IT was a Sunday in June, and almost the whole population of
Riverboro and Edgewood was walking or driving in the direction of the
meeting-house on Tory Hill.
Church toilettes, you may well believe, were difficult of attainment by
Deacon Baxter's daughters, as they had been by his respective helpmates
in years gone by. When Waitstill's mother first asked her husband to buy
her a new dress, and that was two years after marriage, he simply said:
“You look well enough; what do you want to waste money on finery for,
these hard times? If other folks are extravagant, that ain't any
reason you should be. You ain't obliged to take your neighbors for an
example:--take 'em for a warnin'!”
“But, Foxwell, my Sunday dress is worn completely to threads,” urged the
second Mrs. Baxter.
“That's what women always say; they're all alike; no more idea o' savin'
anything than a skunk-blackbird! I can't spare any money for gew-gaws,
and you might as well understand it first as last. Go up attic and open
the hair trunk by the winder; you'll find plenty there to last you for
years to come.”
The second Mrs. Baxter visited the attic as commanded, and in turning
over the clothes in the old trunk, knew by instinct that they had
belonged to her predecessor in office. Some of the dresses were neat,
though terribly worn and faded, but all were fortunately far too short
and small for a person of her fine proportions. Besides, her very soul
shrank from wearing them, and her spirit revolted both from the insult
to herself and to the poor dead woman she had succeeded, so she came
downstairs to darn and mend and patch again her shabby wardrobe.
Waitstill had gone through the same as her mother before her, but in
despair, when she was seventeen, she began to cut over the old garments
for herself and Patty. Mercifully there were very few of them, and they
had long since been discarded. At eighteen she had learned to dye yarns
with yellow oak or maple bark and to make purples from elder and sumac
berries; she could spin and knit as well as any old “Aunt” of the
village, and cut and shape a garment as deftly as the Edgewood
tailoress, but the task of making bricks without straw was a hard one,
indeed.
She wore a white cotton frock on this particular Sunday. It was starched
and ironed with a beautiful gloss, while a touch of distinction was
given to her costume by a little black sleeveless “roundabout” made
out of the covering of an old silk umbrella. Her flat hat had a single
wreath of coarse daisies around the crown, and her mitts were darned in
many places, nevertheless you could not entirely spoil her; God had used
a liberal hand in making her, and her father's parsimony was a sort of
boomerang that flew back chiefly upon himself.
As for Patty, her style of beauty, like Cephas Cole's ell had to be
toned down rather than up, to be effective, but circumstances had been
cruelly unrelenting in this process of late. Deacon Baxter had given the
girls three or four shopworn pieces of faded yellow calico that had been
repudiated by the village housewives as not “fast” enough in color
to bear the test of proper washing. This had made frocks, aprons,
petticoats, and even underclothes, for two full years, and Patty's
weekly objurgations when she removed her everlasting yellow dress from
the nail where it hung were not such as should have fallen from the lips
of a deacon's daughter. Waitstill had taken a piece of the same yellow
material, starched and ironed it, cut a curving, circular brim from it,
sewed in a pleated crown, and lo! a hat for Patty! What inspired Patty
to put on a waist ribbon of deepest wine color, with a little band of
the same on the pale yellow hat, no one could say.
“Do you think you shall like that dull red right close to the yellow,
Patty?” Waitstill asked anxiously.
“It looks all right on the columbines in the Indian Cellar,” replied
Patty, turning and twisting the hat on her head. “If we can't get a peek
at the Boston fashions, we must just find our styles where we can!”
The various roads to Tory Hill were alive with vehicles on this bright
Sunday morning. Uncle Bart and Abel Day, with their respective wives on
the back seat of the Cole's double wagon, were passed by Deacon Baxter
and his daughters, Waitstill being due at meeting earlier than others by
reason of her singing in the choir. The Deacon's one-horse, two-wheeled
“shay” could hold three persons, with comfort on its broad seat, and
the twenty-year-old mare, although she was always as hollow as a gourd,
could generally do the mile, uphill all the way, in half an hour, if
urged continually, and the Deacon, be it said, if not good at feeding,
was unsurpassed at urging.
Aunt Abby Cole could get only a passing glimpse of Patty in the depths
of the “shay,” but a glimpse was always enough for her, as her opinion
of the girl's charms was considerably affected by the forlorn condition
of her son Cephas, whom she suspected of being hopelessly in love
with the young person aforesaid, to whom she commonly alluded as “that
red-headed bag-gage.”
“Patience Baxter's got the kind of looks that might do well enough at a
tavern dance, or a husking, but they're entirely unsuited to the Sabbath
day or the meetin'-house,” so Aunt Abby remarked to Mrs. Day in the
way of backseat confidence. “It's unfortunate that a deacon's daughter
should be afflicted with that bold style of beauty! Her hair's all but
red; in fact, you might as well call it red, when the sun shines on it:
but if she'd ever smack it down with bear's grease she might darken it
some; or anyhow she'd make it lay slicker; but it's the kind of hair
that just matches that kind of a girl,--sort of up an' comin'! Then her
skin's so white and her cheeks so pink and her eyes so snappy that she'd
attract attention without half trying though I guess she ain't above
makin' an effort.”
“She's innocent as a kitten,” observed Mrs. Day impartially.
“Oh, yes, she's innocent enough an' I hope she'll keep so! Waitstill's
a sight han'somer, if the truth was told; but she's the sort of girl
that's made for one man and the rest of em never look at her. The other
one's cut out for the crowd, the more the merrier. She's a kind of
man-trap, that girl is!--Do urge the horse a little mite, Bartholomew!
It makes me kind o' hot to be passed by Deacon Baxter. It's Missionary
Sunday, too, when he gen'ally has rheumatism too bad to come out.”
“I wonder if he ever puts anything into the plate,” said Mrs. Day. “No
one ever saw him, that I know of.”
“The Deacon keeps the Thou Shalt Not commandments pretty well,” was Aunt
Abby's terse response. “I guess he don't put nothin' into the plate,
but I s'pose we'd ought to be thankful he don't take nothin' out. The
Baptists are gettin' ahead faster than they'd ought to, up to the Mills.
Our minister ain't no kind of a proselyter, Seems as if he didn't care
how folks got to heaven so long as they got there! The other church is
havin' a service this afternoon side o' the river, an' I'd kind o' like
to go, except it would please 'em too much to have a crowd there to
see the immersion. They tell me, but I don't know how true, that that
Tillman widder woman that come here from somewheres in Vermont wanted to
be baptized to-day, but the other converts declared THEY wouldn't be, if
she was!”
“Jed Morrill said they'd have to hold her under water quite a spell to
do any good,” chuckled Uncle Bart from the front seat.
“Well, I wouldn't repeat it, Bartholomew, on the Sabbath day; not if he
did say it. Jed Morrill's responsible for more blasphemious jokes
than any man in Edgewood. I don't approve of makin' light of anybody's
religious observances if they're ever so foolish,” said Aunt Abby
somewhat enigmatically. “Our minister keeps remindin' us that the
Baptists and Methodists are our brethren, but I wish he'd be a little
more anxious to have our S'ceity keep ahead of the others.”
“Jed's 'bout right in sizin' up the Widder Tillman,” was Mr. Day's timid
contribution to the argument. “I ain't a readin' man, but from what
folks report I should think she was one o' them critters that set on
rocks bewilderin' an' bedevilin' men-folks out o' their senses--SYREENS,
I think they call 'em; a reg'lar SYREEN is what that woman is, I guess!”
“There, there, Abel, you wouldn't know a syreen if you found one in your
baked beans, so don't take away a woman's character on hearsay.” And
Mrs. Day, having shut up her husband as was her bounden duty as a wife
and a Christian, tied her bonnet strings a little tighter and looked
distinctly pleased with herself.
“Abel ain't startin' any new gossip,” was Aunt Abby's opinion, as she
sprung to his rescue. “One or two more holes in a colander don't make
much dif'rence.--Bartholomew, we're certainly goin' to be late this
mornin'; we're about the last team on the road”; and Aunt Abby glanced
nervously behind. “Elder Boone ain't begun the openin' prayer, though,
or we should know it. You can hear him pray a mile away, when the wind's
right. I do hate to be late to meetin'. The Elder allers takes notice;
the folks in the wing pews allers gapes an' stares, and the choir peeks
through the curtain, takin' notes of everything you've got on your back.
I hope to the land they'll chord and keep together a little mite better
'n they've done lately, that's all I can say! If the Lord is right in
our midst as the Bible says, He can't think much of our singers this
summer!”
“They're improvin', now that Pliny Waterhouse plays his fiddle,” Mrs.
Day remarked pacifically. “There was times in the anthem when they kept
together consid'able well last Sunday. They didn't always chord, but
there, they chorded some!--we're most there now, Abby, don't fret!
Cephas won't ring the last bell till he knows his own folks is crossin'
the Common!”
Those were days of conscientious church-going and every pew in the house
was crowded. The pulpit was built on pillars that raised it six feet
higher than the floor; the top was cushioned and covered with red velvet
surmounted by a huge gilt-edged Bible. There was a window in the tower
through which Cephas Cole could look into the church, and while tolling
the bell could keep watch for the minister. Always exactly on time, he
would come in, walk slowly up the right-hand aisle, mount the pulpit
stairs, enter and close the door after him. Then Cephas would give
one tremendous pull to warn loiterers on the steps; a pull that meant,
“Parson's in the pulpit!” and was acted upon accordingly. Opening the
big Bible, the minister raised his right hand impressively, and saying,
“Let us pray,” the whole congregation rose in their pews with a great
rustling and bowed their heads devoutly for the invocation.
Next came the hymn, generally at that day one of Isaac Watts's. The
singers, fifteen or twenty in number, sat in a raised gallery opposite
the pulpit, and there was a rod in front hung with red curtains to
hide them when sitting down. Any one was free to join, which perhaps
accounted for Aunt Abby's strictures as to time and tune. Jed Morrill,
“blasphemious” as he was considered by that acrimonious lady, was the
leader, and a good one, too. There would be a great whispering and
buzzing when Deacon Sumner with his big fiddle and Pliny Waterhouse with
his smaller one would try to get in accord with Humphrey Baker and
his clarionet. All went well when Humphrey was there to give the sure
key-note, but in his absence Jed Morrill would use his tuning-fork. When
the key was finally secured by all concerned, Jed would raise his
stick, beat one measure to set the time, and all joined in, or fell in,
according to their several abilities. It was not always a perfect thing
in the way of a start, but they were well together at the end of the
first line, and when, as now, the choir numbered a goodly number of
voices, and there were three or four hundred in the pews, nothing more
inspiring in its peculiar way was ever heard, than the congregational
singing of such splendid hymns as “Old Hundred,” “Duke Street,” or
“Coronation.”
Waitstill led the trebles, and Ivory was at the far end of the choir in
the basses, but each was conscious of the other's presence. This morning
he could hear her noble voice rising a little above, or, perhaps from
its quality, separating itself somehow, ever so little, from the others.
How full of strength and hope it was, her voice! How steadfast to the
pitch; how golden its color; how moving in its crescendos! How the words
flowed from her lips; not as if they had been written years ago, but
as if they were the expression of her own faith. There were many in the
congregation who were stirred, they knew not why, when there chanced to
be only a few “carrying the air” and they could really hear Waitstill
Baxter singing some dear old hymn, full of sacred memories, like:--
“While Thee I seek, protecting Power,
Be my vain wishes stilled!
And may this consecrated hour
With better hopes be filled.”
“There may be them in Boston that can sing louder, and they may be able
to run up a little higher than Waitstill, but the question is, could any
of 'em make Aunt Abby Cole shed tears?” This was Jed Morrill's tribute
to his best soprano.
There were Sunday evening prayer-meetings, too, held at “early
candlelight,” when Waitstill and Lucy Morrill would make a duet of “By
cool Siloam's Shady Rill,” or the favorite “Naomi,” and the two fresh
young voices, rising and falling in the tender thirds of the old tunes,
melted all hearts to new willingness of sacrifice.
“Father, whate'er of earthly bliss
Thy sov'reign will denies,
Accepted at Thy Throne of grace
Let this petition rise!
“Give me a calm, a thankful heart,
From every murmur free!
The blessing of Thy grace impart
And let me live to Thee!”
How Ivory loved to hear Waitstill sing these lines! How they eased his
burden as they were easing hers, falling on his impatient, longing heart
like evening dew on thirsty grass!