CHAPTER XV.
It was October--the carnival time of the year,
When on the ground red apples lie In piles like jewels shining, And redder still on old stone walls Are leaves of woodbine twining.
When comrades seek sweet country haunts, By twos and twos together, And count like misers, hour by hour, October's bright blue weather.
On a lovely afternoon our travelers were driving leisurely along throughpartially cleared woodland. The doctor had proposed that they take thistrip in the new automobile. But Mary had declined with great firmness.
"I will not be hurled along the road in October of all months. Whatfools these mortals be," she went on. "Last year while driving slowlythrough the glorious Austrian Tyrol fairly holding my breath withdelight, one machine after another whizzed by, the occupants fancyingthey were 'doing' the Tyrol, I dare say."
Mary looked about her, drinking in deep draughts of the delicious air.The beautifully-tinted leaves upon every tree and bush, the blue haze inthe distance and the dreamful melancholy over all, were delightful toher. The fragrance of wild grapes came to them as they emerged from thewoods and Mary said, "Couldn't you wait a minute, John, until I go backand find them? I'll bring you some."
"If you were sick and had sent for a doctor would you like to have himfool around gathering grapes and everything else on his way?"
"No, I wouldn't. I really wouldn't."
They laughed as they sped along the open country road, skirted on eitherside by a rail fence. From a fence corner here and there arose tallsumac, like candelabra bearing aloft their burning tapers. The poke-weedflung out its royal purple banners while golden-rod and asters wereblooming everywhere. Suddenly Mary exclaimed, "I'm going to get out ofthe buggy this minute."
"What for?"
"To gather those brown bunches of hazelnuts."
"Mary, I positively will not wait for you."
"John, I positively don't want you to wait for me," said Mary, puttingher foot on the step, "I'm going to stay here and gather nuts till youcome back. See how many there are?" and she sprang lightly to theground.
"It will be an hour or more before I can get back. I've got to take upthat pesky artery."
"It won't seem long. You know I like to be alone."
"Good-bye, then," and the doctor started off.
"Wait! John," his wife called after him. "I haven't a thing to put thenuts in, please throw me the laprobe." The doctor crushed the robe intoa sort of bundle and threw it to her.
She spread the robe upon the ground and began plucking the bunches. Herfingers flew nimbly over the bushes and soon she had a pile of the browntreasures. Dear old times came trooping back. She thought of far-offautumn days when she had taken her little wagon and gone out to thehazel bushes growing near her father's house, and filled it to the topand tramped it down and filled it yet again. Then a gray October daycame back when three or four girls and boys, all busy in the bushes,talked in awed tones of the great fire--Chicago was burning up! Big, bigChicago, which they had never seen or dreamed of seeing--all because acow kicked over a lamp.
Mary moved to another clump of bushes. As she worked she thought if shehad never known the joy of gathering nuts and wild grapes andpersimmons, of wandering through woods and meadows, her childhood wouldhave lost much that is beautiful and best, and her womanhood many of itsdearest recollections.
"You're the doctor's wife, ain't ye?"
Mary looked around quite startled. A tall woman in a blue calico dressand a brown gingham sunbonnet was standing there. "I didn't want toscare ye, I guess you didn't see me comin'."
"I didn't know you were coming--yes, I am the doctor's wife."
"We saw ye from the house and supposed he'd gone on to see old manBenning and that you had stopped to pick nuts."
"You guessed it exactly," said Mary with a smile.
"We live about a quarter mile back from the road so I didn't see thedoctor in time to stop him."
"Is some one sick at your house, then?"
"Well, my man ain't a doin' right, somehow. He's been ailin' for sometime and his left foot and leg is a turnin' blue. I come to see if youcould tell me somethin' I could do for it. I'm afraid it's mortifyin'."
Mary's brown eyes opened wide. "Why, my dear woman, I couldn't tell youanything to do. I don't know anything at all about such things."
"I supposed bein' a doctor's wife you'd learnt everything like that."
"I have learned many things by being a doctor's wife, very many things,but what to do with a leg and foot that are mortifying I really couldnot tell you." Mary turned her face away to hide a laugh that wasgetting near the surface. "I will have the doctor drive up to the housewhen he gets back if you wish," she said, turning to her companion.
"Maybe that would be best. Your husband cured me once when I thoughtnothing would ever get me well again. I think more of him than any otherman in the world."
"Thank you. So do I."
She started off and Mary went on gathering nuts, her face breaking intosmiles at the queer errand and the restorative power imputed to herself."If it is as serious as she thinks, all the doctors in the world can'tdo much for it, much less one meek and humble doctor's wife. But theycould amputate, I suppose, and I'm sure I couldn't, not in a scientificway."
Thus soliloquizing, she went from clump to clump of the low bushes tillthey were bereft of their fruitage. She looked down well-pleased at therobe with the nuts piled upon it. She drew the corners up and tied herbundle securely. This done she looked down the road where the doctor haddisappeared. "I'll just walk on and meet him," she thought. She wentleisurely along, stopping now and then to pluck a spray of goldenrod.When she had gathered quite a bunch she looked at it closely. "You arelike some people in this world--you have a pretty name and at a littledistance _you_ are pretty: but seen too close you are a disappointment,and more than that you are coarse. I don't want you," and she flung themaway. She saw dust rising far down the road and hoped it might be thedoctor. Yes, it was he, and Bucephalus seemed to know that he wastraveling toward home. When her husband came up and she was seatedbeside him, she said, "You are wanted at that little house over yonder,"and she told him what had taken place in the hazel bushes. "You'resecond choice though, they came for me first," she said laughing.
"I wish to thunder you'd gone. They owe me a lot now they'll never pay."
"At any rate, they hold you in very high esteem, John."
"Oh, yes, but esteem butters no bread."
"Well, you'll go, won't you? I told the woman you would."
"Yes, I'll go."
He turned into a narrow lane and in a few minutes they were at the gate.The doctor handed the reins to Mary and went inside. A girl fourteen orfifteen years old with a bald-headed baby on her arm came out of thehouse and down the path.
"Won't you come in?"
"No, thank you. We will be going home in a minute."
The girl set the baby on the gate-post. "She's the smartest baby I eversaw," she said. "She's got a whole mouthful of teeth already."
"And how old is she?"
"She was ten months old three weeks ago last Saturday."
As today was Thursday, Mary was on the point of saying, "She will beeleven months old in a few days then," but checked herself--sheunderstood. It would detract from the baby's smartness to give hereleven months instead of only ten in which to accomplish such wonders inthe way of teeth. The doctor came out and they started. Just before theycame out to the main road they passed an old deserted house. No signs oflife were about it except the very luxuriant life in the tall jimsonsand ragweeds growing about it and reaching almost to the top of the lowdoorway, yawning blackly behind them.
"I think the longest night of my life was spent in that house aboutsixteen years ago. It's the only house I was ever in where there wasnothing at all to read. There wasn't even an almanac."
Mary laughed. "An almanac is a great deal better than nothing, my dear.I found that
out once upon a time when I had to stay in a house forseveral hours where there was just one almanac and not another printedpage. I read the jokes two or three times till they began to pall andthen set to work on the signs. I'll always have a regard for thembecause they gave me a lift through those tedious hours."
They were not far from the western edge of the piece of woodland theywere traversing and all about them was the soft red light of the settingsun. They could see the sun himself away off through the straight andsolemn trunks of the trees. A mile farther on Mary uttered a suddenexclamation of delight.
"See that lovely bittersweet!"
"I see, but don't ask me to stop and get you some."
"I won't, but I'll ask you to stop and let _me_ get some."
"I wouldn't bother about it. You'll have to scramble over that ditch andup the bank--"
"I've scrambled over worse things in my life," she said, springing fromthe buggy and picking her way down the intervening ditch. The bright redberries in their flaring yellow hoods were beautiful. She began breakingoff the branches. When she had gathered a large bunch and was turningtoward the buggy she saw a vehicle containing two women approaching fromthe opposite direction. There was a ditch on either side of the roadwhich, being narrow at this point, made passing a delicate piece ofwork. The doctor drew his horse to one side so that the wheels of thebuggy rested on the very brink and waited for them to pass; he saw thatthere was room with perhaps a foot or two to spare.
On came the travelers and--the front wheels of the two vehicles werelocked in a close embrace. For a minute the doctor did some vigorousthinking and then he climbed out of the buggy. It was a trying position.He could not say all of the things he wanted to--it would not be polite;neither did he want to act as if it were nothing because Mary might notunderstand the extent of the mischief she had caused and how much out ofhumor he was with her. It would be easier if she were only out ofhearing instead of looking at him across the ditch with apologetic eyes.
The doctor's horse began to move uneasily but the other stood perfectlystill.
"He's used to this sort of thing, perhaps," said the doctor with aslittle sarcasm as possible.
"Yes, we have run into a good many buggies and things," said one of thewomen, cheerfully.
"Women beat the devil when it comes to driving," thought the doctorwithin himself. "They'll drive right over you and never seem to thinkthey ought to give part of the road. And they do it everywhere, not onlywhere there are ditches." He restrained his speech, backed the offendingvehicle and started the travelers on. While he was doing so his ownsteed started on and he had a lively run to catch him.
Mary had thought of turning back to break off another spray of thebittersweet but John's profanity was rising to heaven. Diplomacyrequired her to get to the buggy and into it at once. This she did andthe doctor plunged in after her.
"Forgive me for keeping you waiting," she said gently. She held thebittersweet out before her. "Isn't it lovely, John?"
A soft observation turneth away wrath. The doctor's was oozing awaysooner than he wished.
They drove on for a while in silence. The soft, still landscape dottedhere and there with farm houses and with graceful elm and willow trees,was lit up and glorified by the after-glow. The evening sky archingserenely over a quiet world, how beautiful it was! And as Mary's eyescaught a glittering point of light in the blue vault above them, shesang softly to herself:
"O, thou sublime, sweet evening star, Joyful I greet thee from afar."
For a while she watched the stars as one by one they twinkled into view,then drawing her wraps more closely about her, she leaned back in thecarriage and gave herself up to pleasant reflection, and before sherealized it the lights of home were twinkling cheerily ahead.