AS time wore along, Tom got into the habit of dropping in at Penrose’s
and of spending an evening now and then. At first he would find himself
there once in every ten days or two weeks; in time his visits became
more and more frequent. Elihu was always very glad to see him and Patty
herself seemed pleased at his coming. I think that some of the happiest
evenings of his life were those spent in sitting on the porch of the
old mill-house in the long summer twilights—Elihu and he smoking their
pipes, he telling his adventures at sea and Patty sitting listening
to him. Often some one of the young men of the neighborhood would be
at the house, and then it was not so pleasant for Tom; his talk would
cease, and after a little while, perhaps, he would arise and bid them
farewell. Patty and her visitor would usually sit apart talking and
laughing together, and it would strike Tom how much more easy she
seemed in the company of others than she did with him. More than once
when he called he found that she had gone out riding with one of these
young men, and then he and Elihu would spend the evening together, and
the old man would seem quite contented, for neither Patty nor he seemed
to think that Tom’s visits were meant for any one else than him.
One First-day evening Tom mustered up courage to ask Patty to take a
walk with him. That evening is impressed upon his mind even yet, for he
was very happy. There was a dim glow in the sky to the westward, and
the road stretched away grey and glimmering between the blackness of
the banks and bushes alongside of it. So, walking slowly and talking
but little, they came to the bridge just below Whiteley’s barn, and
there they stood leaning on the parapet, looking up the stream into the
black woods beyond, from which came the many murmuring whispers of the
summer’s night. All the air was laden with the spicy odor of the night
woods, and through the silence the sound of the rushing and gurgling of
the water of the brook came to them clearly and distinctly. There was
a bit of marshy land beyond, over which flew fireflies in thousands,
here gleaming a brilliant spark and there leaving a long trail of light
against the black woodlands behind. For some time they both leaned upon
the bridge without saying a word; it was Patty that broke the silence
at last.
“Does thee know, Thomas,” said she, “that when thee first came home I
was dreadfully afraid of thee? Thee seemed to me to be so much older
than I was, and then thee’d seen so much on thy travels.”
“Thee ain’t afraid of me now, is thee, Patty?”
“No, indeed; it seems as though thee might almost be a cousin of mine,
I know thee so well. It does father so much good to see thee; he’s
never been the same since mother died till now.”
There was a moment or two before Tom spoke.
“Perhaps it isn’t thy father I come to see, Patty,” said he, in a low
voice. He leaned over the edge of the bridge as he spoke and looked
fixedly into the dark rushing water beneath.
Patty made no answer, and Tom was not sure that she heard him. Neither
of them said another word until Patty said, in a low voice, “I guess
we’d better go home now, Thomas.”
Then they turned and walked back again to the old mill. Tom opened the
gate for Patty. “Farewell, Patty,” said he.
“Won’t thee come up and see father, Thomas?” said she.
“Not to-night.”
“Farewell, then.”
Tom watched her until she had gone up the porch steps and was hidden by
the vines that were clustered about it. He heard Elihu say, “Where’s
Thomas?” but he did not hear Patty’s answer; then he turned and walked
slowly homeward.
The summer passed, the fall passed, the winter passed, and the spring
time had come again.
Tom’s walk with Patty seemed to have broken through the smoothness of
the acquaintance betwixt the three.
Elihu had never been the same to him since that night; he had never
been as cordial or as friendly as he had been before.
Sometimes it seemed to Tom as though Patty herself was growing tired of
seeing so much of him. At such times he would vow within himself as he
walked homeward that he would never call there again, and yet he always
went back after a while.
So things moved along without that pleasant friendliness in their
acquaintanceship until that occurred which altered the face of
everything.
One First-day afternoon, Tom found himself standing on the porch of the
mill-house. It was in the early part of April, but the day was very
mild and soft, and Elihu and Patty were sitting on the porch.
“How is thee, Thomas?” said Elihu. He did not take the pipe from his
lips as he spoke, neither did he ask the other to be seated. Tom stood
leaning against the post and no one spoke for a while.
“Isn’t it a lovely day?” said Patty.
“Yes, it is,” said Tom; “would thee like to take a walk up the road as
far as Whiteley’s?”
“Yes, I would,” said Patty; “I haven’t been away from the house all
day.”
“It’s very damp; it’s too damp to walk,” said Elihu; “besides, thee’s
got thy thin shoes on.”
“But we’ll walk in the road, father; I’ll promise not to go off of
the road. I’ll put on heavier shoes if thee thinks that these are too
thin.”
“Very well, do as thee pleases,” said Elihu, sharply; “I think it’s too
damp, but I suppose thee’ll do as thee chooses.” Then he knocked the
ashes out of his pipe and went into the house without another word,
shutting the door carefully behind him.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t want me to go,” said Patty; “it’s a lovely
day for a walk. Wait till I go in and speak to him, maybe he’ll change
his mind;” and she followed her father into the house.
“I can’t bear this any longer;” said Tom to himself. “I’ll have it over
this afternoon, or I’ll never come here again. I’ll ask her to be my
wife, and if the worst comes to the worst I’ll ship for another cruise.”
Presently Patty came out of the house again. She had thrown a scarf
over her shoulders. “Is thee ready to go, Thomas?” said she.
“Yes; I’m ready.”
There was very little talk between them as they walked on side by side,
for Tom’s heart was too full of that which was upon his mind to say
much with his lips; so they went down the road into the hollow, past
the old mill, over the bridge that crossed Stony Brook just beyond,
up the hill on the other side, past Whiteley’s farm-house, and so
to the further crest of the hill that overlooked Rocky Creek Valley
beyond. There they stopped and stood beside the fence at the roadside,
looking down into the valley beneath them. It was a fair sight that lay
spread out before their eyes—field beyond field, farm-house, barn and
orchard, all bathed in the soft yellow sunshine, saving here and there
where a cloud cast a purple shadow that moved slowly across the hills
and down into the valleys.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” said Patty, as she leaned against the rough
fence, looking out across the valley, while the wind stirred the hair
at her cheeks and temples.
“Yes; it is;” said Tom, “it’s a goodly world to live in, Patty.”
Then silence fell between them.
“There’s the old Naylor homestead,” said Patty at last.
“Yes; I see it,” said Tom, shortly, glancing as he spoke in the
direction which she pointed. Then, after a while, he continued, “What a
queer man Isaac Naylor is!”
“I don’t see anything queer about him,” said Patty, looking down at the
toe of her shoe.
“Well, I never saw a man like him.”
“He is a very good worthy man, and everybody respects him,” said Patty,
warmly.
“Oh! I don’t deny that,” said Tom, with a pang at his heart.
“Thee couldn’t truthfully deny it if thee would, Thomas,” said Patty.
“I’m only a rough sea-faring man,” said Tom. “I don’t know that any one
respects me very much.” He waited a moment, but Patty said nothing;
then he went on again:
“For all that, I’d rather be a man of thirty at thirty, and not as dead
to all things as though I was a man of eighty. Isaac Naylor is more
like a man of eighty than he is like one of thirty. No one would take
him to be only five years older than I am.”
“I don’t know any man that I respect as much as I do Isaac Naylor,”
said Patty. “I don’t like to hear thee talk against him as thee does.
He has never spoken ill of thee.”
“Thee need never be afraid of my saying anything more against him,”
said Tom, bitterly; “I see that thee likes him more than I thought thee
did. I might have known it too, from the way that he has been visiting
thee during this last month or two.”
“Why shouldn’t he visit me, Thomas?”
“The Lord knows!”
She made no answer to this, and presently Tom spoke again.
“I’m going off to sea before long, Patty,” said he, for it seemed to
him just then that the sea was a fit place for him to be. Patty made no
answer to this; she was picking busily at the fringe of the scarf that
hung about her shoulders.
“How soon is thee going, Thomas?” said she at last.
“Oh! I don’t know; in three or four weeks, I guess. It doesn’t matter,
does it?”
Patty made no reply.
Tom was leaning on the fence, looking out across the valley, but seeing
nothing. His mind was in a whirl, for he was saying unto himself,
“Now is the time, be a man, speak your heart boldly, for this is the
opportunity!”
Twice he tried to bring himself to speak, and twice his heart failed
him. The third time that he strove, he broke the silence.
“Patty,” said he. His heart was beating thickly, but there was no
turning back now, for the first word had been spoken.
Patty must have had an inkling of what was in Tom’s mind, for her bosom
was rising and falling quickly.
“Patty,” said Tom again.
“What is it, Thomas?” said she, in a trembling voice, and without
raising her head.
Tom was picking nervously at the rough bark upon the fence-rail near to
him, but he was looking at Patty.
“Thee knows why I have been coming to see thee all this time, doesn’t
thee, Patty?”
“No,” whispered Patty.
“Thee doesn’t know?”
“No.”
It seemed to Tom as though the beating of his heart would smother him:
“Because,—because I love thee, Patty,” said he.
Patty’s head sunk lower and lower, but she neither moved nor spoke.
Then Tom said again, “I love thee, Patty.”
He waited for a while and then he said: “Won’t thee speak to me,
Patty?”
“What does thee want me to say?” whispered she.
“Does thee love me?”
Silence.
“Does thee love me?”
Tom was standing very close to her as he spoke; when she answered it
was hardly above her breath, but low as the whisper was he caught it—
“Yes.”
Ah me! those days have gone by now, and I am an old man of four score
years and more, but even yet my old heart thrills at the remembrance
of this that I here write. Manifold troubles and griefs have fallen
upon me betwixt then and now; yet, I can say, when one speaks to me of
the weariness of this world and of the emptiness of things within it,
“Surely, life is a pleasant thing, when it holds such joys in store for
us as this,—the bliss of loving and of being loved.”
Half an hour afterward, Tom was walking down the road toward the old
mill-house, and in his hand he held the hand of his darling—his first
love—and life was very beautiful to him.