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She started down the path, and Lovey Mary, somewhat overwhelmed by this oration, followed obediently. "These here are the Baptists," said Miss Viny, waving her hand toward a bed of heliotrope and flags. "They want lots of water; like to be wet clean through. They sorter set off to theyselves an' tend to their own business; don't keer much 'bout minglin' with the other flowers."
So this new phase had its own sweetness and special charm for Aunt 'Viny; the happiest hour in her day lying between daylight and dark, when waistcoats and jackets and trousers were laid aside, the dim light forbidding her to sew, and economy delaying the lamp, so she could with a clear conscience spare half an hour, while the tea-kettle boiled, for undressing "baby," rubbing the little creature down, much as a groom might have done, only with a loving touch not kept for horses, enduing it with a long night-gown, and toasting its shell-pink feet at the fire, till, between the luxury of ease and warmth and tending, "baby" cooed herself to sleep, and lay along Miss 'Viny's lap like a petted kitten, the firelight playing soft lights over its fair head, sealed eyelids, and parted lips, tinting the relaxed arm and funny dimpled fist with a rosy glow, while Aunt 'Viny's face took on a tender brooding gleam that nobody who had seen her in church on Sunday, severely crunching fennel, or looking daggers at naughty boys, could have believed possible.
He took a glass of the water that Viny had brought, held up old Caroline's head, and washed down two big capsules into the already poisoned stomach of the old negress. His simple face was quite inscrutable as he did this. He left other capsules for Nan to administer at regular intervals. Then he and Captain Renfrew motored out of Niggertown, out of its dust and filth and stench.
How often and sadly we repeat the life story of the yellow dodder of the moist lanes of my lower farm. It springs up fresh and clean from the earth itself, and spreads its clinging viny stems over the hospitable wild balsam and golden rod. In a week's time, having reached the warm sunshine of the upper air, it forgets its humble beginnings.
"I know about predestination," cried Lovey Mary, eagerly. "Miss Bell used to tell us all those things." "Who did?" Lovey Mary flushed crimson. "A lady I used to know," she said evasively. Miss Viny crossed the garden, and stopped before a bed of stately lilies and azaleas. "These are 'Piscopals," she explained. "Ain't they tony? Jes look like they thought their bed was the only one in the garden.
But 'Tenty had her father's firm and sunny character; she never cried but for good reason, and then screamed lustily and was over with it; fretting was out of the question, she did not know how; her special faults were a strong will and a dogged obstinacy, faults Miss 'Viny trained, instead of eradicating; so that 'Tenty emerged from district-school into the "'Cademy's" higher honors as healthy and happy an individual as ever arrived at the goodly age of fourteen without a silk dress or a French shoe to peacock herself withal.
I bet it grows in her garden thick as hairs on a dog's back. Let's send Lovey Mary out there to git some, an' we'll jes repeat the dose on her till it takes some hold." "I ain't puttin' much stock in Miss Viny," demurred Miss Hazy. "I've heared she was a novelist reader, an' she ain't even a church-member." "An' do you set up to jedge her?" asked Mrs. Wiggs, in fine scorn.
"Well, yes, if I'm spared," said Aunt 'Viny; and, being spared, on that sweet May-Sunday she carried the smiling little child up the aisle of the meeting-house, and had it baptized Content. Strange to say, yet not all strange, before it was a year old, the baby had found its way quite down into the middle of Aunt 'Viny's heart.
Percival was dying, the year was passing away, and I, too, would be going; and as I went out of the house to go home, I remembered the day wherein I had waited in the viny arbor for Mary to awaken from sleep, how I had gone down to the sea to waken myself to a light that burned before it blessed. Since then I had avoided the place, barred with so many prison-wires.
Nothing happened in Deerfield; so nothing happened to "'Tenty Scran'," as the school-children nicknamed her. She earned her living now at tailoring and dress-making; for Miss 'Viny was much "laid up with rheumatiz," and could not go about as was her wont.
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