The Mockingbird's Ballad

Lou allowed Solon to drive the carriage that Saturday morning. April had been the gentle heir of a stormy March. Sunshine and gentle warm breezes had dried the mud. The warmth was preparing the land for the renewing of spring. Solon had been staying at Icee Harwell's boarding house up the road from Sherrill - Stone store for three weeks. He had ridden his big old gray rented from Everett Clark's livery up Eagan Hill every other day. He came visiting, helping with milking, a renewed skill, helping Lou tend the stock and telling the family stories of Cincinnati and his missionary trips in the mid-south. He even told of his travels in west Florida and Appalachicola - a right busy port town and fishing center he allows. Alex was fascinated by the story about a doctor there who was working on the prevention and treatment of yellow fever, "Yellow Jack". This Dr. John Gorrie thought this reoccurring coastal pestilence was caused by "bad air" and he'd invented a machine to condition - cool - the air. Solon said he'd had some success with treating but had not succeeded in preventing the mean sickness.

The family had taken Solon in. Alex thought he was the greatest man, after Grand, his father and the general that he'd ever known. Nancy Bird accepted him because she saw character and his regard for her daughter. Joe T. and Mary Jane received him warmly because of his patronage of their J. N. Even Mama Bear begrudgingly warmed to him, but not until after he'd raved about her cooking and flirted with her unashamedly. Grand John L. liked to argue and Solon was a respectful but capable foil. Those practitioners were few and far between for Grand John L. Lou had felt awkward and uncertain when Solon first sat down with her after arriving at her place on stormy Friday.

"Lou," he began, "I'm forty-two, nearly old enough to be your father. I have chosen or been chosen for a calling that hardly pays my expenses. I own one suit, a pair of boots and my beat-up old hat. My worldly possessions can be put in two large saddlebags. Dr. Burrus is holding eighteen books of mine and $127. That is my real estate. When I get back to Dellrose, I've got to wire him to get the books sent here. I've got little to offer you but a loving, heart, warmest respect and devotion."

At this, their first real conversation since his arrival, he reached over the loveseat's small space which separated them and took her big, hardened farmer's hand and said, "Mary Louise Fields, I'm her to court you. I want us to marry. I don't want, will not accept, an answer now. Please hear me out." He paused and looked down at his brushed old boots.