Five separate times during the five years that had intervened, had Nathan Whitney taken his precise way across the street and preferred his request. In varied forms, and with ever-increasing fervor he had pressed his suit, until Miranda had come to believe in his sincere desire for her as a housekeeper, if not as a companion, and she held her head higher with pride, as the proposals increased and the years passed by. Day after day she swept the front stoop, and day after day looked over toward the big house across the way with the question to her soul, "You might uv. Ain't you sorry you didn't?" And always her soul responded, "No, I ain't!"
The last time he came Miranda had her final triumph, for he professed that he had conceived a sort of affection for her, in spite of her red hair and questionable parentage, and the girl had sense enough to see that the highest this man had to give he had laid at her feet. She was gracious, in her quaint way, but she sent him on his way with so decided a refusal that no man in his senses would ever attempt to ask her to marry him again; and after the deed had been done she surveyed her wholesome features in the mirror with entire satisfaction. Not a heartstring of her well-packed outfit had been stirred during the five years' courting, only her pride had been rippled pleasantly. But now she knew that it was over; no more could she look at the neglected home across the way and feel that any day she might step in and take possession. She had cut the cold man to his heart, what little chilly heart he had, and he would look her way no more, for she had dared to humble him to confessing affection, and then refused him after all. He would keep his well-trained affections in their place hereafter; and would look about in genuine earnest now to get a housekeeper and a mother for his wild flock which had been making rapid strides on the downward course while he was meandering through the toilsome ways of courtship.
Nathan Whitney looked about to such purpose that he was soon able to have his banns published in the church, and everybody at once began to say how altogether suitable and proper it was for Nathan Whitney to take another wife after all these five long years of waiting and mourning his sweet Eliza; and who in all that country round so fit as Maria Bent to deal with the seven wild unruly Whitneys, young and old. Had she not been mistress of the district school for well nigh twelve years gone, and had she not dealt with the Whitneys time and time again to her own glory and the undoing of their best laid scheme's ? Maria Bent was just the one, and Nathan Whitney had been a fool not to ask her before. Maybe she might have saved the oldest boy Allan from disgrace.
Strange to say, as soon as Miranda felt herself safe from becoming related to them, her heart softened toward the little Whitneys. Day after day as she swept the front stoop, after the banns had been published, and looked toward the great house which might have been hers, but by her own act had been put out of her life forever, she sighed and thought of the little Whitneys, and questioned her soul: "Could I? Ought I to uv?" but always her soul responded loyally, "No, you couldn't uv. No, you oughtn't uv. Think o' him! You never could uv stood him. Bah!"
And now on this morning of Maria Bent's wedding day Miranda came down with a whisk and a jerk, and flung the blinds on triumphantly. The deed was almost done, the time was nearly over. In a few more hours Maria Bent would walk that flagging up to the grand pillared porch and enter that mansion across the way to become its mistress ; and she, Miranda Griscom, would be Miranda Griscom still, plain, red-haired, freckled—and unmarried. No one would ever know, except her dear Mrs. Marcia and her adored Mr. David, that she had "hed the chancet an' never tuk it." Yet, Miranda, on her rival's wedding day, looked across at the great house, and sang, sang her joy of freedom.
"I might uv endured them brats, poor little hanted lookin' creatoors, but I never could a-stood that slab-sided, washed-out, fish-eyed man around, nohow you fixed it. My goody! Think o' them all 'long side o' my little Rose!”
And Miranda went into the house, slamming the door joyfully and singing. David upstairs shaving remarked to Marcia:
"Well, Miranda doesn't seem to regret her single blessedness as yet, dear."
Marcia, trying a bright ribbon on little Rose's curls, answered happily;
"And it's a good thing for us she doesn't. I wonder if she'll go to the wedding."
Miranda, later, after the breakfast was cleared away, announced her intention. "Yes, I'm goin' jest to show I ain't got no feelin's about it. 'Course she don't know. I don't s'pose he'd ever tell her, 'tain't like him. He's one o' them close, sly men thet think it's cost him somethin' ef he tells a woman ennythin', but I'm goin' jest fer my own satisfaction. Then 'course I'll own I'd kinder like to watch her an' think thet might o' ben me ef I'd ben willin' to leave little Rose, an' you an'—well, ef I'd a ben willin' which I never was. Yes, course I'm goin'"
Chapter II
The ceremony was held in the school-house in the afternoon. Maria Bent lived with her old mother in two small rooms back of the post-office, not a suitable place for the wedding of Nathan Whitney's bride; so Maria, by reason of her years of service as teacher, was granted permission to use the school-house.
The joyful scholars, radiant at the thought of a new teacher,—any teacher so it be not Maria Bent,—and excited beyond measure over a holiday and a festivity all their own, joyously trimmed the school-house with roses, hollyhocks and long trailing vines from the woods, and for once the smoky walls and much hacked desks blossomed as the rose smothered in the wealth of nature.
The only children who did not participate in the noisy decorations were the young Whitneys. Like scared yellow leaves in a hurricane they scurried away from the path of the storm and hid from the scene of action, peering with jealous eyes and welling hearts from safe coverts at the enemy who was scouring the woods and gardens in behalf of her villa was about to invade the sacredness of their homes. Not that they had hitherto cared much about that home; but it was all they had and the world looked blank and unliveable to them now with the terror of their school days installed for incessant duty.
The little girls with down-drooped yellow lashes, and peaked, sallow faces strangely like their father's, hurried home to hide away their treasures in secret places in the attic, known only to themselves, and to whisper awesomely about how it would be when “she” came.
"She smiled at me in school yesterday," whispered Helena, the sharp fourteen year old. "It was like a gnarled spot on a sour apple that falls before it's ripe."
"Oh, be careful," hushed Prudence, lifting her thin little hands in dismay. "What if Aunt Jane should hear you and tell her. You know she's going to be our mother, and she can do what she likes then."^
"Mother nothing!" flouted Helena grandly, "she'll not mother me, I can tell you that. If she lets me alone I'll stay, but if she tries to boss me I'll run away."
Nevertheless Helena took the precaution to tiptoe lightly to the head of the stairs, to be sure the attic door was closed so that no one could hear her.
"Helena!" gasped Prudence, beginning to cry softly. "You wouldn't dare! You wouldn't leave me alone?"
"Well, no," said Helena relenting. "I'd take you with me p’raps; only you'd be so particular we'd get caught like the time I stole the pie and had it all fixed so Aunt Jane would think the cat got it, and you had to explain because you thought the cat might get whipped!"
"Well, you know Aunt Jane hates the cat, and she'd have whipped her worse'n she did us. Besides—”
"Aw, well you needn't cry. We've got enough to do now to keep quiet, and keep out of the way. Where's Nate?"
"I saw him going down toward the saw-mill after school——”
"Nate won't stay here long," stated Helena sagely. "He just despises Maria Bent."
"Where would he go?" said Prudence, drying her tears as her little world broke up bit by bit. "Helena Whitney, he's only ten years old!"