It was a young and beautiful shoulder, Waitstill's, and there had
always been, and would always be, a gracious curve in it where a
child's head might lie in comfort. Presently with a shy pressure,
Rod whispered: "Shall I sit in the other room, Waitstill and
Ivory?--Am I in the way?"
Ivory looked up from his book quietly shaking his head, while
Waitstill put her arm around the boy and drew him closer.
"Our little brother is never in the way," she said, as she bent
and kissed him.
Men may come and men may go; Saco Water still tumbles
tumultuously over the dam and rushes under the Edgewood bridge on
its way to the sea; and still it listens to the story of to-day
that will sometime be the history of yesterday.
On midsummer evenings the windows of the old farmhouse over at
Boyntons' gleam with unaccustomed lights and voices break the
stillness, lessening the gloom of the long grass-grown lane of
Lois Boynton's watching in days gone by. On sunny mornings there
is a merry babel of children's chatter, mingled with gentle
maternal warnings, for this is a new brood of young things and
the river is calling them as it has called all the others who
ever came within the circle of its magic. The fragile harebells
hanging their blue heads from the crevices of the rocks; the
brilliant columbines swaying to and fro on their tall stalks; the
patches of gleaming sand in shallow places beckoning little bare
feet to come and tread them; the glint of silver minnows darting
hither and thither in some still pool; the tempestuous journey of
some weather-beaten log, fighting its way downstream;--here is
life in abundance, luring the child to share its risks and its
joys.
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