"You shan't worry over 'em, Mis' Mayberry," answered pretty Bettie quickly, "You get every Providence trouble landed right on your shoulders as soon as one comes. You don't get a chance to do nothing but deal out ease to other people's bodies and souls, too."
"Well, a cup of cold water held to other folks' mouths is a mighty good way to quench your own thirst, Bettie child, and I'm glad if it are gave to me to label out the blessing of ease. But have you been in to the Deacon's this morning?"
"No'm, I'm a-going to stop as I go along home," answered Bettie. "I have seed the little raven paddling back and forth, so I guess they is all right. I must hurry on now, for I see Miss Prissy at the window looking for me. Ain't my baby a-growing?" she asked, as she picked little Hoover off of the floor and again enveloped the bobbing head under her own shawl.
"Yes, it are, and Mr. Hoover's a-smiling hisself fat by the day, child," answered Mother Mayberry with a smile. "Do you pass on the word to Elinory here that Providence husbands wear good, both warp and woof?"
"That they do, Miss Elinory, and I never seed nothing like 'em in my travels," called back the bride from the door, as she reefed in her skirts and sailed out in the downpour.
"Well, your mind oughter be satisfied, child, for Bettie muster seen a good deal of the world in that three weeks' bridal trip in the farm wagon," laughed Mother Mayberry at the singer lady by the window. "Now I'm a-going to swim out to gather eggs and I'll be back if I don't drown." With which she left the girl and the tot to resume their watch down the Road for a horse and rider due in not over two hours' time.
And indeed the last of old June's days seemed in danger of dripping away from her in tears of farewell. Rain clouds hung low over Harpeth Hills and drifted down to the very top of Providence Nob. A steady downpour had begun in the night and held on into the day and seemed to increase in volume as the hours wore away. The tall maples were standing depressed-boughed and dripping and the poplar leaves hung sodden and wet, refusing a glimpse of their silver lining. A row of bleeding-hearts down the walk were turning faint pink and drooping to the ground, while every rose in the yard was shattered and wasted away.
"Rain, rain!" wailed Martin Luther under his breath, as he pressed his cheek to the window-pane and looked without interest at a forlorn rooster huddled with a couple of hens under the snowball bush.
"Don't you want a cake and some milk?" asked the singer lady, as she gave him a comforting hug and essayed consolation by the offer of a material distraction.
"No milk, no cake; L-i-z-a, thank ma'am, please," he sobbed a disconsolate demand for what he considered a good substitute sunbeam.