Chapter 12

After Dr. Perry had talked with her for a half-hour and examined her sufficiently to make at least a reasonable guess as to her mental and physical condition, he advised Ivory to break the news of her husband's death to her.

“If you can get her to comprehend it,” he said, “it is bound to be a relief from this terrible suspense.”

“Will there be any danger of making her worse? Mightn't the shock Cause too violent emotion?” asked Ivory anxiously.

“I don't think she is any longer capable of violent emotion,” the doctor answered. “Her mind is certainly clearer than it was three years ago, but her body is nearly burned away by the mental conflict. There is scarcely any part of her but is weary; weary unto death, poor soul. One cannot look at her patient, lovely face without longing to lift some part of her burden. Make a trial, Ivory; it's a justifiable experiment and I think it will succeed. I must not come any oftener myself than is absolutely necessary; she seemed afraid of me.”

The experiment did succeed. Lois Boynton listened breathlessly, with parted lips, and with apparent comprehension, to the story Ivory told her. Over and over again he told her gently the story of her husband's death, trying to make it sink into her mind clearly, so that there should be no consequent bewilderment She was calm and silent, though her face showed that she was deeply moved. She broke down only when Ivory showed her the locket.

“I gave it to my husband when you were born, my son!” she sobbed. “After all, it seems no surprise to me that your father is dead. He said he would come back when the Mayflowers bloomed, and when I saw the autumn leaves I knew that six months must have gone and he would never stay away from us for six months without writing. That is the reason I have seldom watched for him these last weeks. I must have known that it was no use!”

She rose from her rocking-chair and moved feebly towards her bedroom. “Can you spare me the rest of the day, Ivory?” she faltered, as she leaned on her son and made her slow progress from the kitchen. “I must bury the body of my grief and I want to be alone at first... If only I could see Waitstill! We have both thought this was coming: she has a woman's instinct... she is younger and stronger than I am, and she said it was braver not to watch and pine and fret as I have done... but to have faith in God that He would send me a sign when He was ready.... She said if I could manage to be braver you would be happier too... .” Here she sank on to her bed exhausted, but still kept up her murmuring faintly and feebly, between long intervals of silence.

“Do you think Waitstill could come to-morrow?” she asked. “I am so much braver when she is here with me.... After supper I will put away your father's cup and plate once and for all, Ivory, and your eyes need never fill with tears again, as they have, sometimes, when you have seen me watching.... You needn't worry about me; I am remembering better these days, and the bells that ring in my ears are not so loud. If only the pain in my side were less and I were not so pressed for breath, I should be quite strong and could see everything clearly at last. ... There is something else that remains to be remembered. I have almost caught it once and it must come to me again before long.... Put the locket under my pillow, Ivory; close the door, please, and leave me to myself.... I can't make it quite clear, my feeling about it, but it seems just as if I were going to bury your father and I want to be alone.”

XXII. HARVEST-TIME

NEW ENGLAND'S annual pageant of autumn was being unfolded day by day in all its accustomed splendor, and the feast and riot of color, the almost unimaginable glory, was the common property of the whole countryside, rich and poor, to be shared alike if perchance all eyes were equally alive to the wonder and the beauty.

Scarlet days and days of gold followed fast one upon the other; Saco Water flowing between quiet woodlands that were turning red and russet and brown, and now plunging through rocky banks all blazing with crimson.

Waitstill Baxter went as often as she could to the Boynton farm, though never when Ivory was at home, and the affection between the younger and the older woman grew closer and closer, so that it almost broke Waitstill's heart to leave the fragile creature, when her presence seemed to bring such complete peace and joy.

“No one ever clung to me so before,” she often thought as she was hurrying across the fields after one of her half-hour visits. “But the end must come before long. Ivory does not realize it yet, nor Rodman, but it seems as if she could never survive the long winter. Thanksgiving Day is drawing nearer and nearer, and how little I am able to do for a single creature, to prove to God that I am grateful for my existence! I could, if only I were free, make such a merry day for Patty and Mark and their young friends. Oh! what joy if father were a man who would let me set a bountiful table in our great kitchen; would sit at the head and say grace, and we could bow our heads over the cloth, a united family! Or, if I had done my duty in my home and could go to that other where I am so needed--go with my father's blessing! If only I could live in that sad little house and brighten it! I would trim the rooms with evergreen and creeping-Jenny; I would put scarlet alder berries and white ever-lastings and blue fringed gentians in the vases! I would put the last bright autumn leaves near Mrs. Boynton's bed and set out a tray with a damask napkin and the best of my cooking; then I would go out to the back door where the woodbine hangs like a red waterfall and blow the dinner-horn for my men down in the harvest-field! All the woman in me is wasting, wasting! Oh! my dear, dear man, how I long for him! Oh! my own dear man, my helpmate, shall I ever live by his side? I love him, I want him, I need him! And my dear little unmothered, unfathered boy, how happy I could make him! How I should love to cook and sew for them all and wrap them in comfort! How I should love to smooth my dear mother's last days,--for she is my mother, in spirit, in affection, in desire, and in being Ivory's!”

Waitstill's longing, her discouragement, her helplessness, overcame her wholly, and she flung herself down under a tree in the pasture in a very passion of sobbing, a luxury in which she could seldom afford to indulge herself. The luxury was short-lived, for in five minutes she heard Rodman's voice, and heard him running to meet her as he often did when she came to their house or went away from it, dogging her footsteps or Patty's whenever or wherever he could waylay them.

“Why, my dear, dear Waity, did you tumble and hurt yourself?” the boy cried.

“Yes, dreadfully, but I'm better now, so walk along with me and tell me the news, Rod.”

“There isn't much news. Ivory told you I'd left school and am studying at home? He helps me evenings and I'm 'way ahead of the class.”

“No, Ivory didn't tell me. I haven't seen him lately.”

“I said if the big brother kept school, the little brother ought to keep house,” laughed the boy.

“He says I can hire out as a cook pretty soon! Aunt Boynton's 'most always up to get dinner and supper, but I can make lots of things now,-- things that Aunt Boynton can eat, too.”

“Oh, I cannot bear to have you and Ivory cooking for yourselves!” exclaimed Waitstill, the tears starting again from her eyes. “I must come over the next time when you are at home, Rod, and I can help you make something nice for supper.

“We get along pretty well,” said Rodman contentedly. “I love book-learning like Ivory and I'm going to be a schoolmaster or a preacher when Ivory's a lawyer. Do you think Patty'd like a schoolmaster or a preacher best, and do you think I'd be too young to marry her by and by, if she would wait for me?”

“I didn't think you had any idea of marrying Patty,” laughed Waitstill through her tears. “Is this something new?”

“It's not exactly new,” said Rod, jumping along like a squirrel in the path. “Nobody could look at Patty and not think about marrying her. I'd love to marry you, too, but you re too big and grand for a boy. Of course, I'm not going to ask Patty yet. Ivory said once you should never ask a girl until you can keep her like a queen; then after a minute he said: 'Well, maybe not quite like a queen, Rod, for that would mean longer than a man could wait. Shall we say until he could keep her like the dearest lady in the land?' That 's the way he said it.--You do cry dreadfully easy to-day, Waity; I'm sure you barked your leg or skinned your knee when you fell down.--Don't you think the 'dearest lady in the land' is a nice-sounding sentence?”

“I do, indeed!” cried Waitstill to herself as she turned the words over and over trying to feed her hungry heart with them.

“I love to hear Ivory talk; it's like the stories in the books. We have our best times in the barn, for I'm helping with the milking, now. Our yellow cow's name is Molly and the red cow used to be Dolly, but we changed her to Golly, 'cause she's so troublesome. Molly's an easy cow to milk and I can get almost all there is, though Ivory comes after me and takes the strippings. Golly swishes her tail and kicks the minute she hears us coming; then she stands stiff-legged and grits her teeth and holds on to her milk HARD, and Ivory has to pat and smooth and coax her every single time. Ivory says she's got a kind of an attachment inside of her that she shuts down when he begins to milk.”

“We had a cross old cow like that, once,” said Waitstill absently, loving to hear the boy's chatter and the eternal quotations from his beloved hero.

“We have great fun cooking, too,” continued Rod. “When Aunt Boynton was first sick she stayed in bed more, and Ivory and I hadn't got used to things. One morning we bound up each other's burns. Ivory had three fingers and I two, done up in buttery rags to take the fire out. Ivory called us 'Soldiers dressing their Wounds after the Battle.' Sausages spatter dreadfully, don't they? And when you turn a pancake it flops on top of the stove. Can you flop one straight, Waity?”

“Yes, I can, straight as a die; that's what girls are made for. Now run along home to your big brother, and do put on some warmer clothes under your coat; the weather's getting colder.”

“Aunt Boynton hasn't patched our thick ones yet, but she will soon, and if she doesn't, Ivory'll take this Saturday evening and do them himself; he said so.”

“He shall not!” cried Waitstill passionately. “It is not seemly for Ivory to sew and mend, and I will not allow it. You shall bring me those things that need patching without telling any one, do you hear, and I will meet you on the edge of the pasture Saturday afternoon and give them back to you. You are not to speak of it to any one, you understand, or perhaps I shall pound you to a jelly. You'd make a sweet rosy jelly to eat with turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, you dear, comforting little boy!”

Rodman ran towards home and Waitstill hurried along, scarcely noticing the beauties of the woods and fields and waysides, all glowing masses of goldenrod and purple frost flowers. The stone walls were covered with wild-grape and feathery clematis vines. Everywhere in sight the cornfields lay yellow in the afternoon sun and ox carts heavily loaded with full golden ears were going home to the barns to be ready for husking.

A sudden breeze among the orchard boughs as she neared the house was followed by a shower of russets, and everywhere the red Baldwins gleamed on the apple-tree boughs, while the wind-falls were being gathered and taken to the cider mills. There was a grove of maples on the top of Town-House Hill and the Baxters' dooryard was a blaze of brilliant color. To see Patty standing under a little rock maple, her brown linsey-woolsey in I one with the landscape, and the hood of her brown cape pulled over her bright head, was a welcome for anybody. She looked flushed and excited as she ran up to her sister and said, “Waity, darling, you've been crying! Has father been scolding you?”

“No, dear, but my heart is aching to-day so that I can scarcely bear it. A wave of discouragement came over me as I was walking through the woods, and I gave up to it a bit. I remembered how soon it will be Thanksgiving Day, and I'll so like to make it happier for you and a few others that I love.”

Patty could have given a shrewd guess as to the chief cause of the heartache, but she forebore to ask any questions. “Cheer up, Waity,” she cried. “You never can tell; we may have a thankful Thanksgiving, after all! Who knows what may happen? I'm 'strung up' this afternoon and in a fighting mood. I've felt like a new piece of snappy white elastic all day; it's the air, just like wine, so cool and stinging and full of courage! Oh, yes, we won't give up hope yet awhile, Waity, not until we're snowed in!”

“Put your arms round me and give me a good hug, Patty! Love me hard, HARD, for, oh! I need it badly just now!”

And the two girls clung together for a moment and then went into the house with hands close-locked and a kind of sad, desperate courage in their young hearts. What would either of them have done, each of them thought, had she been forced to endure alone the life that went on day after day in Deacon Baxter's dreary house?

XXIII. AUNT ABBY'S WINDOW

MRS. ABEL DAY had come to spend the afternoon with Aunt Abby Cole and they were seated at the two sitting-room windows, sweeping the landscape with eagle eyes in the intervals of making patchwork.

“The foliage has been a little mite too rich this season,” remarked Aunt Abby. “I b'lieve I'm glad to see it thinin' out some, so 't we can have some kind of an idee of what's goin' on in the village.”

“There's plenty goin' on,” Mrs. Day answered unctuously; “some of it aboveboard an' some underneath it.”

“An' that's jest where it's aggravatin' to have the leaves so thick and the trees so high between you and other folks' houses. Trees are good for shade, it's true, but there's a limit to all things. There was a time when I could see 'bout every-thing that went on up to Baxters', and down to Bart's shop, and, by goin' up attic, consid'able many things that happened on the bridge. Bart vows he never planted that plum tree at the back door of his shop; says the children must have hove out plum stones when they was settin' on the steps and the tree come up of its own accord. He says he didn't take any notice of it till it got quite a start and then 't was such a healthy young bush he couldn't bear to root it out. I tell him it's kind O' queer it should happen to come up jest where it spoils my view of his premises. Men folks are so exasperatin' that sometimes I wish there was somebody different for us to marry, but there ain't,--so there we be!”

“They are an awful trial,” admitted Mrs. Day. “Abel never sympathizes with my head-aches. I told him a-Sunday I didn't believe he'd mind if I died the next day, an' all he said was: 'Why don't you try it an' see, Lyddy?' He thinks that's humorous.”

“I know; that's the way Bartholomew talks; I guess they all do. You can see the bridge better 'n I can, Lyddy; has Mark Wilson drove over sence you've been settin' there? He's like one o' them ostriches that hides their heads in the sand when the bird-catchers are comin' along, thinkin' 'cause they can't see anything they'll never BE seen! He knows folks would never tell tales to Deacon Baxter, whatever the girls done; they hate him too bad. Lawyer Wilson lives so far away, he can't keep any watch o' Mark, an' Mis' Wilson's so cityfied an' purse-proud nobody ever goes to her with any news, bad or good; so them that's the most concerned is as blind as bats. Mark's consid'able stiddier'n he used to be, but you needn't tell me he has any notion of bringin' one o' that Baxter tribe into his family. He's only amusin' himself.”

“Patty'll be Mrs. Wilson or nothin',” was Mrs. Day's response. “Both o' them girls is silk purses an' you can't make sows' ears of 'em. We ain't neither of us hardly fair to Patty, an' I s'pose it 's because she didn't set any proper value on Cephas.”

“Oh, she's good enough for Mark, I guess, though I ain't so sure of his intentions as you be. She's nobody's fool, Patty ain't, I allow that, though she did treat Cephas like the dirt in the road. I'm thankful he's come to his senses an' found out the diff'rence between dross an' gold.”

“It's very good of you to put it that way, Abby,” Mrs. Day responded gratefully, for it was Phoebe, her own offspring, who was alluded to as the most precious of metals. “I suppose we'd better have the publishing notice put up in the frame before Sunday? There'll be a great crowd out that day and at Thanksgiving service the next Thursday too!”

“Cephas says he don't care how soon folks hears the news, now all's settled,” said his mother. “I guess he's kind of anxious that the village should know jest how little truth there is in the gossip 'bout him bein' all upset over Patience Baxter. He said they took consid'able notice of him an' Phoebe settin' together at the Harvest Festival last evenin'. He thought the Baxter girls would be there for certain, but I s'pose Old Foxy wouldn't let 'em go up to the Mills in the evenin', nor spend a quarter on their tickets.”

“Mark could have invited Patty an' paid for her ticket, I should think; or passed her in free, for that matter, when the Wilsons got up the entertainment; but, of course, the Deacon never allows his girls to go anywheres with men-folks.”

“Not in public; so they meet 'em side o' the river or round the corner of Bart's shop, or anywhere they can, when the Deacon's back's turned. If you tied a handkerchief over Waitstill's eyes she could find her way blindfold to Ivory Boynton's house, but she's good as gold, Waitstill is; she'll stay where her duty calls her, every time! If any misfortune or scandal should come near them two girls, the Deacon will have no-body but himself to thank for it, that's one sure thing!”

“Young folks can't be young but once,” sighed Mrs. Day. “I thought we had as handsome a turn-out at the entertainment last evenin' as any village on the Saco River could 'a' furnished: an' my Phoebe an' your Cephas, if I do say so as shouldn't, was about the best-dressed an' best-appearin' couple there was present. Also, I guess likely, they're startin' out with as good prospects as any bride an' groom that's walked up the middle aisle o' the meetin'-house for many a year.... How'd you like that Boston singer that the Wilsons brought here, Abby?--Wait a minute, is Cephas, or the Deacon, tendin' store this after-noon?”

“The Deacon; Cephas is paintin' up to the Mills.”

“Well, Mark Wilson's horse an' buggy is meanderin' slowly down Aunt Betty-Jack's hill, an' Mark is studyin' the road as if he was lookin' for a four-leafed clover.”

“He'll hitch at the tavern, or the Edgewood store, an' wait his chance to get a word with Patience,” said Aunt Abby. “He knows when she takes milk to the Morrills', or butter to the parsonage; also when she eats an' drinks an' winks her eye an' ketches her breath an' lifts her foot. Now he's disappeared an' we'll wait.. .. Why, as to that Boston singer,--an' by the way, they say Ellen Wilson's goin' to take lessons of her this winter,--she kind o' bewildered me, Lyddy! Of course, I ain't never been to any cities, so I don't feel altogether free to criticise; but what did you think of her, when she run up so high there, one time? I don't know how high she went, but I guess there wa'n't no higher to go!”

“It made me kind o' nervous,” allowed Mrs. Day.

“Nervous! Bart' an' I broke out in a cold sweat! He said she couldn't hold a candle to Waitstill Baxter. But it's that little fly-away Wilson girl that'll get the lessons, an' Waitstill will have to use her voice callin' the Deacon home to dinner. Things ain't divided any too well in this world, Lyddy.”

“Waitstill's got the voice, but she lacks the trainin'. The Boston singer knows her business, I'll say that for her,” said Mrs. Day.

“She's got good stayin' power,” agreed Aunt Abby. “Did you notice how she held on to that high note when she'd clumb where she wanted to git? She's got breath enough to run a gristmill, that girl has! And how'd she come down, when she got good and ready to start? Why, she zig-zagged an' saw-toothed the whole way! It kind o' made my flesh creep!”

“I guess part o' the trouble's with us country folks,” Mrs. Day responded, “for folks said she sung runs and trills better'n any woman up to Boston.”

“Runs an' trills,” ejaculated Abby scornfully. “I was talkin' 'bout singin' not runnin'. My niece Ella up to Parsonfield has taken three terms on the pianner an' I've heerd her practise. Scales has got to be done, no doubt, but they'd ought to be done to home, where they belong; a concert ain't no place for 'em... . There, what did I tell yer? Patience Baxter's crossin' the bridge with a pail in her hand. She's got that everlastin' yeller-brown, linsey-woolsey on, an' a white 'cloud' wrapped around her head with con'sid'able red hair showin' as usual. You can always see her fur's you can a sunrise! And there goes Rod Boynton, chasin' behind as usual. Those Baxter girls make a perfect fool o' that boy, but I don't s'pose Lois Boynton's got wit enough to make much fuss over the poor little creeter!”

Mark Wilson could certainly see Patty Baxter as far as he could a sunrise, although he was not intimately acquainted with that natural phenomenon. He took a circuitous route from his watch-tower, and, knowing well the point from which there could be no espionage from Deacon Baxter's store windows, joined Patty in the road, took the pail from her hand, and walked up the hill beside her. Of course, the village could see them, but, as Aunt Abby had intimated, there wasn't a man, woman, or child on either side of the river who wouldn't have taken the part of the Baxter girls against their father.

XXIV. PHOEBE TRIUMPHS

MEANTIME Feeble Phoebe Day was driving her father's horse up to the Mills to bring Cephas Cole home. It was a thrilling moment, a sort of outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual tie, for their banns were to be published the next day, so what did it matter if the community, nay, if the whole universe, speculated as to why she was drawing her beloved back from his daily toil? It had been an eventful autumn for Cephas. After a third request for the hand of Miss Patience Baxter, and a refusal of even more than common decision and energy, Cephas turned about face and employed the entire month of September in a determined assault upon the affections of Miss Lucy Morrill, but with no better avail. His heart was not ardently involved in this second wooing, but winter was approaching, he had moved his mother out of her summer quarters back to the main house, and he doggedly began papering the ell and furnishing the kitchen without disclosing to his respected parents the identity of the lady for whose comfort he was so hospitably preparing.

Cephas's belief in the holy state of matrimony as being the only one proper for a man, really ought to have commended him to the opposite (and ungrateful) sex more than it did, and Lucy Morrill held as respectful an opinion of the institution and its manifold advantages as Cephas himself, but she was in a very unsettled frame of mind and not at all susceptible to wooing. She had a strong preference for Philip Perry, and held an opinion, not altogether unfounded in human experience, that in course of time, when quite deserted by Patty Baxter, his heart might possibly be caught on the rebound. It was only a chance, but Lucy would almost have preferred remaining unmarried, even to the withering age of twenty-five, rather than not be at liberty to accept Philip Perry in case she should be asked.