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IN SIMPKINSVILLE;
Character Tales:
Electronic Edition.

Stuart, Ruth McEnery, 1856-1917

Text scanned (OCR) by Jamie Vacca
Text encoded by Jordan Davis and Natalia Smith
First edition, 1997.
ca. 400K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1997.
        This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.


Call number PS2960 .I5 1897 (Davis Library, UNC-CH)

        The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-CH database "A Digitized Library of Southern Literature, Beginnings to 1920."

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Library of Congress Subject Headings

[Cover Image]


[Frontispiece Image]
[P.68 "'I'M MIGHTY GLAD YOU'VE SPOKE'"


[Title Page Image]

IN SIMPKINSVILLE

Character Tales

BY

RUTH McENERY STUART

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
SMEDLEY, CARLETON, AND McNAIR

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1897


CONTENTS



ILLUSTRATIONS


Page 1


AN ARKANSAS PROPHET

A New-Year's Story

Page 3

AN ARKANSAS PROPHET

        IF you would find the warmest spot in a little village on a cold day, watch the old codgers and see where they congregate. That's what the stray cats do, or perhaps the codgers follow the cats. However that may be, both can be depended upon to find the open door where comfort is. They will probably lead you to the rear end of the village store, the tobacco-stained drawing-room, where an old stove dispenses hospitality in an atmosphere like unto which, for genial disposition, there is none so unfailing.

        From November to May the old stove in the back of Chris Rowton's store was, to its devotees at least, the most popular hostess in Simpkinsville. And, be it understood, her circle was composed of people of good repute. Even the cats sleeping at her feet, if personally tramps, were well connected, being lineal descendants of known cats belonging to families in regular standing.

Page 4

Many, indeed, were natives of the shop, and had come into this kingdom of comfort in a certain feline lying-in hospital behind the rows of barrels that flanked the stove on either side.

        It was the last day of December. The wind was raw and cold, and of a fitful mind, blowing in contrary gusts, and throwing into the faces of people going in all directions various samples from the winter storehouse of the sky, now a threat, a promise, or a dare as to how the new year should come in.

        "Blest if Doc' ain't got snow on his coat! Rainin' when I come in," said one of two old men who drew their seats back a little while the speaker pushed a chair forward with his boot.

        "Reckon I got both froze and wet drops on me twix' this an' Meredith's," drawled the newcomer, depositing his saddle-bags beside his chair, wiping the drops from his sleeves over the stove, and spreading his thin palms for its grateful return of warm steam.

        "Sleetin' out our way," remarked his neighbor, between pipe puffs. And then he added:

        "How's Meredith's wife coming on, doctor? Reckon she's purty bad off, ain't she?"

        The doctor was filling his pipe now and he did not answer immediately; but presently he said,

Page 5

as he deliberately reached forward and, seizing the tongs, lifted a live coal to his pipe:

        "Meredith's wife don't rightfully belong in a doctor's care. She ain't to say sick; she's heartbroke, that's what she is; but of co'se that ain't a thing I can tell her - or him, either."

        "This has been a mighty slow and tiresome year in Simpkinsville," he added in a moment, "an' I'm glad to see it drawin' to a close. It come in with snow an' sleet an' troubles, an' seems like it's goin' out the same way - jest like the years have done three year past."

        "Jest look at that cat - what a dusty color she's got between spots! Th' ain't a cat in Simpkinsville, hardly, thet don't show a trace o' Jim Meredith's Maltee - an' I jest nachelly despise it, 'cause that's one of the presents he brought out there - that Maltee is."

        "Maltee is a good enough color for a cat ef it's kep' true," remarked old Pete Taylor - "plenty good enough ef it's kep' true; but it's like gray paint - it'll mark up most anything it's mixed with, and cloud it."

        "I reckon Jim Meredith's Maltee ain't the only thing thet's cast a shade over Simpkinsville," said old Mr. McMonigle, who sat opposite.

        "That's so," grunted the circle.

        "That's so, shore ez you're born," echoed

Page 6

Pete. "Simpkinsville has turned out some toler'ble fair days since little May Meredith dropped out of it, but the sun ain't never shone on it quite the same - to my notion."

        "Wonder where she is?" said McMonigle. "My opinion is she's dead, an' thet her mother knows it. I wouldn't be surprised ef the devil that enticed her away has killed her. Once-t a feller like that gits a girl into a crowded city and gits tired of her, there's a dozen ways of gittin' shet of her."

        "Yas, a hundred of 'em. It's done every day, I don't doubt."

        "See that stove how she spits smoke. East wind 'll make her spit any day - seems to gag her."

        "Yas," McMonigle chuckled softly, as he leaned forward and began poking the fire, "she hates a east wind, but she likes me - don't you, old girl? See her grow red in the face while I chuck her under the chin."

        "Look out you don't chuck out a coal of fire on kitty with your foolin'," said old man Taylor. "She does blush in the face, don't she? An' see her wink under her isinglass spectacles when she's flirted with."

        "That stove is a well-behaved old lady," interrupted the doctor; "reg'larly gits religion,

Page 7

an' shouts whenever the wind's from the right quarter - an' I won't have her spoke of with disrespect.

        "If she could tell all she's heard, settin' there summer and winter, I reckon it 'd make a book - an' a interestin' one, too. There's been cats and mice born in her all summer, an' birds hatched; an' Rowton tells me he's got a dominicker hen thet's reg'larly watched for her fires to go out last two seasons, so she can lay in her. An' didn't you never hear about Phil Toland hidin' a whiskey bottle in her one day last summer and smashin' a whole settin' o' eggs? The hen, she squawked out at him, an' all but skeered him to death. He thought he had a 'tackt o' the tremens, shore - an' of a adult variety."

        "Pity it hadn't a-skeert him into temperance," remarked the man opposite.

        "Did sober him up for purty nigh two weeks. Rowton he saw it all, an' he give the fellers the wink, an' when Pete hollered, he ast him what was the matter, an' of co'se Pete he pointed to the hen that was kitin' through the sto'e that minute, squawkin' for dear life, an' all bedaubled over with egg, an' sez he: 'What sort o' dash blanketed hens hev you got round here, settin' in stoves?' And Rowton he looks round and winks at the boys. 'Hen,' says he - 'what hen?

Page 8

Any o' you fellers saw a hen anywhere round here?'

        "Of co'se every feller swo'e he hadn't saw no hen, an' Rowton he went up to Pete and he says, says he: 'Pete,' says he, 'you better go home an' lay down. You ain't well.'

        "Well, sir, Pete wasn't seen on the streets for up'ards o' three weeks after that.

        "Yas, that stove has seen sights and heard secrets, too, I don't doubt.

        "They say old nigger Prophet used to set down an' talk to her same ez ef she was a person, some nights, when he'd have her all to hisself. Rowton ast him one day what made him do it, and he 'lowed thet he could converse with anything that had the breath o'life in it. There is no accountin' for what notions a nigger 'll take.

        "No, an' there's no tellin' how much or how little they know, neither. Old Proph', half blind and foolish, limpin' round in the woods, getherin' queer roots, and talkin' to hisself, didn't seem to have no intelligence, rightly speakin', an' yet he has called out prophecies that have come true - even befo' he prophesied about May Meredith goin' wrong.

        "Here comes Brother Squires, chawin' tobacco like a sinner. I do love a preacher that'll chaw tobacco.

Page 9

        "Hello, Brother Squires!" he called out now to a tall, clerical old man who approached the group. "Hello! what you doin' in a sto'e like is, I like to know? Th' ain't no Bibles, nor trac's for sale here, an' your folks don't eat molasses and bacon, same ez us sinners, do you?"

        "Well, my friends," the parson smiled broadly as he advanced, "since you good people don't supply us with locusts and wild honey, we are reduced to the necessity of eatin' plain bread an' meat - but you see I live up to the Baptist standard as far as I can. I wear the leathern girdle about my loins."

        He laid his hand upon the long leather whip which, for safe-keeping, he had tied loosely around his waist.

        "Room for one more?" he added, as, declining the only vacant chair, he seated himself upon a soap-box, extended his long legs, and raised his boots upon the ledge of the stove.

        "I declare, Brother Squires, the patches on them boots are better'n a contribution-box," said McMonigle, laughing, as he thrust his hand down into his pocket. "Reckon it'll take a half-dollar to cover this one." He playfully balanced a bright coin over the topmost patch on the pastor's toe.

        "Stop your laughin', now, parson. Don't shake

Page 10

it off! Come up, boys! Who'll cover the next patch? Ef my 'rithmetic is right, there's jest about a patch apiece for us to cover - not includin' the half-soles. I know parson wouldn't have money set above his soul."

        "No, certainly not, an' if anybody 'd place it there, of co'se I'd remove it immediately," the parson answered, with ready wit. And then he added, more seriously:

        "I have passed my hat around to collect my salary once in a while, but I never expected to hand around my old shoes - and really, my friends, I don't know as I can allow it."

        Still he did not draw them in, and the three old men grew so hilarious over the fun of covering the patches with the ever-slipping coins that a crowd was soon collected, the result being the pocketing of the entire handful of money by Rowton, with the generous assurance that it should be good for the best pair of boots in his store, to be fitted at the pastor's convenience.

        It was after this mirth had all subsided and the codgers had settled down into their accustomed quiet that the parson remarked, with some show of hesitation:

        "My brothers, when I was coming towards you a while ago I heard two names. They are names that I hear now and then among my

Page 11

people - names of two persons whom I have never met - persons who passed out of your community some time before I was stationed among you. One of them, I know, has a sad history. The details of the story I have never heard, but it is in the air. Scarcely a village in all our dear world but has, no matter how blue its skies, a little cloud above its horizon - a cloud which to its people seems always to reflect the pitiful face of one of its fair daughters. I don't know the story of May Meredith - or is it May Day Meredith?"

        "She was born May Day, and christened that-a-way," answered McMonigle. "But she was jest ez often called Daisy or May - any name thet 'd fit a spring day or a flower would fit her."

        "Well, I don't know her story," the parson resumed, "but I do know her fate. And perhaps that is enough to know. The other name you called was 'Old Proph',' or 'Prophet.' Tell me about him. Who was he? How was he connected with May Day Meredith?"

        He paused and looked from one face to another for the answer, which was slow in coming.

        "Go on an' tell it, Dan'l," said the doctor, finally, with an inclination of the head towards McMonigle.

        Old man McMonigle shook the tobacco from his pipe, and refilled it slowly, without a word.

Page 12

Then he as deliberately lit it, puffed its fires to the glowing point, and took it from his lips as he began:

        "Well, parson, ef I hadn't o' seen you standin' in the front o' the sto'e clean to the minute you come back here, I'd think you'd heerd more than names.

        "Of co'se we couldn't put it quite ez eloquent ez you did, but we had jest every one of us 'lowed that sence the day May Meredith dropped out o' Simpkinsville the sky ain't never shone the same.

        "But for a story? Well, I don't see thet there's much story to it, and to them thet didn't know her I reckon it's common enough.

        "But ez to the old nigger, Proph', being mixed up in it, I can't eggsac'ly say that's so, though I don't never think about the old nigger without seemin' to see little May Day's long yaller curls, an' ef I think about her, I seem to see the old man, somehow. Don't they come to you all that-a-way?"

        He paused, took a few puffs from his pipe, and looked from one face to another.

        "Yas," said the doctor, "jest exactly that-a-way, Dan'l. Go on, ol' man. You're a-tellin' it straight."

        "Well, that's what I'm aimin' to do." He

Page 13

laid his pipe down on the stove's fender as he resumed his recital.

        "Old Proph' - which his name wasn't Prophet, of co'se, which ain't to say a name nohow, but his name was Jeremy, an' he used to go by name o' Jerry; then somebody called him Jeremy the Prophet, an' from that it got down to Prophet, and then Proph' - and so it stayed.

        "Well, ez I started to say, Proph' he was jest one o' Meredith's ol' slave niggers - a sort o' queer, half-luney, no-'count darky - never done nothin' sence freedom but what he had a mind to, jest livin' on Meredith right along.

        "He wasn't to say crazy, but - well, he'd stand and talk to anything - a dog, a cat, a tree, a toad-frog - anything. Many a time I've seen him limpin' up the road, an' he'd turn round sudden an' seemed to be talkin' to somethin' thet was follerin' him, an' when he'd git tired he'd start on an' maybe every minute look back over his shoulder an' laugh. They was only one thing Proph' was, to say, good for. Proph' was a capital A-1 hunter - shorest shot in the State, in my opinion, and when he'd take a notion he could go out where nobody wouldn't sight a bird or a squir'l all day long, an' he'd fill his game-bag.

        "Well, sir, the children round town, they was all afeerd of 'im, and the niggers - th' ain't a nigger

Page 14

in the county thet don't b'lieve to this day thet Proph' would cunjer 'em ef he'd git mad.

        "An' time he takin' to fortune-tellin', the school child'en thet 'd be feerd to go up to him by theirselves, they'd go in a crowd, an' he'd call out fortunes to 'em, an' they'd give him biscuits out o' their lunch-cans.

        "From that time he come to tellin' anybody's fortune, an' so the young men, they got him to come to the old-year party one year, jest for the fun of it, an' time the clock was most on the twelve strike, Proph' he stood up an' called out e-vents of the comin' year. An', sir, for a crack-brained fool nigger, he'd call out the smartest things you ever hear. Every year for five year, Proph' called out comin' e-vents at the old-year party; an' matches thet nobody suspicioned, why, he'd call 'em out, an' shore enough, 'fore the year was out, the weddin's would come off. An' babies! He'd predic' babies a year ahead - not always callin' out full names, but jest insinuatin', so thet anybody thet wasn't deef in both ears would understand.

        "But to come back to the story of May Meredith - he ain't in it, noways in partic'lar. It's only thet sence she could walk an' hold the ol man's hand he doted on her, an' she was jest ez wropped up in him. Many's the time when she

Page 15

was a toddler he's rode into town, mule-back, with her settin' up in front of 'im. An' then when she got bigger it was jest as ef she was the queen to him - that's all. He saved her from drowndin' once-t, jumped in the branch after her an couldn't swim a stroke, an' mos' drownded hisself - an' time she had the dip'theria, he never shet his eyes ez long ez she was sick enough to be set up with - set on the flo' by her bed all night.

        "That's all the way Proph' is mixed up in her story. An' now, sence they're both gone, ef you 'magine you see one, you seem to see the other.

        "But May Day's story? Well, I hardly like to disturb it. Don't rightly know how to tell it, nohow.

        "I don't doubt folks has told you she went wrong, but that's a mighty hard way to tell it to them thet knew her.

        "We can't none of us deny, I reckon, thet she went wrong. A red-cheeked peach thet don't know nothin' but the dew and the sun, and to grow sweet and purty - it goes wrong when it's wrenched off the stem and et by a hog. That's one way o' goin' wrong.

        "Little Daisy Meredith didn't have no mo' idee o' harm than that mockin'-bird o' Rowton's

Page 16

in its cage there, thet sings week-day songs all Sunday nights.

        "She wasn't but jest barely turned seventeen year - ez sweet a little girl ez ever taught a Baptist Sunday-school class - when he come down from St. Louis - though some says he come from Chicago, an' some says Canada - lookin' after some land mortgages. An', givin' the devil his due, he was the handsomest man thet ever trod Simpkinsville streets - that is, of co'se, for a outsider. Seen May Day first time on her way to church, an' looked after her - then squared back di-rect, an' follered her. Walked into church delib'rate, an' behaved like a gentleman religiously inclined, ef ever a well-dressed, city person behaved that way.

        "Well, sir, from that day on, he froze to her, and, strange to say, every mother of a marriageable daughter in town was jealous exceptin' one, an' that one was May's own mother. An' she not only wasn't jealous - which she couldn't 'a' been, of co'se - but she wasn't pleased.

        "She seemed to feel a dread of him from the start, and she treated him mighty shabby, but of co'se the little girl, she made it up to him in politeness, good ez she could, an' he didn't take no notice of it. Kep' on showin' the old lady every attention, an', when he'd be in town, most

Page 17

any evenin' you'd go past the Meredith gate you could see his horse hitched there - everything open and above boa'd, so it seemed.

        "Well, sir, he happened to be here the time o' the old-year party, three year ago. You've been here a year and over, 'ain't you, parson?"

        "Yes, I was stationed here at fall conference a year ago this November, you recollect."

        "Yas, so you was. Well, all this is about two year befo' you come.

        "Well, sir, when it was known thet May Day's city beau was goin' to be here for the party, everybody looked to see some fun, 'cause they knowed how free ol' Proph' made with comin' e-vents, an' they wondered ef he'd have gall enough to call out May Day's name with the city feller's. Well, ez luck would have it, the party was at my house that year, an' I tell you, sir, folks thet hadn't set up to see the old year out for ten year come that night, jest for fear they'd miss somethin'. But of co'se we saw through it. We knowed what fetched 'em.

        "Well, sir, that was the purtiest party I ever see in my life. Our Simpkinsville pattern for young girls is a toler'ble neat one, ef I do say it ez shouldn't, bein' kin to forty-'leven of 'em. We 'ain't got no, to say, ugly girls in town - never had many, though some has plained down

Page 18

some when they got settled in years; but the girls there that night was en perfec' a bunch of girls ez you ever see - jest ez purty a show o' beauty ez any rose arbor could turn out on a spring day.

        "Have you ever went to gether roses, parson, each one seemin' to be the purtiest tell you'd got a handful, an' you'd be startin' to come away, when 'way up on top o' the vine you'd see one thet was enough pinker an' sweeter 'n the rest to make you climb for it, an' when you'd git it, you'd stick it in the top of yore bo'quet a little higher 'n the others?

        "I see you know what I mean. Well, that was the way May Day looked that night. She was that top bud.

        "I had three nieces, and wife she had sev'al cousins, there - all purty enough to draw hummin'-birds; but I say little Daisy Meredith, she jest topped 'em all for beauty and sweetness an' modesty that night.

        "An' the stranger - well, I don't hardly know jest what to liken him to, less'n it is to one of them princes thet stalk around the stage an' give orders when they have play-actin' in a show-tent.

        "They wasn't no flies on his shape, nor his rig, nor his manners neither. Talked to the

Page 19

old ladies - ricollect my wife she had a finger wropped up, an' he ast her about it and advised her to look after it an' give her a recipe for bone-felon. She thought they wasn't nobody like him. An' he jest simply danced the wall-flowers dizzy, give the fiddlers money, an' - well, he done everything thet a person o' the royal family of city gentry might be expected to do. An' everybody wondered what mo' Mis' Meredith wanted for her daughter. Tell the truth, some mistrusted, an' 'lowed thet she jest took on indifferent, the way she done, to hide how tickled she was over it.

        "Well, ez I say, the party passed off lovely, an' after a while it come near twelve o'clock, an' the folks commenced to look round for ol' Proph' to come in an' call out e-vents same as he always done.

        "So d'rectly the boys they stepped out an' fetched him in - drawin' him 'long by the sleeve, an' he holdin' back like ez ef he dreaded to come in.

        "I tell you, parson, I'll never forgit the way that old nigger looked, longest day I live. Seemed like he couldn't sca'cely walk, an' he stumbled, an' when he taken his station front o' the mantel-shelf, look like he never would open his mouth to begin.

Page 20

        "An' when at last he started to talk, stid o' runnin' on an' laughin' an' pleggin' everybody like he always done, he lifted up his face an' raised up his hands, same ez you'd do ef you was startin' to lead in public prayer. An' then he commenced:

        "Says he - an' when he started he spoke so low down in his th'oat you couldn't sca'cely hear him - says he:

        " 'Every year, my friends, I stands befo' you an' look throo de open gate into the new year. An',' says he, 'seem like I see a long percession o' people pass befo' me - some two-by-two, some one-by-one; some horseback, some muleback, some afoot; some cryin', some laughin'; some stumblin' ez they'd walk, an' gittin' up agin, some fallin' to rise no mo'; some faces I know, some strangers.'

        "An' right here, parson, he left off for a minute, an' then when he commenced again, he dropped his voice clair down into his th'oat, an' he squinted his eyes an' seemed to be tryin' to see somethin' way off like, an' he says, says he:

        " 'But to-night,' says he, 'I don't know whar the trouble is,' says he, 'but, look hard ez I can, I don't seem to see clair, 'cause the sky is darkened,' says he, 'an' while I see people comin' an' goin', an' I see the doctor's buggy on the road,

Page 21

an' hear the church bell, an' the organ, I can't make out nothin' clair, 'cause the sky is overshaddered by a big dark cloud. An' now,' says he, 'seem like the cloud is takin' the shape of a great big bird. Now I see him spread his wings an' fly into Simpkinsville, an' while he hangs over it befo' the sun seem to me I can see everybody stop an' gaze up an' hold their breath to see where he'll light - everybody hopin' to see him light in their tree. An' now - oh! now I see him comin' down, down, down - an' now he's done lit,' says he. I ricollect that expression o' his - 'he's done lit,' says he, 'in the limb of a tall maginolia-tree a little piece out o' town.'

        "Well, sir, when he come to the bird lightin' in a maginolia tree, a little piece out o' town, I tell you, parson, you could 'a' heerd a pin drop. You see, maginolias is purty sca'ce in Simpkinsville. Plenty o' them growin' round the edge o' the woods, but 'ceptin' them thet Sonny Simkins set out in his yard years ago, I don't know of any nearer than Meredith's place. An' right at his gate, ef you ever taken notice, there's a maginolia-tree purty nigh ez tall ez a post oak.

        "An' so when the ol' nigger got to where the fine bird lit in the maginolia-tree, all them thet had the best manners, they set still, but sech ez didn't keer - an' I was one of that las' sort - why,

Page 22

we jest glanced at the city feller di-rec' to see how he was takin' it.

        "But, sir, it didn't ruffle one of his feathers, not a one.

        "An' then the nigger he went on: Says he, squintin' his eyes ag'in, an' seemin' to strain his sight, says he:

        " 'Now he's lit,' says he - I wish I could give it to you in his language, but I never could talk nigger talk - 'now he's lit,' says he, 'an' I got a good chance to study him,' says he. 'I see he ain't the same bird he looked to be, befo' he lit.

        " 'His wing feathers is mighty fine, an' they rise in mighty biggoty plumes, but they can't hide his claws,' says he, 'an' when I look close-ter,' says he, 'I see he's got owl eyes an' a sharp beak, but seem like nobody can't see 'em. They all so dazzled with his wing-feathers they can't see his claws.

        " 'An' now whiles I'm a-lookin' I see him rise up an' fly three times round the tree, an' now I see him swoop down right befo' the people's eyes, an' befo' they know it he's riz up in the air ag'in, an' spread his wings, an' the sky seems so darkened thet I can't see nothin' clair only a long stream o' yaller hair floatin' behind him.

        " 'Now I see everybody's heads drop, an' I hear 'em cryin'; but,' says he, 'they ain't cryin'

Page 23

about the thief bird, but they cryin' about the yaller hair - the yaller hair - the yaller hair.' "

        McMonigle choked a little in his recital, and then he added: "Ain't that about yore riccollection o' how he expressed it?"

        "Yas," said old man Taylor, " he said it three times - I riccollect that ez long ez I live; an' the third time he said 'the yaller hair' he let his arms drop down at his side, an' he sort o' staggered back'ards, an' turned round to Johnnie Burk an' says he: 'Help me out, please, sir, I feels dizzy.' Do you riccollect how he said that, Dan'l?

        "But you're tellin' the story. Don't lemme interrupt you."

        "No interruption, Pete. You go on an' tell it the way you call it up. I see my pipe has done gone out while I've been talkin'. Tell the truth, I'm most sorry thet you all started me on this story to-night. It gives me a spell o' the blues - talkin' it over.

        "Pass me them tongs back here, doctor, an' lemme git another coal for my pipe. An' while I've got 'em I'll shake up this fire a little. This stove's ez dull-eyed and pouty ez any other woman ef she's neglected.

        "Hungry, too, ain't you, old lady? Don't like wet wood, neither. Sets her teeth on edge.

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Jest listen at her quar'l while I lay it in her mouth.

        "Go on, now, Pete, an' tell the parson the rest o' the story. 'Tain't no more'n right thet a shepherd should know all the ins and outs of his flock ef he's goin' to take care o' their needs."

        "You better finish it, Dan'l," said Taylor. "You've brought it all back a heap better 'n I could 'a' done it."

        "Tell the truth, boys, I've got it down to where I hate to go on," replied McMonigle, with feeling. "I've talked about the child now till I can seem to see her little slim figur' comin' down the plank-walk the way I've seen her a thousand times, when all the fellers settin' out in front o' the sto'es would slip in an' get their coats on, an' come back - I've done it myself, an' me a grandfather.

        "Go on, Pete, an' finish it up. I've got the taste o' tobacco smoke now, an' my pipe is like the stove. Ef I neglect her she pouts.

        "I left off where ol' Proph' finished prophesyin' at the old-year party at my house three year ago. I forgot to tell you, parson, that Mis' Meredith, she never come to the party - an' Meredith hisself he only come and stayed a few minutes, an' went home 'count o' the ol' lady bein' by herself - so they wasn't neither one there when

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the nigger spoke. An' ef they've ever been told what he said I don't know - though we've got a half dozen smarties in town thet would 'a' busted long ago ef they hadn't 'a' told it I don't doubt.

        "Go on, now, Pete, an' finish. After Proph' had got done talkin' of co'se hand-shakin' commenced, an' everybody was supposed to shake hands with everybody else. I reckon parson there knows about that - but you might tell it anyhow."

        "Of co'se, parson he knows about the hand-shakin'," Taylor took up the story now, "because you was here last year, parson. You know thet it's the custom in Simpkinsville, at the old-year party, for everybody to shake hands at twelve o'clock at the comin' in of the new year. It's been our custom time out o' mind. Folks thet 'll have some fallin' out, an' maybe not be speakin', 'll come forward an' shake hands an' make up - start the new year with a clean slate.

        "Why, ef 'twasn't for that, I don' know what we'd do. Some of our folks is so techy an' high strung - an' so many of 'em kin, which makes it that much worse - thet ef 'twasn't for the new-year hand-shakin', why, in a few years we'd be ez bad ez a deef and dumb asylum.

        "But to tell the story. I declare, Dan'l, I

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ain't no hand to tell a thing so ez to bring it befo' yo' eyes like you can. I'm feerd you'll have to carry it on."

        And so old man McMonigle, after affectionately drawing a few puffs from his pipe, laid it on the fender before him, and reluctantly took up the tale.

        "Well," he began, "I reckon thet rightly speakin' this is about the end of the first chapter.

        "The hand-shakin' passed off friendly enough, everybody j'inin' in, though there was women thet 'lowed thet they had the cold shivers when they shuck the city feller's hand, half expectin' to tackle a bird-claw. An' I know thet wife an' me - although, understand, parson, we none o' us suspicioned no harm - we was glad when the party broke up an' everybody was gone - the nigger's words seemed to ring in our ears so.

        "Well, sir, the second chapter o' the story I reckon it could be told in half a dozen words, though I s'pose it holds misery enough to make a book.

        "I never would read a book thet didn't end right; in fact, I don't think the law ought to allow sech to be printed. We get enough wrong endin's in life, an' the only good book-makin' is, in my opinion, to ketch up all sech stories an' work 'em over.

Page 27

        "Ef I could set down an' tell May Day Meredith's story to some book-writer thet'd take it up where I leave off, an' bring her back to us - she could even be raised from the dead in a book ef need be -my Lord! how I'd love to read it, an' try to b'lieve it was true! I'd like him to work the ol' nigger in at the end, too, ef he didn't think hisself above it. A ol', harmless, half-crazy nigger, thet's been movin' round amongst us all for years, is ez much missed ez anybody else when he drops out, nobody knows how. I miss Proph' jest the same ez I miss that ol' struck-by-lightnin' sycamo'-tree thet Jedge Towns has had cut out of the co't-house yard. My mother had my gran'pa's picture framed out o' sycamo' balls, gethered out of that tree forty year ago.

        "But you see I'm makin' every excuse to keep from goin on with the story, an' ef it's got to be told, well -

        "Whether somebody told the Meredith's about the nigger's prophecy, an' they got excited over it, an' forbid the city feller the house, I don't know, but he never was seen goin' there after that night, though he stayed in town right along for two weeks, at the end of which time he disappeared from the face o' the earth - an' she along with him.

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        "An' that's all the story, parson. That's three year ago lackin' two weeks, an' nobody 'ain't seen or heard o' May Day Meredith from that day to this.

        "Of co'se girls have run away with men, an' it turned out all right - but they wasn't married men. Nobody s'picioned he was married tell it was all over an' Harry Conway he heard it in St. Louis, an' it's been found to be true. An' there's a man living in Texarkana thet testified thet he was called in to witness what he b'lieved to be a genuine weddin', where the preacher claimed to come from Little Rock, an' he married May Day to that man, standin' in the blue cashmere dress she run away in. She was married by the 'Piscopal prayer-book, too, which is the only thing I felt real hard against May Day for consentin' to - she being well raised, a hard-shell Baptist.

        "But o' co'se the man thet could git a girl to run away with him could easy get her to change her religion."

        "Hold up there, Dan'l!" interrupted old man Taylor. "Hold on, there! Not always! It's a good many years sence my ol' woman run away to marry me, but she was a Methodist, an' Methodist she's turned me, though I've been dipped, thank God!"

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        "Well, of co'se, there's exceptions. An' I didn't compare you to the man I'm a-talkin' about, nohow. Besides, Methodist an' 'Piscopal are two different things," returned McMonigle.

        "But, tellin' my story - or at least sence I've done told the story, I'll tell parson all I know about the old nigger, Proph', which is mighty little.

        "It was jest three days after May Meredith run away thet I was ridin' through the woods twixt here an' Clay Bank, an' who did I run against but old Proph' - walkin' along in the brush talkin' to hisself ez usual.

        "Well, sir, I stopped my horse, an' called him up an' talked to him, an' tried to draw him out - ast him how come he to prophesy the way he done, an' how he knowed what was comin', but, sir, I couldn't get no satisfaction out of him - not a bit. He 'lowed thet he only spoke ez it was given him to speak, an' the only thing he seemed interested in was the stranger's name, an' he ast me to say it for him over and over - he repeatin' it after me. An' then he ast me to write it for him, an' he put the paper I wrote it on in his hat. He didn't know B from a bull's foot, but I s'pose he thought maybe if he put it in his hat it might strike in."

        "Like ez not he 'lowed he could git somebody

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to read it out to him," suggested the doctor.

        "Like ez not. Well, sir, after I had give him the paper he commenced to talk about huntin' - had a bunch o' birds in his hands then, an' give 'em to me, 'lowin' all the time he hadn't had much luck lately, 'count o' his pistol bein' sort o' out o' order. 'Lowed thet he took sech a notion to hunt with his pistol thet 'twasn't no fun shootin' at long range, but somehow he couldn't depend on his pistol shootin' straight.

        "Took it out o' his pocket while he was standin' there, an' commenced showin' it to me. An', sir, would you believe it, while we was talkin' he give a quick turn, fired all on a sudden up into a tree, an' befo' I could git my breath, down dropped a squir'l right at his feet. Never see sech shootin' in my life. An' he wasn't no mo' excited over it than nothin'. Jest picked up the squir'l ez unconcerned ez you please, an', sez he, 'Yas, she done it that time - but she don't always do it. Can't depend on her.'

        "Then, somehow, he brought it round to ask me ef I wouldn't loand him my revolver - jest to try it an' see if he wouldn't have better luck. 'Lowed that he'd fetch it back quick ez he got done with it.

        "Well, sir, o' co'se I loaned it to the ol' nigger

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- an' took his pistol - then an' there. I give it to him loaded, all six barrels, an', sir, would you believe it, no livin' soul has ever laid eyes on ol' Prophet from that day to this.

        "I'm mighty feered he's wandered way off som'ers an' shot hisself accidental' - an' never was found. Them revolvers is mighty resky weepons ef a person ain't got experience with 'em.

        "So that's all the story, parson. Three days after May Day went he disappeared, an' of co'se he a-livin' along at Meredith's all these years, an' being so 'tached to May Day, and prophesying about her like he done, you can see how one name brings up another. So when I think about her I seem to see him."

        "Didn't Harry Conway say he see the ol' man in St. Louis once-t, an' thet he let on he didn't know him - wouldn't answer when he called him Proph'?" said old man Conway.

        "One o' Harry's cock-an'-bull stories," answered McMonigle. "He might o' saw some ol' nigger o' Proph's build, but how would he git to St. Louis? Anybody's common-sense would tell him better 'n that. No, he's dead - no doubt about it."

        "I suppose no one has ever looked for the old man?" the parson asked.

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        "Oh yas, he's been searched for. We've got up two parties an' rode out clair into the swamp lands twice-t - but there wasn't no sign of him.

        "But May Day - nobody has ever went after her, of co'se. She left purty well escorted, an' ef her own folks never follered her, 'twasn't nobody else's business. Her mother 'ain't never mentioned her name sence she left - to nobody."

        "Yas," interrupted the doctor, "an' some has accused her o' hard-heartedness; but when I see a woman's head turn from black to white in three months' time, like hers done, I don't say her heart's hard, I say it's broke.

        "They keep a-sendin' for me to come to see her, but I can't do her no good. She's failed tur'ble last six months.

        "Ef somethin' could jest come upon her sudden, to rouse her up - ef the house would burn down, an' she have to go out 'mongst other folks - or ef they was some way to git folks there, whether she wanted 'em or not -

        "Tell the truth, I've been a-thinkin' about somethin'. It's been on my mind all day. I don't know ez it would do, but I been a-thinkin' ef I could get Meredith's consent for the Simpkinsville folks to come out in a body -

        "Ef he'd allow it, an' the folks would be willin' to go out there to-night for the old-year party

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- take their fiddle an' cakes an' things along, an' surprise her - she'd be obliged to be polite to 'em; she couldn't refuse to meet all her ol' friends for the midnight hand-shakin', an' it might be the savin' of her. Three years has passed. There's no reason why one trouble should bring another. We've all had our share o' trials this year, an' I reckon every one o' us here has paid for a tombstone in three years, an' I believe ef we'd all meet together an' go in a body out there -

        "Ef you say so, I'll ride out an' talk it over with Meredith. What's your opinion, parson?"

        "My folks will join you heartily, I'm sure," replied the parson, warmly. "They did expect to have the crowd over at Bradfield's to-night, but I know they'll be ready to give in to the Meredith's."

        And this is how it came about that the Meredith's house, closed for three years, opened its doors again.

         If innocent curiosity and love of fun had carried many to the new-year hand-shaking three years before, a more serious interest, not unmixed with curiosity, swelled the party to-night.

        It was a mile out of town. The night was

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stormy, the roads were heavy, and most of the wagons without cover; but the festive spirit is impervious to weather the world over, and there were umbrellas in Simpkinsville, and overcoats and "tarpaulins."

        Everybody went. Even certain good people who had not previously been able to master their personal animosities sufficiently to resolve to present themselves for the midnight hand-shaking, and had decided to nurse their grievances for another year, now promptly agreed to bury their little hatchets and join the party.

        To storm a citadel of sorrow, whether the issue should prove a victory for besiegers or besieged, was no slight lure to a people whose excitements were few, and whose interests were limited to the personal happenings of their small community.

        It is a crime in the provincial code-social to excuse one's self from a guest. To deny a full and cordial reception to all the town would be to ostracise one's self forever, not only from its society, but from all its sympathies.

        The weak-hearted hostess rallied all her failing energies for the emergency. And there was no lack of friendliness in her pale old face as she greeted her most unwelcome guests with extended timorous hands.

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        If her thin cheeks flushed faintly as her neighbors' happy daughters passed before her in game or dance, her solicitous observers, not suspecting the pain at her heart, whispered: "Mis' Meredith is chirpin' up a'ready. She looks a heap better 'n when we come in." So little did they understand.

        If mirth and numbers be a test, the old-year party at the Merediths' was assuredly a success.

        Human emotions swing as pendulums from tears to laughter. Those of the guests to-night who had declared that they knew they would burst out crying as soon as they entered that house where the ones who laughed the loudest.

        "Spinning the plate," "dumb-crambo," "pillow," "how, when and where," such were the innocent games that composed the simple diversions of the evening, varied by music by the village string-band and occasional songs from the girls, all to end with a "Virginia break-down" just before twelve o'clock, when the handshaking should begin.

        It seemed a very merry party, and yet, in speaking of it afterwards, there were many who declared that it was the saddest evening they had ever spent in their lives, some even affirming that they had been "obliged to set up an' giggle the

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live-long time to keep from cryin' every time they looked at Mis' Meredith."

        Whether this were true, or only seemed to be true in the light of subsequent events, it would be hard to say. Certain it was, however, that the note that rose above the storm and floated out into the night was one of joyous merrymaking. Such was the note that greeted a certain slowly moving wagon, whose heavily clogged wheels turned into the Merediths' gate near midnight. The belated guest was evidently one entirely familiar with the premises, for notwithstanding the darkness of the night, the ponderous wheels turned accurately into the curve beyond the magnolia-tree, moved slowly but surely along the drive up to the door, and stopped without hesitation exactly opposite the "landing at the front stoop," wellnigh invisible in the darkness.

        After the ending of the final dance, during the very last moments of the closing year, there was always at the old-year party an interval of silence.

        The old men held their watches in their hands, and the young people spoke in whispers.

        It was this last waiting interval that in years past the old man Prophet had filled with portent, even though, until his last prophecy, his words had been lightly spoken.

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        As the crowd sat waiting to-night, watching the slow hands of the old clock, listening to the never-hurrying tick-tack of the long pendulum against the wall, it is probable that memory, quickened by circumstances and environment, supplied to every mind present a picture of the old man, as he had often stood before them.

        A careful turn of the front-door latch, so slight a click as to be scarcely discernible, came at this moment as the clank of a sledge-hammer, turning all heads with a common impulse towards the slowly opening door, into which limped a tall, muffled figure. To the startled eyes of the company it seemed to reach quite to the ceiling. Those sitting near the door started back in terror at the apparition, and all were on their feet in a moment.

        But having entered, the figure halted just within the door, and before there was time for action, or question even, a bundle of old wraps had fallen and the old man Prophet, bearing in his arms a golden-haired cherub of about two years, stood in the presence of the company.

        The revulsion of feeling, indescribable by words, was quickly told in fast-flowing tears. Looking upon the old negro, and the child, everyone

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present read a new chapter in the home tragedy, and wept in its presence.

        Coming from the dark night into the light, the old man could not for a moment discern the faces he knew, and when the little one, shrinking from the glare, hid her face in his hair, it was as if time had turned back, so perfect a restoration was the picture of a familiar one of the old days. No word had yet been spoken, and the ticking of the great clock, and the crackling of the fire mingled with sobs, were the only sounds that broke the stillness when the old man, having gotten his bearings, walked directly up to Mrs. Meredith and laid the child in her arms. Then, losing no time, but pointing to the clock that was slowly nearing the hour, he said, in a voice tremulous with emotion: "De time is most here. Is you all ready to shek hands? Ef you is - everybody - turn round and come wid me."

        As he spoke he turned back to the still open door, and before those who followed had taken in his full meaning, he had drawn into the room a slim, shrinking figure, and little May Day Meredith, pale, frightened and weather-beaten, stood before them.

        If it was her own father who was first to grasp her hand, and if he carried her in his arms to her mother, it was that the rest deferred to his

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first claim, and that their hearty and affectionate greetings came later in their proper order. As the striking of the great clock mingled with the sound of joy and of weeping - the congratulations and words of praise fervently uttered - it made a scene ever to be held dear in the annals of Simpkinsville. It was a scene beyond words of description - a family meeting which even lifetime friends recognized as too sacred for their eyes, and hurried weeping away.

        It was when the memorable, sad, joyous party was over, and all the guests were departing, that Prophet, following old man McMonigle out, called him aside for a moment. Then putting into his hands a small object, he said, in a tremulous voice:

        "Much obleeged for de loand o' de pistol, Marse Dan'l. Hold her keerful, caze she's loaded des de way you loaded her - all 'cept one barrel. I ain't nuver fired her but once-t."


Page 41


WEEDS

A Romance of the Simpkinsville Cemetery

Page 43

WEEDS

        ELIJAH TOMKINS stood looking down upon his wife's grave. It was early morning, and he thought himself alone in the cemetery.

        The low rays of a rising sun, piercing the intervening foliage, lay in white spots of light upon the new mound, revealing an incipient crop of rival grasses there. A heavy dew, visible everywhere in all-pervading moisture, hung in glistening gems upon the blades of bright green cocoa spears that had shot up between the drier clods, and it lay in little pools within the compact hearts of the fat purslane clumps that were settling in the lower places. But Elijah saw none of these things.

        He had been standing here some minutes, his head low upon his bosom, when a slight sound startled him. It was a faint crackle, as of a light footstep upon the gravel walk.

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        He turned suddenly and looked behind him. He saw nothing, but the start had roused him from his reverie, and he hastily proceeded to raise his walking-cane, which he had held behind him, and to thrust it with care several inches deep into the top of the grave. Then withdrawing it, he dropped into the hole it had made a rose-bud, which he took from his pocket, drew a bit of earth over it, and hastened away.

        Elijah had done precisely this thing every morning since his wife's death, three weeks ago.

        There were exactly twenty-one rose-buds buried in this identical fashion, one for each day since the filling of the new grave, and most of them had been deposited there before the rising of the morning sun.

        Elijah was a man to whom any display of sentiment was childish; or, what to one of his temper was perhaps even worse, it was "womanish." To "fool with flowers" in a sentimental way was, according to his thinking, as unbecoming a man as to "spout poetry" or to "play the piany."

        He had passed safely through all the vicissitudes of courtship, marriage, and even a late paternity - that crucial test of mental poise - without succumbing to any of the traditional follies incident to these particular epochs. He

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had borne his honors simply, as became a man, without parade or apparent emotion. But with his widowerhood had come an obligation involving tremendous embarrassment.

        Elijah had loved his wife, and when on her death-bed she had asked him to come every day and lay a rose-bud upon her grave he had not been able to say her nay. No one had heard the request. None knew of the promise.

        On the day following the funeral he had risen early, saddled his horse, and ridden to the graveyard, carrying the rose-bud openly in his hand. He had slept heavily that night - the sleep of exhaustion that comes as a boon at such times - and when he had waked next morning, confronted suddenly by a sense of his loss and of his promise, he had set out upon his initial journey without a touch of self-consciousness. It was only when he unexpectedly came upon a neighbor in the road that he instantly knew that he was doing a sentimental thing. At the surprise the flower turned downward, falling out of sight behind the pommel of his saddle as if by its own volition. And when Elijah had passed his neighbor with a silent greeting, his horse's head turned, as if he too were denying the sentimental journey, into a foot-path leading entirely away from the cemetery.

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        When he had gotten quite beyond the curve of the road, it was a simple thing to turn across a bit of wood and enter the graveyard by another gate, but as he did so Elijah knew himself for a hopeless coward. The crackling pine-needles under his horse's feet sounded as thunder to his sensitive ears. Every bur seemed to turn upon him its hundred eyes, in which he saw all Simpkinsville gazing at him, a mourning widower carrying flowers. The twitterings of the wood were the whisperings of the village gossips, and some of the younger trees even giggled as he passed.

        To say that the widower's grief commands scant sympathy in Simpkinsville is putting the case leniently.

        Indeed, it is no uncommon thing in this otherwise kindly village for the friends who sit up with the body of a deceased wife to indulge in whispered speculations as to her probable successor, and any undue exhibition of emotion on the part of the bereaved husband is counted as presaging early consolation.

        This may seem harsh, perhaps, and yet it is said that the hypothesis is amply sustained by the history of widowerhood and its repairs in these parts.

        It is possible that such exhibition of feeling is

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sometimes a simple revolt against the lonely life as insupportable.

        It may have been so, indeed, in the most notable case in the annals of Simpkinsville, when a certain inconsolable widower of effusive habit proceeded, on the demise of his wife, whose name was Lily, to adopt a lily as his trade-mark stencilled upon his cotton-bales, to bestow the name promiscuously upon all the eligibles born upon his plantation, from a pickaninny of chocolate hue to a bay colt, and to have all flowers excepting the lilies extracted from his garden. Indeed, he even went so far as to change the name of his place from "Phoenix Farm" to "Lilyvale," and when at the end of a year of full florescence the odor of the white flower pervaded every nook and cranny of his home he suddenly succumbed to the blushing wiles of a certain "Miss Rose - " of the country-side, and there was a changing of names and a planting of roses with some confusion.

        There were jests galore about the rose's thorns scratching up the lily bulbs in this particular garden of the winged god, and the slight residuum of sympathy possible towards the mourning widower passed forever out of the popular heart with the legend of the lily and the rose.

        Everybody in Simpkinsville and its environments

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had known and laughed at this romance of a year. Elijah simply cleared his throat and been disgusted over it, but it will be easily seen that such a precedent might somewhat heighten the sensitiveness of so timid a man to the perils of the situation as he entered upon his daily pilgrimage.

        He had not meant to bury the rose that first morning. The interment was an after-thought; but it was so simple a thing to do that he had easily seized upon it as a direct way out of his difficulty.

        A man of poetic feeling might have found pleasure in the reflection that in thus personally bestowing the flower he made it more exclusively hers who lay beneath it than if the knowledge of it were shared by others. But Elijah did not go so far. His satisfaction was rather that of him who thinks he has found a way to eat his pie and have it too.

        As we have seen, he had been burying his daily bud for three weeks when this recital begins, and he believed himself still unobserved. He had always been an early riser, and the cemetery was so near the road to his own fields that he found the early détour quite a safe thing. One meeting him on the road would not question his errand.


"HE HAD BEEN BURYING HIS DAILY BUD FOR THREE WEEKS"

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        The fright he had felt at the suspicion of footsteps in the graveyard this morning remained with him as he turned homeward. Once before he had been startled in this way, and each time the false alarm had been a warning. It had frightened him.

        "Strange how women takes notions, anyhow!" he muttered, as, the sense of panic still upon him, he turned to go. This was his first confessed revolt. "Never knowed Jinny to be so awful set on rose-buds, nohow, when she was here. Not thet I'd begrudge her all the roses in creation ef she wanted 'em. But for a middle-aged couple like us to be made laughin'-stalks of jest for a few buds thet I'm doubtful ef she ever receives, it does seem - "

        He had just reached this point in his soliloquy when an unmistakable creaking sound startled him, and he turned suddenly to see the vanishing edge of a woman's skirt as it disappeared behind the hedge of Confederate jasmine that enclosed the family burial lot of a certain John Christian, a year ago deceased.

        He had heard, long before his own bereavement, that Christian's widow spent a great part of her time at her husband's grave, but he had heard it at a time when such things held no special interest for him, and it had passed out

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of his mind. But now the discovery of her actual presence here filled him with panic. It was not likely that she had seen him this morning. The Christian lot was near the other gate, by which she had evidently entered, and her back had been in his direction. But she would be coming again.

        Elijah was so fearful of discovery that he dared not risk another step, and so he sat down upon a stump in the shade of a weeping-willow and waited.

        The widow Christian was short, and the jasmine hedge was tall. The opening in the green enclosure, indicated by an arch of green, was upon its opposite side, so Elijah had not seen her enter it, but presently the shaking of the upper branches of the vines showed that the training hand was within the square. Once or twice a slender finger appeared above the hedge as it drew a wiry tendril into place, and there was an occasional clipping of shears as the wayward vine received further discipline from the pruning-blade within.

        Long after there was any sign of her presence Elijah sat waiting for the widow to go, but still she stayed. It seemed an age, and he grew very tired, and under the pressure of imprisonment and fatigue he presently began to amuse himself

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with idle thoughts - thoughts about the hedge first, then about the man who lay within its enclosure, and then, by natural sequence, about his widow.

        "Pore Christian!" he began. "He was hedged in purty close-t with her religion long ez he lived - an' I see she's a-follerin' it up! A reg'lar Presbyterian cut that hedge has got - a body 'd know it to look at it. A shoutin' Methodist, now, might 'a' let it th'ow out sprouts right an' left, an' give God the glory."

        From this, his first idle thought, it will be seen that Elijah was a man of some imagination. May it not, indeed, have been this very imagination, with a latent sense of humor, that put so keen an edge upon his anguish in a ridiculous situation?

        His shrugging shoulders gave silent expression to a repressed chuckle, as he followed his rambling thoughts still further in this wise:

        "Umh! Well, I reckon she knows what she's about in keepin' a close-t watch over his grave. She's afeerd some o' them few wild-oats she never give him a chance to sow might sprout up an' give him away. Umh!"

        His growing pleasure in this momentary mental emancipation seemed to shorten the period of his waiting.

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        "Well, ef wild-oats is ez long-lived ez what wheat is, she can't no mo'n ward off the growth du'ing her lifetime - that is, ef what parson sez is true, thet a grain o' wheat has laid in a ol' tombstone 'longside one o' these dumby mummies a thousand years, an' then sprouted quick ez it was took out. Hard to smaller, that story is, for a farmer, thet's had to do with mildewed seeds, but I reckon ef preachers don't know the ins an' outs of mummies, nobody don't. But the way I look at it, any chemicals thet's strong enough to keep a mummy in countenance that long would exercise a savin' influ'nce on anything layin' round him, maybe. Pity they couldn't be applied to a man in life, so ez to - Jack Robinson! What in thunder - She's a-comin' this way!"

        It is a long way from the buried secrets of Egypt to the Simpkinsville cemetery, and to be transported the entire distance in a twinkling by the apparition of a dreaded woman bearing down upon one is what might be called a jolting experience. This is exactly what happened to Elijah at this trying moment.

        The widow Christian had stepped briskly out of the enclosure, and was facing the tree under which he sat.

        There be "weeping-willows" that truly

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weep, while some, with all the outward semblance of sorrow, do seem only to whine and whimper, so sparse and attenuated are their dripping fringes - fringes capable even of flippancy if the wind be of a flirtatious mind.

        Of this latter sort was the one beneath which Elijah had taken refuge this morning. The meagre ambush that had seemed quite adequate in the lesser exigency was as nothing now as through its flimsy screen he saw disaster surely approaching. But his moment of supreme panic was mercifully brief.

        Before she had reached his hiding-place the widow turned hastily aside. She was bent upon a definite destination, and Elijah had scarcely had time to rally from his first fright before he discovered that she was going to his wife's grave. He could not see her when she had reached it, but he saw distinctly her lengthened shadow on the sward behind her. When at last she stopped there, he even saw this same witness make a deliberate tour of the grave. He saw it bend and rise and fall, and then, when it was gone, he watched for the widow to appear at the farther side, and he saw her at last go out the graveyard gate. In a moment more he heard the roll of wheels, and, standing up, he even descried the top of her buggy as she drove away. And

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then, taking off his hat and mopping his forehead, he came out of hiding.

        This visit to his wife's grave gave Elijah a most uncomfortable sensation, and he hurried there to see how things were. He had, he knew, carefully covered his morning bud, but still he was uneasy.

        When he returned to the grave he found the grass upon it dry. There seemed to be otherwise no change in its appearance, and he was turning away, somewhat reassured, when a fresh clod caught his eye. It seemed to have been overturned. He stooped down, his heart thumping like a sledge-hammer, while he made a careful examination.

        The clod lay exactly over the spot where he had, an hour ago, deposited his rose-bud, and its damp side was upward. A bent hair-pin lay beside it, and there was damp earth upon its points. Lifting the lump, he found its nether side still warm from the sun. Beneath it, clearly discernible without further removal, was the pink edge of a rose leaf.

        Elijah was not ordinarily a nervous man, but when he rose from the grave he was trembling so that he felt it safe to repair to his seat beneath the willow until he should recover himself.

        The next moments were possibly as wretched

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as any that had hitherto come into his life. As he sat with his face buried in his hands, he felt the same sort of exquisite torture that he had occasionally experienced in a dream, when for a brief moment he had believed himself walking the streets naked, in a glare of light, and had waked up with a start to a blessed consciousness of a friendly darkness and his night-shirt. There was no awakening possible now. A second trip to the grave only prolonged the horrors of the nightmare. He took off his hat again and mopped and mopped his face and head and neck. Then, in sheer desperation, he began walking slowly up and down the gravelled paths, his hands nervously clasped behind him, and before he realized it he found himself at the opening in the Christian hedge, and he walked in.

        There was a pretty rustic seat just within the enclosure, and he sat down upon it. Even his state of mind, and the fresh impression of the obtrusive widow rudely etched with the muddy point of a hair-pin upon the sensitive plate of his consciousness, could not prevent his feeling the sweetness and beauty of this spot. The grave in its centre was already, in the early spring, a bed of blooming flowers. Tender sprays of smilax climbed about the marble slab at its head, while

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from the urn at the foot of the mound depended rich garlands of moneywort and tradescantia, and the air was fragrant with the perfumed leaf of pungent herb and flowering shrub.

        Along the lower borders of the mound, just above a battlement of inverted bottles that outlined its extreme limits, there were signs of the recent passage of the trowel, and here closer scrutiny revealed a single line of wilting plants, evidently just set out.

        Elijah looked about him for some moments, and then, man that he was, he began to cry. Perhaps it was essential to his manhood that his emotion should be interpreted as anger. At any rate, the turmoil within him found expression in words that, as nearly as they could be distinguished among sobs, were such as these:

        "The idee of John Christian, thet never did a decent thing in his life, layin' comf'tably down in sech a place ez this - an' bein' waited on - an' bloomed over! An' here I, thet have tried to ac' upright all my life, am obligated to be a laughin'-stalk to his fool widder an' anybody she's a mind to tell! They've been times in my life when I'd give every doggone cent I've made du'in' my durn blame life ef I'd 'a' been raised to swear - I'll be jim-blasted ef I wouldn't! No widder of sech a low-down, beer-drinkin' cuss ez

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John Christian need to think she can set out to pester me - a-nosin' round my private business with her confounded investigatin' hair-pin! They ain't nothin' thet a woman with a hairpin ain't capable of doin' - nothin'!"

        He sobbed for some time without further words; but presently, while he wiped his eyes, he said, in quite another voice:

        "Ef - ef Jinny had jest 'a' had the fo'thought to say bushes instid o' buds, why - why, they'd 'a' been planted long ago - an' forgot - an' she'd be havin' her own roses fresh every day; instid o' which - " And now he sobbed again. "Instid o' which John Christian's widder has got the satisfaction of holdin' me up on a hair-pin p'int for all Simpkinsville to laugh at - same ez ef I was some sort o' guyaskutus!"

        As he raised his face, dashing his tears away with his great bare hands, his eyes fell upon the inscription upon the stone before him. The Bible verse quoted there seemed an assumption of superior sanctity, and he resented it as a personal taunt.

        "Yas," he retorted, "I see you're takin' to quotin' Scripture, John Christian, but you needn't to quote it at me! You're set out first class, you are, Bible tex' at yo' Lead an' flowervase at yo' feet, but you ain't the first low-down

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cuss thet's been Bible-texted out of all recognition."

        Was it the answering silence of the grave in response to this volley that rebuked him? Perhaps so, for certainly there was sudden contrition expressed in his next words, spoken in apologetic voice:

        "God forgive me for strikin' a man when he's down; but he does seem so set up - flowered all over - an' nothin' to do - an' a lovin' wife - "

        Just as Elijah said these last words there was a stir at his side, and he turned to see the widow Christian standing before him, plants and trowel in hand. She started on first perceiving him, but his tearful, dejected state was an appeal to her womanly sympathies. She took her seat beside him on the settee.

        "Yas," she said, mournfully, "everybody knows she was a lovin' wife, Mr. Tomkins, an' I ain't surprised to see you all broke up this way. I been through it all, en' I know what it is." She sighed heavily. "They ain't a grain o' the bitterness but I've tasted - not a one - an' quinine an' bitter alloways is sugar to it. But I'm mighty glad, Mr. Tomkins, to see thet you feel neighborly enough to come into my lot to give way. You'll be all the better for it. It's what I do myself. When I git nervous in the house,

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an' seem to look for him to come in, an' feel sort o' like ez ef he might be down-town an' maybe things goin' wrong, why, I jest come here, an' I see it's all right, an' I cry it out an' go home.

        "I hate to see you come twice-t in one day, though, Mr. Tomkins," she added, after some hesitation. "Too much sorrer starts the heart a-cankerin'! Somehow I had a notion thet you'd been here an' gone over a hour ago. I come an' set out this row o' pansies round the edge of his grave befo' sunup - an' I was jest seven short. So I went an' fetched these to finish the line."

        To attempt to describe Elijah's sensations during these first moments would be folly. He simply had none. It was a season of general suspensions.

        In speaking of it afterwards, he said: "While she set there a-talkin', seem like she'd move away off into the distance tell she wasn't no bigger 'n a chiney doll, an' every word she'd say would sound clair an' fine same ez ef a doll-baby was to commence to talk by machinery. An' when she'd be away off an' dwindlin' down to a speck, I'd be gittin' bigger an' bigger tell I'd seem like a sort o' swole-up pin-cushion with needles a-stickin' in me all over. Then she'd start forward an' commence to git bigger, an'

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I'd swivel an' swivel, tell time she come up to me, with a voice like thunder, I'd be so puny seem like I was li'ble to go out any minute."

        But in this view of the situation we have the advantage of the retrospect.

        The visible picture at the time was of Tomkins politely facing his entertainer, with possibly too much solicitude as to the wiping of his face, but still with what she was pleased to accept as polite attention. She could have suspected nothing abnormal in it, for her next words were:

        "But I ain't a-goin' to bother you now, Mr. Tomkins; you jest take yo' time to ease up, an' I'll plant these plants. They go in right here at his feet."

        Even as she spoke she fell upon her knees and set about her task. But there was no intermission in her talk.

        "You don't know what a comfort this grave is to me, Mr. Tomkins," she said, with a sigh, as, taking a pin from her back hair, she began carefully drawing out the damp roots of the plant she held. "Ef a body studies over it rightly, there's a heap o' communion with the dead th'ough grave-tendin'! Now these pansies here - f 'instance - Pansies, you know - why, they're flowers of remembrance, an' a person can plant any kind they see fit, accordin' to their hearts'

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desires. There's the yallers and deep reds - an' mixed. Some o' the mixed ones is marked so ez to make reg'lar fool faces. These here are all dead black." She sighed again. "I did think I'd put in a purple or two this season, but I 'ain't had the heart to - not yet. He hated black," she added in a moment, "but of co'se in this my heart has to have some consideration, an' I've done a good many things to pacify him -

        "These bottles, f'instance - " She sat back upon her heels, while her eye made the circuit of the bottle border. "These bottles, now," she repeated, with manifest hesitation - "I 'ain't never mentioned them to nobody before, Mr. Tomkins, an' I don't know why I'm a-doin' it to you, 'less 'n it's seein' you in the same state o' mind thet I've been th'ough. You'll find, ez you go on, Mr. Tomkins, thet unless a heart gets expressed one way or another, its mighty ap' to palpitate inwardly. Have you ever had yo' heart to palpitate inward, Mr. Tomkins?"

        She had turned, and was looking straight into her guest's face. He had had time to begin to recover his bearings by this time. The me and the not me were gradually assuming proper relations in his returning consciousness. To be exact, he had just begun definitely to realize where he sat, and that John Christian's

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widow was talking to him when she put her question.

        His first conscious act had been to stop mopping his face and to put his handkerchief away. It was while he was in the act of this bestowal that there came a realization of her expectant face and the necessity of speech.

        "Well, reely - Mis' Christian -" he began.

        "Of co'se," she interrupted, "you may've had it an' not known it. You tell it by feelin' the need of somethin' an' not knowin' jest what it is. It might be fresh air or aromatic sperits of ammonia, an' then again it might be somebody to talk to. With some it's religion. Of co'se, with me - with me it's been this grave.

        "These bottles, now - ef they was one thing on earth thet could 'a' been called a bone of contention in our lives, Mr. Tomkins, it was them identical bottles. I don't reckon I'm a-tellin' you any secret when I say that. Everybody was obligated to know pore John's one fault, because it was that sort of a fault - outspoke an' confessed. That's where John was unlucky. They's lots o' folks thet passes for better 'n what he passed thet has inward faults thet he'd 'a' spewed out o' his mouth. Sech ez that I class ez whited sepulchures - nothin' else. But his one outward fault - why, someway it

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nagged me constant, an' I know I never showed proper patience with it.

        "But now" - she sighed sadly - "but now I've took every endurin' bottle I could lay hands on thet he ever emptied, an' I've brought 'em to him here. An' I've laid my pansy line 'longside of 'em. But I can't say yet thet they ain't a thorn in the flesh to me sometimes - them bottles.

        "An' I've even done more than that, Mr. Tomkins; I've planted mint here - jest ez a token of forgiveness - nothin' else. An', tell the truth, I'm even gittin' so's I like the smell of it. Maybe I'll git entirely reconciled to the bottles - in time. I've had mighty little patience with spearmint all these years, which I now reelize was very foolish, 'cause a green herb ain't no ways responsible for the company it's made to keep, an' I don't know ez they's anything thet could take the mint's place in a julep an' do less harm 'n what the mint does. I don't know but it's maybe a savin' grace to it; an' then it's a Bible herb, you know - mint an' anise an' cumin."

        She had turned away now, and was resuming her work of transplanting. Her last words were spoken as if in half-forgetfulness of her guest. Still, this was possibly only in the seeming, for she said, in a moment, "This is every bit a work of love, Mr. Tomkins." She dropped a pansy

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into place as she spoke, measuring its distance from the inverted bottle with the length of her hair-pin. "He always said he didn't want no foolishness made over his grave - but I think sech modesty ez that should have its reward."

        She had presently completed her planting, and after she had scraped the trowel with her hairpin, cleansed the pin's point in turn against the blade, and then wiped them upon a folded leaf, she mechanically restored the little implement to her hair and rose from her knees.

        "I'm reel glad I had to come back to finish that transplantin', ez it's turned out, Mr. Tomkins." She looked straight at him, with absolute ingenuousness, as she spoke. "I'm glad, 'cause I feel thet I've been able to offer you a little consolation. I was tempted to let them plants lay over tell to-morrer, but I thought I'd feel mo' contented all day ef every beer-bottle had its pansy. Ef they was anything over, I'd ruther it would be a pansy, to make shore of lovin' forgiveness."

        She had turned again to the grave now.

        "I don't often count my plants when I fetch 'em over, an' I mos' gen'ally have a few to spare, an' I set 'em round on graves thet don't have much care. I try to keep the potter's field a-bloomin' a little with my left-overs."

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        She had taken her seat at Tomkins's side again and laid the trowel in her lap. Her bonnet-strings needed retying, and there was a suspicion of dust to be brushed from her knees.

        "I did carry a handful of left-over flowers around to plant on pore Crazy Charlie's grave one day, but when I got there I found thet the Lord had took care o' the pore idiot's memory better'n I could 'a' done. It was all broke out thick ez measles with dandelions, an' sez I to myself, ef they ever was a flighty flower on the green earth, it's a dandelion. So I come away an' planted my odds an' ends promiscuous. I've often wondered ef dandelions wasn't reckoned ez idiots among flowers."

        It was no doubt an awful thing for Elijah to do, certainly it was most inconsistent with his position as taken seriously from any point of view, but at this juncture he suddenly surrendered himself to uncontrollable laughter.

        After a first startled glance his entertainer smiled.

        "Well, I declare!" She spoke kindly. "I've done a good mornin's work, Mr. Tomkins, ef it's only to give you a good, hearty laugh. You'll be all the better for it."

        It is one thing to laugh, and quite another not to be able to stop laughing. Tomkins was for

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some minutes precisely in this condition. He was so overcome, indeed, that he finally turned his back, and, burying his face in his handkerchief, shook until the bench rattled.

        Fortunately his hostess was a woman of genial humor, and, as she has amply shown, by no means a person of sensitiveness.

        "You'll likely cry a little again when the laugh's over - I always do - but it's jest that much better for you," she said, cheerily, as she rose to go. "And now, good-bye!"

        As she moved away, Tomkins suddenly realized something that sobered him. She must not go until there should be some understanding about his buried rose-buds. If possible, he must have her promise of secrecy.

        There was a sudden pain in his heart and a sense of shame as the tender subject presented itself anew to his mental vision. His sorrow was fresh and sacred. The woman with whom he must temporize had invaded its holy domain, and he felt, even as he hastened to pursue her, that he despised her.

        She was a lithe little woman, of quick step, and by the time Elijah had disposed of his troublesome emotions sufficiently to present himself he saw that she was nearing the gate, and he called her, faintly:

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        "Oh, Mis' Christian!"

        She immediately turned and started back.

        "Nemmind; don't come back; I jest want to talk to you a little bit."

        He overtook her now, and together they proceeded to the gate.

        "Mis' Christian, I've jest been a-thinkin'," he began - "that is, I've been a-wonderin' - I wonder ef you're the kind o' person - I know you're a mighty nice lady, Mis' Christian, an' a tender-hearted one, which you've showed me to-day, unmistakable - but I was jest a-wonderin' ef you was the kind o' person" - they had reached the gate now, and Elijah leaned against the post, hesitating in awkward embarrassment - "ef you was the sort o' person thet, ef you was to know a little thing about another person thet they was a-tryin' to keep hid - for reasons of their own - would you jest keep it to yo'self, please, ma'am, an' not say nothin' about it? I'd like to think you was that kind o' person, Mis' Christian - I would indeed."

        A great, pleased light came into the widow's eyes. They saw the dawn of a new era in this interesting case, and this was its reflection. She mechanically loosened her bonnet strings as she came nearer to Elijah.

        "Mr. Tomkins," she began, seriously, and

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with evident relish, "I'm mighty glad you've spoke. Of co'se yo' silence wasn't a thing for me to break. A person's silence is his own - to break or to keep - an' you've broke yores an' let me in - an' I come ez a friend. But befo' I go a step further, Mr. Tomkins" - she came nearer now and lowered her voice - "befo' I go a step further, I want to tell you roses don't grow by plantin' buds. They have to be set out in cuttin's. You could come here an' plant rose-buds all yo' mortal life, an' you wouldn't never have so much ez a sprout, much less 'n a rose-bush - not ef you planted tell doomsday."

        Elijah blushed scarlet. "An' do you think, Mis' Christian, thet -"

        "I don't think nothin' about it. I know it. But ez for talkin'! Why, horses an' mules couldn't drag a word out o' me about yo' plantin' them buds. I been wantin' to tell you for three weeks thet you wouldn't have no crop, but, ez I said befo', it wasn't for me to break yore silence. I wanted to tell you partly on her account, too, 'cause ef she's conscious of it, I know it must pleg her. She was so sensible always, I know how she'd feel."

        Elijah moved uneasily, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

        "Mis' Christian," he began, "we're here in

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the presence o' the dead, ez you might say, an' I'm a-goin' to talk to you outspoke. My feelin's ain't things I like to talk about - an' I'm a slow-spoken man anyway. Either my luck or yores is the lot of purty nigh every married couple in God's world. Mighty few is allotted to die together. They's bound to be a goer an' a stayer, an' ef the goers can stand their part an' keep silence, it's always seemed to me the stayers might do ez much - jest hold still - that's all. I thought I was man enough to do it - an' I am ef - " He wanted to say "ef I could be let alone," but he dared not. He left the sentence broken. "But ef they's one thing on the round world thet I can't stand, it's bein' made a fool of - or laughed at. An' that's why I planted them buds."

        The widow looked at him askance, as if half suspicious of his sanity. But he went on:

        "She ast me, Mis' Christian - one o' the last words she spoke - an' I promised her - to put a rose-bud on her grave every day - an' I've done it. But I knowed thet ef I was ketched a-doin' sech a softy thing, they wouldn't be no peace in Simpkinsville for me - so I've jest buried it. An' continue to do so I must.

        "Now I've done out with the whole thing. It seemed like a little thing to ask. Buds is plentiful,

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an' the cemetery is close-t enough, an' I'd do a'most anything to please her. An' yet - Well, it's jest one o' them little things sech ez a woman 'll ask a man to do in a minute, an' he'll never git done doin'. Th' ain't nothin' I wouldn't do for her, an' do gladly, thet I could keep to myself. Ef she'd 'a' ast me to eat a whole rose-bush every day, I'd eat it gladly, thorns an' all. They'd be a-plenty o' ways of eatin' it in secret, an' I wouldn't mind a inward thorn. But this here trip I'm obligated to take - tell the truth, it plegs me. An' now, I don't doubt thet to a woman with sech a bloomin' grave ez you keep I must seem like a mighty begrudgin' sort of a man, Mis' Christian."

        "Not at all, Mr. Tomkins - not at all. You're jest precizely, for all the world, similar-dispositioned to John Christian. Ef I had 'a' died first, although he'd 'a' been all broke up over it, I know I wouldn't have no mo' flowers on my grave than sech weeds ez the good Lord sends to beggars' graves - not a one. Pore John! He often said, jest a-jokin', of co'se, thet he'd promise thet I should wear weeds, no matter which went first. He was death on jokin' that-a-way. Little did he think I'd wear both kinds, though, pore John, which no doubt I will. They won't be nobody but God to flower me over when I'm gone. I've often

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thought I'd like to get in under 'em - when my time comes - and enjoy my own flowers awhile. His grave is a-plenty wide. But of co'se they wouldn't be no way of gettin' me in without upsettin' things, an' I reckon it's jest ez well. Ef I knew the flowers was there I'd have 'em on my mind all the time, an' every dry spell I'd be fidgety to get out an' water 'em. In tendin' his grave, Mr. Tomkins, I take the same pleasure I would 'a' took ef I was in it an' he fixin' it up. Doin' ez you'd be done by is sometimes mo' satisfyin' than bein' did by. 'Cause them thet do by you don't always come up to the mark.

        "But don't think I blame you, Mr. Tomkins. Where they's one person foreordained to carry rose-buds around, there's been a hundred foreordained to laugh at him.

        "But it looks to me like ez if we ought to be able to devise some way to have you relieved. Of co'se you've got to keep on - ez long ez rose-buds hold out. An' of co'se they's a long summer ahead, an' buds 'll be plentiful, but the last two winters have been so mild thet they's a big freeze prophesied next year. An' ef buds give out, ez they're more'n likely to, why, it won't be yo' fault. An' ef she sees into yo' heart she'll see thet it warms so to desher the day the roses freeze thet she wouldn't be

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indooced to have you start it another season. An' don't you fret. Jest go along plantin' yore buds, an' nobody livin' but you an' me an' this gatepost 'll ever know it.

        "An' any time you feel the need of givin' way, jest come over to his square an' make yo'self at home, whether I'm there or not. We all have our trials, Mr. Tomkins, an' when yore buds seem mo' than you can bear, why jest remember thet I've got my beer-bottles. Good-bye!"

        She held out her hand. Tomkins took it heartily, without a word, and then, turning away, he proceeded to unfasten her horse, and to turn him while she jumped into her buggy.

        As he handed her the reins, lifting his hat as he did so, he was startled by the sound of approaching wheels.

        Involuntarily at the sound he dodged into the open gate and hurried back through the cemetery to his horse, tied at the other gate. And even in his hurry and fright, as he strode rapidly through the winding paths, this comforting thought took shape and soothed his troubled mind:

        " 'Stonishin' what a sensible woman Christian's wife is, after all!"

        She was to him quite as truly the dead man's wife as if her lamented husband were still living.

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Her friendly interest and sympathy had been that of a kindly sister woman to an unhappy brother man. That was all. And he was grateful to her. Indeed, as he rode homeward, taking a winding détour that should bring him to his own gate from a direction opposite the cemetery, as the hour was late, he was conscious of a lightened burden.

        The tension of awful secrecy had been eased by the simple sharing of it with another - another who, notwithstanding her own different temperament, "understood."

        This was Elijah's mood to-day; but when next morning came he found himself definitely annoyed at the thought of the interested woman in the cemetery. She would know when he came in and went out. Maybe she would be watching while he buried the bud. He would feel like such a fool if he suspected this. He hoped that, having once been kind and neighborly, she would henceforth mind her own business and let him alone.

        Fortunately for his state of mind, there was no reason to fear that she was anywhere near on this first day, and he performed his mission without any sort of disturbance - excepting, indeed, the distinct irritation he felt when he perceived the bent hair-pin still lying where she had dropped it the day before.

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        The color mounted to his face when he saw this, and if the widow had appeared before him at this moment it would have been hard for him.

        She did not come, however. Indeed, though he regularly came and went - and always looked for her - he did not see her for several weeks; and when at last, nearly a month later, he did meet her coming in with a watering-pot in her hand, she only smiled in a simple and friendly way, as she said to him, quite as if he might have been any other man:"Good-mornin', Mr. Tomkins. Mighty dry spell o' weather," and passed on.

        This was well done; and Elijah was pleased, though he was destined to experience a somewhat uncomfortable moment, as he instantly realized that he had met and spoken to a lady bearing a heavy vessel of water and had not offered to carry it for her.

        Indeed, he was suddenly so ashamed of himself that he turned to proffer the tardy courtesy; but she had gone so far - and his voice did not come at the critical moment - and - well, the opportunity passed.

        When it was over, he felt rather glad that his courteous impulse had failed to carry. Better let her think him a trifle remiss, or even impolite,

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than for him to "begin 'totin' ' water to John Christian's grave."

        "Ef I was to be ketched doin' sech a thing ez that," he even reflected further, "I'd be worse off 'n ever."

        The summer was a long and lonely one to Elijah. His home, left to the care of a single old servant, was wellnigh comfortless.

        Adam's first necessity, preserved through the very conditions of its transmission, has become the one unimpaired heritage of his latest son. It is still, even as at first, not good for man to be alone. A primary need of his life is yet the sustaining companionship of some good woman, be she wife or mother or sister or friend. And it is well for him if she be better than he; happy for him if she spice the sweetness of her relation with differences of thought and opinion. Only let him feel that she understands him, and cares.

        Elijah, in spite of all her expressions of kindness to him, and her since becoming reticence, had never quite forgiven the widow Christian for discovering his secret. The rusting hair-pin, always definitely located in his consciousness, even when the summer's full growth had covered it over, was still an irritation to him.

        And yet, when the season of shortening days

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was at hand, when September was waning and October's promise was so very barren, he one day idly wondered if he should never meet, if for but a moment's recognition - "jest for a passin' o' the time o' day" - the one woman on earth who knew and respected his secret; the one who, so far as her slight knowledge went, understood him.

        He saw her again, very soon after this, but there was no greeting. He had taken a fancy to come in by "her gate," and he found she had just preceded him. For the length of such a distance as one would designate as "a block" in New York - it would be "a square" in New Orleans - he walked a short distance behind her. And the morning sun shone full upon her all the way, defining her trig figure, penetrating the coil of her hair. She did not look around, though she must have heard his step.

        The widow Christian was, as already seen, a Presbyterian, and as she walked before Elijah down the gravelled path, every hair of her head seemed a fitting expression of her faith. Each strand lay as if obeying a divine injunction dating from the foundations of the world. But it was clean and wholesome, and of a true blue-black.

        It was frankly Calvinistic, eminently sure, by

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every declaration of its polished braid, of its calling and election.

        And yet - its conscientious wearer was canonizing a drunkard, reincarnating the tares of his wasted life as flowers, and feasting her famished soul upon their fragrance and beauty, willingly self-deceived - apologizing, as the good always do to the bad. Base indeed must be a life too poor to yield a posthumous flowering of balm for the anointing of loving hearts. The inconsistency of the lonely little Presbyterian woman's daily devotions at a shrine so meagre and yet so rich in color and symbols was full of pathos. She reminded one of a little Romanist at her prie-dieu burning her candle for a departed soul - without the consolations of purgatory.

        Elijah did not try to overtake her this morning, nor, be it quickly said to his credit, did he think these thoughts about her. They are the writer's - and idle enough.

        But Elijah was touched with sympathy for her as she walked alone before him - he knew not why.

        There was a suspicion of chill in the air as he sniffed its breath this morning. The faint, indescribable atmospheric relief that comes when a Southern September yawns for a minute is hard to describe. It is only as if summer were tired,

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perhaps. Still, a yawn always presages a new era - a renascence beyond its culmination.

        To Elijah it meant that the season of the blooming rose was on the wane. He lingered quite a while at his poor shrine to-day, waiting, for no reason at all. But when he was presently startled by a rustling skirt, and, looking up, saw the widow depart, he turned away with a definite sense of disappointment.

        She certainly had known he was there, and might have had the grace to look over and nod, or to remark that it was a cool morning, or a warm one. Either would have been true enough.

        "The fact is," he reflected, as a fretful ten-year-old boy might have done - "the fact is, she don't keer no mo' for me 'n what she does for the next one. She was jest kind to me because she is kind, that's all - an' I was jest big enough of a fool to think she felt reel neighborly."

        If there was reason for such misgiving to-day, the morrow brought the lonely man a goodly grain of reassurance. It was indeed a full day.

        Unconsciously piqued by his last experience, he determined that it should not be repeated, and so he had risen betimes and gone earlier than usual to the cemetery; and he was turning away, feeling remote enough from all human sympathy, when he saw his neighbor enter the gate,

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and by first intention start in his direction. His first feeling was a qualm of apprehension lest she had set out on a visit of investigation, and would turn back when she should see him.

        But no; she had seen him. There was pleased recognition of his presence in her face as she approached him. This was, by-the-way, the first time that he saw that she was pretty - or thought of it, indeed.

        "I thought I'd find you here early this mornin', Mr. Tomkins, an' so I hurried up to ketch you." Such was her frank and friendly greeting. "Mr. Tomkins," she repeated, when she had reached him, "I jest wanted to tell you thet Jim Peters is goin' to be fetched down from Sandy Crik an' buried here to-morrer. The Peters lot is right down there back o' yours, an' the men are comin' by sunup in the mornin' to dig his grave; an' I thought maybe, like ez not, you'd like to know it. I know you'd likely ruther not meet 'em here. Ef you don't feel like gittin' up about three o'clock - it's high moon then - why, you could easy slip around after sundown. They don't never be anybody here late of evenin's nohow. I often come in an' sprinkle his pansies after the sun's off of 'em, an' I never have met nobody here 'long about dark."

        She stood facing the grave on the side opposite

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Elijah as she spoke. There was a note of simple friendliness in her voice, and it touched him deeply.

        "I declare, Mis' Christian," he said, with emotion, "I do think you're the best-hearted an' kindest lady I've ever knew in all my life. I do indeed." And then, as his eyes fell upon the grave between them, he hastened to add, "Present company excepted, of co'se."

        "Of co'se," she repeated in generous assent. "An' I respect you all the mo' for that polite attention to her, Mr. Tomkins. They ain't many men that would 'a' done it." And then she added: "I see thet you 'ain't never come over to his square sence that one time. You ought to walk in some time when I ain't there to bother you, even ef you don't need to borry the hedge, jest to see how purty it is. Them pansies have turned out lovely. But the funniest thing happened. Right in the row with the black-faced ones - jest about where you set that mornin' - would you believe it thet one o' them pansies bloomed out pink? Ever' one planted from dead-black seeds, mind you. An' do you know, maybe I ought to 've picked it out quick ez it showed color, but I didn't. I couldn't do it, Mr. Tomkins. Seemed to me that pansy stood out there jest to remind me o' the day thet I was


"'PRESENT COMPANY EXCEPTED'"

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enabled to cheer you up a little, an' whenever I'd look into its sassy little pink face with its quizzical eyebrows I'd seem to see you a-settin' there shakin' with laughter. An' it's done me good, too. When the good Lord sends a little thing like that out o' His ground, where He works so much magic for the comfort of our hearts, I believe in jest takin' it ez He sends it. An' that pansy plant has kep' a pink face there for me all summer; an' when I'd look at it I'd often remember to wish a little wish for you, Mr. Tomkins. I've often wanted to ask how yore two babies was comin' on, but I didn't like to. But ef I'd knew you well enough when she died, I wouldn't no mo' have advised you to let yore sister take them children out o' yore house than nothin'. Ef they's ever a time a man needs his child'en it is when their mother is took away. Goin' to see 'em once-t a week the way you do ain't livin'. If I was you, an' them my babies, well - Howsoever, excuse me for meddlin'. Maybe ef I'd ever had any child'en o' my own they wouldn't seem like gold an' diamonds to me the way they do. But here I keep on a-talkin'. It's a little fresh this mornin', an' I reckon we'll have the early frost. Sech buds ez you find now must be most too pretty to bury. Fall roses always seem like they

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put on their purtiest so ez to make you hate to see 'em go. Good-bye."

        Instead of answering, Elijah stepped quickly around the grave and joined her.

        "Don't hurry away, Mis' Christian," he said, as he stepped beside her. "I 'ain't got no nice seat to offer you, like you have, but I want to talk to you a little. It's been on my mind some time to tell you thet you mustn't think I 'ain't got no mo' pride than to let this grave o' mine all run to weeds forever. I'm jest a-waitin' a little - tell it settles solid - an' I'm goin' to have it fixed up decent an' expensive. I thought about havin' a reg'lar long slab laid down over it, an' all cemented round the edges. But I won't do it now tell all the buds give out. I've got so used to layin' the bud under the sod thet I wouldn't feel ez ef she had it ef it was on top a lot o' marble an' stuff. She was a mighty good wife, Mis' Christian - most of her time porely, ez you know. They's many a little thing I wisht I'd 'a' done for her, ez I look back. I'd 'a' had a marble stone there long ago - 'ceptin' for the buds."

        "Well - I don't know but you're wise, Mr. Tomkins. Sometimes I thought of cementin' his in, an' jest lettin' it rest so. But I haven't never been able to make up my mind what I'd do with the bottles - whether I'd leave 'em

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inside or take 'em out. Sometimes," she sighed, and hesitated - "some times I have reel strange misgivin's about them bottles. Supposin', f' instance, thet at the resurrection he was to be shamed out of all countenance findin' 'em here - with the brewer's name blowed in each one - an' all the white ribboned angels a-flyin' round. Of co'se we can't tell how things is goin' to be - an' they're bound to be some way. I don't know but I'll change it all yet - some day. But ef I was to cement him in I'd feel mighty empty-handed - an' lost. But reely, Mr. Tomkins, instid o' you apologizin' to me, I want to tell you thet I've often felt reproached seein' you slip in an' out so reg'lar an' so quiet. You're doin' a thing she ast you to do - an' doin' it modest and sincere. An' me - I'm doin' a thing he never would 'a' liked in creation, an' makin' a show of it - though how it would look was cert'nly the last thing on earth in my mind. Somehow pore John never stood ez high ez I'd liked him to among the livin' an' I have been ambitious to have him stand well among the dead. But you're the only human I've ever spoke to about it, an' the good Lord knows you're the last man I'd 'a' ever thought I could 'a' spoke to - seven months ago. We never know what we'll do - tell it's done."

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        They were at the opening of the hedge now, and she walked in, Tomkins following.

        "Ef you want to see yoreself ez others see you, or at least ez I saw you, Mr. Tomkins, look at this pink pansy."

        She chuckled merrily as she turned the saucy face of the flower so that he could see it. Tomkins laughed too as he looked at it.

        "Nobody knows how much company them pink faces have been to me all summer. Croppin' out there in the black row they're like jokes at a funeral. We've all told 'em - or listened to 'em - an' they's no place on earth thet a joke gets its own more'n at a funeral, to my thinkin'. Yas, ez I said, Mr. Tomkins - Set down a minute, won't you? I won't charge you any more."

        Her playful mood was like wine to poor Elijah after a long thirst. She moved to the end of the bench to make room for him, and he sat down.

        "Yas, ez I said," she began, in quite a changed tone, and yet with a spring in her voice - " ez I said, Mr. Tomkins, I'd have them babies home - ef they was mine - sister or no sister. Why, the way you're a-living now, you ain't no mo'n a uncle to 'em. An' the way I look at it - of co'se you ain't never goin' to think of marryin' again; you are like me in that - an' so, the way you

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start out with them child'n o' yores is likely to continue. Ef you was jest holdin' off tell sech a time ez you could turn out among the girls to pick out a step-mother for 'em for her rosy cheeks, it would be different. Yore sister would do jest ez well ez anybody else to ripen 'em for her. But it seems to me thet a man o' yore standin' an' yore stren'th o' mind would 'a' took some nice pious old lady like Mis' Gibbs, f' instance, thet has done quilted all her life away nearly, an' won't accept no home thet she can't earn. Seems to me sech a lady ez that would 'a' kep' yo' family circle intac' - an' earned a good home at the same time. An' Mis' Gibbs, why, she thinks the world an' all of you. She grannied yore mother when you was born - maybe you remember - 't least so she says. She says you was the reddest baby she ever see in her life, but I sort o' doubt that - with yore brown hair."

        She glanced at Elijah's head as she spoke.

        "Well!" she laughed; "don't know ez I doubt it, either, look at you now."

        He had, indeed, blushed scarlet, and now he blushed again because she had noticed it.

        "I do declare!" she laughed again. "I reckon you must be like a girl I went to school with She always said she felt humiliated every time she reelized she'd ever been a baby. But I glory

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in it. The only grudge I've got against it is thet I can't remember how folks fed me an' dressed me an' toted me around - waited on me. I 'ain't got a single ricollection of sech ez thet in all my life - not a one. I've done the fetchin' and carryin' for others ever sence I can remember, an' done it willin' enough, too. Still, I'm glad to know thet I have had my innin's. But you think over what I've said about ole Mis' Gibbs now - but don't never let on thet I mentioned it. Some child'en is afeerd of her on account of her wig - but they'd soon git used to it. It does shift some sence she's fell away so, but I don't doubt thet at the head o' yore bountiful table she'd very soon grow up to it again. I know what one broke-up home is, Mr. Tomkins, an' I hate to see another. Mine can't help but stay broke - 'less'n I'd start adoptin', which would be a hard thing to do - in Simpkinsville. There couldn't never possibly be a orphan without relations here, where everybody is kin - an' a orphan with about twenty-'leven lookers-on is the last thing on earth for anybody to adopt."

        This was the last meeting Elijah had with the widow Christian during this season. He stayed a few minutes to-day, her willing listener and grateful guest.

        When he finally made his awkward adieus his

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mind was filled with a new hope in her suggestion of reconstructing his broken circle - bringing his children home. Perhaps, after all, all of life had not gone out of living.

        He wished a little, as he pondered over her plan, that old Mrs. Gibbs's wig were a closer fit, and that she were, perhaps, a trifle less