Clover and Blue Grass

by Eliza Calvert Hall

Mrs. Williams hitched her chair nearer to her hostess.

"And what do you reckon I did?" she asked, dropping her voice to a husky whisper.

"I can't imagine," responded Mrs. Martin, repressed excitement in her voice and face.

Mrs. Williams leaned forward, and her voice dropped a tone lower.

"It's somethin' I never thought I'd do," she whispered, "and before I tell you, I want you to promise you'll never tell a soul."

"Of course I won't," said Mrs. Martin with gentle solemnity, and as she promised, her thoughts went back to that period of her schoolgirl life when every day brought its great secret, with that impressive oath: "I cross my heart and point my finger up to God." She bent her head in a listening way toward her caller. But the telling of a secret was too delightful a task to be hastily dispatched, and having worked her audience up to the desired point of interest, Mrs. Williams was in no hurry to reach the climax of the story. She leaned back in her chair and resumed her natural tone of voice.

"The way I happened to think there was somethin' wrong," she continued, "was this: Anna Belle had been doin' a good deal of sewin' and embroiderin' ever since Henry begun to keep company with her, and, all of a sudden, she stopped work and put everything away in the bottom bureau drawer. Well, that set me to thinkin'. If she'd put the things in the top bureau drawer, I wouldn't have noticed it, for the top drawer is the place where you keep the things you expect to finish and the things you're usin' now. But when you fold a thing up and put it in the bottom drawer, it means you haven't any use for it right now, and you don't intend to finish it for some time to come. At first I thought that maybe Henry and Anna Belle had had a fallin' out. But the next Wednesday night here comes Henry just as usual, and he's never stopped comin'; but still Anna Belle never took her things out of the bottom drawer; and the other day I happened to pass by her room, and the door was halfway open, and I saw her kneelin' down by the drawer, lookin' at the things and smoothin' them down. I couldn't see her face, but I know just how she looked as well as if I'd been in front of her instead of behind her."

Mrs. Martin gave a sympathetic murmur, wholly unheard by Mrs. Williams, who went blithely on with her narrative.

"When your Henry comes to see my Anna Belle, Mrs. Martin, I always make it a point to go as far away from 'em as possible, for courtin' can't be rightly done if there's folks lookin' and listenin' around. So in the winter time I have a fire in my room the nights Henry comes, and sit there, and in summer I generally go out on the back porch and let Henry and Anna Belle have the front porch, and I can truthfully say that I never interfered with Henry's courtin'. But, as I said a while ago, I made up my mind to find out what was the matter. Well, the next time Henry come, they sat out on the front porch, and I was on the back porch as usual. But I had to go into the front room once or twice after somethin' I left there, and it was so dark in the hall, I had to grope my way across right slow, and I heard Anna Belle say: 'I'm all mother has in the world,' and Henry said somethin' I couldn't hear, but I reckon he said that he was all his mother had, and Anna Belle says: 'It wouldn't be right and I never could be happy, thinkin' of your mother and my mother all alone.' Well, by that time I was in the front room and got what I went for and started back; and, as I said, the hall was dark and I had to go slow, and I dropped my pocket handkerchief, and when I stopped to pick it up, I couldn't help hearin' what Anna Belle and Henry was talkin' about."

She leaned comfortably back in her chair and chuckled heartily as she recalled the scene.