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.”
“Well, there ain't going to be no more argyfyin’!”
“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!”
“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!”
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.
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.