Chapter 5 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 hell 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 hell 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 God'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 r?le 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 massive 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 bass 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 glass of buttermilk 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, horny hand of the embarrassed 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 assorted 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 bass.

"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 confrères. 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.

"I'm sorry, too, you didn't find the oil on the old gentleman's place," he said in his most open and dulcet tones. "I am very fond of Mr. Alloway; I may say of the whole family. Farming is too hard work for him at his years and I would have liked for him to have had the ease of an increased income. Some time ago a phosphate expert examined these regions, but reported nothing worth working. I had more hope of the oil. As I say, I am interested in Mr. Alloway and the family-I may say it to you in confidence, particularly interested in one of the members." And the smile that the Senator bestowed upon Everett aroused a keen desire for murder in the first degree. There was a challenge and a warning in it and a cunning, too, that was deeper than both. Controlling his impulse to smash the Senatorial bulldog jaw, Everett's mind went instantly after the cunning.

"So you only got the phosphate in your examination report of the Alloway place?" he asked in a friendly, interested tone, as if the hint had failed to make a landing. The cunning in his own glance and tone he was shrewd enough to hide.

"That was about all-nothing that was worth taking up then," answered the Senator again carelessly, and at that moment Mr. Crabtree came out to join them.

In a few minutes Everett threw away his cigar, glanced across at the Briars, where he could see Rose Mary and Uncle Tucker establishing Miss Lavinia, in her high company cap, in the big chair on the front porch, and without a word he strode out the back door of the store and across the fields toward Boliver. He stopped at the Rucker side fence and entrusted a message to the willing Jenny, and then went on into the twilight in the direction of the lights of the distant town.

And as he walked along his mood was, to say the least, savage, and he cut, with a long switch he had picked up, at some nodding little wind bells that had begun to show their colors along the side of the road. He was hungry and he was having his supper in detached visions. Now Rose Mary was handing the Senator a plate of high-piled supper rolls, each with a golden stream of butter cascading down the side, and as her lovely bare arm held them across to the guest probably she was helping Stonie's plate with her other hand to a spoonful of cream gravy over his nicely browned chicken leg. On her side of the table Miss Lavinia was pouring the rich cream over her bowl of steaming mush and the materialized aroma from Uncle Tucker's cup of coffee that Rose Mary had just poured him brought tears to Everett's eyes. Then came a flash of Aunt Amandy helping herself under Rose Mary's urging to a second crisp waffle, and the Senator was preparing to accept his sixth, impelled by the same solicitous smile that had landed the second on the little old lady's plate. Again Rose Mary was pouring the Senator's second cup and stirring in the cream. If she had lifted the spoon to her lips, as she always did with Uncle Tucker's and sometimes forgot and did with his, Everett would have-And at this point he turned the bend and ran smash into the dramatic scene of a romance.

Seated by the side of the road was Louisa Helen Plunkett, and before her stood young Bob Nickols, an agony of helplessness showing in every line of his face and big loose-jointed figure, for Louisa Helen was weeping into a handkerchief and one of her blue muslin sleeves. And it was not a series of sentimental sobs and sighs or controlled and effective sniffs in which Louisa Helen was indulging, but she was boo-hooing in good earnest with real chokings and gurgles of sobs. Bob was screwing the toe of his boot into the dust and saying and doing absolutely and desperately nothing.

"Why, Louisa Helen, what is the matter?" demanded Everett as he seated himself beside the wailer and endeavored to bring down the pitch of the sobs by a kindly pat on the heaving shoulder.

"What's happened, Bob?" he demanded of the silent and dejected lover, who only shook his head as he answered from the depths of confusion.

"I don't know; she just of a sudden flung down and began to hollow and I ain't never got her to say."

"Oh, I want a supper and a veil and a bokay!" came in a perfect howl from the folds of the sleeve.

"I want some supper, too, Louisa Helen," said Everett quickly, and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth as the situation began to unravel itself to his sympathetic concern. "I guess I could take the bouquet and veil, too," he added to himself in an undertone.

"I ain't a-going to let Maw insult Bob no more, but I don't want no Boliver wedding in the office of no hotel. I want to be married where folks can look at me, and have something good to eat, and throw old shoes and rice at me," came in a more constrained and connected flow, as the poor little fugitive raised her head from her arm and reached down to settle her skirts about her ankles, from which she had flirted them in the kicks of one of her most violent paroxysms. Louisa Helen was very young and just as pretty as she was young. She was rosy and dimpled and had absurd little baby curls trailing down over her eyes, and her tears had no more effect on her face than a summer shower.

"Why, what did your mother say to Bob?" asked Everett, thus drawn into the position of arbitrator between two family factions.

"She told him that Jennie Rucker would be about his frying size when he got old enough to pick a wife, and it hurt his feelings so he didn't come to see me for a week, and he says he ain't never coming no more. If I want him I will have to go over to Boliver and marry him to-morrow." A sob began to rise again in the poor little bride prospective's throat at the thought of the horrible Boliver wedding.

The autocrat shifted uneasily, and in the dusk Everett could see that he was completely melted and ready to surrender his position if he could only find the line of retreat.

"Well," said Everett judicially, as he looked up at Bob with a wink, which was answered by the slightest beginning of laugh from the insulted one, "I don't believe Bob wants to do without that bouquet and veil and supper either. They are just the greatest things that ever happen to a man"-another wink at Bob-"and Bob don't want to give them up. Now suppose you go on back home to-night and don't say anything to your mother about the matter, and to-morrow I'll ask Mr. Crabtree to step over and make it up with Bob for her. I feel sure she'll invite them both in to supper, and then sometime soon we can all discuss the veil-bouquet question. You aren't in a hurry, are you?"

"Naw," answered Bob promptly. "Me and Paw ain't got all the winter wheat in yet, and we've got to cut clover next week. We're mighty busy now. I ain't in no hurry."

"And I don't want to get married no way except when the briar roses is in bloom so I can have the church tucked out in 'em. And I've got to get some pretty clothes made, too," answered Louisa Helen, thus putting in direct contrast the feminine and masculine attitude towards nuptials in general and also in particular.

"Then go on back home, you two," said Everett with a laugh, as he rose to his feet and drew to hers the now smiling Louisa Helen. "And I predict that by the time the briar roses are out something will happen to make it all right. Put your faith in Mr. Crabtree, I should advise, I suspect that he has-er influence with your mother." A giggle from Louisa Helen and a guffaw from Bob, as the two young people started on back along the Road, showed that they had both appreciated his veiled sally.

And as he stood watching them out of sight down the Road the twilight faded from off the Valley and darkness came down in a starlit veil from over old Harpeth. Everett climbed up and seated himself on the top rail of the fence and again gave himself over to his moods. This time one of bitterness, almost anger, rose to the surface. The same old wheel grinding out here in the wilderness that he had left in the market places of the world. The vision he had caught of the great cycle being turned by some still greater source above the hills was-a vision. The wheels ground on with the victims strapped and the cogs dripping. Loot and the woman-loot and the woman! And he had thought that out here "in the hollow of His hand" he had lost the sound of that grind. And such a woman-the lovely gracious thing with the unfaithful, dishonored lover's child in her arms, other women's tumbling children clinging to her skirts and with hands outstretched to protect and comfort the old gray heads in her care! A woman with a sorrow in her heart but with eyes that were deep blue pools in which there mirrored loves for all her little world! For a long time he sat and looked out into the darkness, then suddenly he squared his shoulders, gripped the rail tight in his hands for a half second and then slipped to the ground. Picking up his switch he turned and strode off toward Sweetbriar, which by this time was a little handful of fireflys glowing down in the sweet meadows.

When he got as far as the blacksmith's shop Everett climbed the wall and approached the house through the garden, for in front of the store had been piled high a bonfire of empty boxes and dry wood boughs, and most of the inhabitants of Sweetbriar, small fry and large, were assembled in jocular groups around its blaze of light. He could see Mr. Crabtree and Bob rolling out an empty barrel to serve as a speaking stand for the Honorable Gid, who stood in the foreground in front of the store steps talking to Uncle Tucker, with an admiring circle around him. Horses and wagons and buggies were hitched at various posts along the road, which indicated the gathering of a small crowd from neighboring towns to hear the coming oration, and the front porch of the store presented a scene of unwonted excitement.

Everett clicked the garden gate and steered around to the back door of the kitchen in hopes of finding black Mag still at her post and begging of her a glass of milk and a biscuit. But as he stood in the doorway, instead of Mag he discovered Rose Mary with her white skirts tucked up under one of her long kitchen aprons, putting the final polishing touch to a shining pile of dishes. She looked up at him for a second, and then went on with her work, and Everett could see that her curled lips were trembling like a hurt child's.

"I-I thought I might get a bite of something from-from Mag if she hadn't left-the kitchen-I-I-" Everett hesitated on the threshold and in speech. "I-I am sorry to trouble you," he finished lamely.

"I don't believe you care-care if you do," answered Rose Mary, and her blue eyes showed a decided temper spark under their black lashes. "I see I made a mistake in expecting anything of you. A friend's fingers ought not to slip through yours when you need them to hold tight. But come, get your supper-"

"Please, Rose Mary, I'm most awfully ashamed," he said as he came and stood close beside her, and there was a note in his voice that fairly startled him with its tenderness. "I'm just a cross old bear, and I don't deserve anything, no supper and no-no Rose Mary to care whether I'm hungry or not and no-"

"But I put the supper up," said Rose Mary, with a little laugh and catch in her voice. "I couldn't let you be hungry, even if you did treat me that way."

"Didn't Jennie Rucker come to tell you I couldn't get here to supper?" asked Everett with what he felt to be a contemptible feint of defense.

"Yes, she came; but you knew we were going to have company and that I wanted you to be here. You know Mr. Newsome is the best friend we have in the world and your staying away meant that you didn't care if he had been good to us. It hurt me! And the first bowl of lilacs was on the table; I had been saving them for a surprise for you for two days, and everything was so good and just as you like it and-" Rose Mary's voice faltered again and a little tear splashed on the saucer she held poised in her hand.

"Well," answered Everett, like a sulky boy, "I didn't want any of the Honorable Gid Newsome's lilacs or waffles or fried chicken, and I didn't want to see you fix any coffee for him," he ended by blurting out.

"I didn't-I-that is-you are horrid," answered Rose Mary, but she raised her eyes to his in which smiles waltzed around with tears and the glint of her white teeth showed through red lips curling with laugh that was forcing itself over them by way of the dimple in the corner of her chin. "Anyway, what I have here on the top of the stove is your waffles and your fried chicken, and these are your lilacs," and she drew out a purple spray from her belt and dropped it on the table beside him. "Sit down and I'll give it all to you right here while I finish wiping the dishes. Mag was taken with a spell before supper was over and had to go lie down and I stayed to finish things while the others went over to the speaking," she added as she began to bustle about with her usual hospitable concern.

"You are an angel, Rose Mary Alloway," said Everett as he placed himself on a split-bottom kitchen chair, bestowed his long legs under the table and drew up as near to Rose Mary and her dish-towel as was possible to be sure of keeping out of the flirt. "And I-I'm a brute," he added contritely, though he dared a quick kiss on the bare arm next and close to him.

"No, you're not-just a boy," answered Rose Mary, as she set his supper on the table before him. She had poured his coffee, stirred in the cream and sugar and then laid the spoon decorous and straight in the saucer beside the cup. For an instant Everett sat very still and looked at her, then she picked up the cup and tipped it against her lips, sipped judiciously and set it down with a satisfied air. For just a second her eyes had gleamed down at him over the edge of the cup and a tiny laugh gurgled in her throat as she swallowed her sip of his beverage.

"That was mine, anyway-he can have his chicken wings," said Everett with a laugh as he began operations on the food before him.

"It wasn't a very nice party," answered Rose Mary as she went on with her work on the pile of china. "Stonie acted awfully. He piled up his plate with pieces of chicken, and when Aunt Viney reproved him he said he was saving it for you. And Aunt Viney said she was sure you were sick, and then Uncle Tucker wanted to go look for you and I had to tell him before them all that you had sent me word. Then Aunt Amandy said she was afraid you were not a Prohibitionist, and Aunt Viney said she would have to talk to you in the morning. Then they all told Mr. Newsome all about you, and I don't think he liked it much because he likes to tell us things about himself. We are so fond of him, and we always want to hear him talk about where he has been and what he has done. I tried to stop them and make him talk, but I couldn't. It's strange how liking a person gets them on your mind so that even if you don't talk about them you think about them all the time, isn't it? But I oughtn't to blame them, for I was so afraid they wouldn't leave enough of things for you that I forgot to talk myself. I was glad Stonie acted that way about the chicken, for the piece he saved made three pieces of white meat for you. Oh, please let's hurry, because we will miss the speaking if we don't. Mr. Newsome makes such beautiful speeches that I want you to hear him. Is there any kind of pride in the world like that you have over your friends?"

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