Yet Waitstill was ill at ease this afternoon; she
hardly knew why. Her father had just put the horse into the pung
and driven up to Milliken's Mills for some grain, and Patty was
down at the store instructing Bill Morrill (Cephas Cole's
successor) in his novel task of waiting on customers and learning
the whereabouts of things; no easy task in the bewildering
variety of stock in a country store; where pins, treacle,
gingham, Epsom salts, Indian meal, shoestrings, shovels, brooms,
sulphur, tobacco, suspenders, rum, and indigo may be demanded in
rapid succession.
Patty was quiet and docile these days, though her color was more
brilliant than usual and her eyes had all their accustomed
sparkle. She went about her work steadily, neither ranting nor
railing at fate, nor bewailing her lot, but even in this
Waitstill felt a sense of change and difference too subtle to be
put in words. She had noted Patty's summer flirtations, but
regarded them indulgently, very much as if they had been the
irresponsible friskings of a lamb in a meadow. Waitstill had more
than the usual reserve in these matters, for in New England at
that time, though the soul was a subject of daily conversation,
the heart was felt to be rather an indelicate topic, to be
alluded to as seldom as possible.
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