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Updated: May 19, 2025
"We've had a lovely picnic!" called Patty; "I wish you had been with us!" "You didn't ask me!" smiled Ivory, picking up Waitstill's mending-basket from the nook in the trees where she had hidden it for safe-keeping. "We've 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.
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.
"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!
I wa'n't intending to use the whip on your sister, Waitstill," continued the Deacon, with a crafty look at his silent daughter, "though a trouncin' would 'a' done her a sight o' good; but I was only tryin' to frighten her a little mite an' pay her up for bringin' disgrace on us the way she's done, makin' us the talk o' the town.
Waitstill stood motionless in the cold with such a throng of bewildering thoughts, misgivings, imaginings, rushing through her head that they were like a flock of birds beating their wings against her ears. The imaginings were not those of absolute dread or terror, for she knew her Patty.
Mason to keep me overnight," cried Waitstill, bethinking herself suddenly of time and place. "I will take you there myself and explain everything. And the moment I've lighted a fire in Mrs. Mason's best bedroom and settled you there, what do you think I am going to do?
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.
"Don't send your own child out into the cold. Remember her husband is away from home." "She can find another up at the Mills as good as he is, or better. Off with you, I say, you trumpery little baggage, you!" "Go, then, dear, it is better so; Uncle Bart will keep you overnight; run up and get your things"; and Waitstill sank into a chair, realizing the hopelessness of the situation.
She looked like a sweet white rose just blowed out under the warm sun of a perfect June day. "Ernest White!" sez I, "how glad I am to see you! And Waitstill Webb! can I believe my eyes?" sez I, "is it you?" And I took both their hands in mine at one time. "Waitstill Webb!" sez I agin, "is it you?" "No," sez Ernest White, "it is Waitstill White." You could have knocked me down with a hair-pin.
"I hope I am not intruding," stammered Waitstill, seating herself and beginning her knitting, to see if it would lessen the sense of strain between them. "Not at all. I always loved young and beautiful people, and so did my husband. If he comes while you are here, do not go away, but sit with him while I get his supper. If Elder Cochrane should be with him, you would see two wonderful men.
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