"I don't believe they is a loose end to tie up on the Road, child. Even Bettie herself have finished for the day and have gone over to set a quiet hour with Mis' Bostack. Clothes is all laid out on beds, and cold lunch snacks put on kitchen tables. They ain't to be a dinner cooked on the Road this day 'cept what 'Liza and Cindy are a-stewing up for the Deacon and Mis' Bostick. Looks like everything is on greased wheels, and—but there comes the child running now! I do hope they haven't nothing flew the track."
"Mother Mayberry, please ma'am, tell me what to do about Mis' Tutt!" Eliza exclaimed with anxiety spread all over her little face, which was given a comic cast by a row of red flannel rags around her head over which were rolled prospective curls, due to float out for the festivities. "She says she won't go to the wedding 'cause it's prayer meeting night, and it were a sin to put off the Lord's meeting 'till to-morrow night. I didn't know she were a-going to do this way! I got out her dress for her yesterday. The Squire is so mad he says tell Doctor Tom to come do something for him quick and not to bring no hot water kettle neither."
"Dearie me," said Mother Mayberry with mild exasperation in her voice. "You run along, 'Liza, and don't you worry with Mis' Tutt. I'll come down there tereckly and see if I can't kinder persuade her some. Go around there and give that message to Doctor Tom yourself. I don't take no stock in such doctoring as he does to the Squire these days."
"Isn't it too bad for Mrs. Tutt to feel that way and miss the wedding?" asked Miss Wingate with a trace of the same exasperation in her voice that had sounded in Mother Mayberry's tones.
"It are that," answered Mother regretfully. "Looks like religion oughter be tooken as a cooling draft to the soul and not stuck on life like a fly blister. But I think we can kinder fix Mis' Tutt some. And that reminds me, I want you to undertake a job of using a little persuading on Tom Mayberry for me. He have got the most lovely long tail coat, gray britches, gray vest and high silk hat up in his press, and he says he are a-going to wear his blue Sunday clothes same as usual, when I asked him careless like about it this morning. I'm fair dying to behold him just onct in them good clothes he wears out in the big world and thinks Providence people will make fun of him to see, but I wouldn't ask him outright to put 'em on for me, not for nothing."
"Do you know, Mrs. Mayberry, you really—really flirt with the Doctor?" laughed Miss Wingate as she rubbed her delicate little nose against Mother Mayberry's shoulder with Teether Pike's exact nozzling gesture.
"Well, it's a affair that have been a-going on since the first time I laid eyes on Ugly, and they ain't nothing ever a-going to stop it 'lessen his wife objects," answered Mother Mayberry as she glanced down quizzically at the face against her shoulder.
"She's sure to—to adore it," answered the singer lady as she buried her head in Mother's tie so only the rosy back of her neck showed.
"Yes, I think she will understand," answered the Doctor's mother with a sweet note in her rich voice as she bestowed a little hug on the slender body pressed close to hers. "You see, child, the tie twixt a woman and her own man-child ain't like anything on earth, and I feel it must hold between Mary and her Son in Heaven. I felt it pull close like steel when mine weren't fifteen minutes old, and it won't die when I do neither. And that Tom Mayberry are so serious that a-flirting with him gets him sorter on his blind side and works to a finish. Can't you try to help me out about that coat and the silk hat?"
"Yes," answered Miss Wingate with a dimpling smile, "I'll try. I'll ask him what I shall wear and then maybe—maybe—"