This rendition of a Sabbath-School classic did not meet
Waitstill's ideas of perfect propriety, but she smiled and let it
pass, planning some sort of recreation for a stolen half-hour of
the afternoon. It would have to be a walk through the pasture
into the woods to see what had grown since they went there a
fortnight ago. Patty loved people better than Nature, but failing
the one she could put up with the other, for she had a sense of
beauty and a pagan love of color. There would be pale-hued
innocence and blue and white violets in the moist places, thought
Waitstill, and they would have them in a china cup on the
supper-table. No, that would never do, for last time father had
knocked them over when he was reaching for the bread, and in a
silent protest against such foolishness got up from the table and
emptied theirs into the kitchen sink.
"There's a place for everything," he said when he came back, "and
the place for flowers is outdoors."
Then in the pine woods there would be, she was sure, Star of
Bethlehem, Solomon's Seal, the white spray of groundnuts and
bunchberries. Perhaps they could make a bouquet and Patty would
take it across the fields to Mrs. Boynton's door. She need not go
in, and thus they would not be disobeying their father's command
not to visit that "crazy Boynton woman.
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