When I married Doctor Mayberry and come down over the Ridge from Warren
County with him, he had his joke with me about my herb-basket and
a-setting up opposition to him. It's in our blood. My own cousin Seliny
Lue Lovell down at the Bluff follows the calling just the same as I do.
I say the Lord were good to me to give me the love of it and a father
and a husband and now a son to practise with."

"The Doctors Mayberry, Mother and Son, how interesting that sounds,
Mrs. Mayberry," exclaimed Miss Wingate with a delightful laugh, "And no
wonder Doctor Mayberry is so gifted that he gets National commissions
to study Pellagra and--and has a troublesome singer lady sent all the
way from New York to patch up."

"Yes, it do look like that Tom Mayberry gets in a good chanct
everywhere he goes. Some folks picks a friend offen every bush they
passes and Tom's one. He was honored considerable in New York and then
sent over to Berlin, Europe, and beyont to study up about people's
skins. And then here he comes back, sent by the Government right down
to Flat Rock, on the other side of Providence Nob, to study out about
that curious corn disease they calls Pellagra, what I don't think is a
thing in the world but itch and can be cured by a little sulphur and
hog lard. But I'm blessing the chanct that brought him back to me, even
if I know it are just for a spell. And, too, he oughter be happy to
have brung his mother such a song bird as you. I'm so used to you and
your helping me with Cindy away to Springfield, that I don't see how I
ever got along without you or ever will." As she spoke, Mother Mayberry
smiled delightedly at the singer girl and drew her closer. Mother's
voice at most times was a delicious mixture of banter and caress.

"Perhaps I'll stay always," said the singer lady as she drew close
against the gray print shoulder. "When I look around me I feel as if I
had awakened in a beautiful world with no more dirty, smoky cities that
hurt my throat, no more hot, lighted theaters, no noises, and
everything is just a great big bouquet of soft smells and colors."

As she spoke, Elinor Wingate, who was just a tired girl in the circle
of Mother Mayberry's strong arm, let her great dark eyes wander off
across the meadow to where a dim rim of Harpeth Hills seemed to close
in the valley. Her glance returned to the low, wing-spreading, brick
farm-house, which, vine-covered, lilac-hedged and maple-shaded, seemed
to nestle against the