Part 2

Now children paddled with bare feet in the river's sandy coves and shallows, and lovers sat on its alder-shaded banks and exchanged their vows just where the shuffling bear was wont to come down and drink.

The Saco could remember the “cold year,” when there was a black frost every month of the twelve, and though almost all the corn along its shores shrivelled on the stalk, there were two farms where the vapor from the river saved the crops, and all the seed for the next season came from the favored spot, to be known as “Egypt” from that day henceforward.

Strange, complex things now began to happen, and the river played its own part in some of these, for there were disastrous freshets, the sudden breaking-up of great jams of logs, and the drowning of men who were engulfed in the dark whirlpool below the rapids.

Caravans, with menageries of wild beasts, crossed the bridge now every year. An infuriated elephant lifted the side of the old Edgewood Tavern barn, and the wild laughter of the roistering rum-drinkers who were tantalizing the animals floated down to the river's edge. The roar of a lion, tearing and chewing the arm of one of the bystanders, and the cheers of the throng when a plucky captain of the local militia thrust a stake down the beast's throat,--these sounds displaced the former war-whoop of the Indians and the ring of the axe in the virgin forests along the shores.

There were days, and moonlight nights, too, when strange sights and sounds of quite another nature could have been noted by the river as it flowed under the bridge that united the two little villages.

Issuing from the door of the Riverboro Town House, and winding down the hill, through the long row of teams and carriages that lined the roadside, came a procession of singing men and singing women. Convinced of sin, but entranced with promised pardon; spiritually intoxicated by the glowing eloquence of the latter-day prophet they were worshipping, the band of “Cochranites” marched down the dusty road and across the bridge, dancing, swaying, waving handkerchiefs, and shouting hosannas.

God watched, and listened, knowing that there would be other prophets, true and false, in the days to come, and other processions following them; and the river watched and listened too, as it hurried on towards the sea with its story of the present that was sometime to be the history of the past.

When Jacob Cochrane was leading his overwrought, ecstatic band across the river, Waitstill Baxter, then a child, was watching the strange, noisy company from the window of a little brick dwelling on the top of the Town-House Hill.

Her stepmother stood beside her with a young baby in her arms, but when she saw what held the gaze of the child she drew her away, saying: “We mustn't look, Waitstill; your father don't like it!”

“Who was the big man at the head, mother?”

“His name is Jacob Cochrane, but you mustn't think or talk about him; he is very wicked.”

“He doesn't look any wickeder than the others,” said the child. “Who was the man that fell down in the road, mother, and the woman that knelt and prayed over him? Why did he fall, and why did she pray, mother?”

“That was Master Aaron Boynton, the schoolmaster, and his wife. He only made believe to fall down, as the Cochranites do; the way they carry on is a disgrace to the village, and that's the reason your father won't let us look at them.”

“I played with a nice boy over to Boynton's,” mused the child.

“That was Ivory, their only child. He is a good little fellow, but his mother and father will spoil him with their crazy ways.”

“I hope nothing will happen to him, for I love him,” said the child gravely. “He showed me a humming-bird's nest, the first ever I saw, and the littlest!”

“Don't talk about loving him,” chided the woman. “If your father should hear you, he'd send you to bed without your porridge.”

“Father couldn't hear me, for I never speak when he's at home,” said grave little Waitstill. “And I'm used to going to bed without my porridge.”

II. THE SISTERS

THE river was still running under the bridge, but the current of time had swept Jacob Cochrane out of sight, though not out of mind, for he had left here and there a disciple to preach his strange and uncertain doctrine. Waitstill, the child who never spoke in her father's presence, was a young woman now, the mistress of the house; the stepmother was dead, and the baby a girl of seventeen.

The brick cottage on the hilltop had grown only a little shabbier. Deacon Foxwell Baxter still slammed its door behind him every morning at seven o'clock and, without any such cheerful conventions as good-byes to his girls, walked down to the bridge to open his store.

The day, properly speaking, had opened when Waitstill and Patience had left their beds at dawn, built the fire, fed the hens and turkeys, and prepared the breakfast, while the Deacon was graining the horse and milking the cows. Such minor “chores” as carrying water from the well, splitting kindling, chopping pine, or bringing wood into the kitchen, were left to Waitstill, who had a strong back, or, if she had not, had never been unwise enough to mention the fact in her father's presence. The almanac day, however, which opened with sunrise, had nothing to do with the real human day, which always began when Mr. Baxter slammed the door behind him, and reached its high noon of delight when he disappeared from view.

“He's opening the store shutters!” chanted Patience from the heights of a kitchen chair by the window. “Now he's taken his cane and beaten off the Boynton puppy that was sitting on the steps as usual,--I don't mean Ivory's dog” (here the girl gave a quick glance at her sister), “but Rodman's little yellow cur. Rodman must have come down to the bridge on some errand for Ivory. Isn't it odd, when that dog has all the other store steps to sit upon, he should choose father's, when every bone in his body must tell him how father hates him and the whole Boynton family.”

“Father has no real cause that I ever heard of; but some dogs never know when they've had enough beating, nor some people either.” said Waitstill, speaking from the pantry.

“Don't be gloomy when it's my birthday, Sis!--Now he's opened the door and kicked the cat! All is ready for business at the Baxter store.”

“I wish you weren't quite so free with your tongue, Patty.”

“Somebody must talk,” retorted the girl, jumping down from the chair and shaking back her mop of red-gold curls. “I'll put this hateful, childish, round comb in and out just once more, then it will disappear forever. This very after-noon up goes my hair!”

“You know it will be of no use unless you braid it very plainly and neatly. Father will take notice and make you smooth it down.”