Story of Waitstill Baxter Part 3

"Don't you remember I got a free ride down-river one Friday and came home for Sunday, just to surprise you? And when I got here I found you ill in bed, with Mrs. Mason and Dr. Perry taking care of you. You could not speak, you were so ill, but they told me you had been up in New Hampshire to see your sister, that she had died, and that you had brought back her boy, who was only four years old. That was Rod. I took him into bed with me that night, poor, homesick little fellow, and, as you know, mother, he's never left us since."

"I didn't remember I had a sister. Is she dead, Ivory?" asked Mrs.

Boynton vaguely.

"If she were not dead, do you suppose you would have kept Rodman with us when we hadn't bread enough for our own two mouths, mother?" questioned Ivory patiently.

"No, of course not. I can't think how I can be so forgetful. It's worse sometimes than others. It 's worse to-day because I knew the Mayflowers were blooming and that reminded me it was time for your father to come home; you must forgive me, dear, and will you excuse me if I sit in the kitchen awhile? The window by the side door looks out towards the road, and if I put a candle on the sill it shines quite a distance. The lane is such a long one, and your father was always a sad stumbler in the dark! I shouldn't like him to think I wasn't looking for him when he's been gone since January."

Ivory's pipe went out, and his book slipped from his knee unnoticed.

His mother was more confused than usual, but she always was when spring came to remind her of her husband's promise. Somehow, well used as he was to her mental wanderings, they made him uneasy to-night. His father had left home on a fancied mission, a duty he believed to be a revelation given by G.o.d through Jacob Cochrane. The farm did not miss him much at first, Ivory reflected bitterly, for since his fanatical espousal of Cochranism his father's interest in such mundane matters as household expenses had diminished month by month until they had no meaning for him at all. Letters to wife and boy had come at first, but after six months--during which he had written from many places, continually deferring the date of his return-they had ceased altogether.

The rest was silence. Rumors of his presence here or there came from time to time, but though Parson Lane and Dr. Perry did their best, none of them were ever substantiated.

Where had those years of wandering been pa.s.sed, and had they all been given even to an imaginary and fantastic service of G.o.d? Was his father dead? If he were alive, what could keep him from writing? Nothing but a very strong reason, or a very wrong one, so his son thought, at times.

Since Ivory had grown to man's estate, he understood that in the later days of Cochrane's preaching, his "visions," "inspirations," and "revelations" concerning the marriage bond were a trifle startling from the old-fashioned, orthodox point of view. His most advanced disciples were to hold themselves in readiness to renounce their former vows and seek "spiritual consorts," sometimes according to his advice, sometimes as their inclinations prompted.

Had Aaron Boynton forsaken, willingly, the wife of his youth, the mother of his boy? If so, he must have realized to what straits he was subjecting them. Ivory had not forgotten those first few years of grinding poverty, anxiety, and suspense. His mother's mind had stood the strain bravely, but it gave way at last; not, however, until that fatal winter journey to New Hampshire, when cold, exposure, and fatigue did their worst for her weak body. Religious enthusiast, exalted and impressionable, a natural mystic, she had probably always been, far more so in temperament, indeed, than her husband; but although she left home on that journey a frail and heartsick woman, she returned a different creature altogether, blurred and confused in mind, with clouded memory and irrational fancies.

She must have given up hope, just then, Ivory thought, and her love was so deep that when it was uprooted the soil came with it. Now hope had returned because the cruel memory had faded altogether. She sat by the kitchen window in gentle expectation, watching, always watching.

And this is the way many of Ivory Boynton's evenings were spent, while the heart of him, the five-and-twenty-year-old heart of him, was longing to feel the beat of another heart, a girl's heart only a mile or more away. The ice in Saco Water had broken up and the white blocks sailed majestically down towards the sea; sap was mounting and the elm trees were budding; the trailing arbutus was blossoming in the woods; the robins had come;-everything was announcing the spring, yet Ivory saw no changing seasons in his future; nothing but winter, eternal winter there!

V. PATIENCE AND IMPATIENCE

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."

s.p.u.n.k, real, Simon-pure s.p.u.n.k, 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 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 Sat.u.r.day 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.