"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! There are peaches floating in sweet syrup; there are tumblers of quince jelly; there are jars of tomato and citron preserves, and for supper you shall eat them with biscuits as light as feathers and white as snowdrifts."
"We can never wait two more days, Rod; let us kidnap her! Let us take the old bob-sled and run over to New Hampshire where one can be married the minute one feels like it. We could do it between sunrise and moonrise and be at home for a late supper. Would she be too tired to bake the biscuits for us, do you think? What do you say, Rod, will you be best man?" And there would be youthful, unaccustomed laughter floating out from the kitchen or living-room, bringing a smile of content to Lois Boynton's face as she lay propped up in bed with her open Bible beside her. "He binds up the broken-hearted," she whispered to herself. "He gives unto them a garland for ashes; the oil of joy for mourning; the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."
The quiet wedding was over. There had been neither feasting, nor finery, nor presents, nor bridal journey; only a home-coming that meant deep and sacred a joy, as fervent gratitude as any four hearts ever contained in all the world. But the laughter ceased, though the happiness flowed silently underneath, almost forgotten in the sudden sorrow that overcame them, for it fell out that Lois Boynton had only waited, as it were, for the marriage, and could stay no longer.
". . . There are two heavens . . .
Both made of love,--one, inconceivable Ev'n by the other, so divine it is;
The other, far on this side of the stars, By men called home."
And these two heavens met, over at Boyntons', during these cold, white, glistening December days.
Lois Boynton found hers first. After a windy moonlit night a morning dawned in which a hush seemed to be on the earth. The cattle huddled together in the farmyards and the fowls shrank into their feathers. The sky was gray, and suddenly the first white heralds came floating down like scouts seeking for paths and camping-places.
Waitstill turned Mrs. Boynton's bed so that she could look out of the window. Slope after slope, dazzling in white crust, rose one upon another and vanished as they slipped away into the dark green of the pine forests.
Then, ". . . there fell from out the skies A feathery whiteness over all the land;
A strange, soft, spotless something, pure as light."
It could not be called a storm, for there had been no wind since sunrise, no whirling fury, no drifting; only a still, steady, solemn fall of crystal flakes, hour after hour, hour after hour.
Mrs. Boynton's Book of books was open on the bed and her finger marked a passage in her favorite Bible-poet.
"Here it is, daughter," she whispered. "I have found it, in the same chapter where the morning stars sing together and the sons of God shout for joy. The Lord speaks to Job out of the whirlwind and says: 'HAST THOU ENTERED INTO THE TREASURES OF THE SNOW? OR HAST THOU SEEN THE TREASURES OF THE HAIL?' Sit near me, Waitstill, and look out on the hills. 'HAST THOU ENTERED INTO THE
TREASURES OF THE SNOW?' No, not yet, but please God, I shall, and into many other treasures, soon"; and she closed her eyes.
All day long the air-ways were filled with the glittering army of the snowflakes; all day long the snow grew deeper and deeper on the ground; and on the breath of some white-winged wonder that passed Lois Boynton's window her white soul forsook its "earth-lot" and took flight at last.
They watched beside her, but never knew the moment of her going; i t was just a silent flitting, a ceasing to be, without a tremor, or a flutter that could be seen by mortal eye. Her face was so like an angel's in its shining serenity that the few who loved her best could not look upon her with anything but reverent joy.
On earth she had known nothing but the "broken arcs," but in heaven she would find the "perfect round"; there at last, on the other side of the stars, she could remember right, poor Lois Boynton!
For weeks afterwards the village was shrouded in snow as it had never been before within memory, but in every happy household the home-life deepened day by day. The books came out in the long evenings; the grandsires told old tales under the inspiration of the hearth-fire: the children gathered on their wooden stools to roast apples and pop corn; and hearts came closer together than when summer called the housemates to wander here and there in fields and woods and beside the river.
Over at Boyntons', when the snow was whirling and the wind howling round the chimneys of the high-gabled old farmhouse; when every window had its frame of ermine and fringe of icicles, and the sleet rattled furiously against the glass, then Ivory would throw a great back log on the bank of coals between the fire-dogs, the kettle would begin to sing, and the eat come from some snug corner to curl and purr on the braided hearth-rug.
