The Road to Providence

by Maria Thompson Daviess

"Oh, Miss Elinory," called his mother from the side steps, "did Mis' Mayberry hear about that fire down in town that burned up two firemen, a police and a woman?" At the sound of his mother's strident voice, Buck curled up in a tight knot and with a despairing glance rolled under the bush.

"I don't know, Mrs. Peavey, but I'll tell her," Miss Wingate called back as she prepared to hasten on for fear Mrs. Peavey would come to the gate for further parley, and thus discover the exhausted culprit.

"And a man tooken pisen on account of a bank's failing in Louisville," she added in a still shriller tone, which just did carry across the distance to Mrs. Pike's front door, through which Miss Wingate was disappearing. Her prompt flight had saved the day for the disconsolate lover, who cautiously rolled from under the bush again and went on with his interrupted nap.

She found Mrs. Pike and Miss Prissy at home, and spent a really delightful hour in speculating and unfolding possible plans for the Pratt-Hoover nuptials. Miss Prissy blushed and giggled at an elephantine attempt at badinage that her sister-in-law directed at her on the subject of Mr. Petway, and after a while Miss Wingate went on her way, in a manner comforted by their wholesome merriment. She hesitated at the front gate of the Tutt residence, but the sight of the Squire pottering around in a diminutive garden at the side of the house decided her to enter, for Squire Tutt held the charm for her that a still-fused fire-cracker holds for a small boy.

"I ain't well at all," he exploded, in answer to her polite question, asked in the meekest of voices. "Don't you set up to marry Tom Mayberry, girl, if you don't wanter get a numbskull. Told me to eat a passel of raw green stuff for my liver, like I was a head of cattle. I'll die if I follow him. Everybody he doctors'll die. Snake bite is the only thing he knows how to cure, and snakes don't crawl until the last of the month. Don't marry him, I say, don't marry him!"

And it took Miss Wingate several minutes after her hurried adieus to get over the effect of the Squire's inhibitory caution. But the haven for which she had been instinctively aiming was just across the Road, and she found a peace and quiet which sank into her perturbed soul like a benediction. The Deacon sat by Mrs. Bostick's bed with his Bible across his thin old knees, and Eliza was crouched on the floor just in front of him, with her knees in her embrace and her eyes fixed on his gentle face. Little Bettie Pratt lay across Mrs. Bostick's bed, deep in her afternoon nap, and Henny Turner was stretched out full length on the floor in front of the window, while 'Lias sat with his back against the wall with the puppy in his arms. The pale face of the sweet invalid was lit by a gentle smile, and she held one of the sleeping child's warm little hands in her frail, knotted, old fingers. Unnoticed, Miss Wingate and Martin Luther paused a moment at the door.

"Golly, Deacon, but didn't he do him up at one shot, and nothing but a little piece of rock in the gum-sling!" exclaimed 'Lias in excitement over the climax of the tale the Deacon had just completed. "I wisht I was that strong!"

"It was the strength the Lord gived to him, 'Lias Hoover, to special kill the giant with," said Eliza in an argumentative tone of voice. "Do you reckon He tooken the strength away from David the next morning, Deacon, or let him keep it to use all the time?" Eliza's extreme practicality showed at all times, even in those of deepest excitement.

The Deacon was saved the strain of intellect involved in making reply to this demand by his wife's low exclamation of pleasure as she caught sight of the girl and the tot in the doorway. She smiled softly as the singer lady seated herself on the side of the bed and took both her hand and that of the sleeping baby in a firm, young one. A peculiar bond of sympathy had arisen between the girl and the gentle old invalid, both fighting pain and anxiety. Mrs. Bostick would lie for hours drinking in tales of Miss Wingate's travels in the world, which she had timidly but eagerly asked for from the beginning of their friendship. The girl knew that the anxious mother-heart vas using her descriptions to fare forth on quests for the wanderer into the wide world beyond the Harpeth Hills, that had all her life bounded her horizon, and she sat by her long hours, leading the way into the uttermost parts. After a fatherly greeting, the Deacon departed with the children to his bench under the trees and left the two alone for their talk, and the long shadows were stretched across the Road and the sun sinking beyond the Ridge before the singer lady wended her way dejectedly home with the play-wearied Martin Luther trailing beside her. She found Mother Mayberry, much to her relieved astonishment, placidly rocking in her accustomed place, with her palm-leaf ruffling the water-waves and a fresh lawn tie blowing in the breeze.

"Come in, honey-hearts," she said eagerly, with bright tenderness shining in her face for the girl and the barefoot young pilgrim; "I have been setting here a-missing you both for a hour. With you and my young mission boy both gone I'm like an old hawk-robbed hen. I knew you was with Mis' Bostick, and I didn't come for you 'cause somehow them rocking-chair-bed travels you and her take seems to comfort her. I wouldn't interrupt one of 'em for the world, though I was getting plumb lonesome. I was even a-hankering after that Tom Mayberry what I left not over two hours ago."