Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century

by Nancy Huston Banks

And then Miss Judy's soft heart suddenly smote her with the feeling that she had perhaps been too severe. She had unconsciously been stepping more and more mincingly, holding the pinch of black bombazine higher and higher, and crooking her little finger more and more jauntily.

"I have been told that there are some perfectly sincere persons living in the Blue Grass Region who honestly believe that their estates were granted to an officer ancestor for service in the Revolution. And these deluded persons are not so much to be blamed as to be pitied for being brought up to believe something that is not true. It is their misfortune, not their fault, poor things!"

Sure now that she was growing harsh indeed and almost cruel, Miss Judy gracefully turned the talk in a less serious direction, toward one which was, nevertheless, still calculated to impress this stranger with the character of the country.

"Of course you know the heraldic herb of the Pennyroyal Region," she said smilingly, as she pointed to an humble, unpretentious bunch of rather rusty green, growing thick all along the wayside. "We who live in it are fond of it and proud of it too, as fond and proud of it as England ever was of the rose, or France of the lily, or Scotland of the thistle, or even Ireland of the shamrock."

"How interesting," said the young man, still looking at Doris—not at the pennyroyal.

Doris glanced also at him, feeling great pride in Miss Judy's easy acquaintance with heraldic matters, and wishing to see if he were as much impressed as she thought he ought to be.

"Yes, I think it is interesting," continued Miss Judy, making her small mouth smaller by pursing it up in the dainty way that she would have ascribed as primping. "In fact, the pennyroyal has long been of far greater importance to the world at large than might be supposed by those who have not looked into the subject. You know, I presume, that many of the old English poets have mentioned it in their most famous works, and always with the greatest respect."

"Indeed," exclaimed the young man again, with his gaze fixed upon the sweet curve of Doris's velvet cheek.

"Chaucer and Dryden and Drayton and Spenser—every one of these fathers of English poesy has something to say of the pennyroyal," Miss Judy went on airily, still quite firmly resolved to let old lady Gordon's grandson see—no matter how polite he might be—that Doris's friends were well-read and cultured persons, however much to the contrary his first impression may have been. "Their mentions of it are mostly very mysterious, though; they speak of it as 'a charming, enchanting, bewitching herb.' All of them, indeed, describe it in that manner, if I remember correctly—though one does forget so easily," the little lady added, as if she read Chaucer and Dryden and Drayton and Spenser every day of her life. "I am quite sure, however, that Drayton refers to it 'in sorceries excelling.' And I also seem distinctly to recall the witches of The Faerie Queene as cleansing themselves of evil magic by a bath of pennyroyal once a year—I don't, though, recollect what they bathed in during the rest of the time. Spenser calls it out of its true name, however, as I remember his reference to it. He says that the witches bathed in 'origane and thyme'; but everybody knows well enough that origane was the pennyroyal's name in Spenser's day. Chaucer and Drayton knew it in their time as 'lunarie,' but they all meant neither more nor less than our own pennyroyal and nothing else."

As the three walked slowly up the big road under the flowering locusts, Miss Judy, relenting more and more, gradually became quite her sweet, friendly self. She finally admitted, with the gentle frankness natural to her, that she had never quite been able to understand these mysterious poetic references to such a simple homely thing as the pennyroyal, which she had known ever since she could remember. She now freely acknowledged that its character must have altered with the passing of the ages, or must have been changed by the coming from the old world to the new. And yet, on the other hand,—as she pointed out to the young man in a tone of confidence,—there were the famous old simplists, belonging to the very time and the very country of these fathers of poetry, who had known and prized an herb which was much like the pennyroyal of to-day, and which they had called "honesty."