Rose of Old Harpeth.
by Maria Thompson Daviess.
CHAPTER I
ROSE MARY OF SWEETBRIAR
"Why, don"t you know nothing in the world compliments a loaf of bread like the asking for a fourth slice," laughed Rose Mary as she reached up on the stone shelf above her head and took down a large crusty loaf and a long knife. "Thick or thin?" she asked as she raised her lashes from her blue eyes for a second of hospitable inquiry.
"Thin," answered Everett promptly, "but two with the b.u.t.ter sticking "em together. Please be careful with that weapon! It"s as good as a juggler"s show to watch you, but it makes me slightly--solicitous." As he spoke he seated himself on the corner of the wide stone table as near to Rose Mary and the long knife as seemed advisable. A ray of sunlight fell through the door of the milk-house and cut across his red head to lose itself in Rose Mary"s close black braids.
"Make it four," he further demanded over the table.
"Indeed and I will," answered Rose Mary delightedly. And as she spoke she held the loaf against her breast and drew the knife through the slices in a fascinatingly dangerous manner. At the intentness of his regard the color rose up under the lashes that veiled her eyes, and she hugged the loaf closer with her left hand. "Would you like six?"
she asked innocently, as the fourth stroke severed the last piece.
"Just go on and slice it all up," he answered with a laugh. "I"d rather watch you than eat."
"Wait till I b.u.t.ter these for you and then you can eat--and watch me--me finish working the b.u.t.ter. Won"t that do as well? Think what an encouragement your interest will be to me! Really, nothing in the world paces a woman"s work like a man looking on, and if he doesn"t stop her she"ll drop under the line. Now, you have your bread and b.u.t.ter and you can sit over there by the door and help me turn off this ten pounds in no time."
As she had been speaking, Rose Mary had spread two of the slices with the yellow b.u.t.ter from a huge bowl in front of her, clapped on the tops of the sandwiches and then, with a smile, handed them in a blue plate to the man who lounged across the corner of her table. She made a very gracious and lovely picture, did Rose Mary, in her light-blue homespun gown against the cool gray depths of the milk-house, which was fern-lined along the cracks of the old stones and mysterious with the trickling gurgle of the spring that flowed into the long stone troughs, around the milk crocks and out under the stone door-sill.
From his post by the door Everett watched her as she drove her paddle deep into the hard golden mound in the blue bowl in front of her, and, with a quick turn of her strong, slender wrist slapped and patted chunk after chunk of the b.u.t.ter into a more compressed form. The sleeves of her dress were rolled almost to her shoulders and under the white, moist flesh of her arms the fine muscles showed plainly. The strong curves of her back and shoulders bent and sprung under the graceful sweep of her arms and her round b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell with quickened breath from her energetic movements.
"Now, you"re making me work _too_ hard," she laughed; and she panted as she rested her hand for a second against the edge of the bowl and looked up at Everett from under a black tendril curl that had fallen down across her forehead.
"Miss Rose Mary Alloway, you are one large, husky--witch," calmly remarked the hungry man as he finished disposing of the last half of one of the thin bread and b.u.t.ters. "Here I sit enchanted by--by a b.u.t.ter-paddle, when you and I both know that not two miles across the meadows there runs a train that ought to put me into New York in a little over forty-eight hours. Won"t you, won"t you let me go--back to my frantic and imploring employers?"
"Why no, I can"t," answered Rose Mary as she pressed a yellow cake of b.u.t.ter on to a blue plate and deftly curled it up with her paddle into a huge yellow sunflower. "Uncle Tucker captured you roaming loose out in his fields and he trusts you to me while he is at work and I must keep you safe. He"s fond of you and so are the Aunties and Stonewall Jackson and Shoofly and Sniffer and--"
"And anybody else?" demanded Everett, preparing to dispose of the last bite.
"Oh, everybody most along Providence Road," answered Rose Mary enthusiastically, though not raising her eyes from the manipulation of the third b.u.t.ter flower. "Can"t you go out and dig up some more rocks and things? I feel sure you haven"t got a sample of all of them. And there may be gold and silver and precious jewels just one inch deeper than you have dug. Are you certain you can"t squeeze up some oil somewhere in the meadow? You told a whole lot of reasons to Uncle Tucker why you knew you would find some, and now you"ll have to stay to prove yourself."
"No," answered Mark Everett quietly, and, as he spoke, he raised his eyes and looked at Rose Mary keenly; "no, there is no oil that I can discover, though the formation, as I explained to your uncle, is just as I expected to find it. I"ve spent three weeks going over every inch of the Valley and I can"t find a trace of grease. I"m sorry."
"Well, I don"t know that I care, except for your sake," answered Rose Mary unconcernedly, with her eyes still on her task. "We don"t any of us like the smell of coal-oil, and it gives Aunt Viney asthma. It would be awfully disagreeable to have wells of it right here on the place. They"d be so ugly and smelly."
"But oil-wells mean--mean a great deal of wealth," ventured Everett.
"I know, but just think of the money Uncle Tucker gets for this b.u.t.ter I make from the cows that graze on the meadows. Wouldn"t it be awful if they should happen to drink some of the coal-oil and make the b.u.t.ter we send down to the city taste wrong and spoil the Sweetbriar reputation? I like money though, most awfully, and I want some right now. I want to--"
"Mary of the Rose, stop right there!" said Everett as he came over from his post by the door and again seated himself on the corner of the table. "I _will_ not listen to you give vent to the national craving. I _will_ hold on to the illusion of having found one unmercenary human being, even if she had to be buried in the depths of Harpeth Valley to keep her so." There was banter in Everett"s voice and a smile on his lips, but a bitterness lay in the depths of his keen dark eyes and an ugly trace of cynicism filtered through the tones of his voice.
"And wasn"t it funny for me to count the little well-chickens before they were even hatched?" laughed Rose Mary. "That"s the way of it, get together even a little flock of dollars in prospect and they go right to work hatching out a brood of wants and needs; but it"s not wrong of me to want those false teeth so bad, because it"s such a trial to have your mouth all sink in and not be able to talk plain and--"
"Help, woman! What are you talking about? I never saw such teeth as you have in all my life. One flash of them would put a beauty show out of business and--"
"Oh, no, not for myself!" Rose Mary hastened to exclaim, and she turned the whole artillery of the pearl treasures upon him in mirth at his mistake. "It"s Aunt Viney I want them for. She only has five left.
She says she didn"t mind so long as she had any two that hit, but the hitters to all five are gone now and she is so distressed. I"m saving up to take her down to the city to get a brand new set. I have eleven dollars now and two little bull calves to sell, though it breaks my heart to let them go, even if they are of the wrong persuasion. I always love them better than I do the little heifers, because I have to give them up. I don"t like to have things I love go away. You see you mustn"t think of going to New York until the spring is all over and summer comes for good," she continued, with the most delightful ingenuousness, as she shaped the last of the ten flowers and glanced from her task at him with the most solicitous concern. "Of course, you feel as if the smash your lung got in that awful rock slide has healed all up, and I know it has, but you"ll have to do as the doctor tells you about not running any risks with New York spring gales, won"t you?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose I will," answered Everett, with a trace of restlessness in his voice. "I"m just as sound as a dollar now and I"m wild to go with that gang the firm is sending up into British Columbia to thrash out that copper question. I know they counted on me for the final tests. Some other fellow will find it and get the fortune and the credit, while I--I--"
He stared moodily out the door of the milk-house and down Providence Road that wound its calm, even way from across the ridge down through the green valley. Rose Mary"s milk-house was nestled between the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a low hill, upon which was perched the wide-winged, old country house which had brooded the fortunes of the Alloways since the wilderness days. The spring which gushed from the back wall of the milk-house poured itself into a stone trough on the side of the Road, which had been placed there generations agone for the refreshment of beast, while man had been entertained within the hospitable stone walls. And at the foot of the Briars, as the Alloway home, hill, spring and meadows had been called from time immemorial, cl.u.s.tered the little village of Sweetbriar.
The store, which also sheltered the post-office, was almost opposite the spring-house door across the wide Road, the blacksmith shop farther down and the farm-houses stretched fraternally along either side in both directions. Far up the Road, as it wound its way around Providence n.o.b, could be seen the chimneys and the roofs of Providence, while Springfield and Boliver also lay like smoke-wreathed visions in the distance. Something of the peace and plenty of it all had begun to smooth the irritated wrinkle from between Mark Everett"s brows, when Rose Mary"s hand rested for a second over his on the table and her rich voice, with its softest brooding note, came from across her bowl.
"Ah, I know it"s hard for you, Mr. Mark," she said, "and I wish--I wish--The lilacs will be in bloom next week, won"t that help some?"
And the wooing tone in her voice was exactly what she used in coaxing young Stonewall Jackson to bed or Uncle Tucker to tie up his throat in a flannel m.u.f.fler.
"It"s not lilacs I"m needing with a rose in bloom right--" But Everett"s gallant response to the coaxing was cut short by a sally from an unexpected quarter.
Down Providence Road at full tilt came Stonewall Jackson, with the Swarm in a cloud of dust at his heels. He jumped across the spring branch and darted in under the milk-house eaves, while the Swarm drew up on the other bank in evident impatience. Swung bundle-wise under his arm he held a small, tow-headed bunch, and as he landed on the stone door-sill he hastily deposited it on the floor at Rose Mary"s feet.
"Say, Rose Mamie," he panted, "you just keep Shoofly for us a little while, won"t you? Mis" Poteet have done left her with Tobe to take care of and he put her on a stump while he chased a polecat that he fell on while it was going under a fence, and now Uncle Tuck is a-burying of him up in the woods lot. Jest joggle her with your foot this way if she goes to cry." And in demonstration of his directions the General put one bare foot in the middle of the mite"s back and administered a short series of rotary motions, which immediately brought a response of ecstatic gurgles. "We"ll come back for her as soon as we dig him up," he added, as he prepared for another flying leap across the spring stream.
"But, Stonie, wait and tell me what you mean!" exclaimed Rose Mary, while Everett regarded Stonewall Jackson and his cohorts with delighted amus.e.m.e.nt.
"I told you once, Rose Mamie, that Tobe fell on a polecat under a fence he was a-chasing, and he smells so awful Uncle Tuck have burned his britches and shirt on the end of a stick and have got him buried in dirt up to jest his nose. Burying in dirt is the onliest thing that"ll take off the smell. We comed to ask you to watch Shoofly while he"s buried, cause Mis" Poteet will be mad at him when she comes home if Shoofly smells. We"re all a-going to stay right by him until he"s dug up, "cause we all sicked him on that polecat and we ought in honor!"
Stonie looked at the Swarm for confirmation of this worthy sentiment, and it arose in a murmur. The Swarm was a choice congregation of small fry that trailed perpetually at the heels of Stonewall Jackson, and at the moment was in a state of seething excitement. Jennie Rucker"s little freckled face was pale under its usual sunburn, as a result of being too near the disastrous encounter, and her little nose, turned up by nature in the outset, looked as if it were in danger of never again a.s.suming its normal tilt. She held small Pete by one chubby hand, and with a wry face he was licking out an absurd little red tongue at least twice each moment, as if uncertain as to whether his olfactory or gustatory nerves had been offended. Billy was standing with the nonchalant unconcern of one strong of stomach, and the four other little Pot.e.e.t.s, ranging in size from Shoofly, on the floor, to Tobe, the buried, were shuffling their bare feet in the dust with evident impatience to be off to gloat over the prostrated but important member of the family. They rolled their wide eyes at almost impossible angles, and small Peggy sniffed audibly into a corner of her patched gingham ap.r.o.n.
"Yes, Stonie," answered Rose Mary judicially, while Everett"s shoulders shook with mirth that he felt it best not to give way to in the face of the sympathetic Swarm, "you all must stay with Tobe, if he has to be buried, and go right back as fast as you can. Troubles must make us stay close by our friends."
"If I get much closer to him I"ll throw up," sniffed Jennie, and her protest was echoed by a groan from Peggy into the ap.r.o.n, while the area which showed above its folds turned white at the prospect of being obliged to draw near to this brother in affliction.
"Yes, but you sicked Tobe, with the rest of us, and in this _girls_ don"t count. You"ve got to go back, smell or no smell, sick or no sick," announced the General firmly, in the decisive tones of one accustomed to be obeyed.
"Yes, Stonie," came in a meek and m.u.f.fled tone from the ap.r.o.n, "we"ll go back with you."
"Can"t we just set on the fence of the lot--it ain"t so far?" pleaded Jennie in almost a wail. "I"m afraid Pete will cry from the smell if we go any closter. He"s most doing it now."
"Yes, General, let the girls sit on the fence," pleaded Everett, with his eyes dancing, but a bit of mockery in his voice, "after all they are--girls, you know."
"Oh, well, yes, they can," answered Stonewall Jackson in a magnanimously disgusted tone of voice. "They always get girls when they don"t want to do anything. Come on, Tobe"ll be crying if we don"t hurry. Billy, you help Jennie drag Pete, so he can go fast!"
But during the conference the disgusted toddler had been pondering the situation, and at this mention of his being dragged back to the scene of offense he had made a quick sally across the plank that spanned the spring branch and with masculine intuition as to the safe place in time of danger, he had plunged head foremost into Rose Mary"s skirts, so that only his small fat back showed to the enemy.
"Please go on, Stonie, and leave him with me--he"s just a baby,"
pleaded Rose Mary.
"All right," answered the General, "Tobe don"t care about him; he"d just make us go slow," and thus dropping young Peter into the category of impedimenta, the General departed at top speed, surrounded, as he came, by the loyal Swarm. On the day of his birth Aunt Viney"s choice for a name for the General had balanced for some hours between that of the redoubtable Abner the Valiant, of old Testament fame, and her favorite modern hero, Jackson of the stonewall nature. And in her final choice she had seemed so to impress the infant that he had developed more than a little of the nature of his patron commander. At all times Stonie commanded the Swarm, and also at all times was strictly obeyed.
Then seeing herself thus deserted by her companions, Shoofly began a low, musical hum of a wail and walled large eyes up at Everett, at whose feet she was seated. In instant sympathetic response he applied the toe of his shoe to the small of the whimpering tot"s back and proceeded awkwardly, though with the best intentions in the world, to follow the General"s directions as to pacification. Rose Mary laughed as she took a tin-cup from a nail in the wall, and filling it with milk from one of the crocks, she knelt at the side of the deserted one and held the brim to the red lips of Shoofly"s generous mouth. With a series of gurgles and laps the consoling draft was quickly consumed and the whimperer left by this double ministration in a state of placid contentment.
Peter the wise had stood viewing these attentions to the other baby with stolid imperturbability, but as Rose Mary turned away to her table he licked out his pink tongue and bobbed his head toward the milk crocks, while his solemn eyes conveyed his desire without words.
Peter"s vocabulary was both new and limited, and he was at all times extremely careful against any wastefulness of it. His lips quivered as if in uncertainty as to whether he was to be left out of this lactic deal, and his eyes grew reproachful.