In times of stress women are apt to seize and cling to the arm of
masculine protection, and Luella May had chosen to forget the
fascination of Billy's hesitation and two-steps and secure for herself a
life of thorough normality. She would probably never forget those dances
with Billy, and they would lend a kind of reminiscent glow of pleasure
over her boiling cabbage pots, but it would be no worse than that.
Mr. Todd was shaven and habitated in the neat black coat he had thrown
off as he went at the ruin of the schoolhouse a month before, and with a
tender smile on his lean old face he came over and stood beside Martha,
as if to be watchful of her in the new order of her life.
And it was for quite a half hour that most of the inhabitants of
Goodloets stood around in the yard of the chapel and waited for the
formal opening of the doors. We all knew that the chapel would not hold
the half of us, for the small Presbyterian congregation had been
dismissed by Mr. Farraday to come over and join us in the dedication,
and after a short service the boy Baptist divine had brought his flock
to do honor to the opening of the new fold. In fact, by count almost
every citizen in Goodloets stood before the chapel doors and waited for
them to be thrown open. And in the crowd who waited there was this
difference from the last time we had been together: All the children
were with us and not separated from us by walls that crash. I think that
the second meeting of Town and Settlement would have been impossible if
each parent had not had the confidence inspired by the small hands in
theirs.
And for still more minutes we were patient while the delicious autumn
sun beamed upon us with Indian summer warmth and Old Harpeth looked down
on us from out on Paradise Ridge with its crown wreathed with purple and
gold and russet, all veiled in a tender haze.
Then as the old clock on the courthouse up on the square boomed the hour
of eleven, Dabney with ceremony opened wide the tall doors and stepped
back into the shadow, Jefferson bowing and smiling behind him. With one
accord the people started toward the door, and then everybody again
stood still and seemed to be waiting for something.
I knew for what they waited and I took Martha's hand in mine, with the
boy's in hers on the other side, and slowly we walked through the path
made for us between our friends and neighbors and in at the chapel door.
As I passed Harriet I motioned to her and she put her arm around Nell
and followed us, while Billy came behind them with father and the
children. And behind them walked all of those who had been bereaved by
the storm, and those who had been lamed and were suffering came with
them.