Rose of Old Harpeth. Maria Thompson Daviess

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СКАЧАТЬ Everett obtained a fork from the tool house and put himself under command. Rose Mary was sharply recalled and sent into the house to complete the arrangements for the festivities, when she had followed the forker down by the lilac hedge, rake in hand, with evident intention of being of great assistance in the gardening of the amateur.

      "Pull the dirt up closter around those bleeding-hearts, Tucker," commanded Miss Lavinia from her rocker. "They are Rose Mary's I planted the identical day she was born, and I don't want anything to happen to 'em in the way of cutworms or such this summer."

      "Well, I don't know," answered Uncle Tucker with a little chuckle in Everett's direction, who was turning over the dirt near a rose-bush in his close vicinity, "it don't do to pay too much attention to women's bleeding-hearts; let alone, they'll tie 'em up in their own courage and go on dusting around the place, while if you notice 'em too much they take to squeezing out more bleed drops for your sympathy. Now, I think it's best—"

      "Mister Tucker, say, Mister Tucker," came in a giggle from over the front gate as Jennie Rucker's little freckled nose appeared just above the top plank, only slightly in advance of that of small Peggy's. "Mis' Poteet's got a new baby, just earned, and she says she is sorry she can't come to Mis' Viney's party; but she can't."

      "Now, fly-away, ain't that too bad!" exclaimed Uncle Tucker. "That baby oughter be sent back until it has got manners to wait until it's wanted. Didn't neither one of you all get here on anybody's birthday but your own." Uncle Tucker's sally was greeted by a duet of giggles, and the announcement committee hurried on across the street with its news.

      "Tucker, you Tucker, don't you touch that snowball bush with the spade!" came in a fresh and alarmed command from the rocker post of observation. "You know Ma didn't ever let that bush be touched after it had budded. You spaded around it onct when you was young and upty and you remember it didn't bloom."

      "Muster been a hundred years ago if I was ever upty about this here flower job," he answered in an undertone to Everett as he turned his attention to the rose-bushes at which his apprentice had been pegging away. "At weddings and bornings and flower tending man is just a worm under woman's feet and he might as well not even hope to turn. All he can do is to—"

      But it was just at this juncture when Uncle Tucker's patience was about to be exhausted, that a summons from Rose Mary came for a general getting ready for the birthday celebration.

      And in a very few hours the festivities were in full swing. Miss Lavinia sat in state in her rocker and received the offerings and congratulations of Sweetbriar as they were presented in various original and characteristic forms. Young Peter Rucker, still a bit unsteady on his pink and chubby underpinning, was steered forward to present his glossy buckeye, hung on a plaited horse-hair string that had been constructed by small Jennie with long and infinite patience. Miss Lavinia's commendations threw both donor and constructor into an agony of bashfulness from which Pete took refuge in Rose Mary's skirts and Jennie behind her mother's chair. But at this juncture the arrival on the scene of action of young Bob Nickols with a whole two-horse wagon-load of pine cones, which the old lady doted on for the freshing up of the tiny fires always kept smoldering in her andironed fireplace the summer through, distracted the attention of the company and was greeted with great applause. Bob had been from early morning over on Providence Nob collecting the treasures, and, seated beside him on the front of the wagon, was Louisa Helen Plunkett, blushing furiously and most obviously avoiding her mother's stern eye of inquiry as to where she had spent the valuable morning hours.

      The sensation of young Bob's offering was only offset at the unpacking of the complacent Mr. Crabtree's gift, which he bore over from the store in his own arms. With dramatic effect he placed it on the floor at Miss Lavinia's feet and called for a hatchet for its opening. And as from their wrappings of paper and excelsior he drew two large gilt and glass bottles, one containing bay rum and the other camphor, that precious lotion for fast stiffening joints, little Miss Amanda heaved a sigh of positive rapture. Mr. Crabtree was small and wiry, with a hickory-nut countenance and a luscious peach of a heart, and, though of bachelor condition, he at all times displayed sympathetic and intuitive domestic inclinations. He kept the Sweetbriar store and was thus in position to know of the small economies practised by the two old ladies in the matter of personal necessities. For the months past they had not bought the quantity of lubricating remedies that he considered sufficient and this had been his tactful way of supplying enough to last for some time to come. And from over the pile of gifts heaped around her, Miss Lavinia beamed upon him to such an extent that he felt like following young Pete's example, committing the awful impropriety of hiding his embarrassment in any petticoat handy, but just at this juncture up the front walk came the birthday cake navigating itself by the long legs of Mr. Caleb Rucker and attended by a riot of Sweetbriar youth, mad with excitement over its safe landing and the treat in prospect. In its wake followed Mrs. Rucker, complacent and beaming over the sensation caused by this her high triumph in the culinary line.

      "Fly-away, if that's not Providence Nob gone and turned to a cake for Sister Viney's birthday," exclaimed Uncle Tucker, as amid generous applause the offering was landed on a table set near the rocker.

      And again at this auspicious moment a huge waiter covered with little mountains of white ice-cream made its appearance through the front door, impelled by the motive power of Mr. Mark Everett's elegantly white-flannel-trousered legs, and guided to a landing beside the cake by Rose Mary, who was a pink flower of smiles and blushes.

      Then it followed that in less time than one would think possible the company at large was busy with a spoon attached to the refreshments which to Sweetbriar represented the height of elegance. Out in the world beyond Old Harpeth ice-cream and cake may have lost caste as a fashionable afternoon refreshment, having been succeeded by the imported custom of tea and scones or an elaborate menu of reception indigestibles, but in the Valley nothing had ever threatened the supremacy of the frozen cream and white-frosted confection. The men all sat on the end of the long porch and accepted second saucers and slices and even when urged by Rose Mary, beaming with hospitality, third relays, while the Swarm in camp on the front steps, under the General's management, seconded by Everett, succeeded in obtaining supplies in a practically unlimited quantity.

      "Looks like Miss Rose Mary's freezer ain't got no bottom at all," said Mr. Rucker in his long drawl as he began on a fourth white mound. "It reminds me of 'the snow, the snow what falls from Heaven to earth below,' and keeps a-falling." Mr. Rucker was a poet at heart and a husband to Mrs. Rucker by profession, and his flights were regarded by Sweetbriar at large with a mixture of pride and derision.

      "Cal," said Mrs. Rucker sternly, "don't you eat more'n half that saucer. I've got no mind to top off this here good time with mustard plasters all around. Even rejoicings can get overfed and peter out into ginger tea. Jennie, you and Sammie and Pete stop eating right now. Lands alive, the sun has set and we all know Miss Viney oughter be in the house. Shoo, everybody go home to save your manners!" And with hearty laughs and further good-by congratulations the happy little company of farmer folk scattered to their own roof trees across and along Providence Road. The twilight had come, but a very young moon was casting soft shadows from the trees rustling in the night breezes and the stars were lighting up in competition to the rays that shot out from window after window in the little village.

      Uncle Tucker had hurried away to his belated barn duties and little Miss Amanda into the house to stir up Miss Lavinia's fire in preparation for their retirement, which was a ceremony of long duration and begun with the mounting of the chickens to their roosts. Miss Lavinia sat with her hands folded in her lap over a collection of the smaller gifts of the afternoon and her eyes looked far away cross the Ridge, dim in the failing light, while her stern old face took on softened and very lovely lines. Rose Mary stood near to help her into the house and Everett leaned against a post close on the other side of the rocker.

      "Children," she said with a little break in her usual austere voice, "I'm kinder ashamed СКАЧАТЬ