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.
Cephas therefore, by the middle of October, could be picturesquely and
alliteratively described as being raw from repeated rejections.
His bruised heart and his despised ell literally cried out for the
appreciation so long and blindly withheld. Now all at once Phoebe
disclosed a second virtue; her first and only one, hitherto, in the eyes
of Cephas, having been an ability to get on with his mother, a feat in
which many had made an effort and few indeed had succeeded. Phoebe, it
seems, had always secretly admired, respected, and loved Cephas Cole!
Never since her pale and somewhat glassy blue eye had opened on life had
she beheld a being she could so adore if encouraged in the attitude.
The moment this unusual and unexpected poultice was really applied to
Cephas's wounds, they began to heal. In the course of a month the most
ordinary observer could have perceived a physical change in him. He
cringed no more, but held his head higher; his back straightened; his
voice developed a gruff, assertive note, like that of a stern Roman
father; he let his moustache grow, and sometimes, in his most reckless
moments, twiddled the end of it. Finally he swaggered; but that was only
after Phoebe had accepted him and told him that if a girl traversed the
entire length of the Saco River (which she presumed to be the longest in
the world, the Amazon not being familiar to her), she could not hope to
find his equal as a husband.
And then congratulations began to pour in! Was ever marriage so
fortuitous! The Coles' farm joined that of the Days and the union
between the two only children would cement the friendship between the
families. The fact that Uncle Bart was a joiner, Cephas a painter, and
Abel Day a mason and bricklayer made the alliance almost providential in
its business opportunities. Phoebe's Massachusetts aunt sent a complete
outfit of gilt-edged china, a clock, and a mahogany chamber set. Aunt
Abby relinquished to the young couple a bedroom and a spare chamber in
the “main part,” while the Days supplied live-geese feathers and table
and bed-linen with positive prodigality. Aunt Abby trod the air like one
inspired. “Balmy” is the only adjective that could describe her.
“If only I could 'a' looked ahead,” smiled Uncle Bart quizzically to
himself, “I'd 'a' had thirteen sons and daughters an' married off one
of 'em every year. That would 'a' made Abby's good temper kind o'
permanent.”
Cephas was content, too. There was a good deal in being settled and
having “the whole doggoned business” off your hands. Phoebe looked a
very different creature to him in these latter days. Her eyes were just
as pale, of course, but they were brighter, and they radiated love
for him, an expression in the female eye that he had thus far been
singularly unfortunate in securing. She still held her mouth slightly
open, but Cephas thought that it might be permissible, perhaps after
three months of wedded bliss, to request her to be more careful in
closing it. He believed, too, that she would make an effort to do so
just to please him; whereas a man's life or property would not be safe
for a single instant if he asked Miss Patience Baxter to close her
mouth, not if he had been married to her for thirty times three months!
Cephas did not think of Patty any longer with bitterness, in these days,
being of the opinion that she was punished enough in observing his own
growing popularity and prosperity.
“If she should see that mahogany chamber set going into the ell I guess
she'd be glad enough to change her tune!” thought Cephas, exultingly;
and then there suddenly shot through his mind the passing fancy--“I
wonder if she would!” He promptly banished the infamous suggestion
however, reinforcing his virtue with the reflection that the chamber
set was Phoebe's, anyway, and the marriage day appointed, and the
invitations given out, and the wedding-cake being baked, a loaf at a
time, by his mother and Mrs. Day.
As a matter of fact Patty would have had no eyes for Phoebe's
magnificent mahogany, even had the cart that carried it passed her on
the hill where she and Mark Wilson were walking. Her promise to marry
him was a few weeks old now, and his arm encircled her slender waist
under the brown homespun cape. That in itself was a new sensation and
gave her the delicious sense of belonging to somebody who valued her
highly, and assured her of his sentiments clearly and frequently, both
by word and deed. Life, dull gray life, was going to change its hue for
her presently, and not long after, she hoped, for Waitstill, too! It
needed only a brighter, a more dauntless courage; a little faith that
nettles, when firmly grasped, hurt the hand less, and a fairer future
would dawn for both of them. The Deacon was a sharper nettle than she
had ever meddled with before, but in these days, when the actual contact
had not yet occurred, she felt sure of herself and longed for the moment
when her pluck should be tested and proved.
The “publishing” of Cephas and his third choice, their dull walk up the
aisle of the meeting-house before an admiring throng, on the Sunday when
Phoebe would “appear bride,” all this seemed very tame as compared with
the dreams of this ardent and adventurous pair of lovers who had gone
about for days harboring secrets greater and more daring, they thought,
than had ever been breathed before within the hearing of Saco Water.