Preserve went on home, alone. His mother stood in the cabin door, anxious because he was so late.
“No ribbon? Oh, my lad, why have you disappointed me!” she said when she saw him.
“Big Hawk wears my decoration,” Preserve said, as he told his story. “But I think that Master Biddle would have rather that little Mistress Deliverance, for all her witching ways, had his red bow,” he finished, laughing.
[The Soap Making of Remember Biddle]
“It may chance that you will not be able to return by Thanksgiving Day?” Remember Biddle asked with almost a sob in her voice.
A little Puritan girl of long ago was Remember, dressed in a long straight gown of gray stuff, heavy hobnailed shoes and wearing a white kerchief crossed about her neck. She stood in the door of the little log farm-house that looked out upon the dreary stretch of the Atlantic coast with Plymouth Rock raising its gray head not so very far away.
No wonder Remember felt unhappy. Her mother was at the door, mounted upon their horse, and ready to start away for quite a long journey as journeys were counted in those days. She was going with a bundle of herbs to care for a sick neighbor who lived a distance of ten miles away. It had been an urgent summons, brought by the post carrier that morning. The neighbor was ill, indeed, and the fame of Mistress Biddle’s herb brewing was well known through the countryside.
She leaned down from the saddle to touch Remember’s dark braids. The little girl had run out beside the horse and laid her cheek against his soft side. Her father was far away in Boston, attending to some important matters of shipping. Her mother’s going left Remember all alone. She repeated her question, “Shall I be alone for Thanksgiving Day, mother, dear?” she asked.
