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 Barts 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 want smellin jest right. Bills 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. Ive put a new coat o paint on the ell just to please you; wont you get married and settle down with me? I love you so I cant eat nor drink nor tend store nor nothin!
Oh, IIcouldnt, Cephas, thank you; I just couldnt,dont ask me, cried Patty, as nervous as Cephas himself now that her first offer had really come; Im only seventeen and I dont feel like settling down, Cephas, and father wouldnt think of letting me get married.
Dont play tricks on me, Patty, and keep shovin me off so, an givin wrong reasons, pleaded Cephas. Whats the trouble with me? I know mothers tempers onsartain, but we never need go into the main house daytimes and fatherd allers stand up agin her if she didnt treat you right. Ive got a good trade and father has a hundred dollars o my savins that I can draw out to-morrer if youll have me.
I cant, Cephas; dont move; stay where you are; no, dont come any nearer; Im not fond of you that way, and, besides,and, besides
Her blush and her evident embarrassment gave Cephas a new fear.
You aint promised aready, be you? he asked anxiously; when there aint a feller anywheres around thats ever stepped foot over your fathers doorsill but jest me?
I havent promised anything or anybody,
Patty answered sedately, gaining her self-control by degrees, but I wont deny that Im considering; thats true!
Considerin who? asked Cephas, turning pale.
Oh,SEVERAL, if you must know the truth; and Pattys tone was cruel in its jauntiness.
SEVERAL! The word did not sound like ordinary work-a-day Riverboro English in Cephass 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 wouldnt do any better by youn I would. Id take a lickin for you any day, Cephas exclaimed abjectly, after a long pause.
That wouldnt make any difference, Cephas, said Patty firmly, moving towards the front door as if to end the interview. If I dont love you UNlicked, I couldnt 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! Its Mis Morrills 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. Pattys feet were glued to it, her buff calico skirts lifted high to escape harm.
I cant move, she cried. Oh! You stupid, stupid Cephas, how could you leave the molasses spigot turned on? See what youve done! Youve 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 wont notice it, and he is sure to miss the molasses. Youve ruined my shoes, and I simply cant 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 weeks wages were likely to be expended in molasses to make good the Deacons 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 Morrills jug, quick, and set it out on the steps for him to pick up. I dont know what youd do without me to plan for you! Lock the front door and hang fathers sign that hes 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 youve swabbed till it wont do any more good, then scrub! After that, I shouldnt wonder if you had to fan the floor with a newspaper or itll never get dry before father comes home. Ill sit on the flour barrel a little while and advise, but I cant stay long because Im going to a picnic. Hurry up and dont look as if you were going to die any minute! Its no use crying over spilt molasses. You dont suppose Im going to tell any tales after youve made me an offer of marriage, do you? Im not so mean as all that, though I may have my faults.
It was nearly two oclock before the card announcing Deacon Baxters 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? Haint been spillin molasses, have yer? Bet yer have! Good joke on Old Foxy!
X. ON TORY HILL
It had been a heavenly picnic the little trio all agreed as to that; and when Ivory saw the Baxter girls coming up the shady path that led along the river from the Indian Cellar to the bridge, it was a merry group and a transfigured Rodman that caught his eye. The boy, trailing on behind with the baskets and laden with tin dippers and wildflowers, seemed another creature from the big-eyed, quiet little lad he saw every day. He had chattered like a magpie, eaten like a bear, is torn his jacket getting wild columbines for Patty, been nicely darned by Waitstill, and was in a state of hilarity that rendered him quite unrecognizable.
X. ON TORY HILL
It had been a heavenly picnic the little trio all agreed as to that; and when Ivory saw the Baxter girls coming up the shady path that led along the river from the Indian Cellar to the bridge, it was a merry group and a transfigured Rodman that caught his eye. The boy, trailing on behind with the baskets and laden with tin dippers and wildflowers, seemed another creature from the big-eyed, quiet little lad he saw every day. He had chattered like a magpie, eaten like a bear, is torn his jacket getting wild columbines for Patty, been nicely darned by Waitstill, and was in a state of hilarity that rendered him quite unrecognizable.
Weve had a lovely picnic! called Patty; I wish you had been with us!
You didnt ask me! smiled Ivory, picking up Waitstills mending-basket from the nook in the trees where she had hidden it for safe-keeping.
Weve played games, Ivory, cried the boy. Patty made them up herself. First we had the Landing of the Pilgrims, and Waitstill made believe be the figurehead of the Mayflower. She stood on a great boulder and sang:
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast
and, oh! she was splendid! Then Patty was Pocahontas and I was Capn John Smith, and look, we are all dressed up for the Indian wedding!
Waitstill had on a crown of white birch bark and her braid of hair, twined with running ever-green, fell to her waist. Patty was wreathed with columbines and decked with some turkey feathers that she had put in her basket as too pretty to throw away. Waitstill looked rather conscious in her unusual finery, but Patty sported it with the reckless ease and innocent vanity that characterized her.
I shall have to run into fathers store to put myself tidy, Waitstill said, so good-bye, Rodman, well have another picnic some day. Patty, you must do the chores this afternoon, you know, so that I can go to choir rehearsal.
Rodman and Patty started up the hill gayly with their burdens, and Ivory walked by Waitstills side as she pulled off her birch-bark crown and twisted her braid around her head with a heightened color at being watched.
Ill say good-bye now, Ivory, but Ill see you at the meeting-house, she said, as she neared the store. Ill go in here and brush the pine needles off, wash my hands, and rest a little before rehearsal. Thats a puzzling anthem we have for to-morrow.
I have my horse here; let me drive you up to the church.
I cant, Ivory, thank you. Fathers orders are against my driving out with any one, you know.
Very well, the road is free, at any rate. Ill hitch my horse down here in the woods somewhere and when you start to walk I shall follow and catch up with you. Theres luckily only one way to reach the church from here, and your father cant blame us if we both take it!
And so it fell out that Ivory and Waitstill walked together in the cool of the afternoon to the meeting-house on Tory Hill. Waitstill kept the beaten path on one side and Ivory that on the other, so that the width of the country road, deep in dust, was between them, yet their nearness seemed so tangible a thing that each could feel the heart beating in the others side. Their talk was only that of tried friends, a talk interrupted by long beautiful silences; silences that come only to a man and woman whose understanding of each other is beyond question and answer. Not a sound broke the stillness, yet the very air, it seemed to them, was shedding meanings: the flowers were exhaling a love secret with their fragrances, the birds were singing it boldly from the tree-tops, yet no word passed the mans lips or the girls. Patty would have hung out all sorts of signals and lures to draw the truth from Ivory and break through the walls of his self-control, but Waitstill, never; and Ivory Boynton was made of stuff so strong that he would not speak a syllable of love to a woman unless he could say all. He was only five-and-twenty, but he had been reared in a rigorous school, and had learned in its poverty, loneliness, and anxiety lessons of self-denial and self-control that bore daily fruit now. He knew that Deacon Baxter would never allow any engagement to exist between Waitstill and himself; he also knew that Waitstill would never defy and disobey her father if it meant leaving her younger sister to fight alone a dreary battle for which she was not fitted. If there was little hope on her side there seemed even less on his. His mothers mental illness made her peculiarly dependent upon him, and at the same time held him in such strict bondage that it was almost impossible for him to get on in the world or even to give her the comforts she needed. In villages like Riverboro in those early days there was no putting away, even of men or women so demented as to be something of a menace to the peace of the household; but Lois Boynton was so gentle, so fragile, so exquisite a spirit, that she seemed in her sad aloofness simply a thing to be sheltered and shielded somehow in her difficult life journey. Ivory often thought how sorely she needed a daughter in her affliction. If the baby sister had only lived, the home might have been different; but alas! there was only a son,a son who tried to be tender and sympathetic, but after all was nothing but a big, clumsy, uncomprehending man-creature, who ought to be felling trees, ploughing, sowing, reaping, or at least studying law, making his own fortune and that of some future wife. Old Mrs. Mason, a garrulous, good-hearted grandame, was their only near neighbor, and her visits always left his mother worse rather than better. How such a girl as Waitstill would pour comfort and beauty and joy into a lonely house like his, if only he were weak enough to call upon her strength and put it to so cruel a test. God help him, he would never do that, especially as he could not earn enough to keep a larger family, bound down as he was by inexorable responsibilities. Waitstill, thus far in life, had suffered many sorrows and enjoyed few pleasures; marriage ought to bring her freedom and plenty, not carking care and poverty. He stole long looks at the girl across the separating space that was so helpless to separate,feeding his starved heart upon her womanly graces. Her quick, springing step was in harmony with the fire and courage of her mien. There was a line or two in her face,small wonder; but an unconquerable soul shone in her eyes; shone, too, in no uncertain way, but brightly and steadily, expressing an unshaken joy in living. Valiant, splendid, indomitable Waitstill! He could never tell her, alas! but how he gloried in her!