"All aboard! Hurry up, Ike!" cried this young person, consulting his silver watch, and casting a look of mingled commiseration and envy upon the giant, locked in the arms of the two women, who hardly reached to the second button of his coat. Isaac caught the glance, and started to tear himself away. But his mother laid her gnarled hand gently upon his arm, and led him into the unused parlor.
"Just a minute, Abbie dear, I want to be alone with my boy," she waved the girl back. "Then you can have him last. It's my right an' your'n!"
She closed the door, and led him under the crayon portrait of his father, framed in immortelles. She raised her arms, and he stooped that they might clasp about his neck.
"Isaac," she said hoarsely, "I ain't no longer young nor very strong. Remember 'fore you go away from the farm that you're the son of an honest man, an' a pious woman, and"—dropping with great solemnity into scriptural language—"I beseech you, my son, not to disgrace your godly name."
With partings like this the primitive Christians must have sent their sons into the whirlwind of the world.
Then Isaac broke down for the first time, and with the tears streaming, he lifted his mother bodily in his arms, and promised her, and kissed her. "Mother trusts you, Ikey," was all she could say. But his time had come. There was a crunching of wheels.
"Now go to Abbie. Leave me here! Good-by; you have always been a good boy, dear." Mrs. Masters's voice sank into a whisper; the strong man, moved as he was, could not comprehend her exhaustion.
Abbie was waiting for him at the door, and he went to her. The impatient wagon had gone down the road. They were to cut through the pasture, and meet it at the brook. There they were to part.
They clasped hands. Isaac turned. A gaunt, gray face, broken, helpless, hopeless, peered out beneath the green paper shade of the parlor window. If he had known—a doubt crossed his brain, but the girl twitched his hand, and the cloud scattered. Down the hill they ran, down, until the brook was reached. There they stood, panting, breathless, listening. There were only a few minutes left, and they hid behind an oak tree and clasped.