The Story of Waitstill Baxter. Wiggin Kate Douglas Smith

had a sight of comfort out of the baby, but I wouldn’t go through it again, not even for her! You’re real smart and capable for your age and you’ve done your full share of the work every day, even when you were at school. You can get along all right.”

      “I don’t know how I’m going to do everything alone,” said the girl, forcing back her tears. “You’ve always made the brown bread, and mine will never suit father. I suppose I can wash, but don’t know how to iron starched clothes, nor make pickles, and oh! I can never kill a rooster, mother, it’s no use to ask me to! I’m not big enough to be the head of the family.”

      Mrs. Baxter turned her pale, tired face away from Waitstill’s appealing eyes.

      “I know,” she said faintly. “I hate to leave you to bear the brunt alone, but I must!… Take good care of Patience and don’t let her get into trouble.... You won’t, will you?”

      “I’ll be careful,” promised Waitstill, sobbing quietly; “I’ll do my best.”

      “You’ve got more courage than ever I had; don’t you s’pose you can stiffen up and defend yourself a little mite?… Your father’d ought to be opposed, for his own good… but I’ve never seen anybody that dared do it.” Then, after a pause, she said with a flash of spirit,—“Anyhow, Waitstill, he’s your father after all. He’s no blood relation of mine, and I can’t stand him another day; that’s the reason I’m willing to die.”

      IV. SOMETHING OF A HERO

      IVORY BOYNTON lifted the bars that divided his land from the highroad and walked slowly toward the house. It was April, but there were still patches of snow here and there, fast melting under a drizzling rain. It was a gray world, a bleak, black-and-brown world, above and below. The sky was leaden; the road and the footpath were deep in a muddy ooze flecked with white. The tree-trunks, black, with bare branches, were lined against the gray sky; nevertheless, spring had been on the way for a week, and a few sunny days would bring the yearly miracle for which all hearts were longing.

      Ivory was season-wise and his quick eye had caught many a sign as he walked through the woods from his schoolhouse. A new and different color haunted the tree-tops, and one had only to look closely at the elm buds to see that they were beginning to swell. Some fat robins had been sunning about in the school-yard at noon, and sparrows had been chirping and twittering on the fence-rails. Yes, the winter was over, and Ivory was glad, for it had meant no coasting and skating and sleighing for him, but long walks in deep snow or slush; long evenings, good for study, but short days, and greater loneliness for his mother. He could see her now as he neared the house, standing in the open doorway, her hand shading her eyes, watching, always watching, for some one who never came.

      “Spring is on the way, mother, but it isn’t here yet, so don’t stand there in the rain,” he called. “Look at the nosegay I gathered for you as I came through the woods. Here are pussy willows and red maple blossoms and Mayflowers, would you believe it?”

      Lois Boynton took the handful of budding things and sniffed their fragrance.

      “You’re late to-night, Ivory,” she said. “Rod wanted his supper early so that he could go off to singing-school, but I kept something warm for you, and I’ll make you a fresh cup of tea.”

      Ivory went into the little shed room off the kitchen, changed his muddy boots for slippers, and made himself generally tidy; then he came back to the living-room bringing a pine knot which he flung on the fire, waking it to a brilliant flame.

      “We can be as lavish as we like with the stumps now, mother, for spring is coming,” he said, as he sat down to his meal.

      “I’ve been looking out more than usual this afternoon,” she replied. “There’s hardly any snow left, and though the walking is so bad I’ve been rather expecting your father before night. You remember he said, when he went away in January, that he should be back before the Mayflowers bloomed?”

      It did not do any good to say: “Yes, mother, but the Mayflowers have bloomed ten times since father went away.” He had tried that, gently and persistently when first her mind began to be confused from long grief and hurt love, stricken pride and sick suspense.

      Instead of that, Ivory turned the subject cheerily, saying, “Well, we’re sure of a good season, I think. There’s been a grand snow-fall, and that, they say, is the poor man’s manure. Rod and I will put in more corn and potatoes this year. I shan’t have to work single-handed very long, for he is growing to be quite a farmer.”

      “Your father was very fond of green corn, but he never cared for potatoes,” Mrs. Boynton said, vaguely, taking up her knitting. “I always had great pride in my cooking, but I could never get your father to relish my potatoes.”

      “Well, his son does, anyway,” Ivory replied, helping himself plentifully from a dish that held one of his mother’s best concoctions, potatoes minced fine and put together into the spider with thin bits of pork and all browned together.

      “I saw the Baxter girls to-day, mother,” he continued, not because he hoped she would give any heed to what he said, but from the sheer longing for companionship. “The Deacon drove off with Lawyer Wilson, who wanted him to give testimony in some case or other down in Milltown. The minute Patty saw him going up Saco Hill, she harnessed the old starved Baxter mare and the girls started over to the Lower Corner to see some friends. It seems it’s Patty’s birthday and they were celebrating. I met them just as they were coming back and helped them lift the rickety wagon out of the mud; they were stuck in it up to the hubs of the wheels. I advised them to walk up the Town-House Hill if they ever expected to get the horse home.”

      “Town-House Hill!” said Ivory’s mother, dropping her knitting. “That was where we had such wonderful meetings! Truly the Lord was present in our midst, and oh, Ivory! the visions we saw in that place when Jacob Cochrane first unfolded his gospel to us. Was ever such a man!”

      “Probably not, mother,” remarked Ivory dryly.

      “You were speaking of the Baxters. I remember their home, and the little girl who used to stand in the gateway and watch when we came out of meeting. There was a baby, too; isn’t there a Baxter baby, Ivory?”

      “She didn’t stay a baby; she is seventeen years old to-day, mother.”

      “You surprise me, but children do grow very fast. She had a strange name, but I cannot recall it.”

      “Her name is Patience, but nobody but her father calls her anything but Patty, which suits her much better.”

      “No, the name wasn’t Patience, not the one I mean.”

      “The older sister is Waitstill, perhaps you mean her?”—and Ivory sat down by the fire with his book and his pipe.

      “Waitstill! Waitstill! that is it! Such a beautiful name!”

      “She’s a beautiful girl.”

      “Waitstill! ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’ ‘Wait, I say, on the Lord and He will give thee the desires of thy heart.’—Those were wonderful days, when we were caught up out of the body and mingled freely in the spirit world.” Mrs. Boynton was now fully started on the topic that absorbed her mind and Ivory could do nothing but let her tell the story that she had told him a hundred times.

      “I remember when first we heard Jacob Cochrane speak.” (This was her usual way of beginning.) “Your father was a preacher, as you know, Ivory, but you will never know what a wonderful preacher he was. My grandfather, being a fine gentleman, and a governor, would not give his consent to my marriage, but I never regretted it, never! Your father saw Elder Cochrane at a revival meeting of the Free Will Baptists in Scarboro’, and was much impressed with him. A few days later we went to the funeral of a child in the same neighborhood. No one who was there could ever forget it. The minister had made his long prayer when a man suddenly entered the room, came towards the coffin, and placed his hand on the child’s forehead. The room, in an instant, was as still as the death that had called us together. The stranger was tall and of commanding presence; his eyes pierced our very hearts, and his marvellous voice penetrated to depths in our