A KISS
"SHALL we have our walk in the woods on the Edgewood side of the river, just for a change, Patty?" suggested her sister. "The water is so high this year that the river will be splendid. We can gather our flowers in the hill pasture and then you'll be quite near Mrs. Boynton's and can carry the nosegay there while I c ome home ahead of you and get supper. I'll take to-day's eggs to father's store on the way and ask him if he minds our having a little walk. I've an errand at Aunt Abby's that would take me down to the bridge anyway."
"Very well," said Patty, somewhat apathetically. "I always like a walk with you, but I don't care what becomes of me this afternoon if I can't go to Ellen's party."
The excursion took place according to Waitstill's plan, and at four o'clock she sped back to her night work and preparations for supper, leaving Patty with a great bunch of early wildflowers for Ivory's mother. Patty had left them at the Boyntons' door with Rodman, who was picking up chips and volunteered to take the nosegay into the house at once.
"Won't you step inside? " the boy asked shyly, wishing to be polite, but conscious that visitors, from the village very seldom crossed the threshold.
"I'd like to, but I can't this afternoon, thank you. I must run all the way down the hill now, or I shan't be in time to supper."
"Do you eat meals together over to your house?" asked the boy.
"We're all three at the table if that means together."
"We never are. Ivory goes off early and takes lunch in a pail. So do I when I go to school. Aunt Boynton never sits down to eat; s he just stands at the window and takes a bite of something now 'and then. You haven't got any mother, have you?"
"No, Rodman."
"Neither have I, nor any father, nor any relations but Aunt Boynton and Ivory. Ivory is very good to me, and when he's at home I'm never lonesome."
"I wish you could come over and eat with sister and me," said Patty gently." Perhaps sometime, when my father is away buying goods and we are left alone, you could join us in the woods, and we would have a picnic? We would bring enough for you; all sorts of good things; hard-boiled eggs, doughnuts, apple-turnovers, and bread spread with jelly."
"I'd like it fine!" exclaimed Rodman, his big dark eyes sparkling with anticipation. "I don't have many boys to play with, and I n ever went to a picnic Aunt Boynton watches for uncle 'most all the time; she doesn't know he has been away for years and years.
When she doesn't watch, she prays. Sometimes she wants me to pray with her, but praying don't come easy to me."
"Neither does it to me," said Patty.
"I'm good at marbles and checkers and back-gammon and jack-straws, though."
"So am I," said Patty, laughing, "so we should be good friends.
I'll try to get a chance to see you soon again, but perhaps I c an't; I'm a good deal tied at home."
"Your father doesn't like you to go any-wheres, I guess," i nterposed Rodman. "I've heard Ivory tell Aunt Boynton things, but I wouldn't repeat them. Ivory's trained me years and years not to tell anything, so I don't."
"That's a good boy!" approved Patty. Then as she regarded him more closely, she continued, "I'm sorry you're lonesome, Rodman, I'd like to see you look brighter."
"You think I've been crying," the boy said shrewdly." So I have, but not because I've been punished. The reason my eyes are so swollen up is because I killed our old toad by mistake this morning. I was trying to see if I could swing the scythe so's to help Ivory in haying-time. I've only 'raked after' and I want to begin on mowing soon's I can. Then somehow or other the old toad came out from under the steps; I didn't see him, and the scythe hit him square. I cried for an hour, that's what I did, and I d on't care who knows it except I wouldn't like the boys at school to hector me. I've buried the toad out behind the barn, and I h ope Ivory'll let me keep the news from Aunt Boynton. She cries enough now without my telling her there's been a death in the family. She set great store by the old toad, and so did all of us."
"It's too bad; I'm sorry, but after all you couldn't help it."
"No, but we should always look round every-wheres when we're cutting; that's what Ivory says. He says folks shouldn't use edged tools till they're old enough not to fool with 'em."
And Rodman looked so wise and old-fashioned for his years that Patty did not know whether to kiss him or cry over him, as she said: "Ivory's always right, and now good-bye; I must go this very minute. Don't forget the picnic."
"I won't!" cried the boy, gazing after her, wholly entranced with her bright beauty and her kindness. "Say, I'll bring something, too,--white-oak acorns, if you like 'em; I've got a big bagful up attic!"
Patty sped down the long lane, crept under the bars, and flew like a lapwing over the high-road.
"If father was only like any one else, things might be so different!" she sighed, her thoughts running along with her feet.
"Nobody to make a home for that poor lonesome little boy and that poor lonesome big Ivory. . . . I am sure that he is in love with Waitstill. He doesn't know it; she doesn't know it; nobody does but me, but I'm clever at guessing. I was the only one that surmised Jed Morrill was going to marry again. . . . I should almost like Ivory for myself, he is so tall and handsome, but of course he can never marry anybody; he is too poor and has his mother to look after. I wouldn't want to take him from Waity, though, and then perhaps I couldn't get him, anyway. . . . If I c ouldn't, he'd be the only one! I've never tried yet, but I feel in my bones, somehow, that I could have any boy in Edgewood or Riverboro, by just crooking my forefinger and beckoning to him. .
. . I wish--I wish--they were different! They don't make me want to beckon to them! My forefinger just stays straight and doesn't feel like crooking! . . . There's Cephas Cole, but he's as stupid as an owl. I don't want a husband that keeps his mouth wide open whenever I'm talking, no matter whether it's sense or nonsense.
