THE STORY OF WAITSTILL BAXTER
Wiggin, Kate Douglas
The Story of Waitstill Baxter By KATE DOUGLAS W1GGIN Author of "Rebecca of Sannybrook Farm" (Copyright, 10X3, oy Kate Douglas Wiggin) What Has Gone Before WAITSTILL BAXTER and her sister,...
...Waitstill never heard a breath of it from Ivory's lips...
...Old Mrs...
...I've seen mother chasm' her out o' Mis' Day's garden patch twice a'ready...
...You've wasted quarts and quarts...
...See what you've done...
...Rodman, a young boy, Is a member of the Boynton household...
...I'd take a lick-in' for you any day," Cephas exclaimed abjectly, after a long pause, "That wouldn't make any difference Cephas," said Patty firmly, moving toward the front door as if to end the interview...
...Hurry up and don't look as if you were going to die any minute...
...Instead of being out of doors I've got to be shut up in that smelly, rummy, tobaccoy, salt-fishy, pepperminty place with Cephas Cole...
...All right...
...Boynton expects her husband to return...
...She had no sympathy with tils 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...
...We've had a lovely picnic...
...I can't, Ivory...
...Whether his gospel was a pure and undefiled religion I doubt, but he certainly was a master of mesmeric control...
...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...
...Father's orders are against my driving out with any one, you know...
...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...
...Fill Bill Morrill's jug, quick, and set it out on the steps for him to pick up...
...The boy, trailing on behind with the baskets and laden with tin dippers and wild flowers, seemed another creature from the big eyed, quiet little lad he saw every day...
...It's Mis' Morrill's molasses...
...I have my horse here...
...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 intense ly, devoutly religious...
...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...
...And the elms and maples...
...You never can get the floor to look so that he won't notice it, and he is sure to miss the molasses...
...This afternoon's talk has determined me on one thing," she went on...
...I'll go in here and brush the pine needles off, wash my hands and rest a little before rehearsal...
...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...
...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...
...The road is free, at any rate...
...So while these protests are based on professed zeal for economy in use of public funds, there is ground for suspicion that there may be some other reason at bottom...
...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...
...Was there ever such a year for richness of foliage...
...Let me drive you to the church...
...I can't move," she cried...
...But it is only when something is inserted Which Privilege prefers not to have published that such protests are made...
...Did her love for Ivory rest partly on a sense of vocation—a profund, inarticulate divining of his vast need of her...
...Patty," stammered Cephas, seizing his golden opportunity, "Patty, keep your mind on me for a minute...
...of course that is impossible at present...
...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...
...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...
...The sun was dipping low and red behind the Town House hill on the other side of the river...
...she asked as they sat down on the meeting house steps waiting for Jed Morrill to open the door...
...There was a line or two in her face— small wonder...
...I shall have to run into father's store to put myself tidy," Waitstill said, "so goodby, Rodman, we'll have another picnic some day...
...How could you leave the molasses spigot turned on...
...He won't have a pleasant morning, I can tell you...
...This was not surprising perhaps, as she was about as much sequestered in her hilltop prison as a Turkish beauty in a harem...
...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...
...If there was little hope on her side there seemed even less on his...
...He has taken 366 pages of the Congressional Record of May 12 to print—not his own argument— but principally statements of railroad supporters designed to influence the Interstate Commerce Commission in favor of an increase in freight rates...
...Don't stand round gabbin' with Cephas, and see't he don't waste time that's paid for by me...
...One could breathe freely, speak one's heart out, believe in the future, when father was away...
...Then when you see how I'm getting on we can consult...
...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...
...That thought brings sadness with it, as one remembers his disappointment and failure, but if he is alive he is a traitor...
...He pulled himself together and led the way out of the churchyard...
...Tell him he might clean up the terbaccer stains round the stove, black it and cover it up for the summer if he aint too busy servin' cust'm-ers...
...I don't hardly know how I'd made out if I'd had to work in a mill," he said confidentially to Cephas...
...Considorin' who...
...I can't have you getting into trouble, Waitstill," Ivory objected...
...Patty made them up herself...
...I'm not so mean as all that, though I may have my faults...
...then put a cloth on your oldest broom, pour lots of water on, pail after pail, and swab...
...I am sure" (here Ivory's tone was somewhat dry and satirical) "that father's road had many turns, Waitstill...
...But Lois Boynton was so gientle, 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...
...When you've swabbed till it won't do any more good, then scrub...
...Oh—several, if you must know the truth...
...The worst feature of the affair was that every one in two villages suddenly and contemporaneously wanted molasses, so that Cephas spent the afternoon reviewing his misery by continually turning the tap and drawing oft the fatal liquid...
...wailed Patty, flinging herself down in the kitchen rocker...
...You don't suppose I'm going to tell any tales after you've made me an offer of marriage, do you...
...You're the only woman I can think of who might help my mother...
...cried Cephas, brought to his senses suddenly...
...I don't know what you'd do without me to plan for you...
...Her memory of those first days-seems to have faded...
...it spoils my hands grubbing around those nasty, sticky, splintery boxes and barrels...
...I just couldn't—don't ask me...
...Trade was not especially brisk at the deacon's emporium this sunny June Saturday morning...
...My feet are sticking to it...
...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 they would take their luncheon and eat it together on the river bank as Patty had promised him...
...Mother was of better family than father, but they were both well educated and had the best schooling to be had in their day...
...And Ivory sighed drearily as he stretched himself on the greensward and looked off toward the snowclad New Hampshire hills...
...If he could ever get the "heft" of the "dog-goned" cleaning out of the way so that Patty's mind could be free to entertain his proposition...
...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...
...Won't you get married and settle down with me...
...He could never tell her, alas...
...We are early and the choir won't get here for half an hour...
...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...
...Patty, you must do the chores this afternoon, you know, so that I can go to choir rehearsal...
...Her expectation of father's return, on the other hand, is much more intense than ever...
...You come down and bring your mending...
...What will father say and how will you ever clean up such a mess...
...Aunt Abby and Uncle Bart Cole are friends of the whole community...
...t ain't every two that'll stan' together without kickin...
...Something has been running, all over the floor...
...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...
...Patty has two admirers—Mark Wilson, an educated young man, and Cephas Cole, who is unlearned...
...He would never do that, especially as he could not earn enough to keep a large family, bound down as he was by inexorable responsibilities...
...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...
...Father's law in this case is the lower and I propose to break it...
...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...
...Yes, it's a pretty good day," allowed Uncle Bart judicially as he took a squint at his T-square...
...Oh, I—I—couldn't, Cephas, thank you...
...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...
...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...
...D., in The Pullie...
...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...
...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...
...THE SOUND of the plane was sweet music in the old joiner's ears...
...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 Tiver, but no man alive could see his employer's lively 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 on her behalf...
...Bet yer have...
...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 ruffled apron, in which she looked as pretty as a pink...
...What makes my father dislike the very mention of yours...
...After half an hour there was another heaven sent chance, when Rodman went up to Uncle Bart's shop with a message for Waitstill, but, just thau, in came Bill Morrill, a boy of twelve, with a lequest for a gallon of molasses, and would Cephas lend him a stone jug over Sunday, for his mother had her's "soakin' out in soap suds 'cause 'twa'n't smellin' jest right...
...Good-by...
...The whole day spoiled...
...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...
...That's a puzzling anthem we have for tomorrow...
...even his eyes were under control and confessed nothing, nor did his hand ever clasp hers to show by a telltale touch the truth he dared not utter...
...How are you getting on at home these days, Waitstill...
...I've got a good trade, and father has $100 o' my savin's that I can draw out tomorrer if you'll have me...
...I do, Indeed...
...Still, I can think of a way to make matters come out right...
...Or may it not be fear lest publication of some of the favorable communications may cause them to have a different effect than was intended?—S...
...Everything is so clearly his fault that I certainly would work off my temper on Cephas...
...The minutes dragged by, and again there was perfect quiet in the stockroom...
...I'm only seventeen, and I don't feel like settling down, Cephas, and father wouldn't think of letting me get married...
...To he Continued, La Follette Offends Privilege Once More SENATOR LA FOLLETTE has again brought upon himself loud denun-ciations from the organs of Privilege...
...Mark's sister Ellen and Phil Perry were in the midst of some form of lovers' quarrel, and during its progress Phil was paying considerable at-tention to Patty at Sabbath school and prayer meeting, occasions, it must be confessed, only provocative of very indirect and long distance ad...
...You've ruined my shoes, and I simply can't bear the sight of you...
...Perry says that he does not understand mother's ease in the least and that no one but some great Boston physician could give a proper opinion on it...
...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...
...At the last moment, however, Deacon Baxer had turned around in the wagon and said: "Patience, you go down to the store and have a regular housecleanin' in the stockroom...
...If I don't love you un-licked I couldn't love you any better licked, now, could I? Goodness gracious, what am I stepping in...
...it will be a novelty to him...
...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 he molasses to make good the deacon's loss...
...I should like very much to read your account...
...It doesn't seem as if that grievance, seventeen or eighteen years ago, would influence his Opinion of your mother or of you...
...The meadows were a waving mass of golden buttercups...
...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...
...We've played games, Ivory," cried the boy...
...Patty would have hung out all sorts of signals and lures to draw the truth from Ivory and break through the walls of his selr 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, lonelines and anxiety lessons of self denial and self control that bore daily fruit now...
...Waitstill answered composedly...
...Ivory Boynton, whose father disappeared, is interested in Waitstill...
...Don't play tricks on me, Patty, and keep shovin' me off so an' givin' wrong reasons," pleaded Cephas...
...asked Cephas, turning pale...
...Then you think it was your father's disappearance that really caused her mind to waver...
...Father's powers of invention beat anything I ever saw...
...Don't move—stay where you are...
...It was nearly 2 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...
...And Cephas will work his fingers to the bone for you, as you well know, if you treat him like a human being...
...Toss me my gingham apron and the scrubbing brush and the pall and the tin of soap and the cleaning cloths...
...Mason, a garrulous, good hearted grandame, was their only near neighbor, and her visits always left his mother worse rather than better...
...Mark Wilson had gone away without saying goodby to her...
...I was only a child when father first fell in 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...
...I haven't promised anything or anybody," Patty answered sedateily, gaining her self control by degrees, "but I won't deny that I'm considering—that's true...
...He knew that Deacon Baxter would never allow any engagement to exist between Waitstill and himself...
...The girl's voice quivered and a single teardrop on her cheek showed that she Was speaking from a full heart...
...Waitstill is spending her life in loving care of Patience...
...I fear that the spirit of God was never so strong in father as the desire to influence people by his oratory...
...He takes care of his daft mother...
...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, plowing, sowing, reaping or at least studying law, making his own fortune and that of some future wife...
...The waving signal a little later on showed that Redman could go to the picnic, the fact being that he was having a holiday from 11 o'clock until 2, and Ivory was going to drive to the bridge at noon anyway, so his permission could then be asked...
...I can only hope so...
...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...
...and, oh, she was splendid...
...Whoever 'tis wouldn't do any better by you'n I would...
...If the baby sister had only lived the home might have been different...
...Cephas would treat me to candy in a minute, but if I let him we'd have to ask him to the picnic...
...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...
...cried Patty joyously, her mood changing in an instant...
...He knew that "several" meant more than one, but he was too stunned" to define the term properly in its present strange connection...
...What's the trouble with me...
...Isn't it a wonderful morning...
...cried Patty, as nervous as Cephas himself now that her first offer had really come...
...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...
...Scoop up all the molasses you can with one of those new trowels on the counter...
...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...
...I can get a good many if Cephas gives me wholesale price, with family discount subtracted from that...
...She hardly knew what it would be, but the kiss dropped so lightly on her cheek by Mark Wilson still burned in remembrance ana made her sure that it would have a sequel or an explanation...
...I love you so I can't eat nor drink nor tend store nor nothin...
...I know mother's temper's onsartin, 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 meant to write the story of the 'Cochrane craze' some time or such part of it as has to do with my family history, and you shall read it if you like...
...1 don't know's I should want to start out an' try to beat it...
...Very well...
...Her quick, springing step was in harmony with the fire and courage of her mien...
...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...
...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...
...Possibly it may be the few pages devoted to opposition arguments...
...Oh, you stupid, stupid Cephas...
...Cephas is down to the store, so I s'poso your father's off somewheres...
...How is your mother this summer, Ivory...
...There's Rod coming over the bridge now...
...Good gosh...
...Cephas Cole, to the amazement of every one but his (constitu...
...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...
...a bunch of fragrant water lilies, gathered from the mill pond's upper levels, lay beside Wait-Still's mending basket, and every foot of roadside and field within sight was swaying with long stemmed white and gold daisies...
...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...
...I am going to see your mother now and then, t 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...
...Ivory's father abandoned his family to follow Jacob Cochrane, a mystic...
...CHAPTER VIII 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 shallow water at the river's edge just below the shop was blue with "spikes of arrow weed...
...Waitstill thus far in life had suffered many sorrows and enjoyed few pleasures...
...She recovered perfectly, and her head was as clear as mine for a year or two after father went away...
...thank you...
...There must be times When one can break the lower law and yet keep the higher...
...Some of us see facts and others sets visions," replied Ivory, "and these differences of opinion crop up in the village every day when anything noteworthy is discussed...
...I've put a new coat o' paint on the ell just to please you...
...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...
...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...
...Patty is toy 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...
...But how he gloried in her...
...First we had the 'Landing of the Pilgrims' and Waitstill made believe she was the figurehead of the Mayflower...
...Neither was it astonishing that Mark did not write to her...
...vances...
...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...
...Yes, and it was that, in my mind, that led him astray...
...asked Waitstill...
...When you get the right girl keep out of her way con-sld'ahle an there'll be less wear an' tear.' CHAPTER VII Cephas Speaks i T WAS June and the countryside was so beautiful it seemed as if no one could be unhappy, however great the cause...
...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 turd out a June mornin' that must make the devil sick to his stomach with envy...
...My mother's pure soul must have revolted, but she was not strong enough, to drag father from his allegiance...
...Good joke on Old Foxy...
...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...
...That stockroom could have been cleaned any time this month, and it's too heavy work for me anyway...
...If you have any time left over put new papers on the shelves out front and clean up and fix the show winder...
...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...
...Other Senators and Congressmen habitually make use of the leave to print privilege...
...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...
...Bill's message given, he hurried up the road on another errand, promising to call for the molasses later...
...Then Patty was Pocahontas, and I was Cap'n John Smith, and look, we are all dressed up for the Indian wedding...
...The Story of Waitstill Baxter By KATE DOUGLAS W1GGIN Author of "Rebecca of Sannybrook Farm" (Copyright, 10X3, oy Kate Douglas Wiggin) What Has Gone Before WAITSTILL BAXTER and her sister, Patience (Patty), keep house for their widowed, mean lather...
...They sat down on the grass underneath one of the elms, and Waitstill took off her hat and leaned back against the tree trunk...
...All the same, Waity, my cow ain't behavin' herself any better'n usual...
...The girls had harbored many delightful plans at early breakfast...
...God help him...
...All the same, I would not make your life harder, not for worlds...
...It's no use crying over spilt molasses...
...It seems real good an' homey to see you settin' there sewin' while I'm workin' at the bench...
...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...
...Find those cleaning cloths I left in the back room," ordered Patty, with a flashing eye...
...The broom's down there, so I've got everything...
...Take my advice and have a place to yourself, even if it's a small one...
...Tell me more," she said...
...Then she took that winter journey to her sister's deathbed, brought home the boy, and, hastened by exposure and cnin and grief,I suppose, her mind gave way— that's all...
...She has ceased to refer to her conversion to Cochranism as a blessed experience...
...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...
...So I would...
...She stood on a great bowlder and sang: "The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rockbound coast...
...But Cochrane's last 'revelations' differed from the first and were of the earth, earthly...
...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...
...Then you can make Rodman do a few of the odd jobs...
...I'm going to take the 10 cents I've saved and spend it in raisins...
...It was too true...
...I came upon a quotation in my reading last evening that described it, 'One said it thundered...
...At this Cephas all but blubbered in the agony of his soul...
...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...
...Nobody could look the world In the face and do a wrong thing on such a day, could they, Uncle Bart...
...I said there was little change in her, but there is one new symptom...
...The gallon measure, forgotten by Cephas, 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...
...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...
...Lock the front door and hang father's sign that he's gone to dinner on the doorknob...
...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...
...And so it fell out that Ivory and Waitstill walked together in the cool of the afternoon to the meeting house on Tory hill...
...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...
...Get some blocks or bits of board or stones for me to walk on so that I can get out of your nasty mess...
...At this time, as nearly as I can Juage, she was a recluse and subject to periods of profound melancholy, but nothing worse...
...Choose a girl same's you would a horse that you want to hitch up into a span...
...Several...
...I'm not fond of you that way, and, besides—and, besides—" Her blush and her evident embarrassment gave Cephas a new fear...
...Patience chafes under her father's stern rule...
...Mark kisses her...
...I don't know what happened between them in the way of religious difference nor how much un-happiness these may have caused...
...If I wave a towel from the store pack up luncheon for three...
...I'll say goodby now, Ivory, but I'll see you at the meeting house," she said he she neared the store...
...No, don't come any nearer...
...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...
...There was something tragic in the fact, Waitstill thought, that whenever her father lett the village for a whole day, life at once grew brighter, easier, more hopeful...
...called Patty...
...it is so long since we talked together quietly, and we have never really spoken of your mother...
...Patty's feet were glued to it, her buff calico skirts lifted high to escape harm...
...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 Milltown 'bout noon...
...if that moment of silence could ever, under Providence, bo simultaneous with the absence of customers in the front shop, Cephas intended to offer himself to Patience Baxter that very morning...
...I can't, Cephas...
...So far as I can judge, mother always had more 'balance' than father and much better judgment—yet look at her now...
...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...
...Cephas, quick...
...Let's see...
...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...
...Valiant, splendid, indomitable Waitstill...
...She's been rampagin' sines sun up...
...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 Patty's tone was cruel in its jauntiness...
...The word did not sound like ordinary work-a-day Riverboro English in Cephas' ears...
...She must have loved your father dearly, Ivory, and to lose him in this terrible way is much worse than death...
...asked Waitstill...
...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...
...Marriage ought to bring her freedom and plenty, not carking care and poverty...
...I shall snap his head off every time he speaks to me...
...Scoop and scrape and scoop and scrape...
...nevertheless she felt that she was beloved...
...Ivory often thought how sorely she needed a daughter in her affliction...
...Uncle Bart says he had a great gift of language...
...another that an angel spake.' " "Do you feel as if your father was dead, Ivory...
...It was almost impossible for Ivory tb 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 asked, as if to turn his own mind and hers from a too painful subject...
...He had chattered like a magpie, eaten like a bear, 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...
...Hain't been spillin' molasses, have yer...
...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 ab-sehtmindedly...
...tionally) 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...
...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 1 can help a little on the cleaning...
...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...
...As to her sister's death and all the circumstances of her bringing Rodman home, her mind is a blank...
...How such a girl as Waitstill would pour comfort and beauty and joy into a lonely house like this if only he were weak enough to call upon her strength and put it to so cruel a test...
...But an "unconquerable soul" shone in her eyes, shone, too, in no uncertain way, but brightly and steadily, expressing an unshaken joy in living...
Vol. 6 • June 1914 • No. 24
