Judge Mayne"s son, Laurence, full of a fresh and boyish enthusiasm, was such another instrument. He had a handsome, intelligent face, a straight and beautiful body, and the pleasantest voice in the world.
His mother in her last years had been a fretful invalid, and to meet her constant demands the judge and his son had developed an angelic patience with weakness. They were both rather quiet and undemonstrative, this father and son; the older man, in fact had a stern visage at first glance, until one learned to know it as the face of a man trained to restraint and endurance. As for the boy, no one could long resist the shrewd, kind youngster, who could spend an hour with the most unlikely invalid and leave him all the better for it. I was unusually busy just then, Clelie frankly hated and feared the man upstairs, my mother had her hands full, and there were many heavy and lonesome hours which Laurence set himself the task of filling. I left this to the boy himself, offering no suggestions.
"Padre," said the boy to me, some time later, "that chap upstairs is the hardest nut I ever tried to crack. There"ve been times when I felt tempted to crack him with a sledge-hammer, if you want the truth. You know, he always seemed to like me to read to him, but I"ve never been able to discover whether or not he liked what I read. He never asked me a single question, he never seemed interested enough to make a comment. But I think that I"ve made a dent in him at last."
"A dent! In Flint? With what adamantine pick, oh hardiest of miners!"
"With a book. Guess!"
"I couldn"t. I give up."
"The Bible!" said Laurence.
The Bible! Had _I_ chosen to read it to him, he would have resented it, been impervious, suspicious, hostile. I looked at the boy"s laughing face, and wondered, and wondered.
"And how," said I, curious, "did you happen to pitch on the Bible?"
"Why, I got to studying about this chap. I wanted something that"d _reach him_. I was puzzled. And then I remembered hearing my father say that the Bible is the most interesting book in the world because it"s the most personal. There"s something in it for everybody. So I thought there"d be something in it for John Flint, and I tried it on him, without telling him what I was giving him. I just plunged right in, head over heels. Lord, Padre, it _is_ a wonderful old book, isn"t it? Why, I got so lost in it myself that I forgot all about John Flint, until I happened to glance up and see that he was up to the eyes in it, just like I was! He likes the fights and he gloats over the spoils. He"s asking for more. I think of turning Paul loose on him."
"Well, if after the manner of men Paul fought with wild beasts at Ephesus," I said hopefully. "I dare say he"ll be able to hold his own even with John Flint."
"I like Paul best of all, myself," said Laurence. "You see, Padre, my father and I have needed a dose of Paul more than once--to stiffen our backbones. So I"m going to turn the fighting old saint loose on John Flint. "By, Padre;--I"ll look in to-morrow--I left poor old Elijah up in a cave with no water, and the ravens overdue!"
He went down our garden path whistling, his cap on the back of his head, and I looked after him with the warm and comforting sense that the world is just that much better for such as he.
The boy was now, in his last high school year, planning to study law--all the Maynes took to law as a duck to water. Brave, simple-hearted, direct, clear-thinking, scrupulously honorable,--this was one of the diamonds used to cut the rough hard surface of Slippy McGee.
CHAPTER III
NEIGHBORS
On a morning in late March, with a sweet and fresh wind blowing, a clear sun shining, and a sky so full of soft white woolly clouds that you might fancy the sky-people had turned their fleecy flock out to graze in the deep blue pastures, Laurence Mayne and I brought John Flint downstairs and rolled him out into the glad, green garden, in the comfortable wheel-chair that the mill-people had given us for a Christmas present; my mother and Clelie followed, and our little dog Pitache marched ahead, putting on ridiculous airs of responsibility; he being a dog with a great idea of his own importance and wholly given over to the notion that nothing could go right if he were not there to superintend and oversee it.
The wistaria was in her zenith, girdling the tree-tops with amethyst; the Cherokee rose had just begun to reign, all in snow-white velvet, with a gold crown and a green girdle for greater glory; the greedy brown grumbling bees came to her table in dusty cohorts, and over her green bowers floated her gayer lovers the early b.u.t.terflies, clothed delicately as in kings" raiment. In the corners glowed the ruby-colored j.a.panese quince, and the long sprays of that flower I most dearly love, the spring-like spirea which the children call bridal wreath, brushed you gently as you pa.s.sed the gate. I never see it deck itself in bridal white, I never inhale its shy, clean scent, without a tightening of the throat, a misting of the eyes, a melting of the heart.
Across our garden and across Miss Sally Ruth Dexter"s you could see in Major Appleby Cartwright"s yard the peach trees in pink party dresses, ruffled by the wind. Down the paths marched my mother"s daffodils and hyacinths, with honey-breathing sweet alyssum in between. Robins and wrens, orioles and mocking-birds, blue jays and jackdaws, thrushes and blue-birds and cardinals, all were busy house-building; one heard calls and answers, saw flashes of painted wings, followed by outbursts of ecstasy. If one should lay one"s ear to the ground on such a morning I think one might hear the heart of the world.
"_Hallelujah! Risen! Risen!_" breathed the glad, green things, pushing from the warm mother-mold.
"_Living! Living! Loving! Loving!_" flashed and fluted the flying things, joyously.
We wheeled our man out into this divine freshness of renewed life, stopping the chair under a glossy, stately magnolia. My mother and Clelie and Laurence and I bustled about to make him comfortable.
Pitache stood stock still, his tail stuck up like a sternly admonishing forefinger, a-bossing everything and everybody. We spread a light shawl over the man"s knees, for it is not easy to bear a cruel physical infirmity, to see oneself marred and crippled, in the growing spring. He looked about him, snuffed, and wrinkled his forehead; his eyes had something of the wistful, wondering satisfaction of an animal"s. He had never sat in a garden before, in all his life! Think of it!
Whenever we bring one of our Guest Roomers downstairs, Miss Sally Ruth Dexter promptly comes to her side of the fence to look him over. She came this morning, looked at our man critically, and showed plain disapproval of him in every line of her face.
On principle Miss Sally Ruth disapproves of most men and many women.
She does not believe in wasting too much sympathy upon people either; she says folks get no more than they deserve and generally not half as much.
Miss Sally Ruth Dexter is a rather important person in Appleboro. She is fifty-six years old, stout, brown-eyed, suffers from a congenital incapacity to refrain from telling the unwelcome truth when people are madly trying to save their faces,--she calls this being frank,--is tactless, independent, generous, and the possessor of what she herself complacently refers to as "a Figure."
For a woman so convinced we"re all full of natural and total depravity, unoriginal sinners, worms of the dust, and the devil"s natural fire-fodder, Miss Sally Ruth manages to retain a simple and unaffected goodness of practical charity toward the unelect, such as makes one marvel. You may be predestined to be lost, but while you"re here you shall lack no jelly, wine, soup, chicken-with-cream, preserves, gumbo, neither such marvelous raised bread as Miss Sally Ruth knows how to make with a perfection beyond all praise.
She has a tiny house and a tiny income, which satisfies her; she has never married. She told my mother once, cheerfully, that she guessed she must be one of those born eunuchs of the spirit the Bible mentions--it was intended for her, and she was glad of it, for it had certainly saved her a sight of worry and trouble.
There is a cherished legend in our town that Major Appleby Cartwright once went over to Savannah on a festive occasion and was there joyously entertained by the honorable the Chatham Artillery. The Chatham Artillery brews a Punch; insidious, delectable, deceptive, but withal a pernicious strong drink that is raging, a wine that mocketh and maketh mad. And they gave it to Major Appleby Cartwright in copious draughts.
Coming home upon the heels of this, the major arose, put on his Prince Albert, donned his top hat, picked a huge bunch of zinnias, and at nine o"clock in the morning marched over to Miss Sally Ruth Dexter"s.
We differ as to certain unimportant details of that historic call, but we are in the main agreed upon the conversation that ensued.
"Sally Ruth," said the major, depositing his bulky person in a rocking chair, his hat upon the floor, and wiping his forehead with a spotless handkerchief the size of a respectable sheet, "Sally Ruth, you like Old Maids?" Here he presented the zinnias.
"Why, I"ve got a yard full of "em myself, Major. Whatever made you bother to pick "em? But to whom much hath more shall be given, I suppose," said she, resignedly, and put them on the whatnot.
"Sally Ruth," said the major solemnly, ignoring this indifferent reception of his offering. "Sally Ruth, come to think of it, an Old Maid"s a miserable, stiff, scentless sort of a flower. You might think, when you first glance at "em, that they"re just like any other flowers, but they"re not; they"re without one single, solitary redeemin" particle of sweetness! The Lord made "em for a warnin" to women.
"What good under G.o.d"s sky does it do you to be an old maid, Sally Ruth? You"re flyin" in the face of Providence. No lady should fly in the face of Providence--she"d a sight better fly to the bosom of some man, where she belongs. This mawnin" I looked out of my window and my eye fell upon these unfortunate flowers. Right away I thought of you, livin" over here all alone and by yourself, with no man"s bosom to lean on--you haven"t really got anything but a few fowls and the Lord to love, have you? And, Sally Ruth, tears came to my eyes. Talk not of tears till you have seen the tears of warlike men! I believe it would almost scare you to death to see me cryin", Sally Ruth! I got to thinkin", and I said to myself: "Appleby Cartwright, you have always done your duty like a man. You charged up to the very muzzle of Yankee guns once, and you weren"t scared wu"th a d.a.m.n! Are you goin" to be scared now? There"s a plain duty ahead of you; Sally Ruth"s a fine figure of a woman, and she ought to have a man"s bosom to lean on. Go offer Sally Ruth yours!" So here I am, Sally Ruth!" said the major valiantly.
Miss Sally Ruth regarded him critically; then:
"You"re drunk, Appleby Cartwright, that"s what"s the matter with you.
You and your bosom! Why, it"s not respectable to talk like that! At your age, too! I"m ashamed of you!"
"I was a little upset, over in Savannah," admitted the major. "Those fellows must have gotten me to swallow over a gallon of their infernal brew--and it goes down like silk, too. Listen at me: don"t you ever let "em make you drink a gallon of that punch, Sally Ruth."
"I"ve seen its effects before. Go home and sleep it off," said Miss Sally Ruth, not unkindly. "If you came over to warn me about filling up on Artillery Punch, your duty"s done--I"ve never been entertained by the Chatham Artillery, and I don"t ever expect to be. I suppose it was intended for you to be a born goose, Appleby, so it"d be a waste of time for me to fuss with you about it. Go on home, now, do, and let Caesar put you to bed. Tell him to tie a wet rag about your head and to keep it wet. That"ll help to cool you off."
"Sally Ruth," said the major, laying his hand upon his heart and trying desperately to focus her with an eye that would waver in spite of him, "Sally Ruth, _somebody"s_ got to do something for you, and it might as well be me. My G.o.d, Sally Ruth, _you"re settin" like clabber!_ It"s a shame; it"s a cryin" shame, for you"re a fine woman.
I don"t mean to scare or flutter you, Sally Ruth,--no gentleman ought to scare or flutter a lady--but I"m offerin" you my hand and heart; here"s my bosom for you to lean on."
"That Savannah brew is worse even than I thought--it"s run the man stark crazy," said Miss Sally Ruth, viewing him with growing concern.
"Me crazy! Why, I"m askin" you," said the major with awful dignity, "I"m askin" you to marry me!"
"Marry _you_? Marry fiddlesticks! Shucks!" said the lady.
"You won"t?" Amazement made him sag down in his chair. He stared at her owl-like. "Woman," said he solemnly, "when I see my duty I try to do it. But I warn you--it"s your last chance."
"I hope," said Miss Sally Ruth tartly, "that it"s my last chance to make a born fool of myself. Why, you old gasbag, if I had to stay in the same house with you I"d be tempted to stick a darning needle in you to hear you explode! Appleby, I"m like that woman that had a chimney that smoked, a dog that growled, a parrot that swore, and a cat that stayed out nights; _she_ didn"t need a man--and no more do I."
"Sally Ruth," said the major feelingly, "when I came here this mawnin"
it wasn"t for my own good--it was for yours. And to think this is all the thanks I get for bein" willin" to sacrifice myself! My G.o.d! The ingrat.i.tude of women!"
He looked at Miss Sally Ruth, and Miss Sally Ruth looked at him. And then suddenly, without a moment"s warning, Miss Sally Ruth rose, and took Major Appleby Cartwright, who on a time had charged Yankee guns and hadn"t been scared wu"th a d.a.m.n, by the ear. She tugged, and the major rose, as one pulled upward by his bootstraps.