AUNT JANE
OF KENTUCKY

BY ELIZA CALVERT HALL

Author of "The Land of Long Ago."

With Frontispiece and Page Decorations

By BEULAH STRONG

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Copyright, 1898, 1899, 1900,
By John Brisbane Walker.

Copyright, 1904,
By Cosmopolitan Publishing Company.

Copyright, 1907,
By Little, Brown, and Company.

TO

MY MOTHER AND FATHER

I Dedicate this Book

CHAPTERS

"There is not an existence about us but at first seems colorless, dreary, lethargic: what can our soul have in common with that of an elderly spinster, a slow-witted plowman, a miser who worships his gold?... But ... the emotion that lived and died in an old-fashioned country parlor shall as mightily stir our heart, shall as unerringly find its way to the deepest sources of life as the majestic passion that ruled the life of a king and shed its triumphant luster from the dazzling height of a throne."—Maeterlinck.

I

SALLY ANN'S EXPERIENCE

ome right in and set down. I was jest wishin' I had somebody to talk to. Take that chair right by the door so's you can get the breeze."

And Aunt Jane beamed at me over her silver-rimmed spectacles and hitched her own chair a little to one side, in order to give me the full benefit of the wind that was blowing softly through the white-curtained window, and carrying into the room the heavenliest odors from a field of clover that lay in full bloom just across the road. For it was June in Kentucky, and clover and blue-grass were running sweet riot over the face of the earth.

Aunt Jane and her room together always carried me back to a dead and gone generation. There was a rag carpet on the floor, of the "hit-or-miss" pattern; the chairs were ancient Shaker rockers, some with homely "shuck" bottoms, and each had a tidy of snowy thread or crochet cotton fastened primly over the back. The high bed and bureau and a shining mahogany table suggested an era of "plain living" far, far remote from the day of Turkish rugs and Japanese bric-a-brac, and Aunt Jane was in perfect correspondence with her environment. She wore a purple calico dress, rather short and scant; a gingham apron, with a capacious pocket, in which she always carried knitting or some other "handy work"; a white handkerchief was laid primly around the wrinkled throat and fastened with a pin containing a lock of gray hair; her cap was of black lace and lutestring ribbon, not one of the butterfly affairs that perch on the top of the puffs and frizzes of the modern old lady, but a substantial structure that covered her whole head and was tied securely under her chin. She talked in a sweet old treble with a little lisp, caused by the absence of teeth, and her laugh was as clear and joyous as a young girl's.

"Yes, I'm a-piecin' quilts again," she said, snipping away at the bits of calico in her lap. "I did say I was done with that sort o' work; but this mornin' I was rummagin' around up in the garret, and I come across this bundle of pieces, and thinks I, 'I reckon it's intended for me to piece one more quilt before I die;' I must 'a' put 'em there thirty years ago and clean forgot 'em, and I've been settin' here all the evenin' cuttin' 'em and thinkin' about old times.

"Jest feel o' that," she continued, tossing some scraps into my lap. "There ain't any such caliker nowadays. This ain't your five-cent stuff that fades in the first washin' and wears out in the second. A caliker dress was somethin' worth buyin' and worth makin' up in them days. That blue-flowered piece was a dress I got the spring before Abram died. When I put on mournin' it was as good as new, and I give it to sister Mary. That one with the green ground and white figger was my niece Rebecca's. She wore it for the first time to the County Fair the year I took the premium on my salt-risin' bread and sponge cake. This black-an'-white piece Sally Ann Flint give me. I ricollect 'twas in blackberry time, and I'd been out in the big pasture pickin' some for supper, and I stopped in at Sally Ann's for a drink o' water on my way back. She was cuttin' out this dress."

Aunt Jane broke off with a little soprano laugh.

"Did I ever tell you about Sally Ann's experience?" she said, as she laid two three-cornered pieces together and began to sew with her slender, nervous old fingers.

To find Aunt Jane alone and in a reminiscent mood! This was delightful.

"Do tell me," I said.

Aunt Jane was silent for a few moments. She always made this pause before beginning a story, and there was something impressive about it. I used to think she was making an invocation to the goddess of Memory.

"'Twas forty years ago," she began musingly, "and the way of it was this. Our church was considerably out o' fix. It needed a new roof. Some o' the winder lights was out, and the floor was as bare as your hand, and always had been. The men folks managed to git the roof shingled and the winders fixed, and us women in the Mite Society concluded we'd git a cyarpet. We'd been savin' up our money for some time, and we had about twelve dollars. I ricollect what a argument we had, for some of us wanted the cyarpet, and some wanted to give it to furrin missions, as we'd set out to do at first. Sally Ann was the one that settled it. She says at last—Sally Ann was in favor of the cyarpet—she says, 'Well, if any of the heathen fails to hear the gospel on account of our gittin' this cyarpet, they'll be saved anyhow, so Parson Page says. And if we send the money and they do hear the gospel, like as not they won't repent, and then they're certain to be damned. And it seems to me as long as we ain't sure what they'll do, we might as well keep the money and git the cyarpet. I never did see much sense anyhow,' says she, 'in givin' people a chance to damn theirselves.'

"Well, we decided to take Sally Ann's advice, and we was talkin' about app'intin' a committee to go to town the follerin' Monday and pick out the cyarpet, when all at once 'Lizabeth Taylor—she was our treasurer—she spoke up, and says she, 'There ain't any use app'intin' that committee. The money's gone,' she says, sort o' short and quick. 'I kept it in my top bureau drawer, and when I went for it yesterday, it was gone. I'll pay it back if I'm ever able, but I ain't able now.' And with that she got up and walked out o' the room, before any one could say a word, and we seen her goin' down the road lookin' straight before her and walkin' right fast.

"And we—we set there and stared at each other in a sort o' dazed way. I could see that everybody was thinkin' the same thing, but nobody said a word, till our minister's wife—she was as good a woman as ever lived—she says, 'Judge not.'

"Them two words was jest like a sermon to us. Then Sally Ann spoke up and says: 'For the Lord's sake, don't let the men folks know anything about this. They're always sayin' that women ain't fit to handle money, and I for one don't want to give 'em any more ground to stand on than they've already got.'

"So we agreed to say nothin' about it, and all of us kept our promise except Milly Amos. She had mighty little sense to begin with, and havin' been married only about two months, she'd about lost that little. So next mornin' I happened to meet Sam Amos, and he says to me, 'Aunt Jane, how much money have you women got to'rds the new cyarpet for the church?' I looked him square in the face, and I says, 'Are you a member of the Ladies' Mite Society of Goshen church, Sam Amos? For if you are, you already know how much money we've got, and if you ain't, you've got no business knowin'. And, furthermore,' says I, 'there's some women that can't keep a secret and a promise, and some that can, and I can.' And that settled him.

"Well, 'Lizabeth never showed her face outside her door for more'n a month afterwards, and a more pitiful-lookin' creatur' you never saw than she was when she come out to prayer-meetin' the night Sally Ann give her experience. She set 'way back in the church, and she was as pale and peaked as if she had been through a siege of typhoid. I ricollect it all as if it had been yesterday. We sung 'Sweet Hour of Prayer,' and Parson Page prayed, and then called on the brethren to say anything they might feel called on to say concernin' their experience in the past week. Old Uncle Jim Matthews begun to clear his throat, and I knew, as well as I knew my name, he was fixin' to git up and tell how precious the Lord had been to his soul, jest like he'd been doin' every Wednesday night for twenty years. But before he got started, here come 'Lizabeth walkin' down the side aisle and stopped right in front o' the pulpit.

"'I've somethin' to say,' she says. 'It's been on my mind till I can't stand it any longer. I've got to tell it, or I'll go crazy. It was me that took that cyarpet money. I only meant to borrow it. I thought sure I'd be able to pay it back before it was wanted. But things went wrong, and I ain't known a peaceful minute since, and never shall again, I reckon. I took it to pay my way up to Louisville, the time I got the news that Mary was dyin'.'

"Mary was her daughter by her first husband, you see. 'I begged Jacob to give me the money to go on,' says she, 'and he wouldn't do it. I tried to give up and stay, but I jest couldn't. Mary was all I had in the world; and maybe you that has children can put yourself in my place, and know what it would be to hear your only child callin' to you from her death-bed, and you not able to go to her. I asked Jacob three times for the money,' she says, 'and when I found he wouldn't give it to me, I said to myself, "I'm goin' anyhow." I got down on my knees,' says she, 'and asked the Lord to show me a way, and I felt sure he would. As soon as Jacob had eat his breakfast and gone out on the farm, I dressed myself, and as I opened the top bureau drawer to get out my best collar, I saw the missionary money. It come right into my head,' says she, 'that maybe this was the answer to my prayer; maybe I could borrow this money, and pay it back some way or other before it was called for. I tried to put it out o' my head, but the thought kept comin' back; and when I went down into the sittin'-room to get Jacob's cyarpetbag to carry a few things in, I happened to look up at the mantelpiece and saw the brass candlesticks with prisms all 'round 'em that used to belong to my mother; and all at once I seemed to see jest what the Lord intended for me to do.

"'You know,' she says, 'I had a boarder summer before last—that lady from Louisville—and she wanted them candlesticks the worst kind, and offered me fifteen dollars for 'em. I wouldn't part with 'em then, but she said if ever I wanted to sell 'em, to let her know, and she left her name and address on a cyard. I went to the big Bible and got out the cyard, and I packed the candlesticks in the cyarpetbag, and put on my bonnet. When I opened the door I looked up the road, and the first thing I saw was Dave Crawford comin' along in his new buggy. I went out to the gate, and he drew up and asked me if I was goin' to town, and said he'd take me. It looked like the Lord was leadin' me all the time,' says she, 'but the way things turned out it must 'a' been Satan. I got to Mary just two hours before she died, and she looked up in my face and says, "Mother, I knew God wouldn't let me die till I'd seen you once more."'"

Here Aunt Jane took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.

"I can't tell this without cryin' to save my life," said she; "but 'Lizabeth never shed a tear. She looked like she'd got past cryin', and she talked straight on as if she'd made up her mind to say jest so much, and she'd die if she didn't git to say it."

"'As soon as the funeral was over,' says she, 'I set out to find the lady that wanted the candlesticks. She wasn't at home, but her niece was there, and said she'd heard her aunt speak of the candlesticks often; and she'd be home in a few days and would send me the money right off. I come home thinkin' it was all right, and I kept expectin' the money every day, but it never come till day before yesterday. I wrote three times about it, but I never got a word from her till Monday. She had just got home, she said, and hoped I hadn't been inconvenienced by the delay. She wrote a nice, polite letter and sent me a check for fifteen dollars, and here it is. I wanted to confess it all that day at the Mite Society, but somehow I couldn't till I had the money right in my hand to pay back. If the lady had only come back when her niece said she was comin', it would all have turned out right, but I reckon it's a judgment on me for meddling with the Lord's money. God only knows what I've suffered,' says she, 'but if I had to do it over again, I believe I'd do it. Mary was all the child I had in the world, and I had to see her once more before she died. I've been a member of this church for twenty years,' says she, 'but I reckon you'll have to turn me out now.'

"The pore thing stood there tremblin' and holdin' out the check as if she expected somebody to come and take it. Old Silas Petty was glowerin' at her from under his eyebrows, and it put me in mind of the Pharisees and the woman they wanted to stone, and I ricollect thinkin', 'Oh, if the Lord Jesus would jest come in and take her part!' And while we all set there like a passel o' mutes, Sally Ann got up and marched down the middle aisle and stood right by 'Lizabeth. You know what funny thoughts people will have sometimes.

"Well, I felt so relieved. It popped into my head all at once that we didn't need the Lord after all, Sally Ann would do jest as well. It seemed sort o' like sacrilege, but I couldn't help it.

"Well, Sally Ann looked all around as composed as you please, and says she, 'I reckon if anybody's turned out o' this church on account o' that miserable little money, it'll be Jacob and not 'Lizabeth. A man that won't give his wife money to go to her dyin' child is too mean to stay in a Christian church anyhow; and I'd like to know how it is that a woman, that had eight hundred dollars when she married, has to go to her husband and git down on her knees and beg for what's her own. Where's that money 'Lizabeth had when she married you?' says she, turnin' round and lookin' Jacob in the face. 'Down in that ten-acre medder lot, ain't it?—and in that new barn you built last spring. A pretty elder you are, ain't you? Elders don't seem to have improved much since Susannah's times. If there ain't one sort o' meanness in 'em it's another,' says she.

"Goodness knows what she would 'a' said, but jest here old Deacon Petty rose up. And says he, 'Brethren,'—and he spread his arms out and waved 'em up and down like he was goin' to pray,—'brethren, this is awful! If this woman wants to give her religious experience, why,' says he, very kind and condescendin', 'of course she can do so. But when it comes to a woman standin' up in the house of the Lord and revilin' an elder as this woman is doin', why, I tremble,' says he, 'for the church of Christ. For don't the Apostle Paul say, "Let your women keep silence in the church"?'

"As soon as he named the 'Postle Paul, Sally Ann give a kind of snort. Sally Ann was terrible free-spoken. And when Deacon Petty said that, she jest squared herself like she intended to stand there till judgment day, and says she, 'The 'Postle Paul has been dead ruther too long for me to be afraid of him. And I never heard of him app'intin' Deacon Petty to represent him in this church. If the 'Postle Paul don't like what I'm sayin', let him rise up from his grave in Corinthians or Ephesians, or wherever he's buried, and say so. I've got a message from the Lord to the men folks of this church, and I'm goin' to deliver it, Paul or no Paul,' says she. 'And as for you, Silas Petty, I ain't forgot the time I dropped in to see Maria one Saturday night and found her washin' out her flannel petticoat and dryin' it before the fire. And every time I've had to hear you lead in prayer since then I've said to myself, "Lord, how high can a man's prayers rise toward heaven when his wife ain't got but one flannel skirt to her name? No higher than the back of his pew, if you'll let me tell it." I knew jest how it was,' said Sally Ann, 'as well as if Maria'd told me. She'd been havin' the milk and butter money from the old roan cow she'd raised from a little heifer, and jest because feed was scarce, you'd sold her off before Maria had money enough to buy her winter flannels. I can give my experience, can I? Well, that's jest what I'm a-doin',' says she; 'and while I'm about it,' says she, 'I'll give in some experience for 'Lizabeth and Maria and the rest of the women who, betwixt their husbands an' the 'Postle Paul, have about lost all the gumption and grit that the Lord started them out with. If the 'Postle Paul,' says she, 'has got anything to say about a woman workin' like a slave for twenty-five years and then havin' to set up an' wash out her clothes Saturday night, so's she can go to church clean Sunday mornin', I'd like to hear it. But don't you dare to say anything to me about keepin' silence in the church. There was times when Paul says he didn't know whether he had the Spirit of God or not, and I'm certain that when he wrote that text he wasn't any more inspired than you are, Silas Petty, when you tell Maria to shut her mouth.'

"Job Taylor was settin' right in front of Deacon Petty, and I reckon he thought his time was comin' next; so he gets up, easy-like, with his red bandanna to his mouth, and starts out. But Sally Ann headed him off before he'd gone six steps, and says she, 'There ain't anything the matter with you, Job Taylor; you set right down and hear what I've got to say. I've knelt and stood through enough o' your long-winded prayers, and now it's my time to talk and yours to listen.'

"And bless your life, if Job didn't set down as meek as Moses, and Sally Ann lit right into him. And says she, 'I reckon you're afraid I'll tell some o' your meanness, ain't you? And the only thing that stands in my way is that there's so much to tell I don't know where to begin. There ain't a woman in this church,' says she, 'that don't know how Marthy scrimped and worked and saved to buy her a new set o' furniture, and how you took the money with you when you went to Cincinnata, the spring before she died, and come back without the furniture. And when she asked you for the money, you told her that she and everything she had belonged to you, and that your mother's old furniture was good enough for anybody. It's my belief,' says she, 'that's what killed Marthy. Women are dyin' every day, and the doctors will tell you it's some new-fangled disease or other, when, if the truth was known, it's nothin' but wantin' somethin' they can't git, and hopin' and waitin' for somethin' that never comes. I've watched 'em, and I know. The night before Marthy died she says to me, "Sally Ann," says she, "I could die a heap peacefuler if I jest knew the front room was fixed up right with a new set of furniture for the funeral."' And Sally Ann p'inted her finger right at Job and says she, 'I said it then, and I say it now to your face, Job Taylor, you killed Marthy the same as if you'd taken her by the throat and choked the life out of her.'

"Mary Embry, Job's sister-in-law, was settin' right behind me, and I heard her say, 'Amen!' as fervent as if somebody had been prayin'. Job set there, lookin' like a sheep-killin' dog, and Sally Ann went right on. 'I know,' says she, 'the law gives you the right to your wives' earnin's and everything they've got, down to the clothes on their backs; and I've always said there was some Kentucky law that was made for the express purpose of encouragin' men in their natural meanness,—a p'int in which the Lord knows they don't need no encouragin'. There's some men,' says she, 'that'll sneak behind the 'Postle Paul when they're plannin' any meanness against their wives, and some that runs to the law, and you're one of the law kind. But mark my words,' says she, 'one of these days, you men who've been stealin' your wives' property and defraudin' 'em, and cheatin' 'em out o' their just dues, you'll have to stand before a Judge that cares mighty little for Kentucky law; and all the law and all the Scripture you can bring up won't save you from goin' where the rich man went.'

"I can see Sally Ann right now," and Aunt Jane pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and looked with a dreamy, retrospective gaze through the doorway and beyond, where swaying elms and maples were whispering softly to each other as the breeze touched them. "She had on her old black poke-bonnet and some black yarn mitts, and she didn't come nigh up to Job's shoulder, but Job set and listened as if he jest had to. I heard Dave Crawford shufflin' his feet and clearin' his throat while Sally Ann was talkin' to Job. Dave's farm j'ined Sally Ann's, and they had a lawsuit once about the way a fence ought to run, and Sally Ann beat him. He always despised Sally Ann after that, and used to call her a 'he-woman.' Sally Ann heard the shufflin', and as soon as she got through with Job, she turned around to Dave, and says she: 'Do you think your hemmin' and scrapin' is goin' to stop me, Dave Crawford? You're one o' the men that makes me think that it's better to be a Kentucky horse than a Kentucky woman. Many's the time,' says she, 'I've seen pore July with her head tied up, crawlin' around tryin' to cook for sixteen harvest hands, and you out in the stable cossetin' up a sick mare, and rubbin' down your three-year-olds to get 'em in trim for the fair. Of all the things that's hard to understand,' says she, 'the hardest is a man that has more mercy on his horse than he has on his wife. July's found rest at last,' says she, 'out in the graveyard; and every time I pass your house I thank the Lord that you've got to pay a good price for your cookin' now, as there ain't a woman in the country fool enough to step into July's shoes.'

"But, la!" said Aunt Jane, breaking off with her happy laugh,—the laugh of one who revels in rich memories,—"what's the use of me tellin' all this stuff? The long and the short of it is, that Sally Ann had her say about nearly every man in the church. She told how Mary Embry had to cut up her weddin' skirts to make clothes for her first baby; and how John Martin stopped Hannah one day when she was carryin' her mother a pound of butter, and made her go back and put the butter down in the cellar; and how Lije Davison used to make Ann pay him for every bit of chicken feed, and then take half the egg money because the chickens got into his garden; and how Abner Page give his wife twenty-five cents for spendin' money the time she went to visit her sister.

"Sally Ann always was a masterful sort of woman, and that night it seemed like she was possessed. The way she talked made me think of the Day of Pentecost and the gift of tongues. And finally she got to the minister! I'd been wonderin' all along if she was goin' to let him off. She turned around to where he was settin' under the pulpit, and says she, 'Brother Page, you're a good man, but you ain't so good you couldn't be better. It was jest last week,' says she, 'that the women come around beggin' money to buy you a new suit of clothes to go to Presbytery in; and I told 'em if it was to get Mis' Page a new dress, I was ready to give; but not a dime was I goin' to give towards puttin' finery on a man's back. I'm tired o' seein' the ministers walk up into the pulpit in their slick black broadcloths, and their wives settin' down in the pew in an old black silk that's been turned upside down, wrong side out, and hind part before, and sponged, and pressed, and made over till you can't tell whether it's silk, or caliker, or what.'

"Well, I reckon there was some o' the women that expected the roof to fall down on us when Sally Ann said that right to the minister. But it didn't fall, and Sally Ann went straight on. 'And when it comes to the perseverance of the saints and the decrees of God,' says she, 'there ain't many can preach a better sermon; but there's some of your sermons,' says she, 'that ain't fit for much but kindlin' fires. There's that one you preached last Sunday on the twenty-fourth verse of the fifth chapter of Ephesians. I reckon I've heard about a hundred and fifty sermons on that text, and I reckon I'll keep on hearin' 'em as long as there ain't anybody but men to do the preachin'. Anybody would think,' says she, 'that you preachers was struck blind every time you git through with the twenty-fourth verse, for I never heard a sermon on the twenty-fifth verse. I believe there's men in this church that thinks the fifth chapter of Ephesians hasn't got but twenty-four verses, and I'm goin' to read the rest of it to 'em for once anyhow.'

"And if Sally Ann didn't walk right up into the pulpit same as if she'd been ordained, and read what Paul said about men lovin' their wives as Christ loved the church, and as they loved their own bodies.

"'Now,' says she, 'if Brother Page can reconcile these texts with what Paul says about women submittin' and bein' subject, he's welcome to do it. But,' says she, 'if I had the preachin' to do, I wouldn't waste time reconcilin'. I'd jest say that when Paul told women to be subject to their husbands in everything, he wasn't inspired; and when he told men to love their wives as their own bodies, he was inspired; and I'd like to see the Presbytery that could silence me from preachin' as long as I wanted to preach. As for turnin' out o' the church,' says she, 'I'd like to know who's to do the turnin' out. When the disciples brought that woman to Christ there wasn't a man in the crowd fit to cast a stone at her; and if there's any man nowadays good enough to set in judgment on a woman, his name ain't on the rolls of Goshen church. If 'Lizabeth,' says she, 'had as much common sense as she's got conscience, she'd know that the matter o' that money didn't concern nobody but our Mite Society, and we women can settle it without any help from you deacons and elders.'

"Well, I reckon Parson Page thought if he didn't head Sally Ann off some way or other she'd go on all night; so when she kind o' stopped for breath and shut up the big Bible, he grabbed a hymn-book and says:

"'Let us sing "Blest be the Tie that Binds."'

"He struck up the tune himself; and about the middle of the first verse Mis' Page got up and went over to where 'Lizabeth was standin', and give her the right hand of fellowship, and then Mis' Petty did the same; and first thing we knew we was all around her shakin' hands and huggin' her and cryin' over her. 'Twas a reg'lar love-feast; and we went home feelin' like we'd been through a big protracted meetin' and got religion over again.

"'Twasn't more'n a week till 'Lizabeth was down with slow fever—nervous collapse, old Dr. Pendleton called it. We took turns nursin' her, and one day she looked up in my face and says, 'Jane, I know now what the mercy of the Lord is.'"

Here Aunt Jane paused, and began to cut three-cornered pieces out of a time-stained square of flowered chintz. The quilt was to be of the wild-goose pattern. There was a drowsy hum from the bee-hive near the window, and the shadows were lengthening as sunset approached.

"One queer thing about it," she resumed, "was that while Sally Ann was talkin', not one of us felt like laughin'. We set there as solemn as if parson was preachin' to us on 'lection and predestination. But whenever I think about it now, I laugh fit to kill. And I've thought many a time that Sally Ann's plain talk to them men done more good than all the sermons us women had had preached to us about bein' 'shame-faced' and 'submittin'' ourselves to our husbands, for every one o' them women come out in new clothes that spring, and such a change as it made in some of 'em! I wouldn't be surprised if she did have a message to deliver, jest as she said. The Bible says an ass spoke up once and reproved a man, and I reckon if an ass can reprove a man, so can a woman. And it looks to me like men stand in need of reprovin' now as much as they did in Balaam's days.

"Jacob died the follerin' fall, and 'Lizabeth got shed of her troubles. The triflin' scamp never married her for anything but her money.

"Things is different from what they used to be," she went on, as she folded her pieces into a compact bundle and tied it with a piece of gray yarn. "My son-in-law was tellin' me last summer how a passel o' women kept goin' up to Frankfort and so pesterin' the Legislatur', that they had to change the laws to git rid of 'em. So married women now has all the property rights they want, and more'n some of 'em has sense to use, I reckon."

"How about you and Uncle Abram?" I suggested. "Didn't Sally Ann say anything about you in her experience?"

Aunt Jane's black eyes snapped with some of the fire of her long-past youth. "La! no, child," she said. "Abram never was that kind of a man, and I never was that kind of a woman. I ricollect as we was walkin' home that night Abram says, sort o' humble-like: 'Jane, hadn't you better git that brown merino you was lookin' at last County Court day?'

"And I says, 'Don't you worry about that brown merino, Abram. It's a-lyin' in my bottom drawer right now. I told the storekeeper to cut it off jest as soon as your back was turned, and Mis' Simpson is goin' to make it next week.' And Abram he jest laughed, and says, 'Well, Jane, I never saw your beat.' You see, I never was any hand at 'submittin'' myself to my husband, like some women. I've often wondered if Abram wouldn't 'a' been jest like Silas Petty if I'd been like Maria. I've noticed that whenever a woman's willin' to be imposed upon, there's always a man standin' 'round ready to do the imposin'. I never went to a law-book to find out what my rights was. I did my duty faithful to Abram, and when I wanted anything I went and got it, and Abram paid for it, and I can't see but what we got on jest as well as we'd 'a' done if I'd a-'submitted' myself."

Longer and longer grew the shadows, and the faint tinkle of bells came in through the windows. The cows were beginning to come home. The spell of Aunt Jane's dramatic art was upon me. I began to feel that my own personality had somehow slipped away from me, and those dead people, evoked from their graves by an old woman's histrionism, seemed more real to me than my living, breathing self.

"There now, I've talked you clean to death," she said with a happy laugh, as I rose to go. "But we've had a real nice time, and I'm glad you come."

The sun was almost down as I walked slowly away. When I looked back, at the turn of the road, Aunt Jane was standing on the door-step, shading her eyes and peering across the level fields. I knew what it meant. Beyond the fields was a bit of woodland, and in one corner of that you might, if your eyesight was good, discern here and there a glimpse of white. It was the old burying-ground of Goshen church; and I knew by the strained attitude and intent gaze of the watcher in the door that somewhere in the sunlit space between Aunt Jane's door-step and the little country graveyard, the souls of the living and the dead were keeping a silent tryst.

II

THE NEW ORGAN

ittin' a new organ is a mighty different thing nowadays from what it was when I was young," said Aunt Jane judicially, as she lifted a panful of yellow harvest apples from the table and began to peel them for dumplings.

Potatoes, peas, and asparagus were bubbling on the stove, and the dumplings were in honor of the invited guest, who had begged the privilege of staying in the kitchen awhile. Aunt Jane was one of those rare housekeepers whose kitchens are more attractive than the parlors of other people.

"And gittin' religion is different, too," she continued, propping her feet on the round of a chair for the greater comfort and convenience of her old knees. "Both of 'em is a heap easier than they used to be, and the organs is a heap better. I don't know whether the religion's any better or not. You know I went up to my daughter Mary Frances' last week, and the folks up there was havin' a big meetin' in the Tabernicle, and that's how come me to be thinkin' about organs.

"The preacher was an evangelist, as they call him, Sam Joynes, from 'way down South. In my day he'd 'a' been called the Rev. Samuel Joynes. Folks didn't call their preachers Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Jim and Sam, like they do now. I'd like to 'a' seen anybody callin' Parson Page 'Lem Page.' He was the Rev. Lemuel Page, and don't you forgit it. But things is different, as I said awhile ago, and even the little boys says 'Sam Joynes,' jest like he played marbles with 'em every day. I went to the Tabernicle three or four times; and of all the preachers that ever I heard, he certainly is the beatenest. Why, I ain't laughed so much since me and Abram went to Barnum's circus, the year before the war. He was preachin' one day about cleanliness bein' next to godliness, which it certainly is, and he says, 'You old skunk, you!' But, la! the worse names he called 'em the better they 'peared to like it, and sinners was converted wholesale every time he preached. But there wasn't no goin' to the mourners' bench and mournin' for your sins and havin' people prayin' and cryin' over you. They jest set and laughed and grinned while he was gittin' off his jokes, and then they'd go up and shake hands with him, and there they was all saved and ready to be baptized and taken into the church."

Just here the old yellow rooster fluttered up to the door-step and gave a hoarse, ominous crow.

"There, now! You hear that?" said Aunt Jane, as she tossed him a golden peeling from her pan. "There's some folks that gives right up and looks for sickness or death or bad news every time a rooster crows in the door. But I never let such things bother me. The Bible says that nobody knows what a day may bring forth, and if I don't know, it ain't likely my old yeller rooster does.

"What was I talkin' about? Oh, yes—the big meetin'. Well, I never was any hand to say that old ways is best, and I don't say so now. If you can convert a man by callin' him a polecat, why, call him one, of course. And mournin' ain't always a sign o' true repentance. They used to tell how Silas Petty mourned for forty days, and, as Sally Ann said, he had about as much religion as old Dan Tucker's Derby ram.

"However, it was the organ I set out to tell about. It's jest like me to wander away from the p'int. Abram always said a text would have to be made like a postage stamp for me to stick to it. You see, they'd jest got a fine new organ at Mary Frances' church, and she was tellin' me how they paid for it. One man give five hundred dollars, and another give three hundred; then they collected four or five hundred amongst the other members, and give a lawn party and a strawberry festival and raised another hundred. It set me to thinkin' o' the time us women got the organ for Goshen church. It wasn't any light matter, for, besides the money it took us nearly three years to raise, there was the opposition. Come to think of it, we raised more opposition than we did money."

And Aunt Jane laughed a blithe laugh and tossed another peeling to the yellow rooster, who had dropped the rôle of harbinger of evil and was posing as a humble suppliant.

"An organ in them days, honey, was jest a wedge to split the church half in two. It was the new cyarpet that brought on the organ. You know how it is with yourself; you git a new dress, and then you've got to have a new bonnet, and then you can't wear your old shoes and gloves with a new dress and a new bonnet, and the first thing you know you've spent five times as much as you set out to spend. That's the way it was with us about the cyarpet and the organ and the pulpit chairs and the communion set.

"Most o' the men folks was against the organ from the start, and Silas Petty was the foremost. Silas made a p'int of goin' against everything that women favored. Sally Ann used to say that if a woman was to come up to him and say, 'Le's go to heaven,' Silas would start off towards the other place right at once; he was jest that mulish and contrairy. He met Sally Ann one day, and says he, 'Jest give you women rope enough and you'll turn the house o' the Lord into a reg'lar toy-shop.' And Sally Ann she says, 'You'd better go home, Silas, and read the book of Exodus. If the Lord told Moses how to build the Tabernicle with the goats' skins and rams' skins and blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen and candlesticks with six branches, I reckon he won't object to a few yards o' cyarpetin' and a little organ in Goshen church.'

"Sally Ann always had an answer ready, and I used to think she knew more about the Bible than Parson Page did himself.

"Of course Uncle Jim Matthews didn't want the organ; he was afraid it might interfere with his singin'. Job Taylor always stood up for Silas, so he didn't want it; and Parson Page never opened his mouth one way or the other. He was one o' those men that tries to set on both sides o' the fence at once, and he'd set that way so long he was a mighty good hand at balancin' himself.

"Us women didn't say much, but we made up our minds to have the organ. So we went to work in the Mite Society, and in less'n three years we had enough money to git it. I've often wondered how many pounds o' butter and how many baskets of eggs it took to raise that money. I reckon if they'd 'a' been piled up on top of each other they'd 'a' reached to the top o' the steeple. The women of Israel brought their ear-rings and bracelets to help build the Tabernicle, but we had jest our egg and butter money, and the second year, when the chicken cholery was so bad, our prospects looked mighty blue.

"When I saw that big organ up at Danville, I couldn't help thinkin' about the little thing we worked so hard to git. 'Twasn't much bigger'n a washstand, and I reckon if I was to hear it now, I'd think it was mighty feeble and squeaky. But it sounded fine enough to us in them days, and, little as it was, it raised a disturbance for miles around.

"When it come down from Louisville, Abram went to town with his two-horse wagon and brought it out and set it up in our parlor. My Jane had been takin' lessons in town all winter, so's to be able to play on it.

"We had a right good choir for them days; the only trouble was that everybody wanted to be leader. That's a common failin' with church choirs, I've noticed. Milly Amos sung soprano, and my Jane was the alto; John Petty sung bass, and young Sam Crawford tenor; and as for Uncle Jim Matthews, he sung everything, and a plenty of it, too. Milly Amos used to say he was worse'n a flea. He'd start out on the bass, and first thing you knew he'd be singin' tenor with Sam Crawford; and by the time Sam was good and mad, he'd be off onto the alto or the soprano. He was one o' these meddlesome old creeturs that thinks the world never moved till they got into it, and they've got to help everybody out with whatever they happen to be doin'. You've heard o' children bein' born kickin'. Well, Uncle Jim must 'a' been born singin'. I've seen people that said they didn't like the idea o' goin' to heaven and standin' around a throne and singin' hymns for ever and ever; but you couldn't 'a' pleased Uncle Jim better than to set him down in jest that sort o' heaven. Wherever there was a chance to get in some singin', there you'd be sure to find Uncle Jim. Folks used to say he enjoyed a funeral a heap better than he did a weddin', 'cause he could sing at the funeral, and he couldn't at the weddin'; and Sam Crawford said he believed if Gabriel was to come down and blow his trumpet, Uncle Jim would git up and begin to sing.

"It wouldn't 'a' been so bad if he'd had any sort of a voice; but he'd been singin' all his life and hollerin' at protracted meetin's ever since he got religion, till he'd sung and hollered all the music out of his voice, and there wasn't much left but the old creaky machinery. It used to make me think of an old rickety house with the blinds flappin' in the wind. It mortified us terrible to have any of the Methodists or Babtists come to our church. We was sort o' used to the old man's capers, but people that wasn't couldn't keep a straight face when the singin' begun, and it took more grace than any of us had to keep from gittin' mad when we seen people from another church laughin' at our choir.

"The Babtists had a powerful protracted meetin' one winter. Uncle Jim was there to help with the singin', as a matter of course, and he begun to git mightily interested in Babtist doctrines. Used to go home with 'em after church and talk about Greek and Hebrew words till the clock struck twelve. And one communion Sunday he got up solemn as a owl and marched out o' church jest before the bread and wine was passed. Made out like he warn't sure he'd been rightly babtized. The choir was mightily tickled at the idea o' gittin' shed o' the old pest, and Sam Crawford went to him and told him he was on the right track and to go ahead, for the Babtists was undoubtedly correct, and if it wasn't for displeasin' his father and mother he'd jine 'em himself. And then—Sam never could let well enough alone—then he went to Bush Elrod, the Babtist tenor, and says he, 'I hear you're goin' to have a new member in your choir.' And Bush says, 'Well, if the old idiot ever jines this church, we'll hold his head under the water so long that he won't be able to spile good music agin.' And then he give Uncle Jim a hint o' how things was; and when Uncle Jim heard that the Presbyterians was anxious to git shed of him, he found out right away that all them Greek and Hebrew words meant sprinklin' and infant babtism. So he settled down to stay where he was, and hollered louder'n ever the next Sunday.

"The old man was a good enough Christian, I reckon; but when it come to singin', he was a stumblin'-block and rock of offense to the whole church, and especially to the choir. The first thing Sally Ann said when she looked at the new organ was, 'Well, Jane, how do you reckon it's goin' to sound with Uncle Jim's voice?' and I laughed till I had to set down in a cheer.

"Well, when the men folks found out that our organ had come, they begun to wake up. Abram had brought it out Tuesday, and Wednesday night, as soon as prayer-meetin' broke, Parson Page says, says he: 'Brethren, there is a little business to be transacted. Please remain a few minutes longer.' And then, when we had set down again, he went on to say that the sisters had raised money and bought an organ, and there was some division of opinion among the brethren about usin' it, so he would like to have the matter discussed. He used a lot o' big words and talked mighty smooth, and I knew there was trouble ahead for us women.

"Uncle Jim was the first one to speak. He was so anxious to begin, he could hardly wait for Parson Page to stop; and anybody would 'a' thought that he'd been up to heaven and talked with the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost and all the angels, to hear him tell about the sort o' music there was in heaven, and the sort there ought to be on earth. 'Why, brethren,' says he, 'when John saw the heavens opened there wasn't no organs up there. God don't keer nothin',' says he, 'about such new-fangled, worldly instruments. But when a lot o' sweet human voices git to praisin' him, why, the very angels stop singin' to listen.'

"Milly Amos was right behind me, and she leaned over and says, 'Well, if the angels'd rather hear Uncle Jim's singin' than our organ, they've got mighty pore taste, that's all I've got to say.'

"Silas Petty was the next one to git up, and says he: 'I never was in favor o' doin' things half-way, brethren; and if we've got to have the organ, why, we might as well have a monkey, too, and be done with it. For my part,' says he, 'I want to worship in the good old way my fathers and grandfathers worshiped in, and, unless my feelin's change very considerable, I shall have to withdraw from this church if any such Satan's music-box is set up in this holy place.'

"And Sally Ann turned around and whispered to me, 'We ought to 'a' got that organ long ago, Jane.' I like to 'a' laughed right out, and I leaned over, and says I, 'Why don't you git up and talk for us, Sally Ann?' and she says: 'The spirit ain't moved me, Jane. I reckon it's too busy movin' Uncle Jim and Silas Petty.'

"Jest then I looked around, and there was Abram standin' up. Well, you could 'a' knocked me over with a feather. Abram always was one o' those close-mouthed men. Never spoke if he could git around it any way whatever. Parson Page used to git after him every protracted meetin' about not leadin' in prayer and havin' family worship; but the spirit moved him that time sure, and there he was talkin' as glib as old Uncle Jim. And says he: 'Brethren, I'm not carin' much one way or another about this organ. I don't know how the angels feel about it, not havin' so much acquaintance with 'em as Uncle Jim has; but I do know enough about women to know that there ain't any use tryin' to stop 'em when they git their heads set on a thing, and I'm goin' to haul that organ over to-morrow mornin' and set it up for the choir to practise by Friday night. If I don't haul it over, Sally Ann and Jane'll tote it over between 'em, and if they can't put it into the church by the door, they'll hist a window and put it in that way. I reckon,' says he, 'I've got all the men against me in this matter, but then, I've got all the women on my side, and I reckon all the women and one man makes a pretty good majority, and so I'm goin' to haul the organ over to-morrow mornin'.'

"I declare I felt real proud of Abram, and I told him so that night when we was goin' home together. Then Parson Page he says, 'It seems to me there is sound sense in what Brother Parish says, and I suggest that we allow the sisters to have their way and give the organ a trial; and if we find that it is hurtful to the interests of the church, it will be an easy matter to remove it.' And Milly Amos says to me, 'I see 'em gittin' that organ out if we once git it in.'

"When the choir met Friday night, Milly come in all in a flurry, and says she: 'I hear Brother Gardner has gone to the 'Sociation down in Russellville, and all the Babtists are comin' to our church Sunday; and I want to show 'em what good music is this once, anyhow. Uncle Jim Matthews is laid up with rheumatism,' says she, 'and if that ain't a special providence I never saw one.' And Sam Crawford slapped his knee, and says he, 'Well, if the old man's rheumatism jest holds out over Sunday, them Babtists'll hear music sure.'

"Then Milly went on to tell that she'd been up to Squire Elrod's, and Miss Penelope, the squire's niece from Louisville, had promised to sing a voluntary Sunday.

"'Voluntary? What's that?' says Sam.

"'Why,' says Milly, 'it's a hymn that the choir, or somebody in it, sings of their own accord, without the preacher givin' it out; just like your tomatoes come up in the spring, voluntary, without you plantin' the seed. That's the way they do in the city churches,' says she, 'and we are goin' to put on city style Sunday.'

"Then they went to work and practised some new tunes for the hymns Parson Page had give 'em, so if Uncle Jim's rheumatism didn't hold out, he'd still have to hold his peace.

"Well, Sunday come; but special providence was on Uncle Jim's side that time, and there he was as smilin' as a basket o' chips if he did have to walk with a cane. We'd had the church cleaned up as neat as a new pin. My Jane had put a bunch of honeysuckles and pinks on the organ, and everybody was dressed in their best. Miss Penelope was settin' at the organ with a bunch of roses in her hand, and the windows was all open, and you could see the trees wavin' in the wind and hear the birds singin' outside. I always did think that was the best part o' Sunday—that time jest before church begins."

Aunt Jane's voice dropped. Her words came slowly; and into the story fell one of those "flashes of silence" to which she was as little given as the great historian. The pan of dumplings waited for the sprinkling of spice and sugar, while she stood motionless, looking afar off, though her gaze apparently stopped on the vacant whitewashed wall before her. No mind reader's art was needed to tell what scene her faded eyes beheld. There was the old church, with its battered furniture and high pulpit. For one brief moment the grave had yielded up its dead, and "the old familiar faces" looked out from every pew. We were very near together, Aunt Jane and I; but the breeze that fanned her brow was not the breeze I felt as I sat by her kitchen window. For her a wind was blowing across the plains of memory; and the honeysuckle odor it carried was not from the bush in the yard. It came, weighted with dreams, from the blossoms that her Jane had placed on the organ twenty-five years ago. A bob-white was calling in the meadow across the dusty road, and the echoes of the second bell had just died away. She and Abram were side by side in their accustomed place, and life lay like a watered garden in the peaceful stillness of the time "jest before church begins."

The asparagus on the stove boiled over with a great spluttering, and Aunt Jane came back to "the eternal now."

"Sakes alive!" she exclaimed, as she lifted the saucepan; "I must be gittin' old, to let things boil over this way while I'm studyin' about old times. I declare, I believe I've clean forgot what I was sayin'."

"You were at church," I suggested, "and the singing was about to begin."

"Sure enough! Well, all at once Miss Penelope laid her hands on the keys and begun to play and sing 'Nearer, My God, to Thee.' We'd heard that hymn all our lives at church and protracted meetin's and prayer-meetin's, but we didn't know how it could sound till Miss Penelope sung it all by herself that day with our new organ. I ricollect jest how she looked, pretty little thing that she was; and sometimes I can hear her voice jest as plain as I hear that robin out yonder in the ellum tree. Every word was jest like a bright new piece o' silver, and every note was jest like gold; and she was lookin' up through the winder at the trees and the sky like she was singin' to somebody we couldn't see. We clean forgot about the new organ and the Baptists; and I really believe we was feelin' nearer to God than we'd ever felt before. When she got through with the first verse, she played somethin' soft and sweet and begun again; and right in the middle of the first line—I declare, it's twenty-five years ago, but I git mad now when I think about it—right in the middle of the first line Uncle Jim jined in like an old squawkin' jay-bird, and sung like he was tryin' to drown out Miss Penelope and the new organ, too.

"Everybody give a jump when he first started, and he'd got nearly through the verse before we took in what was happenin'. Even the Babtists jest looked surprised like the rest of us. But when Miss Penelope begun the third time and Uncle Jim jined in with his hollerin', I saw Bush Elrod grin, and that grin spread all over the Babtist crowd in no time. The Presbyterian young folks was gigglin' behind their fans, and Bush got to laughin' till he had to git up and leave the church. They said he went up the road to Sam Amos' pasture and laid down on the ground and rolled over and over and laughed till he couldn't laugh any more.

"I was so mad I started to git up, though goodness knows what I could 'a' done. Abram he grabbed my dress and says, 'Steady, Jane!' jest like he was talkin' to the old mare. The thing that made me maddest was Silas Petty a-leanin' back in his pew and smilin' as satisfied as if he'd seen the salvation of the Lord. I didn't mind the Babtists half as much as I did Silas.

"The only person in the church that wasn't the least bit flustered was Miss Penelope. She was a Marshall on her mother's side, and I always said that nobody but a born lady could 'a' acted as she did. She sung right on as if everything was goin' exactly right and she'd been singin' hymns with Uncle Jim all her life. Two or three times when the old man kind o' lagged behind, it looked like she waited for him to ketch up, and when she got through and Uncle Jim was lumberin' on the last note, she folded her hands and set there lookin' out the winder where the sun was shinin' on the silver poplar trees, jest as peaceful as a angel, and the rest of us as mad as hornets. Milly Amos set back of Uncle Jim, and his red bandanna handkerchief was lyin' over his shoulders where he'd been shooin' the flies away. She told me the next day it was all she could do to keep from reachin' over and chokin' the old man off while Miss Penelope was singin'.

"I said Miss Penelope was the only one that wasn't flustered. I ought to 'a' said Miss Penelope and Uncle Jim. The old creetur was jest that simple-minded he didn't know he'd done anything out o' the way, and he set there lookin' as pleased as a child, and thinkin', I reckon, how smart he'd been to help Miss Penelope out with the singin'.

"The rest o' the hymns went off all right, and it did me good to see Uncle Jim's face when they struck up the new tunes. He tried to jine in, but he had to give it up and wait for the doxology.

"Parson Page preached a powerful good sermon, but I don't reckon it did some of us much good, we was so put out about Uncle Jim spilin' our voluntary.

"After meetin' broke and we was goin' home, me and Abram had to pass by Silas Petty's wagon. He was helpin' Maria in, and I don't know what she'd been sayin', but he says, 'It's a righteous judgment on you women, Maria, for profanin' the Lord's house with that there organ.' And, mad as I was, I had to laugh when I thought of old Uncle Jim Matthews executin' a judgment of the Lord. Uncle Jim never made more'n a half-way livin' at the carpenter's trade, and I reckon if the Lord had wanted anybody to help him execute a judgment, Uncle Jim would 'a' been the last man he'd 'a' thought of.

"Of course the choir was madder'n ever at Uncle Jim; and when Milly Amos had fever that summer, she called Sam to her the day she was at her worst, and pulled his head down and whispered as feeble as a baby: 'Don't let Uncle Jim sing at my funeral, Sam. I'll rise up out of my coffin if he does.' And Sam broke out a-laughin' and a-cryin' at the same time—he thought a heap o' Milly—and says he, 'Well, Milly, if it'll have that effect, Uncle Jim shall sing at the funeral, sure.' And Milly got to laughin', weak as she was, and in a few minutes she dropped off to sleep, and when she woke up the fever was gone, and she begun to git well from that day. I always believed that laugh was the turnin'-p'int. Instead of Uncle Jim singin' at her funeral, she sung at Uncle Jim's, and broke down and cried like a child for all the mean things she'd said about the pore old creetur's voice."

The asparagus had been transferred to a china dish, and the browned butter was ready to pour over it. The potatoes were steaming themselves into mealy delicacy, and Aunt Jane peered into the stove where the dumplings were taking on a golden brown. Her story-telling evidently did not interfere with her culinary skill, and I said so.

"La, child," she replied, dashing a pinch of "seasonin" into the peas, "when I git so old I can't do but one thing at a time, I'll try to die as soon as possible."

III

AUNT JANE'S ALBUM

hey were a bizarre mass of color on the sweet spring landscape, those patchwork quilts, swaying in a long line under the elms and maples. The old orchard made a blossoming background for them, and farther off on the horizon rose the beauty of fresh verdure and purple mist on those low hills, or "knobs," that are to the heart of the Kentuckian as the Alps to the Swiss or the sea to the sailor.

I opened the gate softly and paused for a moment between the blossoming lilacs that grew on each side of the path. The fragrance of the white and the purple blooms was like a resurrection-call over the graves of many a dead spring; and as I stood, shaken with thoughts as the flowers are with the winds, Aunt Jane came around from the back of the house, her black silk cape fluttering from her shoulders, and a calico sunbonnet hiding her features in its cavernous depth. She walked briskly to the clothes-line and began patting and smoothing the quilts where the breeze had disarranged them.

"Aunt Jane," I called out, "are you having a fair all by yourself?"

She turned quickly, pushing back the sunbonnet from her eyes.

"Why, child," she said, with a happy laugh, "you come pretty nigh skeerin' me. No, I ain't havin' any fair; I'm jest givin' my quilts their spring airin'. Twice a year I put 'em out in the sun and wind; and this mornin' the air smelt so sweet, I thought it was a good chance to freshen 'em up for the summer. It's about time to take 'em in now."

She began to fold the quilts and lay them over her arm, and I did the same. Back and forth we went from the clothes-line to the house, and from the house to the clothes-line, until the quilts were safely housed from the coming dewfall and piled on every available chair in the front room. I looked at them in sheer amazement. There seemed to be every pattern that the ingenuity of woman could devise and the industry of woman put together,—"four-patches," "nine-patches," "log-cabins," "wild-goose chases," "rising suns," hexagons, diamonds, and only Aunt Jane knows what else. As for color, a Sandwich Islander would have danced with joy at the sight of those reds, purples, yellows, and greens.

"Did you really make all these quilts, Aunt Jane?" I asked wonderingly.

Aunt Jane's eyes sparkled with pride.

"Every stitch of 'em, child," she said, "except the quiltin'. The neighbors used to come in and help some with that. I've heard folks say that piecin' quilts was nothin' but a waste o' time, but that ain't always so. They used to say that Sarah Jane Mitchell would set down right after breakfast and piece till it was time to git dinner, and then set and piece till she had to git supper, and then piece by candle-light till she fell asleep in her cheer.

"I ricollect goin' over there one day, and Sarah Jane was gittin' dinner in a big hurry, for Sam had to go to town with some cattle, and there was a big basket o' quilt pieces in the middle o' the kitchen floor, and the house lookin' like a pigpen, and the children runnin' around half naked. And Sam he laughed, and says he, 'Aunt Jane, if we could wear quilts and eat quilts we'd be the richest people in the country.' Sam was the best-natured man that ever was, or he couldn't 'a' put up with Sarah Jane's shiftless ways. Hannah Crawford said she sent Sarah Jane a bundle o' caliker once by Sam, and Sam always declared he lost it. But Uncle Jim Matthews said he was ridin' along the road jest behind Sam, and he saw Sam throw it into the creek jest as he got on the bridge. I never blamed Sam a bit if he did.

"But there never was any time wasted on my quilts, child. I can look at every one of 'em with a clear conscience. I did my work faithful; and then, when I might 'a' set and held my hands, I'd make a block or two o' patchwork, and before long I'd have enough to put together in a quilt. I went to piecin' as soon as I was old enough to hold a needle and a piece o' cloth, and one o' the first things I can remember was settin' on the back door-step sewin' my quilt pieces, and mother praisin' my stitches. Nowadays folks don't have to sew unless they want to, but when I was a child there warn't any sewin'-machines, and it was about as needful for folks to know how to sew as it was for 'em to know how to eat; and every child that was well raised could hem and run and backstitch and gether and overhand by the time she was nine years old. Why, I'd pieced four quilts by the time I was nineteen years old, and when me and Abram set up housekeepin' I had bedclothes enough for three beds.

"I've had a heap o' comfort all my life makin' quilts, and now in my old age I wouldn't take a fortune for 'em. Set down here, child, where you can see out o' the winder and smell the lilacs, and we'll look at 'em all. You see, some folks has albums to put folks' pictures in to remember 'em by, and some folks has a book and writes down the things that happen every day so they won't forgit 'em; but, honey, these quilts is my albums and my di'ries, and whenever the weather's bad and I can't git out to see folks, I jest spread out my quilts and look at 'em and study over 'em, and it's jest like goin' back fifty or sixty years and livin' my life over agin.

"There ain't nothin' like a piece o' caliker for bringin' back old times, child, unless it's a flower or a bunch o' thyme or a piece o' pennyroy'l—anything that smells sweet. Why, I can go out yonder in the yard and gether a bunch o' that purple lilac and jest shut my eyes and see faces I ain't seen for fifty years, and somethin' goes through me like a flash o' lightnin', and it seems like I'm young agin jest for that minute."

Aunt Jane's hands were stroking lovingly a "nine-patch" that resembled the coat of many colors.

"Now this quilt, honey," she said, "I made out o' the pieces o' my children's clothes, their little dresses and waists and aprons. Some of 'em's dead, and some of 'em's grown and married and a long way off from me, further off than the ones that's dead, I sometimes think. But when I set down and look at this quilt and think over the pieces, it seems like they all come back, and I can see 'em playin' around the floors and goin' in and out, and hear 'em cryin' and laughin' and callin' me jest like they used to do before they grew up to men and women, and before there was any little graves o' mine out in the old buryin'-ground over yonder."

Wonderful imagination of motherhood that can bring childhood back from the dust of the grave and banish the wrinkles and gray hairs of age with no other talisman than a scrap of faded calico!

The old woman's hands were moving tremulously over the surface of the quilt as if they touched the golden curls of the little dream children who had vanished from her hearth so many years ago. But there were no tears either in her eyes or in her voice. I had long noticed that Aunt Jane always smiled when she spoke of the people whom the world calls "dead," or the things it calls "lost" or "past." These words seemed to have for her higher and tenderer meanings than are placed on them by the sorrowful heart of humanity.

But the moments were passing, and one could not dwell too long on any quilt, however well beloved. Aunt Jane rose briskly, folded up the one that lay across her knees, and whisked out another from the huge pile in an old splint-bottomed chair.

"Here's a piece o' one o' Sally Ann's purple caliker dresses. Sally Ann always thought a heap o' purple caliker. Here's one o' Milly Amos' ginghams—that pink-and-white one. And that piece o' white with the rosebuds in it, that's Miss Penelope's. She give it to me the summer before she died. Bless her soul! That dress jest matched her face exactly. Somehow her and her clothes always looked alike, and her voice matched her face, too. One o' the things I'm lookin' forward to, child, is seein' Miss Penelope agin and hearin' her sing. Voices and faces is alike; there's some that you can't remember, and there's some you can't forgit. I've seen a heap o' people and heard a heap o' voices, but Miss Penelope's face was different from all the rest, and so was her voice. Why, if she said 'Good mornin'' to you, you'd hear that 'Good mornin' all day, and her singin'—I know there never was anything like it in this world. My grandchildren all laugh at me for thinkin' so much o' Miss Penelope's singin', but then they never heard her, and I have: that's the difference. My grandchild Henrietta was down here three or four years ago, and says she, 'Grandma, don't you want to go up to Louisville with me and hear Patti sing?' And says I, 'Patty who, child?' Says I, 'If it was to hear Miss Penelope sing, I'd carry these old bones o' mine clear from here to New York. But there ain't anybody else I want to hear sing bad enough to go up to Louisville or anywhere else. And some o' these days,' says I, 'I'm goin' to hear Miss Penelope sing.'"

Aunt Jane laughed blithely, and it was impossible not to laugh with her.

"Honey," she said, in the next breath, lowering her voice and laying her finger on the rosebud piece, "honey, there's one thing I can't git over. Here's a piece o' Miss Penelope's dress, but where's Miss Penelope? Ain't it strange that a piece o' caliker'll outlast you and me? Don't it look like folks ought 'o hold on to their bodies as long as other folks holds on to a piece o' the dresses they used to wear?"

Questions as old as the human heart and its human grief! Here is the glove, but where is the hand it held but yesterday? Here the jewel that she wore, but where is she?

"Where is the Pompadour now?
This was the Pompadour's fan!"

Strange that such things as gloves, jewels, fans, and dresses can outlast a woman's form.

"Behold! I show you a mystery"—the mystery of mortality. And an eery feeling came over me as I entered into the old woman's mood and thought of the strong, vital bodies that had clothed themselves in those fabrics of purple and pink and white, and that now were dust and ashes lying in sad, neglected graves on farm and lonely roadside. There lay the quilt on our knees, and the gay scraps of calico seemed to mock us with their vivid colors. Aunt Jane's cheerful voice called me back from the tombs.

"Here's a piece o' one o' my dresses," she said; "brown ground with a red ring in it. Abram picked it out. And here's another one, that light yeller ground with the vine runnin' through it. I never had so many caliker dresses that I didn't want one more, for in my day folks used to think a caliker dress was good enough to wear anywhere. Abram knew my failin', and two or three times a year he'd bring me a dress when he come from town. And the dresses he'd pick out always suited me better'n the ones I picked."

"I ricollect I finished this quilt the summer before Mary Frances was born, and Sally Ann and Milly Amos and Maria Petty come over and give me a lift on the quiltin'. Here's Milly's work, here's Sally Ann's, and here's Maria's."

I looked, but my inexperienced eye could see no difference in the handiwork of the three women. Aunt Jane saw my look of incredulity.

"Now, child," she said, earnestly, "you think I'm foolin' you, but, la! there's jest as much difference in folks' sewin' as there is in their handwritin'. Milly made a fine stitch, but she couldn't keep on the line to save her life; Maria never could make a reg'lar stitch, some'd be long and some short, and Sally Ann's was reg'lar, but all of 'em coarse. I can see 'em now stoopin' over the quiltin' frames—Milly talkin' as hard as she sewed, Sally Ann throwin' in a word now and then, and Maria never openin' her mouth except to ask for the thread or the chalk. I ricollect they come over after dinner, and we got the quilt out o' the frames long before sundown, and the next day I begun bindin' it, and I got the premium on it that year at the Fair.

"I hardly ever showed a quilt at the Fair that I didn't take the premium, but here's one quilt that Sarah Jane Mitchell beat me on."

And Aunt Jane dragged out a ponderous, red-lined affair, the very antithesis of the silken, down-filled comfortable that rests so lightly on the couch of the modern dame.

"It makes me laugh jest to think o' that time, and how happy Sarah Jane was. It was way back yonder in the fifties. I ricollect we had a mighty fine Fair that year. The crops was all fine that season, and such apples and pears and grapes you never did see. The Floral Hall was full o' things, and the whole county turned out to go to the Fair. Abram and me got there the first day bright and early, and we was walkin' around the amp'itheater and lookin' at the townfolks and the sights, and we met Sally Ann. She stopped us, and says she, 'Sarah Jane Mitchell's got a quilt in the Floral Hall in competition with yours and Milly Amos'.' Says I, 'Is that all the competition there is?' And Sally Ann says, 'All that amounts to anything. There's one more, but it's about as bad a piece o' sewin' as Sarah Jane's, and that looks like it'd hardly hold together till the Fair's over. And,' says she, 'I don't believe there'll be any more. It looks like this was an off year on that particular kind o' quilt. I didn't get mine done,' says she, 'and neither did Maria Petty, and maybe it's a good thing after all.'

"Well, I saw in a minute what Sally Ann was aimin' at. And I says to Abram, 'Abram, haven't you got somethin' to do with app'intin' the judges for the women's things?' And he says, 'Yes.' And I says, 'Well, you see to it that Sally Ann gits app'inted to help judge the caliker quilts.' And bless your soul, Abram got me and Sally Ann both app'inted. The other judge was Mis' Doctor Brigham, one o' the town ladies. We told her all about what we wanted to do, and she jest laughed and says, 'Well, if that ain't the kindest, nicest thing! Of course we'll do it.'

"Seein' that I had a quilt there, I hadn't a bit o' business bein' a judge; but the first thing I did was to fold my quilt up and hide it under Maria Petty's big worsted quilt, and then we pinned the blue ribbon on Sarah Jane's and the red on Milly's. I'd fixed it all up with Milly, and she was jest as willin' as I was for Sarah Jane to have the premium. There was jest one thing I was afraid of: Milly was a good-hearted woman, but she never had much control over her tongue. And I says to her, says I: 'Milly, it's mighty good of you to give up your chance for the premium, but if Sarah Jane ever finds it out, that'll spoil everything. For,' says I, 'there ain't any kindness in doin' a person a favor and then tellin' everybody about it.' And Milly laughed, and says she: 'I know what you mean, Aunt Jane. It's mighty hard for me to keep from tellin' everything I know and some things I don't know, but,' says she, 'I'm never goin' to tell this, even to Sam.' And she kept her word, too. Every once in a while she'd come up to me and whisper, 'I ain't told it yet, Aunt Jane,' jest to see me laugh.

"As soon as the doors was open, after we'd all got through judgin' and puttin' on the ribbons, Milly went and hunted Sarah Jane up and told her that her quilt had the blue ribbon. They said the pore thing like to 'a' fainted for joy. She turned right white, and had to lean up against the post for a while before she could git to the Floral Hall. I never shall forgit her face. It was worth a dozen premiums to me, and Milly, too. She jest stood lookin' at that quilt and the blue ribbon on it, and her eyes was full o' tears and her lips quiverin', and then she started off and brought the children in to look at 'Mammy's quilt.' She met Sam on the way out, and says she: 'Sam, what do you reckon? My quilt took the premium.' And I believe in my soul Sam was as much pleased as Sarah Jane. He came saunterin' up, tryin' to look unconcerned, but anybody could see he was mighty well satisfied. It does a husband and wife a heap o' good to be proud of each other, and I reckon that was the first time Sam ever had cause to be proud o' pore Sarah Jane. It's my belief that he thought more o' Sarah Jane all the rest o' her life jest on account o' that premium. Me and Sally Ann helped her pick it out. She had her choice betwixt a butter-dish and a cup, and she took the cup. Folks used to laugh and say that that cup was the only thing in Sarah Jane's house that was kept clean and bright, and if it hadn't 'a' been solid silver, she'd 'a' wore it all out rubbin' it up. Sarah Jane died o' pneumonia about three or four years after that, and the folks that nursed her said she wouldn't take a drink o' water or a dose o' medicine out o' any cup but that. There's some folks, child, that don't have to do anything but walk along and hold out their hands, and the premiums jest naturally fall into 'em; and there's others that work and strive the best they know how, and nothin' ever seems to come to 'em; and I reckon nobody but the Lord and Sarah Jane knows how much happiness she got out o' that cup. I'm thankful she had that much pleasure before she died."

There was a quilt hanging over the foot of the bed that had about it a certain air of distinction. It was a solid mass of patchwork, composed of squares, parallelograms, and hexagons. The squares were of dark gray and red-brown, the hexagons were white, the parallelograms black and light gray. I felt sure that it had a history that set it apart from its ordinary fellows.

"Where did you get the pattern, Aunt Jane?" I asked. "I never saw anything like it."

The old lady's eyes sparkled, and she laughed with pure pleasure.

"That's what everybody says," she exclaimed, jumping up and spreading the favored quilt over two laden chairs, where its merits became more apparent and striking. "There ain't another quilt like this in the State o' Kentucky, or the world, for that matter. My granddaughter Henrietta, Mary Frances' youngest child, brought me this pattern from Europe."

She spoke the words as one might say, "from Paradise," or "from Olympus," or "from the Lost Atlantis." "Europe" was evidently a name to conjure with, a country of mystery and romance unspeakable. I had seen many things from many lands beyond the sea, but a quilt pattern from Europe! Here at last was something new under the sun. In what shop of London or Paris were quilt patterns kept on sale for the American tourist?

"You see," said Aunt Jane, "Henrietta married a mighty rich man, and jest as good as he's rich, too, and they went to Europe on their bridal trip. When she come home she brought me the prettiest shawl you ever saw. She made me stand up and shut my eyes, and she put it on my shoulders and made me look in the lookin'-glass, and then she says, 'I brought you a new quilt pattern, too, grandma, and I want you to piece one quilt by it and leave it to me when you die.' And then she told me about goin' to a town over yonder they call Florence, and how she went into a big church that was built hundreds o' years before I was born. And she said the floor was made o' little pieces o' colored stone, all laid together in a pattern, and they called it mosaic. And says I, 'Honey, has it got anything to do with Moses and his law?' You know the Commandments was called the Mosaic Law, and was all on tables o' stone. And Henrietta jest laughed, and says she: 'No, grandma; I don't believe it has. But,' says she, 'the minute I stepped on that pavement I thought about you, and I drew this pattern off on a piece o' paper and brought it all the way to Kentucky for you to make a quilt by.' Henrietta bought the worsted for me, for she said it had to be jest the colors o' that pavement over yonder, and I made it that very winter."

Aunt Jane was regarding the quilt with worshipful eyes, and it really was an effective combination of color and form.

"Many a time while I was piecin' that," she said, "I thought about the man that laid the pavement in that old church, and wondered what his name was, and how he looked, and what he'd think if he knew there was a old woman down here in Kentucky usin' his patterns to make a bedquilt."

It was indeed a far cry from the Florentine artisan of centuries ago to this humble worker in calico and worsted, but between the two stretched a cord of sympathy that made them one—the eternal aspiration after beauty.

"Honey," said Aunt Jane, suddenly, "did I ever show you my premiums?"

And then, with pleasant excitement in her manner, she arose, fumbled in her deep pocket for an ancient bunch of keys, and unlocked a cupboard on one side of the fireplace. One by one she drew them out, unrolled the soft yellow tissue-paper that enfolded them, and ranged them in a stately line on the old cherry center-table—nineteen sterling silver cups and goblets. "Abram took some of 'em on his fine stock, and I took some of 'em on my quilts and salt-risin' bread and cakes," she said, impressively.

To the artist his medals, to the soldier his cross of the Legion of Honor, and to Aunt Jane her silver cups. All the triumph of a humble life was symbolized in these shining things. They were simple and genuine as the days in which they were made. A few of them boasted a beaded edge or a golden lining, but no engraving or embossing marred their silver purity. On the bottom of each was the stamp: "John B. Akin, Danville, Ky." There they stood,

"Filled to the brim with precious memories,"—

memories of the time when she and Abram had worked together in field or garden or home, and the County Fair brought to all a yearly opportunity to stand on the height of achievement and know somewhat the taste of Fame's enchanted cup.

"There's one for every child and every grandchild," she said, quietly, as she began wrapping them in the silky paper, and storing them carefully away in the cupboard, there to rest until the day when children and grandchildren would claim their own, and the treasures of the dead would come forth from the darkness to stand as heirlooms on fashionable sideboards and damask-covered tables.

"Did you ever think, child," she said, presently, "how much piecin' a quilt's like livin' a life? And as for sermons, why, they ain't no better sermon to me than a patchwork quilt, and the doctrines is right there a heap plainer'n they are in the catechism. Many a time I've set and listened to Parson Page preachin' about predestination and free-will, and I've said to myself, 'Well, I ain't never been through Centre College up at Danville, but if I could jest git up in the pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make it a heap plainer to folks than parson's makin' it with all his big words.' You see, you start out with jest so much caliker; you don't go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbors will give you a piece here and a piece there, and you'll have a piece left every time you cut out a dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that's like predestination. But when it comes to the cuttin' out, why, you're free to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o' pieces to two persons, and one'll make a 'nine-patch' and one'll make a 'wild-goose chase,' and there'll be two quilts made out o' the same kind o' pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut 'em out and put 'em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there's a heap more in the cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the caliker. The same sort o' things comes into all lives, jest as the Apostle says, 'There hath no trouble taken you but is common to all men.'

"The same trouble'll come into two people's lives, and one'll take it and make one thing out of it, and the other'll make somethin' entirely different. There was Mary Harris and Mandy Crawford. They both lost their husbands the same year; and Mandy set down and cried and worried and wondered what on earth she was goin' to do, and the farm went to wrack and the children turned out bad, and she had to live with her son-in-law in her old age. But Mary, she got up and went to work, and made everybody about her work, too; and she managed the farm better'n it ever had been managed before, and the boys all come up steady, hard-workin' men, and there wasn't a woman in the county better fixed up than Mary Harris. Things is predestined to come to us, honey, but we're jest as free as air to make what we please out of 'em. And when it comes to puttin' the pieces together, there's another time when we're free. You don't trust to luck for the caliker to put your quilt together with; you go to the store and pick it out yourself, any color you like. There's folks that always looks on the bright side and makes the best of everything, and that's like puttin' your quilt together with blue or pink or white or some other pretty color; and there's folks that never see anything but the dark side, and always lookin' for trouble, and treasurin' it up after they git it, and they're puttin' their lives together with black, jest like you would put a quilt together with some dark, ugly color. You can spoil the prettiest quilt pieces that ever was made jest by puttin' 'em together with the wrong color, and the best sort o' life is miserable if you don't look at things right and think about 'em right.

"Then there's another thing. I've seen folks piece and piece, but when it come to puttin' the blocks together and quiltin' and linin' it, they'd give out; and that's like folks that do a little here and a little there, but their lives ain't of much use after all, any more'n a lot o' loose pieces o' patchwork. And then while you're livin' your life, it looks pretty much like a jumble o' quilt pieces before they're put together; but when you git through with it, or pretty nigh through, as I am now, you'll see the use and the purpose of everything in it. Everything'll be in its right place jest like the squares in this 'four-patch,' and one piece may be pretty and another one ugly, but it all looks right when you see it finished and joined together."

Did I say that every pattern was represented? No, there was one notable omission. Not a single "crazy quilt" was there in the collection. I called Aunt Jane's attention to this lack.

"Child," she said, "I used to say there wasn't anything I couldn't do if I made up my mind to it. But I hadn't seen a 'crazy quilt' then. The first one I ever seen was up at Danville at Mary Frances', and Henrietta says, 'Now, grandma, you've got to make a crazy quilt; you've made every other sort that ever was heard of.' And she brought me the pieces and showed me how to baste 'em on the square, and said she'd work the fancy stitches around 'em for me. Well, I set there all the mornin' tryin' to fix up that square, and the more I tried, the uglier and crookeder the thing looked. And finally I says: 'Here, child, take your pieces. If I was to make this the way you want me to, they'd be a crazy quilt and a crazy woman, too.'"

Aunt Jane was laying the folded quilts in neat piles here and there about the room. There was a look of unspeakable satisfaction on her face—the look of the creator who sees his completed work and pronounces it good.

"I've been a hard worker all my life," she said, seating herself and folding her hands restfully, "but 'most all my work has been the kind that 'perishes with the usin',' as the Bible says. That's the discouragin' thing about a woman's work. Milly Amos used to say that if a woman was to see all the dishes that she had to wash before she died, piled up before her in one pile, she'd lie down and die right then and there. I've always had the name o' bein' a good housekeeper, but when I'm dead and gone there ain't anybody goin' to think o' the floors I've swept, and the tables I've scrubbed, and the old clothes I've patched, and the stockin's I've darned. Abram might 'a' remembered it, but he ain't here. But when one o' my grandchildren or great-grandchildren sees one o' these quilts, they'll think about Aunt Jane, and, wherever I am then, I'll know I ain't forgotten.

"I reckon everybody wants to leave somethin' behind that'll last after they're dead and gone. It don't look like it's worth while to live unless you can do that. The Bible says folks 'rest from their labors, and their works do follow them,' but that ain't so. They go, and maybe they do rest, but their works stay right here, unless they're the sort that don't outlast the usin'. Now, some folks has money to build monuments with—great, tall, marble pillars, with angels on top of 'em, like you see in Cave Hill and them big city buryin'-grounds. And some folks can build churches and schools and hospitals to keep folks in mind of 'em, but all the work I've got to leave behind me is jest these quilts, and sometimes, when I'm settin' here, workin' with my caliker and gingham pieces, I'll finish off a block, and I laugh and say to myself, 'Well, here's another stone for the monument.'

"I reckon you think, child, that a caliker or a worsted quilt is a curious sort of a monument—'bout as perishable as the sweepin' and scrubbin' and mendin'. But if folks values things rightly, and knows how to take care of 'em, there ain't many things that'll last longer'n a quilt. Why, I've got a blue and white counterpane that my mother's mother spun and wove, and there ain't a sign o' givin' out in it yet. I'm goin' to will that to my granddaughter that lives in Danville, Mary Frances' oldest child. She was down here last summer, and I was lookin' over my things and packin' 'em away, and she happened to see that counterpane, and says she, 'Grandma, I want you to will me that.' And says I: 'What do you want with that old thing, honey? You know you wouldn't sleep under such a counterpane as that.' And says she, 'No, but I'd hang it up over my parlor door for a—"

"Portière?" I suggested, as Aunt Jane hesitated for the unaccustomed word.

"That's it, child. Somehow I can't ricollect these new-fangled words, any more'n I can understand these new-fangled ways. Who'd ever 'a' thought that folks'd go to stringin' up bed-coverin's in their doors? And says I to Janie, 'You can hang your great-grandmother's counterpane up in your parlor door if you want to, but,' says I, 'don't you ever make a door-curtain out o' one o' my quilts.' But la! the way things turn around, if I was to come back fifty years from now, like as not I'd find 'em usin' my quilts for window-curtains or door-mats."

We both laughed, and there rose in my mind a picture of a twentieth-century house decorated with Aunt Jane's "nine-patches" and "rising suns." How could the dear old woman know that the same esthetic sense that had drawn from their obscurity the white and blue counterpanes of colonial days would forever protect her loved quilts from such a desecration as she feared? As she lifted a pair of quilts from a chair near by, I caught sight of a pure white spread in striking contrast with the many-hued patchwork.

"Where did you get that Marseilles spread, Aunt Jane?" I asked, pointing to it. Aunt Jane lifted it and laid it on my lap without a word. Evidently she thought that here was something that could speak for itself. It was two layers of snowy cotton cloth thinly lined with cotton, and elaborately quilted into a perfect imitation of a Marseilles counterpane. The pattern was a tracery of roses, buds, and leaves, very much conventionalized, but still recognizable for the things they were. The stitches were fairylike, and altogether it might have covered the bed of a queen.

"I made every stitch o' that spread the year before me and Abram was married," she said. "I put it on my bed when we went to housekeepin'; it was on the bed when Abram died, and when I die I want 'em to cover me with it." There was a life-history in the simple words. I thought of Desdemona and her bridal sheets, and I did not offer to help Aunt Jane as she folded this quilt.

"I reckon you think," she resumed presently, "that I'm a mean, stingy old creetur not to give Janie the counterpane now, instead o' hoardin' it up, and all these quilts too, and keepin' folks waitin' for 'em till I die. But, honey, it ain't all selfishness. I'd give away my best dress or my best bonnet or an acre o' ground to anybody that needed 'em more'n I did; but these quilts—Why, it looks like my whole life was sewed up in 'em, and I ain't goin' to part with 'em while life lasts."

There was a ring of passionate eagerness in the old voice, and she fell to putting away her treasures as if the suggestion of losing them had made her fearful of their safety.

I looked again at the heap of quilts. An hour ago they had been patchwork, and nothing more. But now! The old woman's words had wrought a transformation in the homely mass of calico and silk and worsted. Patchwork? Ah, no! It was memory, imagination, history, biography, joy, sorrow, philosophy, religion, romance, realism, life, love, and death; and over all, like a halo, the love of the artist for his work and the soul's longing for earthly immortality.

No wonder the wrinkled fingers smoothed them as reverently as we handle the garments of the dead.

IV

"SWEET DAY OF REST"

walked slowly down the "big road" that Sunday afternoon—slowly, as befitted the scene and the season; for who would hurry over the path that summer has prepared for the feet of earth's tired pilgrims? It was the middle of June, and Nature lay a vision of beauty in her vesture of flowers, leaves, and blossoming grasses. The sandy road was a pleasant walking-place; and if one tired of that, the short, thick grass on either side held a fairy path fragrant with pennyroyal, that most virtuous of herbs. A tall hedge of Osage orange bordered each side of the road, shading the traveler from the heat of the sun, and furnishing a nesting-place for numberless small birds that twittered and chirped their joy in life and love and June. Occasionally a gap in the foliage revealed the placid beauty of corn, oats, and clover, stretching in broad expanse to the distant purple woods, with here and there a field of the cloth of gold—the fast-ripening wheat that waited the hand of the mower. Not only is it the traveler's manifest duty to walk slowly in the midst of such surroundings, but he will do well if now and then he sits down and dreams.

As I made the turn in the road and drew near Aunt Jane's house, I heard her voice, a high, sweet, quavering treble, like the notes of an ancient harpsichord. She was singing a hymn that suited the day and the hour:

"Welcome, sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise,
Welcome to this reviving breast,
And these rejoicing eyes."

Mingling with the song I could hear the creak of her old splint-bottomed chair as she rocked gently to and fro. Song and creak ceased at once when she caught sight of me, and before I had opened the gate she was hospitably placing another chair on the porch and smiling a welcome.

"Come in, child, and set down," she exclaimed, moving the rocker so that I might have a good view of the bit of landscape that she knew I loved to look at.

"Pennyroy'l! Now, child, how did you know I love to smell that?" She crushed the bunch in her withered hands, buried her face in it and sat for a moment with closed eyes. "Lord! Lord!" she exclaimed, with deep-drawn breath, "if I could jest tell how that makes me feel! I been smellin' pennyroy'l all my life, and now, when I get hold of a piece of it, sometimes it makes me feel like a little child, and then again it brings up the time when I was a gyirl, and if I was to keep on settin' here and rubbin' this pennyroy'l in my hands, I believe my whole life'd come back to me. Honey-suckles and pinks and roses ain't any sweeter to me. Me and old Uncle Harvey Dean was jest alike about pennyroy'l. Many a time I've seen Uncle Harvey searchin' around in the fence corners in the early part o' May to see if the pennyroy'l was up yet, and in pennyroy'l time you never saw the old man that he didn't have a bunch of it somewheres about him. Aunt Maria Dean used to say there was dried pennyroy'l in every pocket of his coat, and he used to put a big bunch of it on his piller at night. Sundays it looked like Uncle Harvey couldn't enjoy the preachin' and the singin' unless he had a sprig of it in his hand, and I ricollect once seein' him git up durin' the first prayer and tiptoe out o' church and come back with a handful o' pennyroy'l that he'd gethered across the road, and he'd set and smell it and look as pleased as a child with a piece o' candy."

"Piercing sweet" the breath of the crushed wayside herb rose on the air. I had a distinct vision of Uncle Harvey Dean, and wondered if the fields of asphodel might not yield him some small harvest of his much-loved earthly plant, or if he might not be drawn earthward in "pennyroy'l time."

"I was jest settin' here restin'," resumed Aunt Jane, "and thinkin' about Milly Amos. I reckon you heard me singin' fit to scare the crows as you come along. We used to call that Milly Amos' hymn, and I never can hear it without thinkin' o' Milly."

"Why was it Milly Amos' hymn?" I asked.

Aunt Jane laughed blithely.

"La, child!" she said, "don't you ever git tired o' my yarns? Here it is Sunday, and you tryin' to git me started talkin'; and when I git started you know there ain't any tellin' when I'll stop. Come on and le's look at the gyarden; that's more fittin' for Sunday evenin' than tellin' yarns."

So together we went into the garden and marveled happily over the growth of the tasseling corn, the extraordinarily long runners on the young strawberry plants, the size of the green tomatoes, and all the rest of the miracles that sunshine and rain had wrought since my last visit.

The first man and the first woman were gardeners, and there is something wrong in any descendant of theirs who does not love a garden. He is lacking in a primal instinct. But Aunt Jane was in this respect a true daughter of Eve, a faithful co-worker with the sunshine, the winds, the rain, and all other forces of nature.

"What do you reckon folks'd do," she inquired, "if it wasn't for plantin'-time and growin'-time and harvest-time? I've heard folks say they was tired o' livin', but as long as there's a gyarden to be planted and looked after there's somethin' to live for. And unless there's gyardens in heaven I'm pretty certain I ain't goin' to be satisfied there."

But the charms of the garden could not divert me from the main theme, and when we were seated again on the front porch I returned to Milly Amos and her hymn.

"You know," I said, "that there isn't any more harm in talking about a thing on Sunday than there is in thinking about it." And Aunt Jane yielded to the force of my logic.

"I reckon you've heard me tell many a time about our choir," she began, smoothing out her black silk apron with fingers that evidently felt the need of knitting or some other form of familiar work. "John Petty was the bass, Sam Crawford the tenor, my Jane was the alto, and Milly Amos sung soprano. I reckon Milly might 'a' been called the leader of the choir; she was the sort o' woman that generally leads wherever she happens to be, and she had the strongest, finest voice in the whole congregation. All the parts appeared to depend on her, and it seemed like her voice jest carried the rest o' the voices along like one big river that takes up all the little rivers and carries 'em down to the ocean. I used to think about the difference between her voice and Miss Penelope's. Milly's was jest as clear and true as Miss Penelope's, and four or five times as strong, but I'd ruther hear one note o' Miss Penelope's than a whole song o' Milly's. Milly's was jest a voice, and Miss Penelope's was a voice and somethin' else besides, but what that somethin' was I never could say. However, Milly was the very one for a choir; she kind o' kept 'em all together and led 'em along, and we was mighty proud of our choir in them days. We always had a voluntary after we got our new organ, and I used to look forward to Sunday on account o' that voluntary. It used to sound so pretty to hear 'em begin singin' when everything was still and solemn, and I can never forgit the hymns they sung then—Sam and Milly and John and my Jane.

"But there was one Sunday when Milly didn't sing. Her and Sam come in late, and I knew the minute I set eyes on Milly that somethin' was the matter. Generally she was smilin' and bowin' to people all around, but this time she walked in and set the children down, and then set down herself without even lookin' at anybody, to say nothin' o' smilin' or speakin'. Well, when half-past ten come, my Jane began to play 'Welcome, sweet day of rest,' and all of 'em begun singin' except Milly. She set there with her mouth tight shut, and let the bass and tenor and alto have it all their own way. I thought maybe she was out o' breath from comin' in late and in a hurry, and I looked for her to jine in, but she jest set there, lookin' straight ahead of her; and when Sam passed her a hymn-book, she took hold of it and shut it up and let it drop in her lap. And there was the tenor and the bass and the alto doin' their best, and everybody laughin', or tryin' to keep from laughin'. I reckon if Uncle Jim Matthews had 'a' been there, he'd 'a' took Milly's place and helped 'em out, but Uncle Jim'd been in his grave more'n two years. Sam looked like he'd go through the floor, he was so mortified, and he kept lookin' around at Milly as much as to say, 'Why don't you sing? Please sing, Milly,' but Milly never opened her mouth.

"I'd about concluded Milly must have the sore throat or somethin' like that, but when the first hymn was give out, Milly started in and sung as loud as anybody; and when the doxology come around, Milly was on hand again, and everybody was settin' there wonderin' why on earth Milly hadn't sung in the voluntary. When church was out, I heard Sam invitin' Brother Hendricks to go home and take dinner with him—Brother Hendricks'd preached for us that day—and they all drove off together before I'd had time to speak to Milly.

"But that week, when the Mite Society met, Milly was there bright and early; and when we'd all got fairly started with our sewin', and everybody was in a good-humor, Sally Ann says, says she: 'Milly, I want to know why you didn't sing in that voluntary Sunday. I reckon everybody here wants to know,' says she, 'but nobody but me's got the courage to ask you.'

"And Milly's face got as red as a beet, and she burst out laughin', and says she: 'I declare, I'm ashamed to tell you all. I reckon Satan himself must 'a' been in me last Sunday. You know,' says she,'there's some days when everything goes wrong with a woman, and last Sunday was one o' them days. I got up early,' says she, 'and dressed the children and fed my chickens and strained the milk and washed up the milk things and got breakfast and washed the dishes and cleaned up the house and gethered the vegetables for dinner and washed the children's hands and faces and put their Sunday clothes on 'em, and jest as I was startin' to git myself ready for church,' says she, 'I happened to think that I hadn't skimmed the milk for the next day's churnin'. So I went down to the spring-house and did the skimmin', and jest as I picked up the cream-jar to put it up on that shelf Sam built for me, my foot slipped,' says she, 'and down I come and skinned my elbow on the rock step, and broke the jar all to smash and spilled the cream all over creation, and there I was—four pounds o' butter and a fifty-cent jar gone, and my spring-house in such a mess that I ain't through cleanin' it yet, and my right arm as stiff as a poker ever since.'

"We all had to laugh at the way Milly told it; and Sally Ann says, 'Well, that was enough to make a saint mad.' 'Yes,' says Milly, 'and you all know I'm far from bein' a saint. However,' says she, 'I picked up the pieces and washed up the worst o' the cream, and then I went to the house to git myself ready for church, and before I could git there, I heard Sam hollerin' for me to come and sew a button on his shirt; one of 'em had come off while he was tryin' to button it. And when I got out my work-basket, the children had been playin' with it, and there wasn't a needle in it, and my thimble was gone, and I had to hunt up the apron I was makin' for little Sam and git a needle off that, and I run the needle into my finger, not havin' any thimble, and got a blood spot on the bosom o' the shirt. Then,' says she, 'before I could git my dress over my head, here come little Sam with his clothes all dirty where he'd fell down in the mud, and there I had him to dress again, and that made me madder still; and then, when I finally got out to the wagon,' says she, 'I rubbed my clean dress against the wheel, and that made me mad again; and the nearer we got to the church, the madder I was; and now,' says she, 'do you reckon after all I'd been through that mornin', and dinner ahead of me to git, and the children to look after all the evenin', do you reckon that I felt like settin' up there and singin' "Welcome, sweet day o' rest"?' Says she, 'I ain't seen any day o' rest since the day I married Sam, and I don't expect to see any till the day I die; and if Parson Page wants that hymn sung, let him git up a choir of old maids and old bachelors, for they're the only people that ever see any rest Sunday or any other day.'

"We all laughed, and said we didn't blame Milly a bit for not singin' that hymn; and then Milly said: 'I reckon I might as well tell you all the whole story. By the time church was over,' says she, 'I'd kind o' cooled off, but when I heard Sam askin' Brother Hendricks to go home and take dinner with him, that made me mad again; for I knew that meant a big dinner for me to cook, and I made up my mind then and there that I wouldn't cook a blessed thing, company or no company. Sam'd killed chickens the night before,' says she, 'and they was all dressed and ready, down in the spring-house; and the vegetables was right there on the back porch, but I never touched 'em,' says she. 'I happened to have some cold ham and cold mutton on hand—not much of either one—and I sliced 'em and put the ham in one end o' the big meat-dish and the mutton in the other, with a big bare place between, so's everybody could see that there wasn't enough of either one to go 'round; and then,' says she, 'I sliced up a loaf o' my salt-risin' bread and got out a bowl o' honey and a dish o' damson preserves, and then I went out on the porch and told Sam that dinner was ready.'

"I never shall forgit how we all laughed when Milly was tellin' it. 'You know, Aunt Jane,' says she, 'how quick a man gits up when you tell him dinner's ready. Well, Sam he jumps up, and says he, "Why, you're mighty smart to-day, Milly; I don't believe there's another woman in the county that could git a Sunday dinner this quick." And says he, "Walk out, Brother Hendricks, walk right out."'"

Here Aunt Jane paused to laugh again at the long-past scene that her words called up.

"Milly used to say that Sam's face changed quicker'n a flash o' lightnin' when he saw the table, and he dropped down in his cheer and forgot to ask Brother Hendricks to say grace. 'Why, Milly,' says he, 'where's the dinner? Where's them chickens I killed last night, and the potatoes and corn and butter-beans?' And Milly jest looked him square in the face, and says she, 'The chickens are in the spring-house and the vegetables out on the back porch, and,' says she, 'do you suppose I'm goin' to cook a hot dinner for you all on this "sweet day o' rest"?'"

Aunt Jane stopped again to laugh.

"That wasn't a polite way for anybody to talk at their own table," she resumed, "and some of us asked Milly what Brother Hendricks said. And Milly's face got as red as a beet again, and she says: 'Why, he behaved so nice, he made me feel right ashamed o' myself for actin' so mean. He jest reached over and helped himself to everything he could reach, and says he, "This dinner may not suit you, Brother Amos, but it's plenty good for me, and jest the kind I'm used to at home." Says he, "I'd rather eat a cold dinner any time than have a woman toilin' over a hot stove for me."' And when he said that, Milly up and told him why it was she didn't feel like gittin' a hot dinner, and why she didn't sing in the voluntary; and when she'd got through, he says, 'Well, Sister Amos, if I'd been through all you have this mornin' and then had to git up and give out such a hymn as "Welcome, sweet day o' rest," I believe I'd be mad enough to pitch the hymn-book and the Bible at the deacons and the elders.' And then he turns around to Sam, and says he, 'Did you ever think, Brother Amos, that there ain't a pleasure men enjoy that women don't have to suffer for it?' And Milly said that made her feel meaner'n ever; and when supper-time come, she lit the fire and got the best hot supper she could—fried chicken and waffles and hot soda-biscuits and coffee and goodness knows what else. Now wasn't that jest like a woman, to give in after she'd had her own way for a while and could 'a' kept on havin' it? Abram used to say that women and runaway horses was jest alike; the best way to manage 'em both was to give 'em the rein and let 'em go till they got tired, and they'll always stop before they do any mischief. Milly said that supper tickled Sam pretty near to death. Sam was always mighty proud o' Milly's cookin'.

"So that's how we come to call that hymn Milly Amos' hymn, and as long as Milly lived folks'd look at her and laugh whenever the preacher give out 'Welcome, sweet day o' rest.'"

The story was over. Aunt Jane folded her hands, and we both surrendered ourselves to happy silence. All the faint, sweet sounds that break the stillness of a Sunday in the country came to our ears in gentle symphony,—the lisp of the leaves, the chirp of young chickens lost in the mazes of billowy grass, and the rustle of the silver poplar that turned into a mass of molten silver whenever the breeze touched it.

"When you've lived as long as I have, child," said Aunt Jane presently, "you'll feel that you've lived in two worlds. A short life don't see many changes, but in eighty years you can see old things passin' away and new ones comin' on to take their place, and when I look back at the way Sunday used to be kept and the way it's kept now, it's jest like bein' in another world. I hear folks talkin' about how wicked the world's growin' and wishin' they could go back to the old times, but it looks like to me there's jest as much kindness and goodness in folks nowadays as there was when I was young; and as for keepin' Sunday, why, I've noticed all my life that the folks that's strictest about that ain't always the best Christians, and I reckon there's been more foolishness preached and talked about keepin' the Sabbath day holy than about any other one thing.

"I ricollect some fifty-odd years ago the town folks got to keepin' Sunday mighty strict. They hadn't had a preacher for a long time, and the church'd been takin' things easy, and finally they got a new preacher from down in Tennessee, and the first thing he did was to draw the lines around 'em close and tight about keepin' Sunday. Some o' the members had been in the habit o' havin' their wood chopped on Sunday. Well, as soon as the new preacher come, he said that Sunday wood-choppin' had to cease amongst his church-members or he'd have 'em up before the session. I ricollect old Judge Morgan swore he'd have his wood chopped any day that suited him. And he had a load o' wood carried down cellar, and the nigger man chopped all day long down in the cellar, and nobody ever would 'a' found it out, but pretty soon they got up a big revival that lasted three months and spread 'way out into the country, and bless your life, old Judge Morgan was one o' the first to be converted; and when he give in his experience, he told about the wood-choppin', and how he hoped to be forgiven for breakin' the Sabbath day.

"Well, of course us people out in the country wouldn't be outdone by the town folks, so Parson Page got up and preached on the Fourth Commandment and all about that pore man that was stoned to death for pickin' up a few sticks on the seventh day. And Sam Amos, he says after meetin' broke, says he, 'It's my opinion that that man was a industrious, enterprisin' feller that was probably pickin' up kindlin'-wood to make his wife a fire, and,' says he, 'if they wanted to stone anybody to death they better 'a' picked out some lazy, triflin' feller that didn't have energy enough to work Sunday or any other day.' Sam always would have his say, and nothin' pleased him better'n to talk back to the preachers and git the better of 'em in a argument. I ricollect us women talked that sermon over at the Mite Society, and Maria Petty says: 'I don't know but what it's a wrong thing to say, but it looks to me like that Commandment wasn't intended for anybody but them Israelites. It was mighty easy for them to keep the Sabbath day holy, but,' says she, 'the Lord don't rain down manna in my yard. And,' says she, 'men can stop plowin' and plantin' on Sunday, but they don't stop eatin', and as long as men have to eat on Sunday, women'll have to work.'

"And Sally Ann, she spoke up, and says she, 'That's so; and these very preachers that talk so much about keepin' the Sabbath day holy, they'll walk down out o' their pulpits and set down at some woman's table and eat fried chicken and hot biscuits and corn bread and five or six kinds o' vegetables, and never think about the work it took to git the dinner, to say nothin' o' the dish-washin' to come after.'

"There's one thing, child, that I never told to anybody but Abram; I reckon it was wicked, and I ought to be ashamed to own it, but"—here her voice fell to a confessional key—"I never did like Sunday till I begun to git old. And the way Sunday used to be kept, it looks to me like nobody could 'a' been expected to like it but old folks and lazy folks. You see, I never was one o' these folks that's born tired. I loved to work. I never had need of any more rest than I got every night when I slept, and I woke up every mornin' ready for the day's work. I hear folks prayin' for rest and wishin' for rest, but, honey, all my prayer was, 'Lord, give me work, and strength enough to do it.' And when a person looks at all the things there is to be done in this world, they won't feel like restin' when they ain't tired.

"Abram used to say he believed I tried to make work for myself Sunday and every other day; and I ricollect I used to be right glad when any o' the neighbors'd git sick on Sunday and send for me to help nurse 'em. Nursing the sick was a work o' necessity, and mercy, too. And then, child, the Lord don't ever rest. The Bible says He rested on the seventh day when He got through makin' the world, and I reckon that was rest enough for Him. For, jest look; everything goes on Sundays jest the same as week-days. The grass grows, and the sun shines, and the wind blows, and He does it all."

"'For still the Lord is Lord of might;
In deeds, in deeds He takes delight,'"

I said.

"That's it," said Aunt Jane, delightedly. "There ain't any religion in restin' unless you're tired, and work's jest as holy in his sight as rest."

Our faces were turned toward the western sky, where the sun was sinking behind the amethystine hills. The swallows were darting and twittering over our heads, a somber flock of blackbirds rose from a huge oak tree in the meadow across the road, and darkened the sky for a moment in their flight to the cedars that were their nightly resting place. Gradually the mist changed from amethyst to rose, and the poorest object shared in the transfiguration of the sunset hour.

Is it unmeaning chance that sets man's days, his dusty, common days, between the glories of the rising and the setting sun, and his life, his dusty, common life, between the two solemnities of birth and death? Bounded by the splendors of the morning and evening skies, what glory of thought and deed should each day hold! What celestial dreams and vitalizing sleep should fill our nights! For why should day be more magnificent than life?

As we watched in understanding silence, the enchantment slowly faded. The day of rest was over, a night of rest was at hand; and in the shadowy hour between the two hovered the benediction of that peace which "passeth all understanding."

V

MILLY BAKER'S BOY

It was the last Monday in May, and a steady stream of wagons, carriages, and horseback riders had been pouring into town over the smooth, graveled pike.

Aunt Jane stood on her front porch, looking around and above with evident delight. This was her gala Monday; and if any thoughts of the County Court days of happier years were in her mind, they were not permitted to mar her enjoyment of the present. There were no waters of Marah near her spring of remembrance.

"Clear as a whistle!" she exclaimed, peering through the tendrils of a Virginia creeper at the sea of blue ether where fleecy white clouds were floating, driven eastward by the fresh spring wind. "Folks'll come home dry to-night; last time they was as wet as drowned rats. Yonder comes the Crawfords, and there's Jim Amos on horseback in front of 'em. How d'ye, Jim! And yonder comes Richard Elrod in his new carriage. Jest look at him! I do believe he grows younger and handsomer every day of his life."

A sweet-faced woman sat beside him, and two pretty girls were in the seat behind them. Bowing courteously to the old woman on the door-step, Richard Elrod looked every inch a king of the soil and a perfect specimen of the gentleman farmer of Kentucky.

"The richest man in the county," said Aunt Jane exultingly, as she followed the vanishing carriage with her keen gaze. "He went to the legislatur' last winter; the 'Hon. Richard Elrod' they call him now. And I can remember the time when he was jest Milly Baker's boy, and nothin' honorable about it, either."

There was a suggestion of a story in the words and in the look in Aunt Jane's eyes. What wonder that the tides of thought flowed back into the channel of old times on a day like this, when every passing face was a challenge to memory? It needed but a hint to bring forth the recollections that the sight of Richard Elrod had stirred to life. The high-back rocker and the basket of knitting were transferred to the porch; and with the beauty and the music of a spring morning around us I listened to the story of Milly Baker's boy.

"I hardly know jest where to begin," said Aunt Jane, wrinkling her forehead meditatively and adjusting her needles. "Tellin' a story is somethin' like windin' off a skein o' yarn. There's jest two ends to the skein, though, and if you can git hold o' the right one it's easy work. But there's so many ways o' beginning a story, and you never know which one leads straightest to the p'int. I wonder many a time how folks ever finds out where to begin when they set out to write a book. However, I reckon if I start with Dick Elrod I'll git through somehow or other.

"You asked me jest now who Richard Elrod was. He was the son o' Dick Elrod, and Dick was the son of Richard Elrod, the old Squire. It's curious how you'll name two boys Richard, and one of 'em will always be called Richard and the other'll be called Dick. Nobody ever would 'a' thought o' callin' Squire Elrod 'Dick,' he was Richard from the day he was born till the day he died. But his son was nothin' but Dick all his life; Richard didn't seem to fit him somehow. And I've noticed that you can tell what sort of a man a boy's goin' to make jest by knowin' whether folks calls him Richard or Dick. I ain't sayin' that every Richard is a good man and every Dick a bad one. All I mean is that there's as much difference betwixt a 'Dick' and a 'Richard' as there is betwixt a roastin' ear and a peck o' corn meal. Both of 'em's corn, and both of 'em may be good, but they ain't the same thing by a long jump. There's been a Richard in the Elrod family as far back as you could track 'em; all of 'em good, steady, God-fearin' men till Dick come along. He was an only child, and of course that made a bad matter worse.

"There's some men that's born to git women into trouble, and Dick was one of 'em. Jest as handsome as a picture, and two years ahead o' his age when it come to size, and a way about him, from the time he put on pants, that showed jest what kind of a man he was cut out for. If the children was playin' 'Jinny, Put the Kittle on,' Dick would git kissed ten times to any other boy's once; and if it was 'Drop the Handkerchief,' every little gyirl in the ring'd be droppin' it behind Dick to git him to run after her, and that was the only time Dick ever did any runnin'. All he had to do was jest to sit still, and the gyirls did the runnin'. It was that way all his life; and folks used to say there was jest one woman in the world that Dick couldn't make a fool of, and that was his cousin Penelope, the old Squire's brother's child. She used to come down to the Squire's pretty near every summer, and when Dick saw how high and mighty she was, he begun to lay himself out to make her come down jest where the other women was, not because he keered anything for her,—such men never keer for anybody but theirselves,—he jest couldn't stand it to have a woman around unless she was throwin' herself at his head or at his feet. But he couldn't do anything with his cousin Penelope. She naturally despised him, and he hated her. Next to Miss Penelope, the only girl that appeared to be anything like a match for Dick was Annie Crawford, Old Man Bob Crawford's daughter. Old Man Bob was one o' the kind that thinks that the more children they've got the bigger men they are. Always made me think of Abraham and the rest o' the old patriarchs to see him come walkin' into church with them nine young ones at his heels, makin' so much racket you couldn't hear the sermon. He was mighty proud of his sons; but after Bob was born he wanted a daughter; and when they all kept turnin' out boys, he got crazier and crazier for a gyirl. Annie wasn't born till he was past sixty, and he like to 'a' lost his senses with joy. It was harvestin' time, and he jest stopped work and set on his front porch, and every time anybody passed by he'd holler, 'Well; neighbor, it's a gal this time!' If I'd 'a' been in Ann 'Liza's place, I'd 'a' gagged him. But la! she thought everything he did was all right. It got to be a reg'lar joke with the neighbors to ask Old Man Bob how many children he had, and he'd give a big laugh and say, 'Ten, neighbor, and all of 'em gals but nine.'

"Well, of course Annie was bound to be spoiled, especially as her mother died when she was jest four years old. How Ann 'Liza ever stood Old Man Bob and them nine boys as long as she did was a mystery to everybody. Ann 'Liza had done her best to manage Annie, with Old Man Bob pullin' against her all the time, but after she died Annie took the place and everything and everybody on it. Old Man Bob had raised all his boys on spare-the-rod-and-spile-the-child principle, but when Annie come, he turned his back on Solomon and give out that Annie mustn't be crossed by anybody. Sam Amos asked him once how he come to change his mind so about raisin' children, and Old Man Bob said he was of the opinion that that text ought to read, 'Spare the rod and spile the boy'; that Solomon had too much regyard for women to want to whip a gal child. If ever there was an old idiot he was one; I mean Old Man Bob, not Solomon; though Solomon wasn't as wise as he might 'a' been in some things.

"Well, Annie was a headstrong, high-tempered child to begin with; and havin' nobody to control her, she got to be the worst young one, I reckon, in the State o' Kentucky. I used to feel right sorry for her little brothers. They couldn't keep a top or a ball or marble or any plaything to save their lives. Annie would cry for 'em jest for pure meanness, and whatever it was that Annie cried for they had to give it up or git a whippin'. She'd break up their rabbit-traps and their bird-cages and the little wheelbarrers and wagons they'd make, and they didn't have any peace at home, pore little motherless things. I ricollect one day little Jim come runnin' over to my house draggin' his wagon loaded up with all his playthings, his little saw and hammer and some nails the cyarpenters had give him when Old Man Bob had his new stable built, and says he, 'Aunt Jane, please let me keep my tools over here. Annie says she's goin' to throw 'em in the well, and pappy'll make me give 'em to her if she cries for 'em.' Them tools stayed at my house till Jim outgrowed 'em, and he and Henry, the other little one, used to come and stay by the hour playin' with my Abram.

"It was all Old Man Bob could do to git a housekeeper to stay with him when Annie got older. One spring she broke up all the hen nests and turkey nests on the farm, and they had to buy chickens all summer and turkeys all next winter. They used to tell how she stood and hollered for two hours one day because the housekeeper wouldn't let her put her hand into a kittle o' boilin' lye soap. It's my belief that she was all that kept Old Man Bob from marryin' again in less'n a year after Ann 'Liza died. He courted three or four widders and old maids round the neighborhood, but there wasn't one of 'em that anxious to marry that she'd take Old Man Bob with Annie thrown in. As soon as she got old enough, Old Man Bob carried her with him wherever he went. County Court days you'd see him goin' along on his big gray mare with Annie behind him, holdin' on to the sides of his coat with her little fat hands, her sunbonnet fallin' off and her curls blowin' all around her face,—like as not she hadn't had 'em combed for a week,—and in the evenin' about sunset here they'd come, Annie in front fast asleep, and Old Man Bob holdin' her on one arm and guidin' his horse with the other. Harvestin' times Annie'd be out in the field settin' on a shock o' wheat and orderin' the hands around same as if she was the overseer; and Old Man Bob'd jest stand back and shake his sides laughin' and say: 'That's right, honey. Make 'em move lively. If it wasn't for you, pappy couldn't git his harvestin' done.'

"Every fall and spring he'd go to town to buy clothes for her, and people used to say the storekeepers laid in a extry stock jest for Old Man Bob, and charged him two or three prices for everything he bought. He'd walk into Tom Baker's store with his saddle-bags on his arm and holler out, 'Well, what you got to-day? Trot out your silks and your satins, and remember that the best ain't good enough for my little gal.'

"When Annie was twelve years old he took her off to Bardstown to git her education. When he come to say good-bye to her, he cried and she cried, and it ended with him settin' down and stayin' three weeks in Bardstown, waitin' for Annie to git over her homesickness. Folks never did git through plaguin' him about goin' off to boardin' school, and as soon as Sam Crawford seen him he says, 'Well, Uncle Bob, when do you reckon you'll git your diploma?'

"I never shall forgit the first time Annie come home to spend her Christmas. The neighbors didn't have any peace o' their lives for Old Man Bob tellin' 'em how Annie had growed, and how there wasn't a gal in the state that could hold a candle to her. And Sunday he come walkin' in church with Annie hangin' on to his arm jest as proud and happy as if he'd got a new wife.

"Annie had improved wonderful. It wasn't jest her looks, for she always was as pretty as a picture, but she was as nice-mannered, well-behaved a gyirl as you'd want to see. There was jest as much difference betwixt her then and what she used to be as there is betwixt a tame fox and a wild one. Of course the wildness is all there, but it's kind o' covered up under a lot o' cute little tricks and ways; and that's the way it was with Annie. Squire Elrod's pew was jest across the aisle from Old Man Bob's, and I could see Dick watchin' her durin' church time. But Annie never looked one way nor the other. She set there with her hands folded and her eyes straight before her, and nobody ever would 'a' thought that she'd been ridin' horses bare-back and climbin' eight-rail fences ever since she could walk, mighty near.

"When she come back from school in June it was the same thing over again, Old Man Bob braggin' on her and everybody sayin' how sweet and pretty she was. Dick began to wait on her right away, and before long folks was sayin' that they was made for each other, especially as their farms jined. That's a fool notion, but you can't git it out o' some people's heads.

"Things went on this way for two or three years, Annie goin' and comin' and gittin' prettier all the time, and Dick waitin' on her whenever she was at home and carryin' on between times with every gyirl in the neighborhood. At last she come home for good, and Dick dropped all the others in a hurry and set out in earnest to git Annie. Folks said he was mightily in love, but accordin' to my way o' thinkin' there wasn't any love about it. The long and the short of it was that Annie knew how to manage him, and the other gyirls didn't. They was always right there in the neighborhood, and it don't help a woman to be always under a man's nose. But Annie was here and there and everywhere, visitin' in town and in Louisville and bringin' the town folks and the city folks home with her, and havin' dances and picnics, and doin' all she could to make Dick jealous. And then I always believed that Annie was jest as crazy about Dick as the rest o' the gyirls, but she had sense enough not to let him know it. It's human nature, you know, to want things that's hard to git. Why, if fleas and mosquitoes was sceerce, folks would go to huntin' 'em and makin' a big fuss over 'em. Annie made herself hard to git, and that's why Dick wanted her instead o' Harriet Amos, that was jest as good lookin' and better in every other way than Annie was. Everybody was sayin' what a blessed thing it was, and now Dick would give up his wild ways and settle down and be a comfort to the Squire in his old age.

"Well, along in the spring, a year after Annie got through with school, Sally Ann come to me, and says she, 'Jane, I saw somethin' last night and it's been botherin' me ever since;' and she went on to say how she was goin' home about dusk, and how she'd seen Dick Elrod and little Milly Baker at the turn o' the lane that used to lead up to Milly's house. 'They was standin' under the wild cherry tree in the fence corner,' says she, 'and the elderberry bushes was so thick that I could jest see Dick's head and shoulders and the top of Milly's head, but they looked to be mighty close together, and Dick was stoopin' over and whisperin' somethin' to her.'

"Well, that set me to thinkin', and I ricollected seein' Dick comin' down the lane one evenin' about sunset and at the same time I'd caught sight o' Milly walkin' away in the opposite direction. Our Mite Society met that day, and Sally Ann and me had it up, and we all talked it over. It come out that every woman there had seen the same things we'd been seein', but nobody said anything about it as long as they wasn't certain. 'Somethin' ought to be done,' says Sally Ann; 'it'd be a shame to let that pore child go to destruction right before our eyes when a word might save her. She's fatherless, and pretty near motherless, too,' says she.

"You see, the Bakers was tenants of old Squire Elrod's, and after Milly's father died o' consumption the old Squire jest let 'em live on the same as before. Mis' Elrod give 'em quiltin' and sewin' to do, and they had their little gyarden, and managed to git along well enough. Some folks called 'em pore white trash. They was pore enough, goodness knows, but they was clean and hard-workin', and that's two things that 'trash' never is. I used to hear that Milly's mother come of a good family, but she'd married beneath herself and got down in the world like folks always do when they're cast off by their own people. Milly had come up like a wild rose in a fence corner, and she was jest the kind of a girl to be fooled by a man like Dick, handsome and smooth talkin', with all the ways and manners that take women in. Em'ly Crawford used to say it made her feel like a queen jest to see Dick take his hat off to her. If men's manners matched their hearts, honey, this'd be a heap easier world for women. But whenever you see a man that's got good manners and a bad heart, you may know there's trouble ahead for some woman.

"Well, us women talked it over till dark come; and I reckon if we had app'inted a committee to look after Milly and Dick, somethin' might have been done. But everybody's business is nobody's business, and I thought Sally Ann would go to Milly and give her a word o' warnin', and Sally Ann thought I'd do it, and so it went, and nothin' was said or done at last; and before long it was all over the neighborhood that pore little Milly was in trouble."

Aunt Jane paused, took off her glasses and wiped them carefully on a corner of her gingham apron.

"Many's the time," she said slowly, "that I've laid awake till the chickens crowed, blamin' myself and wonderin' how far I was responsible for Milly's mishap. I've lived a long time since then, and I don't worry any more about such things. There's some things that's got to be; and when a person is all wore out tryin' to find out why this thing happened and why that thing didn't happen, he can jest throw himself back on the eternal decrees, and it's like layin' down on a good soft feather bed after you've done a hard day's work. The preachers'll tell you that every man is his brother's keeper, but 'tain't so. I ain't my brother's keeper, nor my sister's, neither. There's jest one person I've got to keep, and that's myself.

"The Bible says, 'A word spoken in due season, how good it is!' But when folks is in love there ain't any due season for speakin' warnin' words to 'em. There was Emmeline Amos: her father told her if she married Hal, he'd cut her name out o' the family Bible and leave her clear out o' his will. But that didn't hinder her. She went right on and married him, and lived to rue the day she did it. No, child, there's mighty little salvation by words for folks that's in love. I reckon if a word from me would 'a' saved Milly, the word would 'a' been given to me, and the season too, and as they wasn't, why I hadn't any call to blame myself.

"Abram and Sam Crawford did try to talk to Old Man Bob; but, la! you might as well 'a' talked to the east wind. All he said was, 'If Annie wants Dick Elrod, Annie shall have him.' That's what he'd been sayin' ever since Annie was born. Nobody said anything to Annie, for she was the sort o' girl who didn't care whose feelin's was tramped on, if she jest had her own way.

"So it went on, and the weddin' day was set, and nothin' was talked about but Annie's first-day dress and Annie's second-day dress, and how many ruffles she had on her petticoats, and what the lace on her nightgowns cost; and all the time there was pore Milly Baker cryin' her eyes out night and day, and us women gittin' up all our old baby clothes for Dick Elrod's unborn child."

Aunt Jane dropped her knitting in her lap, and gazed across the fields as if she were seeking in the sunlit ether the faces of those who moved and spoke in her story. A farm wagon came lumbering through the stillness, and she gathered up the double thread of story and knitting and went on.

"Annie always said she was goin' to have such a weddin' as the county never had seen, and she kept her word. Old Man Bob had the house fixed up inside and out. They sent up to Louisville for the cakes and things, and the weddin' cake was three feet high. There was a solid gold ring in it, and the bridesmaids cut for it; and every gyirl there had a slice o' the bride's cake to carry home to dream on that night. Annie's weddin' dress was white satin so heavy it stood alone, so they said. And Old Man Bob had the whole neighborhood laughin', tellin' how many heifers and steers it took to pay for the lace around the neck of it.

"Annie and Dick was married in October about the time the leaves fell, and Milly's boy was born the last o' November. Lord! Lord! what a world this is! Old Man Bob wouldn't hear to Annie's leavin' him, so they stayed right on in the old home place. In them days folks didn't go a-lopin' all over creation as soon as they got married; they settled down to housekeepin' like sensible folks ought to do. Old Lady Elrod was as foolish over Dick as Old Man Bob was over Annie, and it was laid down beforehand that they was to spend half the time at Old Man Bob's and half the time at the Squire's, 'bout the worst thing they could 'a' done. The further a young couple can git from the old folks on both sides the better for everybody concerned. And besides, Annie wasn't the kind of a gyirl to git along with Dick's mother. A gyirl with the kind o' raisin' Annie'd had wasn't any fit daughter-in-law for a particular, high-steppin' woman like Old Lady Elrod.

"There was some people that expected a heap o' Dick after he married, but I never did. If a man can't be faithful to a woman before he marries her, he ain't likely to be faithful after he marries her. And shore enough the shine wasn't off o' Annie's weddin' clothes before Dick was back to his old ways, drinkin' and carryin' on with the women same as ever, and the first thing we knew, him and Annie had a big quarrel, and Old Man Bob had ordered him off the place. However, they made it up and went over to the old Squire's to live, and things went on well enough till Annie's baby was born. Dick had set his heart on havin' a boy, but it turned out a girl, and as soon as they told him, he never even asked how Annie was, but jest went out to the stable and saddled his horse and galloped off, and nobody seen him for two days. He needn't 'a' took on so, for the pore little thing didn't live but a week. Annie had convulsions over Dick's leavin' her that way, and the doctor said that was what killed the child. Annie never was the same after this. She grieved for her child and lost her good looks, and when she lost them, she lost Dick. It wasn't long before Dick was livin' with his father, and she with hers. At last he went out West; and in less than three years Annie died; and a good thing she did, for a more soured, disappointed woman couldn't 'a' been found anywhere.

"Well, all this time Milly Baker's baby was growin' in grace, you might say. And a finer child never was born. Milly had named him Richard, and nature had wrote his father's name all over him. He was the livin' image of Dick, all but the look in his eyes; that was Milly's. Milly worshiped him, and there was few children raised any carefuler and better than Milly Baker's boy; that was what we always called him. Milly was nothin' but a child herself when he was born, but all at once she appeared to turn to a woman; acted like one and looked like one. It ain't time, honey, that makes people old; it's experience. Some folks never git over bein' children, and some never has any childhood; and pore little Milly's was cut short by trouble. If she felt ashamed of herself or the child, nobody ever knew it. I never could tell whether it was lack of sense, or whether she jest looked at things different from the rest of us; but to see her walk in church holding little Richard by the hand, nobody ever would 'a' thought but what she was a lawful wife. No woman could 'a' behaved better'n she did, I'm bound to say. She got better lookin' all the time, but she was as steady and sober as if she'd been sixty years old. Parson Page said once that Milly Baker had more dignity than any woman, young or old, that he'd ever seen. It seems right queer to talk about dignity in a pore gyirl who'd made the misstep she'd made, but I reckon it was jest that that made us all come to treat her as if she was as good as anybody. People can set their own price on 'emselves, I've noticed; and if they keep it set, folks'll come up to it. Milly didn't seem to think that she had done anything wrong; and when she brought little Richard up for baptism there wasn't a dry eye in the church; and when she joined the church herself there wasn't anybody mean enough to say a word against it, not even Silas Petty.

"Squire Elrod give her the cottage rent free after her mother died, and betwixt nursin' and doin' fine needlework she made a good livin' for herself and the boy.

"Little Richard was a child worth workin' for from the start. Tall and straight as a saplin', and carried himself like he owned the earth, even when he was a little feller. It looked like all the good blood on both sides had come out in him, and there wasn't a smarter, handsomer boy in the county. The old Squire thought a heap of him, and nothin' but his pride kept him from ownin' the child outright and treatin' him like he was his own flesh and blood. Richard had an old head on young shoulders, though he was as full o' life as any boy; and by the time he was grown the old Squire trusted him with everything on the place and looked to him the same as if he'd been a settled man. After Old Lady Elrod died, he broke terrible fast, and folks used to say it was a pitiful sight to see him when he'd be watchin' Richard overseein' the hands and tendin' to things about the place. He'd lean on the fence, his hands tremblin' and his face workin', thinkin' about Dick and grievin' over him and wishin', I reckon, that Dick had been such a man as Milly's boy was.

"All these years nobody ever heard from Dick. Once in a while somebody'd come from town and say they'd seen somebody that had seen somebody else, and that somebody had seen Dick way out in California or Lord knows where, and that was all the news that ever come back. We'd all jest about made up our minds that he was dead, when one mornin', along in corn-plantin' time, the news was brought and spread over the neighborhood in no time that Dick Elrod had come home and was lyin' at the p'int of death. I remembered hearin' a hack go by on the pike the night before, and wondered to myself what was up. I thought, maybe, it was a runaway couple or some such matter, but it was pore Dick comin' back to his father's house, like the Prodigal Son, after twenty years. It takes some folks a long time, child, to git tired of the swine and the husks.

"Well, of course, it made a big commotion, and before we'd hardly taken it in, we heard that he'd sent for Milly, and her and Richard had gone together up to the big house.

"Jane Ann Petty was keepin' house for the old Squire, and she told us afterwards how it all come about.