THE STORY OF WAITSTILL BAXTER
Wiggin, Kate Douglas
The Story of Waitstill Baxter By KATE DOUGLAS W1GGIN Author of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (Copyright, 1913, by Kate Douglas Wiggin) What Has Gone Before WAITSTILL BAXTER and her sister,...
...I will sleep," she whispered, closing her eyes...
...Health—An Index of Civilization THE prime characteristic of the new health is that it is social, not self-centered...
...to be built up by positive additions from patient science, from mutual cooperation...
...Sound men cannot be exploited...
...from rational eugenic policies...
...Now you jump out and hitch the horse while i run in and see that nothing has happened while she's been left alone...
...It had always been Rod's pride to carry his little share of every burden that fell to Ivory, to be faitiiful and helpful in every task given to him...
...I'll watch awhile, then sleep on the sitting room lounge...
...He tried his best to explain the situation as they drove along/ but finally concluded by saying: "Aunt really made me read the chapter to her, Ivory...
...No...
...Find it and read it aloud to me...
...I've got the old buffer inside...
...Perhaps it was your mother, but don't ask questions, please...
...Sound men, speaking generically of course, male and female, will rise at last above the tragedies of the sex relation—the agelong sin and shame of it, the mis-understandng and abuse of it—will learn that friendship, companionship, comradeship are incompatible with lust...
...As usual, a great crowd Qf people stood outside the church doors...
...from many a happy accident, intelligently appropriated...
...He flew for a bottle of spirit, always kept in the kitchen cupboard for emergencies, and throwing wood on the fire in passing, he swung the crane so that the tea kettle was over the flame...
...Waitstill decides to disobey her father by paying- a visit to Mrs...
...Mrs Boynton expects her husband to return...
...Rodman, a young boy, is a member of the Boynton household...
...and how the people must have marvelled to see the lovely blooming thing on the dark altar, first budding, then blossoming, then bearing nuts...
...Beginning with Genesis, he had reached Leviticus and had made up his mind that the Bible was a much more difficult book than "Scottish Chiefs" notwithstanding the fact that Ivory helped him over most of the hard places...
...how the boy hoped that Aaron's branch would be the one chosen to blossom...
...The fire burned low upon the hearth, and the door was open into his mother's room...
...Patience Baxter is embarrassed amid a multitude of suitors...
...A strange, young woman in the Wilson pew, a vistor from Boston, makes Patty jealous...
...I'd feel better if you'd let me, honest T would...
...The rod of Aaron was among the other rods," fie heard her say, and a moment later, "Bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony...
...I am quite free from pain...
...I'll lie down with my clothes on...
...Uncle Bart discourses to Cephas on woman's way...
...I've read and read, but I can't find they used anything on him but plagues and famines and boils and pestilences and thunder and hail and fire...
...She spends the night in the barn...
...Patience chafes under her father's stern rule...
...I wonder if they ever.tried to make him good by being kind to him...
...At length she whispered faintly, "i want Ivory...
...Tiptop...
...That was to show God's power to Pharoah and melt his hard heart to obedience and reverence," explained Mrs...
...Boynton, who had known the Bible from cover to cover in her youth and could stillgive chapter and verse for hundreds of her favorite passages...
...He knew only the humble remedies that he had seen used here or there in illness and tried them timidly, praying evry moment that lie might hear Ivory's step...
...She did not answer...
...Ivory's attention was attracted by the wistful eys and the beauty of the forehead under the dark hair...
...Does your side ache worse...
...Argonaut...
...In five minutes they saw the Boynton horse hitched to a tree by the roadside, and in a trice Rod called him and, thanking Mr...
...What would Ivory, his hero, his pattern and example, say...
...Sound men will eliminate poverty and that of itself should make us all sanitarians...
...Are you better, aunt dear...
...from wise decisions by learned courts...
...you must ask Ivory," said his aunt abstractedly...
...Then sprinkling camphor on a handkerchief, he held it to her nostrils, and to his joy she stirred in her chair...
...10...
...Again the story enchanted him, and again, like a child, he puts his own name and his living self among the rods in the tabernacle...
...CHAPTER XVIII The Rod That Blossomed IVORY BOYNTON had taken the horse and gone to the village on an errand, a rare thing for him to do after dark, so Rod was thinking as he ' sat in the living room learning his Sunday school lesson on the same evening that the men were gossiping at the brick store...
...but simply said that she was lonesome for Ivory, and so he came to find him...
...Health is economic...
...Shall i help you to bed the way Ivory does...
...And it shall come to pass that the man's rod, whom I shall choose, shall blossom: and I will make to cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel, whereby they murmur against you...
...Was it his uncle's name that had so affected her...
...He's out, aunt dear...
...She never knew about these Bible rods, I guess...
...Trying to trace his father, Ivory writes to Waitstill a long account of Boynton's following of Cochrane with which Mrs...
...that's a lot more than Napoleon used to have...
...Bet me watch, Ivory...
...it's only 9 o'clock and I'll get four hours' sleep...
...Rod sped down the lane and over the fields to the brick store where Ivory usually bought his groceries...
...He hurried on to the next verse: t "9» And Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord unto all the children of Israel: and they looked, and took every man his rod...
...I like to hear the Bible read aloud...
...And on this high ground, for this greatest of all its victories—the victory over vice in every repulsive or seductive form—I multiply hosannas to the great cause—the cause of the new Health—the Health in which there is no shadow of turning.- Edward T. Devise in The Survey...
...Would you be afraid to stay alone just for awhile if I lock both doors and run to find Ivory and bring him back...
...said the boy, flushing with pride...
...I cannot remember what comes and I wish to hear it...
...Keep your 'air on," retorted cabby...
...The bishop's just coming...
...Sreak unto the chi'dren of Israel, and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers, of.all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods...
...Health is moral...
...Mothers 'most always name their babies, don't they...
...No...
...He liked to think of the little branches being laid on the altar in the tabernacle, and above all he thought of the longing of each of the princes to have his own rod chosen for the blossoming...
...Health is civic...
...Although they love each other, Waitstill and Ivory suppress their affection because of their household cares...
...His cousin was not there, but one of the men came out and offered to take his horse and drive over the bridge to see if he were at one of the neighbors' on that side of the river...
...Bixby, got into Ivory's wagon to wait for him...
...At the present,June- , ture he was vastly interested in the subject of "rods" as unfolded in the book of Exodus, which was being studied by his Sunday school class...
...And Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness...
...I want Ivory...
...He seemed something more than the child of yesterday—a care and responsibility and expense for all his loving obedience: be seemed all at once different tonight—older, more dependable, more trustworthy—in fact, a positive comfort and help in time of trouble...
...she only opened her eyes and looked at him...
...from equally rational social work directed towards environmental reforms...
...Sound men will not be unjust and for that reason I salute the era of the new Health...
...Rod was as gentle as a mother, and he was familiar with all the little offices that could be of any comfort—the soapstone warmed again for her feet, the bringing of her nightgown from the closet and when she was in bed another spoonful of brandy in hot milk...
...A couple of policemen dashed at the cabby...
...Boynton confides in Waitstill, telling the girl she believes Rodman is not her sister's child, but she cannot be sure...
...And the>Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony to be kept for a token against the rebels: and thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me, that they die not...
...The boy was paralyzed with fear at the sight of her closed eyes and the deathly pallor of her lace, lie had never seen her like this before and Ivory was away...
...He himself was a Rod on whom no man's name seemed to be written, orphan that he was, with no knowledge of his parents...
...He takes care ot his daft mother...
...And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness...
...Not a word did Rod breathe of his aunt's illness...
...and for that reason, if for no other, I greet with enthusiasm the advent of the new Health...
...Pharaoh must have been worse than Deacon Baxter...
...He could distinguish scarcely anything, only enough to guess that her mind was still on the Bible story that he was reading to her when she fainted...
...In his agitation he lets the molasses run all over the store floor...
...How beautiful, for the blossoms would have been pink...
...The boy searched his concordance and readily found the reference in the 17th chapter of Numbers...
...You know they were just little branches of trees, and it was only God's power that made them wonderful in any way...
...It took an awful lot of melting, Pharaoh's heart...
...And what was the rod chosen for...
...He turned swiftly to find that his aunt's knitting had slipped on the floor...
...exlaimed the boy...
...Boynton...
...I don't really know...
...Yes, I think perhaps my mother named me...
...My mother wasn't like you...
...Boynton lay quietly in the bed talking to herself fitfully in the faint murmuring tone that was habitual to her...
...And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, "2...
...if you look at your concordance you'll find it gives you a chapter in Numbers where there's something beautiful about rods...
...her nerveless hands drooped by her side as if there were no life in them, and her head had fallen against the back of her chair...
...Oh...
...Aren't you proud that it's uncle's name that was written on the one that blossomed...
...He warmed a soapstonc in the embers and, taking off Mrs...
...and the rod of Aaron was among their rods...
...Patty and Waitstill go to church., although their father is too mean to give them lifting garments...
...He liked the idea of all the princes having a rod according to the house of their fathers...
...from rising standards in the practice of medicine and rising standards of living of the people...
...He could walk through fire without flinching, he thought, if Ivory told him to, and he only prayed that he might not be held responsible for this new calamity...
...Then they stretch a rod across the streams and ponds and bring a plague of frogs over the land, with swarms of flies and horrible insects...
...All the while he was doing this Mrs...
...Of course you couldn't...
...It was Aaron's rod, then, and was an almond branch...
...The village gossips are busy with the names of Waitstill and Ivory, but in a friendly anil sympathetic manner...
...No...
...Waitstill sings in the choir...
...to be won all together by corporate effort...
...It kind o' makes me nervous to be named Rod, Aunt Boynton," said the boy, looking up from the Bible...
...She thinks Mark is fickle...
...He felt that his aunt would be pleased, too, but he read on steadily, with eyes that glow'ed and breath that came and went in a very palpitation of interest: "7...
...We won't wake her, Rod...
...The boy's face was drawn with anxiety...
...Oh, how I'd like to be Ivory's rod and have it be the one that was chosen to blossom and keep the rebels from murmuring!'* " lo he Continued...
...Mark kisses her...
...Haying time arrives...
...The Story of Waitstill Baxter By KATE DOUGLAS W1GGIN Author of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (Copyright, 1913, by Kate Douglas Wiggin) What Has Gone Before WAITSTILL BAXTER and her sister, Patience (Patty), keep house for their widowed, mean father...
...they shouted, "you can't stop here...
...Aunt Abby and Uncle Bart Cole are friends of the whole community...
...Nothing wrong, Rod...
...You're not a child any longer, Rod...
...Stand near mo and read," said Mrs...
...The new Health is thus an index of our civilization, a composite result of all our well-being and a tremendous asset for the advancement of that well-being...
...Go on, go on, you read very sweetly...
...Perry...
...It has been many years since I looked at it...
...from laws enacted in the public interest...
...Suddenly he hesitated, for he had caught sighfc of the name of Aaron in the verse that he was about to read and did not wish to pronounce it in his aunt's hearing...
...He carried the Bible upstairs and just before he blew out his candle he looked again at the chapter in Num* bers, thinking he would show it to Ivory privately next day...
...and Cephas Cole, who is unlearned...
...And thou shalt lay them up in the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony, where I will meet with you...
...from social insurance against sickness...
...for one rod shall be for the head of the house of their fathers...
...This chapter is most too hard for me to read out loud, Aunt Boynton," he stammered...
...Did my father name me Rod, or my mother...
...then the camphor by her side, an extra homespun blanket over her and the door left open so that she could see the open fire that he made into a cheerful huddle, contrived so that it would not snap and throw out dangerous sparks in his absence...
...Rodman took his Bible and read slowly and haltingly, but with clearness and understanding: "1...
...I thought they were like the singing teacher's stick he keeps time with...
...to be enjoyed contemporaneously by brain workers, and capital workers and manual workers...
...Waitstill Is spending her life in loving care of Patience...
...And Moses spoke unto* the children of Israel, and every one of their princes gave him a rod apiece, for each prince one, acording to their father's houses, even twelve rods...
...He lifted a candle that Rod had left ready on the table and stole softly to her bedside...
...you're a man and a brother, that's what you are, and to prove it I'll take the first watch and call you up at 1 o'clock to take the second so that I can be ready for my school work tomorrow...
...If you'll let me, then I'll run to the bridge 'cross lots like lightning and bring him back...
...Perry couldn't have done any better with what you had on hand...
...The boy continued, but without raising his eyes from the Bible: "3...
...Oh, Aunt Boynton," cried the boy, "I love my name after I've heard about the almond rod...
...His aunt had required him from the time when he was proficient enough to do so to read at least a part of a chapter in the Bible every night...
...Cephas Cole, tending store for Baxter, proposes to Patty and is rejected...
...Rod asked, tiptoeing to the door...
...Sound men will learn to do without jails, recognizing that so-called criminals are properly speaking candidates either for educational reformatory or for a custodial hospital, and therefore again I turn gladly towards the dawn of the new Health...
...I did the best I know how...
...Rod asked in a very wavering and tearful voice...
...I don't know how I should get along without you, boy...
...Patty has two admirers—Mark Wilson, an educated young' man...
...He chafed her hands and gently poured a spoonful of brandy between her pale lips...
...Ivory Boynton, whose father disappeared, is interested in Waitstill...
...She assented and leaning heavily on his slender shoulder, walked feebly into her bedroom off the living room...
...All - the rods in these Exodus chapters do such dreadful things...
...from increased prosperity, higher incomes, the more equitable distribution and the more rational use of wealth...
...Was anything wrong...
...I forgot, Aunt Boynton...
...Here, hi...
...And thou shalt write Aaron's name upon the rod of Levi...
...she looked just like the picture of Pocahontas in my history...
...Patience sympathizes...
...I have forgotten the place...
...wondered the boy, almost sick with remorse, although he had tried his best to evade her command to read the chapter aloud...
...How does that suit you...
...They become serpents, and one of them swallows up all the others, and Moses smites the waters with a rod, and they become blood, and the people can't drink the water and the fish die...
...When his aunt was in the room his instinct kept him from doing this, for the mere mention of the name of Aaron, he feared might sadden his aunt and provoke in her that dangerous vein of reminiscence that made Ivory so anxious...
...Rodman had read on, absorbed in the story and the picture as presented to his imagination...
...I want my son...
...m \ Little Hasty Bishop Boyd Carpenter, formerly ot Ripon, and now Canon of Westminster, on one occasion was to officiate at a fashionable West End wedding...
...He felt her hands and feet and found the soap-stone in the bed, saw the brandy bottle and the remains of a cup of milk on the light stand, noted the handkerchief, still strong of camphor, on the counterpane and the blanket spread carefully over her knees, and then turned approvingly to meet Rod stealing into the room on tiptoe, his eyes big with fear...
...Oh...
...To punish Waitstill for disobedience Deacon Baxter locks her out all night...
...Bring him quickly before I forget what I want to say to him...
...What added to the excitement was the fact that his uncle's Christian name, Aaron, kept appearing in the chronicle as frequently as that of the great lawgiver Moses himself, and there were many verses about the wonder working rods of Moses and Aaron that had a strange effect upon the boy's ear when he read them aloud, as he loved to do whenever he was left alone for a time...
...Ivory would be the prince of our house," he thought...
...Have I got a middle name, Aunt Boyn'ton, for I don't like Rod very much...
...I tried not to when i saw uncle's name in most every verse, but i couldn't help it...
...I never heard that you had a middle name...
...Through the boy's mind there darted the Hash of a thought, a .sad thought...
...Ivory went in with fear and trembling, for there was no sound save the ticking of the tall clock...
...She was sleeping like a child, but exhaustion showed itself in every line' of her face...
...Perhaps you'll have to go for Dr...
...Here Ivory patted Rod's shoulder...
...came in a feeble voice from the bedroom...
...Magnificent carriages and motor-cars rushed up with the splendidly dressed guests, and at the end of a long string of fine equipages came a ramshackle old four-wheeler...
...Boynton was not in full sympathy...
...When you go a little further you will find pleasanter things about rods," said his aunt, knitting, knitting intensely, as was her habit, and talking as if her mind were 1,000 miles away...
...Can I study it by myself and read it to Ivory first...
...and, behold, the rod of Aaron was budded and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds...
...before many minutes her lids fluttered, her lips moved, and she put her hand to her heart...
...write thou every man's name upon his rod...
...asked the boy, as Ivory stood regarding him with a friendly smile...
...Ivory's father abandoned his family to follow Jacob Cochrane, a mystic...
...Boynton's shoes, put it under her cold feet...
...Boynton...
Vol. 6 • August 1914 • No. 31
