THE waving signal, a little later on, showed that Rodman could go to the
picnic, the fact being that he was having a holiday from eleven o'clock
until two, and Ivory was going to drive to the bridge at noon, anyway,
so his permission could then be asked.
Patty's mind might have been thought entirely on her ugly task as she
swept and dusted and scrubbed that morning, but the reverse was true.
Mark Wilson had gone away without saying good-bye to her. This was not
surprising, perhaps, as she was about as much sequestered in her hilltop
prison as a Turkish beauty in a harem; neither was it astonishing that
Mark did not write to her. He never had written to her, and as her
father always brought home the very infrequent letters that came to the
family, Mark knew that any sentimental correspondence would be fraught
with danger. No, everything was probably just as it should be, and
yet,--well, Patty had expected during the last three weeks that
something would happen to break up the monotony of her former existence.
She hardly knew what it would be, but the kiss dropped so lightly on her
cheek by Mark Wilson still burned in remembrance, and made her sure that
it would have a sequel, or an explanation.
Mark's sister Ellen and Phil Perry were in the midst of some form of
lover's quarrel, and during its progress Phil was paying considerable
attention to Patty at Sabbath School and prayer-meeting, occasions, it
must be confessed, only provocative of very indirect and long-distance
advances. Cephas Cole, to the amazement of every one but his
(constitutionally) exasperated mother, was “toning down” the ell of the
family mansion, mitigating the lively yellow, and putting another fresh
coat of paint on it, for no conceivable reason save that of pleasing the
eye of a certain capricious, ungrateful young hussy, who would probably
say, when her verdict was asked, that she didn't see any particular
difference in it, one way or another.
Trade was not especially brisk at the Deacon's emporium this sunny June
Saturday morning. Cephas may have possibly lost a customer or two by
leaving the store vacant while he toiled and sweated for Miss Patience
Baxter in the stockroom at the back, overhanging the river, but no
man alive could see his employer's lovely daughter tugging at a keg of
shingle nails without trying to save her from a broken back, although
Cephas could have watched his mother move the house and barn without
feeling the slightest anxiety in her behalf. If he could ever get the
“heft” of the “doggoned” cleaning out of the way so that Patty's mind
could be free to entertain his proposition; could ever secure one
precious moment of silence when she was not slatting and banging,
pushing and pulling things about, her head and ears out of sight under a
shelf, and an irritating air of absorption about her whole demeanor;
if that moment of silence could ever, under Providence, be simultaneous
with the absence of customers in the front shop, Cephas intended to
offer himself to Patience Baxter that very morning.
Once, during a temporary lull in the rear, he started to meet his fate
when Rodman Boynton followed him into the back room, and the boy was at
once set to work by Patty, who was the most consummate slave-driver
in the State of Maine. After half an hour there was another Heavensent
chance, when Rodman went up to Uncle Bart's shop with a message for
Waitstill, but, just then, in came Bill Morrill, a boy of twelve, with a
request for a gallon of molasses; and would Cephas lend him a stone jug
over Sunday, for his mother had hers soakin' out in soap-suds 'cause 't
wa'n't smellin' jest right. Bill's message given, he hurried up the road
on another errand, promising to call for the molasses later.
Cephas put the gallon measure under the spigot of the molasses hogshead
and turned on the tap. The task was going to be a long one and he grew
impatient, for the stream was only a slender trickle, scarcely more than
the slow dripping of drops, so the molasses must be very never low, and
with his mind full of weightier affairs he must make a note to tell the
Deacon to broach a new hogshead. Cephas feared that he could never make
out a full gallon, in which case Mrs. Morrill would be vexed, for she
kept mill boarders and baked quantities of brown bread and gingerbread
and molasses cookies for over Sunday. He did wish trade would languish
altogether on this particular morning. The minutes dragged by and again
there was perfect quiet in the stock-room. As the door opened, Cephas,
taking his last chance, went forward to meet Patty, who was turning down
the skirt of her dress, taking the cloth off her head, smoothing her
hair, and tying on a clean white ruffed apron, in which she looked as
pretty as a pink.
“Patty!” stammered Cephas, seizing his golden opportunity, “Patty, keep
your mind on me for a minute. I've put a new coat o' paint on the ell
just to please you; won't you get married and settle down with me? I
love you so I can't eat nor drink nor 'tend store nor nothin'!”
“Oh, I--I--couldn't, Cephas, thank you; I just couldn't,--don't ask me,”
cried Patty, as nervous as Cephas himself now that her first offer had
really come; “I'm only seventeen and I don't feel like settling down,
Cephas, and father wouldn't think of letting me get married.”
“Don't play tricks on me, Patty, and keep shovin' me off so, an' givin'
wrong reasons,” pleaded Cephas. “What's the trouble with me? I know
mother's temper's onsartain, but we never need go into the main house
daytimes and father'd allers stand up ag'in' her if she didn't treat
you right. I've got a good trade and father has a hundred dollars o' my
savin's that I can draw out to-morrer if you'll have me.”
“I can't, Cephas; don't move; stay where you are; no, don't come any
nearer; I'm not fond of you that way, and, besides,--and, besides--”
Her blush and her evident embarrassment gave Cephas a new fear.
“You ain't promised a'ready, be you?” he asked anxiously; “when there
ain't a feller anywheres around that's ever stepped foot over your
father's doorsill but jest me?”
“I haven't promised anything or anybody,”
Patty answered sedately, gaining her self-control by degrees, “but I
won't deny that I'm considering; that's true!”
“Considerin' who?” asked Cephas, turning pale.
“Oh,--SEVERAL, if you must know the truth”; and Patty's tone was cruel
in its jauntiness.
“SEVERAL!” The word did not sound like ordinary work-a-day Riverboro
English in Cephas's ears. He knew that “several” meant more than one,
but he was too stunned to define the term properly in its present
strange connection.
“Whoever 't is wouldn't do any better by you'n I would. I'd take a
lickin' for you any day,” Cephas exclaimed abjectly, after a long pause.
“That wouldn't make any difference, Cephas,” said Patty firmly, moving
towards the front door as if to end the interview. “If I don't love you
UNlicked, I couldn't love you any better licked, now, could I?--Goodness
gracious, what am I stepping in? Cephas, quick! Something has been
running all over the floor. My feet are sticking to it.”
“Good Gosh! It's Mis' Morrill's molasses!” cried Cephas, brought to his
senses suddenly.
It was too true! Whatever had been the small obstruction in the tap,
it had disappeared. The gallon measure had been filled to the brim ten
minutes before, and ever since, the treacly liquid had been overflowing
the top and spreading in a brown flood, unnoticed, over the floor.
Patty's feet were glued to it, her buff calico skirts lifted high to
escape harm.
“I can't move,” she cried. “Oh! You stupid, stupid Cephas, how could you
leave the molasses spigot turned on? See what you've done! You've wasted
quarts and quarts! What will father say, and how will you ever clean up
such a mess? You never can get the floor to look so that he won't notice
it, and he is sure to miss the molasses. You've ruined my shoes, and I
simply can't bear the sight of you!”
At this Cephas all but blubbered in the agony of his soul. It was bad
enough to be told by Patty that she was “considering several,” but
his first romance had ended in such complete disaster that he saw in
a vision his life blasted; changed in one brief moment from that of a
prosperous young painter to that of a blighted and despised bungler,
whose week's wages were likely to be expended in molasses to make good
the Deacon's loss.
“Find those cleaning-cloths I left in the hack room,” ordered Patty with
a flashing eye. “Get some blocks, or bits of board, or stones, for me to
walk on, so that I can get out of your nasty mess. Fill Bill Morrill's
jug, quick, and set it out on the steps for him to pick up. I don't know
what you'd do without me to plan for you! Lock the front door and hang
father's sign that he's gone to dinner on the doorknob. Scoop up all the
molasses you can with one of those new trowels on the counter. Scoop,
and scrape, and scoop, and scrape; then put a cloth on your oldest
broom, pour lots of water on, pail after pail, and swab! When you've
swabbed till it won't do any more good, then scrub! After that, I
shouldn't wonder if you had to fan the floor with a newspaper or it'll
never get dry before father comes home. I'll sit on the flour barrel a
little while and advise, but I can't stay long because I'm going to a
picnic. Hurry up and don't look as if you were going to die any minute!
It's no use crying over spilt molasses. You don't suppose I'm going to
tell any tales after you've made me an offer of marriage, do you? I'm
not so mean as all that, though I may have my faults.”
It was nearly two o'clock before the card announcing Deacon Baxter's
absence at dinner was removed from the front doorknob, and when the
store was finally reopened for business it was a most dejected clerk who
dealt out groceries to the public. The worst feature of the affair was
that every one in the two villages suddenly and contemporaneously wanted
molasses, so that Cephas spent the afternoon reviewing his misery by
continually turning the tap and drawing off the fatal liquid. Then, too,
every inquisitive boy in the neighborhood came to the back of the store
to view the operation, exclaiming: “What makes the floor so wet? Hain't
been spillin' molasses, have yer? Bet yer have! Good joke on Old Foxy!”