WHEN the doctor drove by the Gregg farm about dusk, and saw old Deacon Gregg perched cross-legged upon his own gate-post, he knew that something was wrong within, and he could not resist the temptation to drive up and speak to the old man.

It was common talk in the neighborhood that when Grandmother Gregg made things too warm for him in-doors, the good man, her spouse, was wont to stroll out to the front gate and to take this exalted seat.

Indeed, it was said by a certain Mrs. Frequent, a neighbor of prying proclivities and ungentle speech, that the deacon’s wife sent him there as a punishment for misdemeanors. Furthermore, this same Mrs. Frequent did even go so far as to watch for the deacon, and when she would see him laboriously rise and resignedly poise himself upon the narrow area, she would remark:

“Well, I see Grandma Gregg has got the old man punished again. Wonder what he’s been up to now?”

Her constant repetition of the unkind charge finally gained for it such credence that the diminutive figure upon the gate-post became an object of mingled sympathy and mirth in the popular regard.

The old doctor was the friend of a lifetime, and he was sincerely attached to the deacon, and when he turned his horse’s head toward the gate this evening, he felt his heart go out in sympathy to the old man in durance vile upon his lonely perch.

But he had barely started to the gate when he heard a voice which he recognized as the deacon’s, whereupon he would have hurried away had not his horse committed him to his first impulse by unequivocally facing the gate.

“I know three’s a crowd,” he called out cheerily as he presently drew rein, “but I ain’t a-goin’ to stay; I jest—Why, where’s grandma?” be added abruptly, seeing the old man alone. “I’m shore I heard—”

“You jest heerd me a-talkin’ to myself, doctor—or not to myself, exactly, neither—that is to say, when you come up I was addressin’ my remarks to this here pill.”

“Bill? I don’t see no bill.” The doctor drew his buggy nearer. He was a little deaf.

“No, I said this pill, doctor. I’m a-holdin’ of it here in the pa’m o’ my hand, a-studyin’ over it.”

“What’s she a-dosin’ you for now, Enoch?”

The doctor always called the deacon by his first name when he approached him in sympathy. He did not know it. Neither did the deacon, but he felt the sympathy, and it unlocked the portals of his heart.

“Well”—the old man’s voice softened—”she thinks I stand in need of ‘em, of co’se. The fact is, that yaller-spotted steer run agin her clo’es-line twice-t to-day, drug the whole week’s washin’ onto the ground, an’ then tromped on it. She’s inside a-renchin’ an’ a-starchin’ of ‘em over now. An’ right on top o’ that, I come in lookin’ sort o’ puny an’ peaked, an’ I happened to choke on a muskitty jest ez I come in, an’ she declared she wasn’t a-goin’ to have a consumpted man sick on her hands an’ a clo’es-destroyin’ steer at the same time. An’ with that she up an’ wiped her hands on her apron, an’ went an’ selected this here pill out of a bottle of assorted sizes, an’ instructed me to take it. They never was a thing done mo’ delib’rate an’ kind—never on earth. But of co’se you an’ she know how it plegs me to take physic. You could mould out ice-cream in little pill shapes an’ it would gag me, even ef ‘twas vanilly-flavored. An’ so, when I received it, why, I jest come out here to meditate. You can see it from where you set, doctor. It’s a purty sizeable one, and I’m mighty suspicious of it.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Yas, I can see it, Enoch—of co’se.”

“Could you jedge of it, doctor? That is, of its capabilities, I mean?”

“Why, no, of co’se not—not less’n I’d taste it, an’ you can do that ez well ez I can. If it’s quinine, it’ll be bitter; an’ ef it’s soggy an’—”

“Don’t explain no mo’, doctor. I can’t stand it. I s’pose it’s jest ez foolish to investigate the inwardness of a pill a person is bound to take ez it would be to try to lif’ the veil of the future in any other way. When I’m obligated to swaller one of ‘em, I jest take a swig o’ good spring water and repeat a po’tion of Scripture and commit myself unto the Lord. I always seem foreordained to choke to death, but I notice thet ef I recover from the first spell o’ suffocation, I always come through. But I ain’t never took one yet thet I didn’t in a manner prepare to die.”

“Then I wouldn’t take it, Enoch. Don’t do it.” The doctor cleared his throat again, but this time he had no trouble to keep the corners of his mouth down. His sympathy robbed him for the time of the humor in the situation. “No, I wouldn’t do it; d—doggone ef I would.”

The deacon looked into the palm of his hand and sighed. “Oh, yas, I reckon I better take it,” he said, mildly. “Ef I don’t stand in need of it now, maybe the good Lord ‘ll sto’e it up in my system, some way, ‘g’inst a future attackt.”

“Well”—the doctor reached for his whip—”well, I wouldn’t do it—steer or no steer!”

“Oh, yas, I reckon you would, doctor, ef you had a wife ez worrited over a wash-tub ez what mine is. An’ I had a extry shirt in wash this week too. One little pill ain’t much when you take in how she’s been tantalized.”

The doctor laughed outright.

“Tell you what to do, Enoch. Fling it away and don’t let on. She don’t question you, does she?”

“No, she ain’t never to say questioned me, but—Well, I tried that once-t. Sampled a bitter white capsule she give me, put it down for quinine, an’ flung it away. Then I chirped up an’ said I felt a heap better—and that wasn’t no lie—which I suppose was on account o’ the relief to my mind, which it always did seem to me capsules was jest constructed to lodge in a person’s air-passages. Well, I taken notice that she’d look at me keen now an’ agin, an’ then glance at the clock, an’ treckly I see her fill the gou’d dipper an’ go to her medicine-cabinet, an’ then she come to me an’ she says, says she, ‘Open yore mouth!’ An’ of co’se I opened it. You see that first capsule, ez well ez the one she had jest adminstered, was mostly morphine, which she had give me to ward off a ‘tackt o’ the neuraligy she see approachin’, and here I had been tryin’ to live up to the requi’ements of quinine, an’ wrastlin’ severe with a sleepy spell, which, ef I’d only knew it, would o’ saved me. Of co’se, after the second dose-t, I jest let nature take its co’se, an’ treckly I commenced to doze off, an’ seemed like I was a feather bed an’ wife had hung me on the fence to sun, an’ I remember how she seemed to be a-whuppin’ of me, but it didn’t hurt. That was on account of it bein’ goose-pickin’ time, an’ she was werrited with windy weather, an’ she tryin’ to fill the feather beds. No, I won’t never try to deceive her again. It never has seemed to me that she could have the same respect for me after ketchin’ me at it, though she ‘ain’t never referred to it but once-t, an’ that was the time I was elected deacon, an’ even then she didn’t do it outspoke. She seemed mighty tender over it, an’ didn’t no mo’n remind me thet a officer in a Christian church ought to examine hisself mighty conscientious an’ be sure he was free of deceit, which, seemed to me, showed a heap o’ consideration. She ‘ain’t got a deceitful bone in her body, doctor.”

“Why, bless her old soul, Enoch, you know thet I think the world an’ all o’ Grandma Gregg! She’s the salt o’ the earth—an’ rock salt at that. She’s saved too many o’ my patients by her good nursin’, in spite o’ my poor doctorin’, for me not to appreciate her. But that don’t reconcile me to the way she doses you for her worries.”

“It took me a long time to see that myself, doctor. But I’ve reasoned it out this a-way: I s’pose when she feels her temper a-risin’ she’s ‘feered thet she might be so took with her troubles thet she’d neglect my health, an’ so she wards off any attackt thet might be comin’ on. I taken notice that time her strawberry preserves all soured on her hands, an’ she painted my face with iodine, a man did die o’ the erysipelas down here at Battle Creek, an’ likely as not she’d heerd of it. Sir? No, I didn’t mention it at the time for fear she’d think best to lay on another coat, an’ I felt sort o’ disfiggured with it. Wife ain’t a scoldin’ woman, I’m thankful for that. An’ some o’ the peppermints an’ things she keeps to dole out to me when she’s fretted with little things—maybe her yeast’ll refuse to rise, or a thunder-storm’ll kill a settin’ of eggs—why, they’re so disguised thet ’cep’n thet I know they’re medicine—”

“Well, Kitty, I reckon we better be a-goin’.” The doctor tapped his horse. “Be shore to give my love to Grandma, Enoch. An’ ef you’re bound to take that pill—of co’se I can’t no mo’n speculate about it at this distance, but I’d advise you to keep clear o’ sours an’ acids for a day or so. Don’t think, because your teeth are all adjustable, thet none o’ yore other functions ain’t open to salvation. Good-night, Enoch.”

“Oh, she always looks after that, doctor. She’s mighty attentive, come to withholdin’ harmful temptations. Good-by, doctor. It’s did me good to open my mind to you a little.

“Yas,” he added, looking steadily into his palm as the buggy rolled away—”yas, it’s did me good to talk to him; but I ain’t no more reconciled to you, you barefaced, high-foreheaded, little rolly-poly, you. Funny how a pill thet ain’t got a feature on earth can look me out o’ countenance the way it can, and frustrate my speech. Talk about whited sepulchures, an’ ravenin’ wolves! I don’t know how come I to let on thet I was feeling’ puny to-night, nohow. I might’ve knew—with all them clo’es cedaubled over; though I can’t, ez the doctor says, see how me a-takin’ a pill is goin’ to help matters; but of co’se I wouldn’t let on to him, an’ he a bachelor.”

He stopped talking and felt his wrist.

“Maybe my pulse is obstropulous, an’ ought to be sedated down. Reckon I’ll haf to kill that steer—or sell him—one, though I swo’e I wouldn’t. But of co’se I swo’e that in a temper, an’ temp’rate vows ain’t never made ‘cep’in’ to be repented of.”

Several times during the last few minutes, while the deacon spoke, there had come to him across the garden from the kitchen the unmistakable odor of fried chicken.

He had foreseen that there would be a good supper to-night, and that the tiny globule within his palm would constitute for him a prohibition concerning it.

Grandmother Gregg was one of those worthy if difficult women who never let anything interfere with her duty as she saw it magnified by the lenses of pain or temper. It usually pleased her injured mood to make waffles on wash-day, and the hen-house owed many renovations, with a reckless upsetting of nests and roosts, to one of her “splittin’ headaches.” She would always wash her hair in view of impending company, although she averred that to wet her scalp never failed to bring on the “neuraligy.” And her “neuraligy” in turn meant medicine for the deacon.

It was probably the doctor’s timely advice, augmented, possibly, by the potencies of the frying-pan, with a strong underlying sympathy with the worrying woman within—it was, no doubt, all these powers combined that suddenly surprised the hitherto complying husband into such unprecedented conduct that any one knowing him in his old character, and seeing him now, would have thought that he had lost his mind.

With a swift and brave fling he threw the pill far into the night. Then, in an access of energy born of internal panic, he slid nimbly from his perch and started in a steady jog-trot into the road, wiping away the tears as he went, and stammering between sobs as he stumbled over the ruts:

“No, I won’t—yas, I will, too—doggone shame, and she frettin’ her life out—of co’se I sell ‘im for anything he’ll fetch—an’ I’ll be a better man, yas, yas I will—but I won’t swaller another one o’ them blame—not ef I die for it.”

This report, taken in long-hand by an amused listener by the roadside, is no doubt incomplete in its ejaculatory form, but it has at least the value of accuracy, so far as it goes, which may be had only from a verbatim transcript.

It was perhaps three-quarters of an hour later when Enoch entered the kitchen, wiping his face, nervous, weary, embarrassed. Supper was on the table. The blue-bordered dish, heaped with side-bones and second joints done to a turn, was moved to a side station, while in its accustomed place before Enoch’s plate there sat an ominous bowl of gruel. The old man did not look at the table, but he saw it all. He would have realized it with his eyes shut. Domestic history, as well as that of greater principalities and powers, often repeats itself.

Enoch’s fingers trembled as he came near his wife, and standing with his back to the table, he began to untie a broad flat parcel that he had brought in under his arm. She paused in one of her trips between the table and stove, and regarded him askance.

“Reckon I’ll haf to light the lantern befo’ I set down to eat, wife,” he said, by way of introduction. “Isrul ‘ll be along d’rec’ly to rope that steer. I’ve done sold him.” The good woman laid her dish upon the table and returned to the stove.

“Wish you’d ‘a’ sold ‘im day befo’ yesterday. I’d ‘a’ had a heap less pain in my shoulder-blade.” She sniffed as she said it; and then she added, “That gruel ought to be e’t warm.”

By this time the parcel was open. There was a brief display of colored zephyrs and gleaming cardboard. Then Enoch began rewrapping them.

“Reckon you can look these over in the mornin’, wife. They’re jest a few new cross-stitch Bible texts, an’ I knowed you liked Scripture motters. Where’ll I lay ‘em, wife, while I go out an’ tend to lightin’ that lantern? I told Isrul I’d set it in the stable door so’s as he could git that steer out o’ the way immejate.”

The proposal to lay the mottoes aside was a master-stroke.

The aggrieved wife had already begun to wipe her hands on her apron. Still, she would not seem too easily appeased.

“I do hope you ain’t gone an’ turned that whole steer into perforated paper, Enoch, even ef ’tis Bible-texted over.”

Thus she guarded her dignity. But even as she spoke she took the parcel from his hands. This was encouragement enough. It presaged a thawing out. And after Enoch had gone out to light the lantern, it would have amused a sympathetic observer to watch her gradual melting as she looked over the mottoes:

“A VIRTUOUS WIFE IS FAR ABOVE RUBIES.”

“A PRUDENT WIFE IS FROM THE LORD.”

“BETTER A DINNER OF HERBS WHERE LOVE IS—”

She read them over and over. Then she laid them aside and looked at Enoch’s plate. Then she looked at the chicken-dish, and then at the bowl of gruel which she had carefully set on the back of the stove to keep warm.

“Don’t know ez it would hurt ‘im any ef I’d thicken that gruel up into mush. He’s took sech a distaste to soft foods sense he’s got that new set.”

She rose as she spoke, poured the gruel back into the pot, sifted and mixed a spoonful of meal and stirred it in. This done, she hesitated, glanced at the pile of mottoes, and reflected. Then with a sudden resolve she seized the milk-pitcher, filled a cup from it, poured the milk into the little pot of mush, hastily whipped up two eggs with some sugar, added the mixture to the pot, returned the whole to the yellow bowl, and set it in the oven to brown.

And just then Enoch came in, and approached the water-shelf.

“Don’t keer how you polish it, a brass lantern an’ coal ile is like murder on a man’s hands. It will out.”

He was thinking of the gruel, and putting off the evil hour. It had been his intention to boldly announce that he hadn’t taken his medicine, that he never would again unless he needed it, and, moreover, that he was going to eat his supper to-night, and always, as long as God should spare him, etc., etc., etc.

But he had no sooner found himself in the presence of long-confessed superior powers than he knew he would never do any of these things.

His wife was thinking of the gruel too when she encouraged delay by remarking that he would better rest up a bit before eating.

“And I reckon you better soak yo’ hands good. Take a pinch o’ that bran out o’ the safe to ‘em,” she said, “and ef that don’t do, the Floridy water is in on my bureau.”

When finally Enoch presented himself, ready for his fate, she was able to set the mush pudding, done to a fine brown, before him, and her tone was really tender as she said:

“This ain’t very hearty ef you’re hungry; but you can eat it all. There ain’t no interference in it with anything you’ve took.”

The pudding was one of Enoch’s favorite dishes, but as he broke its brown surface with his spoon he felt like a hypocrite. He took one long breath, and then he said:

“By-the-way, wife, this reminds me, I reckon you’ll haf to fetch me another o’ them pills. I dropped that one out in the grass—that is, ef you think I still stand in need of it. I feel consider’ble better’n I did when I come in this evenin’.”

The good woman eyed him suspiciously a minute. Then her eyes fell upon the words “ABOVE RUBIES” lying upon the table. Reaching over, she lifted the pudding-bowl aside, took the dish of fried chicken from its sub-station, and set it before her lord.

“Better save that pudd’n’ for dessert, honey, an’ help yo’self to some o’ that chicken, an’ take a potater an’ a roll, and eat a couple o’ them spring onions—they’re the first we’ve had. Sense you’re a-feelin’ better, maybe it’s jest ez well thet you mislaid that pill.”

The wind blows sometimes from the east in Simkinsville, as elsewhere, and there are still occasional days when the deacon betakes himself to the front gate and sits like a nineteenth-century Simon Stilites on his pillar, contemplating the open palm of his own hand, while he enriches Mrs. Frequent’s rÉpertoire of gossip by a picturesque item.

But the reverse of the picture has much of joy in it; for, in spite of her various tempers, Grandmother Gregg is a warm-hearted soul—and she loves her man. And he loves her.

Listen to him to-night, for instance, as, having finished his supper, he remarks:

“An’ I’m a-goin’ to see to it, from this on, thet you ain’t fretted with things ez you’ve been, ef I can help it, wife. Sometimes, the way I act, I seem like ez ef I forgit you’re all I’ve got—on earth.”

“Of co’se I realize that, Enoch,” she replies. “We’re each one all the other’s got—an’ that’s why I don’t spare no pains to keep you in health.”

—Ruth Mcenery Stuart.