“I guess part o' the trouble's with us country folks,” Mrs. Day responded, “for folks said she sung runs and trills better'n any woman up to Boston.”
“Runs an' trills,” ejaculated Abby scornfully. “I was talkin' 'bout singin' not runnin'. My niece Ella up to Parsonfield has taken three terms on the pianner an' I've heerd her practise. Scales has got to be done, no doubt, but they'd ought to be done to home, where they belong; a concert ain't no place for 'em... . There, what did I tell yer? Patience Baxter's crossin' the bridge with a pail in her hand. She's got that everlastin' yeller-brown, linsey-woolsey on, an' a white 'cloud' wrapped around her head with con'sid'able red hair showin' as usual. You can always see her fur's you can a sunrise! And there goes Rod Boynton, chasin' behind as usual. Those Baxter girls make a perfect fool o' that boy, but I don't s'pose Lois Boynton's got wit enough to make much fuss over the poor little creeter!”
Mark Wilson could certainly see Patty Baxter as far as he could a sunrise, although he was not intimately acquainted with that natural phenomenon. He took a circuitous route from his watch-tower, and, knowing well the point from which there could be no espionage from Deacon Baxter's store windows, joined Patty in the road, took the pail from her hand, and walked up the hill beside her. Of course, the village could see them, but, as Aunt Abby had intimated, there wasn't a man, woman, or child on either side of the river who wouldn't have taken the part of the Baxter girls against their father.
XXIV. PHOEBE TRIUMPHS
MEANTIME Feeble Phoebe Day was driving her father's horse up to the Mills to bring Cephas Cole home. It was a thrilling moment, a sort of outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual tie, for their banns were to be published the next day, so what did it matter if the community, nay, if the whole universe, speculated as to why she was drawing her beloved back from his daily toil? It had been an eventful autumn for Cephas. After a third request for the hand of Miss Patience Baxter, and a refusal of even more than common decision and energy, Cephas turned about face and employed the entire month of September in a determined assault upon the affections of Miss Lucy Morrill, but with no better avail. His heart was not ardently involved in this second wooing, but winter was approaching, he had moved his mother out of her summer quarters back to the main house, and he doggedly began papering the ell and furnishing the kitchen without disclosing to his respected parents the identity of the lady for whose comfort he was so hospitably preparing.
Cephas's belief in the holy state of matrimony as being the only one proper for a man, really ought to have commended him to the opposite (and ungrateful) sex more than it did, and Lucy Morrill held as respectful an opinion of the institution and its manifold advantages as Cephas himself, but she was in a very unsettled frame of mind and not at all susceptible to wooing. She had a strong preference for Philip Perry, and held an opinion, not altogether unfounded in human experience, that in course of time, when quite deserted by Patty Baxter, his heart might possibly be caught on the rebound. It was only a chance, but Lucy would almost have preferred remaining unmarried, even to the withering age of twenty-five, rather than not be at liberty to accept Philip Perry in case she should be asked.
Cephas therefore, by the middle of October, could be picturesquely and alliteratively described as being raw from repeated rejections. His bruised heart and his despised ell literally cried out for the appreciation so long and blindly withheld. Now all at once Phoebe disclosed a second virtue; her first and only one, hitherto, in the eyes of Cephas, having been an ability to get on with his mother, a feat in which many had made an effort and few indeed had succeeded. Phoebe, it seems, had always secretly admired, respected, and loved Cephas Cole! Never since her pale and somewhat glassy blue eye had opened on life had she beheld a being she could so adore if encouraged in the attitude.
The moment this unusual and unexpected poultice was really applied to Cephas's wounds, they began to heal. In the course of a month the most ordinary observer could have perceived a physical change in him. He cringed no more, but held his head higher; his back straightened; his voice developed a gruff, assertive note, like that of a stern Roman father; he let his moustache grow, and sometimes, in his most reckless moments, twiddled the end of it. Finally he swaggered; but that was only after Phoebe had accepted him and told him that if a girl traversed the entire length of the Saco River (which she presumed to be the longest in the world, the Amazon not being familiar to her), she could not hope to find his equal as a husband.
And then congratulations began to pour in! Was ever marriage so fortuitous! The Coles' farm joined that of the Days and the union between the two only children would cement the friendship between the families. The fact that Uncle Bart was a joiner, Cephas a painter, and Abel Day a mason and bricklayer made the alliance almost providential in its business opportunities. Phoebe's Massachusetts aunt sent a complete outfit of gilt-edged china, a clock, and a mahogany chamber set. Aunt Abby relinquished to the young couple a bedroom and a spare chamber in the “main part,” while the Days supplied live-geese feathers and table and bed-linen with positive prodigality. Aunt Abby trod the air like one inspired. “Balmy” is the only adjective that could describe her.