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The Story of Waitstill Baxter

by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin · English · Gutenberg #1701 · 450,247 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Story of Waitstill Baxter

Author: Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin


        
Release date: April 1, 1999 [eBook #1701]
                Most recently updated: November 2, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1701

Credits: An anonymous volunteer, David Widger and Roger Frank


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF WAITSTILL BAXTER ***




[Illustration: “Tell me more; it is so long since we talked together”]




THE STORY OF WAITSTILL BAXTER

By Kate Douglas Wiggin

With illustrations by H. M. Brett




Copyright 1913, by Kate Douglas Riggs

All Rights Reserved

Published October 1913




TO MY HUSBAND




CONTENTS


     SPRING

     I.     SACO WATER
     II.    THE SISTERS
     III.   DEACON BAXTER'S WIVES
     IV.    SOMETHING OF A HERO
     V.     PATIENCE AND IMPATIENCE
     VI.    A KISS
     VII.   WHAT DREAMS MAY COME


     SUMMER

     VIII.  THE JOINER'S SHOP
     IX.    CEPHAS SPEAKS
     X.     ON TORY HILL
     XI.    A JUNE SUNDAY
     XII.   THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER
     XIII.  HAYING TIME
     XIV.   UNCLE BART DISCOURSES
     XV.    IVORY'S MOTHER
     XVI.   LOCKED OUT


     AUTUMN

     XVII.   A BRACE OF LOVERS
     XVIII.  A STATE O' MAINE PROPHET
     XIX.    AT THE BRICK STORE
     XX.     THE ROD THAT BLOSSOMED
     XXI.    LOIS BURIES HER DEAD
     XXII.   HARVEST-TIME
     XXIII.  AUNT ABBY'S WINDOW
     XXIV.   PHOEBE TRIUMPHS
     XXV.    LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM


     WINTER

     XXVI.   A WEDDING-RING
     XXVII.  THE CONFESSIONAL
     XXVIII. PATTY IS SHOWN THE DOOR
     XXIX.   WAITSTILL SPEAKS HER MIND
     XXX.    A CLASH OF WILLS
     XXXI.   SENTRY DUTY
     XXXII.  THE HOUSE OF AARON
     XXXIII. AARON'S ROD
     XXXIV.  THE DEACON'S WATERLOO
     XXXV.   TWO HEAVENS




THE STORY OF WAITSTILL BAXTER




SPRING




I. SACO WATER

FAR, far up, in the bosom of New Hampshire's granite hills, the Saco has
its birth. As the mountain rill gathers strength it takes

     “Through Bartlett's vales its tuneful way,
     Or hides in Conway's fragrant brakes
     Retreating from the glare of day.”

Now it leaves the mountains and flows through “green Fryeburg's woods
and farms.” In the course of its frequent turns and twists and bends, it
meets with many another stream, and sends it, fuller and stronger, along
its rejoicing way. When it has journeyed more than a hundred miles and
is nearing the ocean, it greets the Great Ossipee River and accepts its
crystal tribute. Then, in its turn, the Little Ossipee joins forces,
and the river, now a splendid stream, flows onward to Bonny Eagle, to
Moderation and to Salmon Falls, where it dashes over the dam like a
young Niagara and hurtles, in a foamy torrent, through the ragged defile
cut between lofty banks of solid rock.

Widening out placidly for a moment's rest in the sunny reaches near
Pleasant Point, it gathers itself for a new plunge at Union Falls, after
which it speedily merges itself in the bay and is fresh water no more.

At one of the falls on the Saco, the two little hamlets of Edgewood and
Riverboro nestle together at the bridge and make one village. The stream
is a wonder of beauty just here; a mirror of placid loveliness above
the dam, a tawny, roaring wonder at the fall, and a mad, white-flecked
torrent as it dashes on its way to the ocean.

The river has seen strange sights in its time, though the history of
these two tiny villages is quite unknown to the great world outside.
They have been born, waxed strong, and fallen almost to decay while
Saco Water has tumbled over the rocks and spent itself in its impetuous
journey to the sea.

It remembers the yellow-moccasined Sokokis as they issued from the
Indian Cellar and carried their birchen canoes along the wooded shore.
It was in those years that the silver-skinned salmon leaped in its
crystal depths; the otter and the beaver crept with sleek wet skins
upon its shore; and the brown deer came down to quench his thirst at its
brink while at twilight the stealthy forms of bear and panther and wolf
were mirrored in its glassy surface.

Time sped; men chained the river's turbulent forces and ordered it
to grind at the mill. Then houses and barns appeared along its banks,
bridges were built, orchards planted, forests changed into farms,
white-painted meetinghouses gleamed through the trees and distant bells
rang from their steeples on quiet Sunday mornings.

All at once myriads of great hewn logs vexed its downward course,
slender logs linked together in long rafts, and huge logs drifting down
singly or in pairs. Men appeared, running hither and thither like ants,
and going through mysterious operations the reason for which the river
could never guess: but the mill-wheels turned, the great saws buzzed,
the smoke from tavern chimneys rose in the air, and the rattle and
clatter of stage-coaches resounded along the road.

Now children paddled with bare feet in the river's sandy coves and
shallows, and lovers sat on its alder-shaded banks and exchanged their
vows just where the shuffling bear was wont to come down and drink.

The Saco could remember the “cold year,” when there was a black frost
every month of the twelve, and though almost all the corn along its
shores shrivelled on the stalk, there were two farms where the vapor
from the river saved the crops, and all the seed for the next season
came from the favored spot, to be known as “Egypt” from that day
henceforward.

Strange, complex things now began to happen, and the river played its
own part in some of these, for there were disastrous freshets, the
sudden breaking-up of great jams of logs, and the drowning of men who
were engulfed in the dark whirlpool below the rapids.

Caravans, with menageries of wild beasts, crossed the bridge now every
year. An infuriated elephant lifted the side of the old Edgewood Tavern
barn, and the wild laughter of the roistering rum-drinkers who were
tantalizing the animals floated down to the river's edge. The roar of
a lion, tearing and chewing the arm of one of the bystanders, and the
cheers of the throng when a plucky captain of the local militia thrust
a stake down the beast's throat,--these sounds displaced the former
war-whoop of the Indians and the ring of the axe in the virgin forests
along the shores.

There were days, and moonlight nights, too, when strange sights and
sounds of quite another nature could have been noted by the river as it
flowed under the bridge that united the two little villages.

Issuing from the door of the Riverboro Town House, and winding down
the hill, through the long row of teams and carriages that lined the
roadside, came a procession of singing men and singing women. Convinced
of sin, but entranced with promised pardon; spiritually intoxicated by
the glowing eloquence of the latter-day prophet they were worshipping,
the band of “Cochranites” marched down the dusty road and across the
bridge, dancing, swaying, waving handkerchiefs, and shouting hosannas.

God watched, and listened, knowing that there would be other prophets,
true and false, in the days to come, and other processions following
them; and the river watched and listened too, as it hurried on towards
the sea with its story of the present that was sometime to be the
history of the past.

When Jacob Cochrane was leading his overwrought, ecstatic band across
the river, Waitstill Baxter, then a child, was watching the strange,
noisy company from the window of a little brick dwelling on the top of
the Town-House Hill.

Her stepmother stood beside her with a young baby in her arms, but when
she saw what held the gaze of the child she drew her away, saying: “We
mustn't look, Waitstill; your father don't like it!”

“Who was the big man at the head, mother?”

“His name is Jacob Cochrane, but you mustn't think or talk about him; he
is very wicked.”

“He doesn't look any wickeder than the others,” said the child. “Who was
the man that fell down in the road, mother, and the woman that knelt and
prayed over him? Why did he fall, and why did she pray, mother?”

“That was Master Aaron Boynton, the schoolmaster, and his wife. He only
made believe to fall down, as the Cochranites do; the way they carry on
is a disgrace to the village, and that's the reason your father won't
let us look at them.”

“I played with a nice boy over to Boynton's,” mused the child.

“That was Ivory, their only child. He is a good little fellow, but his
mother and father will spoil him with their crazy ways.”

“I hope nothing will happen to him, for I love him,” said the child
gravely. “He showed me a humming-bird's nest, the first ever I saw, and
the littlest!”

“Don't talk about loving him,” chided the woman. “If your father should
hear you, he'd send you to bed without your porridge.”

“Father couldn't hear me, for I never speak when he's at home,” said
grave little Waitstill. “And I'm used to going to bed without my
porridge.”




II. THE SISTERS

THE river was still running under the bridge, but the current of time
had swept Jacob Cochrane out of sight, though not out of mind, for he
had left here and there a disciple to preach his strange and uncertain
doctrine. Waitstill, the child who never spoke in her father's presence,
was a young woman now, the mistress of the house; the stepmother was
dead, and the baby a girl of seventeen.

The brick cottage on the hilltop had grown only a little shabbier.
Deacon Foxwell Baxter still slammed its door behind him every morning at
seven o'clock and, without any such cheerful conventions as good-byes to
his girls, walked down to the bridge to open his store.

The day, properly speaking, had opened when Waitstill and Patience had
left their beds at dawn, built the fire, fed the hens and turkeys, and
prepared the breakfast, while the Deacon was graining the horse and
milking the cows. Such minor “chores” as carrying water from the well,
splitting kindling, chopping pine, or bringing wood into the kitchen,
were left to Waitstill, who had a strong back, or, if she had not, had
never been unwise enough to mention the fact in her father's presence.
The almanac day, however, which opened with sunrise, had nothing to do
with the real human day, which always began when Mr. Baxter slammed
the door behind him, and reached its high noon of delight when he
disappeared from view.

“He's opening the store shutters!” chanted Patience from the heights of
a kitchen chair by the window. “Now he's taken his cane and beaten off
the Boynton puppy that was sitting on the steps as usual,--I don't mean
Ivory's dog” (here the girl gave a quick glance at her sister), “but
Rodman's little yellow cur. Rodman must have come down to the bridge
on some errand for Ivory. Isn't it odd, when that dog has all the other
store steps to sit upon, he should choose father's, when every bone
in his body must tell him how father hates him and the whole Boynton
family.”

“Father has no real cause that I ever heard of; but some dogs never
know when they've had enough beating, nor some people either.” said
Waitstill, speaking from the pantry.

“Don't be gloomy when it's my birthday, Sis!--Now he's opened the door
and kicked the cat! All is ready for business at the Baxter store.”

“I wish you weren't quite so free with your tongue, Patty.”

“Somebody must talk,” retorted the girl, jumping down from the chair
and shaking back her mop of red-gold curls. “I'll put this hateful,
childish, round comb in and out just once more, then it will disappear
forever. This very after-noon up goes my hair!”

“You know it will be of no use unless you braid it very plainly and
neatly. Father will take notice and make you smooth it down.”

“Father hasn't looked me square in the face for years; besides, my
hair won't braid, and nothing can make it quite plain and neat, thank
goodness! Let us be thankful for small mercies, as Jed Morrill said when
the lightning struck his mother-in-law and skipped his wife.”

“Patty, I will not permit you to repeat those tavern stories; they are
not seemly on the lips of a girl!” And Waitstill came out of the pantry
with a shadow of disapproval in her eyes and in her voice.

Patty flung her arms round her sister tempestuously, and pulled out the
waves of her hair so that it softened her face.--“I'll be good,” she
said, “and oh, Waity! let's invent some sort of cheap happiness for
to-day! I shall never be seventeen again and we have so many troubles!
Let's put one of the cows in the horse's stall and see what will happen!
Or let's spread up our beds with the head at the foot and put the chest
of drawers on the other side of the room, or let's make candy! Do you
think father would miss the molasses if we only use a cupful? Couldn't
we strain the milk, but leave the churning and the dishes for an hour or
two, just once? If you say 'yes' I can think of something wonderful to
do!”

“What is it?” asked Waitstill, relenting at the sight of the girl's
eager, roguish face.

“PIERCE MY EARS!” cried Patty. “Say you will!”

“Oh! Patty, Patty, I am afraid you are given over to vanity! I daren't
let you wear eardrops without father's permission.”

“Why not? Lots of church members wear them, so it can't be a mortal sin.
Father is against all adornments, but that's because he doesn't want to
buy them. You've always said I should have your mother's coral pendants
when I was old enough. Here I am, seventeen today, and Dr. Perry says I
am already a well-favored young woman. I can pull my hair over my ears
for a few days and when the holes are all made and healed, even father
cannot make me fill them up again. Besides, I'll never wear the earrings
at home!”

“Oh! my dear, my dear!” sighed Waitstill, with a half-sob in her voice.
“If only I was wise enough to know how we could keep from these little
deceits, yet have any liberty or comfort in life!”

“We can't! The Lord couldn't expect us to bear all that we bear,”
 exclaimed Patty, “without our trying once in a while to have a good
time in our own way. We never do a thing that we are ashamed of, or that
other girls don't do every day in the week; only our pleasures always
have to be taken behind father's back. It's only me that's ever wrong,
anyway, for you are always an angel. It's a burning shame and you only
twenty-one yourself. I'll pierce your ears if you say so, and let you
wear your own coral drops!”

“No, Patty; I've outgrown those longings years ago. When your mother
died and left father and you and the house to me, my girlhood died, too,
though I was only thirteen.”

“It was only your inside girlhood that died,” insisted Patty stoutly,
“The outside is as fresh as the paint on Uncle Barty's new ell. You've
got the loveliest eyes and hair in Riverboro, and you know it; besides,
Ivory Boynton would tell you so if you didn't. Come and bore my ears,
there's a darling!”

“Ivory Boynton never speaks a word of my looks, nor a word that father
and all the world mightn't hear.” And Waitstill flushed.

“Then it's because he's shy and silent and has so many troubles of his
own that he doesn't dare say anything. When my hair is once up and the
coral pendants are swinging in my ears, I shall expect to hear something
about MY looks, I can tell you. Waity, after all, though we never have
what we want to eat, and never a decent dress to our backs, nor a young
man to cross the threshold, I wouldn't change places with Ivory Boynton,
would you?” Here Patty swept the hearth vigorously with a turkey wing
and added a few corncobs to the fire.

Waitstill paused a moment in her task of bread-kneading. “Well,” she
answered critically, “at least we know where our father is.”

“We do, indeed! We also know that he is thoroughly alive!”

“And though people do talk about him, they can't say the things they say
of Master Aaron Boynton. I don't believe father would ever run away and
desert us.”

“I fear not,” said Patty. “I wish the angels would put the idea into his
head, though, of course, it wouldn't be the angels; they'd be above it.
It would have to be the 'Old Driver,' as Jed Morrill calls the Evil One;
but whoever did it, the result would be the same: we should be deserted,
and live happily ever after. Oh! to be deserted, and left with you alone
on this hilltop, what joy it would be!”

Waitstill frowned, but did not interfere further with Patty's
intemperate speech. She knew that she was simply serving as an
escape-valve, and that after the steam was “let off” she would be more
rational.

“Of course, we are motherless,” continued Patty wistfully, “but poor
Ivory is worse than motherless.”

“No, not worse, Patty,” said Waitstill, taking the bread-board and
moving towards the closet. “Ivory loves his mother and she loves him,
with all the mind she has left! She has the best blood of New England
flowing in her veins, and I suppose it was a great come down for her to
marry Aaron Boynton, clever and gifted though he was. Now Ivory has to
protect her, poor, daft, innocent creature, and hide her away from the
gossip of the village. He is surely the best of sons, Ivory Boynton!”

“She is a terrible care for him, and like to spoil his life,” said
Patty.

“There are cares that swell the heart and make it bigger and warmer,
Patty, just as there are cares that shrivel it and leave it tired and
cold. Love lightens Ivory's afflictions but that is something you and I
have to do without, so it seems.”

“I suppose little Rodman is some comfort to the Boyntons, even if he is
only ten.” Patty suggested.

“No doubt. He's a good little fellow, and though it's rather hard for
Ivory to be burdened for these last five years with the support of a
child who's no nearer kin than a cousin, still he's of use, minding Mrs.
Boynton and the house when Ivory's away. The school-teacher says he is
wonderful at his books and likely to be a great credit to the Boyntons
some day or other.”

“You've forgot to name our one great blessing, Waity, and I believe,
anyway, you're talking to keep my mind off the earrings!”

“You mean we've each other? No, Patty, I never forget that, day or
night. 'Tis that makes me willing to bear any burden father chooses
to put upon us.--Now the bread is set, but I don't believe I have the
courage to put a needle into your tender flesh, Patty; I really don't.”

“Nonsense! I've got the waxed silk all ready and chosen the right-sized
needle and I'll promise not to jump or screech more than I can help.
We'll make a tiny lead-pencil dot right in the middle of the lobe, then
you place the needle on it, shut your eyes, and JAB HARD! I expect to
faint, but when I 'come to,' we can decide which of us will pull the
needle through to the other side. Probably it will be you, I'm such a
coward. If it hurts dreadfully, I'll have only one pierced to-day and
take the other to-morrow; and if it hurts very dreadfully, perhaps I'll
go through life with one ear-ring. Aunt Abby Cole will say it's just odd
enough to suit me!”

“You'll never go through life with one tongue at the rate you use it
now,” chided Waitstill, “for it will never last you. Come, we'll take
the work-basket and go out in the barn where no one will see or hear
us.”

“Goody, goody! Come along!” and Patty clapped her hands in triumph.
“Have you got the pencil and the needle and the waxed silk? Then bring
the camphor bottle to revive me, and the coral pendants, too, just to
give me courage. Hurry up! It's ten o'clock. I was born at sun-rise, so
I'm 'going on' eighteen and can't waste any time!”




III. DEACON BAXTER'S WIVES

FOXWELL BAXTER was ordinarily called “Old Foxy” by the boys of the
district, and also, it is to be feared, by the men gathered for evening
conference at the various taverns, or at one of the rival village
stores.

He had a small farm of fifteen or twenty acres, with a pasture, a wood
lot, and a hay-field, but the principal source of his income came
from trading. His sign bore the usual legend: “WEST INDIA GOODS AND
GROCERIES,” and probably the most profitable articles in his stock were
rum, molasses, sugar, and tobacco; but there were chests of rice, tea,
coffee, and spices, barrels of pork in brine, as well as piles of cotton
and woolen cloth on the shelves above the counters. His shop window,
seldom dusted or set in order, held a few clay pipes, some glass jars of
peppermint or sassafras lozenges, black licorice, stick-candy, and sugar
gooseberries. These dainties were seldom renewed, for it was only a very
bold child, or one with an ungovernable appetite for sweets, who would
have spent his penny at Foxy Baxter's store.

He was thought a sharp and shrewd trader, but his honesty was never
questioned; indeed, the only trait in his character that ever came up
for general discussion was his extraordinary, unbelievable, colossal
meanness. This so eclipsed every other passion in the man, and loomed
so bulkily and insistently in the foreground, that had he cherished a
second vice no one would have observed it, and if he really did possess
a casual virtue, it could scarcely have reared its head in such ugly
company.

It might be said, to defend the fair name of the Church, that Mr.
Baxter's deaconhood did not include very active service in the courts of
the Lord. He had “experienced religion” at fifteen and made profession
of his faith, but all well-brought-up boys and girls did the same
in those days; their parents saw to that! If change of conviction or
backsliding occurred later on, that was not their business! At the
ripe age of twenty-five he was selected to fill a vacancy and became a
deacon, thinking it might be good for trade, as it was, for some years.
He was very active at the time of the “Cochrane craze,” since any
defence of the creed that included lively detective work and incessant
spying on his neighbors was particularly in his line; but for many years
now, though he had been regular in attendance at church, he had never
officiated at communion, and his diaconal services had gradually lapsed
into the passing of the contribution-box, a task of which he never
wearied; it was such a keen pleasure to make other people yield their
pennies for a good cause, without adding any of his own!

Deacon Baxter had now been a widower for some years and the community
had almost relinquished the idea of his seeking a fourth wife. This was
a matter of some regret, for there was a general feeling that it would
be a good thing for the Baxter girls to have some one to help with the
housework and act as a buffer between them and their grim and irascible
parent. As for the women of the village, they were mortified that the
Deacon had been able to secure three wives, and refused to believe that
the universe held anywhere a creature benighted enough to become his
fourth.

The first, be it said, was a mere ignorant girl, and he a beardless
youth of twenty, who may not have shown his true qualities so early in
life. She bore him two sons, and it was a matter of comment at the
time that she called them, respectively, Job and Moses, hoping that the
endurance and meekness connected with these names might somehow help
them in their future relations with their father. Pneumonia, coupled
with profound discouragement, carried her off in a few years to make
room for the second wife, Waitstill's mother, who was of different fibre
and greatly his superior. She was a fine, handsome girl, the orphan
daughter of up-country gentle-folks, who had died when she was eighteen,
leaving her alone in the world and penniless.

Baxter, after a few days' acquaintance, drove into the dooryard of the
house where she was a visitor and, showing her his two curly-headed
boys, suddenly asked her to come and be their stepmother. She assented,
partly because she had nothing else to do with her existence, so far as
she could see, and also because she fell in love with the children at
first sight and forgot, as girls will, that it was their father whom she
was marrying.

She was as plucky and clever and spirited as she was handsome, and she
made a brave fight of it with Foxy; long enough to bring a daughter into
the world, to name her Waitstill, and start her a little way on her life
journey,--then she, too, gave up the struggle and died. Typhoid fever it
was, combined with complete loss of illusions, and a kind of despairing
rage at having made so complete a failure of her existence.

The next year, Mr. Baxter, being unusually busy, offered a man a good
young heifer if he would jog about the country a little and pick him
up a housekeeper; a likely woman who would, if she proved energetic,
economical, and amiable, be eventually raised to the proud position of
his wife. If she was young, healthy, smart, tidy, capable, and a good
manager, able to milk the cows, harness the horse, and make good butter,
he would give a dollar and a half a week. The woman was found, and,
incredible as it may seem, she said “yes” when the Deacon (whose ardor
was kindled at having paid three months' wages) proposed a speedy
marriage. The two boys by this time had reached the age of discretion,
and one of them evinced the fact by promptly running away to parts
unknown, never to be heard from afterwards; while the other, a reckless
and unhappy lad, was drowned while running on the logs in the river. Old
Foxy showed little outward sign of his loss, though he had brought the
boys into the world solely with the view of having one of them work on
the farm and the other in the store.

His third wife, the one originally secured for a housekeeper, bore him
a girl, very much to his disgust, a girl named Patience, and great was
Waitstill's delight at this addition to the dull household. The mother
was a timid, colorless, docile creature, but Patience nevertheless was a
sparkling, bright-eyed baby, who speedily became the very centre of the
universe to the older child. So the months and years wore on, drearily
enough, until, when Patience was nine, the third Mrs. Baxter succumbed
after the manner of her predecessors, and slipped away from a life that
had grown intolerable. The trouble was diagnosed as “liver complaint,”
 but scarcity of proper food, no new frocks or kind words, hard work, and
continual bullying may possibly have been contributory causes. Dr. Perry
thought so, for he had witnessed three most contented deaths in
the Baxter house. The ladies were all members of the church and had
presumably made their peace with God, but the good doctor fancied that
their pleasure in joining the angels was mild compared with their relief
at parting with the Deacon.

“I know I hadn't ought to put the care on you, Waitstill, and you only
thirteen,” poor Mrs. Baxter sighed, as the young girl was watching with
her one night when the end seemed drawing near. “I've made out to live
till now when Patience is old enough to dress herself and help round,
but I'm all beat out and can't try any more.”

“Do you mean I'm to take your place, be a mother to Patience, and keep
house, and everything?” asked Waitstill quaveringly.

“I don't see but you'll have to, unless your father marries again. He'll
never hire help, you know that!”

“I won't have another mother in this house,” flashed the girl. “There's
been three here and that's enough! If he brings anybody home, I'll take
Patience and run away, as Job did; or if he leaves me alone, I'll wash
and iron and scrub and cook till Patience grows up, and then we'll go
off together and hide somewhere. I'm fourteen; oh, mother, how soon
could I be married and take Patience to live with me? Do you think
anybody will ever want me?”

“Don't marry for a home, Waitstill! Your own mother did that, and so did
I, and we were both punished for it! You've been a great help and I've
had a sight of comfort out of the baby, but I wouldn't go through it
again, not even for her! You're real smart and capable for your age and
you've done your full share of the work every day, even when you were at
school. You can get along all right.”

“I don't know how I'm going to do everything alone,” said the girl,
forcing back her tears. “You've always made the brown bread, and mine
will never suit father. I suppose I can wash, but don't know how to iron
starched clothes, nor make pickles, and oh! I can never kill a rooster,
mother, it's no use to ask me to! I'm not big enough to be the head of
the family.”

Mrs. Baxter turned her pale, tired face away from Waitstill's appealing
eyes.

“I know,” she said faintly. “I hate to leave you to bear the brunt
alone, but I must!... Take good care of Patience and don't let her get
into trouble.... You won't, will you?”

“I'll be careful,” promised Waitstill, sobbing quietly; “I'll do my
best.”

“You've got more courage than ever I had; don't you s'pose you can
stiffen up and defend yourself a little mite?... Your father'd ought to
be opposed, for his own good... but I've never seen anybody that dared
do it.” Then, after a pause, she said with a flash of spirit,--“Anyhow,
Waitstill, he's your father after all. He's no blood relation of mine,
and I can't stand him another day; that's the reason I'm willing to
die.”




IV. SOMETHING OF A HERO

IVORY BOYNTON lifted the bars that divided his land from the highroad
and walked slowly toward the house. It was April, but there were still
patches of snow here and there, fast melting under a drizzling rain. It
was a gray world, a bleak, black-and-brown world, above and below. The
sky was leaden; the road and the footpath were deep in a muddy ooze
flecked with white. The tree-trunks, black, with bare branches, were
lined against the gray sky; nevertheless, spring had been on the way for
a week, and a few sunny days would bring the yearly miracle for which
all hearts were longing.

Ivory was season-wise and his quick eye had caught many a sign as he
walked through the woods from his schoolhouse. A new and different color
haunted the tree-tops, and one had only to look closely at the elm
buds to see that they were beginning to swell. Some fat robins had been
sunning about in the school-yard at noon, and sparrows had been chirping
and twittering on the fence-rails. Yes, the winter was over, and Ivory
was glad, for it had meant no coasting and skating and sleighing for
him, but long walks in deep snow or slush; long evenings, good for
study, but short days, and greater loneliness for his mother. He could
see her now as he neared the house, standing in the open doorway, her
hand shading her eyes, watching, always watching, for some one who never
came.

“Spring is on the way, mother, but it isn't here yet, so don't stand
there in the rain,” he called. “Look at the nosegay I gathered for
you as I came through the woods. Here are pussy willows and red maple
blossoms and Mayflowers, would you believe it?”

Lois Boynton took the handful of budding things and sniffed their
fragrance.

“You're late to-night, Ivory,” she said. “Rod wanted his supper early
so that he could go off to singing-school, but I kept something warm for
you, and I'll make you a fresh cup of tea.”

Ivory went into the little shed room off the kitchen, changed his muddy
boots for slippers, and made himself generally tidy; then he came back
to the living-room bringing a pine knot which he flung on the fire,
waking it to a brilliant flame.

“We can be as lavish as we like with the stumps now, mother, for spring
is coming,” he said, as he sat down to his meal.

“I've been looking out more than usual this afternoon,” she replied.
“There's hardly any snow left, and though the walking is so bad I've
been rather expecting your father before night. You remember he
said, when he went away in January, that he should be back before the
Mayflowers bloomed?”

It did not do any good to say: “Yes, mother, but the Mayflowers have
bloomed ten times since father went away.” He had tried that, gently and
persistently when first her mind began to be confused from long grief
and hurt love, stricken pride and sick suspense.

Instead of that, Ivory turned the subject cheerily, saying, “Well, we're
sure of a good season, I think. There's been a grand snow-fall, and
that, they say, is the poor man's manure. Rod and I will put in more
corn and potatoes this year. I shan't have to work single-handed very
long, for he is growing to be quite a farmer.”

“Your father was very fond of green corn, but he never cared for
potatoes,” Mrs. Boynton said, vaguely, taking up her knitting. “I always
had great pride in my cooking, but I could never get your father to
relish my potatoes.”

“Well, his son does, anyway,” Ivory replied, helping himself plentifully
from a dish that held one of his mother's best concoctions, potatoes
minced fine and put together into the spider with thin bits of pork and
all browned together.

“I saw the Baxter girls to-day, mother,” he continued, not because
he hoped she would give any heed to what he said, but from the sheer
longing for companionship. “The Deacon drove off with Lawyer Wilson, who
wanted him to give testimony in some case or other down in Milltown. The
minute Patty saw him going up Saco Hill, she harnessed the old starved
Baxter mare and the girls started over to the Lower Corner to see some
friends. It seems it's Patty's birthday and they were celebrating. I
met them just as they were coming back and helped them lift the rickety
wagon out of the mud; they were stuck in it up to the hubs of the
wheels. I advised them to walk up the Town-House Hill if they ever
expected to get the horse home.”

“Town-House Hill!” said Ivory's mother, dropping her knitting. “That was
where we had such wonderful meetings! Truly the Lord was present in
our midst, and oh, Ivory! the visions we saw in that place when Jacob
Cochrane first unfolded his gospel to us. Was ever such a man!”

“Probably not, mother,” remarked Ivory dryly.

“You were speaking of the Baxters. I remember their home, and the little
girl who used to stand in the gateway and watch when we came out of
meeting. There was a baby, too; isn't there a Baxter baby, Ivory?”

“She didn't stay a baby; she is seventeen years old to-day, mother.”

“You surprise me, but children do grow very fast. She had a strange
name, but I cannot recall it.”

“Her name is Patience, but nobody but her father calls her anything but
Patty, which suits her much better.”

“No, the name wasn't Patience, not the one I mean.”

“The older sister is Waitstill, perhaps you mean her?”--and Ivory sat
down by the fire with his book and his pipe.

“Waitstill! Waitstill! that is it! Such a beautiful name!”

“She's a beautiful girl.”

“Waitstill! 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' 'Wait, I say, on
the Lord and He will give thee the desires of thy heart.'--Those were
wonderful days, when we were caught up out of the body and mingled
freely in the spirit world.” Mrs. Boynton was now fully started on the
topic that absorbed her mind and Ivory could do nothing but let her tell
the story that she had told him a hundred times.

“I remember when first we heard Jacob Cochrane speak.” (This was her
usual way of beginning.) “Your father was a preacher, as you know,
Ivory, but you will never know what a wonderful preacher he was. My
grandfather, being a fine gentleman, and a governor, would not give his
consent to my marriage, but I never regretted it, never! Your father
saw Elder Cochrane at a revival meeting of the Free Will Baptists in
Scarboro', and was much impressed with him. A few days later we went to
the funeral of a child in the same neighborhood. No one who was there
could ever forget it. The minister had made his long prayer when a man
suddenly entered the room, came towards the coffin, and placed his hand
on the child's forehead. The room, in an instant, was as still as
the death that had called us together. The stranger was tall and
of commanding presence; his eyes pierced our very hearts, and his
marvellous voice penetrated to depths in our souls that had never been
reached before.”

“Was he a better speaker than my father?” asked Ivory, who dreaded
his mother's hours of complete silence even more than her periods of
reminiscence.

“He spoke as if the Lord of Hosts had given him inspiration; as if the
angels were pouring words into his mouth just for him to utter,” replied
Mrs. Boynton. “Your father was spell-bound, and I only less so. When he
ceased speaking, the child's mother crossed the room, and swaying to and
fro, fell at his feet, sobbing and wailing and imploring God to forgive
her sins. They carried her upstairs, and when we looked about after the
confusion and excitement the stranger had vanished. But we found him
again! As Elder Cochrane said: 'The prophet of the Lord can never be
hid; no darkness is thick enough to cover him!' There was a six weeks'
revival meeting in North Saco where three hundred souls were converted,
and your father and I were among them. We had fancied ourselves true
believers for years, but Jacob Cochrane unstopped our ears so that we
could hear the truths revealed to him by the Almighty!--It was all so
simple and easy at the beginning, but it grew hard and grievous
afterward; hard to keep the path, I mean. I never quite knew whether God
was angry with me for backsliding at the end, but I could not always
accept the revelations that Elder Cochrane and your father had!”

Lois Boynton's hands were now quietly folded over the knitting that lay
forgotten in her lap, but her low, thrilling voice had a note in it that
did not belong wholly to earth.

There was a long silence; one of many long silences at the Boynton
fireside, broken only by the ticking of the clock, the purring of the
cat, and the clicking of Mrs. Boynton's needles, as, her paroxysm of
reminiscence over, she knitted ceaselessly, with her eyes on the window
or the door.

“It's about time for Rod to be coming back, isn't it?” asked Ivory.

“He ought to be here soon, but perhaps he is gone for good; it may be
that he thinks he has made us a long enough visit. I don't know whether
your father will like the boy when he comes home. He never did fancy
company in the house.”

Ivory looked up in astonishment from his Greek grammar. This was an
entirely new turn of his mother's mind. Often when she was more than
usually confused he would try to clear the cobwebs from her brain by
gently questioning her until she brought herself back to a clearer
understanding of her own thought. Thus far her vagaries had never made
her unjust to any human creature; she was uniformly sweet and gentle in
speech and demeanor.

“Why do you talk of Rod's visiting us when he is one of the family?”
 Ivory asked quietly.

“Is he one of the family? I didn't know it,” replied his mother
absently.

“Look at me, mother, straight in the eye; that's right: now listen,
dear, to what I say.”

Mrs. Boynton's hair that had been in her youth like an aureole of
corn-silk was now a strange yellow-white, and her blue eyes looked out
from her pale face with a helpless appeal.

“You and I were living alone here after father went away,” Ivory began.
“I was a little boy, you know. You and father had saved something, there
was the farm, you worked like a slave, I helped, and we lived, somehow,
do you remember?”

“I do, indeed! It was cold and the neighbors were cruel. Jacob Cochrane
had gone away and his disciples were not always true to him. When the
magnetism of his presence was withdrawn, they could not follow all his
revelations, and they forgot how he had awakened their spiritual life
at the first of his preaching. Your father was always a stanch believer,
but when he started on his mission and went to Parsonsfield to help
Elder Cochrane in his meetings, the neighbors began to criticize him.
They doubted him. You were too young to realize it, but I did, and it
almost broke my heart.”

“I was nearly twelve years old; do you think I escaped all the gossip,
mother?”

“You never spoke of it to me, Ivory.”

“No, there is much that I never spoke of to you, mother, but sometime
when you grow stronger and your memory is better we will talk
together.--Do you remember the winter, long after father went away, that
Parson Lane sent me to Fairfield Academy to get enough Greek and Latin
to make me a schoolmaster?”

“Yes,” she answered uncertainly.

“Don't you remember I got a free ride down-river one Friday and came
home for Sunday, just to surprise you? And when I got here I found you
ill in bed, with Mrs. Mason and Dr. Perry taking care of you. You could
not speak, you were so ill, but they told me you had been up in New
Hampshire to see your sister, that she had died, and that you had
brought back her boy, who was only four years old. That was Rod. I took
him into bed with me that night, poor, homesick little fellow, and, as
you know, mother, he's never left us since.”

“I didn't remember I had a sister. Is she dead, Ivory?” asked Mrs.
Boynton vaguely.

“If she were not dead, do you suppose you would have kept Rodman with us
when we hadn't bread enough for our own two mouths, mother?” questioned
Ivory patiently.

“No, of course not. I can't think how I can be so forgetful. It's worse
sometimes than others. It 's worse to-day because I knew the Mayflowers
were blooming and that reminded me it was time for your father to come
home; you must forgive me, dear, and will you excuse me if I sit in the
kitchen awhile? The window by the side door looks out towards the road,
and if I put a candle on the sill it shines quite a distance. The lane
is such a long one, and your father was always a sad stumbler in the
dark! I shouldn't like him to think I wasn't looking for him when he's
been gone since January.”

Ivory's pipe went out, and his book slipped from his knee unnoticed.

His mother was more confused than usual, but she always was when spring
came to remind her of her husband's promise. Somehow, well used as he
was to her mental wanderings, they made him uneasy to-night. His
father had left home on a fancied mission, a duty he believed to be a
revelation given by God through Jacob Cochrane. The farm did not miss
him much at first, Ivory reflected bitterly, for since his fanatical
espousal of Cochranism his father's interest in such mundane matters
as household expenses had diminished month by month until they had no
meaning for him at all. Letters to wife and boy had come at first,
but after six months--during which he had written from many places,
continually deferring the date of his return-they had ceased altogether.
The rest was silence. Rumors of his presence here or there came from
time to time, but though Parson Lane and Dr. Perry did their best, none
of them were ever substantiated.

Where had those years of wandering been passed, and had they all been
given even to an imaginary and fantastic service of God? Was his father
dead? If he were alive, what could keep him from writing? Nothing but a
very strong reason, or a very wrong one, so his son thought, at times.

Since Ivory had grown to man's estate, he understood that in the
later days of Cochrane's preaching, his “visions,” “inspirations,” and
“revelations” concerning the marriage bond were a trifle startling from
the old-fashioned, orthodox point of view. His most advanced disciples
were to hold themselves in readiness to renounce their former vows and
seek “spiritual consorts,” sometimes according to his advice, sometimes
as their inclinations prompted.

Had Aaron Boynton forsaken, willingly, the wife of his youth, the
mother of his boy? If so, he must have realized to what straits he
was subjecting them. Ivory had not forgotten those first few years of
grinding poverty, anxiety, and suspense. His mother's mind had stood the
strain bravely, but it gave way at last; not, however, until that fatal
winter journey to New Hampshire, when cold, exposure, and fatigue
did their worst for her weak body. Religious enthusiast, exalted and
impressionable, a natural mystic, she had probably always been, far more
so in temperament, indeed, than her husband; but although she left home
on that journey a frail and heartsick woman, she returned a different
creature altogether, blurred and confused in mind, with clouded memory
and irrational fancies.

She must have given up hope, just then, Ivory thought, and her love was
so deep that when it was uprooted the soil came with it. Now hope had
returned because the cruel memory had faded altogether. She sat by the
kitchen window in gentle expectation, watching, always watching.

And this is the way many of Ivory Boynton's evenings were spent, while
the heart of him, the five-and-twenty-year-old heart of him, was longing
to feel the beat of another heart, a girl's heart only a mile or more
away. The ice in Saco Water had broken up and the white blocks sailed
majestically down towards the sea; sap was mounting and the elm trees
were budding; the trailing arbutus was blossoming in the woods; the
robins had come;-everything was announcing the spring, yet Ivory saw
no changing seasons in his future; nothing but winter, eternal winter
there!




V. PATIENCE AND IMPATIENCE

PATTY had been searching for eggs in the barn chamber, and coming down
the ladder from the haymow spied her father washing the wagon by the
well-side near the shed door. Cephas Cole kept store for him at meal
hours and whenever trade was unusually brisk, and the Baxter yard was so
happily situated that Old Foxy could watch both house and store.

There never was a good time to ask Deacon Baxter a favor, therefore this
moment would serve as well as any other, so, approaching him near enough
to be heard through the rubbing and splashing, but no nearer than was
necessary Patty said:--

“Father, can I go up to Ellen Wilson's this afternoon and stay to tea? I
won't start till I've done a good day's work and I'll come home early.”

“What do you want to go gallivantin' to the neighbors for? I never saw
anything like the girls nowadays; highty-tighty, flauntin', traipsin',
triflin' trollops, ev'ry one of 'em, that's what they are, and Ellen
Wilson's one of the triflin'est. You're old enough now to stay to home
where you belong and make an effort to earn your board and clothes,
which you can't, even if you try.”

Spunk, real, Simon-pure spunk, started somewhere in Patty and coursed
through her blood like wine.

“If a girl's old enough to stay at home and work, I should think she
was old enough to go out and play once in a while.” Patty was still too
timid to make this remark more than a courteous suggestion, so far as
its tone was concerned.

“Don't answer me back; you're full of new tricks, and you've got to stop
'em, right where you are, or there'll be trouble. You were whistlin'
just now up in the barn chamber; that's one of the things I won't have
round my premises,--a whistlin' girl.”

“'T was a Sabbath-School hymn that I was whistling!” This with a
creditable imitation of defiance.

“That don't make it any better. Sing your hymns if you must make a noise
while you're workin'.”

“It's the same mouth that makes the whistle and sings the song, so I
don't see why one's any wickeder than the other.”

“You don't have to see,” replied the Deacon grimly; “all you have to do
is to mind when you're spoken to. Now run 'long 'bout your work.”

“Can't I go up to Ellen's, then?”

“What's goin' on up there?”

“Just a frolic. There's always a good time at Ellen's, and I would so
like the sight of a big, rich house now and then!”

“'Just a frolic.' Land o' Goshen, hear the girl! 'Sight of a big, rich
house,' indeed!--Will there be any boys at the party?”

“I s'pose so, or 't wouldn't be a frolic,” said Patty with awful daring;
“but there won't be many; only a few of Mark's friends.”

[Illustration: “Well, there ain't going to be no more argyfyin’!”]

“Well, there ain't goin' to be no more argyfyin'! I won't have any girl
o' mine frolickin' with boys, so that's the end of it. You're kind
o' crazy lately, riggin' yourself out with a ribbon here and a flower
there, and pullin' your hair down over your ears. Why do you want to
cover your ears up? What are they for?”

“To hear you with, father,” Patty replied, with honey-sweet voice and
eyes that blazed.

“Well, I hope they'll never hear anything worse,” replied her father,
flinging a bucket of water over the last of the wagon wheels.

“THEY COULDN'T!” These words were never spoken aloud, but oh! how Patty
longed to shout them with a clarion voice as she walked away in perfect
silence, her majestic gait showing, she hoped, how she resented the
outcome of the interview.

“I've stood up to father!” she exclaimed triumphantly as she entered the
kitchen and set down her yellow bowl of eggs on the table. “I stood up
to him, and answered him back three times!”

Waitstill was busy with her Saturday morning cooking, but she turned in
alarm.

“Patty, what have you said and done? Tell me quickly!”

“I 'argyfied,' but it didn't do any good; he won't let me go to Ellen's
party.”

Waitstill wiped her floury hands and put them on her sister's shoulders.

“Hear what I say, Patty: you must not argue with father, whatever he
says. We don't love him and so there isn't the right respect in our
hearts, but at least there can be respect in our manners.”

“I don't believe I can go on for years, holding in, Waitstill!” Patty
whimpered.

“Yes, you can. I have!”

“You're different, Waitstill.”

“I wasn't so different at sixteen, but that's five years ago, and I've
got control of my tongue and my temper since then. Sometime, perhaps,
when I have a grievance too great to be rightly borne, sometime when you
are away from here in a home of your own, I shall speak out to father;
just empty my heart of all the disappointment and bitterness and
rebellion. Somebody ought to tell him the truth, and perhaps it will be
me!”

“I wish it could be me,” exclaimed Patty vindictively, and with an equal
disregard of grammar.

“You would speak in temper, I'm afraid, Patty, and that would spoil all.
I'm sorry you can't go up to Ellen's,” she sighed, turning back to her
work; “you don't have pleasure enough for one of your age; still, don't
fret; something may happen to change things, and anyhow the weather is
growing warmer, and you and I have so many more outings in summer-time.
Smooth down your hair, child; there are straws in it, and it's all rough
with the wind. I don't like flying hair about a kitchen.”

“I wish my hair was flying somewhere a thousand miles from here; or at
least I should wish it if it did not mean leaving you; for oh. I'm so
miserable and disappointed and unhappy!”

Waitstill bent over the girl as she flung herself down beside the table
and smoothed her shoulder gently.

“There, there, dear; it isn't like my gay little sister to cry. What is
the matter with you to-day, Patty?”

“I suppose it's the spring,” she said, wiping her eyes with her apron
and smiling through her tears. “Perhaps I need a dose of sulphur and
molasses.”

“Don't you feel well as common?”

“Well? I feel too well! I feel as if I was a young colt shut up in an
attic. I want to kick up my heels, batter the door down, and get out
into the pasture. It's no use talking, Waity;--I can't go on living
without a bit of pleasure and I can't go on being patient even for
your sake. If it weren't for you, I'd run away as Job did; and I never
believed Moses slipped on the logs; I'm sure he threw himself into the
river, and so should I if I had the courage!”

“Stop, Patty, stop, dear! You shall have your bit of pasture, at least.
I'll do some of your indoor tasks for you, and you shall put on your
sunbonnet and go out and dig the dandelion greens for dinner. Take the
broken knife and a milkpan and don't bring in so much earth with them as
you did last time. Dry your eyes and look at the green things growing.
Remember how young you are and how many years are ahead of you! Go
along, dear!”

Waitstill went about her work with rather a heavy heart. Was life going
to be more rather than less difficult, now that Patty was growing up?
Would she he able to do her duty both by father and sister and keep
peace in the household, as she had vowed, in her secret heart, always to
do? She paused every now and then to look out of the window and wave an
encouraging hand to Patty. The girl's bonnet was off, and her uncovered
head blazed like red gold in the sunlight. The short young grass was
dotted with dandelion blooms, some of them already grown to huge disks
of yellow, and Patty moved hither and thither, selecting the younger
weeds, deftly putting the broken knife under their roots and popping
them into the tin pan. Presently, for Deacon Baxter had finished the
wagon and gone down the hill to relieve Cephas Cole at the counter,
Patty's shrill young whistle floated into the kitchen, but with a
mischievous glance at the open window she broke off suddenly and began
to sing the words of the hymn with rather more emphasis and gusto than
strict piety warranted.

     “There'll be SOMEthing in heav-en for chil-dren to do,
      None are idle in that bless-ed land:
      There'll be WORK for the heart. There'll be WORK for the mind,
      And emPLOYment for EACH little hand.
        “There'll be SOME-thing to do,
         There'll be SOME-thing to do,
      There'll be SOME-thing for CHIL-dren to do!
      On that bright blessed shore where there's joy evermore,
      There'll be SOME-thing for CHIL-DREN to do.”

Patty's young existence being full to the brim of labor, this view of
heaven never in the least appealed to her and she rendered the hymn with
little sympathy. The main part of the verse was strongly accented by
jabs at the unoffending dandelion roots, but when the chorus came she
brought out the emphatic syllables by a beat of the broken knife on the
milkpan.

This rendition of a Sabbath-School classic did not meet Waitstill's
ideas of perfect propriety, but she smiled and let it pass, planning
some sort of recreation for a stolen half-hour of the afternoon. It
would have to be a walk through the pasture into the woods to see what
had grown since they went there a fortnight ago. Patty loved people
better than Nature, but failing the one she could put up with the other,
for she had a sense of beauty and a pagan love of color. There would
be pale-hued innocence and blue and white violets in the moist places,
thought Waitstill, and they would have them in a china cup on the
supper-table. No, that would never do, for last time father had knocked
them over when he was reaching for the bread, and in a silent protest
against such foolishness got up from the table and emptied theirs into
the kitchen sink.

“There's a place for everything,” he said when he came back, “and the
place for flowers is outdoors.”

Then in the pine woods there would be, she was sure, Star of Bethlehem,
Solomon's Seal, the white spray of groundnuts and bunchberries. Perhaps
they could make a bouquet and Patty would take it across the fields
to Mrs. Boynton's door. She need not go in, and thus they would not
be disobeying their father's command not to visit that “crazy Boynton
woman.”

Here Patty came in with a pan full of greens and the sisters sat down in
the sunny window to get them ready for the pot.

“I'm calmer,” the little rebel allowed. “That's generally the way it
turns out with me. I get into a rage, but I can generally sing it off!”

“You certainly must have got rid of a good deal of temper this morning,
by the way your voice sounded.”

“Nobody can hear us in this out-of-the-way place. It's easy enough to
see that the women weren't asked to say anything when the men settled
where the houses should be built! The men weren't content to stick them
on the top of a high hill, or half a mile from the stores, but put them
back to the main road, taking due care to cut the sink-window where
their wives couldn't see anything even when they were washing dishes.”

“I don't know that I ever thought about it in that way”; and Waitstill
looked out of the window in a brown study while her hands worked with
the dandelion greens. “I've noticed it, but I never supposed the men did
it intentionally.”

“No, you wouldn't,” said Patty with the pessimism of a woman of ninety,
as she stole an admiring glance at her sister. Patty's own face,
irregular, piquant, tantalizing, had its peculiar charm, and her
brilliant skin and hair so dazzled the masculine beholder that he took
note of no small defects; but Waitstill was beautiful; beautiful even
in her working dress of purple calico. Her single braid of hair, the
Foxwell hair, that in her was bronze and in Patty pale auburn, was wound
once around her fine head and made to stand a little as it went across
the front. It was a simple, easy, unconscious fashion of her own, quite
different from anything done by other women in her time and place, and
it just suited her dignity and serenity. It looked like a coronet, but
it was the way she carried her head that gave you the fancy, there was
such spirit and pride in the poise of it on the long graceful neck. Her
eyes were as clear as mountain pools shaded by rushes, and the strength
of the face was softened by the sweetness of the mouth.

Patty never let the conversation die out for many seconds at a time and
now she began again. “My sudden rages don't match my name very well,
but, of course, mother didn't know how I was going to turn out when she
called me Patience, for I was nothing but a squirming little bald, red
baby; but my name really is too ridiculous when you think about it.”

Waitstill laughed as she said: “It didn't take you long to change it!
Perhaps Patience was a hard word for a baby to say, but the moment you
could talk you said, 'Patty wants this' and 'Patty wants that.”'

“Did Patty ever get it? She never has since, that's certain! And look
at your name: it's 'Waitstill,' yet you never stop a moment. When you're
not in the shed or barn, or chicken-house, or kitchen or attic, or
garden-patch, you are working in the Sunday School or the choir.”

It seemed as if Waitstill did not intend to answer this arraignment of
her activities. She rose and crossed the room to put the pan of greens
in the sink, preparing to wash them.

Taking the long-handled dipper from the nail, she paused a moment before
plunging it into the water pail; paused, and leaning her elbow on a
corner of the shelf over the sink, looked steadfastly out into the
orchard.

Patty watched her curiously and was just going to offer a penny for
her thoughts when Waitstill suddenly broke the brief silence by saying:
“Yes, I am always busy; it's better so, but all the same, Patty, I'm
waiting,--inside! I don't know for what, but I always feel that I am
waiting!”




VI. A KISS

“SHALL we have our walk in the woods on the Edgewood side of the river,
just for a change, Patty?” suggested her sister. “The water is so high
this year that the river will be splendid. We can gather our flowers in
the hill pasture and then you'll be quite near Mrs. Boynton's and can
carry the nosegay there while I come home ahead of you and get supper.
I'll take to-day's eggs to father's store on the way and ask him if he
minds our having a little walk. I've an errand at Aunt Abby's that would
take me down to the bridge anyway.”

“Very well,” said Patty, somewhat apathetically. “I always like a walk
with you, but I don't care what becomes of me this afternoon if I can't
go to Ellen's party.”

The excursion took place according to Waitstill's plan, and at four
o'clock she sped back to her night work and preparations for supper,
leaving Patty with a great bunch of early wildflowers for Ivory's
mother. Patty had left them at the Boyntons' door with Rodman, who was
picking up chips and volunteered to take the nosegay into the house at
once.

“Won't you step inside?” the boy asked shyly, wishing to be polite,
but conscious that visitors, from the village very seldom crossed the
threshold.

“I'd like to, but I can't this afternoon, thank you. I must run all the
way down the hill now, or I shan't be in time to supper.”

“Do you eat meals together over to your house?” asked the boy.

“We're all three at the table if that means together.”

“We never are. Ivory goes off early and takes lunch in a pail. So do
I when I go to school. Aunt Boynton never sits down to eat; she just
stands at the window and takes a bite of something now 'and then. You
haven't got any mother, have you?”

“No, Rodman.”

“Neither have I, nor any father, nor any relations but Aunt Boynton
and Ivory. Ivory is very good to me, and when he's at home I'm never
lonesome.”

“I wish you could come over and eat with sister and me,” said Patty
gently. “Perhaps sometime, when my father is away buying goods and we
are left alone, you could join us in the woods, and we would have
a picnic? We would bring enough for you; all sorts of good things;
hard-boiled eggs, doughnuts, apple-turnovers, and bread spread with
jelly.”

“I'd like it fine!” exclaimed Rodman, his big dark eyes sparkling with
anticipation. “I don't have many boys to play with, and I never went to
a picnic Aunt Boynton watches for uncle 'most all the time; she doesn't
know he has been away for years and years. When she doesn't watch, she
prays. Sometimes she wants me to pray with her, but praying don't come
easy to me.”

“Neither does it to me,” said Patty.

“I'm good at marbles and checkers and back-gammon and jack-straws,
though.”

“So am I,” said Patty, laughing, “so we should be good friends. I'll try
to get a chance to see you soon again, but perhaps I can't; I'm a good
deal tied at home.”

“Your father doesn't like you to go anywheres, I guess,” interposed
Rodman. “I've heard Ivory tell Aunt Boynton things, but I wouldn't
repeat them. Ivory's trained me years and years not to tell anything, so
I don't.”

“That's a good boy!” approved Patty. Then as she regarded him more
closely, she continued, “I'm sorry you're lonesome, Rodman, I'd like to
see you look brighter.”

“You think I've been crying,” the boy said shrewdly. “So I have, but
not because I've been punished. The reason my eyes are so swollen up is
because I killed our old toad by mistake this morning. I was trying to
see if I could swing the scythe so's to help Ivory in haying-time. I've
only 'raked after' and I want to begin on mowing soon's I can. Then
somehow or other the old toad came out from under the steps; I didn't
see him, and the scythe hit him square. I cried for an hour, that's what
I did, and I don't care who knows it except I wouldn't like the boys
at school to hector me. I've buried the toad out behind the barn, and I
hope Ivory'll let me keep the news from Aunt Boynton. She cries enough
now without my telling her there's been a death in the family. She set
great store by the old toad, and so did all of us.”

“It's too bad; I'm sorry, but after all you couldn't help it.”

“No, but we should always look round every-wheres when we're cutting;
that's what Ivory says. He says folks shouldn't use edged tools till
they're old enough not to fool with 'em.”

And Rodman looked so wise and old-fashioned for his years that Patty
did not know whether to kiss him or cry over him, as she said: “Ivory's
always right, and now good-bye; I must go this very minute. Don't forget
the picnic.”

“I won't!” cried the boy, gazing after her, wholly entranced with
her bright beauty and her kindness. “Say, I'll bring something,
too,--white-oak acorns, if you like 'em; I've got a big bagful up
attic!”

Patty sped down the long lane, crept under the bars, and flew like a
lapwing over the high-road.

“If father was only like any one else, things might be so different!”
 she sighed, her thoughts running along with her feet. “Nobody to make
a home for that poor lonesome little boy and that poor lonesome big
Ivory.... I am sure that he is in love with Waitstill. He doesn't know
it; she doesn't know it; nobody does but me, but I'm clever at guessing.
I was the only one that surmised Jed Morrill was going to marry
again.... I should almost like Ivory for myself, he is so tall and
handsome, but of course he can never marry anybody; he is too poor and
has his mother to look after. I wouldn't want to take him from Waity,
though, and then perhaps I couldn't get him, anyway.... If I couldn't,
he'd be the only one! I've never tried yet, but I feel in my bones,
somehow, that I could have any boy in Edgewood or Riverboro, by just
crooking my forefinger and beckoning to him.. .. I wish--I wish--they
were different! They don't make me want to beckon to them! My forefinger
just stays straight and doesn't feel like crooking!... There's Cephas
Cole, but he's as stupid as an owl. I don't want a husband that keeps
his mouth wide open whenever I'm talking, no matter whether it's sense
or nonsense. There's Phil Perry, but he likes Ellen, and besides he's
too serious for me; and there's Mark Wilson; he's the best dressed,
and the only one that's been to college. He looks at me all the time in
meeting, and asked me if I wouldn't take a walk some Sunday afternoon. I
know he planned Ellen's party hoping I'd be there!--Goodness gracious,
I do believe that is his horse coming behind me! There's no other in the
village that goes at such a gait!”

It was, indeed, Mark Wilson, who always drove, according to Aunt Abby
Cole, “as if he was goin' for a doctor.” He caught up with Patty almost
in the twinkling of an eye, but she was ready for him. She had taken
off her sunbonnet just to twirl it by the string, she was so warm with
walking, and in a jiffy she had lifted the clustering curls from her
ears, tucked them back with a single expert movement, and disclosed two
coral pendants just the color of her ear-tips and her glowing cheeks.

“Hello, Patty!” the young man called, in brusque country fashion, as he
reined up beside her. “What are you doing over here? Why aren't you on
your way to the party? I've been over to Limington and am breaking my
neck to get home in time myself.”

“I am not going; there are no parties for me!” said Patty plaintively.
“Not going! Oh! I say, what's the matter? It won't be a bit of fun
without you! Ellen and I made it up expressly for you, thinking your
father couldn't object to a candy-pull!”

“I can't help it; I did the best I could. Wait-still always asks father
for me, but I wouldn't take any chances to-day, and I spoke to him
myself; indeed I almost coaxed him!”

“He's a regular old skinflint!” cried Mark, getting out of the wagon and
walking beside her.

“You mustn't call him names,” Patty interposed with some dignity. “I
call him a good many myself, but I'm his daughter.”

“You don't look it,” said Mark admiringly. “Come and have a little ride,
Won't you?”

“Oh, I couldn't possibly, thank you. Some one would be sure to see us,
and father's so strict.”

“There isn't a building for half a mile! Just jump in and have a spin
till we come to the first house; then I'll let you out and you can walk
the rest of the way home. Come, do, and make up to me a little for my
disappointment. I'll skip the candy-pull if you say the word.”

It was an incredibly brief drive, at Mark's rate of speed; and as
exciting and blissful as it was brief and dangerous, Patty thought.
Did she imagine it, or did Mark help her into the wagon differently
from--old Dr. Perry, for instance?

The fresh breeze lifted the gold thread of her curls and gave her cheeks
a brighter color, while her breath came fast through her parted lips and
her eyes sparkled at the unexpected, unaccustomed pleasure. She felt so
grown up, so conscious of a new power as she sat enthroned on the little
wagon seat (Mark Wilson always liked his buggies “courtin' size” so the
neighbors said), that she was almost courageous enough to agree to make
a royal progress through the village; almost, but not quite.

“Come on, let's shake the old tabbies up and start 'em talking, shall
we?” Mark suggested. “I'll give you the reins and let Nero have a flick
of the whip.”

“No, I'd rather not drive,” she said. “I'd be afraid of this horse, and,
anyway, I must get out this very minute; yes, I really must. If you hold
Nero I can just slip down between the wheels; you needn't help me.”

Mark alighted notwithstanding her objections, saying gallantly, “I don't
miss this pleasure, not by a jugful! Come along! Jump!”

Patty stretched out her hands to be helped, but Mark forestalled her by
putting his arms around her and lifting her down. A second of time only
was involved, but in that second he held; her close and kissed her warm
cheek, her cheek that had never felt the touch of any lips but those of
Waitstill. She pulled her sunbonnet over her flaming face, while Mark,
with a gay smile of farewell, sprang into the wagon and gave his horse a
free rein.

Patty never looked up from the road, but walked faster and faster, her
heart beating at breakneck speed. It was a changed world that spun past
her; fright, triumph, shame, delight, a gratified vanity swam over her
in turn.

A few minutes later she heard once more the rumble of wheels on the
road. It was Cephas Cole driving towards her over the brow of Saco Hill.
“He'll have seen Mark,” she thought, “but he can't know I've talked and
driven with him. Ugh! how stupid and common he looks!” “I heard your
father blowin' the supper-horn jest as I come over the bridge,” remarked
Cephas, drawing up in the road. “He stood in the door-yard blowin' like
Bedlam. I guess you 're late to supper.”

“I'll be home in a few minutes,” said Patty, “I got delayed and am a
little behindhand.”

“I'll turn right round if you'll git in and lemme take you back-along a
piece; it'll save you a good five minutes,” begged Cephas, abjectly.

“All right; much obliged; but it's against the rules and you must drop
me at the foot of our hill and let me walk up.”

“Certain; I know the Deacon 'n' I ain't huntin' for trouble any more'n
you be; though I 'd take it quick enough if you jest give me leave! I
ain't no coward an' I could tackle the Deacon to-morrow if so be I had
anything to ask him.”

This seemed to Patty a line of conversation distinctly to be discouraged
under all the circumstances, and she tried to keep Cephas on the subject
of his daily tasks and his mother's rheumatism until she could escape
from his over-appreciative society.

“How do you like my last job?” he inquired as they passed his father's
house. “Some think I've got the ell a little mite too yaller. Folks that
ain't never handled a brush allers think they can mix paint better 'n
them that knows their trade.”

“If your object was to have everybody see the ell a mile away, you've
succeeded,” said Patty cruelly. She never flung the poor boy a civil
word for fear of getting something warmer than civility in return.

“It'll tone down,” Cephas responded, rather crestfallen. “I wanted a
good bright lastin' shade. 'T won't look so yaller when father lets me
paint the house to match, but that won't be till next year. He makes
fun of the yaller color same as you; says a home's something you want
to forget when you're away from it. Mother says the two rooms of the
ell are big enough for somebody to set up housekeepin' in. What do you
think?”

“I never think,” returned Patty with a tantalizing laugh. “Good-night,
Cephas; thank you for giving me a lift!”




VII. “WHAT DREAMS MAY COME”

SUPPER was over and the work done at last; the dishes washed, the beans
put in soak, the hens shut up for the night, the milk strained and
carried down cellar. Patty went up to her little room with the
one window and the slanting walls and Waitstill followed and said
good-night. Her father put out the lights, locked the doors, and came up
the creaking stairs. There was never any talk between the sisters before
going to bed, save on nights when their father was late at the store,
usually on Saturdays only, for the good talkers of the village, as well
as the gossips and loafers, preferred any other place to swap stories
than the bleak atmosphere provided by old Foxy at his place of business.

Patty could think in the dark; her healthy young body lying not
uncomfortably on the bed of corn husks, and the patchwork comforter
drawn up under her chin. She could think, but for the first time she
could not tell her thoughts to Waitstill. She had a secret; a dazzling
secret, just like Ellen Wilson and some of the other girls who were
several years older. Her afternoon's experience loomed as large in her
innocent mind as if it had been an elopement.

“I hope I'm not engaged to be married to him, EVEN IF HE DID--” The
sentence was too tremendous to be finished, even in thought. “I don't
think I can be; men must surely say something, and not take it for
granted you are in love with them and want to marry them. It is what
they say when they ask that I should like much better than being
married, when I'm only just past seventeen. I wish Mark was a little
different; I don't like his careless ways! He admires me, I can tell
one; that by the way he looks, but he admires himself just as much, and
expects me to do the same; still, I suppose none of them are perfect,
and girls have to forgive lots of little things when they are engaged.
Mother must have forgiven a good many things when she took father.
Anyway, Mark is going away for a month on business, so I shan't have
to make up my mind just yet!” Here sleep descended upon the slightly
puzzled, but on the whole delightfully complacent, little creature,
bringing her most alluring and untrustworthy dreams.

The dear innocent had, indeed, no need of haste! Young Mr. Marquis de
Lafayette Wilson, Mark for short, was not in the least a gay deceiver or
ruthless breaker of hearts, and, so far as known, no scalps of village
beauties were hung to his belt. He was a likable, light-weight young
chap, as indolent and pleasure-loving as the strict customs of the
community would permit; and a kiss, in his mind, most certainly
never would lead to the altar, else he had already been many times a
bridegroom. Miss Patience Baxter's maiden meditations and uncertainties
and perplexities, therefore, were decidedly premature. She was a
natural-born, unconsciously artistic, highly expert, and finished
coquette. She was all this at seventeen, and Mark at twenty-four was by
no means a match for her in this field of effort, yet!--but sometimes,
in getting her victim into the net, the coquette loses her balance and
falls in herself. There wasn't a bit of harm in Marquis de Lafayette,
but he was extremely agile in keeping out of nets!

Waitstill was restless, too, that night, although she could not have
told the reason. She opened her window at the back of the house and
leaned out. The evening was mild with a soft wind blowing. She could
hear the full brook dashing through the edge of the wood-lot, and even
the “ker-chug” of an occasional bull-frog. There were great misty stars
in the sky, but no moon.

There was no light in Aunt Abby Cole's kitchen, but a faint glimmer
shone through the windows of Uncle Bart's joiner's shop, showing that
the old man was either having an hour of peaceful contemplation with
no companion but his pipe, or that there might be a little group of
privileged visitors, headed by Jed Morrill, busily discussing the
affairs of the nation.

Waitstill felt troubled and anxious to-night; bruised by the little
daily torments that lessened her courage but never wholly destroyed it.
Any one who believed implicitly in heredity might have been puzzled,
perhaps, to account for her. He might fantastically picture her as
making herself out of her ancestors, using a free hand, picking
and choosing what she liked best, with due care for the effect of
combinations; selecting here and there and modifying, if advisable,
a trait of Grandpa or Grandma Foxwell, of Great-Uncle or Great-Aunt
Baxter; borrowing qualities lavishly from her own gently born and
gently bred mother, and carefully avoiding her respected father's
Stock, except, perhaps, to take a dash of his pluck and an ounce of his
persistence. Jed Morrill remarked of Deacon Baxter once: “When Old Foxy
wants anything he'll wait till hell freezes over afore he'll give up.”
 Waitstill had her father's firm chin, but there the likeness ended. The
proud curve of her nostrils, the clear well-opened eye with its deep
fringe of lashes, the earnest mouth, all these came from the mother who
was little more than a dim memory.

Waitstill disdained any vague, dreary, colorless theory of life and
its meaning. She had joined the church at fifteen, more or less because
other girls did and the parson had persuaded her; but out of her hard
life she had somehow framed a courageous philosophy that kept her erect
and uncrushed, no matter how great her difficulties. She had no idea
of bringing a poor, weak, draggled soul to her Maker at the last day,
saying “Here is all I have managed to save out of what you gave me!”
 That would be something, she allowed, immeasurably something; but
pitiful compared with what she might do if she could keep a brave,
vigorous spirit and march to the last tribunal strengthened by battles,
struggles, defeats, victories; by the defense of weaker human creatures,
above all, warmed and vitalized by the pouring out and gathering in of
love.

Patty slept sweetly on the other side of the partition, the
contemplation of her twopenny triumphs bringing a smile to her childish
lips: but even so a good heart was there (still perhaps in the process
of making), a quick wit, ready sympathy, natural charm; plenty, indeed,
for the stronger sister to cherish, protect, and hold precious, as she
did, with all her mind and soul.

There had always been a passionate loyalty in Waitstill's affection,
wherever it had been bestowed. Uncle Bart delighted in telling an
instance of it that occurred when she was a child of five. Maine had
just separated amicably from her mother, Massachusetts, and become an
independent state. It was in the middle of March, but there was no snow
on the ground and the village boys had built a bonfire on a plot of
land near Uncle Bart's joiner's shop. There was a large gathering in
celebration of the historic event and Waitstill crept down the hill with
her homemade rag doll in her arms. She stood on the outskirts of the
crowd, a silent, absorbed little figure clad in a shabby woollen coat,
with a blue knit hood framing her rosy face. Deborah, her beloved, her
only doll, was tightly clasped in her arms, for Debby, like her parent,
had few pleasures and must not be denied so great a one as this.
Suddenly, one of the thoughtless young scamps in the group, wishing to
create a new sensation and add to the general excitement, caught the
doll from the child's arms, and running forward with a loud war-whoop,
flung it into the flames. Waitstill did not lose an instant. She gave
a scream Of anguish, and without giving any warning of her intentions,
probably without realizing them herself, she dashed through the little
crowd into the bonfire and snatched her cherished offspring from the
burning pile. The whole thing was over in the twinkling of an eye, for
Uncle Bart was as quick as the child and dragged her out of the imminent
danger with no worse harm done than a good scorching.

He led the little creature up the hill to explain matters and protect
her from a scolding. She still held the doll against her heaving breast,
saying, between her sobs: “I couldn't let my Debby burn up! I couldn't,
Uncle Bart; she's got nobody but me! Is my dress scorched so much I
can't wear it? You'll tell father how it was, Uncle Bart, won't you?”

Debby bore the marks of her adventure longer than her owner, for she had
been longer in the fire, but, stained and defaced as she was, she was
never replaced, and remained the only doll of Waitstill's childhood. At
this very moment she lay softly and safely in a bureau drawer ready
to be lifted out, sometime, Waitstill fancied, and shown tenderly to
Patty's children. Of her own possible children she never thought. There
was but one man in the world who could ever be the father of them and
she was separated from him by every obstacle that could divide two human
beings.




SUMMER




VIII. THE JOINER'S SHOP

VILLAGE “Aunts” and “Uncles” were elected to that relationship by the
common consent of the community; their fitness being established by
great age, by decided individuality or eccentricity of character, by
uncommon lovableness, or by the possession of an abundant wit and humor.
There was no formality about the thing; certain women were always called
“Aunt Sukie,” or “Aunt Hitty,” or what not, while certain men were
distinguished as “Uncle Rish,” or “Uncle Pel,” without previous
arrangement, or the consent of the high contracting parties.

Such a couple were Cephas Cole's father and mother, Aunt Abby and Uncle
Bart. Bartholomew Cole's trade was that of a joiner; as for Aunt Abby's,
it can only be said that she made all trades her own by sovereign
right of investigation, and what she did not know about her neighbor's
occupations was unlikely to be discovered on this side of Jordan. One of
the villagers declared that Aunt Abby and her neighbor, Mrs. Abel Day,
had argued for an hour before they could make a bargain about the method
of disseminating a certain important piece of news, theirs by exclusive
right of discovery and prior possession. Mrs. Day offered to give Mrs.
Cole the privilege of Saco Hill and Aunt Betty-Jack's, she herself to
take Guide-Board and Town-House Hills. Aunt Abby quickly proved the
injustice of this decision, saying that there were twice as many
families living in Mrs. Day's chosen territory as there were in that
allotted to her, so the river road to Milliken's Mills was grudgingly
awarded to Aunt Abby by way of compromise, and the ladies started on
what was a tour of mercy in those days, the furnishing of a subject of
discussion for long, quiet evenings.

Uncle Bart's joiner's shop was at the foot of Guide-Board Hill on the
Riverboro side of the bridge, and it was the pleasantest spot in
the whole village. The shop itself had a cheery look, with its
weather-stained shingles, its small square windows, and its hospitable
door, half as big as the front side of the building. The step was an
old millstone too worn for active service, and the piles of chips
and shavings on each side of it had been there for so many years that
sweet-williams, clove pinks, and purple phlox were growing in among them
in the most irresponsible fashion; while a morning-glory vine had crept
up and curled around a long-handled rake that had been standing against
the front of the house since early spring. There was an air of cosy
and amiable disorder about the place that would have invited friendly
confabulation even had not Uncle Bart's white head, honest, ruddy face,
and smiling welcome coaxed you in before you were aware. A fine Nodhead
apple tree shaded the side windows, and underneath it reposed all summer
a bright blue sleigh, for Uncle Bart always described himself as being
“plagued for shed room” and kept things as he liked at the shop, having
a “p'ison neat” wife who did exactly the opposite at his house.

The seat of the sleigh was all white now with scattered fruit blossoms,
and one of Waitstill's earliest remembrances was of going downhill with
Patty toddling at her side; of Uncle Bart's lifting them into the sleigh
and permitting them to sit there and eat the ripe red apples that had
fallen from the tree. Uncle Bart's son, Cephas (Patty's secret adorer),
was a painter by trade, and kept his pots and cans and brushes in a
little outhouse at the back, while Uncle Bart himself stood every day
behind his long joiner's bench almost knee-deep in shavings. How the
children loved to play with the white, satiny rings, making them into
necklaces, hanging them to their ears and weaving them into wreaths.

Wonderful houses could always be built in the corner of the shop, out of
the little odds and ends and “nubbins” of white pine, and Uncle Bart was
ever ready to cut or saw a special piece needed for some great purpose.

The sound of the plane was sweet music in the old joiner's ears. “I
don't hardly know how I'd a made out if I'd had to work in a mill,”
 he said confidentially to Cephas. “The noise of a saw goin' all day,
coupled with your mother's tongue mornin's an' evenin's, would 'a' been
too much for my weak head. I'm a quiet man, Cephas, a man that needs a
peaceful shop where he can get away from the comforts of home now and
then, without shirkin' his duty nor causin' gossip. If you should ever
marry, Cephas,--which don't look to me likely without you pick out a
dif'rent girl,--I 'd advise you not to keep your stock o' paints in the
barn or the shed, for it's altogether too handy to the house and the
women-folks. Take my advice and have a place to yourself, even if it's
a small one. A shop or a barn has saved many a man's life and reason
Cephas, for it's ag'in' a woman's nature to have you underfoot in the
house without hectorin' you. Choose a girl same's you would a horse
that you want to hitch up into a span; 't ain't every two that'll stan'
together without kickin'. When you get the right girl, keep out of her
way consid'able an' there'll be less wear an' tear.”

It was June and the countryside was so beautiful it seemed as if no
one could be unhappy, however great the cause. That was what Waitstill
Baxter thought as she sat down on the millstone step for a word with the
old joiner, her best and most understanding friend in all the village.

“I've come to do my mending here with you,” she said brightly, as she
took out her well-filled basket and threaded her needle. “Isn't it a
wonderful morning? Nobody could look the world in the face and do a
wrong thing on such a day, could they, Uncle Bart?”

The meadows were a waving mass of golden buttercups; the shallow water
at the river's edge just below the shop was blue with spikes of
arrow-weed; a bunch of fragrant water-lilies, gathered from the
mill-pond's upper levels, lay beside Waitstill's mending-basket, and
every foot of roadside and field within sight was swaying with
long-stemmed white and gold daisies. The June grass, the friendly,
humble, companionable grass, that no one ever praises as they do the
flowers, was a rich emerald green, a velvet carpet fit for the feet of
the angels themselves. And the elms and maples! Was there ever such a
year for richness of foliage? And the sky, was it ever so blue or so
clear, so far away, or so completely like heaven, as you looked at its
reflection in the glassy surface of the river?

“Yes, it's a pretty good day,” allowed Uncle Bart judicially as he took
a squint at his T-square. “I don' know's I should want to start out an'
try to beat it! The Lord can make a good many kinds o' weather in the
course of a year, but when He puts his mind on to it, an' kind o' gives
Himself a free hand, He can turn out a June morning that must make the
Devil sick to his stomach with envy! All the same, Waity, my cow ain't
behavin' herself any better'n usual. She's been rampagin' since sun-up.
I've seen mother chasin' her out o' Mis' Day's garden-patch twice
a'ready!--It seems real good an' homey to see you settin' there sewin'
while I'm workin' at the bench. Cephas is down to the store, so I s'pose
your father's off somewheres?”

Perhaps the June grass was a little greener, the buttercups yellower,
the foliage more lacey, the sky bluer, because Deacon Baxter had
taken his luncheon in a pail under the wagon seat, and departed on
an unwilling journey to Moderation, his object being to press the
collection of some accounts too long overdue. There was something
tragic in the fact, Waitstill thought, that whenever her father left
the village for a whole day, life at once grew brighter, easier, more
hopeful. One could breathe freely, speak one's heart out, believe in the
future, when father was away.

The girls had harbored many delightful plans at early breakfast. As it
was Saturday, Patty could catch little Rod Boynton, if he came to the
bridge on errands as usual; and if Ivory could spare him for an hour
at noon they would take their luncheon and eat it together on the
river-bank as Patty had promised him. At the last moment, however,
Deacon Baxter had turned around in the wagon and said: “Patience, you go
down to the store and have a regular house-cleanin' in the stock-room.
Git Cephas to lift what you can't lift yourself, move everything in the
place, sweep and dust it, scrub the floor, wash the winder, and make
room for the new stuff that they'll bring up from Mill-town 'bout noon.
If you have any time left over, put new papers on the shelves out front,
and clean up and fix the show winder. Don't stand round gabbin' with
Cephas, and see't he don't waste time that's paid for by me. Tell him he
might clean up the terbaccer stains round the stove, black it, and cover
it up for the summer if he ain't too busy servin' cust'mers.”

“The whole day spoiled!” wailed Patty, flinging herself down in the
kitchen rocker. “Father's powers of invention beat anything I ever saw!
That stock-room could have been cleaned any time this month and it's
too heavy work for me anyway; it spoils my hands, grubbing around those
nasty, sticky, splintery boxes and barrels. Instead of being out
of doors, I've got to be shut up in that smelly, rummy, tobacco-y,
salt-fishy, pepperminty place with Cephas Cole! He won't have a pleasant
morning, I can tell you! I shall snap his head off every time he speaks
to me.”

“So I would!” Waitstill answered composedly. “Everything is so clearly
his fault that I certainly would work off my temper on Cephas! Still,
I can think of a way to make matters come out right. I've got a great
basket of mending that must be done, and you remember there's a choir
rehearsal for the new anthem this afternoon, but anyway I can help a
little on the cleaning. Then you can make Rodman do a few of the odd
jobs, it will be a novelty to him; and Cephas will work his fingers
to the bone for you, as you well know, if you treat him like a human
being.”

“All right!” cried Patty joyously, her mood changing in an instant.
“There's Rod coming over the bridge now! Toss me my gingham apron and
the scrubbing-brush, and the pail, and the tin of soft soap, and
the cleaning cloths; let's see, the broom's down there, so I've got
everything. If I wave a towel from the store, pack up luncheon for
three. You come down and bring your mending; then, when you see how I'm
getting on, we can consult. I'm going to take the ten cents I've saved
and spend it in raisins. I can get a good many if Cephas gives me
wholesale price, with family discount subtracted from that. Cephas
would treat me to candy in a minute, but if I let him we'd have to ask
him to the picnic! Good-bye!” And the volatile creature darted down the
hill singing, “There'll be something in heaven for children to do,” at
the top of her healthy young lungs.




IX. CEPHAS SPEAKS

THE waving signal, a little later on, showed that Rodman could go to the
picnic, the fact being that he was having a holiday from eleven o'clock
until two, and Ivory was going to drive to the bridge at noon, anyway,
so his permission could then be asked.

Patty's mind might have been thought entirely on her ugly task as she
swept and dusted and scrubbed that morning, but the reverse was true.
Mark Wilson had gone away without saying good-bye to her. This was not
surprising, perhaps, as she was about as much sequestered in her hilltop
prison as a Turkish beauty in a harem; neither was it astonishing that
Mark did not write to her. He never had written to her, and as her
father always brought home the very infrequent letters that came to the
family, Mark knew that any sentimental correspondence would be fraught
with danger. No, everything was probably just as it should be, and
yet,--well, Patty had expected during the last three weeks that
something would happen to break up the monotony of her former existence.
She hardly knew what it would be, but the kiss dropped so lightly on her
cheek by Mark Wilson still burned in remembrance, and made her sure that
it would have a sequel, or an explanation.

Mark's sister Ellen and Phil Perry were in the midst of some form of
lover's quarrel, and during its progress Phil was paying considerable
attention to Patty at Sabbath School and prayer-meeting, occasions, it
must be confessed, only provocative of very indirect and long-distance
advances. Cephas Cole, to the amazement of every one but his
(constitutionally) exasperated mother, was “toning down” the ell of the
family mansion, mitigating the lively yellow, and putting another fresh
coat of paint on it, for no conceivable reason save that of pleasing the
eye of a certain capricious, ungrateful young hussy, who would probably
say, when her verdict was asked, that she didn't see any particular
difference in it, one way or another.

Trade was not especially brisk at the Deacon's emporium this sunny June
Saturday morning. Cephas may have possibly lost a customer or two by
leaving the store vacant while he toiled and sweated for Miss Patience
Baxter in the stockroom at the back, overhanging the river, but no
man alive could see his employer's lovely daughter tugging at a keg of
shingle nails without trying to save her from a broken back, although
Cephas could have watched his mother move the house and barn without
feeling the slightest anxiety in her behalf. If he could ever get the
“heft” of the “doggoned” cleaning out of the way so that Patty's mind
could be free to entertain his proposition; could ever secure one
precious moment of silence when she was not slatting and banging,
pushing and pulling things about, her head and ears out of sight under a
shelf, and an irritating air of absorption about her whole demeanor;
if that moment of silence could ever, under Providence, be simultaneous
with the absence of customers in the front shop, Cephas intended to
offer himself to Patience Baxter that very morning.

Once, during a temporary lull in the rear, he started to meet his fate
when Rodman Boynton followed him into the back room, and the boy was at
once set to work by Patty, who was the most consummate slave-driver
in the State of Maine. After half an hour there was another Heavensent
chance, when Rodman went up to Uncle Bart's shop with a message for
Waitstill, but, just then, in came Bill Morrill, a boy of twelve, with a
request for a gallon of molasses; and would Cephas lend him a stone jug
over Sunday, for his mother had hers soakin' out in soap-suds 'cause 't
wa'n't smellin' jest right. Bill's message given, he hurried up the road
on another errand, promising to call for the molasses later.

Cephas put the gallon measure under the spigot of the molasses hogshead
and turned on the tap. The task was going to be a long one and he grew
impatient, for the stream was only a slender trickle, scarcely more than
the slow dripping of drops, so the molasses must be very never low, and
with his mind full of weightier affairs he must make a note to tell the
Deacon to broach a new hogshead. Cephas feared that he could never make
out a full gallon, in which case Mrs. Morrill would be vexed, for she
kept mill boarders and baked quantities of brown bread and gingerbread
and molasses cookies for over Sunday. He did wish trade would languish
altogether on this particular morning. The minutes dragged by and again
there was perfect quiet in the stock-room. As the door opened, Cephas,
taking his last chance, went forward to meet Patty, who was turning down
the skirt of her dress, taking the cloth off her head, smoothing her
hair, and tying on a clean white ruffed apron, in which she looked as
pretty as a pink.

“Patty!” stammered Cephas, seizing his golden opportunity, “Patty, keep
your mind on me for a minute. I've put a new coat o' paint on the ell
just to please you; won't you get married and settle down with me? I
love you so I can't eat nor drink nor 'tend store nor nothin'!”

“Oh, I--I--couldn't, Cephas, thank you; I just couldn't,--don't ask me,”
 cried Patty, as nervous as Cephas himself now that her first offer had
really come; “I'm only seventeen and I don't feel like settling down,
Cephas, and father wouldn't think of letting me get married.”

“Don't play tricks on me, Patty, and keep shovin' me off so, an' givin'
wrong reasons,” pleaded Cephas. “What's the trouble with me? I know
mother's temper's onsartain, but we never need go into the main house
daytimes and father'd allers stand up ag'in' her if she didn't treat
you right. I've got a good trade and father has a hundred dollars o' my
savin's that I can draw out to-morrer if you'll have me.”

“I can't, Cephas; don't move; stay where you are; no, don't come any
nearer; I'm not fond of you that way, and, besides,--and, besides--”

Her blush and her evident embarrassment gave Cephas a new fear.

“You ain't promised a'ready, be you?” he asked anxiously; “when there
ain't a feller anywheres around that's ever stepped foot over your
father's doorsill but jest me?”

“I haven't promised anything or anybody,”

Patty answered sedately, gaining her self-control by degrees, “but I
won't deny that I'm considering; that's true!”

“Considerin' who?” asked Cephas, turning pale.

“Oh,--SEVERAL, if you must know the truth”; and Patty's tone was cruel
in its jauntiness.

“SEVERAL!” The word did not sound like ordinary work-a-day Riverboro
English in Cephas's ears. He knew that “several” meant more than one,
but he was too stunned to define the term properly in its present
strange connection.

“Whoever 't is wouldn't do any better by you'n I would. I'd take a
lickin' for you any day,” Cephas exclaimed abjectly, after a long pause.

“That wouldn't make any difference, Cephas,” said Patty firmly, moving
towards the front door as if to end the interview. “If I don't love you
UNlicked, I couldn't love you any better licked, now, could I?--Goodness
gracious, what am I stepping in? Cephas, quick! Something has been
running all over the floor. My feet are sticking to it.”

“Good Gosh! It's Mis' Morrill's molasses!” cried Cephas, brought to his
senses suddenly.

It was too true! Whatever had been the small obstruction in the tap,
it had disappeared. The gallon measure had been filled to the brim ten
minutes before, and ever since, the treacly liquid had been overflowing
the top and spreading in a brown flood, unnoticed, over the floor.
Patty's feet were glued to it, her buff calico skirts lifted high to
escape harm.

“I can't move,” she cried. “Oh! You stupid, stupid Cephas, how could you
leave the molasses spigot turned on? See what you've done! You've wasted
quarts and quarts! What will father say, and how will you ever clean up
such a mess? You never can get the floor to look so that he won't notice
it, and he is sure to miss the molasses. You've ruined my shoes, and I
simply can't bear the sight of you!”

At this Cephas all but blubbered in the agony of his soul. It was bad
enough to be told by Patty that she was “considering several,” but
his first romance had ended in such complete disaster that he saw in
a vision his life blasted; changed in one brief moment from that of a
prosperous young painter to that of a blighted and despised bungler,
whose week's wages were likely to be expended in molasses to make good
the Deacon's loss.

“Find those cleaning-cloths I left in the hack room,” ordered Patty with
a flashing eye. “Get some blocks, or bits of board, or stones, for me to
walk on, so that I can get out of your nasty mess. Fill Bill Morrill's
jug, quick, and set it out on the steps for him to pick up. I don't know
what you'd do without me to plan for you! Lock the front door and hang
father's sign that he's gone to dinner on the doorknob. Scoop up all the
molasses you can with one of those new trowels on the counter. Scoop,
and scrape, and scoop, and scrape; then put a cloth on your oldest
broom, pour lots of water on, pail after pail, and swab! When you've
swabbed till it won't do any more good, then scrub! After that, I
shouldn't wonder if you had to fan the floor with a newspaper or it'll
never get dry before father comes home. I'll sit on the flour barrel a
little while and advise, but I can't stay long because I'm going to a
picnic. Hurry up and don't look as if you were going to die any minute!
It's no use crying over spilt molasses. You don't suppose I'm going to
tell any tales after you've made me an offer of marriage, do you? I'm
not so mean as all that, though I may have my faults.”

It was nearly two o'clock before the card announcing Deacon Baxter's
absence at dinner was removed from the front doorknob, and when the
store was finally reopened for business it was a most dejected clerk who
dealt out groceries to the public. The worst feature of the affair was
that every one in the two villages suddenly and contemporaneously wanted
molasses, so that Cephas spent the afternoon reviewing his misery by
continually turning the tap and drawing off the fatal liquid. Then, too,
every inquisitive boy in the neighborhood came to the back of the store
to view the operation, exclaiming: “What makes the floor so wet? Hain't
been spillin' molasses, have yer? Bet yer have! Good joke on Old Foxy!”




X. ON TORY HILL

It had been a heavenly picnic the little trio all agreed as to that; and
when Ivory saw the Baxter girls coming up the shady path that led along
the river from the Indian Cellar to the bridge, it was a merry group and
a transfigured Rodman that caught his eye. The boy, trailing on behind
with the baskets and laden with tin dippers and wildflowers, seemed
another creature from the big-eyed, quiet little lad he saw every day.
He had chattered like a magpie, eaten like a bear, is torn his jacket
getting wild columbines for Patty, been nicely darned by Waitstill, and
was in a state of hilarity that rendered him quite unrecognizable.

“We've had a lovely picnic!” called Patty; “I wish you had been with
us!”

“You didn't ask me!” smiled Ivory, picking up Waitstill's mending-basket
from the nook in the trees where she had hidden it for safe-keeping.

“We've played games, Ivory,” cried the boy. “Patty made them up herself.
First we had the 'Landing of the Pilgrims,' and Waitstill made believe
be the figurehead of the Mayflower. She stood on a great boulder and
sang:--

       'The breaking waves dashed high
       On a stern and rock-bound coast'--

and, oh! she was splendid! Then Patty was Pocahontas and I was Cap'n
John Smith, and look, we are all dressed up for the Indian wedding!”

Waitstill had on a crown of white birch bark and her braid of hair,
twined with running ever-green, fell to her waist. Patty was wreathed
with columbines and decked with some turkey feathers that she had put
in her basket as too pretty to throw away. Waitstill looked rather
conscious in her unusual finery, but Patty sported it with the reckless
ease and innocent vanity that characterized her.

“I shall have to run into father's store to put myself tidy,” Waitstill
said, “so good-bye, Rodman, we'll have another picnic some day. Patty,
you must do the chores this afternoon, you know, so that I can go to
choir rehearsal.”

Rodman and Patty started up the hill gayly with their burdens, and Ivory
walked by Waitstill's side as she pulled off her birch-bark crown and
twisted her braid around her head with a heightened color at being
watched.

“I'll say good-bye now, Ivory, but I'll see you at the meeting-house,”
 she said, as she neared the store. “I'll go in here and brush the pine
needles off, wash my hands, and rest a little before rehearsal. That's a
puzzling anthem we have for to-morrow.”

“I have my horse here; let me drive you up to the church.”

“I can't, Ivory, thank you. Father's orders are against my driving out
with any one, you know.”

“Very well, the road is free, at any rate. I'll hitch my horse down here
in the woods somewhere and when you start to walk I shall follow and
catch up with you. There's luckily only one way to reach the church from
here, and your father can't blame us if we both take it!”

And so it fell out that Ivory and Waitstill walked together in the cool
of the afternoon to the meeting-house on Tory Hill. Waitstill kept the
beaten path on one side and Ivory that on the other, so that the width
of the country road, deep in dust, was between them, yet their nearness
seemed so tangible a thing that each could feel the heart beating in
the other's side. Their talk was only that of tried friends, a talk
interrupted by long beautiful silences; silences that come only to a
man and woman whose understanding of each other is beyond question and
answer. Not a sound broke the stillness, yet the very air, it seemed
to them, was shedding meanings: the flowers were exhaling a love
secret with their fragrances, the birds were singing it boldly from the
tree-tops, yet no word passed the man's lips or the girl's. Patty would
have hung out all sorts of signals and lures to draw the truth from
Ivory and break through the walls of his self-control, but Waitstill,
never; and Ivory Boynton was made of stuff so strong that he would not
speak a syllable of love to a woman unless he could say all. He was only
five-and-twenty, but he had been reared in a rigorous school, and had
learned in its poverty, loneliness, and anxiety lessons of self-denial
and self-control that bore daily fruit now. He knew that Deacon Baxter
would never allow any engagement to exist between Waitstill and himself;
he also knew that Waitstill would never defy and disobey her father if
it meant leaving her younger sister to fight alone a dreary battle for
which she was not fitted. If there was little hope on her side there
seemed even less on his. His mother's mental illness made her peculiarly
dependent upon him, and at the same time held him in such strict bondage
that it was almost impossible for him to get on in the world or even to
give her the comforts she needed. In villages like Riverboro in those
early days there was no putting away, even of men or women so demented
as to be something of a menace to the peace of the household; but Lois
Boynton was so gentle, so fragile, so exquisite a spirit, that she
seemed in her sad aloofness simply a thing to be sheltered and shielded
somehow in her difficult life journey. Ivory often thought how sorely
she needed a daughter in her affliction. If the baby sister had only
lived, the home might have been different; but alas! there was only a
son,--a son who tried to be tender and sympathetic, but after all was
nothing but a big, clumsy, uncomprehending man-creature, who ought to
be felling trees, ploughing, sowing, reaping, or at least studying law,
making his own fortune and that of some future wife. Old Mrs. Mason, a
garrulous, good-hearted grandame, was their only near neighbor, and her
visits always left his mother worse rather than better. How such a girl
as Waitstill would pour comfort and beauty and joy into a lonely house
like his, if only he were weak enough to call upon her strength and put
it to so cruel a test. God help him, he would never do that, especially
as he could not earn enough to keep a larger family, bound down as he
was by inexorable responsibilities. Waitstill, thus far in life, had
suffered many sorrows and enjoyed few pleasures; marriage ought to bring
her freedom and plenty, not carking care and poverty. He stole long
looks at the girl across the separating space that was so helpless to
separate,--feeding his starved heart upon her womanly graces. Her quick,
springing step was in harmony with the fire and courage of her
mien. There was a line or two in her face,--small wonder; but an
“unconquerable soul” shone in her eyes; shone, too, in no uncertain
way, but brightly and steadily, expressing an unshaken joy in living.
Valiant, splendid, indomitable Waitstill! He could never tell her, alas!
but how he gloried in her!

It is needless to say that no woman could be the possessor of such a
love as Ivory Boynton's and not know of its existence. Waitstill never
heard a breath of it from Ivory's lips; even his eyes were under control
and confessed nothing; nor did his hand ever clasp hers, to show by a
tell-tale touch the truth he dared not utter; nevertheless she felt that
she was beloved. She hid the knowledge deep in her heart and covered it
softly from every eye but her own; taking it out in the safe darkness
sometimes to wonder over and adore in secret. Did her love for Ivory
rest partly on a sense of vocation?--a profound, inarticulate divining
of his vast need of her? He was so strong, yet so weak because of the
yoke he bore, so bitterly alone in his desperate struggle with life,
that her heart melted like wax whenever she thought of him. When she
contemplated the hidden mutiny in her own heart, she was awestruck
sometimes at the almost divine patience of Ivory's conduct as a son.

“How is your mother this summer, Ivory?” she asked as they sat down on
the meeting-house steps waiting for Jed Morrill to open the door. “There
is little change in her from year to year, Waitstill.--By the way, why
don't we get out of this afternoon sun and sit in the old graveyard
under the trees? We are early and the choir won't get here for half an
hour.--Dr. Perry says that he does not understand mother's case in the
least, and that no one but some great Boston physician could give a
proper opinion on it; of course, that is impossible at present.”

They sat down on the grass underneath one of the elms and Waitstill took
off her hat and leaned back against the tree-trunk.

“Tell me more,” she said; “it is so long since we talked together
quietly and we have never really spoken of your mother.”

“Of course,” Ivory continued, “the people of the village all think and
speak of mother's illness as religious insanity, but to me it seems
nothing of the sort. I was only a child when father first fell ill with
Jacob Cochrane, but I was twelve when father went away from home on
his 'mission,' and if there was any one suffering from delusions in our
family it was he, not mother. She had altogether given up going to the
Cochrane meetings, and I well remember the scene when my father told her
of the revelation he had received about going through the state and into
New Hampshire in order to convert others and extend the movement. She
had no sympathy with his self-imposed mission, you may be sure, though
now she goes back in her memory to the earlier days of her married life,
when she tried hard, poor soul, to tread the same path that father was
treading, so as to be by his side at every turn of the road.

“I am sure” (here Ivory's tone was somewhat dry and satirical) “that
father's road had many turns, Waitstill! He was a schoolmaster in Saco,
you know, when I was born but he soon turned from teaching to preaching,
and here my mother followed with entire sympathy, for she was intensely,
devoutly religious. I said there was little change in her, but there is
one new symptom. She has ceased to refer to her conversion to Cochranism
as a blessed experience. Her memory of those first days seems to
have faded, As to her sister's death and all the circumstances of her
bringing Rodman home, her mind is a blank. Her expectation of father's
return, on the other hand, is much more intense than ever.”

“She must have loved your father dearly, Ivory, and to lose him in this
terrible way is much worse than death. Uncle Bart says he had a great
gift of language!”

“Yes, and it was that, in my mind, that led him astray. I fear that the
Spirit of God was never so strong in father as the desire to influence
people by his oratory. That was what drew him to preaching in the first
place, and when he found in Jacob Cochrane a man who could move an
audience to frenzy, lift them out of the body, and do with their spirits
as he willed, he acknowledged him as master. Whether his gospel was a
pure and undefiled religion I doubt, but he certainly was a master of
mesmeric control. My mother was beguiled, entranced, even bewitched at
first, I doubt not, for she translated all that Cochrane said into her
own speech, and regarded him as the prophet of a new era. But Cochrane's
last 'revelations' differed from the first, and were of the earth,
earthy. My mother's pure soul must have revolted, but she was not strong
enough to drag father from his allegiance. Mother was of better family
than father, but they were both well educated and had the best schooling
to be had in their day. So far as I can judge, mother always had more
'balance' than father, and much better judgment,--yet look at her now!”

“Then you think it was your father's disappearance that really caused
her mind to waver?” asked Waitstill.

“I do, indeed. I don't know what happened between them in the way of
religious differences, nor how much unhappiness these may have caused. I
remember she had an illness when we first came here to live and I was
a little chap of three or four, but that was caused by the loss of a
child, a girl, who lived only a few weeks. She recovered perfectly, and
her head was as clear as mine for a year or two after father went away.
As his letters grew less frequent, as news of him gradually ceased to
come, she became more and more silent, and retired more completely into
herself. She never went anywhere, nor entertained visitors, because she
did not wish to hear the gossip and speculation that were going on
in the village. Some of it was very hard for a wife to bear, and she
resented it indignantly; yet never received a word from father with
which to refute it. At this time, as nearly as I can judge, she was
a recluse, and subject to periods of profound melancholy, but nothing
worse. Then she took that winter journey to her sister's deathbed,
brought home the boy, and, hastened by exposure and chill and grief, I
suppose, her mind gave way,--that's all!” And Ivory sighed drearily
as he stretched himself on the greensward, and looked off towards the
snow-clad New Hampshire hills. “I've meant to write the story of the
'Cochrane craze' sometime, or such part of it as has to do with my
family history, and you shall read it if you like. I should set down my
child-hood and my boyhood memories, together with such scraps of village
hearsay as seem reliable. You were not so much younger than I, but I
was in the thick of the excitement, and naturally I heard more than
you, having so bitter a reason for being interested. Jacob Cochrane has
altogether disappeared from public view, but there's many a family in
Maine and New Hampshire, yes, and in the far West, that will feel his
influence for years to come.”

“I should like very much to read your account. Aunt Abby's version, for
instance, is so different from Uncle Bart's that one can scarcely find
the truth between the two; and father's bears no relation to that of any
of the others.”

“Some of us see facts and others see visions,” replied Ivory, “and these
differences of opinion crop up in the village every day when anything
noteworthy is discussed. I came upon a quotation in my reading last
evening that described it:

     'One said it thundered... another that an angel spake'”

“Do you feel as if your father was dead, Ivory?”

“I can only hope so! That thought brings sadness with it, as one
remembers his disappointment and failure, but if he is alive he is a
traitor.”

There was a long pause and they could see in the distance Humphrey
Barker with his clarionet and Pliny Waterhouse with his bass viol
driving up to the churchyard fence to hitch their horses. The sun was
dipping low and red behind the Town-House Hill on the other side of the
river.

“What makes my father dislike the very mention of yours?” asked
Waitstill. “I know what they say: that it is because the two men had
high words once in a Cochrane meeting, when father tried to interfere
with some of the exercises and was put out of doors. It doesn't seem as
if that grievance, seventeen or eighteen years ago, would influence his
opinion of your mother, or of you.”

“It isn't likely that a man of your father's sort would forget or
forgive what he considered an injury; and in refusing to have anything
to do with the son of a disgraced man and a deranged woman, he is well
within his rights.”

Ivory's cheeks burned red under the tan, and his hand trembled a little
as he plucked bits of clover from the grass and pulled them to pieces
absent-mindedly. “How are you getting on at home these days, Waitstill?”
 he asked, as if to turn his own mind and hers from a too painful
subject.

“You have troubles enough of your own without hearing mine, Ivory, and
anyway they are not big afflictions, heavy sorrows, like those you have
to bear. Mine are just petty, nagging, sordid, cheap little miseries,
like gnat-bites;--so petty and so sordid that I can hardly talk to God
about them, much less to a human friend. Patty is my only outlet and
I need others, yet I find it almost impossible to escape from the
narrowness of my life and be of use to any one else.” The girl's
voice quivered and a single tear-drop on her cheek showed that she was
speaking from a full heart. “This afternoon's talk has determined me in
one thing,” she went on. “I am going to see your mother now and then. I
shall have to do it secretly, for your sake, for hers, and for my own,
but if I am found out, then I will go openly. There must be times when
one can break the lower law, and yet keep the higher. Father's law, in
this case, is the lower, and I propose to break it.”

“I can't have you getting into trouble, Waitstill,” Ivory objected.
“You're the one woman I can think of who might help my mother; all the
same, I would not make your life harder; not for worlds!”

“It will not be harder, and even if it was I should 'count it all joy'
to help a woman bear such sorrow as your mother endures patiently day
after day”; and Waitstill rose to her feet and tied on her hat as one
who had made up her mind.

It was almost impossible for Ivory to hold his peace then, so full of
gratitude was his soul and so great his longing to pour out the feeling
that flooded it. He pulled himself together and led the way out of the
churchyard. To look at Waitstill again would be to lose his head, but to
his troubled heart there came a flood of light, a glory from that lamp
that a woman may hold up for a man; a glory that none can take from him,
and none can darken; a light by which he may walk and live and die.




XI. A JUNE SUNDAY

IT was a Sunday in June, and almost the whole population of
Riverboro and Edgewood was walking or driving in the direction of the
meeting-house on Tory Hill.

Church toilettes, you may well believe, were difficult of attainment by
Deacon Baxter's daughters, as they had been by his respective helpmates
in years gone by. When Waitstill's mother first asked her husband to buy
her a new dress, and that was two years after marriage, he simply said:
“You look well enough; what do you want to waste money on finery for,
these hard times? If other folks are extravagant, that ain't any
reason you should be. You ain't obliged to take your neighbors for an
example:--take 'em for a warnin'!”

“But, Foxwell, my Sunday dress is worn completely to threads,” urged the
second Mrs. Baxter.

“That's what women always say; they're all alike; no more idea o' savin'
anything than a skunk-blackbird! I can't spare any money for gew-gaws,
and you might as well understand it first as last. Go up attic and open
the hair trunk by the winder; you'll find plenty there to last you for
years to come.”

The second Mrs. Baxter visited the attic as commanded, and in turning
over the clothes in the old trunk, knew by instinct that they had
belonged to her predecessor in office. Some of the dresses were neat,
though terribly worn and faded, but all were fortunately far too short
and small for a person of her fine proportions. Besides, her very soul
shrank from wearing them, and her spirit revolted both from the insult
to herself and to the poor dead woman she had succeeded, so she came
downstairs to darn and mend and patch again her shabby wardrobe.
Waitstill had gone through the same as her mother before her, but in
despair, when she was seventeen, she began to cut over the old garments
for herself and Patty. Mercifully there were very few of them, and they
had long since been discarded. At eighteen she had learned to dye yarns
with yellow oak or maple bark and to make purples from elder and sumac
berries; she could spin and knit as well as any old “Aunt” of the
village, and cut and shape a garment as deftly as the Edgewood
tailoress, but the task of making bricks without straw was a hard one,
indeed.

She wore a white cotton frock on this particular Sunday. It was starched
and ironed with a beautiful gloss, while a touch of distinction was
given to her costume by a little black sleeveless “roundabout” made
out of the covering of an old silk umbrella. Her flat hat had a single
wreath of coarse daisies around the crown, and her mitts were darned in
many places, nevertheless you could not entirely spoil her; God had used
a liberal hand in making her, and her father's parsimony was a sort of
boomerang that flew back chiefly upon himself.

As for Patty, her style of beauty, like Cephas Cole's ell had to be
toned down rather than up, to be effective, but circumstances had been
cruelly unrelenting in this process of late. Deacon Baxter had given the
girls three or four shopworn pieces of faded yellow calico that had been
repudiated by the village housewives as not “fast” enough in color
to bear the test of proper washing. This had made frocks, aprons,
petticoats, and even underclothes, for two full years, and Patty's
weekly objurgations when she removed her everlasting yellow dress from
the nail where it hung were not such as should have fallen from the lips
of a deacon's daughter. Waitstill had taken a piece of the same yellow
material, starched and ironed it, cut a curving, circular brim from it,
sewed in a pleated crown, and lo! a hat for Patty! What inspired Patty
to put on a waist ribbon of deepest wine color, with a little band of
the same on the pale yellow hat, no one could say.

“Do you think you shall like that dull red right close to the yellow,
Patty?” Waitstill asked anxiously.

“It looks all right on the columbines in the Indian Cellar,” replied
Patty, turning and twisting the hat on her head. “If we can't get a peek
at the Boston fashions, we must just find our styles where we can!”

The various roads to Tory Hill were alive with vehicles on this bright
Sunday morning. Uncle Bart and Abel Day, with their respective wives on
the back seat of the Cole's double wagon, were passed by Deacon Baxter
and his daughters, Waitstill being due at meeting earlier than others by
reason of her singing in the choir. The Deacon's one-horse, two-wheeled
“shay” could hold three persons, with comfort on its broad seat, and
the twenty-year-old mare, although she was always as hollow as a gourd,
could generally do the mile, uphill all the way, in half an hour, if
urged continually, and the Deacon, be it said, if not good at feeding,
was unsurpassed at urging.

Aunt Abby Cole could get only a passing glimpse of Patty in the depths
of the “shay,” but a glimpse was always enough for her, as her opinion
of the girl's charms was considerably affected by the forlorn condition
of her son Cephas, whom she suspected of being hopelessly in love
with the young person aforesaid, to whom she commonly alluded as “that
red-headed bag-gage.”

“Patience Baxter's got the kind of looks that might do well enough at a
tavern dance, or a husking, but they're entirely unsuited to the Sabbath
day or the meetin'-house,” so Aunt Abby remarked to Mrs. Day in the
way of backseat confidence. “It's unfortunate that a deacon's daughter
should be afflicted with that bold style of beauty! Her hair's all but
red; in fact, you might as well call it red, when the sun shines on it:
but if she'd ever smack it down with bear's grease she might darken it
some; or anyhow she'd make it lay slicker; but it's the kind of hair
that just matches that kind of a girl,--sort of up an' comin'! Then her
skin's so white and her cheeks so pink and her eyes so snappy that she'd
attract attention without half trying though I guess she ain't above
makin' an effort.”

“She's innocent as a kitten,” observed Mrs. Day impartially.

“Oh, yes, she's innocent enough an' I hope she'll keep so! Waitstill's
a sight han'somer, if the truth was told; but she's the sort of girl
that's made for one man and the rest of em never look at her. The other
one's cut out for the crowd, the more the merrier. She's a kind of
man-trap, that girl is!--Do urge the horse a little mite, Bartholomew!
It makes me kind o' hot to be passed by Deacon Baxter. It's Missionary
Sunday, too, when he gen'ally has rheumatism too bad to come out.”

“I wonder if he ever puts anything into the plate,” said Mrs. Day. “No
one ever saw him, that I know of.”

“The Deacon keeps the Thou Shalt Not commandments pretty well,” was Aunt
Abby's terse response. “I guess he don't put nothin' into the plate,
but I s'pose we'd ought to be thankful he don't take nothin' out. The
Baptists are gettin' ahead faster than they'd ought to, up to the Mills.
Our minister ain't no kind of a proselyter, Seems as if he didn't care
how folks got to heaven so long as they got there! The other church is
havin' a service this afternoon side o' the river, an' I'd kind o' like
to go, except it would please 'em too much to have a crowd there to
see the immersion. They tell me, but I don't know how true, that that
Tillman widder woman that come here from somewheres in Vermont wanted to
be baptized to-day, but the other converts declared THEY wouldn't be, if
she was!”

“Jed Morrill said they'd have to hold her under water quite a spell to
do any good,” chuckled Uncle Bart from the front seat.

“Well, I wouldn't repeat it, Bartholomew, on the Sabbath day; not if he
did say it. Jed Morrill's responsible for more blasphemious jokes
than any man in Edgewood. I don't approve of makin' light of anybody's
religious observances if they're ever so foolish,” said Aunt Abby
somewhat enigmatically. “Our minister keeps remindin' us that the
Baptists and Methodists are our brethren, but I wish he'd be a little
more anxious to have our S'ceity keep ahead of the others.”

“Jed's 'bout right in sizin' up the Widder Tillman,” was Mr. Day's timid
contribution to the argument. “I ain't a readin' man, but from what
folks report I should think she was one o' them critters that set on
rocks bewilderin' an' bedevilin' men-folks out o' their senses--SYREENS,
I think they call 'em; a reg'lar SYREEN is what that woman is, I guess!”

“There, there, Abel, you wouldn't know a syreen if you found one in your
baked beans, so don't take away a woman's character on hearsay.” And
Mrs. Day, having shut up her husband as was her bounden duty as a wife
and a Christian, tied her bonnet strings a little tighter and looked
distinctly pleased with herself.

“Abel ain't startin' any new gossip,” was Aunt Abby's opinion, as she
sprung to his rescue. “One or two more holes in a colander don't make
much dif'rence.--Bartholomew, we're certainly goin' to be late this
mornin'; we're about the last team on the road”; and Aunt Abby glanced
nervously behind. “Elder Boone ain't begun the openin' prayer, though,
or we should know it. You can hear him pray a mile away, when the wind's
right. I do hate to be late to meetin'. The Elder allers takes notice;
the folks in the wing pews allers gapes an' stares, and the choir peeks
through the curtain, takin' notes of everything you've got on your back.
I hope to the land they'll chord and keep together a little mite better
'n they've done lately, that's all I can say! If the Lord is right in
our midst as the Bible says, He can't think much of our singers this
summer!”

“They're improvin', now that Pliny Waterhouse plays his fiddle,” Mrs.
Day remarked pacifically. “There was times in the anthem when they kept
together consid'able well last Sunday. They didn't always chord, but
there, they chorded some!--we're most there now, Abby, don't fret!
Cephas won't ring the last bell till he knows his own folks is crossin'
the Common!”

Those were days of conscientious church-going and every pew in the house
was crowded. The pulpit was built on pillars that raised it six feet
higher than the floor; the top was cushioned and covered with red velvet
surmounted by a huge gilt-edged Bible. There was a window in the tower
through which Cephas Cole could look into the church, and while tolling
the bell could keep watch for the minister. Always exactly on time, he
would come in, walk slowly up the right-hand aisle, mount the pulpit
stairs, enter and close the door after him. Then Cephas would give
one tremendous pull to warn loiterers on the steps; a pull that meant,
“Parson's in the pulpit!” and was acted upon accordingly. Opening the
big Bible, the minister raised his right hand impressively, and saying,
“Let us pray,” the whole congregation rose in their pews with a great
rustling and bowed their heads devoutly for the invocation.


Next came the hymn, generally at that day one of Isaac Watts's. The
singers, fifteen or twenty in number, sat in a raised gallery opposite
the pulpit, and there was a rod in front hung with red curtains to
hide them when sitting down. Any one was free to join, which perhaps
accounted for Aunt Abby's strictures as to time and tune. Jed Morrill,
“blasphemious” as he was considered by that acrimonious lady, was the
leader, and a good one, too. There would be a great whispering and
buzzing when Deacon Sumner with his big fiddle and Pliny Waterhouse with
his smaller one would try to get in accord with Humphrey Baker and
his clarionet. All went well when Humphrey was there to give the sure
key-note, but in his absence Jed Morrill would use his tuning-fork. When
the key was finally secured by all concerned, Jed would raise his
stick, beat one measure to set the time, and all joined in, or fell in,
according to their several abilities. It was not always a perfect thing
in the way of a start, but they were well together at the end of the
first line, and when, as now, the choir numbered a goodly number of
voices, and there were three or four hundred in the pews, nothing more
inspiring in its peculiar way was ever heard, than the congregational
singing of such splendid hymns as “Old Hundred,” “Duke Street,” or
“Coronation.”

Waitstill led the trebles, and Ivory was at the far end of the choir in
the basses, but each was conscious of the other's presence. This morning
he could hear her noble voice rising a little above, or, perhaps from
its quality, separating itself somehow, ever so little, from the others.
How full of strength and hope it was, her voice! How steadfast to the
pitch; how golden its color; how moving in its crescendos! How the words
flowed from her lips; not as if they had been written years ago, but
as if they were the expression of her own faith. There were many in the
congregation who were stirred, they knew not why, when there chanced to
be only a few “carrying the air” and they could really hear Waitstill
Baxter singing some dear old hymn, full of sacred memories, like:--

   “While Thee I seek, protecting Power,
     Be my vain wishes stilled!
   And may this consecrated hour
     With better hopes be filled.”

“There may be them in Boston that can sing louder, and they may be able
to run up a little higher than Waitstill, but the question is, could any
of 'em make Aunt Abby Cole shed tears?” This was Jed Morrill's tribute
to his best soprano.

There were Sunday evening prayer-meetings, too, held at “early
candlelight,” when Waitstill and Lucy Morrill would make a duet of “By
cool Siloam's Shady Rill,” or the favorite “Naomi,” and the two fresh
young voices, rising and falling in the tender thirds of the old tunes,
melted all hearts to new willingness of sacrifice.

   “Father, whate'er of earthly bliss
     Thy sov'reign will denies,
   Accepted at Thy Throne of grace
     Let this petition rise!

   “Give me a calm, a thankful heart,
     From every murmur free!
   The blessing of Thy grace impart
     And let me live to Thee!”

How Ivory loved to hear Waitstill sing these lines! How they eased his
burden as they were easing hers, falling on his impatient, longing heart
like evening dew on thirsty grass!




XII. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER

“WHILE Thee I seek, protecting Power,” was the first hymn on this
particular Sunday morning, and it usually held Patty's rather vagrant
attention to the end, though it failed to do so to-day. The Baxters
occupied one of the wing pews, a position always to be envied, as one
could see the singers without turning around, and also observe everybody
in the congregation,--their entrance, garments, behavior, and especially
their bonnets,--without being in the least indiscreet, or seeming to
have a roving eye.

Lawyer Wilson's pew was the second in front of the Baxters in the same
wing, and Patty, seated decorously but unwillingly beside her father,
was impatiently awaiting the entrance of the family, knowing that Mark
would be with them if he had returned from Boston. Timothy Grant, the
parish clerk, had the pew in between, and afforded a most edifying
spectacle to the community, as there were seven young Grants of a
church-going age, and the ladies of the congregation were always
counting them, reckoning how many more were in their cradles at home
and trying to guess from Mrs. Grant's lively or chastened countenance
whether any new ones had been born since the Sunday before.

Patty settled herself comfortably, and put her foot on the wooden
“cricket,” raising her buff calico a little on the congregation side,
just enough to show an inch or two of petticoat. The petticoat was
as modestly long as the frock itself, and disclosing a bit of it was
nothing more heinous than a casual exhibition of good needlework.
Deacon Baxter furnished only the unbleached muslin for his daughters'
undergarments; but twelve little tucks laboriously done by hand,
elaborate inch-wide edging, crocheted from white spool cotton, and days
of bleaching on the grass in the sun, will make a petticoat that can be
shown in church with some justifiable pride.

The Wilsons came up the aisle a moment later than was their usual
habit, just after the parson had ascended the pulpit. Mrs. Wilson always
entered the pew first and sat in the far end. Patty had looked at her
admiringly, and with a certain feeling of proprietorship, for several
Sundays. There was obviously no such desirable mother-in-law in the
meeting-house. Her changeable silk dress was the latest mode; her shawl
of black llama lace expressed wealth in every delicate mesh, and her
bonnet had a distinction that could only have emanated from Portland or
Boston. Ellen Wilson usually came in next, with as much of a smile to
Patty in passing as she dared venture in the Deacon's presence, and
after her sidled in her younger sister Selina, commonly called “Silly,”
 and with considerable reason.

Mark had come home! Patty dared not look up, but she felt his approach
behind the others, although her eyes sought the floor, and her cheeks
hung out signals of abashed but certain welcome. She heard the family
settle in their seats somewhat hastily, the click of the pew door and
the sound of Lawyer Wilson's cane as he stood it in the corner; then
the parson rose to pray and Patty closed her eyes with the rest of the
congregation.

Opening them when Elder Boone rose to announce the hymn, they
fell--amazed, resentful, uncomprehending--on the spectacle of Mark
Wilson finding the place in the book for a strange young woman who sat
beside him. Mark himself had on a new suit and wore a seal ring that
Patty had never observed before; while the dress, pelisse, and hat
of the unknown were of a nature that no girl in Patty's position, and
particularly of Patty's disposition, could have regarded without a
desire to tear them from her person and stamp them underfoot; or better
still, flaunt them herself and show the world how they should be worn!

Mark found the place in the hymn-book for the--creature, shared it with
her, and once, when the Grant twins wriggled and Patty secured a better
view, once, Mark shifted his hand on the page so that his thumb touched
that of his pretty neighbor, who did not remove hers as if she found
the proximity either unpleasant or improper. Patty compared her own
miserable attire with that of the hated rival in front, and also
contrasted Lawyer Wilson's appearance with that of her father; the
former, well dressed in the style of a gentleman of the time, in
broadcloth, with fine linen, and a tall silk hat carefully placed on the
floor of the pew; while Deacon Baxter wore homespun made of wool from
his own sheep, spun and woven, dyed and finished, at the fulling-mill in
the village, and carried a battered felt hat that had been a matter of
ridicule these dozen years. (The Deacon would be buried in two coats,
Jed Morrill always said, for he owned just that number, and would be too
mean to leave either of 'em behind him!)

The sermon was fifty minutes long, time enough for a deal of thinking.
Many a housewife, not wholly orthodox, cut and made over all her
children's clothes, in imagination; planned the putting up of her fruit,
the making of her preserves and pickles, and arranged her meals for
the next week, during the progress of those sermons. Patty watched the
parson turn leaf after leaf until the final one was reached. Then came
the last hymn, when the people stretched their aching limbs, and rising,
turned their backs on the minister and faced the choir. Patty looked
at Waitstill and wished that she could put her throbbing head on her
sisterly shoulder and cry,--mostly with rage. The benediction was said,
and with the final “Amen” the pews were opened and the worshippers
crowded into the narrow aisles and moved towards the doors.

Patty's plans were all made. She was out of her pew before the Wilsons
could possibly leave theirs, and in her progress down the aisle securely
annexed her great admirer, old Dr. Perry, as well as his son Philip.
Passing the singing-seats she picked up the humble Cephas and carried
him along in her wake, chatting and talking with her little party while
her father was at the horse-sheds, making ready to go home between
services as was his habit, a cold bite being always set out on the
kitchen table according to his orders. By means of these clever
manoeuvres Patty made herself the focus of attention when the Wilson
party came out on the steps, and vouchsafed Mark only a nonchalant nod,
airily flinging a little greeting with the nod,--just a “How d'ye do,
Mark? Did you have a good time in Boston?”

Patty and Waitstill, with some of the girls who had come long distances,
ate their luncheon in a shady place under the trees behind the
meeting-house, for there was an afternoon service to come, a service
with another long sermon. They separated after the modest meal to walk
about the Common or stray along the road to the Academy, where there was
a fine view.

Two or three times during the summer the sisters always went quietly
and alone to the Baxter burying-lot, where three grassgrown graves lay
beside one another, unmarked save by narrow wooden slabs so short that
the initials painted on them were almost hidden by the tufts of clover.
The girls had brought roots of pansies and sweet alyssum, and with a
knife made holes in the earth and planted them here and there to make
the spot a trifle less forbidding. They did not speak to each other
during this sacred little ceremony; their hearts were too full when they
remembered afresh the absence of headstones, the lack of care, in the
place where the three women lay who had ministered to their father,
borne him children, and patiently endured his arbitrary and loveless
rule. Even Cleve Flanders' grave,--the Edgewood shoemaker, who lay
next,--even his resting-place was marked and, with a touch of some one's
imagination marked by the old man's own lapstone twenty-five pounds in
weight, a monument of his work-a-day life.

Waitstill rose from her feet, brushing the earth from her hands, and
Patty did the same. The churchyard was quiet, and they were alone with
the dead, mourned and unmourned, loved and unloved.

“I planted one or two pansies on the first one's grave,” said Waitstill
soberly. “I don't know why we've never done it before. There are no
children to take notice of and remember her; it's the least we can do,
and, after all, she belongs to the family.”

“There is no family, and there never was!” suddenly cried Patty. “Oh!
Waity, Waity, we are so alone, you and I! We've only each other in all
the world, and I'm not the least bit of help to you, as you are to me!
I'm a silly, vain, conceited, ill-behaved thing, but I will be better,
I will! You won't ever give me up, will you, Waity, even if I'm not like
you? I haven't been good lately!”

“Hush, Patty, hush!” And Waitstill came nearer to her sister with a
motherly touch of her hand. “I'll not have you say such things; you
that are the helpfullest and the lovingest girl that ever was, and the
cleverest, too, and the liveliest, and the best company-keeper!”

“No one thinks so but you!” Patty responded dolefully, although she
wiped her eyes as if a bit consoled.

It is safe to say that Patty would never have given Mark Wilson a second
thought had he not taken her to drive on that afternoon in early May.
The drive, too, would have quickly fled from her somewhat fickle memory
had it not been for the kiss. The kiss was, indeed, a decisive factor
in the situation, and had shed a rosy, if somewhat fictitious light of
romance over the past three weeks. Perhaps even the kiss, had it never
been repeated, might have lapsed into its true perspective, in due
course of time, had it not been for the sudden appearance of the
stranger in the Wilson pew. The moment that Patty's gaze fell upon that
fashionably dressed, instantaneously disliked girl, Marquis Wilson's
stock rose twenty points in the market. She ceased, in a jiffy, to weigh
and consider and criticize the young man, but regarded him with wholly
new eyes. His figure was better than she had realized, his smile more
interesting, his manners more attractive, his eyelashes longer; in
a word, he had suddenly grown desirable. A month ago she could have
observed, with idle and alien curiosity, the spectacle of his thumb
drawing nearer to another (feminine) thumb, on the page of the Watts and
Select Hymn book; now, at the morning service, she had wished nothing so
much as to put Mark's thumb back into his pocket where it belonged, and
slap the girl's thumb smartly and soundly as it deserved.

The ignorant cause of Patty's distress was a certain Annabel Franklin,
the daughter of a cousin of Mrs. Wilson's. Mark had stayed at the
Franklin house during his three weeks' visit in Boston, where he had
gone on business for his father. The young people had naturally seen
much of each other and Mark's inflammable fancy had been so kindled by
Annabel's doll-like charms that he had persuaded her to accompany him to
his home and get a taste of country life in Maine. Such is man, such is
human nature, and such is life, that Mark had no sooner got the whilom
object of his affections under his own roof than she began to pall.

Annabel was twenty-three, and to tell the truth she had palled before,
more than once. She was so amiable, so well-finished,--with her smooth
flaxen hair, her neat nose, her buttonhole of a mouth, and her trim
shape,--that she appealed to the opposite sex quite generally and
irresistibly as a worthy helpmate. The only trouble was that she began
to bore her suitors somewhat too early in the game, and they never
got far enough to propose marriage. Flaws in her apparent perfection
appeared from day to day and chilled the growth of the various young
loves that had budded so auspiciously. She always agreed with everybody
and everything in sight, even to the point of changing her mind on the
instant, if circumstances seemed to make it advisable. Her instinctive
point of view, when she went so far as to hold one, was somewhat cut and
dried; in a word, priggish. She kept a young man strictly on his good
behavior, that much could be said in her favor; the only criticism that
could be made on this estimable trait was that no bold youth was ever
tempted to overstep the bounds of discretion when in her presence. No
unruly words of love ever rose to his lips; his hand never stole out
involuntarily and imprudently to meet her small chilly one; the sight of
her waist never even suggested an encircling arm; and as a fellow never
desired to kiss her, she was never obliged to warn or rebuke or strike
him off her visiting list. Her father had an ample fortune and some
one would inevitably turn up who would regard Annabel as an altogether
worthy and desirable spouse. That was what she had seemed to Mark Wilson
for a full week before he left the Franklin house in Boston, but there
were moments now when he regretted, fugitively, that he had ever removed
her from her proper sphere. She did not seem to fit in to the conditions
of life in Edgewood, and it may even be that her most glaring fault
had been to describe Patty Baxter's hair at this very Sunday dinner
as “carroty,” her dress altogether “dreadful,” and her style of beauty
“unladylike.” Ellen Wilson's feelings were somewhat injured by these
criticisms of her intimate friend, and in discussing the matter
privately with her brother he was inclined to agree with her.

And thus, so little do we know of the prankishness of the blind god,
thus was Annabel Franklin working for her rival's best interests; and
instead of reviling her in secret, and treating her with disdain in
public, Patty should have welcomed her cordially to all the delights of
Riverboro society.




XIII. HAYING-TIME

EVERYBODY in Riverboro, Edgewood, Milliken's Mills, Spruce Swamp, Duck
Pond, and Moderation was “haying.” There was a perfect frenzy of haying,
for it was the Monday after the “Fourth,” the precise date in July when
the Maine farmer said good-bye to repose, and “hayed” desperately and
unceasingly, until every spear of green in his section was mowed down
and safely under cover. If a man had grass of his own, he cut it, and
if he had none, he assisted in cutting that of some other man, for “to
hay,” although an unconventional verb, was, and still is, a very active
one, and in common circulation, although not used by the grammarians.

Whatever your trade, and whatever your profession, it counted as naught
in good weather. The fish-man stopped selling fish, the meat-man ceased
to bring meat; the cobbler, as well as the judge, forsook the bench; and
even the doctor made fewer visits than usual. The wage for work in the
hay-fields was a high one, and every man, boy, and horse in a village
was pressed into service.

When Ivory Boynton had finished with his own small crop, he commonly
went at once to Lawyer Wilson, who had the largest acreage of hay-land
in the township. Ivory was always in great demand, for he was a mighty
worker in the field, and a very giant at “pitching,” being able to pick
up a fair-sized hay-cock at one stroke of the fork and fling it on
to the cart as if it were a feather. Lawyer Wilson always took a hand
himself if signs of rain appeared, and Mark occasionally visited the
scene of action when a crowd in the field made a general jollification,
or when there was an impending thunderstorm. In such cases even women
and girls joined the workers and all hands bent together to the task of
getting a load into the barn and covering the rest.

Deacon Baxter was wont to call Mark Wilson a “worthless, whey-faced,
lily-handed whelp,” but the description, though picturesque, was
decidedly exaggerated. Mark disliked manual labor, but having imbibed
enough knowledge of law in his father's office to be an excellent clerk,
he much preferred travelling about, settling the details of small cases,
collecting rents and bad bills, to any form of work on a farm. This sort
of life, on stage-coaches and railway trains, or on long driving trips
with his own fast trotter, suited his adventurous disposition and gave
him a sense of importance that was very necessary to his peace of mind.
He was not especially intimate with Ivory Boynton, who studied law with
his father during all vacations and in every available hour of leisure
during term time, as did many another young New England schoolmaster.
Mark's father's praise of Ivory's legal ability was a little too warm
to please his son, as was the commendation of one of the County Court
judges on Ivory's preparation of a brief in a certain case in the Wilson
office. Ivory had drawn it up at Mr. Wilson's request, merely to show
how far he understood the books and cases he was studying, and he had no
idea that it differed in any way from the work of any other student; all
the same, Mark's own efforts in a like direction had never received any
special mention. When he was in the hay-field he also kept as far as
possible from Ivory, because there, too, he felt a superiority that
made him, for the moment, a trifle discontented. It was no particular
pleasure for him to see Ivory plunge his fork deep into the heart of a
hay-cock, take a firm grasp of the handle, thrust forward his foot to
steady himself, and then raise the great fragrant heap slowly, and swing
it up to the waiting haycart amid the applause of the crowd. Rodman
would be there, too, helping the man on top of the load and getting
nearly buried each time, as the mass descended upon him, but doing his
slender best to distribute and tread it down properly, while his young
heart glowed with pride at Cousin Ivory's prowess.

Independence Day had passed, with its usual gayeties for the young
people, in none of which the Baxter family had joined, and now, at
eleven o'clock on this burning July morning, Waitstill was driving the
old mare past the Wilson farm on her way to the river field. Her father
was working there, together with the two hired men whom he took on for a
fortnight during the height of the season. If mowing, raking, pitching,
and carting of the precious crop could only have been done at odd times
during the year, or at night, he would not have embittered the month
of July by paying out money for labor: but Nature was inexorable in the
ripening of hay and Old Foxy was obliged to succumb to the inevitable.
Waitstill had a basket packed with luncheon for three and a great
demijohn of cool ginger tea under the wagon seat. Other farmers
sometimes served hard cider, or rum, but her father's principles were
dead against this riotous extravagance. Temperance, in any and all
directions, was cheap, and the Deacon was a very temperate man, save in
language.

The fields on both sides of the road were full of haymakers and
everywhere there was bustle and stir. There would be three or four men,
one leading, the others following, slowly swinging their way through a
noble piece of grass, and the smell of the mown fields in the sunshine
was sweeter than honey in the comb. There were patches of black-eyed
Susans in the meadows here and there, while pink and white hardhack grew
by the road, with day lilies and blossoming milkweed. The bobolinks were
fluting from every tree; there were thrushes in the alder bushes and
orioles in the tops of the elms, and Waitstill's heart overflowed with
joy at being in such a world of midsummer beauty, though life, during
the great heat and incessant work of haying-time, was a little more
rigorous than usual. The extra food needed for the hired men always
kept her father in a state of mind closely resembling insanity. Coming
downstairs to cook breakfast she would find the coffee or tea measured
out for the pot. The increased consumption of milk angered him beyond
words, because it lessened the supply of butter for sale. Everything
that could be made with buttermilk was ordered so to be done, and
nothing but water could be used in mixing the raised bread. The corncake
must never have an egg; the piecrust must be shortened only with lard,
or with a mixture of beef-fat and dripping; and so on, and so on,
eternally.

When the girls were respectively seventeen and thirteen, Waitstill
had begged a small plot of ground for them to use as they liked, and
beginning at that time they had gradually made a little garden, with a
couple of fruit trees and a thicket of red, white, and black currants
raspberry and blackberry bushes. For several summers now they had sold
enough of their own fruit to buy a pair of shoes or gloves, a scarf or
a hat, but even this tiny income was beginning to be menaced. The Deacon
positively suffered as he looked at that odd corner of earth, not any
bigger than his barn floor, and saw what his girls had done with no
tools but a spade and a hoe and no help but their own hands. He had
no leisure (so he growled) to cultivate and fertilize ground for small
fruits, and no money to pay a man to do it, yet here was food grown
under his very eye, and it did not belong to him! The girls worked in
their garden chiefly at sunrise in spring and early summer, or after
supper in the evening; all the same Waitstill had been told by her
father the day before that she was not only using ground, but time, that
belonged to him, and that he should expect her to provide “pie-filling”
 out of her garden patch during haying, to help satisfy the ravenous
appetites of that couple of “great, gorming, greedy lubbers” that he was
hiring this year. He had stopped the peeling of potatoes before boiling
because he disapproved of the thickness of the parings he found in the
pig's pail, and he stood over Patty at her work in the kitchen until
Waitstill was in daily fear of a tempest of some sort.

Coming in from the shed one morning she met her father just issuing from
the kitchen where Patty was standing like a young Fury in front of the
sink. “Father's been spying at the eggshells I settled the coffee with,
and said I'd no business to leave so much good in the shell when I broke
an egg. I will not bear it; he makes me feel fairly murderous! You'd
better not leave me alone with him when I'm like this. Oh! I know that
I'm wicked, but isn't he wicked too, and who was wicked first?”

Patty's heart had been set on earning and saving enough pennies for a
white muslin dress and every day rendered the prospect more uncertain;
this was a sufficient grievance in itself to keep her temper at the
boiling point had there not been various other contributory causes.
Waitstill's patience was flagging a trifle, too, under the stress of the
hot days and the still hotter, breathless nights. The suspicion crossed
her mind now and then that her father's miserliness and fits of temper
might be caused by a mental malady over which he now had little or no
control, having never mastered himself in all his life. Her power of
endurance would be greater, she thought, if only she could be certain
that this theory was true, though her slavery would be just as galling.

It would be so easy for her to go away and earn a living; she who had
never had a day of illness in her life; she who could sew, knit, spin,
weave, and cook. She could make enough money in Biddeford or Portsmouth
to support herself, and Patty, too, until the proper work was found for
both. But there would be a truly terrible conflict of wills, and such
fierce arraignment of her unfilial conduct, such bitter and caustic
argument from her father, such disapproval from the parson and the
neighbors, that her very soul shrank from the prospect. If she could go
alone, and have no responsibility over Patty's future, that would be a
little more possible, but she must think wisely for two.

And how could she leave Ivory when there might perhaps come a crisis in
his life where she could be useful to him? How could she cut herself off
from those Sundays in the choir, those dear fugitive glimpses of him in
the road or at prayer-meeting? They were only sips of happiness,
where her thirsty heart yearned for long, deep draughts, but they were
immeasurably better than nothing. Freedom from her father's heavy yoke,
freedom to work, and read, and sing, and study, and grow,--oh! how she
longed for this, but at what a cost would she gain it if she had to
harbor the guilty conscience of an undutiful and rebellious daughter,
and at the same time cut herself off from the sight of the one being she
loved best in all the world.

She felt drawn towards Ivory's mother to-day. Three weeks had passed
since her talk with Ivory in the churchyard, but there had been no
possibility of an hour's escape from home. She was at liberty this
afternoon--relatively at liberty; for although her work, as usual, was
laid out for her, it could be made up somehow or other before nightfall.
She could drive over to the Boynton's place, hitch her horse in the
woods near the house, make her visit, yet be in plenty of time to go up
to the river field and bring her father home to supper. Patty was over
at Mrs. Abel Day's, learning a new crochet stitch and helping her to
start a log-cabin quilt. Ivory and Rodman, she new, were both away in
the Wilson hay-field; no time would ever be more favorable; so instead
of driving up Town-House Hill when she returned to the village she kept
on over the bridge.




XIV. UNCLE BART DISCOURSES

UNCLE BART and Cephas were taking their nooning hour under the Nodhead
apple tree as Waitstill passed the joiner's shop and went over the
bridge.

“Uncle Bart might somehow guess where I am going,” she thought, “but
even if he did he would never tell any one.”

“Where's Waitstill bound this afternoon, I wonder?” drawled Cephas,
rising to his feet and looking after the departing team. “That reminds
me, I'd better run up to Baxter's and see if any-thing's wanted before I
open the store.”

“If it makes any dif'rence,” said his father dryly, as he filled his
pipe, “Patty's over to Mis' Day's spendin' the afternoon. Don't s'pose
you want to call on the pig, do you? He's the only one to home.”

Cephas made no remark, but gave his trousers a hitch, picked up a chip,
opened his jack-knife, and sitting down on the greensward began idly
whittling the bit of wood into shape.

“I kind o' wish you'd let me make the new ell two-story, father; 't
wouldn't be much work, take it in slack time after hayin'.”

“Land o' Liberty! What do you want to do that for, Cephas? You 'bout
pestered the life out o' me gittin' me to build the ell in the first
place, when we didn't need it no more'n a toad does a pocketbook. Then
nothin' would do but you must paint it, though I shan't be able to have
the main house painted for another year, so the old wine an' the
new bottle side by side looks like the Old Driver, an' makes us a
laughin'-stock to the village;--and now you want to change the thing
into a two-story! Never heerd such a crazy idee in my life.”

“I want to settle down,” insisted Cephas doggedly.

“Well, settle; I'm willin'! I told you that, afore you painted the ell.
Ain't two rooms, fourteen by fourteen, enough for you to settle down in?
If they ain't, I guess your mother'd give you one o' the chambers in the
main part.”

“She would if I married Phoebe Day, but I don't want to marry Phoebe,”
 argued Cephas. “And mother's gone and made a summer kitchen for herself
out in the ell, a'ready. I bet yer she'll never move out if I should
want to move in on a 'sudden.”

“I told you you was takin' that risk when you cut a door through from
the main part,” said his father genially. “If you hadn't done that, your
mother would 'a' had to gone round outside to git int' the ell and mebbe
she'd 'a' stayed to home when it stormed, anyhow. Now your wife'll have
her troopin' in an' out, in an' out, the whole 'durin' time.”

“I only cut the door through to please so't she'd favor my gittin'
married, but I guess 't won't do no good. You see, father, what I was
thinkin' of is, a girl would mebbe jump at a two-story, four-roomed ell
when she wouldn't look at a smaller place.”

“Pends upon whether the girl's the jumpin' kind or not! Hadn't you
better git everything fixed up with the one you've picked out, afore you
take your good savin's and go to buildin' a bigger place for her?”

“I've asked her once a'ready,” Cephas allowed, with a burning face. “I
don't s'pose you know the one I mean?”

“No kind of an idee,” responded his father, with a quizzical wink that
was lost on the young man, as his eyes were fixed upon his whittling.
“Does she belong to the village?”

“I ain't goin' to let folks know who I've picked out till I git a little
mite forrarder,” responded Cephas craftily. “Say, father, it's all right
to ask a girl twice, ain't it?

“Certain it is, my son. I never heerd there was any special limit to
the number o' times you could ask 'em, and their power o' sayin' 'No' is
like the mercy of the Lord; it endureth forever.--You wouldn't consider
a widder, Cephas? A widder'd be a good comp'ny-keeper for your mother.”

“I hain't put my good savin's into an ell jest to marry a comp'ny-keeper
for mother,” responded Cephas huffily. “I want to be number one with my
girl and start right in on trainin' her up to suit me.”

“Well, if trainin' 's your object you'd better take my advice an' keep
it dark before marriage, Cephas. It's astonishin' how the female sect
despises bein' trained; it don't hardly seem to be in their nature to
make any changes in 'emselves after they once gits started.”

“How are you goin' to live with 'em, then?” Cephas inquired, looking up
with interest coupled with some incredulity.

“Let them do the training,” responded his father, peacefully puffing out
the words with his pipe between his lips. “Some of 'em's mild and gentle
in discipline, like Parson Boone's wife or Mis' Timothy Grant, and
others is strict and firm like your mother and Mis' Abel Day. If you
happen to git the first kind, why, do as they tell you, and thank the
Lord 't ain't any worse. If you git the second kind, jest let 'em put
the blinders on you and trot as straight as you know how, without shying
nor kickin' over the traces, nor bolting 'cause they've got control o'
the bit and 't ain't no use fightin' ag'in' their superior strength.--So
fur as you can judge, in the early stages o' the game, my son,--which
ain't very fur,--which kind have you picked out?”

Cephas whittled on for some moments without a word, but finally, with a
sigh drawn from the very toes of his boots, he responded gloomily,--

“She's awful spunky, the girl is, anybody can see that; but she's a
young thing, and I thought bein' married would kind o' tame her down!”

“You can see how much marriage has tamed your mother down,” observed
Uncle Bart dispassionately; “howsomever, though your mother can't be
called tame, she's got her good p'ints, for she's always to be counted
on. The great thing in life, as I take it, Cephas, is to know exactly
what to expect. Your mother's gen'ally credited with an onsartin
temper, but folks does her great injustice in so thinking for in a long
experience I've seldom come across a temper less onsartin than your
mother's. You know exactly where to find her every mornin' at sun-up and
every night at sundown. There ain't nothin' you can do to put her out
o' temper, cause she's all out aforehand. You can jest go about your
reg'lar business 'thout any fear of disturbin' her any further than
she's disturbed a'ready, which is consid'rable. I don't mind it a mite
nowadays, though, after forty years of it. It would kind o' gall me to
keep a stiddy watch of a female's disposition day by day, wonderin'
when she was goin' to have a tantrum. A tantrum once a year's an awful
upsettin' kind of a thing in a family, my son, but a tantrum every
twenty-four hours is jest part o' the day's work.” There was a moment's
silence during which Uncle Bart puffed his pipe and Cephas whittled,
after which the old man continued: “Then, if you happen to marry a
temper like your mother's, Cephas, look what a pow'ful worker you
gen'ally get! Look at the way they sweep an' dust an' scrub an' clean!
Watch 'em when they go at the dish-washin', an' how they whack the
rollin'-pin, an' maul the eggs, an' heave the wood int' the stove, an'
slat the flies out o' the house! The mild and gentle ones enough, will
be settin' in the kitchen rocker read-in' the almanac when there ain't
no wood in the kitchen box, no doughnuts in the crock, no pies on the
swing shelf in the cellar, an' the young ones goin' round without a
second shift to their backs!”

Cephas's mind was far away during this philosophical dissertation on the
ways of women. He could see only a sunny head fairly rioting with curls;
a pair of eyes that held his like magnets, although they never gave him
a glance of love; a smile that lighted the world far better than the
sun; a dimple into which his heart fell headlong whenever he looked at
it!

“You're right, father; 'tain't no use kickin' ag'in 'em,” he said as he
rose to his feet preparatory to opening the Baxter store. “When I said
that 'bout trainin' up a girl to suit me, I kind o' forgot the one I've
picked out. I'm considerin' several, but the one I favor most-well,
I believe she'd fire up at the first sight o' training and that's the
gospel truth.”

“Considerin' several, be you, Cephas?” laughed Uncle Bart. “Well, all
I hope is, that the one you favor most--the girl you've asked once
a'ready--is considerin' you!”

Cephas went to the pump, and wetting a large handkerchief put it in the
crown of his straw hat and sauntered out into the burning heat of the
open road between his father's shop and Deacon Baxter's store.

“I shan't ask her the next time till this hot spell's over,” he thought,
“and I won't do it in that dodgasted old store ag'in, neither; I ain't
so tongue-tied outdoors an' I kind o' think I'd be more in the sperit of
it after sundown, some night after supper!”




XV. IVORY'S MOTHER

WAITSTILL found a cool and shady place in which to hitch the old mare,
loosening her check-rein and putting a sprig of alder in her headstall
to assist her in brushing off the flies.

One could reach the Boynton house only by going up a long grass-grown
lane that led from the high-road. It was a lonely place, and Aaron
Boynton had bought it when he moved from Saco, simply because he secured
it at a remarkable bargain, the owner having lost his wife and gone
to live in Massachusetts. Ivory would have sold it long ago had
circumstances been different, for it was at too great a distance from
the schoolhouse and from Lawyer Wilson's office to be at all convenient,
but he dreaded to remove his mother from the environment to which she
was accustomed, and doubted very much whether she would be able to care
for a house to which she had not been wonted before her mind became
affected. Here in this safe, secluded corner, amid familiar and
thoroughly known conditions, she moved placidly about her daily tasks,
performing them with the same care and precision that she had used from
the beginning of her married life. All the heavy work was done for her
by Ivory and Rodman; the boy in particular being the fleetest-footed,
the most willing, and the neatest of helpers; washing dishes, sweeping
and dusting, laying the table, as deftly and quietly as a girl. Mrs.
Boynton made her own simple dresses of gray calico in summer, or dark
linsey-woolsey in winter by the same pattern that she had used when
she first came to Edgewood: in fact there were positively no external
changes anywhere to be seen, tragic and terrible as had been those that
had wrought havoc in her mind.

Waitstill's heart beat faster as she neared the Boynton house. She had
never so much as seen Ivory's mother for years. How would she be met?
Who would begin the conversation, and what direction would it take? What
if Mrs. Boynton should refuse to talk to her at all? She walked slowly
along the lane until she saw a slender, gray-clad figure stooping over
a flower-bed in front of the cottage. The woman raised her head with a
fawn-like gesture that had something in it of timidity rather than fear,
picked some loose bits of green from the ground, and, quietly turning
her back upon the on coming stranger, disappeared through the open front
door.

There could be no retreat on her own part now, thought Waitstill. She
wished for a moment that she had made this first visit under Ivory's
protection, but her idea had been to gain Mrs. Boynton's confidence and
have a quiet friendly talk, such a one as would be impossible in the
presence of a third person. Approaching the steps, she called through
the doorway in her clear voice: “Ivory asked me to come and see you one
day, Mrs. Boynton. I am Waitstill Baxter, the little girl on Town House
Hill that you used to know.”

Mrs. Boynton came from an inner room and stood on the threshold. The
name “Waitstill” had always had a charm for her ears, from the time she
first heard it years ago, until it fell from Ivory's lips this summer;
and again it caught her fancy.

“'WAITSTILL!”' she repeated softly; “'WAITSTILL!' Does Ivory know you?”

“We've known each other for ever so long; ever since we went to the
brick school together when we were girl and boy. And when I was a child
my stepmother brought me over here once on an errand and Ivory showed me
a humming-bird's nest in that lilac bush by the door.”

Mrs. Boynton smiled “Come and look!” she whispered. “There is always a
humming-bird's nest in our lilac. How did you remember?”

The two women approached the bush and Mrs. Boynton carefully parted the
leaves to show the dainty morsel of a home thatched with soft gray-green
and lined with down. “The birds have flown now,” she said. “They were
like little jewels when they darted off in the sunshine.”

Her voice was faint and sweet, as if it came from far away, and her eyes
looked, not as if they were seeing you, but seeing something through
you. Her pale hair was turned back from her paler face, where the
veins showed like blue rivers, and her smile was like the flitting of a
moonbeam. She was standing very close to Waitstill, closer than she
had been to any woman for many years, and she studied her a little,
wistfully, yet courteously, as if her attention was attracted by
something fresh and winning. She looked at the color, ebbing and flowing
in the girl's cheeks; at her brows and lashes; at her neck, as white
as swan's-down; and finally put out her hand with a sudden impulse and
touched the knot of wavy bronze hair under the brimmed hat.

“I had a daughter once,” she said. “My second baby was a girl, but she
lived only a few weeks. I need her very much, for I am a great care to
Ivory. He is son and daughter both, now that Mr. Boynton is away from
home.--You did not see any one in the road as you turned in from the
bars, I suppose?”

“No,” answered Waitstill, surprised and confused, “but I didn't really
notice; I was thinking of a cool place for my horse to stand.”

“I sit out here in these warm afternoons,” Mrs. Boynton continued,
shading her eyes and looking across the fields, “because I can see so
far down the lane. I have the supper-table set for my husband already,
and there is a surprise for him, a saucer of wild strawberries I picked
for him this morning. If he does not come, I always take away the plate
and cup before Ivory gets here; it seems to make him unhappy.”

“He doesn't like it when you are disappointed, I suppose,” Waitstill
ventured. “I have brought my knitting, Mrs. Boynton, so that I needn't
keep you idle if you wish to work. May I sit down a few minutes? And
here is a cottage cheese for Ivory and Rodman, and a jar of plums for
you, preserved from my own garden.”

Mrs. Boynton's eyes searched the face of this visitor from a world she
had almost forgotten and finding nothing but tenderness there, said with
just a trace of bewilderment: “Thank you yes, do sit down; my workbasket
is just inside the door. Take that rocking-chair; I don't have another
one out here because I have never been in the habit of seeing visitors.”

“I hope I am not intruding,” stammered Waitstill, seating herself and
beginning her knitting, to see if it would lessen the sense of strain
between them.

“Not at all. I always loved young and beautiful people, and so did my
husband. If he comes while you are here, do not go away, but sit with
him while I get his supper. If Elder Cochrane should be with him,
you would see two wonderful men. They went away together to do some
missionary work in Maine and New Hampshire and perhaps they will come
back together. I do not welcome callers because they always ask so many
difficult questions, but you are different and have asked me none at
all.”

“I should not think of asking questions, Mrs. Boynton.”

“Not that I should mind answering them,” continued Ivory's mother,
“except that it tires my head very much to think. You must not imagine I
am ill; it is only that I have a very bad memory, and when people ask me
to remember something, or to give an answer quickly, it confuses me the
more. Even now I have forgotten why you came, and where you live; but I
have not forgotten your beautiful name.”

“Ivory thought you might be lonely, and I wanted so much to know you
that I could not keep away any longer, for I am lonely and unhappy too.
I am always watching and hoping for what has never come yet. I have no
mother, you have lost your daughter; I thought--I thought--perhaps we
could be a comfort to each other!” And Waitstill rose from her chair
and put out her hand to help Mrs. Boynton down the steps, she looked
so frail, so transparent, so prematurely aged. “I could not come very
often--but if I could only smooth your hair sometimes when your head
aches, or do some cooking for you, or read to you, or any little thing
like that, as I would fer my own mother--if I could, I should be so
glad!”

Waitstill stood a head higher than Ivory's mother and the glowing health
of her, the steadiness of her voice, the warmth of her hand-clasp must
have made her seem like a strong refuge to this storm-tossed derelict.
The deep furrow between Lois Boynton's eyes relaxed a trifle, the blood
in her veins ran a little more swiftly under the touch of the young hand
that held hers so closely. Suddenly a light came into her face and her
lip quivered.

“Perhaps I have been remembering wrong all these years,” she said. “It
is my great trouble, remembering wrong. Perhaps my baby did not die as I
thought; perhaps she lived and grew up; perhaps” (her pale cheek burned
and her eyes shone like stars) “perhaps she has come back!”

Waitstill could not speak; she put her arm round the trembling figure,
holding her as she was wont to hold Patty, and with the same protective
instinct. The embrace was electric in its effect and set altogether
new currents of emotion in circulation. Something in Lois Boynton's
perturbed mind seemed to beat its wings against the barriers that had
heretofore opposed it, and, freeing itself, mounted into clearer air and
went singing to the sky. She rested her cheek on the girl's breast with
a little sob. “Oh! let me go on remembering wrong,” she sighed, from
that safe shelter. “Let me go on remembering wrong! It makes me so
happy!”

Waitstill gently led her to the rocking-chair and sat down beside her
on the lowest step, stroking her thin hand. Mrs. Boynton's eyes were
closed, her breath came and went quickly, but presently she began to
speak hurriedly, as if she were relieving a surcharged heart.

“There is something troubling me,” she began, “and it would ease my mind
if I could tell it to some one who could help. Your hand is so warm and
so firm! Oh, hold mine closely and let me draw in strength as long
as you can spare it; it is flowing, flowing from your hand into mine,
flowing like wine.... My thoughts at night are not like my thoughts by
day, these last weeks.... I wake suddenly and feel that my husband has
been away a long time and will never come back.... Often, at night, too,
I am in sore trouble about something else, something I have never told
Ivory, the first thing I have ever hidden from my dear son, but I think
I could tell you, if only I could be sure about it.”

[Illustration: “Tell me if it will help you; I will try to understand”]

“Tell me if it will help you; I will try to understand,” said Waitstill
brokenly.

“Ivory says Rodman is the child of my dead sister. Some one must have
told him so; could it have been I? It haunts me day and night, for
unless I am remembering wrong again, I never had a sister. I can call to
mind neither sister nor brother.”

“You went to New Hampshire one winter,” Waitstill reminded her gently,
as if she were talking to a child. “It was bitter cold for you to take
such a hard journey. Your sister died, and you brought her little boy,
Rodman, back, but you were so ill that a stranger had to take care of
you on the stage-coach and drive you to Edgewood next day in his own
sleigh. It is no wonder you have forgotten something of what happened,
for Dr. Perry hardly brought you through the brain fever that followed
that journey.”

“I seem to think, now, that it is not so!” said Mrs. Boynton, opening
her eyes and looking at Waitstill despairingly. “I must grope and grope
in the dark until I find out what is true, and then tell Ivory. God will
punish false speaking! His heart is closed against lies and evil-doing!”

“He will never punish you if your tired mind remembers wrong,” said
Waitstill. “He knows, none better, how you have tried to find Him and
hold Him, through many a tangled path. I will come as often as I can and
we will try to frighten away these worrying thoughts.”

“If you will only come now and then and hold my hand,” said Ivory's
mother,--“hold my hand so that your strength will flow into my weakness,
perhaps I shall puzzle it all out, and God will help me to remember
right before I die.”

“Everything that I have power to give away shall be given to you,”
 promised Waitstill. “Now that I know you, and you trust me, you shall
never be left so alone again,--not for long, at any rate. When I stay
away you will remember that I cannot help it, won't you?”

“Yes, I shall think of you till I see you again I shall watch the long
lane more than ever now. Ivory sometimes takes the path across the
fields but my dear husband will come by the old road, and now there will
be you to look for!”




XVI. LOCKED OUT

AT the Baxters the late supper was over and the girls had not sat at the
table with their father, having eaten earlier, by themselves. The hired
men had gone home to sleep. Patty had retired to the solitude of her
bedroom almost at dusk, quite worn out with the heat, and Waitstill sat
under the peach tree in the corner of her own little garden, tatting,
and thinking of her interview with Ivory's mother. She sat there until
nearly eight o'clock, trying vainly to put together the puzzling details
of Lois Boynton's conversation, wondering whether the perplexities that
vexed her mind were real or fancied, but warmed to the heart by the
affection that the older woman seemed instinctively to feel for her.
“She did not know me, yet she cared for me at once,” thought Waitstill
tenderly and proudly; “and I for her, too, at the first glance.”

She heard her father lock the barn and shed and knew that he would be
going upstairs immediately, so she quickly went through the side yard
and lifted the latch of the kitchen door. It was fastened. She went to
the front door and that, too, was bolted, although it had been standing
open all the evening, so that if a breeze should spring up, it might
blow through the house. Her father supposed, of course, that she was
in bed, and she dreaded to bring him downstairs for fear of his anger;
still there was no help for it and she rapped smartly at the side
door. There was no answer and she rapped again, vexed with her own
carelessness. Patty's face appeared promptly behind her screen of
mosquito netting in the second story, but before she could exchange a
word with her sister, Deacon Baxter opened the blinds of his bedroom
window and put his head out.

“You can try sleepin' outdoors, or in the barn to-night,” he called. “I
didn't say anything to you at supper-time because I wanted to see where
you was intendin' to prowl this evenin'.”

“I haven't been 'prowling' anywhere, father,” answered Waitstill; “I've
been out in the garden cooling off; it's only eight o'clock.”

“Well, you can cool off some more,” he shouted, his temper now fully
aroused; “or go back where you was this afternoon and see if they'll
take you in there! I know all about your deceitful tricks! I come home
to grind the scythes and found the house and barn empty Cephas said
you'd driven up Saco Hill and I took his horse and followed you and saw
where you went Long's you couldn't have a feller callin' on you here to
home, you thought you'd call on him, did yer, you bold-faced hussy?”

“I am nothing of the sort,” the girl answered him quietly; “Ivory
Boynton was not at his house, he was in the hay-field. You know it, and
you know that I knew it. I went to see a sick, unhappy woman who has no
neighbors. I ought to have gone long before. I am not ashamed of it, and
I don't regret it. If you ask unreasonable things of me, you must expect
to be disobeyed once in a while.

“Must expect to be disobeyed, must I?” the old man cried, his face
positively terrifying in its ugliness. “We'll see about that! If you
wa'n't callin' on a young man, you were callin' on a crazy woman, and I
won't have it, I tell you, do you hear? I won't have a daughter o' mine
consortin' with any o' that Boynton crew. Perhaps a night outdoors will
teach you who's master in this house, you imperdent, shameless girl!
We'll try it, anyway!” And with that he banged down the window and
disappeared, gibbering and jabbering impotent words that she could hear
but not understand.

Waitstill was almost stunned by the suddenness of this catastrophe. She
stood with her feet rooted to the earth for several minutes and then
walked slowly away out of sight of the house. There was a chair beside
the grindstone under the Porter apple tree and she sank into it, crossed
her arms on the back, and bowing her head on them, burst into a fit of
weeping as tempestuous and passionate as it was silent, for although her
body fairly shook with sobs no sound escaped.

The minutes passed, perhaps an hour; she did not take account of time.
The moon went behind clouds, the night grew misty and the stars faded
one by one. There would be rain to-morrow and there was a great deal of
hay cut, so she thought in a vagrant sort of way.

Meanwhile Patty upstairs was in a state of suppressed excitement and
terror. It was a quarter of an hour before her father settled him-self
in bed; then an age, it seemed to her, before she heard his heavy
breathing. When she thought it quite safe, she slipped on a print
wrapper, took her shoes in her hand, and crept noiselessly downstairs,
out through the kitchen and into the shed. Lifting the heavy bar that
held the big doors in place she closed them softly behind her, stepped
out, and looked about her in the darkness. Her quick eye espied in the
distance, near the barn, the bowed figure in the chair, and she flew
through the wet grass without a thought of her bare feet till she
reached her sister's side and held her in a close embrace.

“My darling, my own, own, poor darling!” she cried softly, the tears
running down her cheeks. “How wicked, how unjust to serve my dearest
sister so! Don't cry, my blessing, don't cry; you frighten me! I'll take
care of you, dear! Next time I'll interfere; I'll scratch and bite; yes,
I'll strangle anybody that dares to shame you and lock you out of the
house! You, the dearest, the patientest, the best!”

Waitstill wiped her eyes. “Let us go farther away where we can talk,”
 she whispered.

“Where had we better sleep?” Patty asked. “On the hay, I think, though
we shall stifle with the heat”; and Patty moved towards the barn.

“No, you must go back to the house at once, Patty dear; father might
wake and call you, and that would make matters worse. It's beginning to
drizzle, or I should stay out in the air. Oh! I wonder if father's mind
is going, and if this is the beginning of the end! If he is in his sober
senses, he could not be so strange, so suspicious, so unjust.”

“He could be anything, say anything, do anything,” exclaimed Patty.
“Perhaps he is not responsible and perhaps he is; it doesn't make much
difference to us. Come along, blessed darling! I'll tuck you in, and
then I'll creep back to the house, if you say I must. I'll go down and
make the kitchen fire in the morning; you stay out here and see what
happens. A good deal will happen, I'm thinking, if father speaks to
me of you! I shouldn't be surprised to see the fur flying in all
directions; I'll seize the first moment to bring you out a cup of coffee
and we'll consult about what to do. I may tell you now, I'm all for
running away!”

Waitstill's first burst of wretchedness had subsided and she had
recovered her balance. “I'm afraid we must wait a little longer, Patty,”
 she advised. “Don't mention my name to father, but see how he acts in
the morning. He was so wild, so unlike himself, that I almost hope he
may forget what he said and sleep it off. Yes, we must just wait.”

“No doubt he'll be far calmer in the morning if he remembers that, if he
turns you out, he faces the prospect of three meals a day cooked by me,”
 said Patty. “That's what he thinks he would face, but as a matter of
fact I shall tell him that where you sleep I sleep, and where you eat
I eat, and when you stop cooking I stop! He won't part with two unpaid
servants in a hurry, not at the beginning of haying.” And Patty, giving
Waitstill a last hug and a dozen tearful kisses, stole reluctantly back
to the house by the same route through which he had left it.

Patty was right. She found the fire lighted when she went down into the
kitchen next morning, and without a word she hurried breakfast on to the
table as fast as she could cook and serve it. Waitstill was safe in the
barn chamber, she knew, and would be there quietly while her father was
feeding the horse and milking the cows; or perhaps she might go up in
the woods and wait until she saw him driving away.

The Deacon ate his breakfast in silence, looking and acting very much
as usual, for he was generally dumb at meals. When he left the house,
however, and climbed into the wagon, he turned around and said in his
ordinary gruff manner: “Bring the lunch up to the field yourself to-day,
Patience. Tell your sister I hope she's come to her senses in the course
of the night. You've got to learn, both of you, that my 'say-so' must be
law in this house. You can fuss and you can fume, if it amuses you any,
but 't won't do no good. Don't encourage Waitstill in any whinin' nor
blubberin'. Jest tell her to come in and go to work and I'll overlook
what she done this time. And don't you give me any more of your
eye-snappin' and lip-poutin' and head-in-the-air imperdence! You're
under age, and if you don't look out, you'll get something that's good
for what ails you! You two girls jest aid an' abet one another that's
what you do, aid an' abet one another, an if you carry it any further
I'll find some way o' separatin' you, do you hear?”

Patty spoke never a word, nor fluttered an eyelash. She had a proper
spirit, but now her heart was cold with a new fear, and she felt, with
Waitstill, that her father must be obeyed and his temper kept within
bounds, until God provided them a way of escape.

She ran out to the barn chamber and, not finding Waitstill, looked
across the field and saw her coming through the path from the woods.
Patty waved her hand, and ran to meet her sister, joy at the mere fact
of her existence, of being able to see her again, and of hearing her
dear voice, almost choking her in its intensity. When they reached the
house she helped her upstairs as if she were a child, brought her cool
water to wash away the dust of the haymow, laid out some clean clothes
for her, and finally put her on the lounge in the darkened sitting-room.

“I won't let anybody come near the house,” she said, “and you must have
a cup of tea and a good sleep before I tell you all that father said.
Just comfort yourself with the thought that he is going to 'overlook it'
this time! After I carry up his luncheon, I shall stop at the store and
ask Cephas to come out on the river bank for a few minutes. Then I shall
proceed to say what I think of him for telling father where you went
yesterday afternoon.”

“Don't blame Cephas!” Waitstill remonstrated. “Can't you see just how
it happened? He and Uncle Bart were sitting in front of the shop when I
drove by. When father came home and found the house empty and the horse
not in the stall, of course he asked where I was, and Cephas probably
said he had seen me drive up Saco Hill. He had no reason to think that
there was any harm in that.”

“If he had any sense he might know that he shouldn't tell anything to
father except what happens in the store,” Patty insisted. “Were you
frightened out in the barn alone last night, poor dear?”

“I was too unhappy to think of fear and I was chiefly nervous about you,
all alone in the house with father.”

“I didn't like it very much, myself! I buttoned my bedroom door and sat
by the window all night, shivering and bristling at the least sound.
Everybody calls me a coward, but I'm not! Courage isn't not being
frightened; it's not screeching when you are frightened. Now, what
happened at the Boyntons'?”

“Patty, Ivory's mother is the most pathetic creature I ever saw!” And
Waitstill sat up on the sofa, her long braids of hair hanging over her
shoulders, her pale face showing the traces of her heavy weeping. “I
never pitied any one so much in my whole life! To go up that long, long
lane; to come upon that dreary house hidden away in the trees; to feel
the loneliness and the silence; and then to know that she is living
there like a hermit-thrush in a forest, without a woman to care for her,
it is heart-breaking!”

“How does the house look,--dreadful?”

“No: everything is as neat as wax. She isn't 'crazy,' Patty, as we
understand the word. Her mind is beclouded somehow and it almost seems
as if the cloud might lift at any moment. She goes about like somebody
in a dream, sewing or knitting or cooking. It is only when she talks,
and you notice that her eyes really see nothing, but are looking beyond
you, that you know there is anything wrong.”

“If she appears so like other people, why don't the neighbors go to see
her once in a while?”

“Callers make her unhappy, she says, and Ivory told me that he dared not
encourage any company in the house for fear of exciting her, and making
her an object of gossip, besides. He knows her ways perfectly and that
she is safe and content with her fancies when she is alone, which is
seldom, after all.”

“What does she talk about?” asked Patty.

“Her husband mostly. She is expecting him to come back daily. We knew
that before, of course, but no one can realize it till they see her
setting the table for him and putting a saucer of wild strawberries by
his plate; going about the kitchen softly, like a gentle ghost.”

“It gives me the shudders!” said Patty. “I couldn't bear it! If she
never sees strangers, what in the world did she make of you? How did you
begin?”

“I told her I had known Ivory ever since we were school children. She
was rather strange and indifferent at first, and then she seemed to take
a fancy to me.”

“That's queer!” said Patty, smiling fondly and giving Waitstill's hair
the hasty brush of a kiss.

“She told me she had had a girl baby, born two or three years after
Ivory, and that she had always thought it died when it was a few weeks
old. Then suddenly she came closer to me--

“Oh! Waity, weren't you terrified?”

“No, not in the least. Neither would you have been if you had been
there. She put her arms round me and all at once I understood that the
poor thing mistook me just for a moment for her own daughter come back
to life. It was a sudden fancy and I don't think it lasted, but I didn't
know how to deal with it, or contradict it, so I simply tried to soothe
her and let her ease her heart by talking to me. She said when I left
her: 'Where is your house? I hope it is near! Do come again and sit with
me. Strength flows into my weakness when you hold my hand!' I somehow
feel, Patty, that she needs a woman friend even more than a doctor. And
now, what am I to do? How can I forsake her; and yet here is this new
difficulty with father?”

“I shouldn't forsake her; go there when you can, but be more careful
about it. You told father that you didn't regret what you had done, and
that when he ordered you to do unreasonable things, you should disobey
him. After all, you are not a black slave. Father will never think of
that particular thing again, perhaps, any more than he ever alluded to
my driving to Saco with Mrs. Day after you had told him it was necessary
for one of us to go there occasionally. He knows that if he is too hard
on us, Dr. Perry or Uncle Bart would take him in hand. They would have
done it long ago if we had ever given any one even a hint of what we
have to endure. You will be all right, because you only want to do kind,
neighborly things. I am the one that will always have to suffer, because
I can't prove that it's a Christian duty to deceive father and steal off
to a dance or a frolic. Yet I might as well be a nun in a convent for
all the fun I get! I want a white book-muslin dress; I want a pair of
thin shoes with buckles; I want a white hat with a wreath of yellow
roses; I want a volume of Byron's poems; and oh! nobody knows--nobody
but the Lord could understand--how I want a string of gold beads.”

“Patty, Patty! To hear you chatter anybody would imagine you thought of
nothing but frivolities. I wish you wouldn't do yourself such injustice;
even when nobody hears you but me, it is wrong.”

“Sometimes when you think I'm talking nonsense it's really the gospel
truth,” said Patty. “I'm not a grand, splendid character, Waitstill,
and it's no use your deceiving yourself about me; if you do, you'll be
disappointed.”

“Go and parboil the beans and get them into the pot, Patty. Pick up some
of the windfalls and make a green-apple pie, and I'll be with you in the
kitchen myself before long. I never expect to be disappointed in you,
Patty, only continually surprised and pleased.”

“I thought I'd begin making some soft soap to-day,” said Patty
mischievously, as she left the room. “We have enough grease saved up. We
don't really need it yet, but it makes such a disgusting smell that
I'd rather like father to have it with his dinner. It's not much of a
punishment for our sleepless night.”




AUTUMN




XVII. A BRACE OF LOVERS

HAYING was over, and the close, sticky dog-days, too, and August was
slipping into September. There had been plenty of rain all the season
and the countryside was looking as fresh and green as an emerald. The
hillsides were already clothed with a verdant growth of new grass and

     “The red pennons of the cardinal flowers
      Hung motionless upon their upright staves.”

How they gleamed in the meadow grasses and along the brooksides like
brilliant flecks of flame, giving a new beauty to the nosegays that
Waitstill carried or sent to Mrs. Boynton every week.

To the eye of the casual observer, life in the two little villages by
the river's brink went on as peacefully as ever, but there were subtle
changes taking place nevertheless. Cephas Cole had “asked” the second
time and again had been refused by Patty, so that even a very idiot for
hopefulness could not urge his father to put another story on the ell.

“If it turns out to be Phoebe Day,” thought Cephas dolefully, “two rooms
is plenty good enough, an' I shan't block up the door that leads from
the main part, neither, as I thought likely I should. If so be it's got
to be Phoebe, not Patty, I shan't care whether mother troops out 'n' in
or not.” And Cephas dealt out rice and tea and coffee with so languid an
air, and made such frequent mistakes in weighing the sugar, that he drew
upon himself many a sharp rebuke from the Deacon.

“Of course I'd club him over the head with a salt fish twice a day under
ord'nary circumstances,” Cephas confided to his father with a valiant
air that he never wore in Deacon Baxter's presence; “but I've got a
reason, known to nobody but myself, for wantin' to stan' well with the
old man for a spell longer. If ever I quit wantin' to stan' well with
him, he'll get his comeuppance, short an sudden!”

“Speakin' o' standin' well with folks, Phil Perry's kind o' makin' up to
Patience Baxter, ain't he, Cephas?” asked Uncle Bart guardedly. “Mebbe
you wouldn't notice it, hevin' no partic'lar int'rest, but your
mother's kind o got the idee into her head lately, an' she's turrible
far-sighted.”

“I guess it's so!” Cephas responded gloomily. “It's nip an' tuck 'tween
him an' Mark Wilson. That girl draws 'em as molasses does flies! She
does it 'thout liftin' a finger, too, no more 'n the molasses does. She
just sets still an' IS! An' all the time she's nothin' but a flighty
little red-headed spitfire that don't know a good husband when she sees
one. The feller that gits her will live to regret it, that's my opinion!”
 And Cephas thought to himself: “Good Lord, don't I wish I was
regrettin' it this very minute!”

“I s'pose a girl like Phoebe Day'd be consid'able less trouble to live
with?” ventured Uncle Bart.

“I never could take any fancy to that tow hair o' hern! I like the color
well enough when I'm peeling it off a corn cob, but I don't like it on a
girl's head,” objected Cephas hypercritically. “An' her eyes hain't
got enough blue in 'em to be blue: they're jest like skim-milk. An' she
keeps her mouth open a little mite all the time, jest as if there wa'n't
no good draught through, an' she was a-tryin' to git air. An' 't was
me that begun callin' her 'Feeble Phoebe in school, an' the scholars'll
never forgit it; they'd throw it up to me the whole 'durin' time if I
should go to work an' keep company with her!”

“Mebbe they've forgot by this time,” Uncle Bart responded hopefully;
“though 't is an awful resk when you think o' Companion Pike! Samuel he
was baptized and Samuel he continued to be, 'till he married the Widder
Bixby from Waterboro. Bein' as how there wa'n't nothin' partic'ly
attractive 'bout him,--though he was as nice a feller as ever
lived,--somebody asked her why she married him, an' she said her cat
hed jest died an' she wanted a companion. The boys never let go o' that
story! Samuel Pike he ceased to be thirty year ago, an' Companion Pike
he's remained up to this instant minute!”

“He ain't lived up to his name much,” remarked Cephas. “He's to home for
his meals, but I guess his wife never sees him between times.”

“If the cat hed lived mebbe she'd 'a' been better comp'ny on the
whole,” chuckled Uncle Bart. “Companion was allers kind o' dreamy
an' absent-minded from a boy. I remember askin' him what his wife's
Christian name was (she bein' a stranger to Riverboro) an' he said he
didn't know! Said he called her Mis' Bixby afore he married her an' Mis'
Pike afterwards!”

“Well, the

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