Part 8

To a lady who is somewhat deaf she paid this charming tribute:

“She hath an ear upon her every finger’s tip, and ’pon her eye a thousand flecks o’ color for to spread upon a dreary tale and paint a leaden sky aflash. What need she o’ ears?”

And to another who, after a time at the board, said she did not want to weary Patience:

“Weary then at loving of a friend? Would I then had the garlanded bloom o’ love she hath woven and lighted, I do swear, with smiling washed brighter with her tears.”

And again: “I be weaving of a garland. Do leave me then a bit to tie its ends. I plucked but buds, and woe! they did spell but infant’s love. I cast ye, then, a blown bloom, wide petaled and rich o’ scent. Take thou and press atween thy heart throbs—my gift.”

Of still another she said: “She be a star-bloom blue that nestleth to the soft grasses of the spring, but ah, the brightness cast to him who seeketh field aweary!”

And yet again: “Fields hath she trod arugged, aye, and weed agrown. Aye, and e’en now, where she hath set abloom the blossoms o’ her very soul, weed aspringeth. And lo, she standeth head ahigh and eye to sky and faith astrong. And foot abruised still troddeth rugged field. But I do promise ye ’tis such an faith that layeth low the weed and putteth ’pon the rugged path asmoothe, and yet but bloom shalt show, and ever shalt she stand, head ahigh and eye unto the sky.”

Upon an evening after she had showered such compliments upon the ladies present she exclaimed:

“I be a wag atruth, and lo, my posey-wreath be stripped!”

* * * * *

She seldom favors the men in this way. She has referred to herself several times as a spinster, and this may account for a certain reluctance to saying complimentary things of the other sex. “A prosy spinster may but plash in love’s pool,” she remarked once, and at another time she said: “A wife shall brush her goodman’s blacks and polish o’ his buckles, but a maid may not dare e’en to blow the trifling dust from his knickerbockers.” With a few notable exceptions, her attitude toward men has been expressed in sarcasm, none the less cutting to those for whom she has an affection manifested in other ways. To one such she said:

“Thee’lt peg thy shoes, lad, to best their wearing, and eat too freely of the fowl. Thy belly needeth pegging sore, I wot.”

“Patience doesn’t mean that for me,” he protested.

“Nay,” she said, “the jackass ne’er can know his reflection in the pool. He deemeth the thrush hath stolen of his song. Buy thee a pushcart. ’Twill speak for thee.”

And of this same rotund friend she remarked, when he laughed at something she had said:

“He shaketh like a pot o’ goose jell!”

“I back up, Patience,” he cried.

“And thee’lt find the cart,” she said.

Of a visitor, a physician, she had this to say:

“He bindeth and asmears and looketh at a merry, and his eye doth lie. How doth he smite and stitch like to a wench, and brew o’er steam! Yea, ’tis atwist he be. He runneth whither, and, at a beconing, (beckoning) yon, and ever thus; but ’tis a blunder-mucker he he. His head like to a steel, yea, and heart a summer’s cloud athin (within), enough to show athrough the clear o’ blue.”

* * * * *

But it is upon the infant that Patience bestows her tenderest words. Her love of childhood is shown in many lines of rare and touching beauty.

“Ye seek to level unto her,” she said of a baby girl who was present one evening, “but thou art awry at reasoning. For he who putteth him to babe’s path doth track him high, and lo, the path leadeth unto the Door. Yea, and doth she knock, it doth ope.

“Cast ye wide thy soul’s doors and set within such love. For, brother, I do tell thee that though the soul o’ ye be torn, aye, and scarred, ’tis such an love that doth heal. The love o’ babe be the balm o’ earth.

“See ye! The sun tarrieth ’bout the lips o’ her; aye, and though the hand be but thy finger’s span, ’tis o’ a weight to tear away thy heart.”

And upon another occasion she revealed something of herself in these words:

Know ye; in my heart’s mansion There be apart a place Wherein I treasure my God’s gifts. Think ye to peer therein? Nay. And should thee by a chance To catch a stolen glimpse, Thee’dst laugh amerry, for hord (hoard) Would show but dross to thee: A friend’s regard, ashrunked and turned To naught—but one bright memory is there; A hope—now dead, but showeth gold hid there; A host o’ nothings—dreams, hopes, fears; Love throbs afluttered hence Since first touch o’ baby hands Caressed my heart’s store ahidden.

Returning to the femininity of Patience, it is also shown in her frequent references to dress. Upon an evening when the publication of her poems had been under discussion, when next the board was taken up she let them know that she had heard, in this manner: