Aunt Jane of Kentucky

by Eliza Calvert Hall

"Why, child," she said in an awe-struck tone, "are you a fortune-teller?"

"Not at all, Aunt Jane," I said, laughing at the dear old lady's consternation. "I am only a good guesser; and I wanted you to know that I not only see the things that you see and tell me, but some of the things that you see and don't tell me. Did Marthy ever get young Amos baptized?" I asked.

"La, yes," laughed Aunt Jane. "They finished up the babtizin' two weeks after that. It was a nice, pleasant day, and young Amos went under the water all right; but mighty little good it did him after all. For as soon as he come of age, he married Matildy Harris (Matildy was a Methodist), and he got to goin' to church with his wife, and that was the last of his Babtist raisin'."

Then we both were silent for a while, and I watched the gathering thunder-clouds in the west. A low rumble of thunder broke the stillness of the August afternoon. Aunt Jane looked up apprehensively.

"There's goin' to be a storm betwixt now and sundown," she said, "but I reckon them young turkeys'll be safe under their mother's wings by that time."

"Don't you think a wife ought to join her husband's church, Aunt Jane?" I asked with idle irrelevance to her remark.

"Sometimes she ought and sometimes she oughtn't," replied Aunt Jane oracularly. "There ain't any rule about it. Everybody's got to be their own judge about such matters. If I'd 'a' been in Marthy's place, I wouldn't 'a' j'ined Amos' church, and if I'd been in Amos' place I wouldn't 'a' j'ined Marthy's church. So there it is."

"But didn't you join Uncle Abram's church?" I asked, in a laudable endeavor to get at the root of the matter.

"Yes, I did," said Aunt Jane stoutly; "but that's a mighty different thing. Of course, I went with Abram, and if I had it to do over again, I'd do it. You see the way of it was this: my folks was Campbellites, or Christians they'd ruther be called. It's curious how they don't like to be called Campbellites. Methodists don't mind bein' called Wesleyans, and Presbyterians don't git mad if you call 'em Calvinists, and I reckon Alexander Campbell was jest as good a man as Wesley and a sight better'n Calvin, but you can't make a Campbellite madder than to call him a Campbellite. However, as I was sayin', Alexander Campbell himself babtized my father and mother out here in Drake's Creek, and I was brought up to think that my church was the Christian church, sure enough. But when me and Abram married, neither one of us was thinkin' much about churches. I used to tell Marthy that if a man'd come talkin' church to me, when he ought to been courtin' me, I'd 'a' told him to go on and marry a hymn-book or a catechism. I believe in religion jest as much as anybody, but a man that can't forgit his religion while he's courtin' a woman ain't worth havin'. That's my opinion. But as I was sayin', me and Abram had the church question to settle after we was married, and I don't believe either one of us thought about it till Sunday mornin' come. I ricollect it jest like it was yesterday. We was married in June, and you know how things always look about then. I've thought many a day, when I've been out in the gyarden workin' with my vegetables and getherin' my honeysuckles and roses, that if folks could jest live on and never git old and it'd stay June forever, that this world'd be heaven enough for anybody. And that's the way it was that Sunday mornin'. I ricollect I had on my 'second-day' dress, the prettiest sort of a changeable silk, kind 'o dove color and pink, and I had a leghorn bonnet on with pink roses inside the brim, and black lace mitts on my hands. I stood up before the glass jest before I went out to the gate where Abram was, waitin' for me, and I looked as pretty as a pink, if I do say it. 'Self-praise goes but a little ways,' my mother used to tell me, when I was a gyirl; but I reckon there ain't any harm in an old woman like me tellin' how she looked when she was a bride more'n sixty years ago."

And a faint color came into the wrinkled cheeks, while her clear, high laugh rang out. The outward symbols of youth and beauty were gone, but their unquenchable spirit lay warm under the ashes of nearly eight decades.