Clover and Blue Grass

by Eliza Calvert Hall

"It's curious," she said, "how grown folks never get over bein' children. When I was a little girl I used to go out to the country to visit my Aunt Mary Meadows. I'd get along all right durin' the day, but when night come, and the frogs and the katydids begun to holler, I'd think about home and wish I was there; and when Aunt Mary put me to bed and carried the light away, I'd bury my face in the pillow and cry myself to sleep. And just now, when I heard that katydid up yonder in the old locust tree, I felt just like I used to feel at Aunt Mary's."

Her voice quivered on the last word, but once more she laughed bravely. A flash of comprehension crossed Mary Martin's brain. She leaned over and laid her hand on the other woman's arm.

"You're homesick," she said, with a note of deep sympathy in her voice. "All day I've been thinkin' about it, and I've come to the conclusion that you've got the hardest part of this matter. Henry and Anna Belle owe more to you than they do to me. We've both given up a child, but you've given up your home, too, and that's a hard thing to do at your time of life." At her time of life! The words were like a spur to a jaded horse. Mrs. Williams straightened her shoulders, raised her head, and laughed again.

"Shuh!" she said carelessly, "changin' your house ain't any more than changin' your dress. I ain't so far gone in years yet that I have to stick in the same old place to keep from dyin'. But I reckon I'm like that spring branch that used to run through the field back of Father's house. It was always overflowin' and ruinin' a part o' the crop, and one fall Father went to work and turned it out of its course into a rocky old pasture where it couldn't do any harm. I was just a little child, but I remember how sorry I felt for that little stream runnin' along between the new banks, and I used to wonder if it wasn't homesick for the old course, and if it didn't miss the purple flags and the willers and cat-tails that used to grow alongside of it; but just let me get a good night's rest and my things all straightened out, and I'll soon get used to the new banks and be as much at home as you are."

She rose heavily from her chair. "I believe I'll go to bed now," she said briskly. "Movin' 's no light work, and we're both tired."

"If you should get sick in the night or need anything," said Mrs. Martin, following her into the house, "don't fail to call me."

"I'm goin' to sleep the minute my head hits the pillow and sleep till it's time to get up," replied Mrs. Williams, "and you do the same. Good night!"

She closed the door and stood for a few seconds in the darkness. Then she groped her way to the table and lighted her lamp. Its cheerful radiance flooded every part of the little room, and showed each familiar piece of furniture in its new surroundings. Yes, there was the high chest of drawers that Grandfather Means had made from the wood of a cherry tree on the old home place; there was the colonial sewing-table, and the splint-bottomed rocker, the old bookcase, and all the rest of the belongings that she cherished because they belonged to "the family." But how strange her brass candlesticks looked on that mantel! It was not her mantel, and the wall-paper was not hers. Her wall-paper was gray with purple lilacs all over it, and this was pink and green and white! And the windows and doors were not in their right places. Ah! the hold of Place and Custom! The memories and associations of a lifetime twined themselves around her heart closer and closer, and the hand of Change seemed to be tearing at every root and tendril. Pale and trembling she sank into a chair, and the same tears she had shed sixty years ago, the tears of a homesick child, fell over her wrinkled cheeks, while in her brain one thought repeated itself with a terrifying emphasis: "I can't get used to it. I can't get used to it."

But the sound of her own sobs put a stop to her grief. She brushed the tears away with the back of her hand and glanced toward the door. The other woman across the hall must not know her weakness. She rose, walked forlornly to a side window, and parting the curtains, looked fearfully out. Why, where was the lilac bush and the Lombardy poplar and the box-wood hedge? Again the hand tore at her heart; she peered bewilderedly into the night. Alas! the stream turned from its course cannot at once forget the old channel and the old banks. Again the tears came, but as she wiped them away, a fresh wind arose, parting the light clouds that lay in the western sky and showing a crescent moon and near it the evening star. Like a message from heaven came a memory that dried her tears and swept away the homesick longing. Twenty-five years ago she had looked at the new moon on her wedding night, and this was Anna Belle's wedding night—her daughter's wedding night! Fairer than moon or star, the face of the young bride seemed to look into hers; she felt the girl's clinging arms around her neck and heard the fervent whisper: "You are the very best mother in the whole wide world."

She lifted her eyes once more, not to the moon or the star, but to Something beyond them.