing, but he sat down on a cracker box and just hugged me and laughed until he cried all over my dress and I hugged back and laughed too, but I didn't know what at. Then he told me that he didn't ever want Aunt Prissy to know about them bad boys' foolish joke 'cause he wanted to marry Aunt Prissy and didn't want her to find out that three young scallawags had to begin his co'ting for him.”
”Did he say all that to you, 'Liza honey, are you sure?” asked Mother Mayberry, beginning to beam with delight at the outcome of the horrible situation.
”Yes'm, he did, and I went out and brought Bud and 'Lias and Henny in and he talked to 'em serious until 'Lias cried and Bud got choked trying not to. Then he give them all a bottle of soda pop and they ain't never anybody a-going to tell anybody else about it. He made them boys cross they hearts and bodies not to. I didn't cross mine 'cause I knew I had to tell you, but I do it now.” And Eliza stood up and solemnly made the mystic sign, thus locking the barn door of her secret chambers after having quartered the troublesome steed of confidence on the ranges of Mother Mayberry's conscience.
”Well, 'Liza, a secret oughter always be wrapped up tight and dropped down the well inside a person, and suppose you and me do it to this one. And, child, I want to tell you that you did the right thing all along this line, and it were the Heavenly Father you asked to help you out that put the right notion in your heart of what to do.”
”Yes'm, I believe He did, and He got hold of Mr. Petway some too, to make him kind about wanting to marry Aunt Prissy. He are a-going to ask her to-night and I promised to keep Paw outen the way for him, 'cause Paw WILL get away from Maw and come talk crops with him sometimes on the front porch. May I go out to the kitchen and get Cindy to make a little chicken soup for Mis' Bostick now? I can't get her to eat much to-day.”
”Yes, and welcome, Sister Pike,” answered Mother Mayberry heartily, and she shook with laughter as the end of the blue calico skirt disappeared in the hall. ”The little raven have actually begun to sprout cupid wings,” she said to herself as she went around the corner of the house toward the Doctor's office. ”Co'ting are a bombsh.e.l.l that explodes in the big Road of life and look out who it hits,” she further observed to herself as she paused to train up a shoot of the rambler over the office door.
The Doctor had just come from over the Ridge, put up his horse and made his way through the kitchen and hall into his office where he found his Mother sitting in his chair by the table. He smiled in a dejected way and seated himself opposite her, leaned his elbows on the table and dropped his chin into his hands.
”Now, what's your trouble, Tom Mayberry?” demanded his Mother, as she gazed across at him with anxiety and tenderness striving in glance and tone. ”You've been a-going around like a dropped-wing young rooster with a touch of malaria for a week. If it's just moon-gaps you can keep 'em and welcome, but if it's trouble, I claim my share, son.”
”I meant to tell you to-day, Mother,” he answered slowly. After a moment's silence he looked up and said steadily, ”I've failed with Miss Wingate--and I'm too much of a coward to tell her. I feel sure now that she'll never be able to use her voice any more than she can in the speaking tones and she--she will never sing again.” As he spoke he buried his face in his hands and his arms shook the table they rested upon.
For a moment Mother Mayberry sat perfectly still and from the whispered words on her lips her son knew she was praying. ”The Lord's will be done,” she said at last in her deep, quiet voice, and she laid one of her strong hands on her son's arm. ”Tell me about it, Tom. You ain't done no operation yet.”
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