Story of Waitstill Baxter Part 10

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

"No kind of an idee," responded his father, with a quizzical wink that was lost on the young man, as his eyes were fixed upon his whittling.

"Does she belong to the village?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Let them do the training," responded his father, peacefully puffing out the words with his pipe between his lips. "Some of 'em's mild and gentle in discipline, like Parson Boone's wife or Mis' Timothy Grant, and others is strict and firm like your mother and Mis' Abel Day. If you happen to git the first kind, why, do as they tell you, and thank the Lord 't ain't any worse. If you git the second kind, jest let 'em put the blinders on you and trot as straight as you know how, without shying nor kickin' over the traces, nor bolting 'cause they've got control o'

the bit and 't ain't no use fightin' ag'in' their superior strength.--So fur as you can judge, in the early stages o' the game, my son,--which ain't very fur,--which kind have you picked out?"

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

"She's awful s.p.u.n.ky, the girl is, anybody can see that; but she's a young thing, and I thought bein' married would kind o' tame her down!"

"You can see how much marriage has tamed your mother down," observed Uncle Bart dispa.s.sionately; "howsomever, though your mother can't be called tame, she's got her good p'ints, for she's always to be counted on. The great thing in life, as I take it, Cephas, is to know exactly what to expect. Your mother's gen'ally credited with an onsartin temper, but folks does her great injustice in so thinking for in a long experience I've seldom come across a temper less onsartin than your mother's. You know exactly where to find her every mornin' at sun-up and every night at sundown. There ain't nothin' you can do to put her out o' temper, cause she's all out aforehand. You can jest go about your reg'lar business 'thout any fear of disturbin' her any further than she's disturbed a'ready, which is consid'rable. I don't mind it a mite nowadays, though, after forty years of it. It would kind o' gall me to keep a stiddy watch of a female's disposition day by day, wonderin'

when she was goin' to have a tantrum. A tantrum once a year's an awful upsettin' kind of a thing in a family, my son, but a tantrum every twenty-four hours is jest part o' the day's work." There was a moment's silence during which Uncle Bart puffed his pipe and Cephas whittled, after which the old man continued: "Then, if you happen to marry a temper like your mother's, Cephas, look what a pow'ful worker you gen'ally get! Look at the way they sweep an' dust an' scrub an' clean!

Watch 'em when they go at the dish-washin', an' how they whack the rollin'-pin, an' maul the eggs, an' heave the wood int' the stove, an'

slat the flies out o' the house! The mild and gentle ones enough, will be settin' in the kitchen rocker read-in' the almanac when there ain't no wood in the kitchen box, no doughnuts in the crock, no pies on the swing shelf in the cellar, an' the young ones goin' round without a second shift to their backs!"

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

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

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

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

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

XV. IVORY'S MOTHER

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

One could reach the Boynton house only by going up a long gra.s.s-grown lane that led from the high-road. It was a lonely place, and Aaron Boynton had bought it when he moved from Saco, simply because he secured it at a remarkable bargain, the owner having lost his wife and gone to live in Ma.s.sachusetts. Ivory would have sold it long ago had circ.u.mstances been different, for it was at too great a distance from the schoolhouse and from Lawyer Wilson's office to be at all convenient, but he dreaded to remove his mother from the environment to which she was accustomed, and doubted very much whether she would be able to care for a house to which she had not been wonted before her mind became affected. Here in this safe, secluded corner, amid familiar and thoroughly known conditions, she moved placidly about her daily tasks, performing them with the same care and precision that she had used from the beginning of her married life. All the heavy work was done for her by Ivory and Rodman; the boy in particular being the fleetest-footed, the most willing, and the neatest of helpers; washing dishes, sweeping and dusting, laying the table, as deftly and quietly as a girl. Mrs.

Boynton made her own simple dresses of gray calico in summer, or dark linsey-woolsey in winter by the same pattern that she had used when she first came to Edgewood: in fact there were positively no external changes anywhere to be seen, tragic and terrible as had been those that had wrought havoc in her mind.

Waitstill's heart beat faster as she neared the Boynton house. She had never so much as seen Ivory's mother for years. How would she be met?

Who would begin the conversation, and what direction would it take? What if Mrs. Boynton should refuse to talk to her at all? She walked slowly along the lane until she saw a slender, gray-clad figure stooping over a flower-bed in front of the cottage. The woman raised her head with a fawn-like gesture that had something in it of timidity rather than fear, picked some loose bits of green from the ground, and, quietly turning her back upon the on coming stranger, disappeared through the open front door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I should not think of asking questions, Mrs. Boynton."

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

"Ivory thought you might be lonely, and I wanted so much to know you that I could not keep away any longer, for I am lonely and unhappy too.

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

Waitstill stood a head higher than Ivory's mother and the glowing health of her, the steadiness of her voice, the warmth of her hand-clasp must have made her seem like a strong refuge to this storm-tossed derelict.

The deep furrow between Lois Boynton's eyes relaxed a trifle, the blood in her veins ran a little more swiftly under the touch of the young hand that held hers so closely. Suddenly a light came into her face and her lip quivered.

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

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

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

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

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

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