Then she stepped into the carriage,and he waited a second,quite long enough to let her see that he was perfectly willing to sit there all day if she wanted him to,and then he slowly and carefully drove home,as he always did when she was in the carriage.Times when he had us children out alone,he went until you couldn't see the spokes in the wheels.He just loved to "speed up"once in a while on a piece of fine road to let us know how going fast felt.
Mother sat there trembling a little,smiling,misty-eyed.I was thinking,for I knew what the "fly in the ointment"was.She had a letter from Shelley yesterday,and she said there wasn't a reason on earth why father or Laddie should spend money to come to Chicago,she would soon be home,she was counting the hours,and she never wanted to leave again.In the start she didn't want to go at all,unless she could stay three years,at the very least.Of course it was that dreadful man,who had made her so beautiful and happy,and then taken away all the joy;how COULD a man do it?It was the hardest thing to understand.
Next morning mother was feeling fine,the world was lovely,Miss Amelia was gone,May was home to help,so she began housecleaning by washing all the curtains.She had been in the kitchen to show Candace how.I had all my work done,and was making friends with a robin brooding in my very own catalpa tree,when Mr.Pryor rode up,tied his horse,and started toward the gate.I knew he and father had quarrelled;that is,father had told him he couldn't say "God was a myth"in this house,and he'd gone home mad as hops;so I knew it would be something mighty important that was bringing him back.I slid from the tree,ran and opened the gate,and led the way up the walk.I opened the front door and asked him in,and then I did the wrong thing.I should have taken his hat,told him to be seated,and said I would see if I could find father;I knew what to do,and how to do it,but because of that about God,I was so excited I made a mistake.I never took his hat,or offered him a chair;I just bolted into the dining-room,looking for father or mother,and left the door wide open,so he thought that wasn't the place to sit,because Ididn't give him a chair,and he followed me.The instant I saw mother's face,I knew what I had done.The dining-room was no place for particular company like him,and bringing him in that way didn't give her time to smooth her hair,pull shut her dress band at the neck,put on her collar,and shiny goldstone pin,her white apron,and rub her little flannel rag,with rice flour on it,on her nose to take away the shine.I had made a mess of it.
There she came right in the door,just as she was from the tub.
Her hair was damp and crinkled around her face,her neckband had been close in stooping,so she had unfastened it,and tucked it back in a little V-shaped place to give her room and air.Her cheeks were pink,her eyes bright,her lips red as a girl's,and her neck was soft and white.The V-shaped place showed a little spot like baby skin,right where her neck went into her chest.
Sure as father kissed her lips,he always tipped back her head,bent lower and kissed that spot too.I had seen hundreds of them go there,and I had tried it myself,lots of times,and it WASthe sweetest place.Seeing what I had done,I stopped breathless.You have to beat most everything you teach a child right into it properly to keep it from making such a botch of things as that.I hardly dared to peep at mother,but when I did,she took my breath worse than the mistake I had made.
Caught,she stood her ground.She never paused a second.
Straight to him she went,holding out her hand,and I could see that it was red and warm from pressing the lace in the hot suds.
A something flashed over her,that made her more beautiful than she was in her silk dress going to town to help Lucy give a party,and her voice was sweet as the bubbling warbler on the garden fence when he was trying to coax a mate into the privet bush to nest.
Mother asked him to be seated,so he took one of the chairs nearest him,and sat holding his hat in one hand,his whip in the other.Mother drew a chair beside the dining table,dropped her hands on each other,and looking in his eyes,she smiled at him.
I tell the same thing over about people's looks,but I haven't told of this smile of mother's;because I never saw exactly how it was,or what it would do to people,until that morning.Then as I watched her--for how she felt decided what would happen to me,after Mr.Pryor was gone I saw something I never had noticed until that minute.She could laugh all over her face,before her lips parted until her teeth showed.She was doing it now.With a wide smile running from cheek to cheek,pushing up a big dimple at each end,her lips barely touching,her eyes dancing,she sat looking at him.
"This IS the most blessed season for warming up the heart,"she said."If you want the half of my kingdom,ask quickly.I'm in the mood to bestow it."How she laughed!He just had to loosen up a little,and smile back,even though it looked pretty stiff.
"Well,I'll not tax you so far,"he said."I only want Mr.
Stanton."
"But he is the whole of the kingdom,and the King to boot!"she laughed,dimpled,and flamed redder.
Mr.Pryor stared at her wonderingly.You could even see the wonder,like it was something you could take hold of.I suppose he wondered what could make a woman so happy,like that.
"Lucky man!"he said."All of us are not so fortunate.""Then it must be you don't covet the place or the title,"said mother more soberly."Any woman will crown the man she marries,if he will allow her.Paul went farther.He compelled it.""I wonder how!"said Mr.Pryor,his eyes steadily watching mother's face.
"By never failing in a million little things,that taken as a whole,make up one mighty big thing,on which he stands like the Rock of Ages.""Yet they tell me that you are the mother of twelve children,"he said,as if he marvelled at something.
