“Lige,” she said softly, “do you
love me still?”
“You know I do,” said Lige sadly.
That was all Sara wanted. With a quick movement
she nestled into his arms, and laid her warm, tear-wet
cheek against his cold one.
When the amazing rumor that Sara was going to marry
Lige Baxter, and go out West with him, circulated
through the Andrews clan, hands were lifted and heads
were shaken. Mrs. Jonas puffed and panted up
the hill to learn if it were true. She found
Mrs. Eben stitching for dear life on an “Irish
Chain” quilt, while Sara was sewing the diamonds
on another “Rising Star” with a martyr-like
expression on her face. Sara hated patchwork
above everything else, but Mrs. Eben was mistress
up to a certain point.
“You’ll have to make that quilt, Sara
Andrews. If you’re going to live out on
those prairies, you’ll need piles of quilts,
and you shall have them if I sew my fingers to the
bone. But you’ll have to help make them.”
And Sara had to.
When Mrs. Jonas came, Mrs. Eben sent Sara off to the
post-office to get her out of the way.
“I suppose it’s true, this time?”
said Mrs. Jonas.
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Eben briskly.
“Sara is set on it. There is no use trying
to move her—you know that—so
I’ve just concluded to make the best of it.
I’m no turn-coat. Lige Baxter is Lige
Baxter still, neither more nor less. I’ve
always said he’s a fine young man, and I say
so still. After all, he and Sara won’t
be any poorer than Eben and I were when we started
out.”
Mrs. Jonas heaved a sigh of relief.
“I’m real glad you take that view of it,
Louisa. I’m not displeased, either, although
Mrs. Harmon would take my head off if she heard me
say so. I always liked Lige. But I must
say I’m amazed, too, after the way Sara used
to rail at him.”
“Well, we might have expected it,” said
Mrs. Eben sagely. “It was always Sara’s
way. When any creature got sick or unfortunate
she seemed to take it right into her heart. So
you may say Lige Baxter’s failure was a success
after all.”
Thyra Carewe was waiting for Chester to come home.
She sat by the west window of the kitchen, looking
out into the gathering of the shadows with the expectant
immovability that characterized her. She never
twitched or fidgeted. Into whatever she did she
put the whole force of her nature. If it was
sitting still, she sat still.
“A stone image would be twitchedly beside Thyra,”
said Mrs. Cynthia White, her neighbor across the lane.
“It gets on my nerves, the way she sits at
that window sometimes, with no more motion than a
statue and her great eyes burning down the lane.
When I read the commandment, ’Thou shalt have
no other gods before me,’ I declare I always
think of Thyra. She worships that son of hers
far ahead of her Creator. She’ll be punished
for it yet.”
