Story of Waitstill Baxter | Page 6

Kate Douglas Wiggin
the milk, but leave the churning and the dishes for an hour or
two, just once? If you say 'yes' I can think of something wonderful to
do!"
"What is it?" asked Waitstill, relenting at the sight of the girl's eager,
roguish face.
"PIERCE MY EARS!" cried Patty. "Say you will!"
"Oh! Patty, Patty, I am afraid you are given over to vanity! I daren't let
you wear eardrops without father's permission."
"Why not? Lots of church members wear them, so it can't be a mortal
sin. Father is against all adornments, but that's because he doesn't want
to buy them. You've always said I should have your mother's coral
pendants when I was old enough. Here I am, seventeen today, and Dr.
Perry says I am already a well-favored young woman. I can pull my
hair over my ears for a few days and when the holes are all made and
healed, even father cannot make me fill them up again. Besides, I'll
never wear the earrings at home!"
"Oh! my dear, my dear!" sighed Waitstill, with a half-sob in her voice.
"If only I was wise enough to know how we could keep from these
little deceits, yet have any liberty or comfort in life!"
"We can't! The Lord couldn't expect us to bear all that we bear,"
exclaimed Patty, "without our trying once in a while to have a good
time in our own way. We never do a thing that we are ashamed of, or
that other girls don't do every day in the week; only our pleasures
always have to be taken behind father's back. It's only me that's ever
wrong, anyway, for you are always an angel. It's a burning shame and
you only twenty-one yourself. I'll pierce your ears if you say so, and let
you wear your own coral drops!"
"No, Patty; I've outgrown those longings years ago. When your mother
died and left father and you and the house to me, my girlhood died, too,
though I was only thirteen."

"It was only your inside girlhood that died," insisted Patty stoutly, "The
outside is as fresh as the paint on Uncle Barty's new ell. You've got the
loveliest eyes and hair in Riverboro, and you know it; besides, Ivory
Boynton would tell you so if you didn't. Come and bore my ears, there's
a darling!"
"Ivory Boynton never speaks a word of my looks, nor a word that
father and all the world mightn't hear." And Waitstill flushed.
"Then it's because he's shy and silent and has so many troubles of his
own that he doesn't dare say anything. When my hair is once up and the
coral pendants are swinging in my ears, I shall expect to hear
something about MY looks, I can tell you. Waity, after all, though we
never have what we want to eat, and never a decent dress to our backs,
nor a young man to cross the threshold, I wouldn't change places with
Ivory Boynton, would you?" Here Patty swept the hearth vigorously
with a turkey wing and added a few corncobs to the fire.
Waitstill paused a moment in her task of bread-kneading. "Well," she
answered critically, "at least we know where our father is."
"We do, indeed! We also know that he is thoroughly alive!"
"And though people do talk about him, they can't say the things they
say of Master Aaron Boynton. I don't believe father would ever run
away and desert us."
"I fear not," said Patty. "I wish the angels would put the idea into his
head, though, of course, it wouldn't be the angels; they'd be above it. It
would have to be the 'Old Driver,' as Jed Morrill calls the Evil One; but
whoever did it, the result would be the same: we should be deserted,
and live happily ever after. Oh! to be deserted, and left with you alone
on this hilltop, what joy it would be!"
Waitstill frowned, but did not interfere further with Patty's intemperate
speech. She knew that she was simply serving as an escape-valve, and
that after the steam was "let off" she would be more rational.

"Of course, we are motherless," continued Patty wistfully, "but poor
Ivory is worse than motherless."
"No, not worse, Patty," said Waitstill, taking the bread-board and
moving towards the closet. "Ivory loves his mother and she loves him,
with all the mind she has left! She has the best blood of New England
flowing in her veins, and I suppose it was a great come down for her to
marry Aaron Boynton, clever and gifted though he was. Now Ivory has
to protect her, poor, daft, innocent creature, and hide her away from the
gossip of the village. He is surely the best of sons, Ivory Boynton!"
"She
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