AT the very moment that Deacon Baxter was I starting out on his quest
for a housekeeper, Patty and Mark drove into the Mason dooryard and the
sisters flew into each other's arms. The dress that Mark had bought
for Patty was the usual charting and unsuitable offering of a man's
spontaneous affection, being of dark violet cloth with a wadded cape
lined with satin. A little brimmed hat of violet velvet tied under her
chin with silk ribbons completed the costume, and before the youthful
bride and groom had left the ancestral door Mrs. Wilson had hung her own
ermine victorine (the envy of all Edgewood) around Patty's neck and put
her ermine willow muff into her new daughter's hands; thus she was as
dazzling a personage, and as improperly dressed for the journey, as she
could well be.
Waitstill, in her plain linsey-woolsey, was entranced with Patty's
beauty and elegance, and the two girls had a few minutes of sisterly
talk, of interchange of radiant hopes and confidences before Mark tore
them apart, their cheeks wet with happy tears.
As the Mason house faded from view, Patty having waved her muff until
the last moment, turned in her seat and said:--
“Mark, dear, do you think your father would care if I spent the
twenty-dollar gold-piece he gave me, for Waitstill? She will be married
in a fortnight, and if my father does not give her the few things she
owns she will go to her husband more ill-provided even than I was. I
have so much, dear Mark, and she so little.”
“It's your own wedding-present to use as you wish,” Mark answered, “and
it's exactly like you to give it away. Go ahead and spend it if you want
to; I can always earn enough to keep you, without anybody's help!” and
Mark, after cracking the whip vaingloriously, kissed his wife just over
the violet ribbons, and with sleigh-bells jingling they sped over the
snow towards what seemed Paradise to them, the New Hampshire village
where they had been married and where--
So a few days later, Waitstill received a great parcel which relieved
her of many feminine anxieties and she began to shape and cut and stitch
during all the hours she had to herself. They were not many, for every
day she trudged to the Boynton farm and began with youthful enthusiasm
the household tasks that were so soon to be hers by right.
“Don't waste too much time and strength here, my dearest,” said Ivory.
“Do you suppose for a moment I shall keep you long on this lonely farm?
I am ready for admission to the Bar or I am fitted to teach in the best
school in New England. Nothing has held me here but my mother, and in
her present condition of mind we can safely take her anywhere. We will
never live where there are so many memories and associations to sadden
and hamper us, but go where the best opportunity offers, and as soon as
may be. My wife will be a pearl of great price,” he added fondly, “and I
intend to provide a right setting for her!”
This was all said in a glow of love and joy, pride and ambition, as
Ivory paced up and down before the living-room fireplace while Waitstill
was hanging the freshly laundered curtains.
Ivory was right; Waitstill Baxter was, indeed, a jewel of a woman. She
had little knowledge, but much wisdom, and after all, knowledge stands
for the leaves on a tree and wisdom for the fruit. There was infinite
richness in the girl, a richness that had been growing and ripening
through the years that she thought so gray and wasted. The few books
she owned and loved had generally lain unopened, it is true, upon her
bedroom table, and she held herself as having far too little learning to
be a worthy companion for Ivory Boynton; but all the beauty and cheer
a comfort that could ever be pressed into the arid life of the Baxter
household had come from Waitstill's heart, and that heart had grown in
warmth and plenty year by year.
Those lonely tasks, too hard for a girl's hands, those unrewarded
drudgeries, those days of faithful labor in and out of doors, those
evenings of self-sacrifice over the mending-basket; the quiet avoidance
of all that might vex her father's crusty temper, her patience with his
miserly exactions; the hourly holding back of the hasty word,--all these
had played their part; all these had been somehow welded into a strong,
sunny, steady, life-wisdom, there is no better name for it; and so
she had unconsciously the best of all harvests to bring as dower to
a husband who was worthy of her. Ivory's strength called to hers and
answered it, just as his great need awoke such a power of helpfulness in
her as she did not know she possessed. She loved the man, but she loved
the task that beckoned her, too. The vision of it was like the breath
of wind from a hill-top, putting salt and savor into the new life that
opened before her.
These were quietly happy days at the farm, for Mrs. Boynton took a new,
if transient, hold upon life that deceived even the doctor. Rodman
was nearly as ardent a lover as Ivory, hovering about Waitstill and
exclaiming, “You never stay to supper and it's so lonesome evenings
without you! Will it never be time for you to come and live with us,
Waity dear? The days crawl so slowly!” At which Ivory would laugh, push
him away and draw Waitstill nearer to his own side, saying: “If you are
in a hurry, you young cormorant, what do you think of me?” And Waitstill
would look from one to the other and blush at the heaven of love that
surrounded her on every side.
“I believe you are longing to begin on my cooking, you two big greedy
boys!” she said teasingly. “What shall we have for New Year's dinner,
Rod? Do you like a turkey, roasted brown and crispy, with giblet gravy
and cranberry jelly? Do you fancy an apple dumpling afterwards,--an
apple dumpling with potato crust,--or will you have a suet pudding with
foamy sauce?”
“Stop, Waitstill!” cried Ivory. “Don't put hope into us until you are
ready to satisfy it; we can't bear it!”
“And I have a box of goodies from my own garden safely stowed away in
Uncle Bart's shop,” Waitstill went on mischievously. “They were to be
sold in Portland, but I think they'll have to be my wedding-present
to my husband, though a very strange one, indeed! There are peaches
floating in sweet syrup; there are tumblers of quince jelly; there are
jars of tomato and citron preserves, and for supper you shall eat them
with biscuits as light as feathers and white as snowdrifts.”
“We can never wait two more days, Rod; let us kidnap her! Let us take
the old bob-sled and run over to New Hampshire where one can be married
the minute one feels like it. We could do it between sunrise and
moonrise and be at home for a late supper. Would she be too tired to
bake the biscuits for us, do you think? What do you say, Rod, will
you be best man?” And there would be youthful, unaccustomed laughter
floating out from the kitchen or living-room, bringing a smile of
content to Lois Boynton's face as she lay propped up in bed with her
open Bible beside her. “He binds up the broken-hearted,” she whispered
to herself. “He gives unto them a garland for ashes; the oil of joy for
mourning; the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”
The quiet wedding was over. There had been neither feasting, nor finery,
nor presents, nor bridal journey; only a home-coming that meant deep and
sacred a joy, as fervent gratitude as any four hearts ever contained
in all the world. But the laughter ceased, though the happiness flowed
silently underneath, almost forgotten in the sudden sorrow that overcame
them, for it fell out that Lois Boynton had only waited, as it were, for
the marriage, and could stay no longer.
“... There are two heavens...
Both made of love,--one, inconceivable
Ev'n by the other, so divine it is;
The other, far on this side of the stars,
By men called home.”
And these two heavens met, over at Boyntons', during these cold, white,
glistening December days.
Lois Boynton found hers first. After a windy moonlit night a morning
dawned in which a hush seemed to be on the earth. The cattle huddled
together in the farmyards and the fowls shrank into their feathers. The
sky was gray, and suddenly the first white heralds came floating down
like scouts seeking for paths and camping-places.
Waitstill turned Mrs. Boynton's bed so that she could look out of
the window. Slope after slope, dazzling in white crust, rose one upon
another and vanished as they slipped away into the dark green of the
pine forests. Then,
“... there fell from out the skies
A feathery whiteness over all the land;
A strange, soft, spotless something, pure as light.”
It could not be called a storm, for there had been no wind since
sunrise, no whirling fury, no drifting; only a still, steady, solemn
fall of crystal flakes, hour after hour, hour after hour.
Mrs. Boynton's Book of books was open on the bed and her finger marked a
passage in her favorite Bible-poet.
“Here it is, daughter,” she whispered. “I have found it, in the same
chapter where the morning stars sing together and the sons of God shout
for joy. The Lord speaks to Job out of the whirlwind and says: 'HAST
THOU ENTERED INTO THE TREASURES OF THE SNOW? OR HAST THOU SEEN THE
TREASURES OF THE HAIL?' Sit near me, Waitstill, and look out on the
hills. 'HAST THOU ENTERED INTO THE TREASURES OF THE SNOW?' No, not yet,
but please God, I shall, and into many other treasures, soon”; and she
closed her eyes.
All day long the air-ways were filled with the glittering army of the
snowflakes; all day long the snow grew deeper and deeper on the ground;
and on the breath of some white-winged wonder that passed Lois Boynton's
window her white soul forsook its “earth-lot” and took flight at last.
They watched beside her, but never knew the moment of her going; it was
just a silent flitting, a ceasing to be, without a tremor, or a flutter
that could be seen by mortal eye. Her face was so like an angel's in its
shining serenity that the few who loved her best could not look upon her
with anything but reverent joy. On earth she had known nothing but the
“broken arcs,” but in heaven she would find the “perfect round”; there
at last, on the other side of the stars, she could remember right, poor
Lois Boynton!
For weeks afterwards the village was shrouded in snow as it had never
been before within memory, but in every happy household the home-life
deepened day by day. The books came out in the long evenings; the
grandsires told old tales under the inspiration of the hearth-fire: the
children gathered on their wooden stools to roast apples and pop corn;
and hearts came closer together than when summer called the housemates
to wander here and there in fields and woods and beside the river.
Over at Boyntons', when the snow was whirling and the wind howling round
the chimneys of the high-gabled old farmhouse; when every window had its
frame of ermine and fringe of icicles, and the sleet rattled furiously
against the glass, then Ivory would throw a great back log on the bank
of coals between the fire-dogs, the kettle would begin to sing, and
the eat come from some snug corner to curl and purr on the braided
hearth-rug.
School was in session, and Ivory and Rod had their textbooks of an
evening, but oh! what a new and strange joy to study when there was a
sweet woman sitting near with her workbasket; a woman wearing a shining
braid of hair as if it were a coronet; a woman of clear eyes and tender
lips, one who could feel as well as think, one who could be a man's
comrade as well as his dear love.
Truly the second heaven, the one on “this side of the stars, by men
called home,” was very present over at Boyntons'.
Sometimes the broad-seated old haircloth sofa would be drawn in front of
the fire, and Ivory, laying his pipe and his Greek grammar on the table,
would take some lighter book and open it on his knee. Waitstill would
lift her eyes from her sewing to meet her husband's glance that spoke
longing for her closer companionship, and gladly leaving her work, and
slipping into the place by his side, she would put her elbow on his
shoulder and read with him.
Once, Rod, from his place at a table on the other side of the room,
looked and looked at them with a kind of instinct beyond his years, and
finally crept up to Waitstill, and putting an arm through hers, nestled
his curly head on her shoulder with the quaint charm and grace that
belonged to him.
It was a young and beautiful shoulder, Waitstill's, and there had always
been, and would always be, a gracious curve in it where a child's head
might lie in comfort. Presently with a shy pressure, Rod whispered:
“Shall I sit in the other room, Waitstill and Ivory?--Am I in the way?”
Ivory looked up from his book quietly shaking his head, while Waitstill
put her arm around the boy and drew him closer.
“Our little brother is never in the way,” she said, as she bent and
kissed him.
Men may come and men may go; Saco Water still tumbles tumultuously over
the dam and rushes under the Edgewood bridge on its way to the sea;
and still it listens to the story of to-day that will sometime be the
history of yesterday.
On midsummer evenings the windows of the old farmhouse over at Boyntons'
gleam with unaccustomed lights and voices break the stillness, lessening
the gloom of the long grass-grown lane of Lois Boynton's watching in
days gone by. On sunny mornings there is a merry babel of children's
chatter, mingled with gentle maternal warnings, for this is a new brood
of young things and the river is calling them as it has called all
the others who ever came within the circle of its magic. The fragile
harebells hanging their blue heads from the crevices of the rocks;
the brilliant columbines swaying to and fro on their tall stalks; the
patches of gleaming sand in shallow places beckoning little bare feet
to come and tread them; the glint of silver minnows darting hither
and thither in some still pool; the tempestuous journey of some
weather-beaten log, fighting its way downstream;--here is life in
abundance, luring the child to share its risks and its joys.
When Waitstill's boys and Patty's girls come back to the farm, they play
by Saco Water as their mothers and their fathers did before them. The
paths through the pine woods along the river's brink are trodden smooth
by their restless, wandering feet; their eager, curious eyes search the
waysides for adventure, but their babble and laughter are oftenest heard
from the ruins of an old house hidden by great trees. The stones of
the cellar, all overgrown with blackberry vines, are still there; and
a fragment of the brick chimney, where swallows build their nests from
year to year. A wilderness of weeds, tall and luxuriant, springs up to
hide the stone over which Jacob Cochrane stepped daily when he issued
from his door; and the polished stick with which three-year-old Patty
beats a tattoo may be a round from the very chair in which he sat,
expounding the Bible according to his own vision. The thickets of sweet
clover and red-tipped grasses, of waving ferns and young alder bushes
hide all of ugliness that belongs to the deserted spot and serve as a
miniature forest in whose shade the younglings foreshadow the future
at their play of home-building and housekeeping. In a far corner,
altogether concealed from the passer-by, there is a secret treasure, a
wonderful rosebush, its green leaves shining with health and vigor. When
the July sun is turning the hay-fields yellow, the children part the
bushes in the leafy corner and little Waitstill Boynton steps cautiously
in, to gather one splendid rose, “for father and mother.”
Jacob Cochrane's heart, with all its faults and frailties has long been
at peace. On a chill, dreary night in November, all that was mortal of
him was raised from its unhonored resting-place not far from the ruins
of his old abode, and borne by three of his disciples far away to
another state. The gravestones were replaced, face downward, deep, deep
in the earth, and the sod laid back upon them, so that no man thence
forward could mark the place of the prophet's transient burial amid the
scenes of his first and only triumphant ministry.
“It is a sad story, Jacob Cochrane's,” Waitstill said to her husband
when she first discovered that her children had chosen the deserted spot
for their play; “and yet, Ivory, the red rose blooms and blooms in the
ruins of the man's house, and perhaps, somewhere in the world, he has
left a message that matches the rose.”