In Simpkinsville - an excerpt

THE widow Carroll and widower Bradfield were next neighbors. Indeed, they were the nearest next neighbors in Simpkinsville, their houses, contrary to the village fashion, standing scarce thirty feet apart.

The cordial friendly relations long existing between the two families were still indicated by the well-worn "stoop" set in the dividing-fence between the two gardens, its three steps on either side a perpetual invitation to social intercourse. Here, in the old days, the two wives were wont to meet for neighborly converse, each generally sitting on her own side, while the "landing" at the stoop's summit answered for table, set conviently between them. Here it had been a common thing to see two thimbles standing off duty beside spools of thread and bits of sewing - little sleeves or patch-work squares - while their mistresses bent over flower beds or pots; for many an industrious intention was thwarted by the witchery of growing things on both sides the fence. Indeed, every one of the fine flowering geraniums that bloomed on either porch had at one time or another passed over this stoop as a cutting, or been taxed in some of its members for the friendly transit.

Here, too, had passed cake receipts and pantalet patterns, bits of yeast-cake and preserving-kettles. Here were exchanged comments upon last Sunday's sermons, and lengthy opinions upon such questions as frequently disturb the maternal mind; as, for instance, whether it were wiser for parents to put their children through the contagious diseases of childhood as opportunity offered, or to shun them, hoping for life-long immunity. In such arguments as this Mrs. Carroll had usually the advantage of a positive opinion. On this identical question, for example, she had frankly declared her sentiments in this wise:

"Well, they's some ketchin' diseases thet I'd send my child'en after in a minute, ef they was handy; an' then, agin, they's others thet I wouldn't dare to, though, ef they was to come, I'd be glad when they was over. Any disease thet's got any principle to it I ain't afeerd to tackle, sech ez measles, which they've been measles, behavin' 'cordin' to rule, comin' an' goin' ef they was kep' het an' sweated correct, ever sence the first measle. But scarlet-fever, now, f'instance, that's another thing. My b'lief is thet God sends some diseases, an' the devil, he sends others."

Mrs. Bradfield had agreed that perhaps it was a mother's duty to carry her children through as many ailments as possible while she was here to see to it, and yet - for her part - well, she "didn't know." She had known even measles to - "But, of co'se, they was black measles, or else they wasn't properly drawed out o' the circulation," she had finally allowed. "And, of co'se, ez you say, Mis' Carroll, maybe they wasn't measles. You can't, to say, rightly prove a measle thet ain't broke out. Tell the truth, I'd be fearful to sen' for any disease less'n it had a'ready come an' gone 'thout killin' nobody, which would seem to prove that it wasn't of a fatal nature. An' then, of co'se, it'd be too late to get it. But ez to ascribin' diseases either up or down, Mis' Carroll," she had concluded, "I wouldn't dare do it, less'n I might be unconsciously honorin' the Evil One or dishonorin' God."

"An', of co'se," Mrs. Carroll had smilingly replied - "of co'se I don't want to give Satan no mo'n his due, neither. But they do say, 'God sends the babies their teeth, and lets the devil set 'em in' - an' that's why the pore little things have sech trouble cuttin' 'em. Seem like the wrastle with Satan begins pretty early. 'Cordin' to that, the Old Boy was, ez you might say, the first dentist, an' all the endurin' dentists sence 'ain't been able to cast him out o' the profession."

"No, an' never will, I reckon, till he is required to hand in his pattern for jaw-teeth roots, an' to go by it. But, bein' Satan, an' of co'se unprincipled, I reckon he wouldn't keep to it, even then."

Of course in this, as in all next-neighbor friendships, there had been points of contact that could easily have induced friction, but they were never openly confessed, and are certainly now unworthy of more than such casual notice as an unfolding retrospect may reveal.

It was nearly two years now since the two thimbles had rested on the stoop landing. In the interval sorrow had entered both gates. The crêpe band upon Bradfield's Sunday hat was gradually loosening of its own accord, until now every passing breeze seemed to threaten his good wife's memory. But the figure was playing him false, so far as any open manifestation of forgetfulness went.

His neighbor had never worn crêpe, but her mourning was still in evidence in all its pristine moderation on every important occasion. Simpkinsville conventions were lax as regards this tribute paid her dead, and gauged the loyalty of their surviving relations by other than color standards. A good black alpaca dress in hand needed not even to surrender its bands of velvet, not to mention its lustre, to serve as widow's weeds, a first evidence of its wearer's "beginning to take notice" being perhaps not so much the "Valenceens ruche" which was expected to appear at her neck in due season as that which it ushered in. The new order meant reappearance at church sociables after lamp-light, taking part at fairs and the like, and a final emergence in full feather of forgetfulness at the spring barbecue or camp-meeting.

The widow Carroll, always a woman of her own mind, had begun with the Valenciennes ruche, nor had she ever forsaken her post as server of meats at church functions. But during the two years of her mourning she had not changed. There had been no second stage. She had not meant, from the beginning, that there should be. If she should ever marry again, the "good ez new" blue ribbon bow, ripped off her black dress for the funeral, would naïvely reappear in its old place, pinned in the centre with the now discarded coral pin. But this is unprofitable surmise.

Of course Dame Gossip had married her off-hand to her neighbor before his wife was decently buried. And of course a woman of Mary Carroll's strength of mind had ignored all such predictions, and had done all the things a less self-reliant woman would not have dared. She had "done for Susan's children jest exactly ez ef they'd been her own sister's, from the start." This tribute even the busy tongues of the village had finally been constrained to accord her.

The situation, like the ruche, though startling at first, had remained as unaltered. The stoop was still, in a different way, as conducive to friendly intercourse as of yore. Though the maternal neighbor had never crossed it, excepting twice, in cases of sickness, she had not hesitated to utilize it as a dispensing-station for sundry neighborly ministrations, as when on raw mornings "in-the-spring-o'-the-year," after similarly fortifying her own brood, she had armed herself with quinine capsules and a gourd dipper of water, and administered the bitter refreshment to the entire Bradfield lot, even on one occasion including the pater. Nor had she stopped at this; for, after the passage of the friendly swallow, she was heard to observe, in all seriousness, "Mr. Bradfield, I see they's a fillin' done come out o' one o' yore back teeth, an' I'd advise you to look after it." And then, her errand fully accomplished, she had turned back to her own house. It was not her habit to linger about the stoop for idle parley. Needless to say, Bradfield rode out to consult the dentist that day.

The situation thus briefly sketched seemed, indeed, to have reached a state of entire safety, as far as any possible romance was concerned. But how often are apparent safety-lines found to be charged with strong and dangerous currents! Strange to say, it was just when gossip had declared against its early predictions, and was beginning to cast about among its maturer marriageable maidens for the needed "mother for Susan Bradfield's child'en," that Bradfield himself had first reflected with perfected certitude: "The hole in my heart is there yet - jest ez big an' ez holler ez the day pore Susan was buried - an' the only livin' woman thet can ever fill it to overflowin' is Mis' Carroll. She knowed Susan an' Susan's ways - an' Susan's child'en. An' she knows me." So the reflection proceeded. "Yas, an' she knows me - maybe she knows me too well. Ef they's any trouble, it 'll be that."

 

For the rest of The Dividing Fence, and for more character sketches out of this piece of the DocSouth collection of Southern Literature, read In Simpkinsville.