Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century

by Nancy Huston Banks

"Anybody's welcome to look at the pretty-by-nights," responded Sidney, with cautious non-committal indifference.

"I told him I knew you wouldn't care," said Doris, more confidently. "And then he asked if he might come early this morning to look at the morning-glories. He thought they must be lovely—such big ones, red, white, and blue—all over that side of the house."

"They're well enough in their place," said Sidney, off-hand. And then, carelessly, after an instant's pause, "What did you say?"

"He said he was coming—before I could say anything." Doris thus placed the responsibility where it belonged, made timid again by her mother's manner, which she did not understand. "He may be here now, at any moment."

"Well, it won't hurt the morning-glories a mite to be looked at," said Sidney.

She stood still a moment longer, turning this unexpected announcement in her mind. Then, without another word, she went back to the kitchen and took up the plate containing Uncle Watty's breakfast, which she had left on the stove to keep warm. He could eat it cold for once, she resolved, as she passed through the room. Doris, humming over her sewing, and looking now and then down the big road, did not see what her mother was doing. Strong, active, Sidney swiftly gained the loft, making as little noise as possible. Uncle Watty's bedchamber was a corner of the loft cut off from the rest by a rough partition, and she approached the door of it with noiseless caution. Uncle Watty never thought of locking or even of shutting it, but Sidney, after setting the breakfast on the floor, inside the door, now closed it softly and turned the key. There was an old chest sitting near by, and this she managed to drag across the door without much noise. Then she listened for a space, with her ear against the door, to make sure that Uncle Watty was still fast asleep, and to consider the security of the barricade. Satisfied now that all was secure, that he could not get out, however hard he might try, she went downstairs, feeling that she had done her utmost for Uncle Watty as well as for Doris. She was faithful in her service to her husband's brother; she had accepted him as a sacred legacy when her burden was already heavy enough. She had never allowed the fact that he would not do anything for his own support to affect her regard for him, nor to lessen her efforts to provide for him; she had never minded his whittling, nor his mis-set leg, except to be sorry for him. And yet, notwithstanding all this, she, with her shrewd common sense, saw no good that it could do him, or Doris, or anybody, for him to come bumping and stumbling down the ladder just at the time when the young gentleman from Boston was likely to be calling upon Doris. Recalling the likeness to his game-making grandmother, which had struck her as so marked on the previous day—which had indeed impressed her as being of "the very same cut of the jib," as Sidney phrased it to herself—she made up her mind, then and there, that he should see no reason to laugh at Doris or Doris's kin, if she could help his seeing Uncle Watty.

Coming now into the room where Doris still sat quietly sewing, in the dull brown dress, Sidney was tempted to tell her to put on the blue gingham which Mrs. Alexander had given her; but on second thought did not. Secretly she doubted whether any other color would reveal the soft, pure whiteness of Doris's skin so perfectly as the faded brown. She accordingly left the girl to her own devices, and contented herself with seeing, with even more than the usual care, that the rising sun of red and yellow calico was precisely in the middle of the bed, that the trundle-bed was quite out of sight under the big bed; that the snowy scarf over the chest of drawers fell perfectly straight at the fringed ends; and that the best side of the rag rug, the sole covering of the rough, well-scoured floor, was turned up. Finally, she hurried into the garden and gathered a great, tall bunch of blue larkspur, and put it in her best white pitcher, and set it on the chest of drawers. She gazed at it with her head critically on one side, after setting it down; and, indeed, the vivid coloring of the homely flowers against the whitewashed logs was a pleasing sight, which might have gratified a more exacting taste than hers.

An uneasy remembrance of Kate and Billy suddenly flashing into her quiet mind, disturbed it, and sent her seeking them in haste. It was unlucky that the day chanced to be Saturday, otherwise they might at once have been despatched to school, and so kept out of the way without Doris's knowing anything about it. Sidney was not clear as to why she did not wish Doris to know that she meant to keep them out of the way. Her daughter's sensibilities, refined by nature, and super-refined by Miss Judy's training, were a long way beyond Sidney's primitive comprehension. She had, however, a general idea that all very young girls were what she called skittish, and most of them, consequently, greatly lacking in sound common sense. So that it seemed to her, on the whole, best to do her own duty as she saw it, saying nothing one way or another, and leaving Doris alone. Sidney had no doubt concerning her own duty. In the circle in which she had been reared, the young man who failed to find a clear and open field the first time he came to see a girl was sure not to come again. He understood as a matter of course, and as he was intended to understand—when he found any of the family near by—that he was not expected or desired to come again. It was consequently a perfectly plain and simple case from Sidney's plain and simple point of view. She did not know what Doris thought of the young man; she did not care what the young man thought of Doris. She had no distinct ultimate object. No mother was ever farther from any arbitrary purpose, or even the remotest wish, to take the shaping of her daughter's future in her own hands. Sidney, honest, strenuous soul, meant simply and solely to give Doris a chance, without hindrance, to shape it for herself.

Thus, as single-minded as it is ever permitted any woman to be, Sidney took the broom from its resting-place behind the door, and fared forth to mount guard over Billy and Kate. The children were peacefully at play in the back yard under the cherry tree. They had been forbidden to touch the cherries, which were to be exchanged for shoes at the store, and they only glanced wistfully up at the reddening branches now and then, as they went on with their harmless game of mumble-peg. Sidney turned an empty tub upside down and seated herself upon it, between the children and the house, with the broom across her knees. It was a sight which they had never seen before, this amazing spectacle of their mother thus sitting silent and idle on a week-day. But children do not marvel over the unusual as grown people do, and after a glance or two of surprise, these two played on peacefully until they heard the click of the gate latch. Then they made a dash for the front yard to see who was coming, as they were accustomed to do, and as Sidney was fully prepared for their doing now. Keenly alert, she was instantly on her feet, and, rushing between them and the gate, she waved them back with the broom, flourishing it and using it as a baton of command. The children halted, staring open-mouthed, too much astounded at first to make a sound. And then, frightened by their mother's strange behavior, they huddled together against the cherry tree and broke into loud, terrified wails. Sidney, disconcerted and quickly changing her tactics, did what she could to silence them by gentle means. She tried to soothe them in whispers, and failing, finally offered to bribe them to be quiet. If they were perfectly quiet till the company went away, she would give them, so she whispered, one of Miss Pettus's cherry pies.

"The one with the—cross-barred—top," sobbed Billy, intentionally raising his piercing voice several keys as he made this stipulation.