Then suddenly a very wonderful and beautiful thing happened in that old churchyard of Providence Meeting-house under Harpeth Hills, for the great singer lady stepped toward the Deacon a little way, paused, looked across at the old Nob in the sunlight, and high and clear and free-winged like that of an archangel, rose her glorious voice in the
"Hail, holy, holy, holy Lord,"
which she had set for him and the gentle invalid to the wonderful motif of the Song of the Master's Grail. Love and sorrow and a flood of tears had relieved a pressure somewhere, the balance had been recovered and her muted voice freed. And on through the verses to the very end she sang it, while the little group of field people held their breath in awe and amazement. Then, while they all stood with bowed heads for the benediction, she turned and walked away through the graves, out of the churchyard and on up Providence Road, with an instinct to hide from them all for a moment of realization.
"And here I have to come and hunt the little skeered miracle out of my own feather pillows," exclaimed Mother Mayberry a little later with laughter, tears, pride and joy in her voice, as she bent over the broad expanse of her own bed and drew the singer girl up in her strong arms. "Daughter," she said, with her cheek pressed to the flushed one against her shoulder, "what the Lord hath given and taketh away we bless Him for and none the less what He giveth back, blessed be His name. That's a jumble, but He understands me. You don't feel in no ways peculiar, do you?" and as she asked the question the Doctor's mother clasped the slender throat in one of her strong hands.
"Not a bit anywhere," answered Miss Wingate, with the burr all gone from her soft voice. "Is it true?"
"Dearie me, I can't hardly stand it to hear you speak, it are so sweet!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry in positive rapture and again the tears filled her eyes, while her face crinkled up into a dimpled smile. "Don't say nothing where the mocking-birds will hear you, please, 'cause they'll begin to hatch out a dumb race from plumb discouragement. Come out on the porch where it ain't so hot, but I'm a-holding on to you to keep you from flying up into one of the trees. I'm a-going to set about building a cage for you right—"
"Now, didn't I tell you about that slippery-ellum!" came in a positively triumphant voile to greet them as they stepped out of the front door. Mrs. Peavey was ascending the steps all out of breath, her decorous hat awry, and her eyes snapping with excitement. "Course I don't think this can be no positive cure and like as not you'll wake up to-morrow with your voice all gone dry again, but it were the slippery-ellum that done it!"
"I think it must have helped some," answered the singer lady in the clear voice that still held its wonted note of meekness to her neighbor.
"Course it did! Tom Mayberry's experimenting couldn'ter done it no real good. His mother have been giving that biled bark for sore throat for thirty years and it was me that remembered it. But it were a pity you done it at the grave; that were Mis' Bostick's funeral and not your'n. Now look at everybody a-coming up the Road with no grieving left at all."
"Oh, Hettie Ann," exclaimed Mother Mayberry in quick distress, "it are a mean kind of sorrow that can't open its arms to hold joy tender. Think what it do mean to the child and—Look at Bettie!"