style="font-size:15px;"> “Not longer than a week, I guess.”
Patty looked at him long and earnestly, and then the tears brimmed in her eyes. Poor girl! What happiness it would have been to her, if she could have had Tom with her for a while, while their joy was still fresh and new. The sight of her tears melted away all the little bitterness that was still in Tom’s heart; he drew her to him, and she hid her face in his breast and cried. As he held her silently, in his arms, it seemed to him that their love had not brought them much happiness, so far.
After a while, she stopped crying, but she still lay with her face on his shoulder.
As Tom walked home that afternoon, he met Isaac Naylor coming down the mill-road from the turnpike. He knew that Isaac was going straight to Penrose’s house.
“How is thee, Thomas?” said he, as they passed one another.
Tom stared at him, but said never a word. He turned and looked after Isaac as the Friend walked briskly down the road that led through the woods to the mill.
“Never mind, friend Isaac,” said he, half-aloud, “the father may like thee better than he does me, but the daughter’s mine.” A thrill darted through his heart as he said this, for it made him realize that she was indeed his, and his alone. It was the last time that he saw Isaac for a year and a half.
Tom went straight to his mother and told her everything. A mother is nearer to her son in such matters than a father, for there is more in a woman’s sympathy than there is in a man’s. If he had had any trouble in regard to money matters, he would, no doubt, have gone to his father; but troubles like these that were upon him were more fitted for his mother’s ears.
“I wish thee’d never run away to sea,” said Tom’s mother.
“I wish so too,” said Tom; “but it can’t be helped now. I did run away to sea, and there’s an end of it.”
“Can’t thee find some way of making a living at home? Maybe Elihu Penrose would like thee better than he does if thee could stay at home, as other young men do.”
“How can I make a living at home?” said Tom, bitterly. “Can thee tell me of any way to make it?”
“No; but something might turn up.”
“I can’t wait for the chance of something turning up. I have seven hundred and fifty dollars to make in twelve months’ time.”
Neither of them spoke for a while. Tom sat beside his mother, and she was holding his hand and softly stroking it the while.
“Mother,” said Tom, at last.
“Well, son?”
“Does thee know what I’ve pretty well made up my mind to do?”
“What?”
“To go to Philadelphia on the stage to-morrow morning, and to take the first berth that I can get.”
“Oh, Thomas! thee wouldn’t go so soon, surely! What would Patty do?”
“Patty would have to bear it, mother. She’ll have to bear it, anyhow. It’ll be just as hard to leave to-morrow week as it will to-morrow. The sooner I leave the sooner I’ll be back, thee knows.”
All this was very reasonable, but, nevertheless, his heart failed him at the thought of leaving. “Of course,” he burst out, after a while, “of course, it’s as hard for me to go as it is for her to have me go.”
“I don’t know that, Thomas,” said his mother, in a trembling voice. “Thy life will be full of work and change. Patty will have nothing to do but to think of thee.”
“Well, all the same, its hard to leave her, and the knowledge that she will suffer don’t make it any the easier for me.”
He got up and began walking restlessly up and down the room. Presently he stopped in front of his mother.
“Yes, mother,” said he, “I’ll go on the stage to-morrow morning. There’s no use putting it off any longer, and I’d be a coward to do so.”
Then his mother put her handkerchief to her face, and the tears that she was keeping back came very freely.
The next morning at half-past seven o’clock Tom knocked at the door of Elihu Penrose’s house. The mill-house was about three-quarters of a mile from the turnpike, and as he had to meet the stage there about eight o’clock, he had only a few minutes in which to say farewell.
He walked straight into the dining-room. Patty was busy putting away the breakfast dishes, and Elihu sat at his old brass-handled desk, footing up his accounts. He looked up as Tom came in, and the color flew into Patty’s cheeks.
“Thee’s beginning thy courting early in the morning, Thomas,” said Elihu, dryly.
Tom vouchsafed no answer to this. He stood leaning against the door-frame, and his eyes were fixed upon Patty.
“I’m going to leave home this morning,” said he.
Neither of the three spoke for a moment or two. Tom stood looking at Patty, his hands clasped in front of him, feeling unutterably miserable. Elihu had arisen from his chair, and he and Patty were gazing at Tom, surprised at the suddenness of what he had told them. Then Elihu came forward and laid his hand on Tom’s shoulder.
“Thomas,” said he, “does thee mean that thee is going – ”
“I mean that I’m going to leave Eastcaster for a year,” said Tom.
“This is – this is very sudden, Thomas,” said he.
Tom nodded his head.
“Come, Thomas; I had no wish to be harsh with thee yesterday,” said the old man. “I don’t want to push thee to the wall. This is very sudden. Put off thy going for a week or two. Look here – even if thee don’t bring me the seven hundred and fifty dollars just at the end of the year, I won’t count it against thee.”
“It’s too late now,” said Tom. “My chest’s packed, and father’s going to put it on the stage for me. I’ll not be unmanly and put off the going, now that everything is fixed for it. If I’d have known how thee felt yesterday, I don’t deny that I might have stayed a little while longer. But it won’t do to stop now that I’ve started.”
All this he spoke without looking at Elihu. Elihu took his hand from Tom’s shoulder. He stood for a moment as though he were about to say something farther; then he slowly picked up his hat and left the room, and Tom and Patty were alone.
In about a quarter of an hour the old man came back again. Tom looked up at the clock. It was a quarter to eight, and he knew that the time was come for him to go. Patty and he had been sitting on the sofa, holding one another’s hand. They had been silent for some time, and they both arose without a word.
Tom stood looking long and earnestly at Patty. Her face was bowed upon her breast. “Patty, my darling,” whispered he, and then she looked up.
Her eyes were brimming with the tears that she had kept so bravely hidden until now, and then two bright drops ran slowly down her cheeks.
“Farewell, my darling,” murmured he,
