Chapter 9 No.9

One Sunday morning at the beginning of August, Mary stood in the church-as it chanced, in the back row-and sang with her next neighbor from the same hymn book, John Newton's good old hymn,

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!"

It was the opening hymn and they were in the midst of the third verse.

"Thro' many dangers, toils and snares,

I have already come";

sang Mary.

She did not dream that another danger, toil and snare was approaching her at that instant from the rear and so her clear soprano rang out unfaltering on the next line-

"'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far-"

Then a hand was laid upon her shoulder. She turned and started as she saw her husband's face bending to her. What had happened at home?

"Wouldn't you like to go to the country?" whispered the doctor.

"Why-I don't like to leave church to go," Mary whispered back.

"The carriage is right here at the door."

The next instant she had taken her parasol from behind the hymn-books in front of her, where she had propped it a few minutes before, with some misgiving lest it fall to the floor during prayer, and just as the congregation sang the last line,

"And grace will lead me home,"

she glided from the church by the side of the doctor, thankful that in the bustle of sitting down the congregation would not notice her departure. They descended the steps, entered the waiting carriage and off they sped.

"I feel guilty," said Mary, a little dazed over the swift transfer. The doctor did not reply. In another minute she turned to him with energy.

"John, what possessed you to come to the church?"

"Why, I couldn't get you at home. I drove around there and Mollie said you had gone to church so I just drove there."

"You ought to have gone without me."

The doctor smiled. "You didn't have to go. But you are better off out here than sitting in the church." The horse switched his tail over the reins and the doctor, failing in his effort to release them, gave vent to a vigorous expletive.

"Yes, I certainly do hear some things out here that I wouldn't be apt to hear in there," she said. Then the reins being released and serenity restored, they went on.

"Isn't that a pretty sight?" The doctor nodded his head toward two little girls in fresh white dresses who stood on the side-walk anxiously watching his approach. There was earnest interest in the blue eyes and the black. Near the little girls stood a white-headed toddler of about two years and by his side a boy seven or eight years old.

"Mr. Blank," called the blue-eyed little girl-all men with or without titles are Mr. to little folks;-the doctor stopped his horse.

"Well, what is it, Mamie?"

"I want you to bring my mamma a baby."

"You do!"

"Yes, sir, a boy baby. Mamie and me wants a little brother," chimed in the little black-eyed girl.

The boy looked down at the toddler beside him and then at the two little girls with weary contempt. "You don't know what you're a-gittin' into," he said. "If this one hadn't never learned to walk it wouldn't be so bad, but he jist learns everything and he jist bothers me all the time."

The doctor and Mary laughed with great enjoyment. "Now! what'd I tell you!" said the boy, as he ran to pick up the toddler who at that instant fell off the sidewalk. He gave him a vigorous shake as he set him on his feet and a roar went up. "Don't you git any baby at your house," he said, warningly.

"Yes, bring us one, Mr. Blank, please do, a little bit of a one," said Mamie, and the black eyes pleaded too.

"Well, I'll tell you. If you'll be good and do whatever your mamma tells you, maybe I will find a baby one of these days and if I do I'll bring it to your house." He drove on.

"If they knew what I know their little hearts would almost burst for joy. Their father is just as anxious for a boy as they are, too," he added.

They were soon out in the open country. It was one of those lovely days which sometimes come at this season of the year which seem to belong to early autumn; neither too warm nor too cool for comfort. A soft haze lay upon the landscape and over all the Sunday calm. They turned into a broad, dusty road. Mary's eyes wandered across the meadow on the right with its background of woods in the distance. A solitary cow stood contentedly in the shade of a solitary tree, while far above a vulture sailed on slumbrous wings.

The old rail fence and the blackberry briars hugging it here and there in clumps; small clusters of the golden-rod, even now a pale yellow, which by and by would glorify all the country lanes; the hazel bushes laden with their delightful promise for the autumn-Mary noted them all. They passed unchallenged those wayside sentinels, the tall mullein-stalks. The Venus Looking-Glass nodded its blue head ever so gently as the brown eyes fell upon it and then they went a little way ahead to where the blossoms of the elderberry were turning into tiny globules of green. Mary asked the doctor if he thought the corn in the field would ever straighten up again. A wind storm had passed over it and many of the large stalks were almost flat upon the earth. The doctor answered cheerfully that the sun would pull it up again if Aesop wasn't a fraud.

After a while they stopped at a big gate opening into a field.

"Hold the reins, please, till I see if I can get the combination of that gate," and the doctor got out. Mary took a rein in each hand as he opened the gate. She clucked to the horse and he started.

"Whoa! John, come and get my mite. It's about to slip out of my glove." The doctor glanced at the coin Mary deposited in his palm.

"They didn't lose much."

"The universal collection coin, my dear. Now open the gate wider and I'll drive through."

"Don't hit the gate post!" She looked at him with disdain. "I never drove through a gate in my life that somebody didn't yell, 'Don't hit the gate post' and yet I never have hit a gate post."

At this retort the doctor had much ado to get the gate fastened and pull himself into the buggy, and his laughter had hardly subsided before they drew up to the large farm house in the field. Mary did not go in. In about twenty minutes the doctor came out. The door-step turned, almost causing him to fall. "Here's a fine chance for a broken bone and some of you will get it if you don't fix this step," he growled.

"I'll fix that tomorrow," said the farmer, "but I should think you'd be the last one to complain about it, Doctor."

"Some people seem to think that doctors and their wives are filled with mercenary malice," said Mary laughing. "Yesterday I was walking along with a lady when I stopped to remove a banana skin from the sidewalk. She said she would think a doctor's wife wouldn't take the trouble to remove banana skins from the walk."

"I believe in preventive medicine," said the doctor, "and mending broken steps and removing banana peeling belong to it."

"Do you think it will ever be an established fact?" asked Mary as they drove away.

"I do indeed. It will be the medicine of the future."

"I'm glad I'm not a woman of the future, then, for I really don't want to starve to death."

"I have to visit a patient a few miles farther on," said the doctor when they came out on the highway. Soon they were driving across a knoll and fields of tasseled corn lay before them. A little farther and they entered the woods. "Ah, Mary, I would not worry about leaving church. The groves were God's first temples." After a little he said, "I was trying to think what Beecher said about trees-it was something like this: 'Without doubt better trees there might be than even the most noble and beautiful now. Perhaps God has in his thoughts much better ones than he has ever planted on this globe. They are reserved for the glorious land.'"

"See this, John!" and Mary pointed to a group of trees they were passing, "a ring cut around every one of them!"

"Yes, the fool's idea of things is to go out and kill a tree by the roadside-often standing where it can't possibly do any harm. How often in my drives I have seen this and it always makes me mad."

They drove for a while in silence, then Mary said, "Nature seems partial to gold." She had been noting the Spanish needles and Black-eyed Susans which starred the dusty roadside and filled the field on the left with purest yellow, while golden-rod and wild sunflowers bloomed profusely on all sides.

"Yes, that seems to be the prevailing color in the wild-flowers of this region."

"That reminds me of something. A few months ago a little girl said to me, 'Mrs. Blank, don't you think red is God's favorite color?' 'Why, dear, I don't think I ever thought about it,' I answered, quite surprised. 'Well, I think he likes red better than any color.' 'Why I don't know, but when we look around and see the grass and the trees and the vines growing everywhere, it seems to me that green might be his favorite color. But what makes you think it is red?' 'Because he put blood into everybody in the world.' Quite staggered by this reasoning and making an effort to keep from smiling, I said, 'But we can't see that. If red is his favorite color why should he put it where it can't be seen?' The child looked at me in amazement. 'God can see it. He can see clear through anybody.' The little reasoner had vanquished me and I fled the field."

A little way ahead lay a large snake stretched out across the road.

"The boy that put it there couldn't help it," said the doctor, "it's born in him. When I was a lad every snake I killed was promptly brought to the road and stretched across it to scare the passers-by."

"And yet I don't suppose it ever did scare anyone."

"Occasionally a girl or woman uttered a shriek and I felt repaid. I remember one big girl walking along barefooted; before she knew it she had set her foot on the cold, slimy thing. The way she yelled and made the dust fly filled my soul with a frenzy of delight. I rolled over and over in the weeds by the roadside and yelled too."

A sudden turn in the road brought the doctor and his wife face to face with a young man and his sweetheart. Mary knew at a glance they were sweethearts. They were emerging into the highway from a grassy woods-road which led down to a little church. The young man was leading two saddled horses.

"Why do you suppose they walk instead of riding?" asked the doctor.

"Hush! they'll hear you. Isn't she pretty?"

The young man assisted his companion to her seat in the saddle. She started off in one direction, while he sprang on his horse and galloped away in the other. "Here! you rascal," the doctor called, as he passed, "why didn't you go all the way with her?"

"I'll go back tonight," the young fellow called back, dashing on at so mad a pace that the broad rim of his hat stood straight up.

"Do you know him?"

"I know them both."

After another mile our travelers went down one long hill and up another and stopped at a house on the hilltop where lived the patient. Here, too, Mary chose to remain in the buggy. A wagon had stopped before a big gate opening into the barnyard and an old man in it was evidently waiting for someone. He looked at Mary and she looked at him; but he did not speak and just as she was about to say good morning, he turned and looked in another direction. When he finally looked around it seemed to Mary it would be a little awkward to bid him good morning now, so she tried to think what to say instead, by way of friendly greeting; it would be a little embarrassing to sit facing a human being for some time with not a word to break the constraint. But the more she cudgeled her brain the farther away flew every idea. She might ask him if he thought we were going to have a good corn crop, but it was so evident that we were, since the crop was already made that that remark seemed inane. The silence was beginning to be oppressive. Her eye wandered over the yard and she noticed some peach trees near the house with some of the delicious fruit hanging from the boughs. She remarked pleasantly, "I see they have some peaches here." Her companion looked at her and said, "Hey?"

"I said, 'I see they have some peaches here,'" she rejoined, raising her voice. He curved one hand around his ear and said again, "Hey?"

"O, good gracious," thought Mary, "I wish I had let him alone."

She shrieked this time, "I only said, 'I see they have some peaches here.'"

When the old man said, "I didn't hear ye yet, mum," she leaned back in the carriage, fanning herself vigorously, and gave it up. She had screamed as loud as she intended to scream over so trivial a matter. Looking toward the house she saw a tall young girl coming down the walk with something in her hand. She came timidly through the little gate and handed a plate of peaches up to the lady in the carriage, looking somewhat frightened as she did so. "I didn't hear ye," she explained, "but Jim came in and said you was a-wantin' some peaches."

Mary's face was a study. Jim and his sister had not seen the deaf old man in the wagon, as a low-branched pine stood between the wagon and the house. And this was the way her politeness was interpreted!

The comicality of the situation was too much. She laughed merrily and explained things to the tall girl who seemed much relieved.

"I ought to 'a' brought a knife, but I was in such a hurry I forgot it." Eating peaches with the fuzz on was quite too much for Mary so she said, "Thank you, but we'll be starting home in a moment, I'll not have time to eat them. But I am very thirsty, might I have a glass of water?" The girl went up the walk and disappeared into the house. Mary did so want her to come out and draw the water, dripping and cool, from the old well yonder. She came out, went to the well, stooped and filled the glass from the bucket sitting inside the curb. Mary sighed. The tall girl took a step. Then, to the watcher's delight, she threw the water out, pulled the bucket up and emptied it into the trough, and one end of the creaking well-sweep started downward while the other started upward. The bucket was on its way to the cool depths and Mary grew thirstier every second.

The doctor appeared at the door and looked out. Then he came, case in hand, with swift strides down the walk. The gate banged behind him and he untied the horse in hot haste, looking savagely at his wife as he did so.

"I suppose you've asked that girl to bring you a drink."

"Yes, I did. I'm very thirsty."

"You ought to have more sense than to want to drink where people have typhoid fever."

The girl started down the walk with the brimming glass. The doctor climbed into the buggy and turned around.

"For pity's sake! what will she think?"

A vigorous cut from the whip and the horse dashed off down the road. Mary cast a longing, lingering look behind. The girl stood looking after them with open mouth.

"That girl has had enough today to astonish her out of a year's growth," thought Mary as the buggy bumped against a projecting plank and tore over the bridge at the foot of the hill.

"John, one of the rules of good driving is never to drive fast down hill." Her spouse answered never a word.

After a little he said, "I didn't mean to be cross, Mary, but I didn't want you to drink there."

"You should have warned me beforehand, then," she said chillingly.

"I couldn't sit in the buggy and divine there was typhoid fever there," she continued. "'A woman's intuitions are safe guides' but she has to have something to go on before she can have intuitions."

"Hadn't you better put your ulster on, dear?" inquired the doctor in such meaning tones, that Mary turned quickly and looked off across the fields. A Black-eyed Susan by the roadside caught the smile in her eyes and nodded its yellow head and smiled mischievously back at her. It was a feminine flower and they understood each other.

When they had driven three or four miles Mary asked the doctor if there was any typhoid fever in the house they were approaching.

"How do I know?"

"I thought you might be able to divine whether there is or not."

"We'll suppose there isn't. We'll stop and get a drink," he answered indulgently. They stopped, Mary took the reins and the doctor went to reconnoiter.

"Nobody at home and not a vessel of any kind in sight," he announced coming back. Of course her thirst was now raging.

"Maybe there's a gourd hanging inside the curb. If there is do break it loose and bring it to me heaping full."

"I looked inside the curb-nothing there."

Here Mary's anxious eyes saw a glass fruit jar turned upside down on a fence paling. Blessings on the woman who put it there! The doctor filled and brought it to her. After a long draught she uttered a sigh of rich content.

"Now," she said, "I'm ready to go home."