Shall we say until he could keep her like the dearest lady in the land?' That 's the way he said it.--You do cry dreadfully easy to-day, Waity; I'm sure you barked your leg or skinned your knee when you fell down.--Don't you think the 'dearest lady in the land ' is a nice-sounding sentence?"
"I do, indeed!" cried Waitstill to herself as she turned the words over and over trying to feed her hungry heart with them.
"I love to hear Ivory talk; it's like the stories in the books.
We have our best times in the barn, for I'm helping with the milking, now. Our yellow cow's name is Molly and the red cow used to be Dolly, but we changed her to Golly, 'cause she's so troublesome. Molly's an easy cow to milk and I can get almost all there is, though Ivory comes after me and takes the strippings.
Golly swishes her tail and kicks the minute she hears us coming; t hen she stands stiff-legged and grits her teeth and holds on to her milk HARD, and Ivory has to pat and smooth and coax her every single time. Ivory says she's got a kind of an attachment inside of her that she shuts down when he begins to milk."
"We had a cross old cow like that, once," said Waitstill absently, loving to hear the boy's chatter and the eternal quotations from his beloved hero.
"We have great fun cooking, too," continued Rod. "When Aunt Boynton was first sick she stayed in bed more, and Ivory and I h adn't got used to things. One morning we bound up each other's burns. Ivory had three fingers and I two, done up in buttery rags to take the fire out. Ivory called us 'Soldiers dressing their Wounds after the Battle.' Sausages spatter dreadfully, don't they? And when you turn a pancake it flops on top of the stove.
Can you flop one straight, Waity?"
"Yes, I can, straight as a die; that's what girls are made for.
Now run along home to your big brother, and do put on some warmer clothes under your coat; the weather's getting colder."
"Aunt Boynton hasn't patched our thick ones yet, but she will soon, and if she doesn't, Ivory'll take this Saturday evening and do them himself; he said so."
"He shall not!" cried Waitstill passionately. "It is not seemly for Ivory to sew and mend, and I will not allow it. You shall bring me those things that need patching without telling any one, do you hear, and I will meet you on the edge of the pasture Saturday afternoon and give them back to you. You are not to speak of it to any one, you understand, or perhaps I shall pound you to a jelly. You'd make a sweet rosy jelly to eat with turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, you dear, comforting little boy!"
Rodman ran towards home and Waitstill hurried along, scarcely noticing the beauties of the woods and fields and waysides, all glowing masses of goldenrod and purple frost flowers. The stone walls were covered with wild-grape and feathery clematis vines.
Everywhere in sight the cornfields lay yellow in the afternoon sun and ox carts heavily loaded with full golden ears were going home to the barns to be ready for husking.
A sudden breeze among the orchard boughs as she neared the house was followed by a shower of russets, and everywhere the red Baldwins gleamed on the apple-tree boughs, while the wind-falls were being gathered and taken to the cider mills. There was a grove of maples on the top of Town-House Hill and the Baxters' d ooryard was a blaze of brilliant color. To see Patty standing under a little rock maple, her brown linsey-woolsey in I one with the landscape, and the hood of her brown cape pulled over her bright head, was a welcome for anybody. She looked flushed and excited as she ran up to her sister and said, "Waity, darling, you've been crying! Has father been scolding you?"
"No, dear, but my heart is aching to-day so that I can scarcely bear it. A wave of discouragement came over me as I was walking through the woods, and I gave up to it a bit. I remembered how soon it will be Thanksgiving Day, and I'll so like to make it happier for you and a few others that I love."
Patty could have given a shrewd guess as to the chief cause of the heartache, but she forebore to ask any questions. "Cheer up, Waity," she cried. "You never can tell; we may have a thankful Thanksgiving, after all! Who knows what may happen? I'm 'strung up' this afternoon and in a fighting mood. I've felt like a new piece of snappy white elastic all day; it's the air, just like wine, so cool and stinging and full of courage! Oh, yes, we won't give up hope yet awhile, Waity, not until we're snowed in!"
"Put your arms round me and give me a good hug, Patty! Love me hard, HARD, for, oh! I need it badly just now!"
And the two girls clung together for a moment and then went into the house with hands close-locked and a kind of sad, desperate courage in their young hearts. What would either of them have done, each of them thought, had she been forced to endure alone the life that went on day after day in Deacon Baxter's dreary house?
