Polly poured the water deftly from the big iron tea-kettle hanging from the crane and hurried away with it, only to return with such haste that she tripped on the threshold, broke the pitcher and sent the water over everything it could reach. “Mother,” she said, recovering herself, “Parson Leavenworth will be here to breakfast. He’s coming down the road with father. My old lady will feel honored, won’t she? I know he’s come for her. Phyllis, any more hot water to spare? It’s so good to take out wrinkles; she’ll miss it, I know.”
The sun had not climbed over Great Hill when breakfast was over, and the last guest of the night had gone. Mrs. Punderson’s daughter Anna rode behind the Rev. Mark Leavenworth on his horse, Thankful with Mrs. Punderson, the old lady in the chaise, and even Stiles had galloped away toward the east, and yet not a traveler on the road had brought tidings from New Haven. The group on the porch watching the departure had not dispersed when Polly’s ears caught a strain floating up the river valley. She listened. She ran. She clasped her mother in her arms. She kissed her. She whispered in her ear, “I hear him! He’s coming! Ethel is; and Cato is with him!” she cried out, embracing Phyllis in her joy. The two mothers—the one white, the other black; the one free, the other in bonds—went to listen. They stood side by side on the porch; tears fell from their eyes, tears that 199 through all the years science has failed to distinguish, the one from the other. Ethel’s cheery call rang clear and clearer. Cato’s wild cadence grew near and nearer, but when the boys rode up beside the porch, Mrs. Porter was on her knees in the little bed-room off the parlor, and Phyllis was in the kitchen. New England mothers, both of them! Their sorrows they could bear; their joys they hid from sight.
Waterbury, Conn.,
September, 1898.
Transcriber’s Notes
Incorrect quotes and a few obvious typos (hugh/huge, fireams/firearms, and ziz/zig) have been fixed.
Otherwise, the author’s original spelling has been preserved; e.g. Yankeys, afright and affright, and the incorrect usage of ‘its’.