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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/21443-8.txt b/21443-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b38467 --- /dev/null +++ b/21443-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8752 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vesty of the Basins, by Sarah P. McLean Greene + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vesty of the Basins + +Author: Sarah P. McLean Greene + +Release Date: May 15, 2007 [EBook #21443] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VESTY OF THE BASINS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Cover Art] + + + + + + +VESTY OF THE BASINS + +_A Novel_ + + +BY + +SARAH P. McLEAN GREENE + + +AUTHOR OF CAPE COD FOLKS, ETC. + + + + + +NEW YORK + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS + + +Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers + + + + +Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +All rights reserved. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE MEETIN' + II. "SETTIN' ON THE LOG" + III. "GETTIN' A NAIL PUT IN THE HOSS'S SHU" + IV. LOVE, LOVE + V. COLUMBUS AND THE EGG, AND LOT'S WIFE + VI. THIS GREATER LOVE + VII. "SETTIN' ON THE FENCE"--THE SHIFTY SPECTRE + VIII. "VESTY'S MARRIED" + IX. THE TALE OF CAPTAIN LEEZUR'S SLY COURTSHIP + X. A CALL FROM NOTELY'S YACHT + XI. ANOTHER NAIL + XII. THE MASTER REVELLER + XIII. CAPTAIN LEEZUR RELATES HOW MIS' GARRISON ATE CROW + XIV. "TAR-A-TA!" OF THE TRUMPET + XV. THE BROTHERS + XVI. THE POPLAR LEAVES TREMBLE + XVII. GOIN' TO THE DAGARRIER'S + XVIII. UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE + XIX. THE BASIN + XX. SOCIAL DIVERSIONS AT THE "POST-OFFICE" + XXI. BROKEN WINDOWS + XXII. "NEIGHBORIN'" + XXIII. THE "FLAG-RAISIN'," OR THE "OCCASION" + XXIV. THE STORY OF THE SACRED COW + XXV. IN THE LANE + XXVI. JUST THE SCHOOL-HOUSE + + + + +VESTY OF THE BASINS + + +I + +THE MEETIN' + +Now is it to be rain or a storm of wind at the Basin? + +I love that foam out on the sea; those boulders, black and wet along +the shore, they are a rest to me; the clouds chase one another; in this +dim north country the wind is cool and strong, though it is now +midsummer; at sunset you shall see such color! + +From a little, low, storm-beaten building comes the sound of a +fog-horn. That is the gift of Melchias Tibbitts, deceased, to the +Basin school-house. Yonder is his schooner, the "Martha B. Fuller," +long stranded, leaning seaward, down there in the cove. + +It is Sunday afternoon; the fog-horn that Melchias Tibbitts gave--it +serves as bell; the battered schoolhouse as church; and for Sunday +raiment? some little reverent, aspiring compromise of an unwonted white +collar, stretched stiff and holy and uncomfortable about the stalwart +neck above a blue flannel shirt, or a new pair of rubber boots--the +trousers much tucked in--worn with an air of conscious, deprecating +pride. + +But the women will be fine. God only knows how! but be sure, in some +pitiful, sweet way they will be fine. + +There are many panes of glass out of the windows, the panels of the +doors are out; so better they can see the clouds pass: it is beautiful. + +Oh, naught have I either, nor wisdom, nor fine speech--only a little +knowledge of shipwreck out yonder, and mirth, and tears, and love. The +windows and panels of my life are no strong plate, polished and +glittering to all beholders; they are stained and broken through. Let +me come in and sit with ye. + + +"We should like to open our meetin' with singin'," said Superintendent +Skates; "will one of the Pointers lead us in singin'?" + +The Pointers were the aristocrats of this region, living twelve miles +away at the Point, in the midst of two grocery stores and a millinery +establishment; there were two of them here for a Sunday drive and +pastime. They were silent. + +"I see," said Elder Skates patiently, "that a few of the Crooked Rivers +have drove down to-day, too. Will one of the Crooked Rivers lead us in +singin'?" + +Lower down in the scale than the Pointers were they of Crooked River, +but still far above the Basins; those present were not singers, they +were silent. + +"Then will one of the Capers lead us in singin'?" very meekly and +patiently persisted Elder Skates. + +Nearer, and of low degree, were they of the Cape, but still above the +Basins. They were silent. + +"I know," said Elder Skates, his subdued tone buoyant now with an +undertone of hope, "that one of the Basins will lead us in singin'!" + +For the Basins had reached those cheerful depths where there is no +social or artistic status to maintain; so low as to be expected to do, +or attempt to do, whatever might be asked of them, even though failure +plunged them, if possible, in deeper depths of abasement. There was +nothing beneath them except the Artichokes; and it was seldom, very +seldom, an Artichoke was present. + +But the Basins, though so low, were modest. + +"Can't one of the Basins start, 'He will carry you through'?" said the +enduring Brother Skates; "where is Vesty?" + +"She 's a-helpin' Elvine with her baby," came now a prompt and ready +reply: "she said she'd come along for social meetin', after you'd had +Sunday-school, ef she could." + +"How is Elvine's baby?" spoke up another voice. + +"Wal', he 's poored away dreadful, but Aunt Lowize says he 's turned to +git along all right now, and when Aunt Lowize gives hopes, it 's good +hopes, she 's nachally so spleeny." + +"Sure enough. Wal', I've raised six, and nary sick day, 'less it was a +cat-bile or some sech little meachin' thing. I tell you there ain't no +doctor's ructions like nine-tenths milk to two-tenths molasses, and sot +'em on the ground, and let 'em root." + +At this simple and domestic throwing off of all social reserve, voices +hitherto silent began to arise, numerous and cheerful. + +"Is there any more rusticators come to board this summer?" + +"There 's only four by and large," replied a male voice sadly. "These +here liquor laws 't Washin'ton 's put onto nor'eastern Maine are +a-killin' on us for a fash'nable summer resort. When folks finds out +'t they've got to go to a doctor and swear 't there 's somethin' the +matter with their insides, in order to git a little tod o' whiskey +aboard, they turns and p'ints her direc' for Bar Harbor and Saratogy +Springs; an' they not only p'ints her, they h'ists double-reef sails +and sends her clippin'!" + +"Lunette 's got two," came from the other side of the house. + +"What do they pay?" + +"Five dollars a week." + +"Pshaw! what ructions! Three dollars a week had ought to pay the board +of the fanciest human creetur 't God ever created yit. But some folks +wants the 'arth, and'll take it too, if they can git it." + +"Wal', I don' know; they're kind o' meachy, and allas souzlin' +theirselves in hot water; it don't cost nothin', but it gives yer house +a ridick'lous name. Then they told Lunette they wanted their lobsters +br'iled alive. 'Thar,' says she, 'I sot my foot down. I told 'em I' +wa'n't goin' to have no half-cooked lobsters hoppin' around in torments +over my house. I calk'late to put my lobsters in the pot, and put the +cover on and know where they be,' says she." + +"I took a rusticator once 't was dietin' for dyspepsy--that's a state +o' the stomick, ye know, kind o' between hay and grass--and if I didn't +get tired o' makin' toast and droppin' eggs!" + +"I never could see no fun in bein' a rusticator anyway, down there by +the sea-wall on a hot day, settin' up agin' a spruce tree admirin' the +lan'scape, with ants an' pitch ekally a-meanderin' over ye." + +"Lunette's man-boarder there, the husban', he 's editor of a +noos-sheet, and gits a thousand dollars a year--'tain't believable, but +it's what they say--an' he thinks he knows it all. He got Fluke to +take him out in his boat; he began to direc' Fluke how to do this, an' +how to do that, and squallin' and flyin' at him. Fluke sailed back +with him and sot him ashore. 'When I take a hen in a boat, I'll take a +hen,' says he." + +"Did ye hear about Fluke's tradin' cows?" + +"No."---- + +Meanwhile Brother Skates had been standing listening, patient, +interested, but now recovered himself, blushing, in his new rubber +boots. + +"Can't one of the Basins start 'He will carry you through'?" he +entreated. + +"I'd like to," said one sister, the string of her tongue having been +unloosed in secular flights; "I've got all the dispersition in the +world, Brother Skates, but I don't know the tune." + +"It 's better to start her with only jest a good dispersition and no +tune to speak of," said Brother Skates with gentle reproof, "than not +to start her at all." + +Thus encouraged the song burst forth, with tune enough and to spare. + +It was this I heard--I, a happy adopted dweller, from the lowest +handle-end of the Basin, while driving over through the woods with +Captain Pharo Kobbe and his young third wife and children. + +"Come, git up," said Captain Pharo, at the sound, applying the lap of +the reins to the horse; "ye've never got us anywheres yet in time to +hear 'Amen'! Thar 's no need o' yer shyin' at them spiles, ye darned +old fool! Ye hauled 'em thar yourself, yesterday. Poo! poo! Hohum! +Wal--wal--never mind-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass. Or as--'] + +Git up!" + +As we alighted at the school-house, we listened through the open panel +with comfort to the final but vociferous refrain of "He will carry you +through," and entered in time to take our seats for the class. + +Elder Skates stood with a lesson paper in his hand, from which he asked +questions with painful literalness and adherence to the text. + +The audience, having no lesson paper or previous preparation of the +sort, and not daring to enter into these themes with that originality +of thought and expression displayed in their former conversation, +answered only now and then, with the pale air of hitting at a broad +guess. + +"Is sin the cause of sorrow?" said Elder Skates. + +No reply. + +"Is sin the cause of sorrow?" he repeated faithfully. + +At this point, one of a row of small boys on the back seat, no more +capable of appreciating this critical period of the Sunday-school than +the broad-faced sculpin fish which he resembled, took an alder-leaf +from his pocket and, lifting it to his mouth, popped it, with an +explosion so successful and loud that it startled even himself. + +His guardian (aunt), who sat directly in front of him, though deaf, +heard some echo of this note; and seeing the sudden glances directed +their way, she turned and, observing the look of frozen horror and +surprise upon his features, said severely, "You stop that sithing" +(sighing). + +Delighted at this full and unexpected escape from guilt and its +consequences, the sculpin embraced his fellow-sculpins with such +ecstasy that he fell off from his seat, upon the floor. + +His aunt, turning again, and having no doubt as to his position this +time, lifted him and restored him to his place with a determination so +pronounced that the act in itself was clearly audible. + +"You set your spanker-beam down there now, and keep still!" she said. + +Elber Skates took advantage of this providential disturbance to slide +on to the next question: + +"How can we escape trouble?" + +No reply. + +"How can we escape trouble?" he meekly and patiently repeated. + +"Good Lord, Skates!" said Captain Pharo, and put his hand in his pocket +for his pipe, but bethought himself, and withdrew it, with a deep sigh. + +Elder Skates had looked at him with hope, but now again mechanically +reiterated: + +"How--can--we--escape--trouble?" + +"We can't! we can't no way in this world!" said Captain Pharo. "Where +in h--ll did you scrape up them questions, Skates? Escape trouble? Be +you a married man, Skates? I'd always reckoned ye was! Poo! poo! +Hohum! Wal--wal--never mind-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or the morn-ing flow'r. The blight--'"] + +He bethought himself again of his surroundings, spat far out of the +window as a melancholy resource, and was silent. + +Elder Skates, alarmed and staggered, looked softly down his list of +questions for something vaguely impersonal, widely abstract, and now +lit upon it with a smile. + +"What is the meaning of 'Alphy and Omegy'?" he said--and waited, weary +but safe. + +But at the second repetition of this inscrutable conundrum, a lank and +tall girl of some fifteen summers, arose and said, not without +something of the sublime air becoming a solitary intelligence: "It's +the great and only Pot-entate." + +Elder Skates showed no sign of having been hit to death, but gazed +vaguely at each one of his audience in turn, and then turned with dazed +approval to the girl. + +"Very good. Very good indeed," said he. "How true that is! Let us +try and act upon it during the week, according to our lights. +Providence--nor nothin' else--preventin', we will have our +Sunday-school here as usual next Sunday, and I hope we shall all try +and keep up religion. Is there anybody willing to have the 'five-cent +supper' this week, in order to raise funds for a united burying-ground? +We have been long at work on this good cause, but, I'm sorry to say, +interest seems to be flaggin'. Is there anybody willin' to have the +five-cent supper this week?" + +"I can, I suppose," said the woman who had been willing to sing without +tune. "But I can't give beans no longer. I can give beet greens and +duck." + +"I don't think it was any wonder we was gettin' discouraged," said +another now resuscitated voice. "Zely had the last one, and Fluke for +devilment gets a lot of the Artichokes over early ter help the cause. +Wal, you might know there wa'n't no beans left for the Capers and +Basins, and Zely was dreadful mortified, for there was several Crooked +Rivers." + +"Cap'n Nason Teel says," continued that individual's wife, "that the +treasury 's fell behind; he says there ain't nothin' made in five-cent +suppers, Artichokes or no Artichokes--in beans and corn-beef; he says +we've got to give somethin' that don't cost nothin'. Beet greens and +duck don't cost nothin', and if that 's agreeable, I'm willin'." + +"All the same, beet greens and duck is very good eatin', I think," +proposed Elder Skates, and receiving no dissenting voice, continued: + +"Providence--nor nothin' else--preventin', there will be a five-cent +supper at Cap'n Nason Teel's, on Wednesday evenin'. Beet greens and +duck. I will now close the Sunday-school, trusting we shall do all we +can during the week to help the cause of the burying-ground and of +religion. As soon as Brother Birds'll arrives, we can begin social +meetin'." + +"It 's natch'all he should be late; somebody said 't he was havin' +pickled shad for dinner." + +"Here he comes now, beatin' to wind'ard," said Captain Pharo from the +window. "He'll make it! The wind 's pilin' in through this 'ere +school-house on a clean sea-rake. I move 't we tack over to south'ard +of her." + +This nautical advice was being followed with some confusion; I did not +see Vesty when she came in, but when the majority of us had tacked to +south'ard, I, electing still to remain at the nor'east, saw her, not +far in front of me, and knew it was she. + +The wind was blowing the little scolding locks of dusky brown hair in +her neck; her shoulders were broad to set against either wind or +trouble; she was still and seemed to make stillness, and yet her breast +was heaving under hard self-control, her cheeks were burning, her eyes +downcast. + +I looked. Nestled among those safe to the south'ard was a young man +with very wide and beautiful blue eyes, that spoke for him without +other utterance whatever he would. Of medium height and build, yet one +only thought, somehow, how strong he was; clad meanly as the rest, even +to the rubber storm-bonnet held in his tanned black hand, it was yet +plain enough that he was rich, powerful, and at ease. + +His wide eyes were on Vesty, and shot appealing mirth at her. + +She never once glanced at him, her full young breast heaving. + +"Can't some of the brothers fix this scuttle over my head?" said Elder +Birds'll nervously, addressing the group of true and tried seamen, +anchored cosily to south'ard. + +One, Elder Cossey, arose, a Tartar, not much beloved, but prominent in +these matters. In his endeavors he mounted the desk and disappeared, +wrestling with the scuttle, all except his lower limbs and expansive +boots. + +"My Lord!" muttered one who had been long groaning under a Cossey +mortgage; "ef I could only h'ist the rest of ye up there, and shet ye +up!" + +"I sh'd like to give him jest one jab with my hatpin," added a sister +sufferer, under her breath. + +"The scuttle is now closed," said Elder Birds'll gravely, as Elder +Cossey descended, "and the social meetin' is now open." + +Here the blow of silence again fell deeply. + +The wide blue eyes gave Vesty a look, like the flying ripple on a deep +lake. + +She did not turn, but that ripple seemed to light upon her own sweet +lips; they quivered with the temptation to laugh, the little scolding +locks caressed her burning ears and tickled her neck, but she sat very +still. I fancied there were tears of distress, almost, in her eyes. I +wanted her to lift her eyes just once, that I might see what they were +like. + +"Hohum!" began Elder Cossey, with wholly devout intentions--"we thank +Thee that another week has been wheeled along through the sand, about a +foot deep between here and the woods, and over them rotten spiles on +the way to the Point, and them four or five jaggedest boulders at the +fork o' the woods--I wish there needn't be quite so much zigzagging and +shuffling in their seats by them 't have come in barefoot afore the +Throne o' Grace," said Elder Cossey, suddenly opening his eyes, and +indicating the row of sculpins with distinct disfavor. + +"Yes," he continued, "we've been a-straddlin' along through +troublements and trialments and afflickaments, hanging out our phiols +down by the cold streams o' Babylon, and not gittin' nothin' in 'em, +hohum!" + +Vibrating thus mysteriously, and free and unconfined, between +exhortation and prayer, Elder Cossey finally merged into a recital of +his own weakness and vileness as a miserable sinner. + +And here a strange thing happened. A brother who had been noticing the +winks and smiles cast broadly about, and thinking in all human justice +that Elder Cossey was getting more than his share, got up and declared +with emotion, that he'd "heered some say how folks was all'as talkin' +about their sins for effex, and didn't mean nothin' by it, but I can +say this much, thar ain't no talkin' for effex about Brother Cossey; he +has been, and is, every bit jest as honest mean as what he 's been +a-tellin' on!" + +Elder Skates arose, trembling. "Vesty," said he, with unnatural +quickness of tone; "will you start 'Rifted Rock'?" + +The blue, handsome eyes were on her mercilessly--she was suffocating +besides with a wild desire to laugh, her breath coming short and quick. +She gave one agonized look at Brother Skates, and then, lifted her eyes +to the window. + +The clouds were sad and grand; there was a bird flying to them. + +She fixed her eyes there, and her voice flowed out of her: + + "'Softly through the storm of life, + Clear above the whirlwind's cry, + O'er the waves of sorrow, steals + The voice of Jesus, "It is I."'" + + +The music in her throat had trembled at first like the bird's flight, +winging as it soared, but now all that was over; her uplifted face was +holy, grave: + + "'In the Rifted Rock I'm resting.'" + + * * * * * * + +Elder Cossey forgot his wrath in mysterious deep movings of +compunction. Fluke, who had entered, was soft, reverent, his fingers +twitching for his violin. Even so, I thought, as I listened, it may be +will sound to us some voice from the other shore, when we put out on +the dark river. + +"Vesty," said a mite of a girl, coming up to her after meeting, "Evelin +wants to know if you can set up with Clarindy to-night. She 's been +took again." + +"Yes," said Vesty, the still look on her face, "I'll come." + +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, "when can you haul over the organ and swipe +her out? She 's full o' chalk." + +"I'll try and do it to-morrow." Vesty looked at Elder Skates and +smiled, showing her wholesome white teeth. + +"Vesty," said Mrs. Nason Teel; "I want ye to set right down here, now +I've got ye, and give me that resute for Mounting Dew pudding." + +The blue eyes at the door gave Vesty an imperative, quick glance. + +But she sat down by Mrs. Nason Teel; she sat there purposely until all +the people were dispersed and the winding lanes were still outside. + +Then she went her own way alone, something like tears veiled under +those long, quiet lashes. + +She saw first a muscular hand on the fence and dared not look up, until +Notely Garrison had vaulted over at a bound and stood before her, his +glad eyes flashing, his storm hat in his hand. + +Then her look was wild reproach. + +"Vesty!" he cried. "Is this the way, after all we have been to one +another? Have you forgotten how we were like sister and brother, you +and I? how Doctor Spearmint led us to school together?" he laughed +eagerly. "How"---- + +"I haven't forgotten, Note. But it can't be the same again, as man and +woman, with what you are, and what I am." + +"Better! O Vesty!"--he stood quite on a level with her now; she was +glad of that. She was a tall girl, taller than he when they parted. +"O Vesty!" he drank in her beauty with an awe that uplifted her in his +frank, bright gaze--"God was happy when He made you!" + +But the girl's eyes only searched his with a Basin gravity, for faith. + +A fatal step, searching in Notely's eyes! A beautiful pallor crept +over her face, flushing into joy. She ran her hand through his rough, +light hair in the old way. + +"It has not changed you, being at the schools so long, as I thought it +would," she said wistfully, stroking his hair with mature gentleness, +though he was older than she. "Why, Note; you look just as brown, and +hearty, and masterful as ever!" + +"Oh, but it wasn't book-schools I went to, you know. It was rowing and +foot-ball and taking six bars on the running leap, and swinging from +the feet with the head downward, and all that. I can do it all." + +He looked away from her with mischief in his eyes, and hummed a line +through his fine Greek nose, as Captain Pharo might. + +"I don't doubt it, but you were high in the college too--for Lunette +saw it in a paper: so high it was spoken of!" + +"I just asked them to do that, Vesty. People can't refuse me, you +know. I get whatever I ask for." + +He turned to her with a sort of childish pathos on his strong, handsome +face. + +She bit her lip for joy and pride in him, even his strange, gay ways. + +"Come, Vesta!" he said, with an air of natural and graceful +proprietorship; "a stolen meeting is nonsense between you and me. I +shall see you home." + + + + +II + +"SETTIN' ON THE LOG" + +His face invited me, the skin drawn over it rather tightly, resembling +a death's-head, yet beaming with immortal joy. + +He was sitting on a log; his little granddaughter, on the other side of +him, was as cheerfully diverted in falling off of it. He was picking +his teeth with some mysterious talisman of a bone, selected from the +forepaw of a deer, and gazing at the heavens as at a fond familiar +brother. + +"Won't you set down a spa-ll," he said, and the way he said spell +suggested pleasing epochs of rest. + +"Leezur's my name; and neow I'll tell ye how ye can all'as remember it; +it's jest like all them great discoveries, it's dreadful easy when it's +once been thought on. Leezur--leezure--see? Leezure means takin' +things moderate, ye know, kind o' settin' areound in the shank o' the +evenin'--Leezur--lee-zure--see!" + +Oh, how he beamed! The systems of Newton and Copernicus seemed dwarfed +in comparison. I sat down on the log; the little girl, gazing at me in +astonishment, fell off. + +"What's the marter, Dilly?" said her grandfather, in the same slow, +mellow, jubilant tone with which he had propounded his discovery, and +not withdrawing his fond smile from the heavens; "'s the log tew +reoundin' for ye to set stiddy on?" + +A rattling brown structure rose before us, surrounded by a somewhat +firm staging; a skeleton roof, with a few shingles in one corner, +twisted all ways by the wind. It told its own tale, of an interrupted +vocation. + +"I expect to git afoul of her agin to-morrer," continued Captain +Leezur; "ef Pharo got my nails when he went up to the Point to-day. +Some neow 's all'as dreadful oneasy when they gits to shinglin'; wants +to drive the last shingle deown 'fore the first one's weather-shaped. +Have ye ever noticed how some 's all'as shiftin' a chaw o' tobakker? +Neow when I takes a chaw I wants ter let her lay off one side, and +compeound with her own feelin's when she gits ready to melt away. +Forced-to-go never gits far, ye know. + +"Some 's that way," he resumed; "and some 's sarssy." + +I looked up incredulously, but his fostering, abstracted smile was as +serene as ever. + +"Vesty, neow, stood down there in the lane this mornin', and sarssed me +for a good ten minits; sarssed me abeout not havin' no nails, and +sarssed me abeout settin' on the log a spall; stood there and sarssed +and charffed." + +"She is some relative--some grandniece of yours, Captain Leezur?" + +"No, oh no. Vesty and me 's only jest mates; but we charff and sarss +each other 'tell the ceows come home." + +I thought of the tall girl with the holy eyelids and the brave +resistance against mirth, and in spite of my predilection for Captain +Leezur, his words seemed to me like sacrilege. + +"I saw her, Sunday," I said. + +"Wal, thar' neow! Vesty 's jest as pious lookin', Sundays, as Pharo's +tew-seated kerridge. I tell her, I'm dreadful glad for her sake that +there ain't but one Sunday tew a week, she couldn't hold out no longer. +Still, she's vary partickeler, Vesty is, and she 's good for taking +keer o' folks. Elder Birds'll says 't ef Vesty Kirtland ain't come +under 'tonin' grace, then 'tonin' grace is mighty skeerce to the Basin." + +"She is beautiful," I said. + +"Oh, I don't know 'beout that. Vesty 's a little more hullsome lookin' +sometimes 'long in the winter, when she gits bleached out and poored +away a bit." + +"People seem to depend on her a great deal." + +"Sartin they dew. Wal, Vesty 's gittin' on. She 's nineteen year old. +She can row a boat, or dew a washin', or help in a deliverunce case, +and she 's r'al handy and comfortin' in death-damps." + +"All that! Vesty--and nineteen!" I think I sighed. + +"Ye mustn't let her kile herself reound ye," said Captain Leezur. + +I looked up in dismay. Had he not seen my weakness of body, and my +birth-scarred face? + +No, apparently he had not; his benign blessed face uplifted, and his +voice so glad: + +"Ye know how 'tis with women folks; they don't give no warnin', but +first ye know they're kilin' themselves all reound and reound yer +h'art-strings. They don't know what it 's for and ye don't know what +it 's for; but take a young man like you, and ef ye ain't keerful, +Vesty'll jest as sartin git in a kile on you as the world." + +"How about that strong-looking young man?" I said. "Very easy, +swaggers gracefully--with the blue eyes." + +"Neow I know jest who you mean! You mean Note Garrison. Sartin, Vesty +'s done herself reound him from childhood to old age, as ye might say. +I don't know whether he c'd ever unkile himself or not, but I shouldn't +want to bet on no man's 'charnces with a woman like Vesty all weound +areound and reound him that way. Some says 't he wouldn't look at a +Basin when it comes to marryin'. But thar'! Note all'as kerries sail +enough ter sink the boat--but what he says, he'll stick to." + +"He is rich, then?" + +"Wal, yes. They own teown prop'ty somewhars, and they own all the Neck +here, and lays areound on her through the summer. Why, Note's +father--he 's dead neow--he and I uster stand deown on the mud flats +when we was boys, a-diggin' clarms tergether, barefoot; 'tell he +cruised off somewhar's and made his fortin'. + +"I might 'a' done jest the same thing," reflected Captain Leezur aloud, +with a pensiveness that still had nothing of unavailing regret in it, +"ef I'd been a mind tew; and had a monniment put up over _me_ like one +o' these here No. 10 Mornin' Glory coal stoves." + +I too mused, deeply, sadly. + +O placid, unconscious sarcasm! innocent as flowers: wise end, truly, of +all earthly ambition! How much more distinguished, after all, Captain +Leezur, the spireless grave waiting down there in the little home lot +by the sea. Since five-cent suppers do not enrich the donor, and the +treasury of the United Burying Ground is permanently low. + +"Never mind, Dilly! crawl up agin. What ef ye did tunk onto yer little +head; little gals' skulls is yieldin' and sof'." + +"What is the weather going to be, Captain Leezur?" I said, following +his gaze skyward. + +"Wal, I put on my new felts," said he, indicating without any false +assumption of modesty those chaste sepulchres enclosing his +feet--"hopin' 'twould fetch a rain! said I didn't care ef I did spot my +new felts ef 'twould only fetch a rain! One thing," he continued, +scanning the dilatory sky with a look that was keen without being +severe; "she'll rain arfter the moon fulls, ef she don't afore." + +I reluctantly made some sign of going, but was restrained. "Wait a +spall," he said; and ran his hand anticipatively into his pocket. He +brought to light some lozenges that had evidently just been recovered +from blushing intimacy with his "plug" of tobacco. + +"Narvine lozenges," he explained; "they're dreadful moderatin' to the +dispersition; quiet ye; take some. + +"They come high," he confided to me, with the idea of enhancing, not +begrudging the gift, as we sucked them luxuriously; "cent apiece, +dollar a hunderd. Never mind, Dilly; here 's one o' Granpy's narvine +lozenges; p'r'aps it'll help ye to set stiddier." + +So, with a glad view to moderating my disposition, I sat with Captain +Leezur and the little girl on the log, and ate soiled nervine lozenges, +tinctured originally with such primal medicaments as catnip and +thoroughwort; and whether from that source or not, yet peace did +descend upon me like a river. + +As I finally rose to go-- + +"D'ye ever have the toothache?" said Captain Leezur kindly; "ef ye do, +come right straight deown to me, and ef she 's home you shall have +her"--and he exhibited beamingly that talismanic little bone cleft from +the forepaw of a deer, "Ye pick yer teeth with 'er and ye're sartin +never to have the toothache, but ef you've got a toothache, she'll cure +ye. + +"Mine 's been lent a great deal," he continued proudly. "She 's been +as far as 'Tit Menan Light, and one woman over to Sheep Island kep' her +a week once. She 's been sent for sometimes right in the middle o' the +night! When there ain't nobody else a-usin' of her, I takes the +charnce to pick away with her a little myself. But ef you ever feel +the toothache comin' on, come to me direc'--and ef she 's home, you +shall have her." + +I thanked him with a swelling heart. We shook hands affectionately, +and I went on up the lane. + +I turned the corner by the school-house. Away back there among the +spruce trees, I saw moving figures, red, green, blue, and heard low +voices and laughter. + +Then I remembered how I had heard the orphan "help" of my hostess, Miss +Pray, make a request that she might go "gumming" with the other girls +that afternoon. + +It was a long perspective to limp through alone, with all those bright, +merry eyes peering from behind the spruce trees. But I had not labored +over half the way, when I saw one, the tallest one, coming toward me. + +Vesty. + +"Won't you have some?" she said. "Strangers don't know how good it is; +it is very good for you--a little." Yes, she was chewing the gum--a +little--herself; but that wild pure resin from the trees, and with, oh, +such teeth! such lips! a breath like the fragrant shades she had issued +from. + +She poured some of her spicy gleanings into my hand. + +And now I could see her closely. + +I do not know how she would have looked at other men, strong men; but +at me she looked as the girl mother who bore me, untimely and in +terror, might have done, had she been now in the flesh, mutely +protective against all the world, without repugnance, infinitely tender. + +"I am coming up to sit with you and Miss Pray, some evening," she said. +Her warm brown fingers touched mine. She did not blush; she had her +Sunday face--holy, grave. + +"Come! God bless you, child!" I said, and limped on, strong against +the world. + +I sat by the fireplace that evening; not a night in all the year in +this sweet north country but you shall find the fire welcome. + +Miss Pray's fireplace stretched wide between door and door. Opposite +it were the windows; you saw the water, the moon shone in. + +Miss Pray did her own farming and was sleepy, yet sat by me with that +religious awe of me as befitting one who had elected to pay seven +dollars a week for board! I surprised a look of baffled wonder and +curiosity on her face now and then, as well as of remorse at allowing +me to attach such a mysterious value to my existence. + +She did not know that her fire in itself was priceless. + +It burned there--part of a lobster trap, washed ashore, three buoys, a +section of a hen-coop, a bottomless chopping tray, a drift-wood stump +with ten fantastic roots sending up blue and green flame, a portion of +the wheel of an outworn cart, some lobster shells, the eyes glowing, +some mussel shells, light green, and seaweed over all, shining, +hissing, lisping. + +Miss Pray snored gently. I put some of the spruce gum Vesty had given +me into my mouth; well, yes, by birth I have very eminent right to +aristocratic proclivities. + +But the spruce woods came again before me with their balm, and her +face. I dwelt upon it fondly, without that pang of hope which most men +must endure, and smiled to think of Captain Leezur's dismay if he +should know how Vesty had already coiled herself around my +heart-strings! + + + + +III + +"GETTIN' A NAIL PUT IN THE HOSS'S SHU" + +They never noticed my physical misfortune except in this way: they +invited me everywhere; to mill, to have the horse shod, all voyages by +sea or land; my visiting and excursion list was a marvel of repletion. + +Captain Pharo came down--my soul's brother--with more of "a h'tch and a +go," than usual in his gait. + +"My woman read in some fool-journal somewheres, lately," he explained, +"about pourin' kerosene on yer corns and then takin' a match to her and +lightin' of her off. + +"Wal', I supposed she was a-dressin' my corns down in jest the old +usual way, last Sunday mornin', when--by clam! ye don't want to splice +onto too young a shipmate, major." (This last was a divinely Basin +thought, treating me as a subject of the wars.) + +"I've married all states but widders," said Captain Pharo, with a +_blasé_ air of conjugal experience; "but my advice above all things +is," he murmured, lifting his maimed foot, "don't splice onto too young +a shipmate. They're all'as a-tryin' some new ructions on ye. Now +Vesty, even as stiddy as she is, she 's all'as gittin' the women folks +crazy over some new patron for a apern, or some new resute for pudd'n' +and pie. So," he added, "ef you sh'd come to me, intendin' to splice, +all the advice 't I c'd give 'ud be, I _don't_ know widders; poo! +poo!--hohum! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass, Or as--'] + +_try_ widders." + +As I stood speechless with conflicting emotions, he lit his pipe and +continued, more hopefully: + +"I've got to go up to the Point to git a nail put in the hoss's shu, so +I come down to ask you to go up to the house and jine us." + +Now I already knew that the Basin way of proceeding to get a nail put +in the horse's shoe meant a day of widely excursive incident and +pleasure, in which the main or stated object was cast far from our +poetical vision. I accepted. + +"My woman invited Miss Lester to go with us. The old double-decker +rides easier for havin' consid'rable ballast, ye know--and Miss Lester +tips her at nigh onto about two hunderd; she 's a widder too, ain't +she, by the way? but she 's clost onto sixty-seven; hain't no thoughts +o' splicin', in course. Miss Lester 's a vary sensible woman. But I +thought cruisin' 'round with her kind o' frien'ly on the back seat, ye +might git a sort of a token or a consute in general o' what widders is." + +"True," said I gratefully, with flattered meditation. + +"It 's a scand'lous windy kentry to keep anything on the clo's-line," +said the captain, as we walked on together, sadly gathering up one of +his stockings and a still more inseparable companion of his earthly +pilgrimage from the path. + +"What 's the time, major?" said he, as he led me into the kitchen, "or +do you take her by the sun? I had Leezur up here a couple o' days to +mend my clock. 'Pharo,' says he, 'thar 's too much friction in her.' +So, by clam! he took out most of her insides and laid 'em by, and +poured some ile over what they was left, and thar' she stands! She +couldn't tick to save her void and 'tarnal emptiness. 'Forced-to-go +never gits far,' says Leezur, he says--'ye know.'" + +Captain Pharo and I, standing by the wood-box, nudged each other with +delight over this conceit. + +"'Forced-to-go never gets far, you know,'" said I. + +"'Forced-to-go,'" began Captain Pharo, but was rudely haled away by +Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, to dress. + +That was another thing; apparently they could never get me to the house +early enough, pleased that I should witness all their preparations. +They led me to the sofa, and Mrs. Kobbe came and combed out her +hair--pretty, long, woman's hair--in the looking-glass, over me; and +then Captain Pharo came and parted his hair down the back and brushed +it out rakishly both sides, over me. Usually I saw the children +dressed; they were at school. It was too tender a thought for +explanation, this way of taking me with brotherly fondness to the +family bosom. + +"How do you like Cap'n Pharo's new blouse?" said his wife. + +In truth I hardly knew how to express my emotions; while he sniffed +with affected disdain of his own brightness and beauty, I was so +dim-looking, in comparison, sitting there! + +"When I took up the old carpet this spring, I found sech a bright piece +under the bed, that I jest took and made cap'n a blouse of her--and +wal, thar? what do you think?" + +I looked at him again. The hair of my soul's brother had ceased from +the top of his head, but the long and scanty lower growth was brushed +out several proud inches beyond his ears. He was not tall, and he was +covered with sections of bloom; but as he turned he displayed one +complete flower embracing his whole back, a tropical efflorescence, +brilliant with many hues. + +"She is beautiful," I murmured; "what sort of a flower is she?" + +"Oh, I don' know," said Captain Pharo, with the same affected +indifference to his charms, but there was--yes, there was--something +jaunty in his gait now as he walked toward the barn; "they're rather +skeerce in this kentry, I expect; some d--d arniky blossom or other! +Poo! poo! + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r, The blighting +wind sweeps o'er, she with-'] + +Come, wife, time ye was ready!" + +I was not unprepared, on climbing to my seat in the carriage, to have +to contest the occupancy of the cushions with a hen, who was accustomed +to appropriate them for her maternal aspirations. I was in the midst +of the battle, when Mrs. Kobbe coolly seized her and plunged her entire +into a barrel of rain-water. She walked away, shaking her feathers, +with an angry malediction of noise. + +"Ef they're good eggs, we'll take 'em to Uncle Coffin Demmin' and Aunt +Salomy," said Mrs. Kobbe. + +She brought a bucket of fresh water, benevolently to test them, but +left the enterprise half completed, reminded at the same time of a jug +of buttermilk she had meant to put up. + +She went into the house, and Captain Pharo, absorbed in lighting his +pipe, and stepping about fussily and impatiently, had the misfortune to +put a foot into two piles of eggs of contrasting qualities. + +"By clam!" said he, white with dismay. "Ho-hum! oh dear! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as--'] + +Guess, while she 's in the house, I'll go down to the herrin'-shed and +git some lobsters to take 'em; they're very fond on 'em." He gave me +an appealing, absolutely helpless smile of apology, and the arnica +blossom faded rapidly from my vision. + +Left in guardianship of the horse, I climbed again to my seat and +covered myself with the star bed-quilt, which served as an only too +beautiful carriage robe. Thus I, glowing behind that gorgeous, +ever-radiating star, was taken by Mrs. Kobbe, I doubt not, for the +culprit, as she finally emerged from the house and the captain was +discovered innocently returning along the highway with the lobsters. + +Let this literal history record of me that I said no word; nay, I was +even happy in shielding my soul's brother. + +"Now," said Mrs. Kobbe, as we set forth, "Miss Lester said not to come +to her house for her, but wherever we saw the circle-basket settin' +outside the door, there she'd be." + +"I wish she'd made some different 'pointment," said the captain, with a +sigh. + +"Why?" + +"Why! don't it strike ye, woman, 't they 's nothin' ondefinite 'n +pokin' around over the 'nhabited 'arth, lookin' for the Widder Lester's +circle-basket? I was hopin' widders was more definite, but it seems +they're jest like all the rest on ye: poo! poo! hohum--jest like all +the rest on ye." + +"We've got to find her, cap'n; she sets sech store by talkin' along o' +major." + +"Major!" sniffed the captain; "she ain't worthy to ontie the major's +shoe-lockets; they ain't none on 'em worthy, maids, widders--none on +'em!" + +I knew to what he referred, what gratitude was moving in his breast. + +"Wal, thar now, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe! ain't Vesty Kirtland worthy?" + +"Vesty!" said the captain, undismayed--"Vesty 's an amazin' gal, but +she ain't nowheres along o' major!" + +"Wal, I must say! I wonder whatever put you in such a takin' to major." + +He did not say. + +We travelled vaguely, gazing from house to house, and then the road +over again, without discovering any sign of the basket. + +"By clam! it 's almost enough to make an infidel of a man," said the +captain, furiously relighting his pipe. + +"Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, you're all'as layin' everything either to women or +religion." + +"Don't mention on 'em in the same breath," said the captain; "don't. +They hadn't never orter be classed together!" + +Fortunately at this juncture we saw Mrs. Lester afar off at a fork of +the roads standing and waving her arms to us, and we hastened to join +her, but imagine the captain's feelings when from the circle-basket she +took out a large, plump blueberry pie, or "turnover," for each of us, +with a face all beaming with unconscious joy and good-will. + +"How do you feel now, eatin' Miss Lester's turnover, after what you've +been and said?" said his wife. + +"What'd I say?" said the captain boldly, immersed in the joys of his +blueberry pie; for a primitive, a generic appetite attaches to this +region: one is always hungry; no sooner has one eaten than he is +wholesomely hungry again. + +"Do you want me to tell what you said, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?" + +"Poo! poo!" said the captain, wiping his mouth with a flourish. + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r, The blighting +wind sweeps o'er, she--'"] + +"You'd ought to join a concert," said his wife, at the stinging height +of sarcasm, for the captain's singing was generally regarded as a +sacred subject. + +But there was one calm spirit aboard, my companion, Mrs. Lester. Ah +me! if I might but drive with her again! Her weight was such, settling +the springs that side, that I, slender and uplifted, and tossed by the +roughness of the road, had continually to cling to the side bars, in +order to give a proper air of coolness to our relationship. + +But when it came to the pie I had to give up the contest, and ate it +reclining, literally, upon her bosom. + +"I'm glad I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk," said she tenderly; "it +might 'a' got spotted. I'm all'as a great hand to spot when I'm eatin' +blueberry pie." + +Blessed soul! it was not she; it was my arm that was scattering the +contents of the pie. + +"You know I board 'Blind Rodgers,'" she went on, still deeper to bury +my regret and confusion. I had heard of him; his sightless, gentle +ambition it was to live without making "spots." + +"Wal, we had blueberry pie for dinner yesterday--and I wonder if them +rich parents in New York 't left him with me jest because he was blind, +and hain't for years took no notice of him 'cept to send his board--I +wonder if they could 'a' done what he done? I made it with a lot o' +sweet, rich juice, and I thought to myself, 'I know Blind Rodgers'll +slop a little on the table-cloth to-day,' and I put on a clean +table-cloth, jest hopin' he would. But where I set, with seein' eyes, +there was two or three great spots on the cloth; and he et his pie, but +on his place at table, when he got up, ye wouldn't 'a' known anybody'd +been settin' there, it was so clean and white!" + +Some tears coursed down her cheeks at the pure recollection--we, who +have seeing eyes, make so many spots! I felt the tears coming to my +own eyes, for we were as close in sympathy as in other respects. + +Meanwhile the ancient horse was taking quite an unusual pace over the +road. + +"Another sail on ahead there somewhere," said Captain Pharo; "hoss is +chasin' another hoss. It 's Mis' Garrison's imported coachman, takin' +home some meal, 'cross kentry. He'll turn in to'ds the Neck by'n'by. +Poo! poo! Mis' Garrison wanted Fluke to coach for her; he was so +strong an' harnsome; an' she was tellin' him what she wanted him to do, +curchy here, and curchy there. 'Mis' Garrison,' says Fluke, 'I'll +drive ye 'round wherever ye wants me to, but I'll be d--d if I'll +curchy to ye!' So she fetched along an imported one." + +Whatever the obsequious conduct of this individual toward Mrs. +Garrison, his manners to us were insolent to a degree. Having once +turned to look at us, he composed his hat on one side, grinned, +whistled, and would neither turn again nor give us room to pass, nor +drive out of a walk, on our account. + +"Either fly yer sails, or cl'ar the ship's channel there," cried +Captain Pharo at last, snorting with indignation. + +The wicked imported coachman continued the same. + +It was now that our horse, who had been meanwhile going through what +quiet mental processes we knew not, solved the apparent difficulty of +the situation by a judicious selection of expedients. He lifted the +bag of meal bodily from the coachman's wagon with his teeth, and, +depositing it silently upon the ground by the roadside, paused of his +own accord and gravely waited for us to do the rest. + +The coachman was pursuing his way, unconscious, insolent, whistling. + +"She'll take it out o' yer wages; she 's dreadful close," chuckled +Captain Pharo, as we tucked the bag of meal away on the carriage floor. +"See when ye'll scoff in my sails, and block up the ship's channel +ag'in! Now then; touch and go is a good pilot," and we struck off on a +divergent road at a rattling pace. + +But these adventures had exhausted so much time, when we arrived at +Crooked River it was high tide, and the bridge was already elevated for +the passage of a schooner approaching in the distance. + +"See, now, what ye done, don't ye?" said Captain Pharo--I must say +it--with mean reproach, to his wife; "we've got to wait here an hour +an' a half." + +"Wal, thar, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, seems to me I wouldn't say nothin' +'g'inst Providence nor nobody else, for once, ef I'd jest got two +dollars' worth o' meal, jest for pickin' it up off'n the road." + +Touched by this view of the case, the captain sang with great +cheerfulness that his days were as the grass or as the morning +flower--when an inspiration struck him. + +"I don' know," said he, "why we hadn't just as well turn here and go up +Artichoke road, and git baited at Coffin's, 'stid er stoppin' to see +'em on the way home. I'm feelin' sharp as a meat-axe ag'in." + +"I don' know whether the rest of ye are hungry or not," said plump +little Mrs. Kobbe; "but I'm gittin as long-waisted as a +knittin'-needle." + +The language of vivid hyperbole being exhausted, Mrs. Lester and I +expressed ourselves simply to the same effect. We turned, heedful no +longer of the tides, and travelled delightfully along the Artichoke +road until we reached a brown dwelling that I knew could be none other +than theirs--Uncle Coffin's and Aunt Salomy's; they were in their sunny +yard, and before I knew them, I loved them. + +"Dodrabbit ye!" cried Uncle Coffin Demmin, springing out at us in +hospitable ecstasy, Salomy beside him; "git out! git out quick! The +sight on ye makes me sick, in there. Git out, I say!" he roared. + +"No-o; guess not, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with gloomy observance +of formalities; "guess I ca-arnt; goin' up to the Point to git a nail +put in my hoss's shu-u." + +But Uncle Coffin was already leading the horse and carriage on to the +barn floor. + +"Dodrabbit ye!" he exclaimed, "git out, or I'll _shute_ ye out." + +At this invitation we began to descend with cheerful alacrity. + +As the horse walked into an evidently familiar stall, Uncle Coffin +seized Captain Pharo and whirled him about with admiring affection. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" he cried, struck with the new jacket; "ye've +been to Boston!" + +"I hain't; hain't been nigh her for forty year," said Captain Pharo, +but he was unconscionably pleased. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo! ye've been a-junketin' around to Bar Harbor; that +'s whar' ye been." + +"I hain't, Coffin; honest I hain't been nigh her," chuckled Captain +Pharo. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, seizing the hat from his head +and regarding its bespattered surface with delight; "ye've been +a-whitewashin'!" + +This Captain Pharo proudly did not deny. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said +our fond host, giving him another whirl, "yer hair 's pretty plumb +'fore, but she 's raked devilish well aft. Ye can't make no stand fer +yerself! Ye're hungry, Pharo; ye're wastin'; come along!" + +Uncle Coffin seized me on the way, but in voiceless appreciation of my +physical meanness he supported me with one hand, while he +affectionately mauled and whirled me with the other. + +"Dodrabbit ye! you young spark, you! whar' ye been all this time?" he +cried--though I had never gazed upon his face before! + +His rough touch was a galvanic battery of human kindness. It thrilled +and electrified me. No; he had not even seen my pitiful presence. I +do not know where the people of the world get their manners; but these +Artichokes got theirs, rough-coated though they were, straight from the +blue above. + +"Say! whar' ye been all this time? That 's what I want to know," +sending a thrill of close human fellowship down my back. "Didn't ye +reckon as Salomy and me 'ud miss ye, dodrabbit ye! you young +lawn-tennis shu's, you!" + +I glanced down at my feet. They were covered with a thick crust of +buttermilk and meal. I remembered now to have experienced a pleasant +sensation of coolness at my feet at one time, being too closely wedged +in with Mrs. Lester and the meal, however, to investigate. + +We found, on searching the carriage, that the jug had capsized, and one +of the lobsters had extracted the cork, which he still grasped tightly +in his claw. + +"Look at that, Coffin," said Captain Pharo sadly; "even our lobsters is +dry!" + +"Wal, I'm cert'nly glad now," said Mrs. Lester, surveying the bottom of +her gown, "'t I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk." + +"Why so, Mis' Lester; why so?" said Uncle Coffin, performing a waltz +with the small remaining contents of the buttermilk jug. "Ef it's a +beauty in her to have her lustre dead, why wouldn't she be still +harnsomer to have her lustre dedder!" + +He drew me aside at this, and for some moments we stood helplessly +doubled over with laughter. For the climate serves one the same in +regard to jokes as in food. One is never satiated with them, and there +are no morbid, worn distinctions of taste--an old one, an exceedingly +mild one, have all the convulsive power of the keenest flash from less +healthy and rubicund intellects. + +When we had recovered ourselves sufficiently to walk, we went into the +house, arm in arm. There Uncle Coffin seized Captain Pharo again and +threw him delightedly several feet off into a chair. + +"Ye're weary, Pharo, dodrabbit ye! Set thar'. Repose. Repose. Wait +'tell the flapjacks is ready. They're fryin'. Smell 'em?" + +We perceived their odor, and that of the wild strawberries and coffee +which Mrs. Lester had taken from her circle-basket. + +"Why, father," said Aunt Salomy, as we sat at table, giving me a glance +indicative of a beaming conversance with elegant conventionalities; "ye +_shouldn't_ set the surrup cup right atop o' the loaf o' bread.' + +"Never mind whar' she sets, mother," said Uncle Coffin gayly, "so long +as she 's squar' amidships." + +He would pour out the treacle for us all--for that it was sweeter, +sweeter than any refined juices I ever tasted. No denials, no +protestations would avail to stay the utter generosity of his hand. + +The griddle-cakes were of the apparent size of the moon when she is +full in the heavens. + +"Come, Pharo, brace up. Eat somethin', dodrabbit ye! Ye're poorin' +away every minute ye're settin' there; ye hain't hauled yerself over +but two yit." + +"By clam! Coffin, sure as I'm a livin' man, I've hauled myself over +fourteen," said Captain Pharo seriously. + +"Come, come, major; ye're fadin' away to a shadder. Ye hain't hauled +yerself over nothin' yet." + +"Oh, I have," I rejoined, with urgent truth and unction. "I can't, +honestly I can't, haul myself over anything more." + +In spite of some suggestive winks directed on my behalf, not then +understood, I remained innocently with Mrs. Lester and Aunt Salomy +while they were doing the dishes. But presently through the open +window where I sat I felt a bean take me sharply in the nape of the +neck, and, turning, I discovered Captain Pharo outside. He winked at +me. I naïvely winked back again. He coughed low and meaningly; I +smiled and nodded. + +He disappeared, and ere long I felt one of my ears tingling from the +blow of another bean. It was Uncle Coffin this time; his wink was +almost savage with excess of meaning. I returned it amiably. He +coughed low and hopelessly, and disappeared. + +But soon after he came walking nonchalantly into the room. + +"Dodrabbit ye, major!" said he, punching me with a vigorous hand, +"don't ye take no interest in a man's stock? Come along out and look +at the stock." + +At that I rose and followed him. Captain Pharo was waiting for us. +They did not speak, but they led the way straight as the flight of an +arrow to the barn, walked undeviatingly across the floor, lifted me +solemnly ahead of them up the ladder to the hay-mow, stumbled across it +to the farthest and darkest corner, dived down into it and brought up +an ancient pea-jacket, unrolled it, and produced from the pocket a +bottle, labelled with what I at once knew to be Uncle Coffin's own +design: + + "RAT PISON TO TOUCH HER IS DETH." + + +"Drink!" said Uncle Coffin. + +All his former levity was gone. He had the look of bestowing, and +Captain Pharo of witnessing bestowed, upon another, a boon inestimable, +priceless, rare. + +A temperate familiarity with the use of the cup informed me at once of +the nature of this liquid. It was whiskey of a very vile quality. + +But even had it contained something akin to the dark sequel on its +label, I could not have refused it from Uncle Coffin's hand. + +Slightly I drank. Captain Pharo drank. Uncle Coffin drank. + +The bottle was replaced, and we as solemnly descended. + +I had never been unwarily affected, even by a much larger quantity of +the pure article; perhaps by way of compensation an electric spark from +Uncle Coffin's own personality had entered into this compound. More +likely still, it was the radiant atmosphere. + +But I remembered standing out leaning against the pig-pen, with Captain +Pharo and Uncle Coffin, of nudging and being nudged by them into +frequent excess of laughter over some fondly rambling anecdote or +confiding witticism, until Captain Pharo, "taking the sun," decided to +put off until some other day going to the Point to get a nail put in +the horse's shoe. + +I remembered--well might I, for they were in my own too--the honest +tears in the eyes of Uncle Coffin and Aunt Salomy as we parted; of +being tucked in again under the Star, with new accessions to our store, +of dried smelts and summer savory, and three newly born kittens in a +bag, which I was instructed to hold so as to give them air without +allowing them to escape. Yes, and of the dying splendor of the sun, +the ineffable colors painting sea and sky; and of knowing that if I had +not already become a Basin, I should inevitably have joined the +Artichokes. + + + + +IV + +LOVE, LOVE + +At Garrison's Neck was the old Garrison "shanty"--Notely's ideal; well +preserved; built onto it a spacious dwelling, with stables attached, +after Mrs. Garrison's idea. + +Notely's shanty was a mixture of elegant easy-chairs and drying +oil-skin raiment, black tobacco pipes, books, musical instruments, +fishing-tackle, mirth and evening firelight; all the gravitation of the +premises was toward it--the Garrison guests yearned for it. + +His mother was with him now. + +"You will drive down to the boat with me and meet them, Notely?" + +Notely whistled with respectful concern, but his eyes were as happy as +the dawn. + +"Oh, well, ah--h--I'll have to ask you to let Tom drive you down +to-day, mother. I've an engagement to sail over to Reef Island." + +Mrs. Garrison did not condescend to look annoyed. She smiled, sweet +and high. + +"Considering the social position of Mrs. Langham and her daughter, and +their wealth, Notely, you might postpone even that engagement. +Possibly you could arrange to play with the fisher girl some other day." + +When Notely was puzzled or provoked he felt for the pipe in his pocket, +just like old Captain Pharo, laughed, and came straight again. + +"Why, mother! you were a Basin girl yourself--the 'Beauty of the +Basins,'" he said, with soft pride--he knew no better--and smiled as +though he saw another face. + +"Are you foolish?" said his mother, giving way sharply. + +When one has come from such degree, has sought above all earthly good, +and earned, a social eminence such as Mrs. Garrison had attained, it +will leave some unbending lines on lip and brow; the eyes will not melt +easily, although it wrings one's heart to find that one's only child +is, after all, an ingrained Basin; yet their features were the same, +only Notely's were simple, expressive Basin eyes--hers had become +elevated. + +"You! who have _in_ you such success, if you only would!" she cried. + +"'Success,' I'm afraid, mother," said Notely, with one of those sighs +that was like a wayward note on his violin; "it 's a diviner thing, +however, you know, to have in you the capacity for failure." + +"You are as remarkable a mixture of barbarism and sentiment as your +shanty," sneered Mrs. Garrison, looking about. "Do you speak in the +Basin 'meetings'?" + +"No," said Notely. "I ought to. Think of what I have had, and their +deprivations. But there 's always something comes up so d--d funny!" + +Mrs. Garrison smiled sympathetically now. "O Notely, think of the +Langhams, and Grace even willing to show her preference for you, +decorously, of course, but we all know." + +Notely grabbed his pipe hard and shook his head. + +"Why?" said his mother again, sharply. "I am sure Miss Langham is +nearly as boisterous and in as rude health as the fisher girl. I have +even known her to make important endearing lapses in grammar." + +Notely was silent. + +"Do you think, after a life-struggle to earn a place in society, it is +filial and generous on your part, for the sake of a fisher sweetheart, +to be willing to sink your family back again into skins and Gothicism?" + +"Yes," said the young man, a hurricane in his blue eyes, which his +strong hands gripped back. + +"Very well; if you so elect, go back then, and be a common fisherman; +but you shall have no countenance of mine." + +"Shouldn't wonder if it would be a good thing. With the health I have, +give me leisure and plenty of money, and I'm always certain to break +the traces and make a run. Common fisherman it is." But he stood out +bravely at the same time in an extravagant new yachting costume, for he +was going by appointment to meet his sweetheart. + +"You might help her up, mother--socially, that is; she needs no other +help." + +"Never!" + +Notely lifted his cap to his mother--the reproach in his eyes was as +dog-like as if he had not just graduated from the schools--and walked +away. + +She looked after him, a scornful sweet smile curving her lips. As the +apple of her eye she loved him; it is necessary but hard to be elevated. + +Notely put up sail and skirted the shore with his boat till he came to +the waters of the Basin. Then he looked out eagerly, but Vesty was not +on the banks waiting. + +"Was there ever a Basin known to be on time?" he muttered, smiling and +flushing too. He was always jealous of her. + +He made fast his boat and sprang with light steps over the sea-wall. + +Here was a good sign; so the Basins held. No sign so propitious to a +love affair as meeting with one of God's innocent ones--a "natural." +And here was Dr. Spearmint (Uncle Benny) leading the children to +school--the very little ones. They clung to him, and one he carried. + +And he was singing, in a sweet, high voice: + + "We all have our trials here below, + Sail away to Galilee! + * * * * + There's a tree I see in Paradise, + Sail away to Galilee! + * * * * + Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee, + Put on your long white robe of peace, + And sail away to Galilee!" + + +"Hello! Uncle Benny--'Dr. Spearmint'"--he liked that best. "Well, how +are you? how are you? and have you seen Vesty this morning?" + +"Fluke and Gurd 's keepin' company with her this mornin'," said Dr. +Spearmint, in a voice softer than a woman's. "I jest stopped to sing a +little with 'em on the way. I _look_ dreadful," he added, rather +ostentatiously fingering a light blue necktie. + +"Oh, no, doctor; fine as usual," exclaimed Notely, anger in his soul, +but with heart-broken eyes. + +"I suppose," said the soft, sweet voice, "there 's a great deal o' +passin' in New York, ain't there?" + +"What, doctor?" + +"A great deal o' passin' there, ain't there?" + +"Oh, sights of it! Oh, my, yes! passing along the streets all the +time." + +"Some there 's worth four or five thousand dollars, ain't they?" said +the sweet, incredulous voice. + +"God bless you! yes, doctor! the more 's the pity," said Notely, with +strange earnestness. "And how 's fruiting?" + +"Dangleberries are quite plenty, thank you," the voice replied. When +he had left the little ones at school he would go off and gather +berries; but he would call for them without fail and lead them home. +The little, tired, restless souls always found him out there in the +sweet air and sunshine, waiting. Notely remembered; so he and Vesty +had been led. + +He passed, singing, out of sight with the children: + + "Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee, + Put on your long white robe of peace, + And sail away to Galilee!" + + +Notely felt a homesick pang. Vesty was his home; he walked on toward +her threshold. Vesty's father had taken a new wife, and Vesty was +almost always seen now with a baby in her arms. + +So she was sitting as Notely drew near; and Fluke and Gurdon were +there, with a pretence of fingering their violins. They looked up, as +if expecting him. + +"Why did you not come, Vesty?" said her lover. "You promised me." + +"I've got something to say about that," said Fluke. "I sot Vesty down +on that doorhold, and I threatened to shute her ef she moved off'n it. +When she was tellin' Gurd' that you was 'round again wantin' to keep +company with her jest the same, says I, 'We'll see about that.' Vesty +hain't got no brothers, nor no mother, to look after her, and so Gurd' +and me, which is twin brothers to each other, is also goin' to be +brothers to her, and see that there ain't no harm done to Vesty." + +"Well, then, Fluke, you are the best friends that either of us have," +said Notely calmly. + +"Why didn't ye let her alone in peace?" blurted out Fluke. "She was +keepin' company contented enough along o' Gurd', ef you'd only left her +alone. What'd ye come back a-makin' love to her for?" + +"Because she is going to be my wife," said Notely. "We always kept +company together; since we were that high! Belle Birds'll was Gurdon's +company. Vesty was my company." His voice trembled. This was simple +Basin parlance and unanswerable. + +"Ye mean it?" + +"If you want to fight, Fluke, come out and fight." Notely's eyes cut +him. + +"All the same," said he, "ef you sh'd happen to change your mind by 'n' +by, as fash'nable fellers in women's light-colored clo's does +sometimes, there 's a-goin' to be shutin'." + +Notely grabbed his pipe, and his laugh rang out. + +"Come," he said, "you know me! you know me! Confound the pretty +clothes! I only put them on so as to try and have Vesty like me!" + +"Wal' now, Vesty, make your choice. You'd ruther keep company along o' +Note than Gurd', had ye?" But he could not restrain the severe +contempt in his voice in making the comparison. + +Vesty had been soothing her face in the baby's frowzled hair. + +"_I told you_," she said. But she glanced up at Gurdon, and her face +was piteous, his had turned so white. + +"Come, Gurd'! What d'ye care? Go on, Vesty, ef ye want to. Gurd 'n' +me'll tote the baby till Elvine gits back." He took the infant and +began to toss it, to compensate it for Vesty's withdrawal. His thick +black hair fell over his forehead, his nose was fine and straight. +Gurdon came forward obediently to assist him. He had the same great +bulk, and even handsomer features, only that his hair was smooth and +parted. + +Vesty and her lover passed on together. Her heart was leaping with joy +and pride of him; still, she saw Gurdon's look. + +"You have been so long at that great college, Notely." + +"Yes." + +"Why must some one always be hurt?" + +"We go to school, but the schools can't teach us anything, Vesty. + + "'Oh, sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee!'" + +he hummed airily, gayly. "What was it you 'told them' back there, +Vesty?" + +Where now was Vesty's Sunday face? You would look far to find it. + +"I told them you were a dude," said she. + +"Did you, indeed! Girls who lead the singing in Sunday-school are not +telling many very particular fibs this morning, are they? But you +shall own up before night." + +O Vesty!--the call of the "whistlers" down in the meadow by the +sea-wall--"love! love! love!" No other note; it is that, too, +breathing in the swift Bails and bounding the sea! + +"You sail your boat as well as ever, Captain Notely." + +"And why not--wife?" + +These were the appellations of the old days, taken from their +elders--"cap'n" and "wife." + +Vesty did not think he would have dared _that_. Her dark eye chastised +him. But he was not looking impudent; he was resolute and pale. + +Vesty shivered. With all her earnest, sad experience of life, with her +true love for Notely, she was yet in no haste to be bound. Wild, too, +at heart; or else somehow the sea wind and the swift sails had freed +her. + +"Don't say that again. Come, catch the fish for our dinner, Note." + +"I'm only a humble Basin, Miss Kirtland. I didn't think to fetch no +bait." + +Vesty took a parcel of six small herrings from her pocket, laughing. + +"Yes, our women are smart," sighed Notely. + +"Shall you catch, or will I?" + +"You," said Notely, tossing out the anchor. + +He watched her, strong and beautiful, her lips pursed with the feline +pursuit of prey, as she baited her hook and threw out the line, quite +oblivious now, apparently, of him. + +He saw her thrill with excitement as the line stiffened and she began +to haul in, hand over hand; it was a big cod too. Vesty always had the +luck. There was glory in her cheeks when she brought the struggling, +flopping fish over into the boat. + +"Vesty," said Note mischievously, drawing near, "how would _you_ feel +to be caught like that on the end of somebody's line--struggling, +flopping?" + +His sentimental tone gave way in spite of himself. She turned and gave +him a smart box on the ear. + +"Very well, Miss Vesty Kirtland, very well. But there 's a marriage +ceremony and a binding to 'love, honor and obey,' after which young +women don't box their husbands' ears--aha!--at least, mine won't." + +"Notely Garrison," said Vesty, with Basinly and womanly indignation, "I +never fished for you in all my life--never!" + +"Instinctive, darling; not your fault. Unconscious cerebration; do you +understand?" + +She did, a little, and she grievously disapproved of him. + +"Kiss me, dearest," he pleaded. "You kissed me once, when I first came +home." + +"All the m-more reason why you ought not to ask me now. I w-wish you'd +get your m-mind on something besides me." + +Notely walked away, pulled up the anchor, and set sail again. Vesty +composed herself at the end of the boat. + +"Sweet-tempered child!" said he, regarding her from the helm. + +She dipped her hand in the water and smoothed her stray locks; they +curled up again. She was distressed, and Notely's mirthful eyes gave +her no rest. + +"My mind is still on you, Vesty--and will be for ever and aye, +sweetheart." + +With that he turned kindly and looked away, and Vesty bound up her hair. + +Presently: "The tapestries are beautiful to-day, Note," she said. + +They were sailing through the shallows near Reef Island, and they +looked down through the green water. Gold, bronze and yellow, and dark +velvet green, the tracings of broad sea-leaf and trailing vine on that +floor. + +"There isn't another house in any land tapestried like ours, Vesty. +Say, wouldn't that be a charming place, after all, to rest, when----" + +"You're getting aground, Note!" + +"Thank you! How fortunate that you are aboard! I know how to steer a +boat a little, of course, but nothing like----" + +Vesty laughed, dazzled by this sarcasm. "But you didn't think of the +bread or the salt or the pork for the chowder," said she triumphantly. + +"Ah, I see you have them. You always think of those things. You were +always my little woman, you know. You are my home." + +As the boat touched the ledge she sprang out before him. By the time +he had fastened his boat and clambered over the ledges with the kettle +which he had brought from the crane in his shanty, Vesty had a fire of +drift-wood burning. + +She prepared the chowder, while he whittled out some forks of wood and +gathered firm pieces of kelp for dishes. + +They ate, with only the voice of the gulls, screaming, flying in +disturbed, beautiful flight over the wide, lone island. + +"Now for the gulls' eggs," said Vesty, rising, no dishes to put away. + +"What a carnivorous little wild-cat it is--for one so necessary to the +sick and afflicted!" + +"Didn't you come to hunt gulls' eggs, Note?" + +"You know that that is my sole aim and ambition in life. Come!" + +Over ledges and salt marshes, at the feet of the thin, storm-broken +trees, they found them, nestled there, three, four, eight in a nest, +the birds flying, circling overhead. Vesty gathered them in her apron, +eager, searching from tree to tree. Her hair came down. She looked up +at Note, apologetic, humble, so eager she hardly minded. + +"Hold my apron, Note." + +This he did obediently. + +With downcast eyes and a blush on her cheeks that would have exonerated +Eve, she wound up her hair again, and restored her own hold on her +apron. + +"I did not kiss you then, Vesty." + +"Well, of course." + +"I'm good, but my mind is still on you." + +Over ledges and salt marshes, and the thin, storm-broken trees, and out +there on the water there 's a strange color growing. Even the Basins +seldom fail to _start_, at least, for home by sunset. + +So a little white sail puts out on the crimson sea. The breeze is +dying out, the waters lap, subside. Notely takes down the sail and +rows. + +The sea fades to softer colors, hushed, wondrous, near the dim shore. + +"It isn't ever known, in any place in all the world, that angels--no, I +know--but look, Note!--they almost might." + +"Only here at the Basin, Vesty; when that very last light fades. I saw +two flying up--flying back again--just now. How many did you see?" + +She turned her happy, awesome eyes on him, but his keen face, in that +light, was as simple and pathetic as her own. + +"But my mind is on _you_, Vesty. Now, before we touch the shore, when +will you marry me?" + +"I've been thinking. O Note, perhaps it isn't my place to marry you; +perhaps I wouldn't do you any good to marry you, Note. They say you +were first in your class, off there, and there are so many things for +you, and your mother, and friends, will help you so much more--if I +don't." + +"I may as well tell you the truth, Vesty. I'm not that strong person +that I look"--the angels that he saw, flying up, will forgive that sly +smile on the boy's mouth--"I couldn't go away and leave you, and go +into that false, feverish struggle out there, and live anything more +than the wreck of a life, at least. I'm affected." + +"Where is it that you have such trouble, Note?" + +"It 's my heart, Vesty Kirtland. I must have a Basin for my wife, +calm, strong, sweet; one who can see the 'angels' now and then--just +you, in fact." + +He handed her out of the boat and walked home with her. At the edge of +the alders they stood. They could see the light in her father's house. + +"When, Vesty?" he repeated. + +"O Note, I love you!" she sobbed; "but I must have a little time to +think. Every girl has that." + +"Very well. You must _keep your mind on me_, however." + +"Hark! hear the poplars tremble. You know what always makes them sigh +and shiver that way, Note?" + +"I've forgotten." + +"They made the cross for Christ out of the poplars; they never got over +it--see them shiver!--hush!" + +"O my beautiful one!" He took her hands. "What was it you 'told them' +back there this morning, Vesty, before we started?" + +"You are cruel! O Note!" + +He drew her to him. Her lips would not tell. Her Basin eyes, that he +was gazing mercilessly into, betrayed her. + +"Good child! sweet child! with my strong right arm, and a willingness +for all toil and patience and endeavor, and all my soul's love, I thee +endow." He kissed her solemnly. + +"Love, love, love," chanted in ecstasy a thrush from the dim recesses +of the wood. + + + + +V + +COLUMBUS AND THE EGG, AND LOT'S WIFE + +"I often thinks o' Columbus and the egg. All them big folks in Spain +was settin' areound, ye know, ta'ntin' of him, and sayin' as how an egg +couldn't be made to sot. + +"So Columbus, he took one up and give her a tunk, pretty solid, deown +onto the table. 'There!' says he; 'you stay sot,' says he, 'and keep +moderate a spall,' says he. 'Forced-to-go never gits far,' says he. + +"Then there was Lot's wife. + +"I don't remember jest the partickelers, nor what she was turnin' +areound to look for; whether she was goin' to a sewin'-circle and +lookin' back to see what Lot was dewin' to home, or whether she was +jest strokin' deown her polonaise a little, the way women does; but +anyway, she was one o' this 'ere kind that needed moderatin'. + +"So she got turned into a pillar o' salt, and there she sot. But I've +heerd lately that she 's got up and went?" + +"I don't know," I murmured. + +"Yes; Nason was tellin' me how 't, the last time he went cruisin', he +met a man 't 'd jest come from Jaffy, 't told him how 't Lot's wife had +got up and went. + +"Wal, I was glad to hear on't. Moderation 's a virtu', even in all +things. She must 'a' sot there some three or four hunderd pretty +consid'rable number o' years, 's it was. Don't want to ride a free +hoss to death, ye know. I wish 't this critter that's visitin' up to +Garrison's Neck could be got sot a spall. She fa'rly w'ars me out." + +Captain Leezur blinked at the sun, however, all heavenly placid and +unworn. + +"I happened to meet her in the lane," I said. "She had not seen me +before. She screamed." + +"Thar'! that 's jest her! Wal, neow, I hope ye didn't mind. Sech +folks don't do no harm 'reound on the 'arth, no more'n lady-bugs, 'nd +r'a'ly, they dew help to parss away the time. + +"Neow this Langham girl, she driv up here with Note t'other day, to git +some lobsters. + +"'O Mr. Garrison,' says she, 'see that darlin' old aberiginile +a-settin' out thar' on that log,' says she. 'Dew drive up; I want ter +talk to him,' says she. + +"Wal, I put in a chaw o' tobackker, and tucked her up comf'table one +side, and there I sot, with my head straight for'ards, not lettin' on +as I'd heered a word; t'wouldn't dew, ye know. + +"So she came up with a yaller lace parasol, abeout twelve foot in +c'cumf'rence, sorter makin' me think of a tud under a harrer; though, I +sh'd have to say it afore the meetin'-house, she was dreadful +purty-lookin', an' blamed ef she didn't know it. + +"Wal, I see she'd made up her mind to kile herself 'reound me, ef she +could. She kept a-arskin' questions, and everything she arsked I +arnswered of her back dreadful moderate, and every time I arnswered of +her back she'd give a little larff, endin' up on 'sol la ce do,' sorter +highsteriky; so't I was kind o' feelin' areound in my pocket t' find +her a narvine lozenger. + +"And then I thought I wouldn't. All they want is the least little +excuse and they'll begin to kile. When ye're in deoubt, ye know, stand +well to leeward." + +I looked at my friend with new gratitude, for the perils he had passed. + +"She said she thought the folks to the Basin was so full of yewmer and +pathers, 'don't yew?' says she. + +"Wal, I told her I didn't know ars to that. 'Yewmer 's that 'ar' +'diction 't Job had, ain't it?' says I,' and pathers--thar' ye've kind +o' got me,' says I, ''less maybe it 's some fancy New York way o' +reelin' off pertaters,' says I. + +"'Oh, dear!' says she, kind o' highsteriky ag'in, and Note driv off +with her, she a-wavin' her hand to me: but I set straight for'ards, not +lettin' on to take no notice of her. 'No, no, young woman,' thinks I +to myself, 'ye don't git in no kile on me!'" + +The nervine lozenge which my friend had cautiously refrained from +giving Miss Langham he now bestowed upon me. I accepted it, for I was +in sore need of it. + +I could not refrain from asking him, however, if he had offered Miss +Langham his deer-bone tooth-pick. + +"No," said he, "she's lent neow, anyway. John Seabright 's got her +over to Herrinport. I don't say but what if that 'ar' Langham girl +sh'd have a r'al bad spall o' toothache come on, but what I'd let her +take her, but I'd jest as soon she didn't know nothin' 'beout it. I'd +ruther not make no openin' for a kile." + +We sucked our nervine lozenges with mutual earnestness. + +"You are getting on finely with the barn," I said, noticing several new +rows of shingles on the roof. + +"Yes, I sh'd be afoul of her ag'in to-day, only 't Nason come over +yisterday and borrowed my lardder. I'm expectin' of him back with her +along in the shank o' the evenin'. Preachin' ain't so bad," continued +my friend, contemplatively, as the school-teacher passed by; "but I'd +ruther be put to bone labor 'n school teachin'. Ye've all'as got to be +thar', no marter heow many other 'ngagements----" + +"Leezur!" called the soft voice of a Basin matron from the door. +"Leezur, have ye fished the bucket out o' the well?" + +"Jest baitin' my hook, mother," said my friend, his face breaking into +the broadest human beam I ever saw. + +He rose, and we walked toward the well. Now first I noticed his gait; +every step was a smiling protest against further advancement, which, +however, was made not unwillingly. + +I observed, too, an illustration of this same smile in his rear, made +by an unconscious and loving wife, in a singular disposition of +patches: three on his blouse fortuitously representing eyes and nose, +and a long horizontal one, lower down, combining with these in an +undesigned but felicitous grin. + +My friend disclosed this smiling posterior to full view, stretching +himself face downward on the earth, and burying his head, with the +grappling pole, in the well. + +"This 'ere job," his voice came to me with resonant jubilance, +"requires a vary moderate dispersition: 'specially arfter the women +folks has been a-grapplin' for her, and rilin' the water, and jabbin' +of her furder in. But ef we considers ourselves to' be--as we +be--heirs of etarnity---- + +"Thought I'd got ye that time! But neow don't be too easy abeout +gittin' caught, down there! Priceless gems holds themselves skeerce, +ye know." + +In which sarcastic but ever reasonable and moderate conversation with +that coy bucket I left my friend, and continued on my way with my +basket, under Miss Pray's commission to purchase "dangle-berries" at +the home of Dr. Spearmint. + +I heard as I approached: + + "Oh the road is winding, the road is dark, + But sail away to Galilee! + Sail away to Galilee!" + + * * * * * * + +There was a company as usual gathered at Dr. Spearmint's weather-beaten +hut: the door wide open, one could see his bed neatly made by his own +hands within, his mother's picture against the wall, a sweet, +intelligent face--like his, only that in his there was some light gone +out forever for this world. + +Notely was there with Miss Langham, to hear Dr. Spearmint sing, and to +purchase berries, and to be entertained a little in this way in the +growing evening. + +Miss Langham did not scream on seeing me now. She smiled upon me with +manifest kindness and condescension. She had beautiful bright brown +eyes, and the "style" of town life pervaded her very atmosphere. + +"Doctor," said Notely, "Miss Langham has heard about you, and, ahem! +considering what she has heard, she is perfectly willing to make the +first advances." + +Dr. Spearmint bowed, stammering before such new bewitchment and beauty. + +"I _look_ dreadful," he said, fingering his blue necktie. + +"Oh, dear, no, doctor!" rippled out Miss Langham's voice, in willing +accompaniment of the joke; "I'm sure you are perfectly charming!" + +"Miss Langham is from New York," said Notely. + +"There 's a great deal o' passin' there, ain't there?" said Dr. +Spearmint in his soft voice, turning to her. + +"What?" said she to Notely. "Oh, my! oh, how funny! oh dear, yes, +doctor; you've no idea!" + +"Some there 's worth----" + +Notely, laughing, pressed with his muscular brown hand a note into Dr. +Spearmint's hand that would do more for his next winter's comfort than +many weeks of dangleberrying. + +"Miss Langham would like to have her fortune told, doctor," he said. + +She pulled off her glove with a laughing grace. As Dr. Spearmint took +her slender jewelled hand in his he trembled with vanity and happiness. +He brushed a joyful tear from his eye, and began: + +"I see a bew-tiful future here," he said. + +"Oh, my!" said Miss Langham, looking up at him, her mirthful eyes full +of incredulous rapture. + +"Yes, I see a tall man, quite a tall man." + +Dr. Spearmint himself was quite a tall man. + +"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Langham. + +"He has curly brown hair and a--a smooth face," said Dr. Spearmint, +delighted in his delight. _He_ had curly brown hair and a smooth face. + +"He has blue eyes"--he glanced, a little troubled, at Notely's big +sparkling orbs--"_mild_ blue eyes," he corrected the statement, in such +a soft voice! + +"Indeed they must be _mild_," cried Miss Langham. + +Dr. Spearmint coughed considerably, and blushed. + +"He--he wears a blue necktie," he said, the mild blue eyes falling. + +"O Dr. Spearmint! I believe--why, it must be _you_!" cried the merry +girl, with a laugh as gay as rushing brooks. + +The boys and girls in the audience laughed loudly at this not +unexpected climax. + +Dr. Spearmint, much embarrassed, went inside to put away his money, but +was seen to steal sly glances, and a rearrangement of the blue +neck-ribbon in his little cracked mirror. + +"Dew come again!" he said faintly, as they were going. + +"Why, certainly, as the understanding is now, Miss Langham will expect +to call often, I suppose," said Notely. + +"Oh, dear me! yes," cried Grace Langham. + +"Are we--ahem!"--Dr. Spearmint could not lift those mild blue +eyes--"are we engaged?"--his sweet voice sinking, almost inaudible. + +"Oh, positively, doctor! Why, of course! Oh, dear me! good-by, poor +dear. Oh, how pathetically amusing!" said she, walking with Notely +toward the carriage. + +A tall girl had come up, and stood in the shadow, in the doorway. + +Notely, catching a glimpse of her in passing, lifted his cap, his face +burning, his eyes glowing, with a look of intense love and of +possession. + +Grace Langham turned, with a woman's instinct. + +Vesty, standing there, dim and tall, in her laceless, fashionless gown, +met her glance with a long, serious look that contained nothing either +of alarm or suspicion. + +"I know," murmured Grace. "I've heard the name of 'Vesty'--_that_ is +Vesty." + +"That is Vesty," said her companion. + +"And you love her, I believe," said Grace Langham to her own breast, +but sighed aloud; a gentle, bewitching sigh that divined deeper of +Notely's mood than further laughter would have done then. + +As they passed out of sight, riches and gay things and the last light +of day seemed to go with them. + +The mirth the children were having, congratulating Dr. Spearmint on his +engagement, sounded crude. + +"Nature has done so much for me, you know," he said, with his weak, +throbbing vanity, his hand nervously on the blue tie. + +Vesty went over to him and put both hands on his head. + +The children hushed. + +"Here are the pennies for my berries, Uncle Benny," she said quietly. +"I've taken just a quart." + +"Yes, yes; all right, Vesty. I'm--ahem!--_engaged_, Vesty. Such a +bew-tiful----" + +Vesty held her hands on his head. "Uncle Benny" (she would never, even +to please him, call him Dr. Spearmint), "you must not think of that. +She did not mean that. Besides, you have promised to be always a +friend to me, don't you remember?--and to lead the children home from +school. You know your mother expects"--they glanced up together at the +picture--"that you will do what Jesus told you about doing--that about +leading the little children home from school. What if one of them +should get lost, or hurt? O Uncle Benny!" + +"Oh, my!" he gasped. "I didn't think, Vesty," tears streaming down his +pale but now placid and restored face. + +Vesty smiled, standing there. A light crossed her face; she began to +sing: + + "The road is winding, the road is dark, + Sail away to Galilee!" + + * * * * * * + +Her voice seemed to me, in that dim hour, to take up Uncle Benny and +bear him away, with his great hurt, to the breast of his mother, in +heaven, to be healed. + +He joined her in the chorus, and then they sang together, she +modulating sweetly her full, rich tones to his. Her voice made +heavenly rapture of Uncle Benny's song: + + 'There 's a tree I see in Paradise-- + Sail away to Galilee. + It 's the beautiful, waiting Tree of Life-- + Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee, + Put on your long white robe of peace, + And sail away to Galilee." + + + + +VI + +THIS GREATER LOVE + +"How can I approach the girl?" thought Mrs. Garrison. "If I should +send word for Vesta Kirtland to come here and see me, Notely would be +sure to hear of it; he would wonder; ask questions. If I go down and +see her it will provoke endless comment and wonder among those people. +I never visit them. There is no other way. Notely takes the Langhams +for the day in his boat to-morrow. I will be driven to the Basin. I +will ask Vesta indifferently, by the way, to go with me in those woods +where I played in childhood, too timid now to walk there alone. They +will say, as well as they can express it, that sentiment must be +getting fashionable! Never mind. I shall see and talk with the girl. +We will see." + +Mrs. Garrison alighted from her carriage before she reached Vesty's +door. + +"Wait here," she said to her coachman. Vesty saw her approach. Off +there in the bay, sublimely guarding and making a gateway to its +waters, were two little green mountain peaks of islands, just a narrow +surge of the waters flowing between; the "Lions," the "Twin Brothers," +they were called. + +One does not look off daily, from one's very infancy, on such a view +for nothing. Mrs. Garrison saw the "lion" in Vesty's quick-divining +eyes, and was glad. + +"Anything but heart-break and slow consumption. Of battle I am not +afraid," she said to herself. + +"I took a fancy to leave my carriage and walk a bit among those old +trees. I used to know them well. Will you go with me, child?" + +"Certainly, Mrs. Garrison." Vesty handed the baby which she was +tending to its mother, and walked away with the fine lady. + +"Vesta Kirtland," said Mrs. Garrison, as they entered the shadow of the +woods, "your face tells me plainly that you know I have some object in +asking you to walk with me here. I have. + +"I am proud, cold, indifferent regarding you people here; I have not +noticed you, hardly even by recognition, if we chanced to meet in the +lanes; yes, I know. I bring no personal claims. But"--she was going +to say, "you are fond of Notely," but she looked at the girl, and a +proud, sarcastic smile curved her lips instead--"my son, Notely +Garrison, adores you, I believe? I do not know whether you care for +him; I presume not so ardently; but if you were even a little fond of +him, for the sake of childhood days when he made you his little +playmate--you would try to do the best for his good now--would you not, +child?" + +Vesty showed so few symptoms of slow consumption, and the lions in the +gateway of her soul glowed so ominously, that Mrs. Garrison concluded +to be brief. She turned her face away a little; the operation was +unpleasant, and she took out the knife, only in speech. + +"Notely has quixotic ideas in many ways: if he had given any ground for +a foolish confidence in his boyhood he would hold to it now, against +all his life's advancement, filial duty--yes, even against personal +inclination, for that matter." + +Mrs. Garrison was a resolved surgeon. "Do you know what Notely's +prospects are in life--socially, politically, financially? But he must +take the tide as it serves. To turn now is to lose all. He has many +friends. He is beloved by a rich, beautiful, accomplished girl, +influential in that sphere where her family have for so long moved. I +seem cruel, child." + +"Call me by my name. Call me Vesty Kirtland. I hate you! With my +whole heart and soul I hate you!" + +So the bold lions at the gate, desperately guarding sea-depths of pain +behind. + +"Really, Vesta Kirtland! if things were different I would rather be +mother-in-law to you than to Grace Langham. You are a pupil worthy of +my metal! You are fire, I see. Bravo!" + +Vesty stood with her head on her arm, resting against a tree, holding +herself. + +"I do not know that there is anything more to say. Notely will never +seek his own release. But, if you loved him _truly_----" + +"I do!" + +Flaming scorn and a smile as defiant as Mrs. Garrison's own. + +"Do you?" said the surgeon. "Then release him." + +"You told a lie. Notely does not want to be released. He loves me, +not Grace Langham. You know how it is with men. If I should go to +your house and say to him, 'Come with me; come down to my father's +house, since there is no other way, and help troll, and haul the traps, +and make the nets, and be with me,' he would come!" + +"Yes," said the lady, pale, "he would go. Therefore, as I said, do you +save him." + +"What makes that life so much better, out there, than ours, that I +should give him up to it, and break my heart and his? Are you one that +they make?" + +"All people do not regard me with such disfavor." She looked at the +girl almost wistfully. "Life _is_ hard, Vesta, and exacting, spite of +all that we can do; and the world is hard and exacting, supercilious, +ready to pick at a flaw--you do not know." + +"Well, I think Notely will be happier here with me." + +Yet one could see the girl's pale resolve, only she was turning the +knife a little on the heartless surgeon. It cut sharply. + +"For a month or two, Vesta, yes." + +"And then?" + +"One who has been accustomed to champagne from an ice-cooler will not +be satisfied forever with sucking warm spring water in the sun, however +wholesome." + +"Ah!" + +"He will grow very tired. He will not speak, but he will regret." + +"Ah! he will think what he has given up; and it _is_ so much, all in +all; yes, it is too much!" + +Mrs. Garrison turned, startled at the girl's voice. The lions held the +gateway, sad and gloomy. Into those heaving depths behind she should +not enter. + +"You have not told me anything. I only got you to say it over. I had +thought it all out for myself. I do not mean, any more, that Notely +shall marry me." + +Mrs. Garrison gave her a wild glance of gratitude, of sorrow. In that +instant her heart yearned intensely over the long-limbed girl, standing +so sorrowful and proud, and cut by Fate. + +"How will you manage?" she cried impulsively. "He _is_ so fond of you!" + +"I can manage. Promise me one thing?" + +"Anything I have." + +Vesty smiled. "Promise me, if Notely should be sick, in danger, I +mean, or hurt, unfortunate, it might be--you would let me know, and let +me come and care for him, just while he needed care. I want you to +promise me!" + +Her voice took the sharp tone, her eyes the frenzy, of a bird guarding +its young. + +"Ah, Vesta Kirtland, you did love him! Oh, I promise." + +"If you did not, there 's such a feeling toward him, different from the +others, I can't tell; if you did not, and I should ever know, it would +be like I had some little child of my own--yes, like I had some poor +little baby of my own, crying for me, and I did not come--I did not +come!" + +Vesty turned. The tide had run so high those wild ocean guards were +covered by the surge. + +She led the way to the outskirts of the wood and stood aside for Mrs. +Garrison to pass. The woman would have drawn near her; she waved her +hand, standing aside from her. Mrs. Garrison hesitated. The sight of +Dan Kirtland's low, brown cottage, the squalid babies in the doorway, +the fishing-nets, Vesty's last week's cotton gown swinging on the line, +some humiliating, harsh memories of her own, spurred her on, with a +sigh. + +"She is fire, thank God! It will be all right," she said. + +Vesty drew back into the woods. + +She pressed her forehead hard against the rough bark of a tree. To +"fall down there, and to be found and taken home and put away beside +her own mother in the little home lot by the sea-wall--not to have to +stand up wearily any more, and walk back, dazed and sick, into the +light"--so she yearned--"what was there to stand up for?" + +A pitiful little wail, and "Lowizy's" weary voice trying to sing +reached her. + +Clouds drifted over the sky. The poplars shivered; no voice of the +thrush now chanting from the wood-depths; but the poplars, that +Christ's cross was made from, what soft voice is this of theirs +falling? "Love, love, love"--this too? sighing with strange rapture. + +Vesty pulled her thick hair down over the bruised place on her +forehead. She went out of the woods, toward her father's poor house +and the wailing and the feeble singing. + +"Vesty! Vesty!" one of the school-children came running toward her. +"Lowizy said you was up here. I came to look for you. Here 's a note +Jane Pray sent." + + +DEAR VESTY: You told me last meetun you was comern up to sett with me +and my border some evening. Come tonyte. hees a poor erflickted +creetur, seems to me. hees lamer 'an ever an smaller 'an ever this +week, an' the burth-scalds on his face shows more, seems to me. Ef +that he was payin' 3 dollars a week, I should feel easier, bring your +soing an' sett a good long spale. + +yours truly, + JANE PRAY. + + +Vesty came, just as the firelight grew welcome and tender. She put +aside her hat and shawl, unrolled her parcel of sewing-work, and sat +down by the little lamp at one end of the room with Miss Pray. + +She took in my presence naturally, with no obtrusive kindness; she was +at a necessitous task--putting a broad gray patch, the best available +from the resources at home, on Jimmy Kirtland's brown jacket, doing it +deftly with her supple hands. + +"You'll be doing that for some boys of your own by and by," said Miss +Pray, intending to have a cheerful evening. + +Vesty grew sweet and pale; she shook her head. Her dark eye-sockets +had a look, I thought, as though she had been ill and fasting. I mused +in the firelight. + +"And what if that should not be your fate indeed, Vesta Kirtland: not +bearing, and toil, and pain, and all the heart-breaking vicissitudes of +woman's life, but some peculiar station? + +"So tall and gracious, to go robed costly, to ride splendidly accoutred +and attended, to condescend almost to _all_, to give gracious +_downward_ smiles. + +"What if they knew the power of wealth and alien rank, for that matter, +I held in that miserable, lean, little paw of mine! You should +outshine Grace Langham as the sun, Vesty. Some time, if she were +wronged and sorrowful, could I point her, delicately, with all +forbearance and worship of my own, that way?" + +"Be you rebellious?" Unsuccessful in her cheerful attempts with Vesty, +Jane Pray had turned to me. + +But Vesty resented her companion's question, almost involuntarily +turning to me with a quick and awful pity. + +(No; I had been lost, dreaming: not that way, surely; not though her +heart were moved with the purest pity angels could bestow; not thou, +Vesty, above all, sweet one, beautiful one! to a union so unfit and +repelling.) + +But I had to bring my thoughts back from a long way to answer Miss +Fray's question. + +"No," I said. "I settled that with God long ago. It is all right +between us." + +Miss Pray, confused by Vesty's look, blushed painfully. + +"Thank you for asking me about it," I said gently. + +At that Miss Pray rose. "Come; le's play words," she said. + +So the girl and the woman folded their sewing, and Miss Pray brought +from some hitherto unknown recreative source a little box of cardboard +letters, and we sat at the table together. + +Miss Pray and Vesty thoughtfully selected some letters and shook them +together and handed them each to me to make into words. I gave them +each a word. + +The letters I gave Miss Pray composed a simple and striking feature of +the Basin vocabulary, "w-h-a-l-e." + +Those I gave Vesty I studied to make a little more difficult, +"c-o-n-t-i-n-u-e." + +Miss Pray gave me three letters. It happened as I dropped them on the +table that they fell of themselves into complete literary sequence, +"c-o-w." But Vesty handed me eleven shuffled letters, a ladylike +aspiration, and looked at me with a little appealing blush--the Basin +school is so brief, so limited in its curriculum. + +Miss Pray put on her glasses and studied wearily and long on her +letters, placing them every way. I saw that she had them now at last, +"w-h-a-l-e," but was regarding them as blankly as ever. + +"Pray do not move them again," I cried hopefully, finding the game more +exciting than I had anticipated. "You have it, 'w-h-a-l-e,' +whale--see?" + +Miss Pray looked shocked and dubious. I saw at once that she was +suffering under the sorrowful mental conviction that I had spelled the +word wrongly: but that she was resolved not again to wound my feelings. +She turned to assist Vesty. + +"That," she said at length, struck by some suggestive combination, +"might be 'continnu,' Vesty, ef it had more 'n's and no 'e'." + +"Oh," said Vesty, pleased and enlightened. "But major knows," she +added promptly, "about the spelling." + +"I have your word, you see, Vesty," I said. "'S-e-p-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n.'" + +I had it spread out proudly on the table. She looked at me and blushed +again. I smiled, only as I would at a priceless child. + +"You _are_ cute at _guessin'_, major," said Miss Pray admiringly; but I +saw that she held me deficient in the classical prearrangement of +words, and that the game had lost interest to her on that account. So +we laid it by. + +When Vesty rose to go home, "I will go with you," I said, wrapping my +sad little presence in an overcoat. + +Miss Pray looked as she had when she asked me if I was rebellious. + +But Vesty said quickly: "I wish you would. I am so afraid in the dark!" + +Afraid in the dark! Not she; but this was some ointment for that +unconscious thrust Miss Pray had given. + +I walked home with her. Coming back, there was ever a slight crackling +in the bushes and stealthy breathing behind me. It was the lad, Jimmy +Kirtland, sent by Vesty surreptitiously to see that I arrived safely at +Miss Pray's. + +I regarded sacredly this innocent device, but, arrived in the house, I +heard Jimmy outside pleading cautiously to Miss Pray through the window +that he was afraid to go back alone. + +Miss Pray tried to arouse one of her two orphans--her help: for answer +they screamed aloud, sinking back into a sleep deep with snores of +utter repose. + +"Sh! sh!" she said. "I'll go home with you, Jimmy." + +I had not taken off my great-coat. I went out of my room and followed +them, unseen. In sight of the Kirtland home-light Jimmy ran in, glad. +Miss Pray turned to face the darkness alone; she went a few paces, +stopped, hesitated, and began to weep softly. + +"I am here to walk home with you, Miss Pray," I said. "Come; I can see +very well in the dark." + +"Thank God!" said she, and came toward me with a little bound; for it +seemed that it did not make any difference to her in this emergency +that I did not know how to spell. + + + + +VII + +"SETTIN' ON THE FENCE"--THE SHIFTY SPECTRE + +"Admiral 's I sum-sit-up," collector of road-taxes, a title cheerfully +accorded him through the genial courtesy of the Basin, came down from +the Point. + +In the distance we could hear him approaching as usual, the passionless +monotone of his voice growing ever nearer and more distinct, as he +flapped methodically first one rein, then the other, over the unhurried +action of his horse, sagely admonishing him to "G'long! ye old fool! +Git up! ye old skate!" + +His mortal conversation, too, though cutting and profound, was, in the +deepest sense, without rancor or emotion. + +"'S I sums it up," said he, "yer road down through the woods 's gittin' +more ridick'lous 'n ever." + +"Poo! poo! Wouldn't be afraid to bet ye she ain't," said Captain Pharo +Kobbe, with glowing pipe. + +"Ye seem to boast yerselves 't ye don't belong to nothin' down here," +continued the admiral; "but ye does. Ye belongs to a shyer town. Ye +orter have some pride. 'S I sums it up, be you goin' to pay yer rates, +or work 'em out mendin' yer roads?" + +"I've noticed pretty darned well 't I don't belong to no town, only +when it comes to votin' some on ye into offis' up there and payin' +taxes," said one of the Basin group--Captain Dan Kirtland, Vesty's +father. "I ain't a-goin' to pay no rates, nor work 'em out on no roads +neither. When I goes I goes by boat, 'n' I didn't see, when I was out +pollockin' this mornin', but what the water 's jest as smooth as she +ever was!" + +A low murmur of sympathetic laughter ran through the group. + +"I goes by boat--when I goes," said Captain Leezur benignantly. "She +_is_ smoother, sartin she is. But some, ye know, 's never sartisfied. +Some neow 's all'as shiftin' a chaw o' tobackker----" + +"Comparin' of the road with the water," said Captain Rafe, father of +Fluke and Gurdon, "I permits it to ye all that thar' ain't that +steadiness about the land that thar' is about the water. Thar 's a +kind o' a weaviness and onsartainty about the land." + +"'S I sums it up," said the imperturbable collector, grave pipe of +expired ashes in mouth, "thar 's some bottom to the water, but it 's +purty nigh fell out o' yer roads down here. Ye're a disgrace to a +shyer town." + +Loud and unoffended laughter from the group. + +"I permits 't thar 's some advantages about the land," continued +Captain Rafe. "I wants ter go out and shute me a mess o' coots once in +a while, and ketch me a mess o' brook-trout, but as for tinkerin' over +the roads--why, that artis' that was down here three months las' +summer, paintin' a couple o' Leezur's sheep eatin' rock-weed off'n a +nubble, said 't our roads was picturusque. You don't suppose I'm goin' +around a-shorin' up and sp'ilin' the picturusque, do ye?" + +Inextinguishable laughter from the group. At this juncture Captain +Shamgar came up with his cows. + +"Ain't ye drivin' yer cows home ruther early, Shamgar? Sun 's +a-p'intin' 'bout tew in the arternoon." + +"Wal, yes, but I got through cuttin' weir-stays, and thought 's the +cows was over there, I'd take 'em along home with me. Save goin' back +arter 'em by 'n' by, ye know." + +Captain Shamgar disposed himself on the fence, and the cows fell to +browsing in the lane. + +"Got your road-tax ready for the adm'r'l, Shamgar?" + +"Sartin, sartin," said that individual, firmly and permanently +buttressing his cowhide boots between the rails; "charge 'er to the +town pump, and take 'er out o' the handle!" + +Uproarious laughter. + +"You'd orter see the roads in Californy," said a dark spectre with +shifty eyes on the outskirts of the group. + +"Gold, ain't they, Pershal?" + +"No, no," said the spectre modestly; "jest common silver-leavin's. +Arfter they've made silver dollars they scrape up all the cornder +pieces and leavin's, and heave 'em out into the road. They wears down +smooth in a little while--and shine? Wal----" + +"Speakin' o' coots," firmly interposed Captain Dan Kirtland, "onct when +I was cruisin' to Boston, I seen a lot o' coots hangin' up thar' in the +market 't looked as though they'd been hangin' thar' ever senct before +Adam cut his eye-teeth. 'How long be you goin' to keep them coots?' +says I. 'Coots!' says he; 'them's converse-back ducks.' +'Converse-back ducks!' says I; 'them 's coots,' says I, 'and they're +gittin' to be _old_ coots too,' says I. 'You come from Maine, I guess, +don't ye?' says he. 'Never mind whether I come from Maine or whether I +come from Jaffy,' says I, 'I come from sech a quarter of this 'arth as +whar' coots is jest _coots_,' says I." + +"Ye'd orter see the coots in Californy," wailed the voice of the shifty +spectre on the outskirts. + +"Kind o' resemblin' cows in size, ain't they, Pershal?" + +"No, no; the biggest I ever seen was the size o' Shamgar's tom-turkey; +but plenty? Wal----" + +"Speakin' o' Jaffy," said Captain Leezur; "somebody was tellin' me 't +they'd heered how 't Lot's wife--she that was turned into a pillar o' +salt, ye know----" + +"Ye'd orter see the hunks o' salt in Californy!" moaned triumphantly +the spectre. + +"Had got up and went!" joyfully concluded Captain Leezur. + +"Wal, now, speakin' o' trout (I permits that they have termenjus trout +in Californy," wisely subjoined Captain Rafe), "larst Sunday I was +startin' for Shadder Brook with my pole and line, and I met this +noospaper man's wife, 't's boardin' up to Lunette's. She was chopped +down so small tow'ds the waist line, looked as ef, ef she sh'd happen +to get ketched in a nor'wester, she'd go clean in tew. Didn't bear no +more resemblance to your Vesty, Dan, than a hourglass on the shelf does +to the nateral strompin' figger o' womankind (I permits the women has +splendid figgers in Californy). + +"'Wal,' says she to me, and sighs. 'I wish 't there was a chapel to +this place,' says she. 'I know,' says I; 'I've all'as said, ef they'd +start 'er up I'd contribbit to 'er--'s fur as my purse 'u'd allow.'" + +Exhaustive laughter for some cause from the group. + +"'Do you think it's right to go a-fishin' Sunday?' says she. 'No, +marm,' says I, 'not big fish, but little treouts?' says I; 'won't you +jest think it over, marm?' says I. And while she was thinkin' I kind +o' shied and sidled off, an' got away outer the ship's channel." + +"Wal, thar' neow," said Captain Leezur, beaming with fond sympathy at +the heavens, "sech folks dew help to parss away the time, amazin'." + +"'S I sums it up," said the impassively listening collector, "ef ye +don't pass away some o' yer time on yer roads down here, ye'll break +some o' yer d--d necks." + +Renewed unresentful laughter from the group. + +"Grarsshoppers, neow," said Captain Leezur, seriously and reflectively, +"makes better treoutin' bait 'n angle-worms (I know 't we don't have no +sech grarsshoppers nor angle-worms neither as they dew in Californy). + +"Nason was over t'other day, helpin' me shingle my barn. 'Twas a +dreadful warm day, and we was takin' our noonin' arfter dinner, settin' +thar' on the log, 'nd there was a lot o' these 'ere little green +grarsshoppers hoppin' areound in the grarss: so arfter a spall, we +speared up some on 'em and----" + +"'S I sums it up, ef ye want to stay here and ketch the last fish 't +God ever made, 'ste'd o' bracin' up and mendin' yer roads and takin' +yer part in a shyer town, ye must do so." + +"Sho!" said Captain Leezur, regarding him with wistful compassion; "I +hain't seen as fish was gittin' skeerce." + +By winks and insinuations of niggardliness, through Captain Rafe, +father of Fluke, he was moved to take a nervine lozenge out of his +pocket and display it temptingly before the sapient, immovable +countenance of the collector. The latter, cold pipe in mouth, solemnly +shook his head. + +"They _dew_ come kind o' high, I know," said Captain Leezur, "but I'm +all'as willin' to sheer 'em with a friend. I ain't one o' that kind +that's all'as peerin' anxiously into the futur'." + +"The furderest time 't I ever looked into the futur'," said Captain Dan +Kirtland, "was once when I was a boy 'bout nineteen, and my father told +me not to take the colt out. He was a stallion colt (I know 't we +don't have no sech colts here as they do in Californy), jest three +years and two months old, and sperrited--oh, no; I guess he wa'n't +sperrited none! Wal, my father was gone one day, and I tackled him up +and off I went. Might 'a' fetched up all right, but 't happened jest +as I was passin' by them smoke-houses to Herrinport, some boys 't was +playin' with a beef's blawder had hove her up onto the roof, and she +bounded down right atween that stallion's ears and eyes. In jest about +one second I looked so far into the futur' that I run my nose two +inches into the 'arth, and she 's been broke ever since." + +"Never mind, Kirtland, she 's all thar'. The furderest time 't I ever +looked ahead," said the voice of Shamgar, "was once in war time. Flour +fifteen dollars a barrel, seven girls and five boys (I know 't we don't +raise no sech families here as they do in Californy), everything high. +All to once the thought come to me, 'Mebbe herrin'll be high tew.' And +sure enough herrin' was high!" + +"The furderest time 't I ever looked ahead----" deliciously began +Captain Leezur. + +"G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!" + +Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up was turning his horse about. + +"I believe you and me 's got a bet on, ain't we, adm'r'l?" said Captain +Pharo. + +"I told 'em 'twas wastin' waggin ile to come down here to c'lect. +G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate! 'S I sums it up, bet ye, +goin' 'tween here and the Point I could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud +off 'n yer kerridge time ye gits thar', Kobbe. G'long! ye old fool! +Git up! ye old skate!" + +His unbaffled monotone grew gradually faint in the distance. + +"Roads _be_ all porridge up there a piece, I reckon," chuckled Captain +Pharo; "but as long as Crooked River runs, I don't calk'late to lose no +bet. Poo! poo!" + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass, Or as--'] + +"Jest give me time," beamed Captain Leezur, sounding mellifluously, +"'n' I can row any Pointer ashore in an argyment 't ever was born yit. +I takes a moderate little spall to dew it in. Forced-to-go----" + +"Ye be a lazy, yarn-reelin' set, all on ye," said Captain Rafe, +grinning with affection and delight on the group. "I'm going to have +ye all posted and put on the teown!" + +Murmurs of rich and deep laughter. + +A tall, dark form, shifty-eyed, had been insensibly moving and +disintegrating me from the group. I found myself drifting strangely +ever farther and farther away. I was sitting beside him on a rock in +the covert of the woods, the sun setting over the bay, and all was +still save his voice. + +"I went to Californy minding" (mining), said he. "She ain't nothin' so +wonderful of a State as you might think: she ain't no bigger 'n Maine +'n' New York and Alabamy, 'n' Afriky 'n' Bar Harbor all put into one!" + +"Great heavens!" said I, scratching my feeble little cane into the +earth, "is she that?" + +Of all that had been denied him in the recent general conversation, of +colossal hunks of salt, of grasshoppers "no larger than Dorking hens," +of fishes, women, horses fabulous, I listened, rapt with wonder and +admiration. + +The sun went down, the moon arose, and still I listened. I was not +weary, I was not hungry; I was absorbed in sincere and awful attention. +But the world is callous and cold, and I shall not repeat those tales. + +The world is callous and cold; but, as the shifty spectre at last +pointed me, unwilling, homeward, he murmured, with tears in his eyes: +"I never found sech an intellergent listener as you be--not in the +whole length and breadth of Californy." + + + + +VIII + +"VESTY 'S MARRIED" + +"Vesty 's married Gurd! Vesty 's gone and got married to Gurd!" said +the children, big and joyful with news, on their way to school. + +Yes, that was what she had done! I leaned heavily for a moment where I +stood. That was Vesty! + +Oh, child-madness! Sweet, lost child! Oh, pity of the world! and I +crawling on with such a hurt; I did not think that should have wrung me +so. + +I was getting near her door; not anywhere else could I have gone. She +would be at the Rafes' cottage now--so easily do the Basin brides move, +without wedding journey or trousseau. + +The wash-tubs and cooking-stove stood at one end of the long, +low-raftered room, the cabinet organ and violins at the other. Captain +Rafe and the boys were out, hauling their sea-traps, and Vesty had been +doing the washing that they were wont to do for themselves; the mother, +like her own, being dead. + +The room was nice as I had never seen it before, and Vesty was putting +some pitiful little ornaments to rights at the cabinet-organ end. + +She turned to me with so strange and febrile a look, yet with so wild +and startled a welcome in her eyes. + +"Hush!" I said. "You wanted me, child; I am here." + +I saw that she had turned to lean against the organ, and that she was +shaken with sobs. + +"What have you done, Vesty? Wicked and false beyond any woman I +know--_you_!" + +"Have you seen him?" she sobbed. + +"No, I have not seen Notely. You were married only last night." + +"I wrote to him. There was only one way to save Notely from marrying +me--only one way." + +"You might have waited." + +"Notely would never have waited. Notely meant to marry me." + +"You should have married him, and not been false." + +"I would rather be false than ruin Notely." + +"You thought that it would ruin him? You had some assistance in that +belief; his lady mother came to see you; the property is hers. If he +transgresses, no property, no wealthy Grace Langham, no easy glory at +the bar or in the state. What were those to your love, Vesty?" + +She looked up, dim, and shook her head. "You have done a wilful, +blind, impetuous thing. You were piqued, proud, angry, and so you gave +yourself, body and soul, to this mad leap." + +"I don't care for my body (sob) or soul (sob) if Notely isn't sick." + +"There is One who is above Notely, to punish as well as to pity, Vesty." + +"God"--very softly--"oh, yes!" The bewildered, grief-tormented eyes +looked faith into mine. "I didn't mean that. I asked Him. I could +only find one way. He won't let Notely come to harm, but help him to +make the best of himself." + +"Your lover is a brave man. He would not have been selfish toward you +as this great hulk, Gurdon. He knew you intelligently. He would have +lifted, considered, cared for you." + +Vesty held herself aloft, pale. "Gurdon is good. If any one ever +asked Gurd for anything he always gave it to them." + +I leaned my head on my hand, my heart leaping. Vesty came near me. +"Tell me that you do not think it is a great mistake--such a great--a +lost--mistake; for Notely's sake, tell me! I looked so for you to +come. I wanted you." + +To have touched one thread of her dark hair, bowed there before me! I +did not touch her. + +"Ah, the mistake!" I said; "ah, the pity of it! You do not tell me how +_you_ have suffered, Vesty; how your own heart has been torn." + +She took my hand, and, turning her head, pushed it gently away from +her, as some blind instrument of torture. + +"The last time I heard you sing, Vesty, you put your hands on Uncle +Benny's poor, confused head and soothed and guided him. Who was there +to help or guide you, motherless child, confused and lost?" + +"Could you have seen the way?" How she entreated me! + +"No one sees the way. But a broken heart and a life--misguided and +lost though it be--_given_." + +She looked up, dim, again. + +"You will make them happy here," I added. Ah, that she understood! +She looked about the room with a sad, brave pride, and rose and stood +again, a striking picture there. + +"They did need _me_," she said; "_he_ needed me more than Notely. And +I shall get time, besides, to go over to father's and help with the +children." + +I nodded. "Oh, it is bravely done," I said. "We shall get on." For +she was worn from her long mental struggle, and nearly wild in those +dark-circled eyes. "There will be no more feathers in Captain Rafe's +cake. Did I tell you? He and the boys invited me here to tea. They +had been dressing birds and baking in the same morning. The plum cake +was full of feathers, Vesty." + +She laughed, and looked at me with shocked gratitude because I had made +her laugh. + +"Not chopped or sugared feathers, Vesty, but whole winged feathers of +the natural flavor." + +"Oh!" she said, "shouldn't you think they needed me?" + +"Infinitely." + +"Wait. Won't you come--come and see me often? Come evenings and hear +the boys play--they _can_ play!--and tell me"--her hands +trembled--"tell me about Notely!" Her soul bare in her uplifted eyes. +Only to one as a wraith, a shadow, out of the ordinary pale of +humanity, could she have looked like that! + +"Always, whatever I hear or know," I answered her. "Gurdon will not be +jealous of me." I smiled at her. + +She smiled back in her dim way. "Jealous?" she said. "What! after we +are married?" + +"Ay, surely! The Basins are true to each other then always." + +"That is the way," she said. + +"That is the way," I said, and left her. + + +When Notely Garrison received the letter that Vesty had written him he +read at the end: "When you get this I shall be married;" and the "for +love of you, Notely, God knows that! You must make the most of all He +gives you." Notely seemed to see her eyes. + +Then he lost them and went down into a mental gulf. He locked himself +in his room, to be ever alone; thoughts came to him that he could not +bear: he rose and filled a glass twice with brandy and drained it. He +ran his hand through the tumbled light hair that Vesty had so loved, +and reeled out of the room with a laugh on his lips and a flush on his +face. + +"Mother, I have lost my girl!" + +"O Notely! however mistaken I have been, what have I loved, whom have I +loved in all this world but you, my child? Do not break my heart!" + +"No, no, mother!" said Notely, going and standing beside her; "I am +your natural--natural--protector." + +As he stood thus, looking out with his drunken yet bright and tender +eyes, the child of her breast whom she had robbed, she laid her head on +his shoulder and began to cry. "Why, mother!" he said, almost sobered +for the instant. Never had this son seen this mother weep. He led her +to a lounge. + +"I think," he said, struggling for thought very seriously; he racked +his stormy, fuddled brain for what would most please her. "Now, when +shall we have a wedding, mother? Grace--Grace Langham." + +"O Notely!" She tried to detain him with her hand. + +"I'll go--go ask her," he said. He passed out with an easy +exaggeration of his usual lordly air, debonair and high, and at the +same time genial. + +Grace was alone in the arbor, in her favorite hammock, with a book, +when Notely came up. + +The look she gave him was full of amusement and anger and disgust. + +These qualities somehow attracted him now. He was a gentleman; he +tried to hold himself very erect against the trellis, and put the +question delicately. + +"Light--light--light of my soul!" he said. + +Grace threw down her book and screamed. Then she put her hands over +her face and fell to crying. + +Notely took out his handkerchief and wiped his own eyes with the +choicest deliberation of sympathy. + +"All--all seem to be weeping to-day," he said. + +"Oh, you wretch! you brute! you brute!" cried Grace. + +Notely, though much flattered, continued diplomatically mopping his +eyes. + +At length he desisted; and Grace, looking out and seeing his keen, +handsome profile staring out so desolately, came down from the hammock. + +She shivered a little; drunken men were horrid, even dangerous. But +Notely! She came up heroically and put her hand on his sleeve. + +"There is one condition, Notely, on which I can--consider your +proposal." + +"Name," said Notely, with touching legal precision, "condition on which +you'll marry me." + +"You must never, never drink like this again. I did not know that you +ever did this. Oh, how it has hurt me!" The lace fell back from her +white arms, there was a perfume of flowers about her; bright brown eyes +are lovelier when suffused with tears. + +"Thanks!" said Notely, meaning to come up to the full measure of the +occasion. "I'm not--not worthy. No--no--no previous engagement, +how'ver." + +But he was so gentle, she took his arm and led him in. Mrs. Langham, +who always spoiled him, entering stately in silk and gems, engaged him +in a game of cribbage, humoring gravely all his startling and original +vagaries in the game. + +"What does it mean?" cried Grace to Mrs. Garrison. + +"It was an accident, not an excess, my child," said the mother, smiling +proudly. "It should never be mentioned in connection with my son; it +is no part of _him_." + +Mrs. Garrison was strangely assured in her own heart that Vesty +Kirtland would never tell the son of his mother's visit to her. She +did not mean that Grace Langham should ever know the full cause that +had unsettled him. + +"We must be very tender with him, keep near to him," she said, "or, +when he recovers, he may do himself harm, with remorse, and--the fear +of losing your love, Grace." + +They were very tender with him. And by good chance, too, the post +brought a famed "Review," copying entire the brilliant fellow's essay +on "American Politics," with the editor's comment of "masterly." + +"See!" screamed Grace; "it says 'masterly.'" + +"Of course it 's mast--mast--masterly," said Notely, his beautiful eyes +burning. + +They drove with him, the stout coachman perched for safety on the seat +beside him. At evening he tried to catch Grace in the arbor and kiss +her. She screamed and escaped. + +"Come, dearest!" said his mother. She left the door wide between his +sleeping-room and hers, and laid the triumphant review at his hand for +his waking in the morning. + +But on the morrow he was neither remorseful nor subdued, though his +eyes were hollow. He smoked a great deal, and sang melancholy, +unembarrassed snatches of song, after the manner of Captain Pharo, and +made love to Grace, who was beautiful. + +At evening he tucked his violin under his arm. "I am going down to +call on the new Basin bride," he said, with airy, cheerful contempt for +that class. + +His mother paled. He went up to her and kissed her. "Do not fear, +mother," he whispered. + +The boys welcomed him somewhat eagerly. He had been their teacher on +the violin, as well as the original donor of those beloved instruments. +And they had thought he might not come to that house again. + +"I've a new tune for you, boys," he said. Vesty came in. He rose and +bowed, taking her hand. "I congratulate the new bride!" He would not +look at her pallor or her great beseeching eyes. + +"I've this to show you, boys, that I've been practising to-day." He +had not touched the strings for forty-eight hours! There was a covert +smile, sad, playful, not malicious, on his face as his hands touched +them now. + +Where he had been "practising" indeed! From what source he had got +that music that he played for them now! He would never play the like +again. + +"Bah!" said he, at the close, with his old cheerful manner; "it is too +sad! When one is possessed only for minor strains better cease +fiddling. Do you want me to break this, or throw it into the fire when +I get home, Gurdon? Then take her, lad! She 's a fine one, finer than +yours. Take her in all good faith. Come!" + +Gurdon reached out his hand, hesitating, voiceless pity in his honest +eyes. + +Notely sat and listened to the others; applauded in the old way. "You +are beyond my teaching, lads," he said--and they played exquisitely. +"You excel your master now. Well, well, my mellow old fiddle is better +here with you." But he would never once look at Vesty, so pale and +beseeching. + +As he passed out Vesty started impulsively, then looked at her husband. + +"Go and speak to him, Vesty," said Gurdon. "Maybe he wanted to speak +with you a moment." + +Vesty stepped out into the dark, and she called, almost in a breathless +voice: "Notely!" + +"Ah!" He came back. + +She held out her hands to him. "Forgive me, Notely! I meant it for +your--I meant----" + +He took her hands firmly in his and pressed his lips down to hers. "My +wife!" he said, slowly and solemnly; "my wife!" and dropped her hands +and left her. + +She stepped back through the doorway, sobbing. + +"Was he angry with you, Vesty?" her husband said. + +"No! no!" + +"Did he say as he was still fond of you, or anything like that?" said +the bold brother Fluke. + +"Nay! nay!" said Gurdon. "Vesty's married now: nor Vesty nor he would +ever have word like that." + + + + +IX + +THE TALE OF CAPTAIN LEEZUR'S SLY COURTSHIP + +It has not been a seven months, surely, since I heard the roar of those +waters down in the Basin's Greater Bay! + +Captain Leezur has not been housed through icy snow-fall and winter +blast!--nay, he has been ever there, as when I left him sitting on the +log, beaming, tranquil heir of eternity. + +"Ilein' my saw, ye see," said he, springing up and grasping my hand; +"ef I remembers right, I was settin' here ilein' my saw, when ye come +and bid me good-by?" + +"You were." + +"And here I be, right in the same place, ilein' of 'er ag'in!" he +cried, struck with joyful surprise at such a phenomena of coincidence. +"Set deown! why, sartin ye must! I carn't let ye go." + +Oh, the taste, sweeter than ancient wine, of that nervine lozenge once +more! The time was weary while I was away. Now that I am back again, +it seems as nothing. + +"Some neow 's all'as runnin' their saw right through everythin', no +marter heow hard she wrarstles and complains ag'in' it. But when mine +gives the first squeak, I sets right deown with 'er and examines of +'er, and then I takes a swab-cloth and I swabs her. +Forced-to-go--'specially ef she ain't iled--never gits far, ye know." + +O delicious sound of uncorrupted philosophy once more! + +Mrs. Leezur came out to welcome me, and sat on the doorstep near. She +was chopping salt codfish in a tray for dinner. When her knife struck +a bone, she put on her glasses, and after deliberate and kindly +research extracted it. + +"Did ye hear anything from Jaffy?" said the mellow, glad voice of +Captain Leezur. + +"I'm inclined to think what you heard was true, captain. It seems to +be confirmed from every source; she is gone." + +"Thar' neow! I told 'em 't you'd make inquiries. I could see, says I, +when I was talkin' to him 'beout it, 't he'd got waked up to more 'n +common interest in the subjec'. Wal, I'm glad on 't; she'd sot there +so long neow--didn't ye hit a bone then, mother? Seounded kind o' as +though ye struck a bone, but mebbe 'twas only the bottom o' the tray." + +"We've been threatenin' to clean dooryard," said Mrs. Leezur, looking +about on a scene that demanded no more particular explanation. + +"Thar' 's three times," said Captain Leezur, "that I've had them bresh +'n' things all hove up into piles, 'n' every time the wind 's raked in +and swep' 'em areound all over the farmimunt ag'in." + +"Perhaps, father," said Mrs. Leezur, in a mildly suggestive tone, as +far from sarcasm as heaven is from earth; "perhaps, if 't when you'd +got 'em up in piles, you'd keeried of 'em off, they wouldn't 'a' got +swep' areound ag'in." + +"Wal, I don' know 's they would, mother; but it 's been a dreadful busy +time o' year, ye know," said Captain Leezur, mellifluously. "Didn't ye +strike a bone then, mother? Seounded 's though ye run afoul of a bone, +but mebbe, arfter all, 'twas only the bottom o' the tray." + +"I like the yard," I said. "I wouldn't like to miss those--things." + +"I guess you're kind o' like that artis' that was here, 't was so +keeried away with the picturusque. He run afeoul o' a couple o' old +sheep o' mine up on the headlan's somewheres, an' spent a 'tarnal three +months a-paintin' of 'em deown onto some canvarss. I told 'im, says I, +'Thar'!' says I, 'I'm glad to see them sheep put somewheres 't they'll +stay,' says I. 'It'll be the first time in existence 't they hain't +broke fence,' says I. 'I'm r'a'ly obleeged to ye. I hain't seen the +livin' presence o' them sheep senct I don't know when,' says I. 'I've +been a-threatenin' these tew years t' go and hunt em up, but the +glimpst I've had o' 'em in this 'ere pictur'll dew jest as well,' says +I; 'fur 's I can see, they look promisin', an' gettin' better points 'n +ever for light-weight jumpers,' says I----Sartin ye hit a bone then, +mother! Thar'! I told ye so. Heave 'er eout. I knowed 't you'd +fetch 'er, mother. Did I ever tell ye," said Captain Leezur to me, +"heow sly I was when I went a-courtin'?" + +"No," said I. Mother Leezur's face was modest, yet all beautifully +alight. + +"Wal neow," said Captain Leezur seriously, "my experience has been, +there ain't nothin' so onpleasant, when ye're eatin' picked-up codfish, +'s to feel the rufe o' yer mouth all runnin' in afeoul along o' a mess +o' bones. + +"So 't when it got at an age and a time 't I was goin' courtin', I was +jest as sly abeout it as could be, 'nd I never let on nothin' o' what +port in pertick'lar I was steerin' for. + +"So 't I was up settin' a spall with Tryphosy Rogers--she 't was; 'nd +says she, 'Neow what shall I get for tea, Leezur?' (The gals all made a +great deal on me in them days.) 'They ain't nothin' I likes so well,' +says I, 'as a mess o' codfish mixed up along o' eggs and thickenin'.' +Wal, she flew 'reound 'nd got supper, 'nd we sot deown together--and I +swan! ef that 'ar mess o' codfish 't Tryphosy heaped onto my plate +wa'n't worse tangled up with bones 'n the maze o' human destiny. + +"Wal, I knew 't Tryphosy had bo's enough; 'nd all ain't so pertick'lar +abeout codfish, ye know, as some be. So 't I didn't trouble 'er to get +up no more teas for me. + +"'Nd still I kep' sly: they hadn't nobody the least idee o' what port I +was steerin' for. I tried four or five jest in the same way, but they +hadn't moderation enough o' dispersition, ye see, to set deown +beforehand and have a calm previous wrarstlin' o' the spirit along o' +them codfish bones. + +"Wal, Leony Rogers--she 't was--cousin to Tryphosy--she was called the +harndsomest gal in them parts, 'nd I had considerable hopes. So 't +when she asts me, 'Neow what 'll ye have for tea, Leezur?'--'They ain't +nothin' I likes so well,' says I, ''s a mess o' codfish mixed up along +o' eggs and thickenin'.' + +"Wal, we sot deown together, 'nd she was so purty I stowed away a +mouthful, hardly thinkin'--'nd I run one o' these here main off-shutes +from the backbone of a ten-pound cod, abeout tew inches up into the +shrouds 'n' riggin' o' my left-hand upper jaw. + +"I was in sech a desp'rit agerny to git home that night I got onto +Leony's father's old white mar', 't was feedin' along by the road, an' +puttin' of 'er deown the hill, I'm dumed ef she didn't stumble and hove +me clean over her bows----" + +"Father!" + +"Wal, mother?" + +"Ye swore, father!" + +"Wal, thar'! mebbe I did, mother. But ye know when I jined the church +forty year ago, there was a kind o' takkit agreement atween Parson Roe +'n' me 't I could sweer when I wastellin' that pertick'lar story. + +"Wal, the rute o' the matter was, 't as soon 's I was healed up inter +some shape ag'in, I went and see Phoeby Hamlin--she 't was." + +No need for personal explanation. Captain Leezur's tone! Mother +Leezur's softly shrouded eyes! + +"'What'll ye have for tea, Leezur?' says she. 'They ain't nothin' I +likes so well,' says I, ''s a mess o' codfish mixed up along o' eggs +and thickenin'.' Wal, Phoeby, she went eout, and she was gone a long +time--looked kind o' 's though I was gittin' into port. + +"'Nd thar I sot and sot; 'nd every minute 't I sot there I was gittin' +surer somehow 't I was sightin' land. By 'n' by, Phoeby, she comes in, +and we sot deown together, 'nd I kep' takin' one help arfter another; +for arfter what I'd been through I was goin' to make sure whether I'd +got inter safe harbor or not. But deown she all went, slick as ile, +an' nary bone nor sign o' bone anywheres. + +"'Phoeby,' says I, 'ye've wrarstled, and ye've conquered!' 'What on +'arth d'ye mean, Leezur?' says she. For figgeral language, ye know, +requires a very moderate dispersition; and women, even the moderatest +on 'em, haves tew quick perceptions for t' be entertained long with +figgeral language." + + + + +X + +A CALL FROM NOTELY'S YACHT + +"Why did you never come? I sent for you." + +"I was afraid, Vesty, that new burden of motherhood, which you carried, +might take some physical mark or blight from a presence like mine. But +he is beautiful!" + +He lay upon her arm, and he was beautiful, full fed from her breasts, +formed large and fair, his hair already waved as by a court barber! +Her eyes rested on him. Would all the weak and miserable of the world +be well-nigh forgotten now? She raised them to me again--Basin +eyes--all the weak and miserable of the world were dearer. + +"He looks that proud way," she laughed, "when the boys play him to +sleep; they played him to sleep again before they went to their traps +this morning. They used to play me to sleep, before baby came. I used +to think of so many things. I wanted to see you." + +"Things cannot ever be thought out, after all, Vesty; but if the boys +can play one to sleep--well, that is best." + +She took my hand; the tenderness in her eyes covered their pity. I +felt no sting. "I feel safe when you will come sometimes," she said; +"you are so strong--so strong!" She touched my hand admonishingly; it +was as though she lifted me. + +"I misjudged your husband, Vesty; rather, I did not know him. He is a +good lad, this Gurdon." + +"Oh, he is!" A dream swept over her face, as dreams will; the mad +birds whistling "love" down by the sea-wall, the gay waters +flashing--Notely Garrison. + +"And so the father plays him to sleep? Many a duke would give half his +possessions for a boy like that!" + +She buried her face rapturously beside him for a moment, then turned to +me calmly: + +"What do you know of Notely?" she said. + +"Only what rumor knows, what may have been told you. His wife found no +enduring attractions in this locality, you know: they have built a +summer place at Bar Harbor; his wife and his mother and Mrs. Langham, +it is said, are all devoted to his happiness. He has a fine yacht now, +and is sometimes seen skipping by off shore. He is gifted in address +and with the pen. His name is seen often." + +Vesty listened hungrily. + +"Have you seen him? Is he happy?" + +"I saw him only as he was passing me, with some of his companions; they +had come ashore to see the old Garrison place. He looked very happy." + +"Then I am glad!" said Vesty of the Basins, clasping her hands. I +looked at her; if he was happy she was utterly glad. + +"He will be a great man," she said: "he is already famous, that _is_ to +be great." + + + "As Christ went down the Lonesome Road," + +sang Uncle Benny, who was voluntary housekeeper at Vesty's during some +hours of the day, while the father and boys were away at the fishing: + + "As Christ went down the Lonesome Road-- + Sail away to Galilee. + He left the Crown and He took the Cross! + Sail away to Galilee. + Sail away to Galilee-- + Oh, He left the Crown and He took the Cross-- + Sail away to Galilee!" + + +He came forward to take the baby, who had awakened before he began to +sing. The Basin matrons ran in very much, but there was no "Vesty" to +enter and take the continued care, in this case, until the young mother +should be strong again. + +"You can sweep up, major," said Uncle Benny, cheerfully pointing me to +the broom. + + "Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee--" + +he sang, walking so proudly with the infant that his gait was most +innocently jaunty and affected. + +Vesty laughed and shook her head at me, but I had the broom and was +hobbling about at work with it, pleased to find that Uncle Benny had +rather neglected this humble office for the more important one of +minding the baby. + +He next set me to washing the dishes and turning the churn; he would +not trust me with the child, and wisely. That he held in his own +strong arms, but he sat down beside me after my work was done and +gently commiserated me. + +"Nature has not done so much for you as she has for some, you know," he +said. + +"No, indeed," I murmured. + +At that he took off his blue necktie and held it toward me, with a tear +of pity in his eye. + +I took it and tied it simply around my neck above the collar. + +"It improves you--some," he said, but his look only too plainly +indicated that there was still much to be desired. + +We were sitting thus on the doorstep, Uncle Benny with the baby, and I +peeling the potatoes, with his blue ribbon tied around my neck, when I +heard a half-familiar little scream and laugh, and, looking up, beheld +a fashionable company. + +"We hailed Gurdon, off Reef Island, and he said we might come and see +the son and heir--hurrah!" + +Notely spoke in his gay voice, but the look he gave Vesty's +child--Vesty's sweet self in that form--leaped with a passionate pain. + +There was a small, brilliant-looking woman beside him, with +eye-glasses. "O you divine infant!" she exclaimed, regarding the +child. "Where is the Madonna?" + +Now, I was purposely gathering up the potato peelings very slowly from +the doorway, so that the "Madonna" might have time to take down a +certain blue sack from the bedpost at hand, and put it on, and give +those little finger-touches to the hair that women covet; so I stumbled +over the peelings and got mixed up with them, until even Uncle Benny +felt called upon to apologize for me. + +"He looks some better," he said dubiously, touching his neck: "but," he +continued, in a very soft and confidential tone, "Nature has not done +so much for him as she has for some, you know." + +All the party had the air of having just had a very merry luncheon on +board the yacht. + +By the side of Notely's bride was one of the handsomest young athletes, +almost as handsome as Fluke and Gurdon Rafe. + +"What-th--what-th the admithion?" he whispered to Grace, plunging his +hand in among the coin in his pockets; "ith--ith there any more of the +thame kind inthide?" + +"Hush!" said she quickly, for she knew that I had heard. She lifted a +hand impulsively toward his mouth: he caught her hand and looked as +though he would have held it; she drew it away, blushing sweetly, and +sighed, as she had sighed at Notely. + +Vesty saw that, as they entered; saw Notely enter with his easy, +unobservant swagger, lest the unexpected visit of this fashionable +company should embarrass her. He walked across the room, humming an +air, to his old violin. + +He touched a strain or two. "Do you remember, Vesty," he said airily, +drawing nearer, "this?--and this? You have such a beautiful little +boy, Vesty! I am so glad!--so glad! And this?--do you remember?" He +played as though he could play away the pallor from that tender face +upon the pillows; the pitiful, fine little blue sack added to it. I +had left the dust-pan loaded with its spoils, the ragged handle, as I +now perceived, not quite hidden behind the door: it caught on to the +skirts of the brilliant lady with the eye-glasses, and went trailing +loudly after her along the floor. As I stooped down to detach it, +sheltered behind those fine draperies, I gave Vesty such a side glance +that a smile and color came over her face in spite of herself. + +"Such power of attraction!" said Notely, turning to the lady his +laughing eyes, with that unconscious pathos which a lovely woman never +failed to discover in them; "even the dust-pans"--he swept the strings +of the violin--"even the dust-pans become attached to you." + +"On the contrary," said she, giving him a sharp glance which he +relished from her very bright though near-sighted eyes; "it is not +often that I have become attached to anything so useful." + +He laughed with mettlesome good-nature. + +The bride, with her attendant brave, had gone up to Uncle Benny and the +baby. + +"Let me take him," she said, holding up her beautiful arms. + +Uncle Benny smiled at her, half remembering her--it was an old joke, +his becoming engaged to every pretty woman he met--but shook his head. + +"It 's a particular trust," he said, in his very soft, sweet voice; +"from Jesus Christ and mother. What if somebody should drop him, or +hurt him? I have to be very careful, for it 's a trust. + + "'There 's a tree I see in Paradise--'" + +he suddenly broke into the song again in a loud and perfectly +unembarrassed tone: + + "'Sail away to Galilee. + It 's the beautiful, waiting Tree of Life-- + Sail away to Galilee. + Sail away to Galilee.'" + + * * * * * * + +"Good gwaciouth!" said the young man, fumbling the coin in his pockets +and listening in a dazed state of appreciation at the unexpected +resources of this menagerie. + +"Doctor!" cried Notely--and that address delighted Uncle Benny--"Dr. +Spearmint, let me make you acquainted with Mrs. Forrester"--some +wailing strains from the violin--"she could get a divorce from her +present consort, I suppose--ahem!--if there were encouragement enough +from some one sufficiently endowed by nature." + +"It is better to be simple than to be wicked," instantly retorted the +bright little woman, regarding Uncle Benny humorously and not without +compassion. + +But Uncle Benny was not to be disturbed again; he had his cue. + +"Oh, thank you!" he murmured; "but I couldn't think of it, anyway. +I've got so many trusts. There 's Vesty's baby, and there 's the +little children I take to school every day and go to fetch them. I'm +very careful, because they're trusts, you see;" and he marched on +gladly with the baby, singing. + +"You ought to be ashamed, all of you!" said Mrs. Forrester; and sat +down by Vesty with friendly advice and prattle about her own babies. + +Notely dreamed away on his violin: that made it easy for the rest. His +bride and the handsome young man flirted with ardor, yet quite +transparently: there was a smile wholly devoid of bitterness on +Notely's lips. + +"Grace!" cried the sharp little woman at last; "we've some superfluous +shawls on board the yacht that would make such charming rugs for Mrs. +Rafe's baby. If Mrs. Rafe could send one of her servants down to the +shore to call a man from the boat." + +"I'd thend--thend the one with the body," said the young man, still +afflicted with wonder at Uncle Benny and myself, and indicating Uncle +Benny the more hopefully. + +"I prefer the one with the mind," said Mrs. Forrester gravely, snapping +a glance at him that was not without meaning. "Why, when you have been +drinking too much wine, Cousin Jack, can you not go and sit down in a +corner and amuse yourself innocently by yourself as Mr. Garrison does?" + +At that Notely looked up and shot at her a long, gay challenge without +words: his eyes in themselves seemed to fascinate her, as they did most +people; she brightened with a caressing, artistic sense of pleasure in +them. + +"Well, I like that!" said her cousin, having by this time framed a +rejoinder to her question. "Grace and I haven't thpooned anything like +you and Note did, thailing down, only you're so deuced thly about it!" + +"You are disgusting," said she, too lofty and serene to be annoyed. + +I had my hat and was slipping out on my errand to the boat. Vesty, +with evident distress, was about to explain: I put my finger to my lips +with another side glance of such meaning that she kept still and even +smiled again. + +I called a man and brought him to the house for Mrs. Forrester's +directions. He soon returned with the rugs, which Vesty accepted for +her baby as well as she could; Uncle Benny all the time singing +gleefully. + +The party moved to go; in passing through the door Mrs. Forrester +dropped her handkerchief. I picked it up and handed it to her. + +"Thank you, my poor fellow," she said; "you have the manners of a +prince!" and put a coin in my hand--a piece of silver. I took the +money. + +Vesty was still, after they were gone, her hands over her face. I knew +well what thoughts she was thinking. + +"Do not go," she said to me, and her voice was like the low cry of her +own child; "you are smiling still." She looked at me with strained +eyes. + +"Well, perhaps because I am glad Mrs. Garrison would not adopt you and +take you away from the Basin; perhaps because I am glad no handsome +rake will ever ogle you as our lisping young man did Mrs. Notely +Garrison." + +"It meant nothing between them all," said Vesty, her hand over her +eyes; "you know that better than I. It is only the way they do." + +"It meant nothing! It is only the way they do." + +I put away the violin Notely's fingers had so lately touched. The +tears stole down Vesty's cheeks and trembled on her lips. + +"He does not care," she said; "that is the worst! He does not care as +he did once." + +"For what, Vesty?" + +"For anything but having a good time and making fun with people, and +all that. He used to talk with me--oh, so high and noble, about +things!" Her eyes flashed, then darkened again with pain. + +"Ay, I know he has seen the model and been pierced with it. He can +never forget; he will come back." + +"The model?" + +"You know once there was a Master who was determined all his people +should paint him a picture after a great model he had set before them. +It seemed not to be an attractive model; it seemed full of pain and +loss; the world looked to be full of other designs more desirable. + +"So that there were hardly any but that wandered from it, to paint +pictures of their own; there was hardly, if ever, a great or a true and +patient artist--for they are the same thing. + +"Some found the colors at hand so brilliant, and were so possessed with +the beauty of dreams of their own, that they spent long years in +painting for themselves splendid houses in bewitching landscapes, red +passion roses, and heaps of glittering gold, that looked like +treasures, but were nothing. + +"Some painted dark, sad glimpses of earth and sea and sky that were +called beautiful, the skill in them was so perfect. Looking at them, +one saw only the drear night drawing on. + +"But there were some who had no great dreams of their own to work out, +or if they had they turned from them with obedience above all: and +many, many, broken-hearted from their failure in their own designs, who +turned now to follow the Master's model. And it was strange, but as +they regarded it intently and faithfully there grew to be in it for +them a beauty ever more and more surpassing all earthly dreams. + +"They were dim of sight and trembling of hand; often they mixed the +colors wrong, they spilled them, they made great blotches and mistakes; +but they washed them out with tears and went to work again, yearning +pitifully after the model; in hope or despair, living or dying, their +fingers still moved at the task as they kept looking there. + +"And always the Master knew. This was the strangest of all, that some +of the dimmest, wavering outlines, some of the saddest blotted details, +were the beautifullest in his eyes, because he read just the depth of +the endeavor underneath; until, in this light, as he lifted it up, some +poor, weary, tearful, bungled work shone fairer than the sun!" + +Keeping faithful watch of the clock, Uncle Benny at the appointed hour +had given up the baby to Vesty, to go and bring the children home from +school. We heard him in the distance still singing joyfully his "Sail +away to Galilee!" + +"There is a faithful artist," I said, and smiled; "would God I had come +up to him, with his unceasing watch over the little ones! And Blind +Rodgers too, who never complains, and who will not trouble anybody, but +keeps his life so spotless." + +Vesty lay very still. "Do you think Notely was painting a picture of +his own?" she said. "Do you think I was proud because he could paint +such pictures of his own, and wanted him to? You said he had been +pierced with it"--she was talking to herself now--"he will come back." + +"He will come back." + +"Who are you?" she said, her Basin eyes turned clear and full upon me. +"You let them call you my servant!" + +"Not because I was afflicted with humility, but because I was proud and +happy to be that. And because it was a good joke: you do not mind my +enjoying a good joke, I hope? Then you do not know how happy it made +me; I have had so much done for me, and have been so little useful." + +Vesty was not satisfied. Her clear, impersonal gaze held me with a +look fearless of its compassion, single and direct. + +"I wish you would not leave the Basin," she said. "I am never--I am +never happy when you are away." + +"God bless you, my little girl!" I said, and hobbled away to finish the +housework, but my heart seemed to take on a pair of pure white wings, +like dove's wings. I forgot withal that I was lame. + + + + +XI + +ANOTHER NAIL + +"Chipadees sing pretty," said Captain Pharo, drawing a match along the +leg of his trousers and lighting his pipe, as we stood amid the song of +birds in the lane--"but robins is noisy creeturs, always at the same +old tune--poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'"] + +he paused there, having his pipe well going. + +"Yes," said I, gulping down some unworthy emotions of my own; "yes, +indeed." + +"Come down to see ef ye wouldn't like t' go up t' the Point with us, t' +git a nail put in the hoss's shu-u?" + +"Oh, yes, thank you! by all means," I replied. + +"My woman heered--poo! poo!-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r,'] + +--she heered 't there was goin' to be a show up thar' to-night--some +play-actor folks. 'Ten Nights in a Ba-ar Room'"--the captain took the +pipe out of his mouth and yawned with affected unconcern. "I've heered +o' worse names for a show; but ye know what women-folks is when there +'s any play-actin' around. They're jest like sheep next to a turnip +patch." + +"Are they?" + +"Oh, by clam! ye don't know nothin' 'bout female grass yit, +major--nothin'. Bars can't shet 'em out." I followed his sad gaze to +the west, and we sighed in unison. + +"By the way, how 's your show stock gittin' along, major?" + +"My show stock?" + +"Why, sartin; we thinks all the more on ye, ef that c'd be, for havin' +some business. Ye see, the way my woman found it out, she runs over to +Lunette's every mail day and helps her sort the mail, 'nd she said all +the letters 't come directed to 'Mr. Paul Henry' had a mess o' wax run +onto the fold of every envelope with a pictur' stamped inter it o' a +couple o' the cur'osest-lookin' creeturs; said 'twas jest the head an' +necks of 'em an' they looked to be retchin' up ter eat out o' the same +soup plate; said 't must be your stock to the circus; for business +folks often has their business picturs put on outside their envelopes, +ye know, and jedgin' by the cur'osity of 'em, she thought they must be +doin' pretty well by ye." + +"Oh, they are, captain," I sighed; "yes, they're doing pretty well by +me." + +"Wal now, ef you've got a comf'tably good thing, major, be content with +it; 'tain't easy to git onto a new job nowadays. Ain't there some +pertick'lar spear o' grass ye'd like t' have set on the back seat with +ye?" he continued cheerfully. "She rides easier for havin' +consid'rable ballast, ye know." + +"I don't know of any. Mrs. Lester is away at her daughter-in-law's." + +"Hain't ye never thought--poo! poo! hohum!--wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she--'] + +hain't ye never thought o' Miss Pray?" + +"In what way, captain?" + +"Wal, as a--poo! poo!-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'She--'] + +as a pertick'lar spear, ye know?" + +"No." + +"In course human nature turns natchally to pink and white clover, like +Vesty; but I tell ye, major, when it comes to a honest jedgment o' +grass thar' 's lots o' comfort arter all to be took out o' old red +timothy. Old red timothy goes to shutin' right up straight an' minds +her own business. She ain't a-tryin' so many o' these d--d ructions on +ye. My foot 's some better," said he, lifting the maimed member; "but +she ain't yit what she use ter be. It 'u'd make a home for ye, 'ithout +payin' no board, an' ef ye got red o' payin' yer board ye wouldn't mind +ef she didn't treat ye quite so well--for that's the way 'ith all +female grass, clover 'n' all, when they once gits spliced onto ye. But +'ith what ye gits from yer show ye c'd buy a hoss, an' when the wind 's +in the nor'-east ye c'd tack away from home on some arrant--see? But +don't arsk her, 'less ye means ter stand by it, major, for the +women-folks has got to settin' onaccountable store by ye, ye kind o' +humors of 'em so." + +I limped down the lane to invite Miss Pray on our excursion, with light +feet. Was it the air again, or was it the new consciousness that I was +developing into a beloved and coveted beau? + +I stepped into the cottage through the low window, as I often did. At +the same moment the cover of the wood-box flew up, and I beheld the +rosy, good-natured visage of Miss Pray's orphan girl looking out: she +put her finger on her lip. + +"Sh!" + +"What is it?" I said. + +She pointed upward. I saw on the long spike which held the horseshoe +over the door a pail of water so delicately hung that whoever first +entered there must receive its contents in one fell unmitigated deluge +upon the crown. + +"Sh! It 's Wesley's" (her fellow-orphan) "it 's Wesley's birthday. I +ain't got no present to give him, so I'm going to _souze_ him with cold +water: he 's bringin' in some wood--there 's steps! Sh!" + +She ducked into the wood-box, which had subterranean channels of +escape, with anticipated delight, and put down the cover, leaving me +alone in the room with the approaching victim and in the unenviable +position of appearing to be the sole perpetrator of this malign deed. + +I had the merest time to master this idea, when the door swung in upon +its hinges, and not Wesley, but Miss Pray herself, stood before me, a +mad and a blighted object. + +I gazed at her, horror-struck, and was endeavoring to speak, when +Wesley, staggering in behind her with his arms full of wood, came to my +relief. "O Miss Pray, 'twan't major, honest 'twan't, nor 'twan't me, +Miss Pray: 'twas that Belle O'Neill, an' she 's mos' got to the graves +by this time. I seed her runnin', through the windy. O Lord! O Miss +Pray! how wet you looks when you're as wet as you be now, Miss Pray!" + +"Indeed it was not meant for you," I cried. "Belle meant it for a +birthday jest on Wesley." + +"Oh, I wish it had b'en, Miss Pray," gasped poor Wesley, with ill-timed +sympathy; "I'm so much more used to bein' wet 'n you be." + +It was doubtful toward which Miss Pray was waxing most warm--the +recusant Belle O'Neill, or the stupid, open-mouthed Wesley--when I +stepped in at this juncture and entreated her with the Kobbes' +invitation. + +"I'll go," said she, with evident satisfaction gleaming even through +her dripping state, "'s soon 's I've changed my do's and whipped Belle +O'Neill." + +During the former process I volunteered, as one whom she would trust, +to watch for Belle, and lure her, if possible, to the house. I +repeatedly saw that damsel's head peering out from behind the +gravestones of Miss Pray's ancestors, down by the sea-wall, and making +signals to me to know if advance were safe. + +And every time, prostituting sublime justice to a weak sense of +compassion, I waved her back to her fastness until after we should be +gone. + +"Shall I tell her 't you'll whip her after you git back, Miss Pray?" +said Wesley, with deep relish. + +"No," said Miss Pray, who had now appeared, resplendent in holiday +attire. "Do you want her to run away, and leave me without help? +All'as keep your mouth shet--that 's the safest commands for you; +all'as keep your mouth shet." + +Wesley closed that wide organ, with a look of wondering surprise. + +Miss Pray was lean and resplendent, not gray and comfortable like my +friend Mrs. Lester. There was no blueberry "turnover" to devour. As +we passed over the jolting road I clung desperately to the carriage +bars. + +But it appeared that the captain had an abnormal design, before +entering the Point, of descending into a shallow branch of Crooked +River, there to wash the mud of past happy epochs from the carriage. + +"Wal, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his young wife, stultified with amaze at +this proceeding, "I should like to know what's took you!" + +"Adm'r'l bet, spell ago, 't he could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud +off'n my two-seated kerridge next time I driv her to the Point. Jest +keep yer eyes up the road," said Captain Pharo, standing, diligently +and furtively swashing, with his unconscious boots submerged in water, +"t' see that thar' ain't nobody lookin'." + +"What 's he goin' to give ye, if ye win the bet, cap'n?" said his +lively wife. + +The captain cast me a dark and fleeting wink over his shoulder. "Poo! +poo!" he sang: "hohum! + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass. Or as--'] + +anybody in sight, major?" + +"No; the road is all clear." + +"What 's he goin' to give ye, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, if ye win the bet?" + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r, The +blight--'"] + + +"Ye needn't keep on singin', Captain Pharo Kobbe; for the sake o' the +company, I shan't ask ye nothin' more." + +Saddened by this blight, his evil and surreptitious deed being +accomplished, Captain Pharo backed out of the stream. + +But the triumphant smile returned to his countenance as he advanced on +the Point and found Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up sitting within the porch of +the grocery with other of his townsmen. + +"Adm'r'l," said Captain Pharo, "I want ye to step down here and scrape +twenty-five pound o' mud off'n my two-seated kerridge." + +The admiral regarded us fixedly for some moments, fireless pipe in +expressionless mouth, and then rose and descended to us. The women had +already contemptuously left our company and gone about their shopping. + +"Come along, Kobbe!" said the admiral, "and bring"--he glanced with +calm, meaningless vision at me--"bring all the rest on ye." + +He led us under the loud sign of a tin shop, where, after sedate +speculation in the matter of purchasing a tea-kettle with a consuming +leak in the bottom, he cleared his throat. "'S I sums it up," said he +to the proprietor, without further utterance; that individual looked +doubtfully at me. + +"Oh, he 's all right," said Captain Pharo; "he 's a cousin o' mine in +the show business." + +This introduction proving more than satisfactory, we were ushered into +a small room apart and the door locked behind us: but missing Uncle +Coffin's inspiration in this case, and remembering the quality of the +liquid, I made a smart show of drinking, without in the least +diminishing the contents of the bottle. + +Not so, however, good Captain Pharo: from this time on his conduct +waxed sunny and genial, as well as irresponsible of the grave duties +which had hitherto afflicted him. + +"Thar' 's a lot o' winter cabbage, 't was sp'ilin' down in my suller, +'t I put in onto the kerridge floor, major," said he; "ef ye're mind +ter sell 'em out for what ye can git, to harves, ye're welcome. Sell +'em out to hulls, by clam!" he called after me. "I ain't so mean 't I +carn't help a young man along a little." + +I returned to the carriage and arranged my fading cabbages as +attractively as possible, offset by the glories of the star bed-quilt; +and whether it was because the news had already spread that I was in +the show business, or by reason of some of those occult charms at which +Captain Pharo had hinted, I was soon surrounded by a lively group of +women. + +"Here 's one 't ain't worth but two cents," said one fair creature, +holding up a specimen of my stock, whose appearance beside her own +fresh beauty caused me to writhe for shame. "I shan't give a mite more +for her." + +"O madam, is she worth that?" I denied impulsively. + +The woman, speechless, dropped the cabbage to the earth. + +"Here 's a nickel, anyway, for your bein' so honest," she exclaimed, +soon afterward. + +I took it with a bow. And here sordid considerations ceased, as they +had begun: my pious emotions toward the sex conquered, and I became not +the base purveyor but the elegant distributor of cabbages, right and +left, only with murmured apologies for gifts so unworthy. + +I was now evidently classified as belonging high in the spectacular +drama; when the horse, having finished the meal of cracked corn he had +been enjoying by the roadside, with the reins thrown slack over his +neck, suddenly lifted his head with an air of arriving at some instant +conclusion and started merrily down the road. + +Too lame to jump from a moving vehicle, my first emotions of dismay +gradually disappeared, however, as I found that our passage was not +disturbed even by the most untoward outward events. For a base-ball +from the bat of some players in an adjoining field hit the noble animal +full in the flank without occasioning any alarm to his gait or +divergence from his resolved purpose. + +He turned down the Artichoke road and went straight to Uncle Coffin's. +"I've come to take you and Aunt Salomy to the show," I said, lifted out +and knocked hither and thither by my friend in his tender ecstasy. + +"Cruisin' out on the high seas without no rudder, you--you young spark, +you!" he cried delightedly. "You're 'most too full o' the devil t' +exist!" he exclaimed at last, holding me out at arm's-length admiringly. + +Proud now of my wickedness as I had formerly been of my charms, I +steered my friends to the Point by the conventional means of the +rudder. Captain Pharo, who had been so congenially occupied that he +had not even missed me, heaped encomiums upon me, and receiving Uncle +Coffin almost with tears of joy in his eyes, led him away to the tin +shop. + +I secured more cracked corn for the horse and shed-room, where I tied +him with retrospective security. There being no restaurant, I obtained +some biscuits and cheese, and with these and six tickets for the very +front row, Aunt Salomy and Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray and I stole early +into the hall and sat us down to rest. + +There were already figures as for a rehearsal behind the curtain; +indeed, that thin structure revealed angry silhouettes, and loud voices +reached us. + +"Sh!" came from that source: "or them fools down there, eatin' crackers +an' cheese, 'll hear ye." + +"I don't care if the whole town hears me," replied a passionate female +voice. "You said I could have twenty dollars, and now you won't give +it to me. I won't play to-night till I do have it--hear that!" + +"Sh! or I'll shake ye! Don't make a fool o' yourself, Maud. Wait till +I get to-night's receipts----" + +"I won't! I'd like to see you shake me; ha! ha!" + +Here the angry figures became plastic and tilted at each other +menacingly; the woman seized something and threw it; there was a crash. + +Aunt Salomy choked placidly over her cracker crumbs. Mrs. Kobbe gazed +with faithful interest. + +Soon the very tall and hard-looking young man who had sold me the +tickets came down from behind the curtain, with a hang-dog air, and his +handkerchief bound about his head, and returned to the office at the +door. + +Almost at the same moment Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin walked +fearlessly up the aisle, their familiar hats on their heads, their +pipes in harmonious glowing action, and sat down beside us with beams +of recognition. + +The hard young man, who appeared to be pecuniary manager as well as +leading star of the show, came to us. "No smoking here!" he said, +severely. + +"No smokin'!" replied Captain Pharo. "Ye'd orter put it on yer +plackards then! D'ye s'pose I'd come to yer show ef I'd known that? +Come along, Coffin! I'm goin' ter hang out outside, by clam! + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'"] + +"No singing, either, sir, on the part of the audience. This company is +from Boston, sir." + +"Is she?" said Captain Pharo, with blighting sarcasm, new-lighting his +pipe preparatory to leaving the hall; "I thought she was from Jaffy!" + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, wirily folding his powerful +arms; "keep yer seat, Pharo, and keep yer pipe. Ef any man from +Boston, or any other man, wants ter take the pipe outer my mouth, or +outer Pharo Kobbe's mouth, let 'im come on an' try it!" + +At this opportunity, I silently pressed a coin of such meaning into the +manager's hand that he skipped gracefully past us to the stage, where +he proceeded to explain--while the ribs of court-plaster with which he +had endeavored to conceal his wounds kept constantly falling upon the +floor--that, owing to the unavoidable illness of some of the actors, he +should be obliged to give us a choice variety entertainment instead of +the play advertised. + +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin, not yet comprehending this idea, and +smoking triumphantly with their hats on, listened to several ranting +recitations from the wife who had so inopportunely defaced her +husband's visage; but when, after a brief recess, she again appeared +with a stage bow, Captain Pharo looked blankly at Uncle Coffin. + +"Where 's the ba-ar, Coffin?" + +"I kind o' suspicion they've giv' it up, Pharo; goin' to have +recitationers 'nstead." + +"Curfew _shall_ not ring to-night!" yelled the woman on the stage, with +a leap of several feet perpendicularly. + +"By clam!" cried poor Captain Pharo, rising; "I don' know what she is, +but she is goin' to ring, and she 's goin' to ring loud too, by clam! +I come here to see 'Ten Nights in a Ba-ar Room,' I didn't come here t' +see contortioners and recitationers. Give us any more o' yer----" + +Here, an onion, thrown from the rear of the room by some sympathetic +partner in Captain Pharo's woes, came whizzing over our heads and just +missed the woman, by good aim; she retreated without the formality of +her usual sweeping bow. The manager began hastily to get together his +stage setting for the play. A table and a bottle were first produced; +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin began to nudge each other with choice +anticipation of the advancing drama, when another onion, thrown with +unerring vision, took the bottle and shattered it, with its contents, +upon the stage floor, directly under our faces. + +Captain Pharo leaned forward and sniffed; so did Uncle Coffin. + +"Water! Coffin, by clam!" said Captain Pharo, rising. "Plackards said +'twas goin' to be a re'listic play--and here, by clam! I've rode +twelve miles over a hubbly road an' waited 'round here all day, jest t' +hear a spear o' female grass screech, an' see a pint bottle o' water +busted! Come along! I'm goin' home." + +How futile indeed are the poor effects of the stage compared with the +ever new and varied drama of life itself! + +As Miss Pray and I came in sight of her cottage, at this now uncanny +hour of the night, we saw that the house was all alight, and Belle +O'Neill stood in the doorway, loudly and gleefully ringing the +dinner-bell. + +"O Miss Pray, there was a dead pig washed ashore to-day, right down on +your clam-bottoms--such a beautiful one!--jest as fat!--and me and +Wesley brought it up and roasted it, and we've been expectin' you, an' +expectin' you, an' tryin' to keep it hot----" + +"A dead pig!" hissed Miss Pray. "Do you want to murder us? Do you +want to drown me in the morning and p'ison me at night, Belle O'Neill? +For heaven's sake, have you et any of it?" + +The appearance of the dish testified only too plainly that she and +Wesley had dined. + +"You're p'isoned!" shrieked Miss Pray: "be you prepared, Belle O'Neill? +Fat pig! He was prob'bly bloated with p'ison! Oh, dear! oh, mercy! +you're prob'bly dyin' this very minit." + +Belle O'Neill began to howl, Wesley to weep dismally with low moans, +his fists in his eyes. + +I had a medicine which I administered to the two, in case the exigency +were as fearful as Miss Pray predicted, which I strongly doubted. From +this, as Belle O'Neill recovered, she turned to Miss Pray with the +confessional fearlessness of one who has been at the grave's brink. + +"And, oh, Miss Pray! the brindle cow 's calved and hid it in the woods!" + +"So you've been down by the sea-wall, hunting up things to p'ison the +only friend you ever had on earth with, and left the brindle cow and +her calf to die in the woods?" + +But Belle O'Neill had reached that plane of despondency where the +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune could no longer sting her. + +"I meant it for the best, Miss Pray," she said, as we all started, with +the lantern, for the woods. + +Never had I engaged in a scene of such eerie fascinations; especially +as, when we discovered the cow with her calf, and endeavored to set the +latter on its feet and lead it, the cow shook her horns at us with such +an aggressive lunge, I fled without apology behind a tree, where Miss +Pray and Wesley, dropping the lantern, pursued me with entreaties for +protection! + +But Belle O'Neill, seemingly conscious that she had to redeem herself +by some heroic act or die, picked up the lantern and continued leading +the calf, at which the cow singled her out with respect and obediently +followed her: so that we who had witnessed her disgrace now followed +meekly, afar off, her triumphal procession homeward. + +"That girl has done nobly," I said. + +"Belle O'Neill," said Miss Pray, before we finally sought that repose +which is the guerdon of all nobly sustained adventure, "the drownin' +and the p'isonin' is both forgot, and next time the jew'lry pedler +comes along you shall have a breas'pin--that is, if you're livin', +Belle O'Neill." + +"Oh, Belle will live," I cried; "the danger is over." + +"Whether I lives or whether I dies," said Belle O'Neill, calm now on +heights above us all, "I meant that roast pig for the best, Miss Pray." + +But before I could get to sleep that night I gave myself up to folly; I +rolled in inextinguishable fits of laughter. My gray heraldry, my +ancient coat of arms, innocently maligned as they had been, stared down +reproachfully at me through the night. I feebly wiped my weeping eyes +and rolled and laughed the more, and slept at last such a sleep as only +the foolish and blessed of mortality know. + + + + +XII + +THE MASTER REVELLER + +"Notely! You will be leading Fluke to go wrong, Notely. He takes no +interest at home or in the fishing since you and those pleasure-men you +have with you have been keeping open house at the Neck. When he comes +home he has been wild and drinking, and is moody. It is a week since +you have been away from your home and wife with your yacht anchored +here off shore, hunting and cruising, and such times at the old +Garrison place at night--it is the talk!" + +Notely laughed and rose. Vesty had been standing looking down at him +earnestly, where he sat in her doorway: she held her baby asleep on one +strong arm, its face against her neck. + +Notely turned his own face away a little, jingling the free coin in his +pockets. "Why, I have been making money on my own account, Mrs. Gurdon +Rafe," he cried gayly, "since I opened the quarry. And no man, nor no +woman either, now says to me, Do this or do that, go here or go there. +From all accounts, moreover, my wife and mother are enjoying themselves +extremely well as ever during my absence. As for Fluke Rafe, he is a +good fellow, but he was always wild as a hawk." + +"O Notely! if you would only help such men, as you might, instead of +being as wild as a hawk with them!" + +"It takes a hawk to catch a hawk, my dear: all the ministers will tell +you that." + +"Is that what you are doing it for?" + +"Well, no; since you are a Basin, and only truth avails, there has been +hitherto no deep moral design in my merry orgies at the Neck. But +to-night, Vesty, is my grand affair; to be hallowed by the presence of +all the Basins: my feast and ball to them, you know--my oldest and best +friends. And you--why, Vesty," he went on, in another tone, "you +remember we had always a dance a week at the Basin, and you and I led +them off together. Come, then, for the sake of old times and the +feeling of the rest, though you may enjoy it yourself no more." + +He spoke with reckless meaning, and his eyes, that had such fatal power +of expression in them, looked deep into hers. She paled; the baby +threw up a sleeping hand against her face. + +"There is another thing, Notely," she said. "Gurdon does not like it +that you come here for an hour or more every day to sit and talk alone +with me while they are at the fishing. He is not much to suspect, and +he was always fond of you and trusted you; but it is not doing right by +Gurdon." + +Her eyes looked infinitely sorrowful into his; blushes, like pain, dyed +her cheeks. + +"O Vesty, my pure one!--then tell me that you love me still--love me as +you used to do--and I'll go away content, and not come any more. Touch +my head as you used to do; kiss me once more, with those words, and----" + +The baby's white, sleeping palm pressed hard against the mother's +burning cheek. + +"Such words must not be any more, Notely. Go away and be the good, +powerful man God meant you to be, and I shall love you more than I ever +did in my life." + +"Saint Vesta! I have lost you!" said Notely: his voice shook with +passion; the thin, strong hand that he put up, as if shading his eyes, +hid wild and angry tears. + +"I have been faithfully engaged in the career to which you so tenderly +and considerately dedicated me," he went on. "What will you have? I +worked last winter like a dog; nothing is easy won, I think: but there +is no young man in this State who has been so flattered with public +notice as I. I am making my own money--no young man more shrewdly, +they say. What will you have? I have growing fame, prosperity, an +accomplished society woman for my wife. Was not that what you wished +for me?" His words stung. + +Vesty had her dim look; she had turned cold; her speech groped +pitifully. "But I think I saw--I think I understood a little, after +all--because I loved you--what are you doing it _for_, Notely?" + +"Ah, there, indeed!--what for? I have lost my object, you know, Saint +Vesta. For fame and frolic and the devil, I suppose--since we are +talking face to face with an immortal Basin--and to fill up the time +generally." + +"I am glad that I did what I did," cried the poor girl, her tongue +touched with sudden fire, as if from outside herself; "you loved me a +little, but you did not love me much!" + +"Ah!" he caught his breath, his deep eyes thrilled her. + +"If you had loved me much--such a man as to be true to me through hard +work and time and sorrow and all--then you could not have borne to be +any less a man, Notely Garrison, though you lost me, or whatever you +lost. But if anything could turn you from _that_, then time and trial +and all would have turned you, sooner or later, to be unkind and untrue +to me. I know it. Before God, I know it! You loved me a little, but +you did not love me much!" + +"I am glad, for your sake and for my own," she said; "I am glad that I +did not marry you." + +Then, as the fire flamed out, tears of despair rushed to her eyes, +because he looked as though she had hurt him so--his face more like a +beautiful cameo than ever, pure and sharp; he who was so debonair and +generous with them all, genial toward them always, and familiar with +the simplest and poorest. She longed impulsively to take him to her +heart, to give him with yearning tenderness the one caress he had +pleaded for: but, still seeing dimly where he was blind, she would not. + +Notely watched that struggle, saw the impulse fade upon her face into a +white resolve; watched her keenly meanwhile with tumultuous hope. + +"Vesty, once when we were little more than children, we were playing on +Ladle Rock and I fell. You did not leave me, frightened; insensible as +I was, you bathed my face and stayed by me. When I came to myself my +head was in your lap. You had on a brown cotton frock, made in an +old-womanish grave fashion, and you were looking down at me. From that +moment all my life changed--who can explain it? I was a child in my +feeling toward you no longer, with childish thoughts. I loved +you--loved you as I love you now--but you have robbed me of my life." + +"No," she said. That sad fire from outside herself came back to her. +"You have only been denied one pleasure the more that you wanted, and +that would not have been so dear to you long if you had not lost it. +Life is above that, you used to tell me, but you have forgotten." + +"Rather, I have grown wiser," he said, but for the instant he set his +clear, fine face away from her. "It is a distorted notion that our +existence here is for cold denial, from however pure an imagination. +It is better to run with life, to follow joyfully the great trend of +nature." + +He looked at her: her staid, unreproachful eyes, her calm and holy +face, smote him. + +"My pleasure-friends, as you call them, say that the Basins are simple. +That is a superficial observation;" he laughed with despair, and +proceeded to fill his pipe. "The Basins are like a rock." + +"Notely," said she very slowly then, "your face is dear to me as this +little one upon my breast; it eats into my heart." + +All life's sorrow looked through her, and a faith, a purpose, stronger +than life. Notely cast his misery from him with a sigh; the game was +over. + +"Saint Vesta," said he simply, "I have lost you; that is the sad fact, +and I accept it. Still, since you care for me some, I shall be a +little merry. Come to my ball--Gurdon promised me you would both come." + + + + +XIII + +CAPTAIN LEEZUR RELATES HOW MIS' GARRISON ATE CROW + +"It 's said," said Captain Leezur, who sat on the log fondly applying +his deer-bone toothpick, which had been restored to him for a season, +"'t ye keep yer mouth shet, and ye won't eat no crow." + +His smile embraced the heavens, as the source of such philosophy, with +transcendent admiration. + +"That 's figgeral language, ye know. Have a narvine lozenge. I all'as +enj'ys 'em with a friend more'n what I dew meltin' on 'em deown alone." + +We sucked deliciously. + +"Afore I got my dispersition moderated deown inter the shape she is +neow, I was dreadful kind o' sly and ongodly abeout cuttin' up tricks," +he continued, his countenance now conveying only the tranquillity of +one restored and forgiven. + +"Mis' Garrison, Notely's mother, she was all'as puttin' on airs tew the +Basins, 's if they was beneath her; and when they'd first begun to live +over there to the Neck, she sent a man deown t' me, 't said Mis' +Garrison had 'ordered' a pair o' partridge on me. + +"'What?' says I to the man. + +"'Mis' Garrison said t' order a couple o' partridge on ye,' says he, +'an' she wants 'em at tew o'clock.' + +"'All right,' says I; 'yew go home an' tell her 't she shall have that +'ere order filled eout complete,' says I. + +"So I went eout and gunned one partridge and one old crow, 't had been +ha'ntin' my corn patch ever senct I could remember, so 't he was jest +as familiar tew me as the repair on the slack o' my britches, and I +dressed 'em both, dreadful tasty an' slick--they was jest 'beout the +same size dressed--an' rigged 'em eout esthetiky with some strips o' +pink caliker; and 'long at the 'p'inted time the man he come deown +arter 'em. + +"'Yew tell Mis' Garrison,' says I, ''t birds is so thick 'reound my +premmuses this year I couldn't think o' chargin' nothin' for 'em, +'specially to an old Basin like her!' + +"For in them days, 'fore I got moderated, I didn't mind p'intin' hints +at nobody, or weoundin' their feelin's, 'specially ef it jibed along in +with playin' some ongodly trick on 'em." + +The joy of a ransomed soul played across Captain Leezur's features. + +"Wal, Notely was areound a day or tew arter-wards--Notely an' me was +great mates--'nd says I, 'Heow'd yer mother like them birds I sent up +tew 'er?' says I. 'Why, one on 'em was r'al good, Uncle Leezur,' says +he, 'and one on 'em'"--Captain Leezur glanced cautiously toward the +house-door before he continued--"'one on 'em was tough as the devil's +kite-string; tough as a d--d old crow!' says he. + +"Wal, I made it up to Note in more ways 'n one, for him and me was +great mates; but I never let on 'beout that pertickaler mess o' birds. +Keep yer mouth shet, ye know, and ye won't eat no crow--that is, 'less +somebody 's been playin' some ongodly trick on ye." + +Captain Leezur never laughed aloud: his smile simply widened and +broadened until it became a scintillating sun, without the disgrace of +cachinnation. + +"Neow there 's all'as a meanin' in figgeral language," he continued, +"an' when Mis' Garrison got set ag'inst Note and Vesty's marryin', jest +'cause Vesty was poor an' a Basin, an' set ter work ter break it off by +fair means or by feoul, she got her meouth open for a good-sized +ondigestible mess o' crow. + +"In figgeral language; for I don't reck'lect jest the exac' date when +she did r'a'ly eat crow; 'twas a good many years ago, 'n' I wouldn't +have her hear of it neow for nothin'. I'm natch'ally ashamed o' them +ongodly tricks neow--'nd besides, it 'u'd lay harder on her stommick 'n +a high-school grammar." + +"I won't tell her," I said. "I'm hardly acquainted with her, anyway." + +"I'd give all I've got, every mite, ef it c'd help save Note," said +Captain Leezur, a tear trickling down his sun-face. "All things is +good ef we use 'em in moderation; but we've got ter use moderation, in +eatin' an' drinkin', an' lobster sallid--yes, an' even in passnips. +Nothin' 'll dew but the same old rewl, even in passnips. + +"I heered voices deown to the shore last night," he continued, with a +sort of yearning confidence toward me, so that I bent my ear nearer, +with some of his own sorrow. "I reckoned one on 'em was Notely's +voice, talkin' and larfin' as hilar'ous as ef 'twas sun-up. So I went +deown there, and there was Note and one o' them fellers with him, each +on 'em with a stiff tod o' whiskey aboard, a-pullin' there for dear +life, an' the dory anchored fast as fast could be to the staple! + +"They was lookin' for lan'marks and pullin' and sheoutin' and +larfin'--'twas kinder moonlight, ye know--and one on 'em says, 'Seems +ter me 't takes a cussed long time t' git to the Neck to-night,' says +he. I sot there an' watched 'em; knew 'twouldn't do 'em no harm t' +pull, knew 'twas doin' 'em good an' steadyin' of 'em. By an' by, I ups +an' says, 'Ship ahoy!' + +"'Hello!' says Note. + +"'Why don't ye weigh anchor?' says I. + +"Wal, when that idee come deown atop of 'em, ye never see a couple +sobered so quick as they was. They giv' three cheers, an' nothin' 'd +dew but I must git into the dory an' go up to the Neck with 'em. + +"Wal, I had my objec'; an' when they took me in t' treat me, the rest +o' Note's company was settin' 'reound there, an' I ups an' says, 'Jest +one glass, an' ef _yew_ takes _any_ more I won't tetch even that,' says +I. 'Yew've had enough--tew much,' says I. 'Moderation in all things,' +says I, 'even as low deown as passnips.' + +"They all giv' me another three cheers; but they didn't drink no more. +An' nothin' 'd dew but I must set deown, an' then nothin' 'd dew but I +must give 'em my views on moderation!" + +Captain Leezur did swallow a little hard with the effort not to appear +too highly flattered! + +"So I sot there an' giv' 'em my views on moderation. I must say for +'em, they appeared dreadful interested; they sot kind o' leanin' +forrards, with their meouths not more 'n harf--'n' sartin not more 'n a +quarter ways--shet; an' when I'd got through, they giv' me another +reousin' three cheers ag'in. + +"They told me all abeout Lot's wife, tew," said Captain Leezur, with +grateful seriousness; "they've been great travellers, ye know; all +abeout the appearance o' that location where she sot, an' heow it +looked arfter she'd got up an' went, an' the aspec's o' Jaffy, an' all +them interestin' partickalers, more'n what I ever heered from anybody +afore." + +I looked at Captain Leezur to see if no suspicion of earthly treachery +was on his sun-blessed visage. None. + +I lifted my hat with a nameless reverence too deep for words, and left +him, still smiling upward. + + + + +XIV + +"TAR-A-TA!" OF THE TRUMPET + +Fluke played, with the dense black hair tossing above his handsome +eyes, but Gurdon with a calm brow, though he too loved the music and +dancing. + +"Go and have a turn with Vesty yourself," said Fluke; "we'll keep up +fiddling, change about, with the organ." + +For Notely, studying every heart-throb of the Basins, had had a little +parlor organ brought in for the night and put up in place of his piano; +at it sat Mrs. Judah Kobbe, cousin and guest of the Pharo Kobbes, +playing with such lively spirit and abandon that the very lamps danced +upon the organ-brackets in untripping time with the feet of the dancers +on the floor. + +I had already detected in the tone of society toward Mr. and Mrs. Judah +Kobbe that they were awesome cosmopolites from some source. I now +learned that they were from a crowded mart called Machias. Captain +Pharo also told me mysteriously, in the pauses of his pipe, "'t they +was l'arneder 'n any fish 't swims;" so I gazed at them with wonder +from a distance, but did not much dream that it would be for me to +speak with them. + +All along the edges of the floor were strewn children and babies, +comfortably wrapped and laid to sleep; the habit of the Basins, who had +no servants at home wherewith to leave them. + +Notely Garrison had led the dance with Vesty; now she sat rocking her +baby, near Gurdon, who turned to them with a smile and swept a softer +strain now and then, as when he played them to sleep at home. + +"Introduce me to the 'mezzo-tint' study yonder, the mediaeval picture +over there, rocking her infant, back of the fiddlers." + +Notely slightly turned from his fellow-reveller, flushing. + +"There are pretty girls enough here for you to dance with, Sid; she +would not like it. They are such simple people they would not +understand. She is married, you see." + +"You danced with her." + +"Oh, I am an old friend." + +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" went Captain Judah's trumpet, and I looked up to +see what new event its blast denoted. For, Captain Judah was a stage +driver, and having brought his horn along as a signal compliment to the +occasion, he was now conducting the first stages of the ball with those +loud flourishes and elegant social convenances which only those +sophisticated by extreme culture are supposed to understand. + +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" + +I saw that Vesty and Gurdon had risen to dance together. Vesty wrapped +and laid her sleeping baby among the others, and Gurdon stepped out to +perform first that solitary jig or shuffle which is demanded of every +householder among the Basins, before he can lead his partner to the +dance. + +Notely and the young man he had called "Sid" watched him shaking his +long legs, his heavy, noble face perfectly sincere and unembarrassed; +for was it not the ancient, honorable custom of the Basins? + +"Stolid cart-horse, by Jove!" sneered Sid, casting a glowing glance at +Vesty, "for such a Venus!" + +Notely did not like the tone. "There 's some stolid granite in my +quarry," he snarled softly; "but it 's everlasting good granite, all +the same, Sid." + +"You've been knocked over, I see," said the irrepressible Sid, smiling +intelligently at him. "Well, I'm off for the jig." + +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" + +The trumpet punctually announced the appearance of so much colorless +linen and broadcloth on the floor; but the Basins, who were fine, gazed +at his severe costume with tender pity. + +"Sid," appreciating this, dared not laugh: he endeavored to redeem this +lack of beauty by a display of his white bediamonded hand on his +watch-guard, as he entreated a partner for the dance, but he was not +held for much; that was evident. + +Now and then in the reel he touched Vesty's hand, or swung with her, +and he stared at her consistently and immoderately throughout; but +always for him the holy lids were low over her eyes. + +My heart exulted something like the next blast of the trumpet; I turned +to look. Vesty was safe. + +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" + +But Captain Pharo needed no stirring strain to his consciousness as he +walked, with scarcely perceptible limp, to the middle of the floor. + +That flowered jacket, the arnica bloom glowing like sunrise on the +back! Those new trousers, of "middling" sacks, "Brand No. 1" proudly +distinct upon the right leg! + +"Give me sea-room here, give me sea-room," said the hero; "and jest +wait till I git my spavins warmed up a little!" + +A wide, clear swath was cut from the billows that surrounded Captain +Pharo. + +"Now then," said he, pulling his pipe from his pocket, and drawing a +match in the usual informal way; "Poo! poo! hohum!-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'] + +strike up somethin' lively over there, Gurd. Give us 'The Wracker's +Darter,' by clam!" + +Gurdon, who had returned to relieve Fluke at the violin, good-naturedly +struck up "The Wrecker's Daughter." + +"Can't ye put a little sperrit into 'er, Gurd? Is this 'ere a fun'al? +That 's it! Now then--'Touch and go is a good pilot.'" + +With these words, Captain Pharo sprang with ox-like levity from the +floor, and amid the giddy swiftness of the music I was occasionally +conscious of hearing his mailed heels flow together with a clash that +made the rafters ring. He descended at last ominously, but when the +reverberations died away I looked, and saw that he was whole. + +Notely came over and shook hands with him, laid an arm proudly on his +proud shoulder, and led him away to the "mess" room, where his stewards +were busy. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" cried a voice from the fondest of the +Artichokes, seizing him with an exultant pride which he affected to +hide under derogatory language; "was that you I seen in there jest now, +stompin' the frescoes off'n the ceilin'?" + +"Altogether most entertaining jig that has been danced this evening," +said one of Notely's broadcloth guests, very superciliously. + +"Oh, I hain't danced none yit," said Captain Pharo, too confident to +show contempt; "only warmin' my spavins;" and he heartlessly turned the +complete flower in view for the further annihilation of the gentleman +in black. + +"Ef I c'd 'a' got on my scuffs," said Captain Leezur, his sun-visage +showing against the crimson back of an easy-chair, "I don't know but +what I sh'd been 'most tempted ter jine the darnce myself. But no; I +couldn't pervail with 'em--so long sence I've wrarstled with 'em--so I +come right 'long in my felts." + +"No, ye can't dance 'The Wracker's Darter,' that is, not as she orter +be danced, in felts," said Captain Pharo; "she 's a tune 't wants the +emphasis brought right down onto her; felts won't do it, nor scuffs +neither." + +"That off foot o' mine kind o' b'longs to the church, anyway," said +Captain Leezur sweetly; "has for years; don't pain me much as I knows +on, but she ain't seound: if t'other one starts off kind o' skittish +she 's sartin to hold back----" + +"Ye'd orter be thankful 't ye only has to contend with natch'al +diserbilities," interposed Captain Pharo, "'n' don't have any o' these +d--d ructions played on ye." + +"Oh, by the way, what are 'ructions'?" inquired the guest of +supercilious temperament. + +"Le' me see," said Captain Pharo; "you're the one 't Note said was from +Washin'ton, ain't ye? Washin'ton, D.C.?" + +"Certainly." + +"P'litical centre o' the United States of Ameriky?" + +"Why, yes." + +"An' you don't know what ructions be!" + +Loud laughter greeted this sally; only the man who had been in +California sat moody, his basilisk eye fixed upon me. + +"Then I'll tell ye what ructions be," proceeded Captain Pharo, +breathing stertorously through his pipe; "it's repealin' all our +optional acts, for one thing! We can't institoot an optional act down +here, but what you go an' repeal it!" + +"Oh, stuff!" said the high and hot-headed young man, quite taken off +his level by the laughter round him; "I don't either!" + +"I say ye do!" said Captain Pharo, waxing more and more wroth; "ye sets +some feller t' work there, 't never see salt water, t' make our laws +for us; 'lows us to ketch all the spawn lobsters and puts injunctions +onter the little ones: like takin' people when they gits to be sixteen +or twenty year old, 'n' choppin' their heads off--yer race is goin' to +multiply almighty fast, ain't it?" + +"I hadn't observed any lack of increase in your amiable race, sir." + +"Ye hadn't, hadn't yer?" said Captain Pharo, in the voice of a +smouldering volcano, laying a fresh match to his pipe. + +"Moderation," liquidly pealed in the voice of Captain +Leezur--"moderation 's the rewl----" + +"'N' I'll tell ye of another optional act o' ourn 't ye repeals; but ye +can tell 'em 't we git it jest the same--though it 's racktified 'tell +it 's p'ison." + +"Ye can't all'as git it, even racktified," said Shamgar: "onct when the +boat wa'n't in for a couple o' weeks, I got kind o' desp'rit over a +pain in my chist; hadn't nothin' but two bottles o' 'Lightnin' External +Rheumatiz Cure,' so I took 'em straight. They said 't for a spell +thar' I was the howlin'est case o' drunk they ever see." + +"The wu'st case o' 'nebr'ancy this State 's ever known," said Captain +Dan Kirtland, "was a man up to Callis jail, 't had been 'bleedged to +take a spree on 'lemon extract;' he sot fire t' everything he could lay +his hand to." + +"Look a' that, will ye?" said Captain Pharo to the haughty +Washingtonian; "yit you don't know nothin' 'bout ructions. You can +repeal every optional act 't a man makes, but you ain't got no idee o' +ructions----" + +Captain Pharo's voice had now reached such a pathetic and eloquent +pitch that Captain Judah left his trumpet in the ball-room and joined +us, in time to mingle with the cheers that were still further +discomfiting the high and hot-headed young man. + +"What you talkin' about?" retorted the latter through his dazzling +white teeth. "I'm not in politics." + +"Why didn't ye say so, then?" said Captain Pharo calmly, "and not keep +me standin' here wastin' my breath on ye?" + +"Moderation," sweetly chimed in the voice of Captain +Leezur--"moderation in all things, even as low down as passnips." + +The man who had been in California had been constantly drawing near me, +but Captain Judah, anticipating him, was already at my side. + +"You're a stranger," said he: "perhaps you never heard any of Angie +Fay--Angie Fay Kobbe's poetry?" + +He had a rosy face: in spite of former long sea-wear, not blowzed, but +delicately tinted; he snuffled when he talked in a way which I could +only define as classical; and it was admitted that his nosegay vest and +blue coat, as far as tender refinement went, far surpassed anything in +the room. + +"That's Angie Fay Kobbe, my wife, at the organ. Ten years ago, when I +was still cruising, I found and rescued her from a southern cyclone!" + +I murmured astonishment, though in truth something of a cyclonic +atmosphere still hovered about Mrs. Kobbe, not only in her method of +performance on the organ, but in her sparkling features, young and +beautiful, her wide-flowing curled hair. + +"How old does she seem to you to be, sir?" + +"She looks to me," I said, with honesty, "to be eighteen or +twenty--twenty-five at the most." + +"Sir, she is forty!" said Captain Judah proudly. Angie Fay shot him a +bewitching glance through the open door. + +"She is not only a skilled performer on the keys, as you see, but she +is a wide-idead thinker. If it would not detain you, sir, against +previous inclination to the ball-room, I should like to read you some +of her poetry." + +Glances too oppressed by awe to contain envy were cast upon me by my +former companions from afar; even the man who had been in California +was retreating in baffled dismay. + +"This first," said Captain Judah, drawing a roll from his pocket, +"though brief, has been called by many wide-idead thinkers a 'rounded +globe of pathos:' men, strong men, have wept over it. It has had a +yard built around it; in other words, it has been framed, and hung in +many a bereaved household; let me read: + + "'Farewell, my husband dear, farewell! + Adieu! farewell to you. + And you, my children dear, adieu! + Farewell! farewell to thee! + Adieu! farewell! adieu!' + + +"Were you looking for your handkerchief, sir?" + +"Yes," said I, accidentally swallowing whole a nervine lozenge which +Captain Leezur had given me. + +"This," said Captain Judah, with an expressive smile, as he opened +another roll, "if you will excuse the egotism, refers to an experience +of my own. I was once, when master of a whaler, nearly killed in a +conflict with a whale; in fact, I am accustomed to speak of it +paradoxically--or shall I say hyperbolically--as 'The time when I was +killed!' My account of it made a great impression upon Angie; but I +will read: + + "'Upon the deep and foaming brine, + My Judah's blood was spilled. + The anguished tears gush from my eyes. + O Judah, wast thou killed? + + "'Had I beheld that awful scene, + I should have turned me pale, + My eyes were mercifully hence, + When Judah killed the whale.' + + +"It was I, so to speak, that was killed," said Captain Judah, with his +peculiar smile; "the whale escaped. But for the sake of symphony, +Angie has used that poetic license, familiar, as you know, to +wide-idead thinkers. Or let me read you this----" + +Dimmer and dimmer grew the faces of my former jovial company; but I had +one friend, stout, even for this emergency. + +I heard a voice coming-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r, The +blight--'] + +Judah! Judah! Judah! drop 'er, I say, an' come along!" Captain Pharo +winked. + +"On some other occasion, sir," said Captain Judah, returning the roll +to his pocket with cheerful haste, "I shall be happy." + +Almost before I was aware that I was liberated, the shifty spectre, +whose basilisk eye had not released me, stood at my side. + +"You oughter have seen," he began, "the time 't I was killed in +Californy----" + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she +with-'] + +Major! major! major! drop 'er, I say, an' come along, by clam!" + +There was naught to do, in Captain Pharo's exalted frame of mind, but +to follow the commanding flower; but when that had become once more +congenially distracted I returned to the ball-room to observe there. + +The dancers were at rest, and Angie Fay too, the stewards serving them +with refreshments; but Fluke and Gurdon were playing softly together on +their violins, Fluke with waved hair on his forehead, Gurdon with still +brow. Vesty had taken up her sleeping child and was holding him. The +Basins loved sad music, low, mournful lullabys on the wind; they +listened. + +I listened so deeply, so strangely, it was like the awaking from a +dream when I heard Notely and his guests inviting the dancers again to +the floor. + +"Good-night, major," Vesty whispered kindly, coming to me. She had her +shawl wrapped over herself and her infant, and was departing quietly +with her father-in-law, Captain Rafe. + +"I--I didn't get one eye-beam from her the whole evenin'--no, by Jove! +Note," said "Sid," watching that gently retreating figure; "not one! +And she just now leaned over and showered a whole peck of 'em on that +poor little----" + +"Hush!" said Notely. + +I witnessed with some sadness how Captain Pharo and Captain Judah were +walking the room, arm-in-arm, Captain Judah reading from some of Angie +Fay's most affecting strains, and Captain Pharo willingly melted to +tears thereat. + +"Read that ag'in, Judah," I heard Captain Pharo snivel, as they were +passing me. + +Then I heard the melodramatic snuffle of that "Adieu! farewell! adieu!" + +Still farther down the room sobs were echoed back to me from Captain +Pharo's bursting heart. + +So that I was gratified, at the next round, to hear Captain Pharo +declare that he felt the necessity of going home at once to have a copy +of the verses made and "a ya-ard built around 'em, Judah." + +Most of the Basins had gone; there were still some of the prettiest +girls upon the floor, not with proper Basin escort, but with Notely's +broadcloth guests, who were whispering sweet words of adulation to +tingling, unaccustomed ears. + +"Come!" Gurdon whispered to Fluke; "we should give up playing at this +hour, and take those girls home." + +Fluke shook his head. "Go home, you," he said: "one fiddle is enough! +If we want a merry time, don't bother." + +Gurdon stayed patiently, but with a brow waxing determined. The +flattered girls, the broadcloth guests cast unwelcome glances at him. + +"Go home, Gurd!" said Fluke, at last. "You spoil it all with a face +like that. Go on, and don't mind us, or you and I shall quarrel." + +"Not till those girls are ready to be taken home," said Gurdon. + +Fluke threw down his fiddle with an oath. "I said that you and I +should quarrel." + +"I would not strike my twin-brother for all the false men and foolish +girls in Christendom!" said Gurdon, standing before Fluke's threat, +with folded arms, and such a look at him that Fluke came to himself, +wincing. + +"We may as well go home," he said sulkily. + +The young men of the world watched this scene with amusement not +untempered with choler, while they proceeded elaborately to assist the +pretty Basins, who were wrapping themselves in their thin shawls. + +"I fancy we are not to be trusted to escort these young ladies home?" +said "Sid," with an elegant sarcastic inclination toward Gurdon. + +"No," said poor Gurdon stonily. For he had played for them with a +gracious heart all the evening, and it was hard to be hated. But he +marshalled his flock away without flinching. + + + + +XV + +THE BROTHERS + +"There 's got to be a new deal to me in this world pretty soon," said +Wesley, "or I shall kick." + +I found him among the clam flats, leaning his spent and hopeless being +on his rake. + +"What is it, Wesley?" + +"Belle O'Neill got me to help her set a trap to ketch a mink and a fox; +she said we should git two dollars apiece; and we caught--we caught +Miss Pray's tom-cat!" + +Wesley rubbed his grimy hand across his eyes. + +"She scolded awful and told us to go down to the clam flats and not to +come home till we'd got two bushels o' clams for the hens. Fast as I +get a roller full and go over and emp'y 'em on the bank the crows come +'n' eat 'em up--look a' there!" + +I saw. + +"Wesley, your load does seem greater than you can bear." He wore +trousers of a style prevalent among the Basins, of meal sacks; only his +were not shaped at all--there was simply a sack for each leg, tied with +gathering strings at the ankles. His jacket was as much too small for +his stout little person as his trousers were voluminous; and Miss Pray, +who was artistic by freaks, had made it with an impertinent little tail +like a bird's tail. + +Wesley was not only afflicted, he was ludicrous in the face of high +heaven. + +"There 's got to be a new deal," blubbered he, with his fist in his +eyes, "or I shall kick." + +"_Could_ you kick in those trousers, Wesley?" I said. + +He regarded me curiously, then replied with evident faith: "I could, +nights." + +"Ah! I'm so lame that I couldn't even kick much, nights, Wesley." + +His countenance changed from its self-pity; he removed the fist from +his eyes. "I've always wondered," he said, "'t you didn't kick more." + +"Where is Belle O'Neill?" + +"I told 'er 't she'd got me to set the trap, 'nd she orter, 't least, +keep the crows off'n the clams; but she went over to Lunette's and +borrowed the book, 'n' she's settin' there in the graves, where Miss +Pray can't see her, readin' it." + +I sighed to think how early, among his other trials, Wesley was +learning the frailties of the lovable sex. + +"I will go up and keep the crows off of the clams for you, Wesley." + +"I think," said Wesley innocently, his face expressing a kindlier +gratitude than his words conveyed, "'t you could scare 'em off +first-rate!" + +While I reclined on the green bank, not far from the clams, a solemn +and fearful reprehension to the crows, I heard Belle O'Neill's voice +reading to herself aloud among the graves. The Basins possessed but +one secular volume, which they were accustomed to lend from house to +house, and which was designated without confusion as "the book." + +Belle O'Neill, peeping out from the graves, saw me, and came forward, +blushing timidly. Wesley rose from the clam flats and hissed at her +for her treachery, but she was very fair, and I received her kindly. + +"Major Henry," said she, "will you show me what this means, please?" + +She sat down close to me--for nobody minded me--and put her finger on +the place. + +Now "the book," though jointly purchased by the Basins from a +travelling salesman, as a highly illuminated volume, promising much of +a lively nature, had turned out to be to an altogether unexpected +degree serious and didactic. + +I followed Belle O'Neill's finger. + + + "Impressive Lesson. + Perishableness!" + +[Illustration: Skull] + + +"What does it mean?" said the girl, with pale, inquiring lips. + +Now as I loved the courtly valor of my race, I laughed. + +"You do not understand those long words, Belle. It means, in those +peculiar words, something about a Jack-o'-lantern." + +"Oh," said Belle, gazing at it with sudden refreshment, "I guess it 's +the only funny one in the book! They're usually so solemn." + +We turned to the next page: + + + "Important Lesson. + Discontent. + +The Bachelor's Button that wanted to be a sunflower: the scow that +wanted to be a schooner." + + +"Why," said Belle, with her finger on the cut of the angry and +resentful bachelor's button that was throwing down its petals because +it could not be a sunflower--"why did it want to be a sunflower?" + +"I can't imagine," I said. + +"Wouldn't you just as soon be a bachelor's button as a sunflower?" + +"Well, I don't know," I murmured; but while I affected still to be +pondering this subject doubtfully, Wesley came up from the clam flats. + +He pointed to the cut on the opposite page: + + + "Warning Lesson. + Slothfulness." + + +A plump and evidently highly contented maiden was here represented as +lolling on a sofa. + +"'T means _lazy_. She looks jest like Belle O'Neill, don't she?" said +Wesley, grinning maliciously. + +"Who"--flamed up Belle O'Neill--"put straws into the cow's teats, an' +let the milk run, while he laid out on the grass an' slep', and Miss +Pray found it out and flailed him with the broomstick?" + +Wesley's grin froze on his features; he returned wearily to his rake. + + + "Comforting Lesson. + A saint walking among the saved, on Revival Terrace." + + +But the saint, though tall and bearded, wore a ball dress such as the +unchastened belles of society sport upon earth, a profuse skirt, with +flashing train; and he was walking quite alone. + +"Where are the 'saved'?" said Belle, with ghastly hope. + +"They are just around the corner," said I cheerfully; "where that +suggestion of clouds is--see!" + +"N-no, but I guess they are. Ain't he the lookin'est thing you ever +saw?" + +"Quite the lookin'est!" + +Belle giggled. I bore her out in it sympathetically. + +Wesley, who observed how we were at least keeping the crows off of the +clams, smiled upon us with feeble indulgence. + +But as we read on, Belle did come to a lesson of such useful terror +that she decided to take her rake and assist Wesley among the flats. + +I approved her, and lay back, smiling, in the I heard Wesley's little +old voice pipe up, considerately: "You'll scare 'em jest as well if you +do go to sleep, major." + +I kept on smiling. The sun seemed a lake of glory and I a boatman, +fair and free, sailing vast distances upon it with just one stroke of +my wand-oar--and here I began to scare the crows unconsciously. + +The air of the Basin anon exhilarated one, anon soothed one into +wondrous, deep, peace-drunken slumber. + +When I awoke Vesty stood over me, calling me. + +There was a purple, dark sky--now but little after mid-day--glowing +with red at the edges like a sunset; the wind was blowing strong. It +was dark, yet all was distinct about me. I sprang to my feet with a +sort of solemn exultation and bared my head. + +"Wake, major, wake!" Vesty cried to me. She drew me and pointed out to +sea. "Notely's boat--it was trying to make home--it is on the reefs." + +I saw it then by a flash of that unearthly light, the wind descending +like the last of days. I hastened with Vesty to the low beach, where +the people were moving strangely, looking out on the sea with its +swift-crested breakers. + +From the yacht, beating helpless on the ledges, Notely and the few who +had sailed with him that morning were putting out the life-boat; but +Captain Rafe kept running his weather-stained hand down his white face, +his head shaking. + +"Bare chance t' save half of 'em in the gale--they'll swamp her; nay, +nay, they'll never get her home with that freight; and it's no sea--it +'s a herricane, above and below. I see the sky in broad day like that +but once before, and then----" + +His voice was hushed, the boat was off, was lost; then once again we +saw her; we felt the gale rushing; when we could see again, there were +a few struggling in the waves, a few climbing back upon the sinking +masts of the vessel, with wild signals. + +The little Basin boats were old and frail; only Gurdon had lately been +building a new fishing-boat. While we were looking off he had been +hauling it down the steep bank by the cottage. + +Now when we saw him Vesty ran to him and put the child in his arms and +clung to him. I saw a great light come over his face. + +"Gurd," said his father sternly, the old stained hand still stroking +his white face, "ye have strength and skill above the most--but look at +yon! Put up your boat, lad; it's no use. Moreover, there are five men +yonder on the masts--your boat, tested in an ordinar' sea, holds but +five alone!" + +"Will ye go out jest to give them another chance to wrack themselves, +and ye put yerself by to drown?" said another, with a trembling, +half-ferocious laugh. "Look to yer wife and child. Don't be a fool!" + +"There 's not one o' ye," cried Gurdon, "but if ye had a boat fit 'u'd +do all ye could, an' men sinkin' and a-wavin' ye like that--let me off! +There 's no other way----" + +His voice broke. He looked at his wife and child, a look the woman +understood for all eternity. + +Vesty stood like marble; her shawl had escaped from her own throat, but +was warm about the child that Gurdon had placed back on her breast. + +As we waited, watching, transfixed, Fluke came running breathless from +the woods where he had been as guide with the party of Notely's +pleasure-seekers who had stayed behind that morning. + +Captain Rafe ran to him, with the hand still stroking his pallid face: +"That was Gurdon out there, making so near the sinking boat--he would +go--only five----" + +But Fluke heard never a word. He saw; his face flushed with a kind of +mad joy; he tossed his hair back, and leaping into the waves, swam to +his own frail little fishing-boat that was tossing at anchor. + +His voice leaped back to us above the tumult of the wind: "Gurd and +me'll come home together!" + +There was a lull in the gale; the five were put off from the sinking +craft in Gurdon's boat. + +And the men were standing with ropes on the shore; but I only saw, as +the tempest moaned, to swell again, one figure on a bending mast, +between sea and sky, and one in a frail shell toiling toward him. + +The tempest fell and smote. Then did nothing seem to me fated +underneath those awful heavens, but grand and free; freest, mightiest +of all that figure imprisoned between storm and cloud, overwhelmed, +buried----triumphant, imperishable! Then did the dead that I had known +come forth and walk upon the waves before me: and I beheld that they +were not dead, but glorious and strong--that, rather, I was dead. + +Then all seemed black about me. I would have clutched at somewhat, but +I felt a cold hand grasp mine in appealing agony. They brought in with +ropes through the breakers the five men who had neared the shore in the +young sailor's new fishing-boat. + +But the "Twin Brothers," the sublime figure on the mast, the toiling +figure in the boat, had "gone home together!" + + + + +XVI + +THE POPLAR LEAVES TREMBLE + +It was Vesty's hand that had wrung mine. Captain Rafe, after he lost +his sons, hardly spoke without drawing his own trembling hand along his +piteous face. + +"Notely fell from the mast and was stunted; they put him in the boat: +else he wouldn't 'a' come and left my Gurd, I b'lieve." Tears rolled +down his cheeks. + +Vesty spoke to me so softly, as if her head were turned, or she were +wandering in a dream. "When Gurdon had anything that anybody needed, +and they asked him for it, he always gave it them. So they asked him +for his life--and he gave that!" + +Notely, on recovering consciousness, had been carried to his house at +the Neck: by the next morning they had his mother with him; he was in a +fever. + +Would Vesty remember now the promise she had asked of Mrs. Garrison? + +At all events, the sick man babbled deliriously of past days, had +fallen from the rock once more, and would have Vesty to nurse him: +"where," asking ever, "is Vesty?" + +Mrs. Garrison herself went to her, pleading his pain and danger. Vesty +came. + +"Hello! we're saved!--the Vesty!" cried Notely, whose fever had been +plunging him in cold sea-waves, his voice a feeble echo of its old gay +tone, as he put up his hand to her. + +So ashy and sunken was his face, Vesty took him on her arm as she would +her child; he fell asleep. + +"Vesty stops the pain--no one lifts me like Vesty--sing, Vesty!" from +pathetic lips and wandering blue eyes that would die if one recalled +them to their sorrow. + +"Only stay," said Mrs. Garrison. "His life hangs upon it. Surely you +are not afraid to have your child with me?" + +Her heart was full of tenderness for the girl. "I would die rather +than anything should happen to your child, Vesty," she cried, with a +sincere impulse. + +Vesty lifted those Basin eyes. + +"Oh, he is not old enough yet to understand my worldliness," said Mrs. +Garrison, with bitter lips. + +For, from entrusting the child at first to her servants, while Vesty +was in the sick-room, Mrs. Garrison had grown to have a jealous care +for him herself. He had taken an occasion, and he had conquered her. + +When she pleased him he dimpled and gave her, on appeal, an +ostentatious kiss, composed wholly of noise and vanity. When she first +displeased him he had tried conclusions with her by unhesitatingly +administering a slap on the face. + +Mrs. Garrison, the select and haughty, tingling from this direct Basin +blow, watched the flame die out of the baby's eyes, in astonishment, +not in anger. The blow felt good to her. Vesty treated her, though +unconsciously, from such a height. + +"My darling," she said sorrowfully, lifting the child in her arms, +"would you hurt me, when I love you so?" + +A bit of sugar sealed the reconciliation: while he devoured it little +Gurdon leaned his head in tender remorse upon Mrs. Garrison's neck. +She had handsome eyes--for him, full only of love and longing--and he +saw strange tears in them. He never treated her again to corporeal +punishment; while she, on her part, indulged him fully. + +The attachment was so marked between them that he would, when he was +well and had dined, very cheerfully leave Vesty for her society, to +Vesty's secret chagrin and Mrs. Garrison's beating heart of joy. + +"Do you mean to say that you will take the child back again--back to +that squalid home--yes, for such it is, Vesty--that you will deprive +him of all that might be, and give him up to a fisherman's wretched +life and dreary fate?" + +"Will you make a better man of him in the world than his father was?" +said Vesty simply. + +"You know that I worship Gurdon Rafe's memory," cried Mrs. Garrison, +with adroit heat. "What do you think would please him best for his +wife and child--misery and cold with an old man who could have a better +home among his own kin, had he not to make the effort to support +you--or happiness and warmth and love, and a great sphere of +usefulness, happiness, and education for his child?" + +"You see," said Vesty, on the plain Basin path, "in trying to get those +things we might miss the only--the greatest--thing, that Gurdon had. +I'd rather my boy should learn to have that, and miss all the others." + +"O my dear! you shall teach your child, you shall be always with him. +I have some things to remember and regret, Vesty. I promise you +solemnly--and I do not break my word--I will not interfere. You shall +teach and guide your child as you will." + +Notely was awake and calling. + +"Go to him," said Mrs. Garrison, excitement in her eyes; "he will +explain to you, my child." There was a tenderness, a hope, a +voluptuousness of sweet earthly things in her manner toward the poor +girl now, which all her life Vesty had missed. + +Heart and flesh were weary, and Notely, who had been the light of her +life once, looked up at her with that weight of sorrow, so much darker +and heavier than her own; so much heavier because it was dark. + +"Help me to bear it!" he said. + +She understood all; she laid her head beside him, sobbing. + +"Vesty, you know the doctors say that I shall live; but--now that I am +sane again, I do not know why I should wish to live." + +She put her hand on his. Alas! in spite of reckless wandering and +tragedy, and forsaken faith and duty, the touch only thrilled him with +his own dreams as of old. + +"Listen, Vesty!--just as you used to be my little woman and reason with +me. Ugh! how weak I am! I'm not worth saving. It is of little +consequence, truly; but, such as it is, it all lies with you. Some +time, Vesty--I am speaking of what must be some time, dearest; and +remember, it is often done in the world, among those who are highest +and richest and socially recognized--well, it is a familiar thing: as +soon as it can be well arranged--and that soon, now--my wife and I +shall be divorced. We have both wished it, we are unhappy together, it +is a wrong for us to live together. She has been untrue enough to me, +as I to her, but let that pass; such things are not for your ears to +hear, only you need have no qualms. Grace will be more congenially +wedded within two months after we are parted. + +"And then--Vesty? Well, will you not speak to me? Is it to be life +and honor, with your love at last, or despair and death? You were +promised to me once. In spite of all, you cannot hold yourself your +own; you are mine; the wife God meant for me. O Vesty! let us blot out +the confused past with all its mistakes! It is killing me--will kill +me body and soul if you leave me now. Let me find my lost home at +last: let me rest a little while before I die!" + +His weak and gasping breath warned her; she stilled his hands, the low +lids hiding the anguish in her eyes. + +So there was a way out of it all, easy, luxurious, convenient for the +passions! And there was a straight Basin way, a high promise before +God and man, that, to the Basin sense, there was no taking back: Vesty +could not see upon any other road; she shuddered. + +But Notely's wasted, broken life clinging to her! + +"That was never done among the Basins, Notely. When we are married we +promise, and we hold to it till death. It would never seem to me that +I was your wife, but wicked and false to you and her--always that. I +would rather die!" + +"My Vesty, the Basin is a little, little part of the world, and +ignorant of life. I tell you what is right. You used to have faith in +me--so much that, if you would, you might still believe in me and my +ceaseless love for you. Do you think that I will ever leave you here? +My mother wants you and the child: we will be happy together at last, +with such quiet or such pleasures as you will. My quarries are turning +out wealth for me--it is for you and Gurdon's child. Think of Gurdon's +little boy!" + +As he spoke, Vesty seemed to see again a pale face with a great light +upon it, turning without question to its stern duty. + +"Notely, Gurdon gave me up, and the baby that he worshipped; though I +clung to him, he put us by, because, though it was hard, it was +right--it was the only way. I think it is often so between those two, +the right and what we want. I think that love, somehow, in this world +seems to be putting by--putting by what we want." + +Vesty struggled again in her dim way. + +"Why need it be?" cried Notely sharply. He raised himself on the +pillows as if stung; a deep crimson rushed to his cheeks. + +"It is," said Vesty sadly, quietly--"it is. What we want--putting by. +Do you think I did not care for you?" + +His haggard face turned to her. + +"Will not always care for you? But you will never be a great man till +you can put by what you want, when they stand against each other, for +what is right, though it be hard. Then one would not only admire and +love you; they would trust you to death's door, though all the way was +hard." + +Notely had no answer for the tongue-loosed Basin. Besides, her words +had comforted him, her tears fell on him. + +"I do not think," she said, with a look and voice of such tenderness, +as though it were her farewell, "that it was all to us, that I should +marry you, or you should marry me--until we could live brave and true, +though we lost one another, and follow the only way we saw, though it +was hard. I do not believe we should have been happy--without +that--after a little while. + +"I could not love you if you left your wife and married me. I should +never trust you. I would rather we should both die. Go back to her +and win her with your own love and kindness, and be true to her, and I +shall never lose my love for you." + +"Do you know what love is?" said Notely, with clinched teeth, tears +springing from between the wasted fingers pressed against his eyes. +"Do you know what it is to suffer?" + +She gave him no flaming retort. She put her head beside him. + +The past came back to him, and her poor, burdened, self-sacrificing +life. Wild sobs shook his heart. "All lost! all lost!" he moaned. + +"No, only not found yet," she said, looking at him through her tears; +"all waiting." + +It was such a simple Basin path, knowing so few things, but unswerving. + +"Not here, I know," she said, "for nothing is for long or without loss +and sorrow here. There is always somebody sick or hurt; and the poplar +trees, that the cross was made from, are always trembling and sighing: +but some time Christ will lay his hand upon them, and they will be +still and blessed again." + + + + +XVII + +GOIN' TO THE DAGARRIER'S + +"Ever sence the accident," said Captain Pharo, with a gloom not wholly +impersonal, "my woman 's been d'tarmined to haul me over to a +dagarrier's to have my pictur' took. + +"I told 'er that there wa'n't no danger in the old 'Lizy Rodgers,' sech +weather as I go out in. 'But ye carn't never tell,' says she; 'and +asides,' says she, 'ye're a kind o' baldin' off an' dryin' away, more +or less, every year,' says she, 'an' I want yer pictur' took afore----' + +"Gol darn it all!" said Captain Pharo, making an unsuccessful attempt +to light his pipe, and kicking out his left leg testily. + +"'Afore ye gits to lookin' any meachiner,' says she. + +"'When I dies,' says I, 'th' inscription on my monniment won't be by no +drowndin',' says I; 'it'll be jest plain, "Pestered ter death,"' says I. + +"Wal, 't that she began a-boohooin', so in course I told 'er, says I, +'I s'pose I c'n go and have my dagarrier took ef you're so set on it,' +says I. + +"For with regards t' female grass, major, my exper'ence has all'as made +me think o' that man in Scriptur' 't was told to do somethin'. 'No, by +clam!' says he, 'I ain't a-goin' to,' and hadn't more 'n got the words +outer his mouth afore somehow he found himself a-shutin' straight outer +the front door to go to executin' of it. + +"When I thinks o' that tex'--an' I ponders on it more 'n what I does on +mos' any other tex' in Scriptur'--I says to myself, 'Thar' 's Pharo +Kobbe--thar' 's my dagarrier, 'ithout no needs o' goin' nowheres to +have it took." + +"I should think it would be very nice," I said, "to have somebody +wanting your picture.--I am not pressed with entreaties for mine." + +Captain Pharo sighed kindly; his pipe was going. + +"Poo! poo! hohum! Never mind; never mind. + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass. Or as--'] + +I s'pose ye hain't never worked yerself up to the p'int o' propoundin' +nothin' yit to Miss Pray, have ye?" + +"No." + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morning flow'r,--] + + +"Why don't ye, major?" + +"When I think of how much better off she is with seven dollars a week +for my board than she would be taking me as a husband, for nothing----" + +"Oh, pshaw! major, pshaw!" said Captain Pharo, with deep returning +gloom; "seven dollars a week ain't nothin' to the pleasure she'd take, +arfter she'd once got spliced onto ye, in houndin' on ye, an' pesterin' +ye, an' swipin' the 'arth with ye." + +Conscious that he had rather over-reached himself in presenting this +picture of marital joys to my horizon, Captain Pharo resumed the +subject with sprightliness. + +"In course the first preliminary essence o' all these 'ere ructions +'ith female grass is, 't ye've got to go a-co'tin'." + +"Yes." + +"And in goin' a-co'tin', ye've got to ile yer ha'r out some, an' put +essence on yer han'kercher, an' w'ar a smile continnooal, an' keep +a-arskin' 'em ef tobakker smoke sickens on 'em, an' all sech o' these +ere s'ciety flourishes an' gew-gaws 's that." + +"Yes," said I, attentively. + +"I'd ort ter know," said Captain Pharo, alone with me in the lane, +assuming a gay and confident air, "f'r I've been engaged in co'tin' +three times, an' ain't had nary false nibble, but landed my fish every +time." + +"I know you have." + +"Now ef you don't feel rickless enough, major, and kind o' wanter see +how it 's done, you ask Miss Pray t' sail along with us up to Millport, +whar I've got to go to have my condum' pictur' took." + +The recollection of personal grievances again beclouded Captain Pharo; +he was silent. + +"And what?" I said. + +"Wal," said my soul's companion, with the fire all gone from his +manner, "I'll kinder han' 'er into the boat, an' shake my han'kercher +at 'er an' smile, when Mis' Kobbe ain't lookin', an' the rest o' these +ere s'ciety ructions, jest t' show ye how." + +I appreciated the motives, the sacrifice even, of this conduct as +anticipated toward Miss Pray, whose society, as far as his own peculiar +taste went, Captain Pharo always rather tolerated than affected. + +Still, it was with doubtful emotions, on the whole, that I wended my +steps with Miss Pray toward the enterprise. + +The scow "Eliza Rodgers" was waiting for us at anchor among the +captain's flats. We went first to the house. + +There it became at once evident to me that, rather than preparing +himself with oil and incense for the occasion, Captain Pharo had been +undergoing severe and strict manipulations at the hands of his wife. +He had on the flowered jacket, but as proof against the sea air until +he should be photographed, Mrs. Kobbe had applied paste to the locks of +hair flayed out formidably each side of his head beyond his ears. + +Altogether, I could not but divine that during my absence his flesh had +been growing more and more laggard to the enterprise, his spirit testy +and unreconciled. + +"'F I can't find my pipe I shan't go," said he, with secret source of +sustainment; "stay t' home 'nless I c'n find my pipe, that's sartin as +jedgment." + +Now I knew from the way the captain's hand reposed in his pocket that +his treasure was safely hidden there--that he was dallying with us. +Knowing, too, that he could not escape by such means, but was only +weakly delaying his fate, I took occasion to whisper in his ear, as I +affected to join in the search: + +"Take her out, captain, and light her up. Let 's go through with it. +Remember you promised to show me how to act." + +"Hello! why, here she is a-layin' right on the sofy," said he, in a +tone of forlorn acquiescence that could never have recommended him to +the footlights, especially as this remark antedated, by some anxious +breathings on my part, the sheepish and bungling withdrawal of his pipe +from his pocket. + +"Captain Pharo Kobbe," said his wife, regarding him, "ain't you a smart +one!" + +The captain's manner certainly did not justify this taunt. As he led +us, with an exaggerated limp, toward the beach, I looked in vain for +any of those light and elegant attentions toward Miss Pray at which he +had hinted. But when we arrived in view of the "Eliza Rodgers" and saw +that the tide had so far receded that we must pick our way gingerly +thither over the mud flats, by stepping on the sparsely scattered +stones, Captain Pharo looked at me and took a stand. + +"Miss Pray," said he, "'f it 's agreeable to you, I'll hist ye up an' +carry on ye over." + +"Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his wife, as if it were suddenly and +startlingly a subject of physics, "whatever is the matter with you?" + +"Carn't I be p'lite ef I want to?" roared the captain; but as he +surveyed his contemplated burden, who was a good many inches taller +than he, and by all odds sprightlier, he paled. + +"Ef 't you _could_ get anything, Cap'n Kobbe," said his wife, "I sh'd +think you had." + +This unblessed dark reminder of a causeless deprivation settled it. +Captain Pharo seized Miss Pray, blushing with alarm and amaze at such +sudden retributive lightning on the part of her long-delayed charms, +and bore her out into the mud. + +But he had labored but a few steps with her, giving vent meanwhile to +audible, involuntary groans, before it became evident to her, or to +them both, that his grasp was failing, his feet sinking. She threw up +a hand and partly dislodged his pipe; it was instantly a question of +dropping his pipe or Miss Pray; the captain dropped Miss Pray. + +Both women were now angry with him; between all that sea and sky +Captain Pharo appeared not to have a friend save his pipe and me. + +Miss Pray indignantly picked the rest of her steps alone. "Ye'll have +to do the rest o' yer co'tin' in yer own way," murmured the captain to +me, darkly and vaguely, as he stepped into the boat: "but my 'dvice to +ye is, drop it! drop it right whar 'tis!" + +"Oh, that is all right," I tried to assure him. "I--I hadn't hardly +begun, you know." + +We scoured the bottom successfully with the "Eliza Rodgers," but as we +got into deep water there fell a perfect calm. + +"'T 'd be bad enough," said Captain Pharo, set against the world, and +tugging wrathfully at the oars, "t' go on sech idjit contractions as +these 'ith a breeze t' set sail to, but when 't comes to pullin' over +thar' twenty mile, with the sea as flat as a floor, t' have yer darn +fool pictur' took----" He laid down the oars with an undoubted air of +permanency, and lit his pipe. + +Mrs. Kobbe pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, +them 't knew you afore ever I was born say as 't you was the best +master of a vessel 't ever sailed, and everybody knows 't you can sail +this coast in the dark, an' though--though you did act queer a little +while ago, I don't--don't like to have you call yourself a da--darn +fool." + +Captain Pharo glanced at me with suicidal despair. + +Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray took out their knitting, with the implicit +Basin superstition of "knitting up a breeze." They as seriously +advised me to "scratch the mast and whistle," which, agreeably, I began +to do. + +Thus occupied, I saw a sudden light break over the captain's face, as +sighting something on the waves. + +"Fattest coot I've seen this year, by clam!" said he, seizing his gun +from the bottom of the scow and firing. He fired again, and then rowed +eagerly up to it. It was a little wandering wooden buoy bobbing +bird-like on the waters. + +We did not look at him. Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray knitted; I scratched +the mast with painful diligence. + +A breeze arose. The captain silently hoisted sail; at length he lit +his pipe again, and returned, in a measured degree, to life. + +As we sailed thus at last with the wind into Millport it seemed that +the "Eliza Rodgers" and we were accosted as natural objects of marvel +and delight by the loafers on the wharf. + +"What po-ort?" bawled a merry fellow, speaking to us through his hands. + +"Why, don't ye see?" said a companion, pointing to Captain Pharo, who +was taking down sail, with the complete flower turned shoreward; +"they're Orientiles!" + +A loud burst of laughter arose. Personal allusions equally +glove-fitting were made to Mrs. Kobbe, to Miss Pray, to me, and to the +"Eliza Rodgers." + +"Say! come to have your pictures took?" bawled the first merry fellow, +as the height of sarcasm and quintessence of a joke. + +"Look a' here, major," almost wept poor Captain Pharo, "how in thunder +'d they find that out?" + +"Never mind," said I; "we're going up to the hotel, and we'll have a +better dinner than they ever dreamed of." + +"Afore I'm took to the dagarrier's?" + +"Yes, indeed." + +"See here, wife!" said Captain Pharo, completely broken down--for we +were all suffering, as usual, from the generic emptiness and craving of +our natures for food--"major says 't we're goin' up to git baited, +afore I'm took to the dagarrier's." + +"I wish 't you could have your picture took jest as you look now, +Captain Pharo Kobbe!" exclaimed his wife kindly and admiringly. + +At the inn the most conspicuous object in the reception-room was a sink +of water, with basins for ablutions. + +Captain Pharo waited, visibly holding the leash on his impatience, for +a "runner"--or travelling salesman--to complete his bath, when he +plunged in gleefully, face and hands. Mrs. Kobbe drew him away with +dismay. The paste that had endured the whole sea voyage he had now +ruthlessly washed from one side of his head, the locks on the other +side still standing out ebullient. + +"'M sorry, wife," said the captain. But the captain, smelling the +smoke from the kitchen, was not the forlorn companion of our +treacherous voyage. "I reckon she'll stan' out ag'in, mebbe," said he, +"soon 's she 's dry." But he winked at me with daring inconsequence. + +In vain Mrs. Kobbe tried to flay out those locks to their former +attitude with the hotel brush and comb, which the runner had finally +abandoned. + +"Poo! poo! woman, never mind," said the captain; "one side 's fa'r to +wind'ard, anyhow. I can have a profiler took, jest showin' one side on +me, ye know." + +"I didn't want a profiler," lamented Mrs. Kobbe; "I wanted a +full-facer." + +"Wal, wal, woman, I hain't washed my face off, have I?" said the +captain cheerfully, resurrecting his pipe. "Put up them thar' public +belayin' pins," he added, referring to the hotel brush and comb, "and +don't le's worry 'bout nothin' more, 'long as we're goin' to be baited." + +The "runner" meanwhile was looking at us with the pale, scientific +interest of one who covets curiosities which he yet dare not approach +too intimately. + +"Do you smoke before eating, sir?" said he to the captain, at the same +time standing off a little way from the elephant. + +"Poo! poo!" said Captain Pharo, turning the whole flower indifferently +to his questioner, and drawing a match with a slight, genteel uplifting +of the leg; "I smoke, as the 'postle says, on all 'ccasions t' all men, +in season an' outer season, an' 'specially when I'm a darn min' ter." + +The runner, withered, vanquished by horse and foot, thereafter regarded +us silently. + +At the table I made haste first of all to catch the eye of our waiter, +who was also the proprietor of the little inn. I pressed a wordless +plea into his hand. "We are eccentric," I murmured in explanation, +"and you must look well to our wants." + +He winked at me as though we had been life-long cronies. "Eccentric +all ye wan' ter," said he, "the more on 'er the better." + +I pointed to the captain, who, the table-cloth before him, sat rigid +with hunger. + +"The ladies will consider the bill of fare," I said, "and request that +Captain Kobbe may be first served." + +"Which'll ye have--boil' salmon, corn' beef, beef-steak, veal stew, +liver an' bacon?" quickly bawled the proprietor into the captain's ear. + +"Sartin, sartin, fetch 'em along," said the compliant and nervy +captain, "and don't stand thar' no'ratin' about 'em--'ceptin' liver," +he added. "I hain't got so low down yit 's to eat liver." + +The runner, sitting with a few guests at another table, served by the +proprietor's daughter, gazed at us with fixed vision, not even having +taken up his knife and fork, for that pale, scientific interest which +absorbed him. + +"I know that squar's are fash'nable," said the captain, taking up the +napkin by his plate on the point of his knife and giving it an airy +toss into the middle of the table; "but I'd ruther have the sea-room. +Is your mess all fillers to-day, or have ye got some wrappers?" + +"Wrappers? Oh, certainly--doughnuts, mince pie, apple pie, an' rhubub +pie." + +"Sartin, sartin; fetch 'em along. I'll try a double decker o' +rhubub--I'm ruther partial to 'er. Fetch 'em all in: all'as survey yer +country, ye know, afore ye lays yer turnpike. F'r all these favors, O +Lord, make us duly thankful. Touch-and-go is a good pilot," mumbled +the captain in a religious monotone, and began. + +From this time on our table fairly scintillated with mirth and good +cheer, in the midst of which, his first hunger appeased, the captain's +resonant tones were frequently heard pealing through the dining-room, +singing, as if particularly, it seemed, to the edification of the pale +runner, that "His days were as the grass, or as the morning flower." + +I observed how Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray now and then warily conveyed a +"doughnut" from the table to their pockets, with an air of dark +declension from the moral laws. Having filled their own receptacles, +they whispered me an entreaty to do the same, as we might be late with +the tide and hungry on our way home. I complied in this, as in every +case, gallantly; but in my very first essay was detected by the +proprietor with a large edible of this description half-way to my +trousers' pocket. He winked unconsciously and obligingly turned his +back. Captain Pharo, however, oblivious to sense of guilt, approved my +action in clear words: "Tuck in the cheese too, major," said he; "it'll +do for the mouse-trap." + +I was equally unfortunate when, some time after, in settling for our +dinner I drew out first, instead of my purse, the very same fried cake +which had formerly betrayed me; and, to add to my discomfiture, Miss +Pray and Mrs. Kobbe, who had six of these stolen products each in their +capacious pockets, retired into a corner, innocently giggling. + +But an unexpected formidable dilemma arose when Captain Pharo, braced +up to such a degree by his dinner and his pipe, declared that "He +didn't know as he should be took to any dagarrier's, after all! Tide +and wind both serve f'r a fa'r sail home," said he, "and I'm a-goin'." + +"Not till we've been to a tobacconist's," said I, "anyway." + +I purchased a quantity of smoking tobacco. With this parcel peeping +enticingly from my pocket, and with persuasive argument that I could +never again leave the Basin without his likeness, as aid to Mrs. +Kobbe's tears, we at last seduced him up the stairs of the studio to +the long-anticipated ordeal. + +Now if young Mrs. Kobbe had had the discretion to keep silence! But "I +wish, pa," said she, made bodeful by the agonized and even villanous +aspect of the captain's usually stoical features, "'t you could look +just as you did when major said he was goin' to take us up to dinner!" + +"Good Lord! woman, how can I tell how I looked then? I didn't see +myself, did I?" + +"You looked so--so happy!" moaned Mrs. Kobbe, "and your face was all +break--breaking out into a smile, and you didn't have that +suf--sufferin' kinder look 't you've got now." + +"I think, myself, sir," said the bland photographer--"ah! let me +arrange your hair a little, just this side--or this?--which side?--ah! +so--that a little less severe expression--we all have our trials, I +know, but----" + +"I hain't!" said the captain ferociously. "I hain't got a darn thing +t' worry me. 'F my woman wants me ter have to git a boat an' row out +for the 'Lizy Rodgers' on high tide, an' not git home till sun-up, I +don't care. What ye screwin' my head into--hey?" + +"Merely a head-rest, sir; merely an assistance toward composing +the--ah--features." + +"I can compose my feetur's without any darn nihilism machine back on +me," said the captain; which he straightway did in a manner that froze +the operator's veins. + +"Has nothing pleasant occurred to you recently, sir. No--ah?" + +"O Cap'n Kobbe," exclaimed his wife, with desperate fated mirth, "think +o' how you shot the buoy this mornin' 'stead of a coot!" + +The photographer, observing Mrs. Kobbe's face rather than his victim's, +and seizing this as probably the opportune moment, transferred the +captain's features to his camera. + +We waited for the result. After some time our artist approached us +with mincing steps and a hand thrust in his breast-pocket as if for +possible recourse to defence. + +In the type before us, even the gloom and wrath of the captain's +countenance were lost sight of in the final skittish and disastrous +arrangement, through the day's perils, of his hair. + +"Ye see now what ye've done, don't ye?" said the captain to his wife. + +Mrs. Kobbe came over and stood beside me. + +"'T looks 'like somethin' 't the cat brought in, don't it?" said she, +still gazing, pale with curiosity. + +"I don't know," I said, not knowing what to say; "does she bring in a +great variety?" + +"Awful!" said Mrs. Kobbe. Having said which, she put up her piteous +little hands to her face and began weeping as if her heart would break. + +The captain, like the man that he was, took a strong new tack. + +"Never mind, darlin'," said he; "ye've got me, 'n' that 's better to ye +'n all the dagarriers. We'll stompede the blasted thing, 'n' we'll go +'n' have a nice sail home. + +"Ef I ever sees or hears or knows," he added to the photographer, +"anywheres on the face o' this 'ere wide an' at the same time narrer +'arth, o' any o' these here dagarrier-ructions 't you've played off on +me this day, bein' otherwise 'n destriyed, I sh'll take the first fa'r +wind up here, an' if thar' ain't no wind I sh'll paddle, an' my +settlemunt 'ith you'll be a final one. Good-arternoon." + +The captain and his wife strolled down to the beach, arm in arm, Miss +Pray and I following, forlorn and forgotten, behind. We saw the +captain tenderly pin the shawl about his wife's neck before he left us +on the windy wharf, to go out without a murmur to bring in the "Eliza +Rodgers." + +"How shall we get major down the slip?" I heard Mrs. Kobbe whisper +anxiously to Miss Pray. + +The "slip" was an inclined plane of boards, of some thirty feet in +length, ending in the water; it was without steps or railing, smooth, +green with sea-water and slime, and it was, at the present state of the +tide, the only way of boarding the "Eliza Rodgers." + +The captain now stood in the boat below, holding her to the slip. + +Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray, leaving me with an encouraging smile, both +sat themselves down, and by the simplest means of descent slid safely +and swiftly down the incline, amid ringing cheers and acclamation from +the wharf. + +"Come on, major!" called the captain. "Touch-and-go----" + +And I! Where now are my faithful henchmen, the men of mighty stature +who do my bidding, the liveried giants who open the door of my +carriage? The breeze blew in my face, and the "Eliza Rodgers" waited +below, and I heard the rough audience from the wharf shouting that I +should be up to that much! + +Ay, and far more. + +I sat me down with a smile: that strange and swift period of passage is +still fresh in my memory; how the wind, aided by some slimy intervening +objects, turned me completely about, so that I bounded at last with +affectionate violence, back foremost, into the enfolding arms of my +friends below; cheered, too, from the wharf, especially as, not having +been able to make so judicious an arrangement of my earthly vestments +as Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray had done, I was now a startlingly marked +object of ridicule. + +Little cared we. That adventure down the slip, ignominious though it +was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's +scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the +convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little space +from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded +hilariously once more in my long-easeful, sluggish veins. + +The floor of our boat was covered with bright sea-spoils, the fog +lifted, the wind blew fair and strong. Hungry eternally, we munched +our stolen fried cakes with delight. + +The sun set in a spendthrift glory of state and color, the water was as +if translated to celestial climes, languidly the fair moon arose. + +And I--forever Vesty's face, in some dream of youth and happiness, +outlying my estate; pictured, apart from me, yet new-creating me with +joy. Afar off in earth-meadows, the love-note of the thrush--not for +me, yet passing dear and sweet. That slender, languorous moon pointed +me to humble village spires and grass-grown paths, pale lovers +whispering at a rustic gate. I, poor sprite, stooped down and loved +and blessed them, though I sped away to sail forever and forever on the +seas! + + + + +XVIII + +UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE + +Say the philosophers how, to the properly sane mind, there is no +sorrow. But Vesty, only a Basin, fighting Christ's war against the +flesh--Vesty had sorrow. + +"It was," she confessed to me alone, I being as a ghost or +confessor--"it was like pulling my heart out, to have Notely go away +so. It was like taking little Gurd away--but it was the only way." + +"He has gone back to his wife?" + +"Yes." Vesty shivered. I had chanced to meet her in the lane, and the +wind was chill. + +"And what are you going to do, Vesty?" + +"I am going where they want me to help." She held the thin, frayed +shawl at her neck, the rosy child wrapped as usual on her arm: "there +is always some one wanting me to help, and little Gurd is not so much +care now but I can get along with it." + +"You go out as general drudge or charwoman!" I felt my nostrils quiver +and a bitter harshness in my voice. + +Vesty looked at me with surprise. "I go to help," she said, "just as +you helped me, with Uncle Benny, when I was sick." + +"Oh, I could do"--the child knew not with what a glance I studied her +face--"what it is hard to let you do, Vesty." + +A gentle pallor at that, as though I had been strong and seemly in her +sight; the Basin eyes fixed on me as if with a community of experience +and sorrow. + +"Shall you go away from the Basin this winter, as you did before?" + +"I think so;" for myself, I could not look at her. "You see, I have +my--'show,' that I must attend to a little in the winter: and here, +exposed to the hard climate, if I were taken ill, or should be in want, +there is no one who would care for me, you know." + +"You should never want or suffer," cried Vesty of the Basins, "while I +have two hands to work with!" + +"Perhaps then," I murmured gravely, with sphinx face, "I might stay. I +have to ask so much, Vesty, you see. All my life seems to be asking, +not giving." + +"I don't know who you are!" said she, with puzzled brow, the utter +frankness of Basin speech escaping her unawares. "What I thought +first, when I saw you--I never mind that now. And you are poor and all +alone, and you never make anything of yourself--but somehow I always +think you are pretending; somehow--I think--you are stronger than us +all." + +"You are a little arch-flatterer," I said; "and the Basin, out of its +goodness of heart, has made me vain, that is all. It won't do. I need +to sweep some more floors and peel some more potatoes." She would not +smile; she shook her puzzled head at me. "And, Vesty," I said, "where +are you going now?" + +"Why, to Uncle Benny's! Didn't you know?" exclaimed the girl eagerly, +with whom the realities of life were always pressing, stern. "He stood +out in the water, _that day_, helping get the men in, and he was around +that evening, singing, without any dry clothes or fire; nobody thought, +then. And you know he 's had a cough ever since, and now--he 's sick." + +A thought smote me. "He won't lead the children to school any more, +then?" + +Vesty's lip quivered. "Come," she said; "he has asked for you." + +At sight of Vesty with her child and me, Uncle Benny, to whom the +shadows were coming as to the truly sane, without grief or surprise, +touched his unribboned throat with feeble apology. + +"I look dreadful," he murmured. That was not troubling him! He had a +secret beyond all that, I saw. + +"There 's been ten in to call to-day," he exulted sweetly, with folded +hands of satisfaction, death's bloom high in his cheeks; +"ten!--ahem!--to call." + +Vesty looked at me with her sad smile. "It is because we love you, +Uncle Benny," she said, "and you took--take such care of the children. +Who?" she asked, for his mind was on it. + +"Mother," said Uncle Benny, since he was sane now, "and"--he mentioned +a number of the living Basins, and went on, in the same tone--"and +Fluke and Gurd." + +Vesty looked at him with touching sorrow and despair, being troubled +and not sane. + +"They played," he said, his hands moving with the recollection of the +melody; "they played wonderful--but sometimes it was an organ!" + +"Good!" I said, Vesty stood so pale. "We are getting health, I see. +We are on the straight road now." + +Uncle Benny, hearing my voice, beckoned me. + +"All the things in the drawer!" he said, "because you were 'flicted." +His eyes shone lovingly and compassionately on me. "All for you. But +go and see!" + +Enough surely to relieve all physical defects! The worn and treasured +blue necktie, for one thing; a little pocket hand-glass, a pin-cushion +devoted to the tender ingathering of strayed and crooked pins, some +sprays of mint and lavender among the rest. + +I felt his eyes beaming proudly on me--treasures beautiful from long +habit, now yielded in a spirit so complete and lofty! I brushed the +back of my hand along my eyes, in the Basin way. + +"You mustn't feel bad," said Uncle Benny, as I came back to him: +"nature didn't do much for you, but it 's going to be all right. I had +a talk with mother." + +"I am glad of that, Uncle Benny." + +"Oh, yes! it 's going to be all right." So full of secrets! he spoke +excitedly, with discreetly covered joy; "you needn't feel bad." + +He lay back, lest he should say too much. And so, as he, wise, covered +up his sublime knowledge among us, unwise, with smiling lips, he sank +into a sleep. + +Uncle Benny, dying, slept with a smile on his lips; and little Gurd, +homeless, fatherless, laid in this poor habitation or in that, humbly +and roughly, slept in beautiful health with a smile on his lips; and +we, unwise, watched dolefully. + +"You must not stay," said Vesty. "You are not used to lose your rest. +I am so used to watching, and--I am not afraid. Lunette said she would +come to help me before morning." + +Starless, moonless darkness showed through the low window, and the +candle was burning dimly on the table. + +"I shall stay," I said. I had a student's knowledge of death. "He +will wake soon, and then--it will be morning." + +But Vesty's dear face turned to me with the sorrow of dying. + +I was not used to lose my rest. I dozed faintly, with faithfully +sleepless lids. In that east of heavy blackness the candle made a +strange sun. The world, elsewhere so far from heaven, here at the +Basin ascended to it by a common stairway, and little children and the +pure of heart climbed upward without dread. + +"May I go?" I said, watching them. + +"If a child leads thee," said a voice. + +So I looked to a little child, to take my hand, and I saw my mother's +face waiting from above, and the beams of glory narrowed; it was the +candle burning dimly on the table. + +"Notely!" I heard a voice calling. + +I started up. + +"Notely!" called Uncle Benny, very sweetly and tremulously from the +bed. "Where is he? I led him to school." + +Vesty had gone to the door, and leaned her head there, as if to press +back the unbearable anguish and pathos sweeping over her like a flood. + +"Notely! Little Note! He was the handsomest of them all, but +sometimes he ran away. Notely! Little Note! come home with Uncle +Benny now; come home!" + +"He will come," I said, going to him: "he will come home." + +"Vesty! Where is she? I led her to school." + +She tottered toward him and pressed her warm hands upon his, cold. + +"And you," he said, trying to turn to me, lovingly, faintly, "you are +one of them. I will bring you home. Sing, Vesty; sing 'Sail away----'" + + "'As Christ went down the Lonesome Road'" + +Vesty's voice broke. + +"Sing, little one," said Uncle Benny, covering his glad secrets again +with a sort of heavenly duplicity; "it 's all right--sing." + + "'He left the crown and He took the cross-- + Sail away to Galilee! + He left the crown and He took the cross-- + Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee! + * * * * + "'There 's a tree I see in Paradise----'" + + +"Sing, Vesty!" + + "It 's the beautiful waiting Tree of Life-- + Sail away to Galilee! + It 's the beautiful----'" + + +Uncle Benny hushed her with an awed motion of the hand, and a look +upward of unspeakable recognition--he, without doubt, seeing now, +beyond us blind. + + + + +XIX + +THE BASIN + +"What I thought first when I saw you--I never mind that now." + +Vesty's words: and "You shall never want or suffer while I have hands +to work with." So it seems that, at the Basin, even one poor and +afflicted may have good hope to be sustained! + +There was a woman once, beautiful and high, who, spurning me, would +have married me for my wealth and name. + +But pity is sweet and true. I am not ashamed of pity. Some time--if +all things failed her--should I even say, "Vesty, could you marry me, +for pity--for pity, Vesty?" For it was the thought of the Basins that +compassion was greater than love, in some way the diviner side of love. + +Then should I turn on her and say, sly as Captain Leezur--alas! so much +slyer: "My lady! My Lady of M----; there are none, even among the rich +and high, who can condescend to you; wide lands have you, you and your +little son, possessions and palaces; and others you shall build where +you will, only come and be pitiful where you move: the world needs not +these, but love and pity like thine, O Vesty of the Basins!" + +But the time was not yet to plead my cause for pity. I shall know if +ever that time comes. I have never mistaken Vesty. I wait. + +"For pity"--for it is not in the power of gold or rank to exalt her. I +cannot exalt her. + +It is sweet to bear about with one the secret of a strange country. +But, ah me! I love the Basin. I love the ragged shawl that Vesty +holds at her throat. Nowhere else will the winter come so dreary and +beautiful, with wild hearth fires. And Fate, bidding me hope, may +crush me. As God wills. I wait. + +It is but late summer now. There is a meeting. + +"It 's been a very busy time o' year," said Elder Skates, with timid, +inoffensive apology; "and we've ruther neglected religion lately. But +I hope we've gathered here to the old school-house once more this +Sunday afternoon, with a dispersition and a willin' and firm +determination that as for us we will not let 'er drop." + +Vesty had a native sense of the humorous, but the holy lids were down; +only the mouth trembled a little. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar +were finishing a game of croquet with the one set of those implements +which the Basin possessed, dedicated for Sundays, and to the +school-house yard, as being dimly understood to be a sort of Sabbatical +pastime. Their voices pealed in with unconscious vigor through the +open windows: + +"Did ye shove her through the wire, Pharo?" + +"Yis, by clam! and I'm a-comin' for ye, Shamgar, an' the next crack I +git on that thar rollin' cruiser o' yourn, she'll wish she'd 'a' died +las' week!" + +The Basin conception of the game not being based on a spirit of +emulation so much as on the cheerful clash of immediate vivid strokes, +Captain Shamgar laughed loudly. + +"We are now open for remarks," intimated Elder Skates feebly, afflicted +but firm in his rubber boots. + +After a season of respectful silence within the school-house there was +a sepulchral whisper from one elderly female to another on the back +seats: + +"Did ye know 't Elvine had plucked her geese?" + +"Sartin. She plucked 'em too clost, and they was around fryin' in the +sun scand'lous; but I don't surmise as she knew no better." + +"In course not. Ye know Miss Lester's boardin' some folks 't Gov'ment +sent down t' inspect the lighthouse. It's a young man, an' he brought +his wife, an' after he'd finished his job they liked it so well they're +jest stayin' on, cruisin' 'round an' playin' tricks on each other. So, +ef you'll believe me, what does that Gov'ment young man do one day but +go an' bring home a passel o' snakes----" + +The voice, to the eager ears of the listeners, ventured more and more +upon audibility-- + +"An' he fixed 'em in a box in the woodshed, with a string to the cover, +an' then stepped into the kindlin'-closet, holdin' the string, ter wait +till the women came out, ter pull it an' then see what the verdick +would be! Wal, what think you--but his wife she suspicioned of 'im, +an' she was around thar hidin', an' jest as soon as he stepped into the +closet, afore he could pull the string, she flounced up an' fastened +the door on the outside. An' she kep' 'im in there till he'd say: +'Wife, wife, there's lots o' green in my eye; but I'll make my supper +on humble pie. I'll dump them snakes in the pond, dear wife; an' ef +you'll only let me out I'll be good all my life." + +"Wal, thar now!" said an admiring voice; "I should think she must be +r'al gifted. Did he say it?" + +"Yes, he got it out, somewheres along in the shank o' the evenin'. But +Miss Lester says it's jest as good as bein' to the front seat in a +show, the whole livin', endurin' time." + +"Gov'ment pays their board, in course?" + +"Sartin, and well it c'n be some use now an' then, settin' 'round +there, not knowin' nothin' in this world what to do with its surplice." + +A sharp peal rang through the window. + +"Thar, Pharo! Ef ye want to find yerself, ye'd better start on down t' +the south eend o' the Basin, 'n' negotiate around to leeward o' +Leezur's bresh-heap; that's the d'rection yer ball was a-startin' for, +las' time I seen 'er!" + +"Poo! poo!" said Captain Pharo, drawing a Sunday "parlor" match +explosively along his boot-leg; "jest hold on thar, Shamgar. Jest hold +on till I git my old chimley here a-goin' ag'in----" + +"The meetin' is open and patiently waitin' for remarks," said Brother +Skates, poising himself wearily but ever enduringly on one boot. + +After an appreciative silence within, the whisper finally arose once +more: "But he paid her off pretty well." + +"Dew tell!" + +"She took 'n' hid his pipe one day, and her clo's was hangin' out on +the line--she wears the mos' beautiful, 'labberotest-trimmed clo's you +ever see--so what does he do but go an' git a padlock an' padlocked +them clo's onto the line. 'When you git me my pipe,' says he, 'I'll +unlock your wardrobe,' says he." + +"Wal, I never! Ain't them ructions!" + +"Did the peddler come around to your house this month?" + +"He did so. I bought a pictur' 't was named 'Logan.' It's a fancy +skitch, I guess, 'but I'm goin' to have that pictur', Cap'n Nason Ted,' +says I, 'ef 't takes every egg the hens is ekil to from now t' +deer-stalkin',' says I. It jest completely drored me somehow; it had +sech a feelin' look." + +"Did Nason let ye buy it?" + +"Yis, he did; but he was dreadful sneakish an' j'ilous. 'It's jest a +fancy skitch,' says he; "'tain't nothin' 't ever slammed around in +shoes,' says he." + +"I bought a pair o' black stockings," said the voice of a young matron. +"I remember 'cause I wore 'em the very day that Johnny swallowed six +buttons--and _smut!_--wal----" A picture too dark for the imagination +was relieved by the hum of a discussion now bravely finding voice on +the male side of the house. + +"There's some difference in the price of a hoss afore blueberryin' and +after blueberryin', I can tell ye." + +"All the difference 'twixt black an' white. Wal, thar's mos' things I +can do without, but when you find me without a hoss you'll find me done +'ith trouble altogether an' stretched out ca'm an' laid on the cooler." + +"Skates's raisin' a pretty good colt thar, 'ceptin' 't she's a leetle +twisty in her off hin' leg. What do you consider on her worth, Skates?" + +"I refused two hunderd dollars for 'er last week," said Brother Skates, +in a clearly round, secular tone of voice. + +"Now look a-here, Skates; that stock o' yourn's good workin'-stock, but +they're tirrible hard feeders. Ef you've been offered two hunderd +dollars for that colt don't you wait 'tell after blueberryin'." + +"Mebbe you think," said Brother Skates, now firmly established on both +boots, "'t I'm as green as a yaller cucumber!" + +"Look out thar, Shamgar!" rang through the windows. "Give me sea-room +here!--give me sea-room!"--we saw and heard the preparatory swinging of +Captain Pharo's mallet--"cl'ar the way thar, Shamgar; for by the +everlastin' clam, I'm a-goin' to give ye a clip that'll send ye t' the +west shore o' Machias!" + +A mighty concussion followed. + +Elder Skates, as if reminded by these thunders of his duty, blushed +deeply with shame and penitence. + +"Vesty," he pleaded tremulously, "will you start 'Carried by the +Angels'?" + +Vesty went to the little organ. + +Now we forgot all the rest, all that was rude and incongruous, forgot +how mean the school-house was, how few protective boards left upon it. +Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar dropped their mallets at the first +sound of Vesty's voice, and came in on tiptoe, with changed faces, +reverent. + +For there was the Basin sorrow in Vesty's voice, enough to subdue +greater discords, and the Basin hope in it, implicit, wonderful, +thrilled to tearful vision by a word: + + "Carried by the angels," + +she sang. + + "Carried by the angels. + Carried by the angels to the skies. + Carried by the angels, + Carried by the angels, + "Gathered with the lost in Paradise." + + +Coat-sleeves began to do duty across moist eyes; seeing--we all being +simple Basins--winged white forms in the still air outside the battered +schoolhouse, bearing worn, earth-weary forms away-- + + "Gathered with the lost in Paradise." + +It was not so hard to speak now. + +"I've got my finger on a tex' here," said a white-haired, +weather-beaten Basin, rising; "'In His love and in His pity He redeemed +us.' Now thar was a time when I didn't want nobody to say a word to me +about pity--no sir! Love I wanted and admirin' I wanted, but no pity; +that thar set me broilin'. But--now--I'd e'en a'most ruther have pity +than love; 'nd I thank God most o' all that, in my pride and in my +stren'th, and not wantin' no help an' gittin' mad at the thought of +it--all'as He pitied me, an' He pitied me cl'ar through to the end. + +"For I tell ye, thar can be love and admirin', that flashes up in the +pan mighty strong at first, an' goes out, an' nary mite o' pity in it. +But thar' ain't no pity 'ithout love; and it's a love 't ain't no +fine-spun thread, but a ten-inch hawser; a love 't stands by ye when +thar' 's a trackless path afore and a lost trail ahind; when ye're +scuddin' afore the squall, an' the seas come thunderin' down on ye; +when yer boat 's in splinters, and ye're a-bitin' the sand. Yis, an' +when yer cruisin' 's all done at las', an' ye're jest a poor old hulk +around in the way, driftin' in an' out 'ith the tides, 't calls out to +ye, as ef ye was somebody, 'Ship ahoy! What port?' + +"An' ye says, kind o' hopin', but not darin' nothin', 'The port as they +calls Heaven.' + +"An' 't shouts back to ye, strong across the wave, 'What are ye +doubtin', man? That 's a port sure! and home 's thar, and folks 's +thar, and the little children ye lost is thar. D'ye want a pilot?' + +"'Ay, ay, sir!--ay, ay, sir!'" + +The deep voice sank in tears, then broke out again: + +"Git under the lee o' the wrack! + +"For days an' nights once, in a storm 't I shall never forgit, we +pulled under the lee o' a wracked vessel, 'n' no other way could we 'a' +been saved. + +"An' it was so, 't, in this sea o' life, all open ter the winds o' +sorrer an' temptation, Christ come down, an' He giv' up joy an' a safe +harbor, 'n' all that, jest ter be made a wrack on, so 't we might git +under His lee, an' foller safe. + +"It 's the great Breakwater o' the seas; don't ye fear but it 's a safe +one! + +"Young man, I know 't ye think o' somethin' more'n this, an' vary +diffur'nt from this, a-startin' out each one in his clipper-bark, gay +an' hunky in every strand, 'ith a steady follerin' breeze, an' +everythin' set from skysail pole to the water's edge. + +"All right! ye are the lad for me; ye can pull side an' feather +stroke; ye can cl'ar a tops'l reef-tackle when the sail is full, ye are +the lad for me. Steer bold; only steer true, by night an' day. I wish +'t ye might no' meet wi' fogs an' icebergs an' collisions an' gales---- + +"An' yit, I wish it not. The sea an' the storm is jest to teach us t' +git under the lee o' the great wrack o' Love an' Pity, 't made hisself +lost for us; ay, an' so to make a wrack o' our own happiness for the +poor an' weak, 't's out a-tossin' shelterless, to lead 'em to the true +Breakwater. That 's life, that 's the sea, that 's the lesson. Till +we pass on, up the roads, into the harbor----" + +The old mariner's voice failed him; he sat down. + +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, and cleared his throat huskily; "Vesty, +will you start 'The Tempests broke on Thee'?" + +Vesty's voice: + + "'O Christ, it broke on Thee! + Thy open bosom was my ward, + It braved the storm for me. + Thy form was scarred, Thy visage marred,-- + O Christ, it broke on Thee!'" + + +Great preachers have I heard dry-eyed, and skilled plaintive music +enough; but now I looked out through the broken Basin windows, on the +clear Basin sky, through a mist. + +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, "let 's keep right along into 'Beautiful +Valley o' Eden'!" + + "'How often amid the wild billows, + I dream of thy rest, sweet rest, + Sweet rest.'" + +sang Vesty, with eyes darkly circled and sunken, and the beautiful, +strong hand, labor-worn, and the thin old shawl fallen back from her +shoulders. + +There was a different tone now in the parting salutations of the Basins. + +"I'm a-comin' up to help ye paper," said one woman to another; "ye got +sick last year, and I'm a-comin', whether ye want me to or not." + +"Oh, I want ye bad enough, Mar'ette." + +But I knew what a struggle had been gone through with when I heard Miss +Pray say: + +"Car' Ann, if ye want to borry my ice-cream freezer I ain't a-usin' it +for to-morrer." + +Miss Pray alone of the Basins had acquired the monumental honor of +possessing an ice-cream freezer, esteemed by others with a no less +sacred jealousy than by herself; but she had hitherto refused all +intimations tending toward social interchange and fellowship in the +matter. + +"Vesty's kind o' poorin' away," said one matron, looking wistfully +after the girl. + +"No wonder, with that great boy, and all she does. Aunt Low-ize tried +to hold him, jest while Vesty was singin', an' she had to take him out +and walk twict around Blueberry Hill t' keep him still; he's one o' +this 'ere all-alive, jumpin' kind. I sh'd think he'd kill her." + +I overtook Vesty in the lane; she was gathering flowers in Sunday +pastime for the baby. + +She turned to look at me with quiet gladness, kindness. + +"I love to hear Captain Seabale. He doesn't come very often," said +she, "but he makes me cry." + +"I believe he made me cry," I answered. I watched her shaking a +handful of flowers over the laughing boy. "How far do you think pity +could ever go, Vesty?" + +"Why?"--there was that high, grave study of me in her eyes, that +haunting thought that I was sly! But for all her pains, too simple was +she! No discovery; only the beautiful Basin unconsciousness. "Christ +never said where to stop, did He?" + + + + +XX + +SOCIAL DIVERSIONS AT THE "POST-OFFICE" + +Leafless and brown are the trees, but the Basin has diviner glories +than at midsummer, in colors unspeakable of sea and sky, of +wild-sailing cloud, of sunset and of moon. + +There come great news of Notely. In pursuance of which, "Did ye ever +notice," said Captain Leezur, sitting on the log in the late sunshine, +ambrosially sucking a nervine lozenge; "did ye ever notice, major, how +'t all the great folks, or them 't 's risin' tew be great--how 't they +all comes from a squantum place like this?" + +"Yes," I said, "I've heard it as a remarkable fact." + +"I don't mean t' say 't _everybody_ in a squantum place is beound and +destined tew be great or die!" said Captain Leezur, with whole-souled +disparagement of such a thought: "no, no; they can't carry it on us so +fur as that. 'Forced-to-go,' ye know." + +"No, indeed!" I consented. + +I accepted a nervine lozenge, and we braced ourselves firmly on the +log, placid, but set, against all resistance, not to be great! + +"What is this rewmer abeout Notely, major? I heered how 't you took a +lot o' noos-sheets." + +"It is fine. He is making for himself a name in your politics, and at +the same time there 's the old fire in him, flashing out over +conventions; one can almost hear him laugh. He rings out, clear, amid +any false notes; it is a grand satire; sometimes the dry bones quake." + +"Lord sakes!" said Captain Leezur, turning on me with deep-smitten +dismay; "I heered how't he was bein' successful!" + +"His financial speculations seem touched with magic, they say; he is +courted, feared, praised, maligned; he laughs and rings out, the true +note! His health is not strong, never since that fall. There; you +have all I know, Captain Leezur." + +Captain Leezur meditated. "There _be_ times--I sh'd never want this +said except between you an' me, major--when I'm glad 't Notely Garrison +didn't marry Vesty, after all! Notely 'n' me was great mates, all'as. +But I'll tell ye this, when Notely got everythin' he wanted he'd carry +sail enough to sink the boat, all'as; couldn't never jump rough enough +or fast enough on a high sea; kept the rest on us bailin' water: that +was Note, when he had all the wind he wanted; that was Note, +all'as--but I all'as loved him better 'n them 't was more keerful +sailors." + +The sun saw itself globed in a tear that fell on Captain Leezur's felts. + +"Moderation in all things, ye know," he added, beaming, not to distress +me; "even in passnips." + +I mused with him in silent sympathy. "Oiling the saw again, I see," I +said at last glancing with reverent admiration of such benign industry +at the oil-can. + +"No," said Captain Leezur kindly; "I wa'n't, I was a-goin' deown, by +'n' by, to the cove, to ca'm the water deown, 'n' see ef I c'd spear up +a few fleounders; but I ain't in no hurry. I'd jest as soon set +areound on the int'rust o' my money!" + +This was a joke insatiable between us, always bubbling over, always +enough of it left for next rime. At its utterance Captain Leezur's +countenance was accustomed to break up entirely, while I laughed with +an appreciation that never fainted or palled. + +We felt that there was never aught sparkling enough to be said after +it, but parted in succulent silence, Captain Leezur with his oil-can, +going down to compose the waters, while I pursued my less omnipotent +way to the Basin "post-office." + +"Ef there 's anything trying," said Lunette, though with the peculiarly +official air she always wore on post days, "it is dressin' sand-peeps. +But thar! Tyson come home with a harf-bushel, an' what are ye goin' to +do? Onct a year, Ty says, he wants ter jest stuff himself to the +collar-bone on sand-peep pie, an' then he don't want to see nary one, +nor hear 'em mentioned in his sight--not for another year." + +It might have troubled the casual observer at first to discover, in the +variety of Lunette's official capacity, which was post-office and which +was sand-peeps, so agreeably and informally did these two elements +combine in her surroundings. + +"Mis' Pharo Kobbe!" she called. + +That lady, thus summarily summoned, sprang forward from a cloud of +witnesses, as choice and flattered assistant. + +"Won't you take them letters 't Major Henry's jest brought in, and +deface the stamps on 'em? Turn the ink enter them pictur's o' George +Washin'ton so 't his own mother's son wouldn't know him. I don't +calk'late to have no stamps 't 's sent out from the Basin post-office +washed out an' used over ag'in. The defacement they gets here is for +everlastin' an' for aye." + +I watched helplessly a full discharge of this command on the part of +Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, and proceeded to pluck one of the sand-peeps +meanwhile, along with the rest, waiting the arrival of the post bag. + +"Some o' the rusticators 't was here in the summer," continued Lunette, +sneezing over a culinary preparation of pepper, "though 't we ought to +have two mails a week! Ef I was so dyin' crazy for news 's that, I'd +go an' live to Machias!" + +"That does seem dissipated and unreasonable, certainly," I assented, +interested in the endeavor to extract the minutest pin-feathers from +the tail of the sand-peep. + +"Ef they was all like Major Henry, I told 'em, the post-office 'ud be +easy runnin', an' I don't care if I do say it afore his face. I'd say +it afore the meet'n-house--ef there was one. The very first time 't +Major Henry ever stepped inter this post-office he come up to me an' +handed me a five-dollar bill, 'n' says he: + +"'Mardam, could you kin'ly put my mail t' one side, me not all'as bein' +convienent to be here at its openin', maybe; an' all the mail that +ain't called for at its openin' bein' thrun up onter the top pantry +shelf,' says he, ''nd everybody 't comes in lookin' it over t' see ef +they've got anything, is a most beautiful compliment to human natur',' +says he, 'an' one that I wish I could interduce everywhere; but me not +bein' vary tall,' he says, 'an' kind o' near-sighted, I'm afeered as I +might git somethin' 't didn't belong to me. Have ye got anythin' like +a dror, or anythin' 't ye could lock up?' says he. + +"'No,' says I, 'I hain't, but I'll tell ye what I can do. I can put +'em inter th' old Gran'mother Tyson soup-turreen, 't I don't believe +the led of it 's been lifted this ten year; they'll be as safe as ef +they was buried an' in their graves,' says I. An' so I thought, but ye +know how things is all'as sartin to happen. + +"What, in the name o' ructions, did Ty do but come home that afternoon +with a bag o' ches'nits, which he knows I won't have in the pantry on +account o' breedin' worms; but me bein' over to Mis' Kobbe's, what does +he do, manlike, but dump them letters inter the churn, an' go an' sneak +his ches'nits inter th' old Granm'er Tyson soup-turreen. + +"Wal, I all'as churn my butter Friday mornin', come hail, come wind: so +I gits up--an' 'twas kind o' dark yit--an' in I pours the pail o' cream +an' begins to churn, an' thinks I, 'This spatters onaccountable this +mornin',' an' took off the cover to see what the ructions was! + +"Wal, the verdick of it was, after I'd laid into Ty, I went down to +major with the five-dollar bill an' another atop of it, all I had in +this livin' world--'An' ef that 's any objec', major,' says I, a-wipin' +of my eyes, 'it's all I c'n do.' + +"Wall, what think you, but major laughs, an' wouldn't tetch ary cent of +it, but took 'is letters, an' says he, 'They've ackired a peculiar +richness,' says he, 'an' I'd orter be up there mail-openin' an' not +make a lady so much trouble,' says he. That's the kind o' poppolation +'s I, for one, sh'd like to fill up the Basin with!" said Lunette, +flourishing her rolling-pin. + +A murmur of approval ran through the room. + +Blushing, embarrassed, but swollen with pride, I picked up another +sand-peep to pluck. + +At that instant "Snipe," the household and post-office dog, ran across +the floor with high-careering head, holding a huge envelope in his +teeth. + +"Stop him! stop him!" cries arose: "it's Elvine's registered letter, 't +'s goin' to Boston for a tea-set!" + +A rush followed Snipe into the bedroom, the door of which stood open; +the evil dog ran under the bed and into the farthest corner, where, +with his jaws formed into the semblance of a menace and a mocking +laugh, he assumed an attack upon that potential tea-set. + +Lunette rushed in after him. Now the bed, in default, for some unknown +though doubtless wise Basin reasons, of other stanchions, was set up on +four chairs, one at each corner, and as Lunette rushed under it, she +displaced the outermost chair; whereat the bed at that source collapsed +with a crash, imprisoning both her and the dog. + +"I've been a-threatenin' to have that bed fixed," said Tyson, with +politic zeal, as his wife and dog were delivered. + +Lunette with voiceless indignation seized one of a buttress of +birch-switches behind the door, and began applying it to the +consciously ruined Snipe, at the arising of whose howls the +post-carrier drove up, and, entering, threw the bag, in loud token of +his arrival, upon the floor. + +Snipe, of all places, ran and entrenched himself behind my feeble legs! +Whereat, "Don't whip him any more," I pleaded, being already flattered, +in one way and another, as high as mortal could sustain. + +Lunette turned unwillingly to the post. The post-driver stood about +seven feet in his boots, with a handsome face, all mud-bespattered. +Many voices beset him familiarly. + +"Say, Will, did ye bring down my molasses?" "Say, Will, did ye match +that ribbin f'r me?" "Say, Will," etc., etc. + +"You bet I did, every time!" he answered jovially, showing his white +teeth. Interest in the post was comparatively moribund; a general +parcel-distributing and hand-shaking followed--until we were startled +by a cry from Lunette: + +"Look a' this, Will Hunson!" said she; "look a' this, will ye? A whole +pot o' strawberry jam soaked right plumb inter the middle o' the United +States Governmunt!" + +It was only too true. The pile of letters and papers which she had +emptied onto the moulding table were red and glowing as the summer rose. + +Will hung his dismayed head. + +"Be them ructions, or ain't they?" coldly demanded Lunette, pointing to +the awful pile. + +"I didn't mean to," said Will. + +"Didn't mean to!" cried Lunette. "Didn't mean to, lived in a lean-to!" + +Blasted by terror and sarcasm, we all hung our heads. Snipe grovelled +in still farther behind my legs. + +"There 's got to be something done!" cried Lunette. "Folks's got to +learn 't the United States Governmunt is a awful an' a solemn an' a +turrible thing. What ef it sh'd be told 't we hadn't no more respec' +for her down here to the Basin 'n to soak her through with strawberry +jam an' molarsses! These here ructions have been a-goin' on too long +with the Basin post-office. I'm a-goin' to fill out a blank an' send +it to Washin'ton!" + +Snipe howled. Lively apprehension, none the less poignant for being +vague, sat on every pale brow. + +"Here," continued Lunette, "'s major's business letters, looks as +though they'd been a-settin' in the dentist's chair, havin' all the old +stumps extracted for a whole set of uppers and unders!" + +Lunette's comparison, though tragic, was not inapt. + +"Here"--blind terror yielded to curiosity on many features--"here is +Jennie Cossey's letter from her beau, down to New London, with a +cardboard dagarrier in it. Yes," said Lunette, manipulating the +envelope curiously and holding it to the light; "I knew 't the next +thing he'd be sendin' his pictur'. How 'd you feel, Will Hunson, ef +you was stan'in' in his shoes an' had gone an' combed yer hair 'tell +yer arm ached, an' stuck the end o' yer hankercher outer yer pocket, +an' had yer pictur' took, an' then sot down an' wrote a lot o' +sweetness to wrop around it--an' when she took it out have it look like +Injuns a-yellin' on the warpath!" + +"Say, Lunette," said honest Will, his handsome face redder than any of +the lively imageries she had called up to terrorize his conscience; "I +got that front hair fascinater ye wanted, an' I sold the spruce gum for +two dollars for ye. Look a' here!" + +"Will Hunson, don't ye ride no more strawberry jam an' molarsses down +here in the middle o' the United States Governmunt ag'in, will ye?" +said Lunette, determined to fall gently. + +But it appeared then that no blank was to be filled out and sent to +Washington! + +With a sharp yelp of joy Snipe sprang from behind the impregnable +covert of my legs, and rushed out into the free and gladsome elements. + +I gathered up my portion of matter from the illuminated heap of +"government," beside the sand-peep pie on the table, and with a fond +smile at Lunette I also departed. + + + + +XXI + +BROKEN WINDOWS + +Always now on the evening of post day, after I had read my newspapers, +came the worn shawl and the dark, weary eyes--Vesty, to sit awhile with +Miss Pray. + +"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?" + +Now and then I made her put the question, but oftener I was kind and +volunteered any information on this subject that I had been able to +glean; and at the news of joy or success for him, how her eyes glowed! +Basin pure and great, with no thought for the shadow of her own +lot--Vesty of the Basins. + +"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?" + +She was pinning the shawl at her throat after a short call, before +going out; and she gave me her direct, reproachful look, as though I +had been teasing her. + +But I was not teasing her; my heart yearned over her where she stood, +facing the dark. + +"I will tell you what I have read," I said, "as I walk home with you. +You are 'helping' them at your own father's again now?" + +She bowed her head. Her dark eyes filled me with a kind of frenzy to +make rest and comfort about her; and I had hard news for her! + +"In my papers of the past week the beginning of what concerned Notely +Garrison was a medley. 'Reformer,' 'The old never-heeded cry of a St. +John in the wilderness,' and again, from the other side, 'Fanatic,' +'Visionary,' 'Throwing out his by no means boundless wealth like water +for the sake of chimeras, ideally noble enough, but still vain +chimeras!' And the news at the week's end, 'Young Garrison stricken: a +shock. Overwork, over-excitement, and the result of an accident +suffered not long since. Recovery very doubtful.'" + +"I want to go to him," said Vesty. I heard her breath coming painfully +and quick. + +"I knew that. I have already made arrangements for you to leave early +in the morning." + +"Just to see him. I promised him. Notely! Notely! I can't bear +it--just as though it was little Gurd." + +"You shall see him by to-morrow night. I have sent a messenger to make +special arrangements for conveyance, in case you should desire this." + +"Major Henry, I forgot. I cannot; I have no money." + +"Ah, but you can and must. It is arranged." + +"And I do not know the way. I was never from the Basin." + +"I am going with you. In my country high ladies travel with a servant, +thus. Get what rest you can and be ready at four. They will take good +care of little Gurd while you are gone." + +"Some time," said Vesty, on the morrow, "when Gurd is a little older, +and I can take him away somewhere where I can earn wages, I can pay +you, Major Henry. They want me now--his mother wants me, somehow, I +know." + +"You are safe to think that." + +"My clothes are not like theirs," said Vesty quietly, when we came at +night more and more into the throngs of civilized life. "Do you mind? +I knew that I should not be dressed like them." + +"In my country high ladies wear what they will." + +She gave a low, perplexed laugh, looking at me with curious sorrow for +my hallucinations. + +"But I am only Vesty." + +"Surely. But you remind me so of a lady." + +At least Vesty travelled as a princess might. I brought her the long +and devious journey swiftly, with as little fatigue as possible: but it +was late at night when we mounted the steps of the Garrison town +residence; the house was all alight. + +Mrs. Garrison brushed past the servant at the door. + +"Vesty Rafe! I knew it was you. I knew you would come, somehow, +child." She drew her in, and fell on her neck, weeping. + +"He is dying?" murmured Vesty then, with cold lips. + +"He has not spoken since the shock. He does not know us; but it may be +he will know you! Come!" + +Servants from the doorways of the wide, rich hall were staring +strangely at Vesty and at me. Vesty turned to me now, to consider me. + +I gave her the warning look. "I came to show Vesty the way," I said in +simple Basin speech. "I will go to my hotel. I will call." + +The girl's sad eyes looked reproach at me, but she obeyed me. + +"Wait," she said then; "I want to speak with Major Henry." She came to +me in the door. + +"When will you come back?" she murmured, low. + +"I will call in the morning." + +"You will come?" A strange abandoned distress was in her eyes, as of a +child lost in crowded city ways. + +"Vesty!" + +She turned, chidden, but with a sort of wilful content. + +My heart bounded as I limped down the steps. I smiled to myself, safe +in the dark, sardonically. Make what you will of it, with other men +she was strong, womanly, serene; with me, she had the sweet grace to +show weakness. + +The carriage bounded over the paving-stones and stopped at my hotel. +The driver lifted his hat obsequiously. I, with sardonic smile, +entered the hotel, where I was not unknown. No doubt was made as to +the character of my apartments. + +I rested sumptuously, but could not sleep. + +"How was he now, who lay stricken yonder? Had he known her, or would +those rare blue eyes be lifted to her too, unrecognizing, and so break +her heart?" + +Eyes once seen, to haunt one, the handsomest in form and color and +expression that I had ever seen in human head. + +Now I saw them again, as I had first seen them at the meeting in the +Basin school-house; the firm, brown hand grasping the sailor's bonnet; +eyes omnipotent with health and joy, casting their mischievous, +beautiful glances over toward Vesty--she, patient, struggling, with her +holy look! + +And the Basin wind blew in through the cracked windows, and a bird flew +upward: + + "Softly through the storm of life, + Clear above the whirlwind's cry"-- + + +It all resolved itself into that at last; the human voice crying +upward, shivering, like the bird's flight; but with sure aim now! + +I saw how it was at the first look at Vesty's face, when I called the +next morning. + +Notely, waking once, had not known her among the group of doctors and +attendants; only stared at her as one of them, kindly, vaguely. + +But, for the most part, he slept in weary bliss. Once, later, they +thought her face had awakened some old memory. + +"The school-house--is growing--dark," he murmured, in indistinct, +half-recovered speech, then fell off again into his soundless slumbers. + +The doctors knew. I knew. The mother read no hope. + +"He has so much to leave," she sobbed, turning ever to Vesty, who, numb +with sorrow, yet tried to comfort her. + +So much to leave!--but who knows ever to how much going! Not so Mrs. +Garrison. The bright way ended at this pass, in blank darkness. + +And Notely slept on, wearied, heedless; soft, luxurious trappings of +life all about him; his reconciled young wife; his hope now of an heir +for his name and fortune; the work he had struggled at last so +unrestingly to do; and the dear, lost love of his youth, Vesty, bending +over him. + +Leaving them, not able to be heedful, so deep-wrapped in unknown +dreams. Waking once more and turning from them vaguely (ah, the +sublime, unconscious contempt of death!); turning from them vaguely, as +though in some far Basin the dawn were breaking! + +"Uncle Benny," said he, holding out his wasted hand, "the school-house +is very dark--I'll go home now." + + * * * * * * + +So Vesty's heart was broken in her, and to me she came, as to a father, +or more as to a friendly, favoring ghost. + +"Take me back to the Basin!" + +"Yes." + +She sat in a kind of patient apathy, numb, her heart faithful with the +dead. + +"How little Gurd will call for you when he sees you again!" I spoke; +but to waken her was to bring such a torrent of tears, choking, she +entreated me not. + +But, "It is well, I believe," I said to her; "there is life enough! Be +sure he does not lack for life. What! do you think we have found the +best of it, and all of it, here? I imagine God has enough! It is not +because His bread fails Him that any go hungry, or because He lacks for +gold that any are poor, but only for His purpose--we must guess--and +when the poor, shattered school-house grows dark the light breaks +elsewhere." + +Vesty had not slept for two nights; the sweet face was haggard. + +Again passing among crowds of restless, hurrying life, faces cold and +strange, or often staring curiously, the haunted look of one lost came +again into her eyes. + +"I must go and take care of Gurd," she said, "as well as I can, while I +live. O God! I hope he never may get lost, out in the world." + +"No; how could he, in God's world?" + +"When we get back to the Basin then you will be tired of staying there +in the bleak and cold. You will never wait for me to pay you; you will +laugh at me, and you will go back to the world." + +"Vesty!" + +Wearily she turned her heavy eyes on me--a ghost; there was the forced, +unconscious cry in them of the child, or even of the woman. + +Sacredly I shielded their glance, and ghostly; it was as though I had +not seen. + +"You mistake my courage. There is no winter," I said, smiling, "strong +enough to drive me from the Basin." + + + + +XXII + +"NEIGHBORIN'" + +Vesty never said "Stay!" but that unconscious look in her eyes made a +sort of forlorn fireplace of hope to me, desolate, open to all the +winds. As God wills. I wait. + +I went often to Captain Leezur; the nervine lozenges were potent. + +"We all'as dew neighbor a great deal in winter," said he approvingly, +stretching those dear felts before the blaze. + +"Is that a piece of the log we used to sit on?" I inquired mournfully. + +"Wal, neow! I r'a'ly believe ye feel a kind o' heart-leanin' to'ds +her, don't ye?" + +"How can I help it?" + +"Sartin! sartin!" said he, delighted; "we're jest like twin-brothers. +But neow don't you werry one mite. She 's done a good werk an' she 's +returnin' to Natur's God. I've got another one 't I'm goin' to roll +deown, first hint o' spring. I don't calk'late ever to be feound, like +them wise an' foolish virgins, without no log to set on." + +"Thar 's somethin' abeout a log," continued Captain Leezur; "when ye go +inter the heouse in warm weather, an' sets deown in a cheer, the women +kind o' looks at ye as though you was sick or dreffle lazy; but when +ye're eout settin' on a log ye feels as though God was on yewr side, +an' man nor woman wa'n't able to afflict ye. They 's a depth an' a +ca'm to the feelin' of it, 't them 't sets on fringe an' damarsk sofys +don't know nothin' abeout." + +"You must have required a great deal of oil in sawing up the old log, +captain," I said. + +The captain gave the restful sigh of battles overpast. + +"Mebbe you think 't the drippin's o' one skunk did it," said he; "but +they didn't. Did ye ever think," he resumed, "o' what a wonderful +thing ile is, an' what 'd we dew without 'er?--heow the wringin' +machine 'ud seound when ye was turnin' on 'er for yer wife, Monday +mornin's?" + +"No," said I sadly. + +"Then ag'in, it 's ile in yer natur' keeps ye ca'm an' c'llected, an' +it's ile in yer dispersition l'arns ye t' say, 'Moderation 's the rewl, +even in passnips.'" + +Lubricated with a sense of peace and blessing, I arose. + +"Ye're jest like me," gurgled Captain Leezur; "ye don't feel easy in a +cheer! Ye wanter be eout on the old log, don't ye?" + +"Yes," said I. "This isn't quite like." + +"We're nateral twin-brothers!" he exclaimed, following me to the door. +There he looked cautiously backward. + +"Dew you remember what I said to ye once," said he, "on the subject o' +kile?" + +"Ahem!--female affection?" I inquired gently. "Yes." + +"Some calls it that," said my twin-brother, beaming on me, "and some +calls it kile. Wal, neow, ef a sartin person shows a dispersition to +kile, let 'em! Let 'em," said Captain Leezur, irradiating my thin +being with the glory of his countenance; "let em." + +"Ah," said I, and shook my head again sadly, "I think more and more we +will have to go our pilgrimage without that, my friend." + +"Neow you look a' here," said Captain Leezur. "I ain't a-sayin' +nothin', that they will or that they won't, but if they dew, let 'em. +Did ye ever think o' what a heap o' wisdom there is in a poor old +bean-pole? + +"Mornin' glory comes up an' looks at it. Bean-pole stands up stiff, +without no feelin's: don't look at 'er, nor bend over an' kiss 'er, nor +nothin'. Mornin' glory don't git skeered, an' she peouts out a lot o' +leaves an' tenderls an' begins to kile. Bean-pole takes a chaw o' +terbakker an' looks off t'other eend o' the field t' see what the +pertater crop 's goin' to be. Mornin' glory peouts out more leaves an' +blossoms, an' keeps a-kilin'. By 'n' by thar ain't no poor old +God-forsaken bean-pole standin' there--it 's all one mess o' kile an +mornin' glory! + +"I tell ye, major, we need once in a while for t' l'arn a lesson from +natur'. I ain't a-goin' to press ye to stay longer, for I know ye +wanter go neighborin'!" + +Dazzled, I turned away from the refulgent keenness of his wink. + +But I did not take the direction that wink had indicated. I had an +invitation, not from Vesty, but from the two most ancient of the Basins +to tea, and I stopped in, a solitary and thoughtful bean-pole, at +Captain Pharo's on the way. + +The music-box was playing. I was glad to hear that; a tune in +undertone, like waves slowly, softly breaking. + +"She used ter play fifteen different tunes when we first had her," said +Captain Pharo pensively; "but she got to squeakin', an' so we had +Leezur up to ile 'er, an' ever sence she 's played one tune fifteen +times! Poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass--'] + +Shouldn't care so much, though, ef 'twas only 'The Wracker's Darter.' + +"I've threatened a good many times to overhaul her myself, but I ain't +no knowledge o' instermental music, and I s'pose I might spend a week +on 'er, and not combine 'er insides up to playin' no 'Wracker's +Darter,' arter all. Hohum! + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r.] + + +At each successive pause the organs of the music-box wheezed, +struggled, almost faintly let go of life, then began again the +undertone, of waves softly breaking. + +"I like it," I said. "I like it wonderfully." + +Captain Pharo gave me a keen look and went to the door and winked. I +was no longer supine under such invitations. I rose and followed him. +"Look a' here, major," said he, when we were alone, coughed. "My foot +'s 'most well." + +"I am glad of it, captain." + +"Look a' here, major," said he, desperately, "what makes you so took up +with that 'ere monotonous tune in thar? I'm afeered I may 'a' misled +ye, times past, with regards to female grass." He coughed again and +lit his pipe. I waited. + +"'Specially," he groaned, "some things I may h've said with regards to +red and white clover." + +Still I waited. + +"Look a' here, major, when anybody sets down 'n' admires to sech a +monotonous tune as that in thar, thar's somethin' the matter with 'em." + +Still I would not speak. Tears almost were in his eyes. + +"Now I may h've said some things on partickaler pesterin' 'casions in +times past, but in general my verdick--hohum!--is fav'rable to female +grass; 'specially--hohum! hohum!--wal, wal, ye knows my meanin', +major--'specially with regards to red and white clover: hohum! how 's +Vesty?" + +The captain gave a sigh that would have exculpated him from the gravest +of crimes, and looked steadfastly toward the west. + +"I haven't seen her to-day." + +"Ye'll think it over, won't ye, major?" said he, still with that far +withdrawn vision. + +"Well, yes; I'll think it over." + +I had proceeded but a little way when he called me back. + +"I had it on my mind to tell ye," said he, "when I heered 't ye'd been +'nvited down t' Aunt Gozeman's and Aunt Electry's t' tea; ef they give +ye some o' their green melon an' ginger persarves, do ye manage to +bestow 'em somewhar's without eatin' of 'em, somehow. They're amazin' +proud an' ch'ice of 'em, an' ye don't want to hurt their feelin's, but +ye'd better shove 'em right outer the sasser inter yer britches pocket +'n eat 'em--leastways that 's the way they 'fected me." + +Visions of a past mortal suffering flitted across Captain Pharo's face. + +"I'll try," I said. + +"Ef thar 's melon an' ginger persarves settin' by yer plate, d'ye ask +them two old women, in some kind of genteel s'ciety ructions sort o' a +way, ter go outer the room an' git ye somethin', an' soon 's they've +gone d'ye jump up an' thring a shawl over that darn' parrot o' theirn +'t stands there noticin' 'an' swearin', an' chuck 'em in over behind +the wood-box or somewhar's, but don't eat 'em." + +"All right," I said, as he shook my hand with suggestive earnestness +once more in parting. + +The sisters, by mutual adoption, not by birth, lived together in the +"Laury Gleeson;" the sign of a wrecked schooner nailed up over their +shanty door. + +"And why not? We be all a-sailin', been't we?" said Aunt Electry, who +was ninety years old, lighting her pipe; "only I wish 't some 't 's +sailin' solitary had mates 't 's fit for 'em--how is Vesty?" + +"I don't know," I began, afflicted with a sort of lightness of head. I +wanted to take out Uncle Benny's pocket-mirror that I carried with me +now. Was I beautiful, and tall, and fair? What had happened me! + +"Lectry 's a great girl for straight-for'ard langwidge," said Miss +Gozeman kindly, pitying my confusion; she was only eighty and did not +smoke. + +They led me out more nimbly, almost, than I could follow, to show me +the "stock"--some forlorn, fantastic stumps of trees, long dead, all +whitewashed with tender art! the pet coon, the tame crow, the wicked +goat. + +There was another treasure; who, as we came in and sat down to tea, +eyed me from his cage with grudging and disfavor: it was the parrot; +and I presume injunctions were upon him to keep still, but I did not +know. + +"Does he talk?" I Inquired kindly. + +He snapped viciously at the cage. + +"A friend 't had him on shipboard gave him to us long ago," explained +Miss Gozeman, with gentle evasion; "we ain't ever been able to break +him of it." What the habit was of which they had not been able to +break him I sadly inferred. + +There was a munificent dish of the green melon and ginger preserves by +my plate. I was chatting with my friends, and at the same time +meditating what to do, when the tame crow, who had slyly entered the +house behind us and stolen Miss Gozeman's spectacles, was now +discovered through the window hastening to hide them in the chip-pile. + +My entertainers trotted nimbly out after him. I rose, and, lifting the +cover of the stove, dashed in the contents of my saucer--when I was +startled by a shrill voice and a mocking laugh. + +"Oh, I see ye! I'll tell!" + +I had forgotten to cover the parrot. + +"You are no gentleman if you do!" I retorted, forgetting with whom or +what I was talking. + +"Shut up!" said the parrot, and laughed. "I see ye, d--n ye! I'll +tell!" + +At all events I turned, with the intention of going out to assist the +ladies in their search for the spectacles, when the scene through the +window held me for a moment spellbound. + +The crow, having accomplished his mischievous device, was perched near +by, gravely regarding the search of the two estimable and time-honored +women, who were peering with their faces near the earth, and their +backs turned unconsciously; when the cherished goat, creeping +maliciously up, made a rush at them from the rear, and pitched them +both into the chip heap. + +This unspeakably base proceeding had the result, however, of +discovering to them the glasses, with which they soon after entered, +smiling. + +"Bill often hides our glasses," said Aunt Electry. + +"Does the goat often bunt you over?" I inquired, with dismay. + +"Shut up!" said the parrot, at the sound of my voice. "Oh, I see ye! +I'll tell!" + +My kind friends gave him a sharp glance, but considerately did not look +at me. They saw my emptied preserve plate, however, and concluding +that I had taken advantage of their absence the more greedily to gorge +myself on its contents, they generously piled it full again of what +they imagined to be the same coveted substance. + +Seeing this, the parrot shrieked with fiendish joy. + +"Indeed it is excellent----" I began. + +"Oh, stow your gab!" sneered the parrot, in a suddenly gruff bass voice. + +Aunt Electry rose and stamped her foot at him. + +"He only knows what he 's been taught long ago--by a friend," said Aunt +Gozeman reassuringly; "he can't--tell anything new, right out!" + +All the crime they imputed to me then was gluttony in the matter of +preserves! Very well; I preferred that. + +"They were really so delightful," I began, with the natural reaction +from my qualms. + +"Oh, wur-r-r!" interrupted that horrible grating voice, and then +laughed high and loud. + +The sisters in affliction rose and bore the cage out into the shed But +I heard oaths and cackles of malicious intention fired at me through +the door. + +"Sing 'We be a-sailin',' sister," said Aunt Electry, when we had +retired again to the fireside. + +Miss Gozeman obediently began, in a soft, timid tremulo. + +"We are _eout_ on the ocean _sail_ing," came in mocking, strident +accents from the wood-shed; "Oh, h--ll! give us a rest!" But dear Aunt +Gozeman sang right on, smiling pitifully: + + "'To our home beyond the tide.'" + + +Ah, what tides! what tides had been in these two lives! And stranded +here for a little, how they cherished with a great heart of compassion +the dead trees that bore them no fruit, loving and pitying the wicked +parrot that mocked at them, the crow that stole from them, the goat +that upset them. + +My own notions of charity seemed so little and mean in comparison. + +"Ask me again," I pleaded; "I have been so seldom invited to tea. I +have enjoyed it." + +Even the fate of the green melon and ginger preserves lay hard on my +awakened conscience. But I made up for that. Not for this winter nor +any winter, so long as they live, should Aunt Electry or Aunt Gozeman +want either for preserves or less brilliant condiments. + +Indeed, I play at making home and occupation, and they of the Basin are +to me as my sheep through this wild, strange winter; and I as their sly +shepherd--sly, like Captain Leezur. + +All except Vesty. To her child I can make gifts, unknown, through my +stanch friend, Lunette, even of food and clothing, but not to her. The +old frayed shawl is grander than any ermine, and the goddess' chest is +erect and broad; the winter will not kill her--but I have gazed sadly +in the mirror, and I go often to Captain Leezur. + + + + +XXIII + +THE "FLAG-RAISIN'," OR "THE OCCASION" + +"If there 's any fun going on," frankly admits Mrs. Kobbe, "you'll +all'as find me up an' dressed!" Perhaps I sympathize more truly with +her kind-hearted spouse, who says with a deep sigh: "We mustn't be +tackiturn jest because the wind's off the snow-banks." + +So I go to the flag-raising. + +"The Crooked Rivers and Capers have had their flag up these three +weeks," said Lunette; "and I heard how the Artichokes had h'isted +theirn yesterday. When the Artichokes have got their flag up, seems as +though the Basins had better be thinkin' o' what time it is in the +mornin'!" + +"What is the flag to be raised for?" I inquired, with unsuspecting +innocence. + +There was an afflicted silence; still they loved me. Lunette alone +answered at last, turning to Tyson, not to me. + +"I should think it 's enough to have a flag-raisin' without a-askin' +what it is for!" said she. "What does trees grow for? What does +anything in natur' act the way it does for?" + +I, ever safe anchored behind Lunette's championship, looked out +securely at the derelict Tyson, to see if he could answer. He could +not, but was abashed. Still I so far appropriated the hint, wisely and +delicately delivered, that I made no further inquiries, only giving +myself unhesitatingly to the joy of preparation. + +The flag was to be raised over the school-house, and instead of wending +our way dissonantly thither, as was our habit in attending the +meetings, we were to go in procession! + +A curious awe attached to this idea, in which I fully shared, as, being +formed in line, I tried to limp martially behind the valiant Lunette. + +"Halt, by clam!" said our general. + +"What is it?" came in whispers along the line. + +"Jakie Teel" (one of the sculpins) "'s got his trousers on hind side +afore!" + +"Flory dressed him by candlelight this mornin', so 't she could get +time to make three loaves o' angel-cake for the flag-raisin'." + +The victim of this mysterious adventure was led away by his mother for +reaccoutrement, while we as a regiment waited patiently for his return +to warlike rank and file. + +"If these condummit ructions are over," said our general--for the wind +was blowing cold--"forwards ag'in, by clam!" and we marched upon the +schoolhouse; but we encountered so many difficulties, of wayward ropes, +in hoisting our ensign, that Captain Pharo declared, rubbing his +chilled hands: + +"'T we'd omit the usual cheerin' 'tell we'd been in and thawed out--ef +they was any thaw to us--leastways baited." + +Vesty was there with the rest, munching a slice of angel-cake--fit food +for her! I smiled kindly upon her, but did not forget that I was an +indifferent bean-pole. + +"Major!" cried the Basin, toward the close of the repast, with its +mouth sweet and full--"Major, a speech! a speech!" + +Now I had a heart given to the Basin, with a simple thought or two, and +I requisitioned the best of my forces for the "Occasion," conscious of +my morning glory there--oh, she of the skies! munching angel's food. + +Whatever I had said or done, moreover, the Basin would have applauded; +yet such cheers as I heard now left no doubt upon my too-willing and +plastic sense of a phenomenal and hitherto unsuspected ability. + +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, starting to his feet, "will you +start--start--start--anything?" + +"We always _do_ sing + + "'In the prison cells I set, + Thinking, mother dear, of you,' + +to flag-raisin'," said the ever well-informed and officious Lunette. + +"Somehow," said Captain Pharo, shrugging his shoulders, "thar 's too +much of a sea-rake blowin' acrost the back o' my neck t' sing 'Prison +Cells;' 'tain't clost enough for it here. What d'ye say to 'Hold the +Fort'?" + +What they said was unanimous. Even Captain Leezur knew it, and the +sculpins, of terrible voice. It was sung with such complete personal +abandonment to strong oral gifts that, at the second verse, the +remaining quota of plastering upon the school-house roof became +loosened and fell with a crash upon the head of that very unfortunate +sculpin who under other blighting circumstances had been forced to +undergo temporary absence from our ranks in the morning. + +He uttered a mature sea-oath, and was again marched violently from our +presence by his mother; but I was happy to see that he returned soon +afterward and renewed his portion of the song with a gusto which the +added quality of defiance now rendered deafening, while through all our +din sounded true the flute of Vesty's sweet voice. + +"We mustn't forgit the occasion, I s'pose," said Captain Pharo, our +general, at length. "Poo! poo! hohum! I s'pose it's about time we was +thinkin' o' goin' out to cheer the flag. Forwards, by clam! Poo! poo! +hohum! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass--'"] + + +"Sh!" said Mrs. Kobbe, deftly getting audience at his ear. + +"Ladies an' gentlemen an' childern," said Captain Pharo, taking his +place beside the flag; "we've h'isted of 'er, an' here she blows"--he +put his hand in his pocket for his pipe, and drew from his vest a match. + +Mrs. Kobbe coughed loudly, and even shook her head at him: he put them +back. + +"We have h'isted on 'er," he continued, "an' here she blows!" + +Mrs. Kobbe's cough of deeper warning and high-mounting blushes on his +account nerved him. + +"We've h'isted of 'er," he shouted with desperate defiance, "and thar +she blows, don't she, by clam! on the full, the free, the glorious, an' +the ever-lastin' h'ist!" + +A sturdy round of applause was not wanting, but on this point Mrs. +Kobbe was visibly sceptical: she received her lord with sniffs of +disdain. + +"'The full, the free, the glorious, an' the ever-lastin' h'ist'!" said +she. "Where was you eddicated, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?" + +"It don't make but darn little difference whar ye've been eddicated," +replied Captain Pharo, "when ye're tryin' to make a speech, an' one o' +them devil-fish boys goes around behind ye an' snaps a live lobster +onto the slack o' yer britches!" + +Giggles from a school of sculpins safe hidden somewhere lent further +aggravation to the dilemma. + +"Jakie Teel an' Pharie Kobbe, Junior, 'll come to judgment," cried Mrs. +Kobbe, in a loud voice, "'specially Pharie Kobbe as soon 's ever he +gits home," whereat giggling from that miscreant quarter ceased, and +she relieved her lord of his painful embarrassment. + +But at this point a new and surprising development arose. The Basin +horses attached to some wholesale herring-boxes, extemporized as +sleighs, were driven to the scene. Captain Pharo, with heart-whole joy +at the sight, lit his pipe and declared, with now beaming countenance: + +"It has been arranged, to crown this happy 'casion, for all our +unmarried Basins over sixteen year o' age, not forgettin' widders under +forty, to have a sleigh ride. Elder Skates'll reel off the names, +accordin' to which you can pile yerselves in accordin'ly, two 'n' two, +side by side, thus 'n' so, male an' female, created He them!" + +Flushed with inspiration, Captain Pharo glanced triumphantly at his +wife, who, at this more than Pentateuchal illustration, refused to +sneer. + +So absorbed was I in watching the gleeful embarkation, and so little +dreamed I of being considered in a case like this, it had not even +occurred to me that I too was an unmarried Basin widely over sixteen +years of age, and yet a little under forty, when-- + +To the choicest seat in the very largest herring-box, the back of which +was stylishly bedizened by the splendors of the star bedquilt, I heard +my own name called: + +"Major Paul Henry and the Widder Rafe!" + +Who and where was the Widow Rafe? Lo! Vesty stepped out. To be +sure--the formal, the flag-raising, the "Occasion" name of Vesty! + +I led her to her place, but, as for me, I sat down, lost to mortal +woes, silent and dazed, among the stars. + +"Didn't you want to sit with me?" said Vesty, her face rather grave. + +"Oh, why do you ask that?" + +"You looked, when they called our names, as though you didn't want to." + +Now I tried to dwell upon the words of Captain Leezur, but, however +callous I succeeded in appearing on the outside, at heart I was a +happy, happy bean-pole. + +"I was stunned," I said. "Besides, you see, I did not expect to be +invited." + +"Why not, Major Henry?" + +Oh, the beautiful Basin! the beautiful Basin! I tried to speak, but +could not. + +"You never seemed before," said she, a sea-shell color glowing in her +cheeks, "to feel above us!" + +She felt humbled, and my poor brain was too dizzy and incredulous to +frame fitting words. I swallowed hard; that was a Basin prerogative, +and by exerting it a direct Basin inspiration seemed to come to me. + +"Feel above you! O Vesty!" + +At that the sea-shell color went away down low, even to her lips, but +no further illumination came to me. + +Past ghostly hill and moor and still-gleaming flood we flew. "I am +happy," I could say at last, "as I ought not to be. In all scenes and +places where I may ever be I shall remember this, Vesty." + +She shivered a little. Ah! the sad old shawl! I clinched my hands. + +Past hill and moor and still-gleaming flood: the light of day changed +to one unfathomed, possible, as of sweet, unspoken dreams becoming +blessed at nightfall. + +Then all at once, round and full above a distant hill-top, rose the +hoyden moon, and the Basins saluted her with shouts of natural delight, +all save Vesty and I, who were silent. + +Now, I saw, was the hour when each Basin put his arm about his girl. I +could not have touched my girl, not under all the rollicking moonbeams +that ever fired the heart of youth and man. Farther she seemed to me +than that far white hill-top, glittering and high. + +Yet it pierced me that it was a gloomy ride for her. "It was good and +kind of them," I said, "to place a poor old fellow like me here beside +you; but you should have one of those rosy, handsome lads with you; you +so young, though we forget it. Your life is yet to live." + +At the reproach in her eyes--a look of anger, too, but for its wild and +dark distress--my heart had almost leaped to my lips. + +But--too merry the rollickers, who had fallen behind us, driving on the +homeward road; there had been several laughing, reckless adventures of +overturned herring-boxes in the snow-drifts; now the pole attached to +one of these had broken; the frightened horses had cleared themselves +and were veering madly on the narrow road, with the swinging cross-bar, +toward that side of the sled where my girl sat, unconscious of the +danger, still and pale. + +I sprang, fell in a heap, but rose again somehow; and now at last I put +up my arm. It was not without strength--in this case more than mortal +strong--still, in the end, I fell. + +When I came to myself we were still flying through the wild, +swift-changing scene, homeward bound; one of my hands was numb, and my +wrist bandaged, and my head--was on Vesty's shoulder! We were in right +Basin fashion now, only by needs it was Vesty's arm that was about me. + +"Am I dead, Vesty?" said I, half believing it in my bliss; besides, I +had ever a great appreciation of the Irish humor. + +"Oh, don't, major; don't!" said Vesty; "you saved me from getting +terribly hurt, they say--or----" + +"Ugh!" I groaned. + +"Your poor arm!" said she. "Oh, the pain!" + +"Nothing pains me," said I. + +"Your arm wasn't broken, major; but it 's terribly bruised and +sprained." + +"And my neck, Vesty--you are sure that was not broken?" + +She sighed, but since I was bent, she followed my humor. + +"Never fear," said this demure young woman; "that 's too proud ever to +get a twist." + +Here was a dilemma--that I should be developing into a wit and Vesty +into a coquette! + +"Well," said I, "I must try and straighten myself up again," and with +that endeavor the pain did cut me so cruelly I fainted, quite without +any maiden affectation, back again on to Vesty's arm. + +"Try and think," said she, when I could hear her voice, "that I am some +old woman, just trying to take care of you--somebody not disagreeable +to you, and keep still till we get home." + +"Very well," said I, tormenting myself with the thought that she was +acting under some compelling sense of obligation; and that should never +be. + +So I answered briefly all at once; and no sooner had I spoken than I +endured a gnawing consciousness that I was the hatefullest thing that +had escaped extermination that night. I kept still, however; the pain +was something to dread. + +At least I had my beautiful mother's hair, thick and curling; that was +all Vesty could see now there on her shoulder. I comforted myself with +that thought as a child. I was weak, and I let some tears roll down my +face that Vesty could not see. + +When the strong fellows took me out of the sleigh and bore me very +gently up to the door they stopped there for a moment, while I +wondered; and if any bitter sense of their physical supremacy pierced +me at that moment it ceased forever, as with a preconcerted signal from +the foremost they lifted the caps from their heads and cheered my name, +thrice and again, and again, with ringing cheers--and Vesty standing by! + +The old Basin flag--almost as dilapidated as I--had heard nothing like +it; but when they dressed the swollen arm pain sent me off into +oblivion again. Vesty's was the last face I saw bending over me: + +"Do you"--timidly--"do you want me to come to-morrow, and see how you +are?" + +"Oh, if you will--thank you! Still, I am all right--I shall be all +right, never fear." + +She lingered still a moment, but spoke calmly: + +"If you don't care anything about me why did you risk your life to save +me from getting hurt?" + +A demon possessed me. Pity I could have endured, but if she were stung +on by that inflicted sense of gratitude? + +"Why did you risk your life to save me?" + +"Oh, it was _pity_, child," I answered her; the surging bitterness +within made it almost a sneer--"natural human pity: it is strong in all +my race." + +She looked at me with a beautiful sorrow, and as though she called me +proudly, to a better contempt of myself. + +"I wish you had a mother," said she then, and flushed, the holy eyelids +low, pinning the old shawl--"as it is, I don't know what to say." + + + + +XXIV + +THE STORY OF THE SACRED COW + +Vesty came next day at evening, but she took pains to be found in +company with almost the entire Basin. + +I was so much better that I was able to be about and receive my guests; +at sight of Uncle Coffin even the maimed hand seemed to tingle +healthily. He marched me to a chair with an ostentation of violence, +that really treated me, however, with the softest gentleness, and sat +me down. + +"Dodrabbit ye!" he cried, standing off and regarding me. "What ye been +a-doin' of, you young smashin', slashin', cavortin'-all-around young +spark, you!" + +"Well," said I, naturally feeling rakish after this, "I will tell you. +Miss Pray had a brood of chickens come off unseasonably to-day, who +desired particularly and above all things, having taken a general +outlook on life, not to live. Under Miss Fray's directions I have been +amusing myself with trying to defeat that purpose. I have watched for +any signs of hope in their world-disgusted eyes, dipped their unwilling +beaks in food, put chips upon their backs to help them maintain an +earthly equilibrium--so little desired by them, however, that oftener +they have toppled over and turned their infantile legs entreatingly +upward; but I have conquered; they live." + +"Wal, neow," said Captain Leezur, my chiefest admirer, "ef you ain't a +case to describe anything in natur'! Ef I had you areound I shouldn't +never want no dagarrier of a sick chicken, for you'd call 'em right up +afore me!" + +I murmured my low thanks, blushing as usual under flattery. + +Vesty was talking brilliantly with some of the company, quite away from +me. She had a bright, disdainful look, when I chanced to glance that +way, new to her, but quite befitting--ah me! ah me!--some lady one +might dream of, of high, disdainful quality. + +"Ain't he a case neow to describe anything in natur'?" joyfully +reiterated Captain Leezur to Uncle Coffin. + +Uncle Coffin, with his hands on his knees, shook his head at me, +finding no words quite to the mark. + +"Dodrabbit ye!" said he; "you sly young dog, you!" + +"That's what I tell him!" rippled the deep-gurgling brook of Captain +Leezur's voice; "we're jest like nateral twin-brothers. Only," he +added tenderly and gravely, "he ain't nigh so ongodly as I use' ter be." + +"Ongodly! Why, dodrabbit ye, Leezur!" said this native Artichoke, "ye +never done an ongodly thing in yer life--'cept, maybe," he added, "to +cuss a little when ye was fishin' for the bucket." + +"'Specially," said Captain Leezur intelligently, "when the women folks +has been thar afore ye, r'ilin' the water and jabbin' of her furder +deown." + +Uncle Coffin gave me an irresistible but a loving and true, not a +malicious, wink. + +"Speakin' o' women folks, Leezur," said he, "is there any news from +Lot's wife?" + +Captain Leezur cleared the mellow symphonies of those organs through +which he intoned his speech; and was about to reply, fully and sweetly, +when Captain Pharo made his appearance at the door. + +Uncle Coffin sprang from his chair, and with a grave face, which only +later broke out into those beams of affection which were storming his +bosom, shook him violently by the collar, dragged him across the floor, +and set him in a chair by the fireplace with a loud, conclusive thump. + +"Dodrabbit ye, man!" said he, "I hain't heered your voice since I was a +baby." + +Captain Pharo, with a countenance full of delight and sympathy, pulled +his ruffled jacket down nearer to the waist line, and lit his pipe. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" continued Uncle Coffin, and turned from his pet +to me with another wink, "what are yer days like now? They ain't like +the grass, are they? I b'lieve they are, jest like the same old grass, +or like the morning flower, the blighting wind sweeps o'er. She +withers in an'--why don't ye never finish on 'er out, Pharo? Why don't +ye never ring the last note on 'er--eh?" + +"Because, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with a smile of deep meaning, +"because thar's so many things that when they're onct finished they 're +completely done for in this world; eat a meal o' vittles and thar 's +the end on't; smoke a pipe an' she runs dead; I like t' have one thing +left over. I like to feel, Coffin, by clam! 't thar's somethin' 't +thar ain't go'n' to be no end on!" + +Uncle Coffin had been studying him attentively, with his hands on his +knees. + +"Kobbe," said he, "you're a philosoffarer." + +Captain Pharo wiggled uneasily. + +"I don't say hippopotamar nor rhinosossarer," said Uncle Coffin; "I say +philosoffarer." + +Captain Pharo drew a strange breath of relief. + +"Mebbe we're a little alike in that respec'," Captain Leezur assured +him deliciously; "'cept 't he ain't nigh so ongodly as I use' ter be." + +"I don' know," said Captain Pharo. "I have worked sometimes, +Sundays--poo! poo! hohum!--but not 'less 'twas somethin' 'mportant, +gettin' in hay or somethin' like that. And I have--poo! poo! hohum! +Wal, wal--hauled out my lobster car sometimes Sundays waitin' for the +smack--hohum!" + +"Pharo," said Uncle Coffin, holding up his finger, "no more! I know +ye. Thar ain't an ongodly bone in yer body--'cept maybe when ye've +lost yer pipe an' cussed a little." + +"An' the women folks wants to haul ye over somewhar's on a flat sea to +have yer gol darn pictur' took!" said Captain Pharo, with poignant +recollection of a still unquiet grief. + +"Kobbe," said Uncle Coffin, "no more!" + + "'I know not why I love her, + The fair an' beau'chus she; + She bro't the cuss upon me, + Und'neath the apple-tree: + But she asked me for my jack knife, + And halved 'er squar' with me, + Sence all'as lovely woman + Gives the biggest half to thee.'" + + +"Judah's wife writ that," exclaimed Captain Pharo, with a generic awe +of poetry as poetry. + +"She did," said Uncle Coffin, with eyes appreciative of the muse fixed +gravely on the fire, "she did." + +There was a daughter of Eve who was treating me very severely. + +Instead of the old encouraging smile and gleam of merry recognition or +sympathy in her eyes, there was now an averted gaze, bent very +brightly, it seemed, on every one but me; in that direction alone, a +studied coldness, a haughty carriage of the head. What could I +expect?--but it broke my heart. + +I subscribed silently to the mood of Belle O'Neill, whose mind was +subject to vagaries, and who in the midst of the gay company was +playing weird, plaintive "revival" tunes upon the mouth-harp, +enthusiastically absorbed in her art. + +Her mistress, Miss Pray, who notably for some time had been receiving +the attentions of Pershal, the man who had been in California, had +withdrawn with him, with tacit understanding of apologies, to the +kitchen, where they were carrying on their courting, as all good Basins +should, undisturbed. + +The young people were playing a game of forfeits. I heard Vesty's +penalty pronounced; it was, to go and put her hand upon "the handsomest +man in the room." + +She began to move, with her lovely, erect head and brilliant, averted +smile, toward the fireplace. Surely she would not put any ignominy or +mockery upon me--ah, no! I knew in my heart. But she came nearer, and +I gazed, spellbound; and then she bowed her beautiful head with a +tender, laughing smile, and laid her hand on Captain Leezur's shoulder. + +"Here!" she said. + +Oh, how he laughed! Robins by the brook, and sun-sparkles. + +"That 's right, Vesty!" he exclaimed; "that 's right, darlin'. Come +and kile yourself areound them 't 's got some feelin's!" + +He winked at Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin. The sweet girl blushed +disdainfully--for some one--and, with a lingering touch on the dear +man's shoulder, went away. + +"I've all'as been kiled over a good deal," explained Captain Leezur +gently, with a smile the subtlety of which he sought in a measure to +hide. + +"And we mustn't forgit," he added, "that thar 's a time for all things +under the sun. Thar 's a time to be a bean-pole and thar 's a time to +kile." + +He winked at me; fearing that I had not understood, he winked still +broader; then, moving his back toward his two companions, he directed +full upon me a wink so vast and expressive that I endeavored at once to +signify my enlightenment by replying in kind; but, unpractised as I was +in the art, I could only infer what the unlovely aspect of my features +must have been from the look of sorrowful disgust which immediately +thereafter overspread Vesty's own. + +But it transpired that that look of disgust was not for me. It was for +Belle O'Neill, who, moved by another inspiration, had thoughtfully +abandoned her mouth-harp to creep through the surreptitious channel of +the wood-box and learn how Miss Pray and Pershal were progressing in +their courting. + +She returned with a face of excitement. + +"Be they j'indin' hands, or anything like that?" we asked. + +"No," said Belle O'Neill: "he told 'er winter pears was the pears for +him, an' she giv' him a slap an' started down suller to get a dish o' +fruit, an' he told 'er when she come back he was goin' ter tell her a +story 't he hadn't never told or dreamed o' tellin' to anybody but her; +he said he'd all'as kep' it to himself, 'cause folks 't hadn't been in +Californy was ign'runt an' env'ous, an' wouldn't believe nothin' 't was +told 'em, but he guessed she loved him well enough to b'lieve it; an' +he said the name of it was 'The Story o' the Sacred Cow!'" + +On uttering these words with a countenance of feverish eagerness and +expectation, Belle O'Neill unhesitatingly turned and crept back through +the passage. + +Not long afterward I found myself lifted bodily over into the wood-box, +and guided by the silent wake of Captain Pharo's pipe before, and +entreated gently by Uncle Coffin from behind, I crawled to the little +store-room adjoining the kitchen. + +The door was slightly ajar; and with whatever shame I have only to +record that I stood with delectation by this door and waited for the +Man-Who-had-Been-in-California to tell "The Story of the Sacred Cow." + +"Arter all, Jane," said he, plunging his knife into a choice pear, +"you'd orter seen the winter fruit we use' ter have in Californy!" + +Miss Fray's face fell. We heard Captain Pharo groan silently; +moreover, his pipe had gone out, and he dared not relight it. + +"I thought you was goin' to tell a new one--about the Sacred Cow?" said +Miss Pray. + +"So I will, Jane," said Pershal; "but the fact is, it 's sech a true, +sech a solemn an' myster'ous thing, that I fa'rly dread to tackle it!" + +Belle O'Neill would have gasped, had she dared. She kicked the calf of +my lame leg convulsively instead. + +"Thar's been a great many stories," continued Pershal, "about sacred +cows. Folks has claimed t' seen 'em. Circuses has claimed t' had 'em: +but the fact, an' the solemn fact, is, thar wa'n't never but one Sacred +Cow, and that was raised on my farm in Californy. + +"She was white, and nothin' monst'ous, jest about the size of an +ordinary cow"--Captain Pharo drew an inaudible sigh of relief--"it was +the intellex of her and the sacredness; wal, the go-to-meet'n-ness of +her, as ye might say, that was so monst'ous an' so strange that I +trem'le to call it up ag'in; but I've promised, an' I will." + +Belle O'Neill, pale in the darkness, stifled another gasp. + +"She wa'n't nothin' byordinar' as a calf; run an' gambil around with +the other calves, bunt everythin', an' shake her heels out with the +sinfullest. It was when she got to be a cow, and a old cow, that these +here ructions o' sacredness, as ye might say, begun to develop +themselves in her. + +"First I knew, she wouldn't eat nothin': we warmed her mess an' we +salted it; no, nothin' 'u'd do. We tried all manner o' gimcracks an' +fussin' with her. Finally says Jim--my man--say she: 'Perhaps she's +the Sacred Cow,' says he, laffin', an' went in an' got a hymn-book an' +sot it up afore her, and"--Belle O'Neill shivered--"what does the old +cow do but pitch in and eat her mess regalar! Minit we took that +hymn-book away or shet it up, she'd stop eatin'." + +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin nudged each other in voiceless agony. I +felt, but could not see, the calm irradiance of Captain Leezur's look. + +"Then another singalar thing begun to be noticed. All them 't drunk +the milk from her was took an' possessed to jine the church! I use' +ter send out peddlin' carts o' milk--for my ranch was the biggest in +that section--it use' ter be all mixed together in course, an' the +smallest elemunt o' that old cow's milk in it made it jest the same as +ef 'twas all hern. Sometimes I thought ser'ously whether I hadn't +ought to take her and go around an' start seasons o' special interest +with her all over the kentry; and then thinks I--no, I'll stay here and +I'll let 'em build new churches. So they kep' a-goin' up--three new +Baptis', four new Methodis', in a month's time." + +Captain Leezur was softly but strenuously sucking a nervine lozenge. I +heard Captain Pharo crunching one down stormily, at the same time one +was pressed into my hand. "They come high," whispered the beloved +voice; "cent apiece, dollar a hunderd, but----" + +"But the strangest and singalarest of it all, I didn't find out till +'long toward the last. I was a-milkin' on her one day, an' I spilled +the milk accidental, an' I said a word that I hadn't ort'er said. When +she heered that she up an' kicked me, an' I give her tail a yank, an' +she began to sing----" + +Belle O'Neill clutched me by the neck. + +"I don' say that she sung as Vesty doos. I don' say that she +pernounced the words jest regalar; but as fur as tune goes, she hit the +tune right squar' in the bull's eye every time. She sung: + + "'From Greenlan's icy mountings, + From Injy's coral stran', + Whar Aferk's sunny fountings + Roll down their goldin' san';'" + +And when she got as fur as that"--Pershall showed evidences of lively +distress--"she keeled right over an' died." + +"You've heered o' the tewn 't the old cow died on? Wal, that 's whar +it all started, Jane; right thar. That was the very cow and the very +event. It was _my_ old cow that died." + +"Give me sea-room here, by clam!" muttered Captain Pharo, shooting his +arms about. + +"Ef I b'lieved in gho's, I sh'd say 't your but'ry was harnted, Jane," +came from the kitchen the solemn and shifty voice of the +Man-Who-had-Been-in-California: "le's step around by the outside way to +the door whar the folks is. Jest look at the stars, Jane," he +continued, when they were safe out. "See anythin' o' my old cow up in +the Milky Way? Down in the southern latitude, whar I was, the Milky +Way use' ter be so plain some nights 't ye could see----" + +We lost it in the distance, as we returned, by the honorable and +legitimate highway now offered us, to the guest-room. "I never keered +so much about money in the bank," said Uncle Coffin, giving me a nudge; +"all 't I ever as't for was luck!" + +But I yearned in secret to know the developments of the Milky Way; +especially as the length of time absorbed by Pershal and Miss Pray in +walking between the two doors advised me with an only too tragic hint +of the marvel and interest I had lost. + +I could not wonder that Vesty was now loftier toward me than ever. +Uncle Coffin, Captain Pharo, Captain Leezur and I kept close together +as a sort of brazen and disgraceful community. Uncle Coffin, having to +retrace his steps to Artichoke, was the first to leave the party. + +"I can't tell ye, Miss Pray," said he, "how much I've enjiyed the +evenin'--no, honest, I can't tell ye!"--he winked at Captain Pharo, who +choked and had to resort to song--"but I und'stand thar 's a happy +event comin', an' I wish ye jiy; ye know I do!" + +As he disappeared down the road he indulged in a continued, loud, and +exact imitation of Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up (who was also a justice of +the peace, and who married people): + +"G'long, ye old fool! Git up, ye old skate!" + +At which we all, including Pershal and Miss Pray, laughed inordinately, +gazing out into the sweet Basin night; and indeed I was even ready to +avow with my life that it was a joke of the extremest savor. Even had +all Uncle Coffin's sins been known, he would have been forgiven. + +Captain Leezur put on Vesty's shawl for her: + +"Sence I'm the han'somest man in the room," he gurgled. + +"So you are!" The tender, girlish light of her great eyes was on him; +no kind look for me. + +"Vesty!" Captain Leezur whispered, but a whisper that could not be dark +and secret to save itself; I heard: "why don't ye speak to major? Ye +ain't spoke tew words tew him the hull endurin' evenin'." + +She darted a dark flash at him too. + +"Vesty! Vesty!" said the beloved old man, in that whisper that so +thoroughly deceived him--"I know 't I set ye up to this bean-pole +business. But it won't dew for both on ye to be bean-poles. One or +the other on ye 's got to kile. Neow, Vesty, ye know 't major 's got +some misfortin's in his looks 't makes him beound to be preoud; ye +wouldn't have him other ways. Ye see, Vesty, he don't know 't----" + +She stopped him with a haughty look. + +"An' in course," said he, "I don't know, neither. But it dews make me +feel dreadful t' think I've started sech a rank bean-pole farm as this, +when I've all'as told ye, my little gal, 't we'd ort'er use +moderation"--Captain Leezur wiped his blessed shining eyes--"moderation +in all things, even in passnips--I have said--an' neow I change it to +bean-poles." + +Vesty's mouth quivered; her eyes looked fit to enfold the whole sinful +world for his sake. + +"Good-night, major!" she said coldly; but she had spoken. And, +beautiful and tall, she passed out of sight. + +As Captain Leezur turned to me, in spite of the dark duplicity of his +conduct toward me, my heart gushed out to him unawares. I grasped his +hand silently. + + + + +XXV + +IN THE LANE + +I met her on the morrow in the lane. She would have passed me with a +mere morning salutation, but I spoke to her. "I will tell the story at +least," I thought, "before I go away." + +"Vesty," said I timidly. Even the handsomest of the Basins were timid +in putting the question; and I, so miserable, and believing it not to +be a question at all, but only a confession, was choking. + +"Yes, sir," said Vesty, with reassuring meekness, but there was +something wicked about her mouth and eyes. O Vesty, had you been of +the world I fear you would have been a sad one! + +"What did you mean," said I, starting in wise Basin fashion, at a +millennium distance from the intended point, "what did you mean, the +other night, when you said that you wished I had a mother?" + +"Oh, because we all need them, for comfort--and then, sometimes--for +correction." + +"And which did you think that I needed one for?" + +Vesty turned her sheathed eyes away toward the safe west with a smile +that gave me no other answer. + +"It is lifting to be a glorious day," I said. + +"If you want to talk about the weather," rippled the girl's voice, +quite gently, "why don't you go and sit on the log with Captain Leezur? +He rolled down another this morning." + +"I am going," I sighed. "What do you think he would tell me about the +weather?" + +"What we all say: 'The wind's canting in from the west, and you'll see +this fog hop.'" + +"It is what I say, and shall say forever, in such a case. 'The wind's +canting in from the west, and you'll see this fog hop.'" + +"You only pretend to be a Basin!" + +"God forgive you! No; I don't pretend. I shall never get over it. I +shall be one forever and ever, wherever I go, Vesty." + +She looked down and paled. "Are you going away, major?" + +"Yes." Then said I, looking at her, "How far do you think pity could +lead one, Vesty--you, so pitiful and kind? Do you think that it could +even lead you--to marry me? To take little Gurd and go away with +me--and help me to live--for pity?" + +"No! oh, no!" she gasped. + +"Then," said I, grasping hard on my cane with my feeble hand, "as God +wills!" + +"Because," said Vesty, "I'm not so unselfish as that. I can't marry +you for that reason--because--I love you!" + +The red of the Basin sunset, that would be by and by unsurpassed, +glowed in her cheeks. + +As for me--forever a Basin--I dashed my hand across my eyes. A Voice +above land and sea rolled toward me in that moment, through her voice, +in gathering waves that covered all the pitiful accident and despair of +a maimed, halting, birth-marked universe: + +"And the crooked places shall be made straight; and the rough places +plain. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart." + + + + +XXVI + +JUST THE SCHOOL-HOUSE + +Waves, slowly, softly breaking, not on the Basin shore: though ever, in +remotest lands, we dream of that. + +We hold it mystic more and more, for love of it!--ay, we have it +mingled in our thoughts with that one safe and sweet possession, the +Land unspoken, the Basin whose colors dawn at eventide! + +And we never count: "Such an one was lost," and, "Such an one was +living, when we knew." For there, there are none lost. They live +again! + +I suggested once that we should build a house fitting those grand +sea-cliffs, sometimes to occupy it. + +But Vesty, ever wise, was silent, troubled, and I read her thought. + +No, we should introduce no discordant element there, of liveries and +servants, and riches and seclusive walls, of _mine_ and _thine_. + +"Mine _is_ thine if thou needest it," was ever the Basin code: "even my +life!" Before such a spirit the admission of worldly wealth and rank +were tawdry. + +But Vesty communicates with them (dear to me when they arrive are the +stamps unutterably erased by Lunette's faithful art): and we know that +they are happier for us, and by us comforted. + +And do I never blush for Vesty in her new position? Ay, a thousand +times, for pride and joy! Her manners are from a high source indeed; +you will not find me any that are higher. + +Full are her hands of charity and mercy, given, as the great Founder of +our nobilities gave, without stooping, of condescension. Saint Vesta! +who gives a glory to my name it never had before--the high and noble +lady of my house! + +And love makes, as fully as may be in this world, security about her +steps, which yet it would not hamper. + +Driven in her state carriage, robed in velvet and sable, she is royal; +yet not so queenly, not so matchless, as when walking, pitiful, lonely, +and strong against misfortune, by the Basin shores, with her child +upheld upon her arm, and the old shawl. + +One evening I found her by the window, gazing out wistfully where the +wind was tossing the rain, which ceased now and then in strange +intermittent gusts, still wild of the tempest. + +She looked up at me with a smile, trustful, but earnest and pathetic. + +"I want to go out in the storm," she said. + +"Then go, child," I answered her. "Your possessions are wide, and, as +we of the Basin say, you are not made of sugar, to melt; neither," I +added, "are you like Lot's wife." + +She showed her fine teeth over that old tender and beloved +reminiscence, but the wistful look, and sad, was still in her eyes. + +"And--I would like to put on the old shawl again, just this once," she +said. + +"Oh," said I, "that is another thing. That is priceless, and I have +it, as you know, locked among my treasures. Still, this once, yes." +And I brought it to her. + +Still smiling at me, as pleading for her fancy, she held it at her +throat as of old. + +I made haste to resume my reading with seeming preoccupation apart, for +I thought she wished to go alone. + +"Aren't you coming?" said she, wistfully again, and paled and turned to +me. + +The look in her eyes--she wanted me! Oh, how my heart leaped--a trick +taught it at the Basin, which now it will never get over. + +But, sly as Captain Leezur, I hid my delight in the folds of my great +overcoat. + +Long we walked together. "What inspired you to this? This is best of +all," I said. + +"Why?" said Vesty, glowing and beautiful. + +"Because now I see again that you are 'Vesty.' And my Lady of M---- +was a possible dream always. But Vesty seemed unattainable. + +"That rose color," I added, looking at her cheeks, "I never saw +anywhere except at certain sunsets--you know where." + +For we of the Basin--however wilfully inclined sometimes, as Captain +Pharo--at heart bow down to our wives, and make love to them, long, +long after we are married: quite, indeed, until death do us part, as +all true Basins should. + +"Paul!" said Vesty. Now "Paul" was really my name, with considerable +before and after it, but never mind all that. + +"Paul!" + +"Well?" I said. + +Confused with the rose-color blushes: "I forgot," she murmured, "what I +was going to say." + +No, she had not forgotten it! Her face was eloquent; only she cannot +talk with that fluency with which she can look beautiful and sigh. +Especially when she would express anything of deep feeling, she has a +way of brushing a speck of dust from my right shoulder, and letting her +hand rest there a moment, that tells me worlds, but would not go for +much, I admit, on a smart female rostrum. + +But "Paul!" that voice creeps to me at all times, for counsel, for +sympathy; comes impulsively, that is the best of it--comes ever +impulsively. I do not know why I am so blessed among my fellows! Just +as the lad comes to me--he, too, of the highest breeding. I never saw +a look of wonder or shrinking on his face; and once, in an illness that +he had he clung to me, cried for me, even above his mother. + +I gave my heart to him then. When a sick child, with a mother like +Vesty, turns and clings to one--well, it is like to set one up. + +He quotes me, refers to me, defends me, apes all my mannerisms, and +struts with them proudly as clear legal type and documentary evidence. + +He has my name, Gurdon "Paul," with the rest: he is my heir. Handsome, +stalwart, as our race has notably been; loving, generous, fearless, all +that the world can give him will be his besides; tutors, splendors, +wide, luxurious travel, the entrance to glittering courts--only, God +grant that he may find just the Basin at last!--the true, the pitiful, +the pure of heart: that he may come up to the stature of his father, +who knew but one plain path, and that the royal one; who, in the battle +with fear and death, was greater than the storm. + +So, often in rich and high cathedrals with Vesty by my side, the organ +has but to peal forth plaintively, and those stately, emblematic +windows fade away to others, broken, swaying in the wind, and the roar +of the tides comes in, and high above the great clouds pass wondrously. + +And I think how the Christ, painted in purple and crimson glories in +these walls, and before whose image the hosts bow down, was a poor +Basin of the Basins, in His birth and in His death; who had never a +sure pillow, and who minded all woes save His own. + +And above the written scroll of the preacher I hear the old prophetic +voice, how "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not +many noble, are called." . . . + +Vesty walks this new way with me, that was not of her knowledge or +choosing with a patience in any tedious form or imposed convention, far +surpassing mine. + +Then I tell her that I am only an adopted Basin, and have missed so +many of the first important years of good breeding; when I was taught +to be only moody, if I would, and solitary and selfish. + +Then she turns the rose-color, and her eyes shine on me; and if I have +been patient with some vapid visitor, uttering weary commonplaces +(longing, oh how infinitely, all the while in my heart, for Captain +Leezur and the log!) she comes to me afterward, and leans over me with +a caress and says, "That 's a dear Basin!" + +Thus I observe always my lady's rank, and am happy when she exalts me +to it. + +Sometimes in dark hours, when gigantic shadows, unexplained, oppress +heart and soul----lo! the "Boys" play softly to us once again upon +instruments above our art, with a touch that thrills above these +masters. + +We recognize that life is not a draught, either of joy or misery, but a +sweet, stern task set us, in a failing tenement; and half between +smiles and tears we dream how, to that darkening school-house, when the +shadows grow heartbroken and weary, some loving Basin, only great +because of the faith that was in him, shall come to lead us home. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Vesty of the Basins, by Sarah P. 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McLean Greene + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vesty of the Basins + +Author: Sarah P. McLean Greene + +Release Date: May 15, 2007 [EBook #21443] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VESTY OF THE BASINS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<A NAME="img-cover"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-cover.jpg" ALT="Cover Art" BORDER="2" WIDTH="465" HEIGHT="716"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 465px"> +Cover Art +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +VESTY OF THE BASINS +</H1> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>A Novel</I> +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +SARAH P. McLEAN GREENE +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +AUTHOR OF CAPE COD FOLKS, ETC. +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +NEW YORK +<BR> +GROSSET & DUNLAP +<BR> +PUBLISHERS +<BR><BR> +Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS. +<BR> +All rights reserved. +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<TABLE WIDTH="100%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">THE MEETIN'</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">"SETTIN' ON THE LOG"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">"GETTIN' A NAIL PUT IN THE HOSS'S SHU"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">LOVE, LOVE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">COLUMBUS AND THE EGG, AND LOT'S WIFE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">THIS GREATER LOVE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">"SETTIN' ON THE FENCE"—THE SHIFTY SPECTRE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">"VESTY'S MARRIED"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">THE TALE or CAPTAIN LEEZUR'S SLY COURTSHIP</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">A CALL FROM NOTELY'S YACHT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">ANOTHER NAIL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">THE MASTER REVELLER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">CAPTAIN LEEZUR RELATES HOW MIS' GARRISON ATE CROW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">"TAR-A-TA!" OF THE TRUMPET</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">THE BROTHERS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">THE POPLAR LEAVES TREMBLE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">GOIN' TO THE DAGARRIER'S</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">THE BASIN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">SOCIAL DIVERSIONS AT THE "POST-OFFICE"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">BROKEN WINDOWS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">"NEIGHBORIN'"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">THE "FLAG-RAISIN'," OR THE "OCCASION"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">THE STORY OF THE SACRED COW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">IN THE LANE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap26">JUST THE SCHOOL-HOUSE</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +VESTY OF THE BASINS +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE MEETIN' +</h3> + +<P> +Now is it to be rain or a storm of wind at the Basin? +</P> + +<P> +I love that foam out on the sea; those boulders, black and wet along +the shore, they are a rest to me; the clouds chase one another; in this +dim north country the wind is cool and strong, though it is now +midsummer; at sunset you shall see such color! +</P> + +<P> +From a little, low, storm-beaten building comes the sound of a +fog-horn. That is the gift of Melchias Tibbitts, deceased, to the +Basin school-house. Yonder is his schooner, the "Martha B. Fuller," +long stranded, leaning seaward, down there in the cove. +</P> + +<P> +It is Sunday afternoon; the fog-horn that Melchias Tibbitts gave—it +serves as bell; the battered schoolhouse as church; and for Sunday +raiment? some little reverent, aspiring compromise of an unwonted white +collar, stretched stiff and holy and uncomfortable about the stalwart +neck above a blue flannel shirt, or a new pair of rubber boots—the +trousers much tucked in—worn with an air of conscious, deprecating +pride. +</P> + +<P> +But the women will be fine. God only knows how! but be sure, in some +pitiful, sweet way they will be fine. +</P> + +<P> +There are many panes of glass out of the windows, the panels of the +doors are out; so better they can see the clouds pass: it is beautiful. +</P> + +<P> +Oh, naught have I either, nor wisdom, nor fine speech—only a little +knowledge of shipwreck out yonder, and mirth, and tears, and love. The +windows and panels of my life are no strong plate, polished and +glittering to all beholders; they are stained and broken through. Let +me come in and sit with ye. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"We should like to open our meetin' with singin'," said Superintendent +Skates; "will one of the Pointers lead us in singin'?" +</P> + +<P> +The Pointers were the aristocrats of this region, living twelve miles +away at the Point, in the midst of two grocery stores and a millinery +establishment; there were two of them here for a Sunday drive and +pastime. They were silent. +</P> + +<P> +"I see," said Elder Skates patiently, "that a few of the Crooked Rivers +have drove down to-day, too. Will one of the Crooked Rivers lead us in +singin'?" +</P> + +<P> +Lower down in the scale than the Pointers were they of Crooked River, +but still far above the Basins; those present were not singers, they +were silent. +</P> + +<P> +"Then will one of the Capers lead us in singin'?" very meekly and +patiently persisted Elder Skates. +</P> + +<P> +Nearer, and of low degree, were they of the Cape, but still above the +Basins. They were silent. +</P> + +<P> +"I know," said Elder Skates, his subdued tone buoyant now with an +undertone of hope, "that one of the Basins will lead us in singin'!" +</P> + +<P> +For the Basins had reached those cheerful depths where there is no +social or artistic status to maintain; so low as to be expected to do, +or attempt to do, whatever might be asked of them, even though failure +plunged them, if possible, in deeper depths of abasement. There was +nothing beneath them except the Artichokes; and it was seldom, very +seldom, an Artichoke was present. +</P> + +<P> +But the Basins, though so low, were modest. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't one of the Basins start, 'He will carry you through'?" said the +enduring Brother Skates; "where is Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +"She 's a-helpin' Elvine with her baby," came now a prompt and ready +reply: "she said she'd come along for social meetin', after you'd had +Sunday-school, ef she could." +</P> + +<P> +"How is Elvine's baby?" spoke up another voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal', he 's poored away dreadful, but Aunt Lowize says he 's turned to +git along all right now, and when Aunt Lowize gives hopes, it 's good +hopes, she 's nachally so spleeny." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure enough. Wal', I've raised six, and nary sick day, 'less it was a +cat-bile or some sech little meachin' thing. I tell you there ain't no +doctor's ructions like nine-tenths milk to two-tenths molasses, and sot +'em on the ground, and let 'em root." +</P> + +<P> +At this simple and domestic throwing off of all social reserve, voices +hitherto silent began to arise, numerous and cheerful. +</P> + +<P> +"Is there any more rusticators come to board this summer?" +</P> + +<P> +"There 's only four by and large," replied a male voice sadly. "These +here liquor laws 't Washin'ton 's put onto nor'eastern Maine are +a-killin' on us for a fash'nable summer resort. When folks finds out +'t they've got to go to a doctor and swear 't there 's somethin' the +matter with their insides, in order to git a little tod o' whiskey +aboard, they turns and p'ints her direc' for Bar Harbor and Saratogy +Springs; an' they not only p'ints her, they h'ists double-reef sails +and sends her clippin'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Lunette 's got two," came from the other side of the house. +</P> + +<P> +"What do they pay?" +</P> + +<P> +"Five dollars a week." +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw! what ructions! Three dollars a week had ought to pay the board +of the fanciest human creetur 't God ever created yit. But some folks +wants the 'arth, and'll take it too, if they can git it." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal', I don' know; they're kind o' meachy, and allas souzlin' +theirselves in hot water; it don't cost nothin', but it gives yer house +a ridick'lous name. Then they told Lunette they wanted their lobsters +br'iled alive. 'Thar,' says she, 'I sot my foot down. I told 'em I' +wa'n't goin' to have no half-cooked lobsters hoppin' around in torments +over my house. I calk'late to put my lobsters in the pot, and put the +cover on and know where they be,' says she." +</P> + +<P> +"I took a rusticator once 't was dietin' for dyspepsy—that's a state +o' the stomick, ye know, kind o' between hay and grass—and if I didn't +get tired o' makin' toast and droppin' eggs!" +</P> + +<P> +"I never could see no fun in bein' a rusticator anyway, down there by +the sea-wall on a hot day, settin' up agin' a spruce tree admirin' the +lan'scape, with ants an' pitch ekally a-meanderin' over ye." +</P> + +<P> +"Lunette's man-boarder there, the husban', he 's editor of a +noos-sheet, and gits a thousand dollars a year—'tain't believable, but +it's what they say—an' he thinks he knows it all. He got Fluke to +take him out in his boat; he began to direc' Fluke how to do this, an' +how to do that, and squallin' and flyin' at him. Fluke sailed back +with him and sot him ashore. 'When I take a hen in a boat, I'll take a +hen,' says he." +</P> + +<P> +"Did ye hear about Fluke's tradin' cows?" +</P> + +<P> +"No."—— +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Brother Skates had been standing listening, patient, +interested, but now recovered himself, blushing, in his new rubber +boots. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't one of the Basins start 'He will carry you through'?" he +entreated. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like to," said one sister, the string of her tongue having been +unloosed in secular flights; "I've got all the dispersition in the +world, Brother Skates, but I don't know the tune." +</P> + +<P> +"It 's better to start her with only jest a good dispersition and no +tune to speak of," said Brother Skates with gentle reproof, "than not +to start her at all." +</P> + +<P> +Thus encouraged the song burst forth, with tune enough and to spare. +</P> + +<P> +It was this I heard—I, a happy adopted dweller, from the lowest +handle-end of the Basin, while driving over through the woods with +Captain Pharo Kobbe and his young third wife and children. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, git up," said Captain Pharo, at the sound, applying the lap of +the reins to the horse; "ye've never got us anywheres yet in time to +hear 'Amen'! Thar 's no need o' yer shyin' at them spiles, ye darned +old fool! Ye hauled 'em thar yourself, yesterday. Poo! poo! Hohum! +Wal—wal—never mind— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-006"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-006.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass. Or as--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="295" HEIGHT="50"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Git up!" +</P> + +<P> +As we alighted at the school-house, we listened through the open panel +with comfort to the final but vociferous refrain of "He will carry you +through," and entered in time to take our seats for the class. +</P> + +<P> +Elder Skates stood with a lesson paper in his hand, from which he asked +questions with painful literalness and adherence to the text. +</P> + +<P> +The audience, having no lesson paper or previous preparation of the +sort, and not daring to enter into these themes with that originality +of thought and expression displayed in their former conversation, +answered only now and then, with the pale air of hitting at a broad +guess. +</P> + +<P> +"Is sin the cause of sorrow?" said Elder Skates. +</P> + +<P> +No reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Is sin the cause of sorrow?" he repeated faithfully. +</P> + +<P> +At this point, one of a row of small boys on the back seat, no more +capable of appreciating this critical period of the Sunday-school than +the broad-faced sculpin fish which he resembled, took an alder-leaf +from his pocket and, lifting it to his mouth, popped it, with an +explosion so successful and loud that it startled even himself. +</P> + +<P> +His guardian (aunt), who sat directly in front of him, though deaf, +heard some echo of this note; and seeing the sudden glances directed +their way, she turned and, observing the look of frozen horror and +surprise upon his features, said severely, "You stop that sithing" +(sighing). +</P> + +<P> +Delighted at this full and unexpected escape from guilt and its +consequences, the sculpin embraced his fellow-sculpins with such +ecstasy that he fell off from his seat, upon the floor. +</P> + +<P> +His aunt, turning again, and having no doubt as to his position this +time, lifted him and restored him to his place with a determination so +pronounced that the act in itself was clearly audible. +</P> + +<P> +"You set your spanker-beam down there now, and keep still!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Elber Skates took advantage of this providential disturbance to slide +on to the next question: +</P> + +<P> +"How can we escape trouble?" +</P> + +<P> +No reply. +</P> + +<P> +"How can we escape trouble?" he meekly and patiently repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord, Skates!" said Captain Pharo, and put his hand in his pocket +for his pipe, but bethought himself, and withdrew it, with a deep sigh. +</P> + +<P> +Elder Skates had looked at him with hope, but now again mechanically +reiterated: +</P> + +<P> +"How—can—we—escape—trouble?" +</P> + +<P> +"We can't! we can't no way in this world!" said Captain Pharo. "Where +in h—ll did you scrape up them questions, Skates? Escape trouble? Be +you a married man, Skates? I'd always reckoned ye was! Poo! poo! +Hohum! Wal—wal—never mind— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-008"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-008.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'Or the morn-ing flow'r. The blight--'"" BORDER="0" WIDTH="292" HEIGHT="50"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +He bethought himself again of his surroundings, spat far out of the +window as a melancholy resource, and was silent. +</P> + +<P> +Elder Skates, alarmed and staggered, looked softly down his list of +questions for something vaguely impersonal, widely abstract, and now +lit upon it with a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the meaning of 'Alphy and Omegy'?" he said—and waited, weary +but safe. +</P> + +<P> +But at the second repetition of this inscrutable conundrum, a lank and +tall girl of some fifteen summers, arose and said, not without +something of the sublime air becoming a solitary intelligence: "It's +the great and only Pot-entate." +</P> + +<P> +Elder Skates showed no sign of having been hit to death, but gazed +vaguely at each one of his audience in turn, and then turned with dazed +approval to the girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Very good. Very good indeed," said he. "How true that is! Let us +try and act upon it during the week, according to our lights. +Providence—nor nothin' else—preventin', we will have our +Sunday-school here as usual next Sunday, and I hope we shall all try +and keep up religion. Is there anybody willing to have the 'five-cent +supper' this week, in order to raise funds for a united burying-ground? +We have been long at work on this good cause, but, I'm sorry to say, +interest seems to be flaggin'. Is there anybody willin' to have the +five-cent supper this week?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can, I suppose," said the woman who had been willing to sing without +tune. "But I can't give beans no longer. I can give beet greens and +duck." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think it was any wonder we was gettin' discouraged," said +another now resuscitated voice. "Zely had the last one, and Fluke for +devilment gets a lot of the Artichokes over early ter help the cause. +Wal, you might know there wa'n't no beans left for the Capers and +Basins, and Zely was dreadful mortified, for there was several Crooked +Rivers." +</P> + +<P> +"Cap'n Nason Teel says," continued that individual's wife, "that the +treasury 's fell behind; he says there ain't nothin' made in five-cent +suppers, Artichokes or no Artichokes—in beans and corn-beef; he says +we've got to give somethin' that don't cost nothin'. Beet greens and +duck don't cost nothin', and if that 's agreeable, I'm willin'." +</P> + +<P> +"All the same, beet greens and duck is very good eatin', I think," +proposed Elder Skates, and receiving no dissenting voice, continued: +</P> + +<P> +"Providence—nor nothin' else—preventin', there will be a five-cent +supper at Cap'n Nason Teel's, on Wednesday evenin'. Beet greens and +duck. I will now close the Sunday-school, trusting we shall do all we +can during the week to help the cause of the burying-ground and of +religion. As soon as Brother Birds'll arrives, we can begin social +meetin'." +</P> + +<P> +"It 's natch'all he should be late; somebody said 't he was havin' +pickled shad for dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"Here he comes now, beatin' to wind'ard," said Captain Pharo from the +window. "He'll make it! The wind 's pilin' in through this 'ere +school-house on a clean sea-rake. I move 't we tack over to south'ard +of her." +</P> + +<P> +This nautical advice was being followed with some confusion; I did not +see Vesty when she came in, but when the majority of us had tacked to +south'ard, I, electing still to remain at the nor'east, saw her, not +far in front of me, and knew it was she. +</P> + +<P> +The wind was blowing the little scolding locks of dusky brown hair in +her neck; her shoulders were broad to set against either wind or +trouble; she was still and seemed to make stillness, and yet her breast +was heaving under hard self-control, her cheeks were burning, her eyes +downcast. +</P> + +<P> +I looked. Nestled among those safe to the south'ard was a young man +with very wide and beautiful blue eyes, that spoke for him without +other utterance whatever he would. Of medium height and build, yet one +only thought, somehow, how strong he was; clad meanly as the rest, even +to the rubber storm-bonnet held in his tanned black hand, it was yet +plain enough that he was rich, powerful, and at ease. +</P> + +<P> +His wide eyes were on Vesty, and shot appealing mirth at her. +</P> + +<P> +She never once glanced at him, her full young breast heaving. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't some of the brothers fix this scuttle over my head?" said Elder +Birds'll nervously, addressing the group of true and tried seamen, +anchored cosily to south'ard. +</P> + +<P> +One, Elder Cossey, arose, a Tartar, not much beloved, but prominent in +these matters. In his endeavors he mounted the desk and disappeared, +wrestling with the scuttle, all except his lower limbs and expansive +boots. +</P> + +<P> +"My Lord!" muttered one who had been long groaning under a Cossey +mortgage; "ef I could only h'ist the rest of ye up there, and shet ye +up!" +</P> + +<P> +"I sh'd like to give him jest one jab with my hatpin," added a sister +sufferer, under her breath. +</P> + +<P> +"The scuttle is now closed," said Elder Birds'll gravely, as Elder +Cossey descended, "and the social meetin' is now open." +</P> + +<P> +Here the blow of silence again fell deeply. +</P> + +<P> +The wide blue eyes gave Vesty a look, like the flying ripple on a deep +lake. +</P> + +<P> +She did not turn, but that ripple seemed to light upon her own sweet +lips; they quivered with the temptation to laugh, the little scolding +locks caressed her burning ears and tickled her neck, but she sat very +still. I fancied there were tears of distress, almost, in her eyes. I +wanted her to lift her eyes just once, that I might see what they were +like. +</P> + +<P> +"Hohum!" began Elder Cossey, with wholly devout intentions—"we thank +Thee that another week has been wheeled along through the sand, about a +foot deep between here and the woods, and over them rotten spiles on +the way to the Point, and them four or five jaggedest boulders at the +fork o' the woods—I wish there needn't be quite so much zigzagging and +shuffling in their seats by them 't have come in barefoot afore the +Throne o' Grace," said Elder Cossey, suddenly opening his eyes, and +indicating the row of sculpins with distinct disfavor. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he continued, "we've been a-straddlin' along through +troublements and trialments and afflickaments, hanging out our phiols +down by the cold streams o' Babylon, and not gittin' nothin' in 'em, +hohum!" +</P> + +<P> +Vibrating thus mysteriously, and free and unconfined, between +exhortation and prayer, Elder Cossey finally merged into a recital of +his own weakness and vileness as a miserable sinner. +</P> + +<P> +And here a strange thing happened. A brother who had been noticing the +winks and smiles cast broadly about, and thinking in all human justice +that Elder Cossey was getting more than his share, got up and declared +with emotion, that he'd "heered some say how folks was all'as talkin' +about their sins for effex, and didn't mean nothin' by it, but I can +say this much, thar ain't no talkin' for effex about Brother Cossey; he +has been, and is, every bit jest as honest mean as what he 's been +a-tellin' on!" +</P> + +<P> +Elder Skates arose, trembling. "Vesty," said he, with unnatural +quickness of tone; "will you start 'Rifted Rock'?" +</P> + +<P> +The blue, handsome eyes were on her mercilessly—she was suffocating +besides with a wild desire to laugh, her breath coming short and quick. +She gave one agonized look at Brother Skates, and then, lifted her eyes +to the window. +</P> + +<P> +The clouds were sad and grand; there was a bird flying to them. +</P> + +<P> +She fixed her eyes there, and her voice flowed out of her: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Softly through the storm of life,<BR> +Clear above the whirlwind's cry,<BR> +O'er the waves of sorrow, steals<BR> +The voice of Jesus, "It is I."'"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The music in her throat had trembled at first like the bird's flight, +winging as it soared, but now all that was over; her uplifted face was +holy, grave: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'In the Rifted Rock I'm resting.'"<BR> +</P> + +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em; letter-spacing: 4em">******</SPAN><BR> + +<P> +Elder Cossey forgot his wrath in mysterious deep movings of +compunction. Fluke, who had entered, was soft, reverent, his fingers +twitching for his violin. Even so, I thought, as I listened, it may be +will sound to us some voice from the other shore, when we put out on +the dark river. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," said a mite of a girl, coming up to her after meeting, "Evelin +wants to know if you can set up with Clarindy to-night. She 's been +took again." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Vesty, the still look on her face, "I'll come." +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, "when can you haul over the organ and swipe +her out? She 's full o' chalk." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll try and do it to-morrow." Vesty looked at Elder Skates and +smiled, showing her wholesome white teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," said Mrs. Nason Teel; "I want ye to set right down here, now +I've got ye, and give me that resute for Mounting Dew pudding." +</P> + +<P> +The blue eyes at the door gave Vesty an imperative, quick glance. +</P> + +<P> +But she sat down by Mrs. Nason Teel; she sat there purposely until all +the people were dispersed and the winding lanes were still outside. +</P> + +<P> +Then she went her own way alone, something like tears veiled under +those long, quiet lashes. +</P> + +<P> +She saw first a muscular hand on the fence and dared not look up, until +Notely Garrison had vaulted over at a bound and stood before her, his +glad eyes flashing, his storm hat in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +Then her look was wild reproach. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty!" he cried. "Is this the way, after all we have been to one +another? Have you forgotten how we were like sister and brother, you +and I? how Doctor Spearmint led us to school together?" he laughed +eagerly. "How"—— +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't forgotten, Note. But it can't be the same again, as man and +woman, with what you are, and what I am." +</P> + +<P> +"Better! O Vesty!"—he stood quite on a level with her now; she was +glad of that. She was a tall girl, taller than he when they parted. +"O Vesty!" he drank in her beauty with an awe that uplifted her in his +frank, bright gaze—"God was happy when He made you!" +</P> + +<P> +But the girl's eyes only searched his with a Basin gravity, for faith. +</P> + +<P> +A fatal step, searching in Notely's eyes! A beautiful pallor crept +over her face, flushing into joy. She ran her hand through his rough, +light hair in the old way. +</P> + +<P> +"It has not changed you, being at the schools so long, as I thought it +would," she said wistfully, stroking his hair with mature gentleness, +though he was older than she. "Why, Note; you look just as brown, and +hearty, and masterful as ever!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but it wasn't book-schools I went to, you know. It was rowing and +foot-ball and taking six bars on the running leap, and swinging from +the feet with the head downward, and all that. I can do it all." +</P> + +<P> +He looked away from her with mischief in his eyes, and hummed a line +through his fine Greek nose, as Captain Pharo might. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't doubt it, but you were high in the college too—for Lunette +saw it in a paper: so high it was spoken of!" +</P> + +<P> +"I just asked them to do that, Vesty. People can't refuse me, you +know. I get whatever I ask for." +</P> + +<P> +He turned to her with a sort of childish pathos on his strong, handsome +face. +</P> + +<P> +She bit her lip for joy and pride in him, even his strange, gay ways. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, Vesta!" he said, with an air of natural and graceful +proprietorship; "a stolen meeting is nonsense between you and me. I +shall see you home." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"SETTIN' ON THE LOG" +</H3> + +<P> +His face invited me, the skin drawn over it rather tightly, resembling +a death's-head, yet beaming with immortal joy. +</P> + +<P> +He was sitting on a log; his little granddaughter, on the other side of +him, was as cheerfully diverted in falling off of it. He was picking +his teeth with some mysterious talisman of a bone, selected from the +forepaw of a deer, and gazing at the heavens as at a fond familiar +brother. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you set down a spa-ll," he said, and the way he said spell +suggested pleasing epochs of rest. +</P> + +<P> +"Leezur's my name; and neow I'll tell ye how ye can all'as remember it; +it's jest like all them great discoveries, it's dreadful easy when it's +once been thought on. Leezur—leezure—see? Leezure means takin' +things moderate, ye know, kind o' settin' areound in the shank o' the +evenin'—Leezur—lee-zure—see!" +</P> + +<P> +Oh, how he beamed! The systems of Newton and Copernicus seemed dwarfed +in comparison. I sat down on the log; the little girl, gazing at me in +astonishment, fell off. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the marter, Dilly?" said her grandfather, in the same slow, +mellow, jubilant tone with which he had propounded his discovery, and +not withdrawing his fond smile from the heavens; "'s the log tew +reoundin' for ye to set stiddy on?" +</P> + +<P> +A rattling brown structure rose before us, surrounded by a somewhat +firm staging; a skeleton roof, with a few shingles in one corner, +twisted all ways by the wind. It told its own tale, of an interrupted +vocation. +</P> + +<P> +"I expect to git afoul of her agin to-morrer," continued Captain +Leezur; "ef Pharo got my nails when he went up to the Point to-day. +Some neow 's all'as dreadful oneasy when they gits to shinglin'; wants +to drive the last shingle deown 'fore the first one's weather-shaped. +Have ye ever noticed how some 's all'as shiftin' a chaw o' tobakker? +Neow when I takes a chaw I wants ter let her lay off one side, and +compeound with her own feelin's when she gits ready to melt away. +Forced-to-go never gits far, ye know. +</P> + +<P> +"Some 's that way," he resumed; "and some 's sarssy." +</P> + +<P> +I looked up incredulously, but his fostering, abstracted smile was as +serene as ever. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty, neow, stood down there in the lane this mornin', and sarssed me +for a good ten minits; sarssed me abeout not havin' no nails, and +sarssed me abeout settin' on the log a spall; stood there and sarssed +and charffed." +</P> + +<P> +"She is some relative—some grandniece of yours, Captain Leezur?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, oh no. Vesty and me 's only jest mates; but we charff and sarss +each other 'tell the ceows come home." +</P> + +<P> +I thought of the tall girl with the holy eyelids and the brave +resistance against mirth, and in spite of my predilection for Captain +Leezur, his words seemed to me like sacrilege. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw her, Sunday," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, thar' neow! Vesty 's jest as pious lookin', Sundays, as Pharo's +tew-seated kerridge. I tell her, I'm dreadful glad for her sake that +there ain't but one Sunday tew a week, she couldn't hold out no longer. +Still, she's vary partickeler, Vesty is, and she 's good for taking +keer o' folks. Elder Birds'll says 't ef Vesty Kirtland ain't come +under 'tonin' grace, then 'tonin' grace is mighty skeerce to the Basin." +</P> + +<P> +"She is beautiful," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't know 'beout that. Vesty 's a little more hullsome lookin' +sometimes 'long in the winter, when she gits bleached out and poored +away a bit." +</P> + +<P> +"People seem to depend on her a great deal." +</P> + +<P> +"Sartin they dew. Wal, Vesty 's gittin' on. She 's nineteen year old. +She can row a boat, or dew a washin', or help in a deliverunce case, +and she 's r'al handy and comfortin' in death-damps." +</P> + +<P> +"All that! Vesty—and nineteen!" I think I sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye mustn't let her kile herself reound ye," said Captain Leezur. +</P> + +<P> +I looked up in dismay. Had he not seen my weakness of body, and my +birth-scarred face? +</P> + +<P> +No, apparently he had not; his benign blessed face uplifted, and his +voice so glad: +</P> + +<P> +"Ye know how 'tis with women folks; they don't give no warnin', but +first ye know they're kilin' themselves all reound and reound yer +h'art-strings. They don't know what it 's for and ye don't know what +it 's for; but take a young man like you, and ef ye ain't keerful, +Vesty'll jest as sartin git in a kile on you as the world." +</P> + +<P> +"How about that strong-looking young man?" I said. "Very easy, +swaggers gracefully—with the blue eyes." +</P> + +<P> +"Neow I know jest who you mean! You mean Note Garrison. Sartin, Vesty +'s done herself reound him from childhood to old age, as ye might say. +I don't know whether he c'd ever unkile himself or not, but I shouldn't +want to bet on no man's 'charnces with a woman like Vesty all weound +areound and reound him that way. Some says 't he wouldn't look at a +Basin when it comes to marryin'. But thar'! Note all'as kerries sail +enough ter sink the boat—but what he says, he'll stick to." +</P> + +<P> +"He is rich, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, yes. They own teown prop'ty somewhars, and they own all the Neck +here, and lays areound on her through the summer. Why, Note's +father—he 's dead neow—he and I uster stand deown on the mud flats +when we was boys, a-diggin' clarms tergether, barefoot; 'tell he +cruised off somewhar's and made his fortin'. +</P> + +<P> +"I might 'a' done jest the same thing," reflected Captain Leezur aloud, +with a pensiveness that still had nothing of unavailing regret in it, +"ef I'd been a mind tew; and had a monniment put up over <I>me</I> like one +o' these here No. 10 Mornin' Glory coal stoves." +</P> + +<P> +I too mused, deeply, sadly. +</P> + +<P> +O placid, unconscious sarcasm! innocent as flowers: wise end, truly, of +all earthly ambition! How much more distinguished, after all, Captain +Leezur, the spireless grave waiting down there in the little home lot +by the sea. Since five-cent suppers do not enrich the donor, and the +treasury of the United Burying Ground is permanently low. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind, Dilly! crawl up agin. What ef ye did tunk onto yer little +head; little gals' skulls is yieldin' and sof'." +</P> + +<P> +"What is the weather going to be, Captain Leezur?" I said, following +his gaze skyward. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I put on my new felts," said he, indicating without any false +assumption of modesty those chaste sepulchres enclosing his +feet—"hopin' 'twould fetch a rain! said I didn't care ef I did spot my +new felts ef 'twould only fetch a rain! One thing," he continued, +scanning the dilatory sky with a look that was keen without being +severe; "she'll rain arfter the moon fulls, ef she don't afore." +</P> + +<P> +I reluctantly made some sign of going, but was restrained. "Wait a +spall," he said; and ran his hand anticipatively into his pocket. He +brought to light some lozenges that had evidently just been recovered +from blushing intimacy with his "plug" of tobacco. +</P> + +<P> +"Narvine lozenges," he explained; "they're dreadful moderatin' to the +dispersition; quiet ye; take some. +</P> + +<P> +"They come high," he confided to me, with the idea of enhancing, not +begrudging the gift, as we sucked them luxuriously; "cent apiece, +dollar a hunderd. Never mind, Dilly; here 's one o' Granpy's narvine +lozenges; p'r'aps it'll help ye to set stiddier." +</P> + +<P> +So, with a glad view to moderating my disposition, I sat with Captain +Leezur and the little girl on the log, and ate soiled nervine lozenges, +tinctured originally with such primal medicaments as catnip and +thoroughwort; and whether from that source or not, yet peace did +descend upon me like a river. +</P> + +<P> +As I finally rose to go— +</P> + +<P> +"D'ye ever have the toothache?" said Captain Leezur kindly; "ef ye do, +come right straight deown to me, and ef she 's home you shall have +her"—and he exhibited beamingly that talismanic little bone cleft from +the forepaw of a deer, "Ye pick yer teeth with 'er and ye're sartin +never to have the toothache, but ef you've got a toothache, she'll cure +ye. +</P> + +<P> +"Mine 's been lent a great deal," he continued proudly. "She 's been +as far as 'Tit Menan Light, and one woman over to Sheep Island kep' her +a week once. She 's been sent for sometimes right in the middle o' the +night! When there ain't nobody else a-usin' of her, I takes the +charnce to pick away with her a little myself. But ef you ever feel +the toothache comin' on, come to me direc'—and ef she 's home, you +shall have her." +</P> + +<P> +I thanked him with a swelling heart. We shook hands affectionately, +and I went on up the lane. +</P> + +<P> +I turned the corner by the school-house. Away back there among the +spruce trees, I saw moving figures, red, green, blue, and heard low +voices and laughter. +</P> + +<P> +Then I remembered how I had heard the orphan "help" of my hostess, Miss +Pray, make a request that she might go "gumming" with the other girls +that afternoon. +</P> + +<P> +It was a long perspective to limp through alone, with all those bright, +merry eyes peering from behind the spruce trees. But I had not labored +over half the way, when I saw one, the tallest one, coming toward me. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you have some?" she said. "Strangers don't know how good it is; +it is very good for you—a little." Yes, she was chewing the gum—a +little—herself; but that wild pure resin from the trees, and with, oh, +such teeth! such lips! a breath like the fragrant shades she had issued +from. +</P> + +<P> +She poured some of her spicy gleanings into my hand. +</P> + +<P> +And now I could see her closely. +</P> + +<P> +I do not know how she would have looked at other men, strong men; but +at me she looked as the girl mother who bore me, untimely and in +terror, might have done, had she been now in the flesh, mutely +protective against all the world, without repugnance, infinitely tender. +</P> + +<P> +"I am coming up to sit with you and Miss Pray, some evening," she said. +Her warm brown fingers touched mine. She did not blush; she had her +Sunday face—holy, grave. +</P> + +<P> +"Come! God bless you, child!" I said, and limped on, strong against +the world. +</P> + +<P> +I sat by the fireplace that evening; not a night in all the year in +this sweet north country but you shall find the fire welcome. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray's fireplace stretched wide between door and door. Opposite +it were the windows; you saw the water, the moon shone in. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray did her own farming and was sleepy, yet sat by me with that +religious awe of me as befitting one who had elected to pay seven +dollars a week for board! I surprised a look of baffled wonder and +curiosity on her face now and then, as well as of remorse at allowing +me to attach such a mysterious value to my existence. +</P> + +<P> +She did not know that her fire in itself was priceless. +</P> + +<P> +It burned there—part of a lobster trap, washed ashore, three buoys, a +section of a hen-coop, a bottomless chopping tray, a drift-wood stump +with ten fantastic roots sending up blue and green flame, a portion of +the wheel of an outworn cart, some lobster shells, the eyes glowing, +some mussel shells, light green, and seaweed over all, shining, +hissing, lisping. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray snored gently. I put some of the spruce gum Vesty had given +me into my mouth; well, yes, by birth I have very eminent right to +aristocratic proclivities. +</P> + +<P> +But the spruce woods came again before me with their balm, and her +face. I dwelt upon it fondly, without that pang of hope which most men +must endure, and smiled to think of Captain Leezur's dismay if he +should know how Vesty had already coiled herself around my +heart-strings! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"GETTIN' A NAIL PUT IN THE HOSS'S SHU" +</H3> + +<P> +They never noticed my physical misfortune except in this way: they +invited me everywhere; to mill, to have the horse shod, all voyages by +sea or land; my visiting and excursion list was a marvel of repletion. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo came down—my soul's brother—with more of "a h'tch and a +go," than usual in his gait. +</P> + +<P> +"My woman read in some fool-journal somewheres, lately," he explained, +"about pourin' kerosene on yer corns and then takin' a match to her and +lightin' of her off. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal', I supposed she was a-dressin' my corns down in jest the old +usual way, last Sunday mornin', when—by clam! ye don't want to splice +onto too young a shipmate, major." (This last was a divinely Basin +thought, treating me as a subject of the wars.) +</P> + +<P> +"I've married all states but widders," said Captain Pharo, with a +<I>blasé</I> air of conjugal experience; "but my advice above all things +is," he murmured, lifting his maimed foot, "don't splice onto too young +a shipmate. They're all'as a-tryin' some new ructions on ye. Now +Vesty, even as stiddy as she is, she 's all'as gittin' the women folks +crazy over some new patron for a apern, or some new resute for pudd'n' +and pie. So," he added, "ef you sh'd come to me, intendin' to splice, +all the advice 't I c'd give 'ud be, I <I>don't</I> know widders; poo! +poo!—hohum! Wal, wal— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-027"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-027.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass, Or as--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="285" HEIGHT="49"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +<I>try</I> widders." +</P> + +<P> +As I stood speechless with conflicting emotions, he lit his pipe and +continued, more hopefully: +</P> + +<P> +"I've got to go up to the Point to git a nail put in the hoss's shu, so +I come down to ask you to go up to the house and jine us." +</P> + +<P> +Now I already knew that the Basin way of proceeding to get a nail put +in the horse's shoe meant a day of widely excursive incident and +pleasure, in which the main or stated object was cast far from our +poetical vision. I accepted. +</P> + +<P> +"My woman invited Miss Lester to go with us. The old double-decker +rides easier for havin' consid'rable ballast, ye know—and Miss Lester +tips her at nigh onto about two hunderd; she 's a widder too, ain't +she, by the way? but she 's clost onto sixty-seven; hain't no thoughts +o' splicin', in course. Miss Lester 's a vary sensible woman. But I +thought cruisin' 'round with her kind o' frien'ly on the back seat, ye +might git a sort of a token or a consute in general o' what widders is." +</P> + +<P> +"True," said I gratefully, with flattered meditation. +</P> + +<P> +"It 's a scand'lous windy kentry to keep anything on the clo's-line," +said the captain, as we walked on together, sadly gathering up one of +his stockings and a still more inseparable companion of his earthly +pilgrimage from the path. +</P> + +<P> +"What 's the time, major?" said he, as he led me into the kitchen, "or +do you take her by the sun? I had Leezur up here a couple o' days to +mend my clock. 'Pharo,' says he, 'thar 's too much friction in her.' +So, by clam! he took out most of her insides and laid 'em by, and +poured some ile over what they was left, and thar' she stands! She +couldn't tick to save her void and 'tarnal emptiness. 'Forced-to-go +never gits far,' says Leezur, he says—'ye know.'" +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo and I, standing by the wood-box, nudged each other with +delight over this conceit. +</P> + +<P> +"'Forced-to-go never gets far, you know,'" said I. +</P> + +<P> +"'Forced-to-go,'" began Captain Pharo, but was rudely haled away by +Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, to dress. +</P> + +<P> +That was another thing; apparently they could never get me to the house +early enough, pleased that I should witness all their preparations. +They led me to the sofa, and Mrs. Kobbe came and combed out her +hair—pretty, long, woman's hair—in the looking-glass, over me; and +then Captain Pharo came and parted his hair down the back and brushed +it out rakishly both sides, over me. Usually I saw the children +dressed; they were at school. It was too tender a thought for +explanation, this way of taking me with brotherly fondness to the +family bosom. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you like Cap'n Pharo's new blouse?" said his wife. +</P> + +<P> +In truth I hardly knew how to express my emotions; while he sniffed +with affected disdain of his own brightness and beauty, I was so +dim-looking, in comparison, sitting there! +</P> + +<P> +"When I took up the old carpet this spring, I found sech a bright piece +under the bed, that I jest took and made cap'n a blouse of her—and +wal, thar? what do you think?" +</P> + +<P> +I looked at him again. The hair of my soul's brother had ceased from +the top of his head, but the long and scanty lower growth was brushed +out several proud inches beyond his ears. He was not tall, and he was +covered with sections of bloom; but as he turned he displayed one +complete flower embracing his whole back, a tropical efflorescence, +brilliant with many hues. +</P> + +<P> +"She is beautiful," I murmured; "what sort of a flower is she?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don' know," said Captain Pharo, with the same affected +indifference to his charms, but there was—yes, there was—something +jaunty in his gait now as he walked toward the barn; "they're rather +skeerce in this kentry, I expect; some d—d arniky blossom or other! +Poo! poo! +</P> + +<A NAME="img-029"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-029.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r, The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she with-'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="342" HEIGHT="46"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Come, wife, time ye was ready!" +</P> + +<P> +I was not unprepared, on climbing to my seat in the carriage, to have +to contest the occupancy of the cushions with a hen, who was accustomed +to appropriate them for her maternal aspirations. I was in the midst +of the battle, when Mrs. Kobbe coolly seized her and plunged her entire +into a barrel of rain-water. She walked away, shaking her feathers, +with an angry malediction of noise. +</P> + +<P> +"Ef they're good eggs, we'll take 'em to Uncle Coffin Demmin' and Aunt +Salomy," said Mrs. Kobbe. +</P> + +<P> +She brought a bucket of fresh water, benevolently to test them, but +left the enterprise half completed, reminded at the same time of a jug +of buttermilk she had meant to put up. +</P> + +<P> +She went into the house, and Captain Pharo, absorbed in lighting his +pipe, and stepping about fussily and impatiently, had the misfortune to +put a foot into two piles of eggs of contrasting qualities. +</P> + +<P> +"By clam!" said he, white with dismay. "Ho-hum! oh dear! Wal, wal— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-030"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-030.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'My days are as--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="167" HEIGHT="43"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Guess, while she 's in the house, I'll go down to the herrin'-shed and +git some lobsters to take 'em; they're very fond on 'em." He gave me +an appealing, absolutely helpless smile of apology, and the arnica +blossom faded rapidly from my vision. +</P> + +<P> +Left in guardianship of the horse, I climbed again to my seat and +covered myself with the star bed-quilt, which served as an only too +beautiful carriage robe. Thus I, glowing behind that gorgeous, +ever-radiating star, was taken by Mrs. Kobbe, I doubt not, for the +culprit, as she finally emerged from the house and the captain was +discovered innocently returning along the highway with the lobsters. +</P> + +<P> +Let this literal history record of me that I said no word; nay, I was +even happy in shielding my soul's brother. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," said Mrs. Kobbe, as we set forth, "Miss Lester said not to come +to her house for her, but wherever we saw the circle-basket settin' +outside the door, there she'd be." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish she'd made some different 'pointment," said the captain, with a +sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why! don't it strike ye, woman, 't they 's nothin' ondefinite 'n +pokin' around over the 'nhabited 'arth, lookin' for the Widder Lester's +circle-basket? I was hopin' widders was more definite, but it seems +they're jest like all the rest on ye: poo! poo! hohum—jest like all +the rest on ye." +</P> + +<P> +"We've got to find her, cap'n; she sets sech store by talkin' along o' +major." +</P> + +<P> +"Major!" sniffed the captain; "she ain't worthy to ontie the major's +shoe-lockets; they ain't none on 'em worthy, maids, widders—none on +'em!" +</P> + +<P> +I knew to what he referred, what gratitude was moving in his breast. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, thar now, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe! ain't Vesty Kirtland worthy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty!" said the captain, undismayed—"Vesty 's an amazin' gal, but +she ain't nowheres along o' major!" +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I must say! I wonder whatever put you in such a takin' to major." +</P> + +<P> +He did not say. +</P> + +<P> +We travelled vaguely, gazing from house to house, and then the road +over again, without discovering any sign of the basket. +</P> + +<P> +"By clam! it 's almost enough to make an infidel of a man," said the +captain, furiously relighting his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, you're all'as layin' everything either to women or +religion." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't mention on 'em in the same breath," said the captain; "don't. +They hadn't never orter be classed together!" +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately at this juncture we saw Mrs. Lester afar off at a fork of +the roads standing and waving her arms to us, and we hastened to join +her, but imagine the captain's feelings when from the circle-basket she +took out a large, plump blueberry pie, or "turnover," for each of us, +with a face all beaming with unconscious joy and good-will. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you feel now, eatin' Miss Lester's turnover, after what you've +been and said?" said his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"What'd I say?" said the captain boldly, immersed in the joys of his +blueberry pie; for a primitive, a generic appetite attaches to this +region: one is always hungry; no sooner has one eaten than he is +wholesomely hungry again. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you want me to tell what you said, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?" +</P> + +<P> +"Poo! poo!" said the captain, wiping his mouth with a flourish. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-033"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-033.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r, The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she--'"" BORDER="0" WIDTH="340" HEIGHT="46"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"You'd ought to join a concert," said his wife, at the stinging height +of sarcasm, for the captain's singing was generally regarded as a +sacred subject. +</P> + +<P> +But there was one calm spirit aboard, my companion, Mrs. Lester. Ah +me! if I might but drive with her again! Her weight was such, settling +the springs that side, that I, slender and uplifted, and tossed by the +roughness of the road, had continually to cling to the side bars, in +order to give a proper air of coolness to our relationship. +</P> + +<P> +But when it came to the pie I had to give up the contest, and ate it +reclining, literally, upon her bosom. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk," said she tenderly; "it +might 'a' got spotted. I'm all'as a great hand to spot when I'm eatin' +blueberry pie." +</P> + +<P> +Blessed soul! it was not she; it was my arm that was scattering the +contents of the pie. +</P> + +<P> +"You know I board 'Blind Rodgers,'" she went on, still deeper to bury +my regret and confusion. I had heard of him; his sightless, gentle +ambition it was to live without making "spots." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, we had blueberry pie for dinner yesterday—and I wonder if them +rich parents in New York 't left him with me jest because he was blind, +and hain't for years took no notice of him 'cept to send his board—I +wonder if they could 'a' done what he done? I made it with a lot o' +sweet, rich juice, and I thought to myself, 'I know Blind Rodgers'll +slop a little on the table-cloth to-day,' and I put on a clean +table-cloth, jest hopin' he would. But where I set, with seein' eyes, +there was two or three great spots on the cloth; and he et his pie, but +on his place at table, when he got up, ye wouldn't 'a' known anybody'd +been settin' there, it was so clean and white!" +</P> + +<P> +Some tears coursed down her cheeks at the pure recollection—we, who +have seeing eyes, make so many spots! I felt the tears coming to my +own eyes, for we were as close in sympathy as in other respects. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the ancient horse was taking quite an unusual pace over the +road. +</P> + +<P> +"Another sail on ahead there somewhere," said Captain Pharo; "hoss is +chasin' another hoss. It 's Mis' Garrison's imported coachman, takin' +home some meal, 'cross kentry. He'll turn in to'ds the Neck by'n'by. +Poo! poo! Mis' Garrison wanted Fluke to coach for her; he was so +strong an' harnsome; an' she was tellin' him what she wanted him to do, +curchy here, and curchy there. 'Mis' Garrison,' says Fluke, 'I'll +drive ye 'round wherever ye wants me to, but I'll be d—d if I'll +curchy to ye!' So she fetched along an imported one." +</P> + +<P> +Whatever the obsequious conduct of this individual toward Mrs. +Garrison, his manners to us were insolent to a degree. Having once +turned to look at us, he composed his hat on one side, grinned, +whistled, and would neither turn again nor give us room to pass, nor +drive out of a walk, on our account. +</P> + +<P> +"Either fly yer sails, or cl'ar the ship's channel there," cried +Captain Pharo at last, snorting with indignation. +</P> + +<P> +The wicked imported coachman continued the same. +</P> + +<P> +It was now that our horse, who had been meanwhile going through what +quiet mental processes we knew not, solved the apparent difficulty of +the situation by a judicious selection of expedients. He lifted the +bag of meal bodily from the coachman's wagon with his teeth, and, +depositing it silently upon the ground by the roadside, paused of his +own accord and gravely waited for us to do the rest. +</P> + +<P> +The coachman was pursuing his way, unconscious, insolent, whistling. +</P> + +<P> +"She'll take it out o' yer wages; she 's dreadful close," chuckled +Captain Pharo, as we tucked the bag of meal away on the carriage floor. +"See when ye'll scoff in my sails, and block up the ship's channel +ag'in! Now then; touch and go is a good pilot," and we struck off on a +divergent road at a rattling pace. +</P> + +<P> +But these adventures had exhausted so much time, when we arrived at +Crooked River it was high tide, and the bridge was already elevated for +the passage of a schooner approaching in the distance. +</P> + +<P> +"See, now, what ye done, don't ye?" said Captain Pharo—I must say +it—with mean reproach, to his wife; "we've got to wait here an hour +an' a half." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, thar, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, seems to me I wouldn't say nothin' +'g'inst Providence nor nobody else, for once, ef I'd jest got two +dollars' worth o' meal, jest for pickin' it up off'n the road." +</P> + +<P> +Touched by this view of the case, the captain sang with great +cheerfulness that his days were as the grass or as the morning +flower—when an inspiration struck him. +</P> + +<P> +"I don' know," said he, "why we hadn't just as well turn here and go up +Artichoke road, and git baited at Coffin's, 'stid er stoppin' to see +'em on the way home. I'm feelin' sharp as a meat-axe ag'in." +</P> + +<P> +"I don' know whether the rest of ye are hungry or not," said plump +little Mrs. Kobbe; "but I'm gittin as long-waisted as a +knittin'-needle." +</P> + +<P> +The language of vivid hyperbole being exhausted, Mrs. Lester and I +expressed ourselves simply to the same effect. We turned, heedful no +longer of the tides, and travelled delightfully along the Artichoke +road until we reached a brown dwelling that I knew could be none other +than theirs—Uncle Coffin's and Aunt Salomy's; they were in their sunny +yard, and before I knew them, I loved them. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye!" cried Uncle Coffin Demmin, springing out at us in +hospitable ecstasy, Salomy beside him; "git out! git out quick! The +sight on ye makes me sick, in there. Git out, I say!" he roared. +</P> + +<P> +"No-o; guess not, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with gloomy observance +of formalities; "guess I ca-arnt; goin' up to the Point to git a nail +put in my hoss's shu-u." +</P> + +<P> +But Uncle Coffin was already leading the horse and carriage on to the +barn floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye!" he exclaimed, "git out, or I'll <I>shute</I> ye out." +</P> + +<P> +At this invitation we began to descend with cheerful alacrity. +</P> + +<P> +As the horse walked into an evidently familiar stall, Uncle Coffin +seized Captain Pharo and whirled him about with admiring affection. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" he cried, struck with the new jacket; "ye've +been to Boston!" +</P> + +<P> +"I hain't; hain't been nigh her for forty year," said Captain Pharo, +but he was unconscionably pleased. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo! ye've been a-junketin' around to Bar Harbor; that +'s whar' ye been." +</P> + +<P> +"I hain't, Coffin; honest I hain't been nigh her," chuckled Captain +Pharo. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, seizing the hat from his head +and regarding its bespattered surface with delight; "ye've been +a-whitewashin'!" +</P> + +<P> +This Captain Pharo proudly did not deny. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said +our fond host, giving him another whirl, "yer hair 's pretty plumb +'fore, but she 's raked devilish well aft. Ye can't make no stand fer +yerself! Ye're hungry, Pharo; ye're wastin'; come along!" +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Coffin seized me on the way, but in voiceless appreciation of my +physical meanness he supported me with one hand, while he +affectionately mauled and whirled me with the other. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye! you young spark, you! whar' ye been all this time?" he +cried—though I had never gazed upon his face before! +</P> + +<P> +His rough touch was a galvanic battery of human kindness. It thrilled +and electrified me. No; he had not even seen my pitiful presence. I +do not know where the people of the world get their manners; but these +Artichokes got theirs, rough-coated though they were, straight from the +blue above. +</P> + +<P> +"Say! whar' ye been all this time? That 's what I want to know," +sending a thrill of close human fellowship down my back. "Didn't ye +reckon as Salomy and me 'ud miss ye, dodrabbit ye! you young +lawn-tennis shu's, you!" +</P> + +<P> +I glanced down at my feet. They were covered with a thick crust of +buttermilk and meal. I remembered now to have experienced a pleasant +sensation of coolness at my feet at one time, being too closely wedged +in with Mrs. Lester and the meal, however, to investigate. +</P> + +<P> +We found, on searching the carriage, that the jug had capsized, and one +of the lobsters had extracted the cork, which he still grasped tightly +in his claw. +</P> + +<P> +"Look at that, Coffin," said Captain Pharo sadly; "even our lobsters is +dry!" +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I'm cert'nly glad now," said Mrs. Lester, surveying the bottom of +her gown, "'t I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk." +</P> + +<P> +"Why so, Mis' Lester; why so?" said Uncle Coffin, performing a waltz +with the small remaining contents of the buttermilk jug. "Ef it's a +beauty in her to have her lustre dead, why wouldn't she be still +harnsomer to have her lustre dedder!" +</P> + +<P> +He drew me aside at this, and for some moments we stood helplessly +doubled over with laughter. For the climate serves one the same in +regard to jokes as in food. One is never satiated with them, and there +are no morbid, worn distinctions of taste—an old one, an exceedingly +mild one, have all the convulsive power of the keenest flash from less +healthy and rubicund intellects. +</P> + +<P> +When we had recovered ourselves sufficiently to walk, we went into the +house, arm in arm. There Uncle Coffin seized Captain Pharo again and +threw him delightedly several feet off into a chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye're weary, Pharo, dodrabbit ye! Set thar'. Repose. Repose. Wait +'tell the flapjacks is ready. They're fryin'. Smell 'em?" +</P> + +<P> +We perceived their odor, and that of the wild strawberries and coffee +which Mrs. Lester had taken from her circle-basket. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, father," said Aunt Salomy, as we sat at table, giving me a glance +indicative of a beaming conversance with elegant conventionalities; "ye +<I>shouldn't</I> set the surrup cup right atop o' the loaf o' bread.' +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind whar' she sets, mother," said Uncle Coffin gayly, "so long +as she 's squar' amidships." +</P> + +<P> +He would pour out the treacle for us all—for that it was sweeter, +sweeter than any refined juices I ever tasted. No denials, no +protestations would avail to stay the utter generosity of his hand. +</P> + +<P> +The griddle-cakes were of the apparent size of the moon when she is +full in the heavens. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, Pharo, brace up. Eat somethin', dodrabbit ye! Ye're poorin' +away every minute ye're settin' there; ye hain't hauled yerself over +but two yit." +</P> + +<P> +"By clam! Coffin, sure as I'm a livin' man, I've hauled myself over +fourteen," said Captain Pharo seriously. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come, major; ye're fadin' away to a shadder. Ye hain't hauled +yerself over nothin' yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I have," I rejoined, with urgent truth and unction. "I can't, +honestly I can't, haul myself over anything more." +</P> + +<P> +In spite of some suggestive winks directed on my behalf, not then +understood, I remained innocently with Mrs. Lester and Aunt Salomy +while they were doing the dishes. But presently through the open +window where I sat I felt a bean take me sharply in the nape of the +neck, and, turning, I discovered Captain Pharo outside. He winked at +me. I naïvely winked back again. He coughed low and meaningly; I +smiled and nodded. +</P> + +<P> +He disappeared, and ere long I felt one of my ears tingling from the +blow of another bean. It was Uncle Coffin this time; his wink was +almost savage with excess of meaning. I returned it amiably. He +coughed low and hopelessly, and disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +But soon after he came walking nonchalantly into the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye, major!" said he, punching me with a vigorous hand, +"don't ye take no interest in a man's stock? Come along out and look +at the stock." +</P> + +<P> +At that I rose and followed him. Captain Pharo was waiting for us. +They did not speak, but they led the way straight as the flight of an +arrow to the barn, walked undeviatingly across the floor, lifted me +solemnly ahead of them up the ladder to the hay-mow, stumbled across it +to the farthest and darkest corner, dived down into it and brought up +an ancient pea-jacket, unrolled it, and produced from the pocket a +bottle, labelled with what I at once knew to be Uncle Coffin's own +design: +</P> + +<P ALIGN="center"> +"RAT PISON TO TOUCH HER IS DETH." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Drink!" said Uncle Coffin. +</P> + +<P> +All his former levity was gone. He had the look of bestowing, and +Captain Pharo of witnessing bestowed, upon another, a boon inestimable, +priceless, rare. +</P> + +<P> +A temperate familiarity with the use of the cup informed me at once of +the nature of this liquid. It was whiskey of a very vile quality. +</P> + +<P> +But even had it contained something akin to the dark sequel on its +label, I could not have refused it from Uncle Coffin's hand. +</P> + +<P> +Slightly I drank. Captain Pharo drank. Uncle Coffin drank. +</P> + +<P> +The bottle was replaced, and we as solemnly descended. +</P> + +<P> +I had never been unwarily affected, even by a much larger quantity of +the pure article; perhaps by way of compensation an electric spark from +Uncle Coffin's own personality had entered into this compound. More +likely still, it was the radiant atmosphere. +</P> + +<P> +But I remembered standing out leaning against the pig-pen, with Captain +Pharo and Uncle Coffin, of nudging and being nudged by them into +frequent excess of laughter over some fondly rambling anecdote or +confiding witticism, until Captain Pharo, "taking the sun," decided to +put off until some other day going to the Point to get a nail put in +the horse's shoe. +</P> + +<P> +I remembered—well might I, for they were in my own too—the honest +tears in the eyes of Uncle Coffin and Aunt Salomy as we parted; of +being tucked in again under the Star, with new accessions to our store, +of dried smelts and summer savory, and three newly born kittens in a +bag, which I was instructed to hold so as to give them air without +allowing them to escape. Yes, and of the dying splendor of the sun, +the ineffable colors painting sea and sky; and of knowing that if I had +not already become a Basin, I should inevitably have joined the +Artichokes. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LOVE, LOVE +</H3> + +<P> +At Garrison's Neck was the old Garrison "shanty"—Notely's ideal; well +preserved; built onto it a spacious dwelling, with stables attached, +after Mrs. Garrison's idea. +</P> + +<P> +Notely's shanty was a mixture of elegant easy-chairs and drying +oil-skin raiment, black tobacco pipes, books, musical instruments, +fishing-tackle, mirth and evening firelight; all the gravitation of the +premises was toward it—the Garrison guests yearned for it. +</P> + +<P> +His mother was with him now. +</P> + +<P> +"You will drive down to the boat with me and meet them, Notely?" +</P> + +<P> +Notely whistled with respectful concern, but his eyes were as happy as +the dawn. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, well, ah—h—I'll have to ask you to let Tom drive you down +to-day, mother. I've an engagement to sail over to Reef Island." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison did not condescend to look annoyed. She smiled, sweet +and high. +</P> + +<P> +"Considering the social position of Mrs. Langham and her daughter, and +their wealth, Notely, you might postpone even that engagement. +Possibly you could arrange to play with the fisher girl some other day." +</P> + +<P> +When Notely was puzzled or provoked he felt for the pipe in his pocket, +just like old Captain Pharo, laughed, and came straight again. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, mother! you were a Basin girl yourself—the 'Beauty of the +Basins,'" he said, with soft pride—he knew no better—and smiled as +though he saw another face. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you foolish?" said his mother, giving way sharply. +</P> + +<P> +When one has come from such degree, has sought above all earthly good, +and earned, a social eminence such as Mrs. Garrison had attained, it +will leave some unbending lines on lip and brow; the eyes will not melt +easily, although it wrings one's heart to find that one's only child +is, after all, an ingrained Basin; yet their features were the same, +only Notely's were simple, expressive Basin eyes—hers had become +elevated. +</P> + +<P> +"You! who have <I>in</I> you such success, if you only would!" she cried. +</P> + +<P> +"'Success,' I'm afraid, mother," said Notely, with one of those sighs +that was like a wayward note on his violin; "it 's a diviner thing, +however, you know, to have in you the capacity for failure." +</P> + +<P> +"You are as remarkable a mixture of barbarism and sentiment as your +shanty," sneered Mrs. Garrison, looking about. "Do you speak in the +Basin 'meetings'?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Notely. "I ought to. Think of what I have had, and their +deprivations. But there 's always something comes up so d—d funny!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison smiled sympathetically now. "O Notely, think of the +Langhams, and Grace even willing to show her preference for you, +decorously, of course, but we all know." +</P> + +<P> +Notely grabbed his pipe hard and shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" said his mother again, sharply. "I am sure Miss Langham is +nearly as boisterous and in as rude health as the fisher girl. I have +even known her to make important endearing lapses in grammar." +</P> + +<P> +Notely was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think, after a life-struggle to earn a place in society, it is +filial and generous on your part, for the sake of a fisher sweetheart, +to be willing to sink your family back again into skins and Gothicism?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said the young man, a hurricane in his blue eyes, which his +strong hands gripped back. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well; if you so elect, go back then, and be a common fisherman; +but you shall have no countenance of mine." +</P> + +<P> +"Shouldn't wonder if it would be a good thing. With the health I have, +give me leisure and plenty of money, and I'm always certain to break +the traces and make a run. Common fisherman it is." But he stood out +bravely at the same time in an extravagant new yachting costume, for he +was going by appointment to meet his sweetheart. +</P> + +<P> +"You might help her up, mother—socially, that is; she needs no other +help." +</P> + +<P> +"Never!" +</P> + +<P> +Notely lifted his cap to his mother—the reproach in his eyes was as +dog-like as if he had not just graduated from the schools—and walked +away. +</P> + +<P> +She looked after him, a scornful sweet smile curving her lips. As the +apple of her eye she loved him; it is necessary but hard to be elevated. +</P> + +<P> +Notely put up sail and skirted the shore with his boat till he came to +the waters of the Basin. Then he looked out eagerly, but Vesty was not +on the banks waiting. +</P> + +<P> +"Was there ever a Basin known to be on time?" he muttered, smiling and +flushing too. He was always jealous of her. +</P> + +<P> +He made fast his boat and sprang with light steps over the sea-wall. +</P> + +<P> +Here was a good sign; so the Basins held. No sign so propitious to a +love affair as meeting with one of God's innocent ones—a "natural." +And here was Dr. Spearmint (Uncle Benny) leading the children to +school—the very little ones. They clung to him, and one he carried. +</P> + +<P> +And he was singing, in a sweet, high voice: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"We all have our trials here below,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee!</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em; letter-spacing: 2em">****</SPAN><BR> +There's a tree I see in Paradise,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee!</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em; letter-spacing: 2em">****</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee,</SPAN><BR> +Put on your long white robe of peace,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And sail away to Galilee!"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Hello! Uncle Benny—'Dr. Spearmint'"—he liked that best. "Well, how +are you? how are you? and have you seen Vesty this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fluke and Gurd 's keepin' company with her this mornin'," said Dr. +Spearmint, in a voice softer than a woman's. "I jest stopped to sing a +little with 'em on the way. I <I>look</I> dreadful," he added, rather +ostentatiously fingering a light blue necktie. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, doctor; fine as usual," exclaimed Notely, anger in his soul, +but with heart-broken eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose," said the soft, sweet voice, "there 's a great deal o' +passin' in New York, ain't there?" +</P> + +<P> +"What, doctor?" +</P> + +<P> +"A great deal o' passin' there, ain't there?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, sights of it! Oh, my, yes! passing along the streets all the +time." +</P> + +<P> +"Some there 's worth four or five thousand dollars, ain't they?" said +the sweet, incredulous voice. +</P> + +<P> +"God bless you! yes, doctor! the more 's the pity," said Notely, with +strange earnestness. "And how 's fruiting?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dangleberries are quite plenty, thank you," the voice replied. When +he had left the little ones at school he would go off and gather +berries; but he would call for them without fail and lead them home. +The little, tired, restless souls always found him out there in the +sweet air and sunshine, waiting. Notely remembered; so he and Vesty +had been led. +</P> + +<P> +He passed, singing, out of sight with the children: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"Sail away to Galilee,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee,</SPAN><BR> +Put on your long white robe of peace,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And sail away to Galilee!"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Notely felt a homesick pang. Vesty was his home; he walked on toward +her threshold. Vesty's father had taken a new wife, and Vesty was +almost always seen now with a baby in her arms. +</P> + +<P> +So she was sitting as Notely drew near; and Fluke and Gurdon were +there, with a pretence of fingering their violins. They looked up, as +if expecting him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you not come, Vesty?" said her lover. "You promised me." +</P> + +<P> +"I've got something to say about that," said Fluke. "I sot Vesty down +on that doorhold, and I threatened to shute her ef she moved off'n it. +When she was tellin' Gurd' that you was 'round again wantin' to keep +company with her jest the same, says I, 'We'll see about that.' Vesty +hain't got no brothers, nor no mother, to look after her, and so Gurd' +and me, which is twin brothers to each other, is also goin' to be +brothers to her, and see that there ain't no harm done to Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, Fluke, you are the best friends that either of us have," +said Notely calmly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't ye let her alone in peace?" blurted out Fluke. "She was +keepin' company contented enough along o' Gurd', ef you'd only left her +alone. What'd ye come back a-makin' love to her for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because she is going to be my wife," said Notely. "We always kept +company together; since we were that high! Belle Birds'll was Gurdon's +company. Vesty was my company." His voice trembled. This was simple +Basin parlance and unanswerable. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye mean it?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you want to fight, Fluke, come out and fight." Notely's eyes cut +him. +</P> + +<P> +"All the same," said he, "ef you sh'd happen to change your mind by 'n' +by, as fash'nable fellers in women's light-colored clo's does +sometimes, there 's a-goin' to be shutin'." +</P> + +<P> +Notely grabbed his pipe, and his laugh rang out. +</P> + +<P> +"Come," he said, "you know me! you know me! Confound the pretty +clothes! I only put them on so as to try and have Vesty like me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Wal' now, Vesty, make your choice. You'd ruther keep company along o' +Note than Gurd', had ye?" But he could not restrain the severe +contempt in his voice in making the comparison. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty had been soothing her face in the baby's frowzled hair. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>I told you</I>," she said. But she glanced up at Gurdon, and her face +was piteous, his had turned so white. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, Gurd'! What d'ye care? Go on, Vesty, ef ye want to. Gurd 'n' +me'll tote the baby till Elvine gits back." He took the infant and +began to toss it, to compensate it for Vesty's withdrawal. His thick +black hair fell over his forehead, his nose was fine and straight. +Gurdon came forward obediently to assist him. He had the same great +bulk, and even handsomer features, only that his hair was smooth and +parted. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty and her lover passed on together. Her heart was leaping with joy +and pride of him; still, she saw Gurdon's look. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been so long at that great college, Notely." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Why must some one always be hurt?" +</P> + +<P> +"We go to school, but the schools can't teach us anything, Vesty. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Oh, sail away to Galilee,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Sail away to Galilee!'"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he hummed airily, gayly. "What was it you 'told them' back there, +Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +Where now was Vesty's Sunday face? You would look far to find it. +</P> + +<P> +"I told them you were a dude," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you, indeed! Girls who lead the singing in Sunday-school are not +telling many very particular fibs this morning, are they? But you +shall own up before night." +</P> + +<P> +O Vesty!—the call of the "whistlers" down in the meadow by the +sea-wall—"love! love! love!" No other note; it is that, too, +breathing in the swift Bails and bounding the sea! +</P> + +<P> +"You sail your boat as well as ever, Captain Notely." +</P> + +<P> +"And why not—wife?" +</P> + +<P> +These were the appellations of the old days, taken from their +elders—"cap'n" and "wife." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty did not think he would have dared <I>that</I>. Her dark eye chastised +him. But he was not looking impudent; he was resolute and pale. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty shivered. With all her earnest, sad experience of life, with her +true love for Notely, she was yet in no haste to be bound. Wild, too, +at heart; or else somehow the sea wind and the swift sails had freed +her. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't say that again. Come, catch the fish for our dinner, Note." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm only a humble Basin, Miss Kirtland. I didn't think to fetch no +bait." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty took a parcel of six small herrings from her pocket, laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, our women are smart," sighed Notely. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall you catch, or will I?" +</P> + +<P> +"You," said Notely, tossing out the anchor. +</P> + +<P> +He watched her, strong and beautiful, her lips pursed with the feline +pursuit of prey, as she baited her hook and threw out the line, quite +oblivious now, apparently, of him. +</P> + +<P> +He saw her thrill with excitement as the line stiffened and she began +to haul in, hand over hand; it was a big cod too. Vesty always had the +luck. There was glory in her cheeks when she brought the struggling, +flopping fish over into the boat. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," said Note mischievously, drawing near, "how would <I>you</I> feel +to be caught like that on the end of somebody's line—struggling, +flopping?" +</P> + +<P> +His sentimental tone gave way in spite of himself. She turned and gave +him a smart box on the ear. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, Miss Vesty Kirtland, very well. But there 's a marriage +ceremony and a binding to 'love, honor and obey,' after which young +women don't box their husbands' ears—aha!—at least, mine won't." +</P> + +<P> +"Notely Garrison," said Vesty, with Basinly and womanly indignation, "I +never fished for you in all my life—never!" +</P> + +<P> +"Instinctive, darling; not your fault. Unconscious cerebration; do you +understand?" +</P> + +<P> +She did, a little, and she grievously disapproved of him. +</P> + +<P> +"Kiss me, dearest," he pleaded. "You kissed me once, when I first came +home." +</P> + +<P> +"All the m-more reason why you ought not to ask me now. I w-wish you'd +get your m-mind on something besides me." +</P> + +<P> +Notely walked away, pulled up the anchor, and set sail again. Vesty +composed herself at the end of the boat. +</P> + +<P> +"Sweet-tempered child!" said he, regarding her from the helm. +</P> + +<P> +She dipped her hand in the water and smoothed her stray locks; they +curled up again. She was distressed, and Notely's mirthful eyes gave +her no rest. +</P> + +<P> +"My mind is still on you, Vesty—and will be for ever and aye, +sweetheart." +</P> + +<P> +With that he turned kindly and looked away, and Vesty bound up her hair. +</P> + +<P> +Presently: "The tapestries are beautiful to-day, Note," she said. +</P> + +<P> +They were sailing through the shallows near Reef Island, and they +looked down through the green water. Gold, bronze and yellow, and dark +velvet green, the tracings of broad sea-leaf and trailing vine on that +floor. +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't another house in any land tapestried like ours, Vesty. +Say, wouldn't that be a charming place, after all, to rest, when——" +</P> + +<P> +"You're getting aground, Note!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you! How fortunate that you are aboard! I know how to steer a +boat a little, of course, but nothing like——" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty laughed, dazzled by this sarcasm. "But you didn't think of the +bread or the salt or the pork for the chowder," said she triumphantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I see you have them. You always think of those things. You were +always my little woman, you know. You are my home." +</P> + +<P> +As the boat touched the ledge she sprang out before him. By the time +he had fastened his boat and clambered over the ledges with the kettle +which he had brought from the crane in his shanty, Vesty had a fire of +drift-wood burning. +</P> + +<P> +She prepared the chowder, while he whittled out some forks of wood and +gathered firm pieces of kelp for dishes. +</P> + +<P> +They ate, with only the voice of the gulls, screaming, flying in +disturbed, beautiful flight over the wide, lone island. +</P> + +<P> +"Now for the gulls' eggs," said Vesty, rising, no dishes to put away. +</P> + +<P> +"What a carnivorous little wild-cat it is—for one so necessary to the +sick and afflicted!" +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't you come to hunt gulls' eggs, Note?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know that that is my sole aim and ambition in life. Come!" +</P> + +<P> +Over ledges and salt marshes, at the feet of the thin, storm-broken +trees, they found them, nestled there, three, four, eight in a nest, +the birds flying, circling overhead. Vesty gathered them in her apron, +eager, searching from tree to tree. Her hair came down. She looked up +at Note, apologetic, humble, so eager she hardly minded. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold my apron, Note." +</P> + +<P> +This he did obediently. +</P> + +<P> +With downcast eyes and a blush on her cheeks that would have exonerated +Eve, she wound up her hair again, and restored her own hold on her +apron. +</P> + +<P> +"I did not kiss you then, Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm good, but my mind is still on you." +</P> + +<P> +Over ledges and salt marshes, and the thin, storm-broken trees, and out +there on the water there 's a strange color growing. Even the Basins +seldom fail to <I>start</I>, at least, for home by sunset. +</P> + +<P> +So a little white sail puts out on the crimson sea. The breeze is +dying out, the waters lap, subside. Notely takes down the sail and +rows. +</P> + +<P> +The sea fades to softer colors, hushed, wondrous, near the dim shore. +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't ever known, in any place in all the world, that angels—no, I +know—but look, Note!—they almost might." +</P> + +<P> +"Only here at the Basin, Vesty; when that very last light fades. I saw +two flying up—flying back again—just now. How many did you see?" +</P> + +<P> +She turned her happy, awesome eyes on him, but his keen face, in that +light, was as simple and pathetic as her own. +</P> + +<P> +"But my mind is on <I>you</I>, Vesty. Now, before we touch the shore, when +will you marry me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've been thinking. O Note, perhaps it isn't my place to marry you; +perhaps I wouldn't do you any good to marry you, Note. They say you +were first in your class, off there, and there are so many things for +you, and your mother, and friends, will help you so much more—if I +don't." +</P> + +<P> +"I may as well tell you the truth, Vesty. I'm not that strong person +that I look"—the angels that he saw, flying up, will forgive that sly +smile on the boy's mouth—"I couldn't go away and leave you, and go +into that false, feverish struggle out there, and live anything more +than the wreck of a life, at least. I'm affected." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is it that you have such trouble, Note?" +</P> + +<P> +"It 's my heart, Vesty Kirtland. I must have a Basin for my wife, +calm, strong, sweet; one who can see the 'angels' now and then—just +you, in fact." +</P> + +<P> +He handed her out of the boat and walked home with her. At the edge of +the alders they stood. They could see the light in her father's house. +</P> + +<P> +"When, Vesty?" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"O Note, I love you!" she sobbed; "but I must have a little time to +think. Every girl has that." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well. You must <I>keep your mind on me</I>, however." +</P> + +<P> +"Hark! hear the poplars tremble. You know what always makes them sigh +and shiver that way, Note?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've forgotten." +</P> + +<P> +"They made the cross for Christ out of the poplars; they never got over +it—see them shiver!—hush!" +</P> + +<P> +"O my beautiful one!" He took her hands. "What was it you 'told them' +back there this morning, Vesty, before we started?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are cruel! O Note!" +</P> + +<P> +He drew her to him. Her lips would not tell. Her Basin eyes, that he +was gazing mercilessly into, betrayed her. +</P> + +<P> +"Good child! sweet child! with my strong right arm, and a willingness +for all toil and patience and endeavor, and all my soul's love, I thee +endow." He kissed her solemnly. +</P> + +<P> +"Love, love, love," chanted in ecstasy a thrush from the dim recesses +of the wood. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +COLUMBUS AND THE EGG, AND LOT'S WIFE +</H3> + +<P> +"I often thinks o' Columbus and the egg. All them big folks in Spain +was settin' areound, ye know, ta'ntin' of him, and sayin' as how an egg +couldn't be made to sot. +</P> + +<P> +"So Columbus, he took one up and give her a tunk, pretty solid, deown +onto the table. 'There!' says he; 'you stay sot,' says he, 'and keep +moderate a spall,' says he. 'Forced-to-go never gits far,' says he. +</P> + +<P> +"Then there was Lot's wife. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't remember jest the partickelers, nor what she was turnin' +areound to look for; whether she was goin' to a sewin'-circle and +lookin' back to see what Lot was dewin' to home, or whether she was +jest strokin' deown her polonaise a little, the way women does; but +anyway, she was one o' this 'ere kind that needed moderatin'. +</P> + +<P> +"So she got turned into a pillar o' salt, and there she sot. But I've +heerd lately that she 's got up and went?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," I murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; Nason was tellin' me how 't, the last time he went cruisin', he +met a man 't 'd jest come from Jaffy, 't told him how 't Lot's wife had +got up and went. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I was glad to hear on't. Moderation 's a virtu', even in all +things. She must 'a' sot there some three or four hunderd pretty +consid'rable number o' years, 's it was. Don't want to ride a free +hoss to death, ye know. I wish 't this critter that's visitin' up to +Garrison's Neck could be got sot a spall. She fa'rly w'ars me out." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Leezur blinked at the sun, however, all heavenly placid and +unworn. +</P> + +<P> +"I happened to meet her in the lane," I said. "She had not seen me +before. She screamed." +</P> + +<P> +"Thar'! that 's jest her! Wal, neow, I hope ye didn't mind. Sech +folks don't do no harm 'reound on the 'arth, no more'n lady-bugs, 'nd +r'a'ly, they dew help to parss away the time. +</P> + +<P> +"Neow this Langham girl, she driv up here with Note t'other day, to git +some lobsters. +</P> + +<P> +"'O Mr. Garrison,' says she, 'see that darlin' old aberiginile +a-settin' out thar' on that log,' says she. 'Dew drive up; I want ter +talk to him,' says she. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I put in a chaw o' tobackker, and tucked her up comf'table one +side, and there I sot, with my head straight for'ards, not lettin' on +as I'd heered a word; t'wouldn't dew, ye know. +</P> + +<P> +"So she came up with a yaller lace parasol, abeout twelve foot in +c'cumf'rence, sorter makin' me think of a tud under a harrer; though, I +sh'd have to say it afore the meetin'-house, she was dreadful +purty-lookin', an' blamed ef she didn't know it. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I see she'd made up her mind to kile herself 'reound me, ef she +could. She kept a-arskin' questions, and everything she arsked I +arnswered of her back dreadful moderate, and every time I arnswered of +her back she'd give a little larff, endin' up on 'sol la ce do,' sorter +highsteriky; so't I was kind o' feelin' areound in my pocket t' find +her a narvine lozenger. +</P> + +<P> +"And then I thought I wouldn't. All they want is the least little +excuse and they'll begin to kile. When ye're in deoubt, ye know, stand +well to leeward." +</P> + +<P> +I looked at my friend with new gratitude, for the perils he had passed. +</P> + +<P> +"She said she thought the folks to the Basin was so full of yewmer and +pathers, 'don't yew?' says she. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I told her I didn't know ars to that. 'Yewmer 's that 'ar' +'diction 't Job had, ain't it?' says I,' and pathers—thar' ye've kind +o' got me,' says I, ''less maybe it 's some fancy New York way o' +reelin' off pertaters,' says I. +</P> + +<P> +"'Oh, dear!' says she, kind o' highsteriky ag'in, and Note driv off +with her, she a-wavin' her hand to me: but I set straight for'ards, not +lettin' on to take no notice of her. 'No, no, young woman,' thinks I +to myself, 'ye don't git in no kile on me!'" +</P> + +<P> +The nervine lozenge which my friend had cautiously refrained from +giving Miss Langham he now bestowed upon me. I accepted it, for I was +in sore need of it. +</P> + +<P> +I could not refrain from asking him, however, if he had offered Miss +Langham his deer-bone tooth-pick. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said he, "she's lent neow, anyway. John Seabright 's got her +over to Herrinport. I don't say but what if that 'ar' Langham girl +sh'd have a r'al bad spall o' toothache come on, but what I'd let her +take her, but I'd jest as soon she didn't know nothin' 'beout it. I'd +ruther not make no openin' for a kile." +</P> + +<P> +We sucked our nervine lozenges with mutual earnestness. +</P> + +<P> +"You are getting on finely with the barn," I said, noticing several new +rows of shingles on the roof. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I sh'd be afoul of her ag'in to-day, only 't Nason come over +yisterday and borrowed my lardder. I'm expectin' of him back with her +along in the shank o' the evenin'. Preachin' ain't so bad," continued +my friend, contemplatively, as the school-teacher passed by; "but I'd +ruther be put to bone labor 'n school teachin'. Ye've all'as got to be +thar', no marter heow many other 'ngagements——" +</P> + +<P> +"Leezur!" called the soft voice of a Basin matron from the door. +"Leezur, have ye fished the bucket out o' the well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jest baitin' my hook, mother," said my friend, his face breaking into +the broadest human beam I ever saw. +</P> + +<P> +He rose, and we walked toward the well. Now first I noticed his gait; +every step was a smiling protest against further advancement, which, +however, was made not unwillingly. +</P> + +<P> +I observed, too, an illustration of this same smile in his rear, made +by an unconscious and loving wife, in a singular disposition of +patches: three on his blouse fortuitously representing eyes and nose, +and a long horizontal one, lower down, combining with these in an +undesigned but felicitous grin. +</P> + +<P> +My friend disclosed this smiling posterior to full view, stretching +himself face downward on the earth, and burying his head, with the +grappling pole, in the well. +</P> + +<P> +"This 'ere job," his voice came to me with resonant jubilance, +"requires a vary moderate dispersition: 'specially arfter the women +folks has been a-grapplin' for her, and rilin' the water, and jabbin' +of her furder in. But ef we considers ourselves to' be—as we +be—heirs of etarnity—— +</P> + +<P> +"Thought I'd got ye that time! But neow don't be too easy abeout +gittin' caught, down there! Priceless gems holds themselves skeerce, +ye know." +</P> + +<P> +In which sarcastic but ever reasonable and moderate conversation with +that coy bucket I left my friend, and continued on my way with my +basket, under Miss Pray's commission to purchase "dangle-berries" at +the home of Dr. Spearmint. +</P> + +<P> +I heard as I approached: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Oh the road is winding, the road is dark,<BR> +But sail away to Galilee!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee!"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em; letter-spacing: 4em">******</SPAN><BR> + +<BR> + +<P> +There was a company as usual gathered at Dr. Spearmint's weather-beaten +hut: the door wide open, one could see his bed neatly made by his own +hands within, his mother's picture against the wall, a sweet, +intelligent face—like his, only that in his there was some light gone +out forever for this world. +</P> + +<P> +Notely was there with Miss Langham, to hear Dr. Spearmint sing, and to +purchase berries, and to be entertained a little in this way in the +growing evening. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Langham did not scream on seeing me now. She smiled upon me with +manifest kindness and condescension. She had beautiful bright brown +eyes, and the "style" of town life pervaded her very atmosphere. +</P> + +<P> +"Doctor," said Notely, "Miss Langham has heard about you, and, ahem! +considering what she has heard, she is perfectly willing to make the +first advances." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Spearmint bowed, stammering before such new bewitchment and beauty. +</P> + +<P> +"I <I>look</I> dreadful," he said, fingering his blue necktie. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear, no, doctor!" rippled out Miss Langham's voice, in willing +accompaniment of the joke; "I'm sure you are perfectly charming!" +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Langham is from New York," said Notely. +</P> + +<P> +"There 's a great deal o' passin' there, ain't there?" said Dr. +Spearmint in his soft voice, turning to her. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" said she to Notely. "Oh, my! oh, how funny! oh dear, yes, +doctor; you've no idea!" +</P> + +<P> +"Some there 's worth——" +</P> + +<P> +Notely, laughing, pressed with his muscular brown hand a note into Dr. +Spearmint's hand that would do more for his next winter's comfort than +many weeks of dangleberrying. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Langham would like to have her fortune told, doctor," he said. +</P> + +<P> +She pulled off her glove with a laughing grace. As Dr. Spearmint took +her slender jewelled hand in his he trembled with vanity and happiness. +He brushed a joyful tear from his eye, and began: +</P> + +<P> +"I see a bew-tiful future here," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my!" said Miss Langham, looking up at him, her mirthful eyes full +of incredulous rapture. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I see a tall man, quite a tall man." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Spearmint himself was quite a tall man. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Langham. +</P> + +<P> +"He has curly brown hair and a—a smooth face," said Dr. Spearmint, +delighted in his delight. <I>He</I> had curly brown hair and a smooth face. +</P> + +<P> +"He has blue eyes"—he glanced, a little troubled, at Notely's big +sparkling orbs—"<I>mild</I> blue eyes," he corrected the statement, in such +a soft voice! +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed they must be <I>mild</I>," cried Miss Langham. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Spearmint coughed considerably, and blushed. +</P> + +<P> +"He—he wears a blue necktie," he said, the mild blue eyes falling. +</P> + +<P> +"O Dr. Spearmint! I believe—why, it must be <I>you</I>!" cried the merry +girl, with a laugh as gay as rushing brooks. +</P> + +<P> +The boys and girls in the audience laughed loudly at this not +unexpected climax. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Spearmint, much embarrassed, went inside to put away his money, but +was seen to steal sly glances, and a rearrangement of the blue +neck-ribbon in his little cracked mirror. +</P> + +<P> +"Dew come again!" he said faintly, as they were going. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, certainly, as the understanding is now, Miss Langham will expect +to call often, I suppose," said Notely. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear me! yes," cried Grace Langham. +</P> + +<P> +"Are we—ahem!"—Dr. Spearmint could not lift those mild blue +eyes—"are we engaged?"—his sweet voice sinking, almost inaudible. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, positively, doctor! Why, of course! Oh, dear me! good-by, poor +dear. Oh, how pathetically amusing!" said she, walking with Notely +toward the carriage. +</P> + +<P> +A tall girl had come up, and stood in the shadow, in the doorway. +</P> + +<P> +Notely, catching a glimpse of her in passing, lifted his cap, his face +burning, his eyes glowing, with a look of intense love and of +possession. +</P> + +<P> +Grace Langham turned, with a woman's instinct. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty, standing there, dim and tall, in her laceless, fashionless gown, +met her glance with a long, serious look that contained nothing either +of alarm or suspicion. +</P> + +<P> +"I know," murmured Grace. "I've heard the name of 'Vesty'—<I>that</I> is +Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +"That is Vesty," said her companion. +</P> + +<P> +"And you love her, I believe," said Grace Langham to her own breast, +but sighed aloud; a gentle, bewitching sigh that divined deeper of +Notely's mood than further laughter would have done then. +</P> + +<P> +As they passed out of sight, riches and gay things and the last light +of day seemed to go with them. +</P> + +<P> +The mirth the children were having, congratulating Dr. Spearmint on his +engagement, sounded crude. +</P> + +<P> +"Nature has done so much for me, you know," he said, with his weak, +throbbing vanity, his hand nervously on the blue tie. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty went over to him and put both hands on his head. +</P> + +<P> +The children hushed. +</P> + +<P> +"Here are the pennies for my berries, Uncle Benny," she said quietly. +"I've taken just a quart." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes; all right, Vesty. I'm—ahem!—<I>engaged</I>, Vesty. Such a +bew-tiful——" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty held her hands on his head. "Uncle Benny" (she would never, even +to please him, call him Dr. Spearmint), "you must not think of that. +She did not mean that. Besides, you have promised to be always a +friend to me, don't you remember?—and to lead the children home from +school. You know your mother expects"—they glanced up together at the +picture—"that you will do what Jesus told you about doing—that about +leading the little children home from school. What if one of them +should get lost, or hurt? O Uncle Benny!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my!" he gasped. "I didn't think, Vesty," tears streaming down his +pale but now placid and restored face. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty smiled, standing there. A light crossed her face; she began to +sing: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The road is winding, the road is dark,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee!"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em; letter-spacing: 4em">******</SPAN><BR> + +<P> +Her voice seemed to me, in that dim hour, to take up Uncle Benny and +bear him away, with his great hurt, to the breast of his mother, in +heaven, to be healed. +</P> + +<P> +He joined her in the chorus, and then they sang together, she +modulating sweetly her full, rich tones to his. Her voice made +heavenly rapture of Uncle Benny's song: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'There 's a tree I see in Paradise—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee.</SPAN><BR> +It 's the beautiful, waiting Tree of Life—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee,</SPAN><BR> +Put on your long white robe of peace,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And sail away to Galilee."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THIS GREATER LOVE +</H3> + +<P> +"How can I approach the girl?" thought Mrs. Garrison. "If I should +send word for Vesta Kirtland to come here and see me, Notely would be +sure to hear of it; he would wonder; ask questions. If I go down and +see her it will provoke endless comment and wonder among those people. +I never visit them. There is no other way. Notely takes the Langhams +for the day in his boat to-morrow. I will be driven to the Basin. I +will ask Vesta indifferently, by the way, to go with me in those woods +where I played in childhood, too timid now to walk there alone. They +will say, as well as they can express it, that sentiment must be +getting fashionable! Never mind. I shall see and talk with the girl. +We will see." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison alighted from her carriage before she reached Vesty's +door. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait here," she said to her coachman. Vesty saw her approach. Off +there in the bay, sublimely guarding and making a gateway to its +waters, were two little green mountain peaks of islands, just a narrow +surge of the waters flowing between; the "Lions," the "Twin Brothers," +they were called. +</P> + +<P> +One does not look off daily, from one's very infancy, on such a view +for nothing. Mrs. Garrison saw the "lion" in Vesty's quick-divining +eyes, and was glad. +</P> + +<P> +"Anything but heart-break and slow consumption. Of battle I am not +afraid," she said to herself. +</P> + +<P> +"I took a fancy to leave my carriage and walk a bit among those old +trees. I used to know them well. Will you go with me, child?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, Mrs. Garrison." Vesty handed the baby which she was +tending to its mother, and walked away with the fine lady. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesta Kirtland," said Mrs. Garrison, as they entered the shadow of the +woods, "your face tells me plainly that you know I have some object in +asking you to walk with me here. I have. +</P> + +<P> +"I am proud, cold, indifferent regarding you people here; I have not +noticed you, hardly even by recognition, if we chanced to meet in the +lanes; yes, I know. I bring no personal claims. But"—she was going +to say, "you are fond of Notely," but she looked at the girl, and a +proud, sarcastic smile curved her lips instead—"my son, Notely +Garrison, adores you, I believe? I do not know whether you care for +him; I presume not so ardently; but if you were even a little fond of +him, for the sake of childhood days when he made you his little +playmate—you would try to do the best for his good now—would you not, +child?" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty showed so few symptoms of slow consumption, and the lions in the +gateway of her soul glowed so ominously, that Mrs. Garrison concluded +to be brief. She turned her face away a little; the operation was +unpleasant, and she took out the knife, only in speech. +</P> + +<P> +"Notely has quixotic ideas in many ways: if he had given any ground for +a foolish confidence in his boyhood he would hold to it now, against +all his life's advancement, filial duty—yes, even against personal +inclination, for that matter." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison was a resolved surgeon. "Do you know what Notely's +prospects are in life—socially, politically, financially? But he must +take the tide as it serves. To turn now is to lose all. He has many +friends. He is beloved by a rich, beautiful, accomplished girl, +influential in that sphere where her family have for so long moved. I +seem cruel, child." +</P> + +<P> +"Call me by my name. Call me Vesty Kirtland. I hate you! With my +whole heart and soul I hate you!" +</P> + +<P> +So the bold lions at the gate, desperately guarding sea-depths of pain +behind. +</P> + +<P> +"Really, Vesta Kirtland! if things were different I would rather be +mother-in-law to you than to Grace Langham. You are a pupil worthy of +my metal! You are fire, I see. Bravo!" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty stood with her head on her arm, resting against a tree, holding +herself. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not know that there is anything more to say. Notely will never +seek his own release. But, if you loved him <I>truly</I>——" +</P> + +<P> +"I do!" +</P> + +<P> +Flaming scorn and a smile as defiant as Mrs. Garrison's own. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you?" said the surgeon. "Then release him." +</P> + +<P> +"You told a lie. Notely does not want to be released. He loves me, +not Grace Langham. You know how it is with men. If I should go to +your house and say to him, 'Come with me; come down to my father's +house, since there is no other way, and help troll, and haul the traps, +and make the nets, and be with me,' he would come!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said the lady, pale, "he would go. Therefore, as I said, do you +save him." +</P> + +<P> +"What makes that life so much better, out there, than ours, that I +should give him up to it, and break my heart and his? Are you one that +they make?" +</P> + +<P> +"All people do not regard me with such disfavor." She looked at the +girl almost wistfully. "Life <I>is</I> hard, Vesta, and exacting, spite of +all that we can do; and the world is hard and exacting, supercilious, +ready to pick at a flaw—you do not know." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I think Notely will be happier here with me." +</P> + +<P> +Yet one could see the girl's pale resolve, only she was turning the +knife a little on the heartless surgeon. It cut sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"For a month or two, Vesta, yes." +</P> + +<P> +"And then?" +</P> + +<P> +"One who has been accustomed to champagne from an ice-cooler will not +be satisfied forever with sucking warm spring water in the sun, however +wholesome." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" +</P> + +<P> +"He will grow very tired. He will not speak, but he will regret." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! he will think what he has given up; and it <I>is</I> so much, all in +all; yes, it is too much!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison turned, startled at the girl's voice. The lions held the +gateway, sad and gloomy. Into those heaving depths behind she should +not enter. +</P> + +<P> +"You have not told me anything. I only got you to say it over. I had +thought it all out for myself. I do not mean, any more, that Notely +shall marry me." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison gave her a wild glance of gratitude, of sorrow. In that +instant her heart yearned intensely over the long-limbed girl, standing +so sorrowful and proud, and cut by Fate. +</P> + +<P> +"How will you manage?" she cried impulsively. "He <I>is</I> so fond of you!" +</P> + +<P> +"I can manage. Promise me one thing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Anything I have." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty smiled. "Promise me, if Notely should be sick, in danger, I +mean, or hurt, unfortunate, it might be—you would let me know, and let +me come and care for him, just while he needed care. I want you to +promise me!" +</P> + +<P> +Her voice took the sharp tone, her eyes the frenzy, of a bird guarding +its young. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Vesta Kirtland, you did love him! Oh, I promise." +</P> + +<P> +"If you did not, there 's such a feeling toward him, different from the +others, I can't tell; if you did not, and I should ever know, it would +be like I had some little child of my own—yes, like I had some poor +little baby of my own, crying for me, and I did not come—I did not +come!" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty turned. The tide had run so high those wild ocean guards were +covered by the surge. +</P> + +<P> +She led the way to the outskirts of the wood and stood aside for Mrs. +Garrison to pass. The woman would have drawn near her; she waved her +hand, standing aside from her. Mrs. Garrison hesitated. The sight of +Dan Kirtland's low, brown cottage, the squalid babies in the doorway, +the fishing-nets, Vesty's last week's cotton gown swinging on the line, +some humiliating, harsh memories of her own, spurred her on, with a +sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"She is fire, thank God! It will be all right," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty drew back into the woods. +</P> + +<P> +She pressed her forehead hard against the rough bark of a tree. To +"fall down there, and to be found and taken home and put away beside +her own mother in the little home lot by the sea-wall—not to have to +stand up wearily any more, and walk back, dazed and sick, into the +light"—so she yearned—"what was there to stand up for?" +</P> + +<P> +A pitiful little wail, and "Lowizy's" weary voice trying to sing +reached her. +</P> + +<P> +Clouds drifted over the sky. The poplars shivered; no voice of the +thrush now chanting from the wood-depths; but the poplars, that +Christ's cross was made from, what soft voice is this of theirs +falling? "Love, love, love"—this too? sighing with strange rapture. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty pulled her thick hair down over the bruised place on her +forehead. She went out of the woods, toward her father's poor house +and the wailing and the feeble singing. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty! Vesty!" one of the school-children came running toward her. +"Lowizy said you was up here. I came to look for you. Here 's a note +Jane Pray sent." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +DEAR VESTY: You told me last meetun you was comern up to sett with me +and my border some evening. Come tonyte. hees a poor erflickted +creetur, seems to me. hees lamer 'an ever an smaller 'an ever this +week, an' the burth-scalds on his face shows more, seems to me. Ef +that he was payin' 3 dollars a week, I should feel easier, bring your +soing an' sett a good long spale. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +yours truly, +JANE PRAY.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Vesty came, just as the firelight grew welcome and tender. She put +aside her hat and shawl, unrolled her parcel of sewing-work, and sat +down by the little lamp at one end of the room with Miss Pray. +</P> + +<P> +She took in my presence naturally, with no obtrusive kindness; she was +at a necessitous task—putting a broad gray patch, the best available +from the resources at home, on Jimmy Kirtland's brown jacket, doing it +deftly with her supple hands. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be doing that for some boys of your own by and by," said Miss +Pray, intending to have a cheerful evening. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty grew sweet and pale; she shook her head. Her dark eye-sockets +had a look, I thought, as though she had been ill and fasting. I mused +in the firelight. +</P> + +<P> +"And what if that should not be your fate indeed, Vesta Kirtland: not +bearing, and toil, and pain, and all the heart-breaking vicissitudes of +woman's life, but some peculiar station? +</P> + +<P> +"So tall and gracious, to go robed costly, to ride splendidly accoutred +and attended, to condescend almost to <I>all</I>, to give gracious +<I>downward</I> smiles. +</P> + +<P> +"What if they knew the power of wealth and alien rank, for that matter, +I held in that miserable, lean, little paw of mine! You should +outshine Grace Langham as the sun, Vesty. Some time, if she were +wronged and sorrowful, could I point her, delicately, with all +forbearance and worship of my own, that way?" +</P> + +<P> +"Be you rebellious?" Unsuccessful in her cheerful attempts with Vesty, +Jane Pray had turned to me. +</P> + +<P> +But Vesty resented her companion's question, almost involuntarily +turning to me with a quick and awful pity. +</P> + +<P> +(No; I had been lost, dreaming: not that way, surely; not though her +heart were moved with the purest pity angels could bestow; not thou, +Vesty, above all, sweet one, beautiful one! to a union so unfit and +repelling.) +</P> + +<P> +But I had to bring my thoughts back from a long way to answer Miss +Fray's question. +</P> + +<P> +"No," I said. "I settled that with God long ago. It is all right +between us." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray, confused by Vesty's look, blushed painfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you for asking me about it," I said gently. +</P> + +<P> +At that Miss Pray rose. "Come; le's play words," she said. +</P> + +<P> +So the girl and the woman folded their sewing, and Miss Pray brought +from some hitherto unknown recreative source a little box of cardboard +letters, and we sat at the table together. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray and Vesty thoughtfully selected some letters and shook them +together and handed them each to me to make into words. I gave them +each a word. +</P> + +<P> +The letters I gave Miss Pray composed a simple and striking feature of +the Basin vocabulary, "w-h-a-l-e." +</P> + +<P> +Those I gave Vesty I studied to make a little more difficult, +"c-o-n-t-i-n-u-e." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray gave me three letters. It happened as I dropped them on the +table that they fell of themselves into complete literary sequence, +"c-o-w." But Vesty handed me eleven shuffled letters, a ladylike +aspiration, and looked at me with a little appealing blush—the Basin +school is so brief, so limited in its curriculum. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray put on her glasses and studied wearily and long on her +letters, placing them every way. I saw that she had them now at last, +"w-h-a-l-e," but was regarding them as blankly as ever. +</P> + +<P> +"Pray do not move them again," I cried hopefully, finding the game more +exciting than I had anticipated. "You have it, 'w-h-a-l-e,' +whale—see?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray looked shocked and dubious. I saw at once that she was +suffering under the sorrowful mental conviction that I had spelled the +word wrongly: but that she was resolved not again to wound my feelings. +She turned to assist Vesty. +</P> + +<P> +"That," she said at length, struck by some suggestive combination, +"might be 'continnu,' Vesty, ef it had more 'n's and no 'e'." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Vesty, pleased and enlightened. "But major knows," she +added promptly, "about the spelling." +</P> + +<P> +"I have your word, you see, Vesty," I said. "'S-e-p-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n.'" +</P> + +<P> +I had it spread out proudly on the table. She looked at me and blushed +again. I smiled, only as I would at a priceless child. +</P> + +<P> +"You <I>are</I> cute at <I>guessin'</I>, major," said Miss Pray admiringly; but I +saw that she held me deficient in the classical prearrangement of +words, and that the game had lost interest to her on that account. So +we laid it by. +</P> + +<P> +When Vesty rose to go home, "I will go with you," I said, wrapping my +sad little presence in an overcoat. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray looked as she had when she asked me if I was rebellious. +</P> + +<P> +But Vesty said quickly: "I wish you would. I am so afraid in the dark!" +</P> + +<P> +Afraid in the dark! Not she; but this was some ointment for that +unconscious thrust Miss Pray had given. +</P> + +<P> +I walked home with her. Coming back, there was ever a slight crackling +in the bushes and stealthy breathing behind me. It was the lad, Jimmy +Kirtland, sent by Vesty surreptitiously to see that I arrived safely at +Miss Pray's. +</P> + +<P> +I regarded sacredly this innocent device, but, arrived in the house, I +heard Jimmy outside pleading cautiously to Miss Pray through the window +that he was afraid to go back alone. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray tried to arouse one of her two orphans—her help: for answer +they screamed aloud, sinking back into a sleep deep with snores of +utter repose. +</P> + +<P> +"Sh! sh!" she said. "I'll go home with you, Jimmy." +</P> + +<P> +I had not taken off my great-coat. I went out of my room and followed +them, unseen. In sight of the Kirtland home-light Jimmy ran in, glad. +Miss Pray turned to face the darkness alone; she went a few paces, +stopped, hesitated, and began to weep softly. +</P> + +<P> +"I am here to walk home with you, Miss Pray," I said. "Come; I can see +very well in the dark." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God!" said she, and came toward me with a little bound; for it +seemed that it did not make any difference to her in this emergency +that I did not know how to spell. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"SETTIN' ON THE FENCE"—THE SHIFTY SPECTRE +</H3> + +<P> +"Admiral 's I sum-sit-up," collector of road-taxes, a title cheerfully +accorded him through the genial courtesy of the Basin, came down from +the Point. +</P> + +<P> +In the distance we could hear him approaching as usual, the passionless +monotone of his voice growing ever nearer and more distinct, as he +flapped methodically first one rein, then the other, over the unhurried +action of his horse, sagely admonishing him to "G'long! ye old fool! +Git up! ye old skate!" +</P> + +<P> +His mortal conversation, too, though cutting and profound, was, in the +deepest sense, without rancor or emotion. +</P> + +<P> +"'S I sums it up," said he, "yer road down through the woods 's gittin' +more ridick'lous 'n ever." +</P> + +<P> +"Poo! poo! Wouldn't be afraid to bet ye she ain't," said Captain Pharo +Kobbe, with glowing pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye seem to boast yerselves 't ye don't belong to nothin' down here," +continued the admiral; "but ye does. Ye belongs to a shyer town. Ye +orter have some pride. 'S I sums it up, be you goin' to pay yer rates, +or work 'em out mendin' yer roads?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've noticed pretty darned well 't I don't belong to no town, only +when it comes to votin' some on ye into offis' up there and payin' +taxes," said one of the Basin group—Captain Dan Kirtland, Vesty's +father. "I ain't a-goin' to pay no rates, nor work 'em out on no roads +neither. When I goes I goes by boat, 'n' I didn't see, when I was out +pollockin' this mornin', but what the water 's jest as smooth as she +ever was!" +</P> + +<P> +A low murmur of sympathetic laughter ran through the group. +</P> + +<P> +"I goes by boat—when I goes," said Captain Leezur benignantly. "She +<I>is</I> smoother, sartin she is. But some, ye know, 's never sartisfied. +Some neow 's all'as shiftin' a chaw o' tobackker——" +</P> + +<P> +"Comparin' of the road with the water," said Captain Rafe, father of +Fluke and Gurdon, "I permits it to ye all that thar' ain't that +steadiness about the land that thar' is about the water. Thar 's a +kind o' a weaviness and onsartainty about the land." +</P> + +<P> +"'S I sums it up," said the imperturbable collector, grave pipe of +expired ashes in mouth, "thar 's some bottom to the water, but it 's +purty nigh fell out o' yer roads down here. Ye're a disgrace to a +shyer town." +</P> + +<P> +Loud and unoffended laughter from the group. +</P> + +<P> +"I permits 't thar 's some advantages about the land," continued +Captain Rafe. "I wants ter go out and shute me a mess o' coots once in +a while, and ketch me a mess o' brook-trout, but as for tinkerin' over +the roads—why, that artis' that was down here three months las' +summer, paintin' a couple o' Leezur's sheep eatin' rock-weed off'n a +nubble, said 't our roads was picturusque. You don't suppose I'm goin' +around a-shorin' up and sp'ilin' the picturusque, do ye?" +</P> + +<P> +Inextinguishable laughter from the group. At this juncture Captain +Shamgar came up with his cows. +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't ye drivin' yer cows home ruther early, Shamgar? Sun 's +a-p'intin' 'bout tew in the arternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, yes, but I got through cuttin' weir-stays, and thought 's the +cows was over there, I'd take 'em along home with me. Save goin' back +arter 'em by 'n' by, ye know." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Shamgar disposed himself on the fence, and the cows fell to +browsing in the lane. +</P> + +<P> +"Got your road-tax ready for the adm'r'l, Shamgar?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sartin, sartin," said that individual, firmly and permanently +buttressing his cowhide boots between the rails; "charge 'er to the +town pump, and take 'er out o' the handle!" +</P> + +<P> +Uproarious laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd orter see the roads in Californy," said a dark spectre with +shifty eyes on the outskirts of the group. +</P> + +<P> +"Gold, ain't they, Pershal?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no," said the spectre modestly; "jest common silver-leavin's. +Arfter they've made silver dollars they scrape up all the cornder +pieces and leavin's, and heave 'em out into the road. They wears down +smooth in a little while—and shine? Wal——" +</P> + +<P> +"Speakin' o' coots," firmly interposed Captain Dan Kirtland, "onct when +I was cruisin' to Boston, I seen a lot o' coots hangin' up thar' in the +market 't looked as though they'd been hangin' thar' ever senct before +Adam cut his eye-teeth. 'How long be you goin' to keep them coots?' +says I. 'Coots!' says he; 'them's converse-back ducks.' +'Converse-back ducks!' says I; 'them 's coots,' says I, 'and they're +gittin' to be <I>old</I> coots too,' says I. 'You come from Maine, I guess, +don't ye?' says he. 'Never mind whether I come from Maine or whether I +come from Jaffy,' says I, 'I come from sech a quarter of this 'arth as +whar' coots is jest <I>coots</I>,' says I." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye'd orter see the coots in Californy," wailed the voice of the shifty +spectre on the outskirts. +</P> + +<P> +"Kind o' resemblin' cows in size, ain't they, Pershal?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no; the biggest I ever seen was the size o' Shamgar's tom-turkey; +but plenty? Wal——" +</P> + +<P> +"Speakin' o' Jaffy," said Captain Leezur; "somebody was tellin' me 't +they'd heered how 't Lot's wife—she that was turned into a pillar o' +salt, ye know——" +</P> + +<P> +"Ye'd orter see the hunks o' salt in Californy!" moaned triumphantly +the spectre. +</P> + +<P> +"Had got up and went!" joyfully concluded Captain Leezur. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, now, speakin' o' trout (I permits that they have termenjus trout +in Californy," wisely subjoined Captain Rafe), "larst Sunday I was +startin' for Shadder Brook with my pole and line, and I met this +noospaper man's wife, 't's boardin' up to Lunette's. She was chopped +down so small tow'ds the waist line, looked as ef, ef she sh'd happen +to get ketched in a nor'wester, she'd go clean in tew. Didn't bear no +more resemblance to your Vesty, Dan, than a hourglass on the shelf does +to the nateral strompin' figger o' womankind (I permits the women has +splendid figgers in Californy). +</P> + +<P> +"'Wal,' says she to me, and sighs. 'I wish 't there was a chapel to +this place,' says she. 'I know,' says I; 'I've all'as said, ef they'd +start 'er up I'd contribbit to 'er—'s fur as my purse 'u'd allow.'" +</P> + +<P> +Exhaustive laughter for some cause from the group. +</P> + +<P> +"'Do you think it's right to go a-fishin' Sunday?' says she. 'No, +marm,' says I, 'not big fish, but little treouts?' says I; 'won't you +jest think it over, marm?' says I. And while she was thinkin' I kind +o' shied and sidled off, an' got away outer the ship's channel." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, thar' neow," said Captain Leezur, beaming with fond sympathy at +the heavens, "sech folks dew help to parss away the time, amazin'." +</P> + +<P> +"'S I sums it up," said the impassively listening collector, "ef ye +don't pass away some o' yer time on yer roads down here, ye'll break +some o' yer d—d necks." +</P> + +<P> +Renewed unresentful laughter from the group. +</P> + +<P> +"Grarsshoppers, neow," said Captain Leezur, seriously and reflectively, +"makes better treoutin' bait 'n angle-worms (I know 't we don't have no +sech grarsshoppers nor angle-worms neither as they dew in Californy). +</P> + +<P> +"Nason was over t'other day, helpin' me shingle my barn. 'Twas a +dreadful warm day, and we was takin' our noonin' arfter dinner, settin' +thar' on the log, 'nd there was a lot o' these 'ere little green +grarsshoppers hoppin' areound in the grarss: so arfter a spall, we +speared up some on 'em and——" +</P> + +<P> +"'S I sums it up, ef ye want to stay here and ketch the last fish 't +God ever made, 'ste'd o' bracin' up and mendin' yer roads and takin' +yer part in a shyer town, ye must do so." +</P> + +<P> +"Sho!" said Captain Leezur, regarding him with wistful compassion; "I +hain't seen as fish was gittin' skeerce." +</P> + +<P> +By winks and insinuations of niggardliness, through Captain Rafe, +father of Fluke, he was moved to take a nervine lozenge out of his +pocket and display it temptingly before the sapient, immovable +countenance of the collector. The latter, cold pipe in mouth, solemnly +shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"They <I>dew</I> come kind o' high, I know," said Captain Leezur, "but I'm +all'as willin' to sheer 'em with a friend. I ain't one o' that kind +that's all'as peerin' anxiously into the futur'." +</P> + +<P> +"The furderest time 't I ever looked into the futur'," said Captain Dan +Kirtland, "was once when I was a boy 'bout nineteen, and my father told +me not to take the colt out. He was a stallion colt (I know 't we +don't have no sech colts here as they do in Californy), jest three +years and two months old, and sperrited—oh, no; I guess he wa'n't +sperrited none! Wal, my father was gone one day, and I tackled him up +and off I went. Might 'a' fetched up all right, but 't happened jest +as I was passin' by them smoke-houses to Herrinport, some boys 't was +playin' with a beef's blawder had hove her up onto the roof, and she +bounded down right atween that stallion's ears and eyes. In jest about +one second I looked so far into the futur' that I run my nose two +inches into the 'arth, and she 's been broke ever since." +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind, Kirtland, she 's all thar'. The furderest time 't I ever +looked ahead," said the voice of Shamgar, "was once in war time. Flour +fifteen dollars a barrel, seven girls and five boys (I know 't we don't +raise no sech families here as they do in Californy), everything high. +All to once the thought come to me, 'Mebbe herrin'll be high tew.' And +sure enough herrin' was high!" +</P> + +<P> +"The furderest time 't I ever looked ahead——" deliciously began +Captain Leezur. +</P> + +<P> +"G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!" +</P> + +<P> +Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up was turning his horse about. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe you and me 's got a bet on, ain't we, adm'r'l?" said Captain +Pharo. +</P> + +<P> +"I told 'em 'twas wastin' waggin ile to come down here to c'lect. +G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate! 'S I sums it up, bet ye, +goin' 'tween here and the Point I could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud +off 'n yer kerridge time ye gits thar', Kobbe. G'long! ye old fool! +Git up! ye old skate!" +</P> + +<P> +His unbaffled monotone grew gradually faint in the distance. +</P> + +<P> +"Roads <I>be</I> all porridge up there a piece, I reckon," chuckled Captain +Pharo; "but as long as Crooked River runs, I don't calk'late to lose no +bet. Poo! poo!" +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<A NAME="img-086"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-086.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass, Or as--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="283" HEIGHT="47"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"Jest give me time," beamed Captain Leezur, sounding mellifluously, +"'n' I can row any Pointer ashore in an argyment 't ever was born yit. +I takes a moderate little spall to dew it in. Forced-to-go——" +</P> + +<P> +"Ye be a lazy, yarn-reelin' set, all on ye," said Captain Rafe, +grinning with affection and delight on the group. "I'm going to have +ye all posted and put on the teown!" +</P> + +<P> +Murmurs of rich and deep laughter. +</P> + +<P> +A tall, dark form, shifty-eyed, had been insensibly moving and +disintegrating me from the group. I found myself drifting strangely +ever farther and farther away. I was sitting beside him on a rock in +the covert of the woods, the sun setting over the bay, and all was +still save his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"I went to Californy minding" (mining), said he. "She ain't nothin' so +wonderful of a State as you might think: she ain't no bigger 'n Maine +'n' New York and Alabamy, 'n' Afriky 'n' Bar Harbor all put into one!" +</P> + +<P> +"Great heavens!" said I, scratching my feeble little cane into the +earth, "is she that?" +</P> + +<P> +Of all that had been denied him in the recent general conversation, of +colossal hunks of salt, of grasshoppers "no larger than Dorking hens," +of fishes, women, horses fabulous, I listened, rapt with wonder and +admiration. +</P> + +<P> +The sun went down, the moon arose, and still I listened. I was not +weary, I was not hungry; I was absorbed in sincere and awful attention. +But the world is callous and cold, and I shall not repeat those tales. +</P> + +<P> +The world is callous and cold; but, as the shifty spectre at last +pointed me, unwilling, homeward, he murmured, with tears in his eyes: +"I never found sech an intellergent listener as you be—not in the +whole length and breadth of Californy." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"VESTY 'S MARRIED" +</H3> + +<P> +"Vesty 's married Gurd! Vesty 's gone and got married to Gurd!" said +the children, big and joyful with news, on their way to school. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, that was what she had done! I leaned heavily for a moment where I +stood. That was Vesty! +</P> + +<P> +Oh, child-madness! Sweet, lost child! Oh, pity of the world! and I +crawling on with such a hurt; I did not think that should have wrung me +so. +</P> + +<P> +I was getting near her door; not anywhere else could I have gone. She +would be at the Rafes' cottage now—so easily do the Basin brides move, +without wedding journey or trousseau. +</P> + +<P> +The wash-tubs and cooking-stove stood at one end of the long, +low-raftered room, the cabinet organ and violins at the other. Captain +Rafe and the boys were out, hauling their sea-traps, and Vesty had been +doing the washing that they were wont to do for themselves; the mother, +like her own, being dead. +</P> + +<P> +The room was nice as I had never seen it before, and Vesty was putting +some pitiful little ornaments to rights at the cabinet-organ end. +</P> + +<P> +She turned to me with so strange and febrile a look, yet with so wild +and startled a welcome in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Hush!" I said. "You wanted me, child; I am here." +</P> + +<P> +I saw that she had turned to lean against the organ, and that she was +shaken with sobs. +</P> + +<P> +"What have you done, Vesty? Wicked and false beyond any woman I +know—<I>you</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"Have you seen him?" she sobbed. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I have not seen Notely. You were married only last night." +</P> + +<P> +"I wrote to him. There was only one way to save Notely from marrying +me—only one way." +</P> + +<P> +"You might have waited." +</P> + +<P> +"Notely would never have waited. Notely meant to marry me." +</P> + +<P> +"You should have married him, and not been false." +</P> + +<P> +"I would rather be false than ruin Notely." +</P> + +<P> +"You thought that it would ruin him? You had some assistance in that +belief; his lady mother came to see you; the property is hers. If he +transgresses, no property, no wealthy Grace Langham, no easy glory at +the bar or in the state. What were those to your love, Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked up, dim, and shook her head. "You have done a wilful, +blind, impetuous thing. You were piqued, proud, angry, and so you gave +yourself, body and soul, to this mad leap." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care for my body (sob) or soul (sob) if Notely isn't sick." +</P> + +<P> +"There is One who is above Notely, to punish as well as to pity, Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +"God"—very softly—"oh, yes!" The bewildered, grief-tormented eyes +looked faith into mine. "I didn't mean that. I asked Him. I could +only find one way. He won't let Notely come to harm, but help him to +make the best of himself." +</P> + +<P> +"Your lover is a brave man. He would not have been selfish toward you +as this great hulk, Gurdon. He knew you intelligently. He would have +lifted, considered, cared for you." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty held herself aloft, pale. "Gurdon is good. If any one ever +asked Gurd for anything he always gave it to them." +</P> + +<P> +I leaned my head on my hand, my heart leaping. Vesty came near me. +"Tell me that you do not think it is a great mistake—such a great—a +lost—mistake; for Notely's sake, tell me! I looked so for you to +come. I wanted you." +</P> + +<P> +To have touched one thread of her dark hair, bowed there before me! I +did not touch her. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, the mistake!" I said; "ah, the pity of it! You do not tell me how +<I>you</I> have suffered, Vesty; how your own heart has been torn." +</P> + +<P> +She took my hand, and, turning her head, pushed it gently away from +her, as some blind instrument of torture. +</P> + +<P> +"The last time I heard you sing, Vesty, you put your hands on Uncle +Benny's poor, confused head and soothed and guided him. Who was there +to help or guide you, motherless child, confused and lost?" +</P> + +<P> +"Could you have seen the way?" How she entreated me! +</P> + +<P> +"No one sees the way. But a broken heart and a life—misguided and +lost though it be—<I>given</I>." +</P> + +<P> +She looked up, dim, again. +</P> + +<P> +"You will make them happy here," I added. Ah, that she understood! +She looked about the room with a sad, brave pride, and rose and stood +again, a striking picture there. +</P> + +<P> +"They did need <I>me</I>," she said; "<I>he</I> needed me more than Notely. And +I shall get time, besides, to go over to father's and help with the +children." +</P> + +<P> +I nodded. "Oh, it is bravely done," I said. "We shall get on." For +she was worn from her long mental struggle, and nearly wild in those +dark-circled eyes. "There will be no more feathers in Captain Rafe's +cake. Did I tell you? He and the boys invited me here to tea. They +had been dressing birds and baking in the same morning. The plum cake +was full of feathers, Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed, and looked at me with shocked gratitude because I had made +her laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Not chopped or sugared feathers, Vesty, but whole winged feathers of +the natural flavor." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she said, "shouldn't you think they needed me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Infinitely." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait. Won't you come—come and see me often? Come evenings and hear +the boys play—they <I>can</I> play!—and tell me"—her hands +trembled—"tell me about Notely!" Her soul bare in her uplifted eyes. +Only to one as a wraith, a shadow, out of the ordinary pale of +humanity, could she have looked like that! +</P> + +<P> +"Always, whatever I hear or know," I answered her. "Gurdon will not be +jealous of me." I smiled at her. +</P> + +<P> +She smiled back in her dim way. "Jealous?" she said. "What! after we +are married?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, surely! The Basins are true to each other then always." +</P> + +<P> +"That is the way," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"That is the way," I said, and left her. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +When Notely Garrison received the letter that Vesty had written him he +read at the end: "When you get this I shall be married;" and the "for +love of you, Notely, God knows that! You must make the most of all He +gives you." Notely seemed to see her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Then he lost them and went down into a mental gulf. He locked himself +in his room, to be ever alone; thoughts came to him that he could not +bear: he rose and filled a glass twice with brandy and drained it. He +ran his hand through the tumbled light hair that Vesty had so loved, +and reeled out of the room with a laugh on his lips and a flush on his +face. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother, I have lost my girl!" +</P> + +<P> +"O Notely! however mistaken I have been, what have I loved, whom have I +loved in all this world but you, my child? Do not break my heart!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, mother!" said Notely, going and standing beside her; "I am +your natural—natural—protector." +</P> + +<P> +As he stood thus, looking out with his drunken yet bright and tender +eyes, the child of her breast whom she had robbed, she laid her head on +his shoulder and began to cry. "Why, mother!" he said, almost sobered +for the instant. Never had this son seen this mother weep. He led her +to a lounge. +</P> + +<P> +"I think," he said, struggling for thought very seriously; he racked +his stormy, fuddled brain for what would most please her. "Now, when +shall we have a wedding, mother? Grace—Grace Langham." +</P> + +<P> +"O Notely!" She tried to detain him with her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go—go ask her," he said. He passed out with an easy +exaggeration of his usual lordly air, debonair and high, and at the +same time genial. +</P> + +<P> +Grace was alone in the arbor, in her favorite hammock, with a book, +when Notely came up. +</P> + +<P> +The look she gave him was full of amusement and anger and disgust. +</P> + +<P> +These qualities somehow attracted him now. He was a gentleman; he +tried to hold himself very erect against the trellis, and put the +question delicately. +</P> + +<P> +"Light—light—light of my soul!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +Grace threw down her book and screamed. Then she put her hands over +her face and fell to crying. +</P> + +<P> +Notely took out his handkerchief and wiped his own eyes with the +choicest deliberation of sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +"All—all seem to be weeping to-day," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you wretch! you brute! you brute!" cried Grace. +</P> + +<P> +Notely, though much flattered, continued diplomatically mopping his +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +At length he desisted; and Grace, looking out and seeing his keen, +handsome profile staring out so desolately, came down from the hammock. +</P> + +<P> +She shivered a little; drunken men were horrid, even dangerous. But +Notely! She came up heroically and put her hand on his sleeve. +</P> + +<P> +"There is one condition, Notely, on which I can—consider your +proposal." +</P> + +<P> +"Name," said Notely, with touching legal precision, "condition on which +you'll marry me." +</P> + +<P> +"You must never, never drink like this again. I did not know that you +ever did this. Oh, how it has hurt me!" The lace fell back from her +white arms, there was a perfume of flowers about her; bright brown eyes +are lovelier when suffused with tears. +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks!" said Notely, meaning to come up to the full measure of the +occasion. "I'm not—not worthy. No—no—no previous engagement, +how'ver." +</P> + +<P> +But he was so gentle, she took his arm and led him in. Mrs. Langham, +who always spoiled him, entering stately in silk and gems, engaged him +in a game of cribbage, humoring gravely all his startling and original +vagaries in the game. +</P> + +<P> +"What does it mean?" cried Grace to Mrs. Garrison. +</P> + +<P> +"It was an accident, not an excess, my child," said the mother, smiling +proudly. "It should never be mentioned in connection with my son; it +is no part of <I>him</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison was strangely assured in her own heart that Vesty +Kirtland would never tell the son of his mother's visit to her. She +did not mean that Grace Langham should ever know the full cause that +had unsettled him. +</P> + +<P> +"We must be very tender with him, keep near to him," she said, "or, +when he recovers, he may do himself harm, with remorse, and—the fear +of losing your love, Grace." +</P> + +<P> +They were very tender with him. And by good chance, too, the post +brought a famed "Review," copying entire the brilliant fellow's essay +on "American Politics," with the editor's comment of "masterly." +</P> + +<P> +"See!" screamed Grace; "it says 'masterly.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course it 's mast—mast—masterly," said Notely, his beautiful eyes +burning. +</P> + +<P> +They drove with him, the stout coachman perched for safety on the seat +beside him. At evening he tried to catch Grace in the arbor and kiss +her. She screamed and escaped. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, dearest!" said his mother. She left the door wide between his +sleeping-room and hers, and laid the triumphant review at his hand for +his waking in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +But on the morrow he was neither remorseful nor subdued, though his +eyes were hollow. He smoked a great deal, and sang melancholy, +unembarrassed snatches of song, after the manner of Captain Pharo, and +made love to Grace, who was beautiful. +</P> + +<P> +At evening he tucked his violin under his arm. "I am going down to +call on the new Basin bride," he said, with airy, cheerful contempt for +that class. +</P> + +<P> +His mother paled. He went up to her and kissed her. "Do not fear, +mother," he whispered. +</P> + +<P> +The boys welcomed him somewhat eagerly. He had been their teacher on +the violin, as well as the original donor of those beloved instruments. +And they had thought he might not come to that house again. +</P> + +<P> +"I've a new tune for you, boys," he said. Vesty came in. He rose and +bowed, taking her hand. "I congratulate the new bride!" He would not +look at her pallor or her great beseeching eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I've this to show you, boys, that I've been practising to-day." He +had not touched the strings for forty-eight hours! There was a covert +smile, sad, playful, not malicious, on his face as his hands touched +them now. +</P> + +<P> +Where he had been "practising" indeed! From what source he had got +that music that he played for them now! He would never play the like +again. +</P> + +<P> +"Bah!" said he, at the close, with his old cheerful manner; "it is too +sad! When one is possessed only for minor strains better cease +fiddling. Do you want me to break this, or throw it into the fire when +I get home, Gurdon? Then take her, lad! She 's a fine one, finer than +yours. Take her in all good faith. Come!" +</P> + +<P> +Gurdon reached out his hand, hesitating, voiceless pity in his honest +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Notely sat and listened to the others; applauded in the old way. "You +are beyond my teaching, lads," he said—and they played exquisitely. +"You excel your master now. Well, well, my mellow old fiddle is better +here with you." But he would never once look at Vesty, so pale and +beseeching. +</P> + +<P> +As he passed out Vesty started impulsively, then looked at her husband. +</P> + +<P> +"Go and speak to him, Vesty," said Gurdon. "Maybe he wanted to speak +with you a moment." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty stepped out into the dark, and she called, almost in a breathless +voice: "Notely!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" He came back. +</P> + +<P> +She held out her hands to him. "Forgive me, Notely! I meant it for +your—I meant——" +</P> + +<P> +He took her hands firmly in his and pressed his lips down to hers. "My +wife!" he said, slowly and solemnly; "my wife!" and dropped her hands +and left her. +</P> + +<P> +She stepped back through the doorway, sobbing. +</P> + +<P> +"Was he angry with you, Vesty?" her husband said. +</P> + +<P> +"No! no!" +</P> + +<P> +"Did he say as he was still fond of you, or anything like that?" said +the bold brother Fluke. +</P> + +<P> +"Nay! nay!" said Gurdon. "Vesty's married now: nor Vesty nor he would +ever have word like that." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE TALE OF CAPTAIN LEEZUR'S SLY COURTSHIP +</H3> + +<P> +It has not been a seven months, surely, since I heard the roar of those +waters down in the Basin's Greater Bay! +</P> + +<P> +Captain Leezur has not been housed through icy snow-fall and winter +blast!—nay, he has been ever there, as when I left him sitting on the +log, beaming, tranquil heir of eternity. +</P> + +<P> +"Ilein' my saw, ye see," said he, springing up and grasping my hand; +"ef I remembers right, I was settin' here ilein' my saw, when ye come +and bid me good-by?" +</P> + +<P> +"You were." +</P> + +<P> +"And here I be, right in the same place, ilein' of 'er ag'in!" he +cried, struck with joyful surprise at such a phenomena of coincidence. +"Set deown! why, sartin ye must! I carn't let ye go." +</P> + +<P> +Oh, the taste, sweeter than ancient wine, of that nervine lozenge once +more! The time was weary while I was away. Now that I am back again, +it seems as nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"Some neow 's all'as runnin' their saw right through everythin', no +marter heow hard she wrarstles and complains ag'in' it. But when mine +gives the first squeak, I sets right deown with 'er and examines of +'er, and then I takes a swab-cloth and I swabs her. +Forced-to-go—'specially ef she ain't iled—never gits far, ye know." +</P> + +<P> +O delicious sound of uncorrupted philosophy once more! +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Leezur came out to welcome me, and sat on the doorstep near. She +was chopping salt codfish in a tray for dinner. When her knife struck +a bone, she put on her glasses, and after deliberate and kindly +research extracted it. +</P> + +<P> +"Did ye hear anything from Jaffy?" said the mellow, glad voice of +Captain Leezur. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm inclined to think what you heard was true, captain. It seems to +be confirmed from every source; she is gone." +</P> + +<P> +"Thar' neow! I told 'em 't you'd make inquiries. I could see, says I, +when I was talkin' to him 'beout it, 't he'd got waked up to more 'n +common interest in the subjec'. Wal, I'm glad on 't; she'd sot there +so long neow—didn't ye hit a bone then, mother? Seounded kind o' as +though ye struck a bone, but mebbe 'twas only the bottom o' the tray." +</P> + +<P> +"We've been threatenin' to clean dooryard," said Mrs. Leezur, looking +about on a scene that demanded no more particular explanation. +</P> + +<P> +"Thar' 's three times," said Captain Leezur, "that I've had them bresh +'n' things all hove up into piles, 'n' every time the wind 's raked in +and swep' 'em areound all over the farmimunt ag'in." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps, father," said Mrs. Leezur, in a mildly suggestive tone, as +far from sarcasm as heaven is from earth; "perhaps, if 't when you'd +got 'em up in piles, you'd keeried of 'em off, they wouldn't 'a' got +swep' areound ag'in." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I don' know 's they would, mother; but it 's been a dreadful busy +time o' year, ye know," said Captain Leezur, mellifluously. "Didn't ye +strike a bone then, mother? Seounded 's though ye run afoul of a bone, +but mebbe, arfter all, 'twas only the bottom o' the tray." +</P> + +<P> +"I like the yard," I said. "I wouldn't like to miss those—things." +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you're kind o' like that artis' that was here, 't was so +keeried away with the picturusque. He run afeoul o' a couple o' old +sheep o' mine up on the headlan's somewheres, an' spent a 'tarnal three +months a-paintin' of 'em deown onto some canvarss. I told 'im, says I, +'Thar'!' says I, 'I'm glad to see them sheep put somewheres 't they'll +stay,' says I. 'It'll be the first time in existence 't they hain't +broke fence,' says I. 'I'm r'a'ly obleeged to ye. I hain't seen the +livin' presence o' them sheep senct I don't know when,' says I. 'I've +been a-threatenin' these tew years t' go and hunt em up, but the +glimpst I've had o' 'em in this 'ere pictur'll dew jest as well,' says +I; 'fur 's I can see, they look promisin', an' gettin' better points 'n +ever for light-weight jumpers,' says I——Sartin ye hit a bone then, +mother! Thar'! I told ye so. Heave 'er eout. I knowed 't you'd +fetch 'er, mother. Did I ever tell ye," said Captain Leezur to me, +"heow sly I was when I went a-courtin'?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said I. Mother Leezur's face was modest, yet all beautifully +alight. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal neow," said Captain Leezur seriously, "my experience has been, +there ain't nothin' so onpleasant, when ye're eatin' picked-up codfish, +'s to feel the rufe o' yer mouth all runnin' in afeoul along o' a mess +o' bones. +</P> + +<P> +"So 't when it got at an age and a time 't I was goin' courtin', I was +jest as sly abeout it as could be, 'nd I never let on nothin' o' what +port in pertick'lar I was steerin' for. +</P> + +<P> +"So 't I was up settin' a spall with Tryphosy Rogers—she 't was; 'nd +says she, 'Neow what shall I get for tea, Leezur?' (The gals all made a +great deal on me in them days.) 'They ain't nothin' I likes so well,' +says I, 'as a mess o' codfish mixed up along o' eggs and thickenin'.' +Wal, she flew 'reound 'nd got supper, 'nd we sot deown together—and I +swan! ef that 'ar mess o' codfish 't Tryphosy heaped onto my plate +wa'n't worse tangled up with bones 'n the maze o' human destiny. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I knew 't Tryphosy had bo's enough; 'nd all ain't so pertick'lar +abeout codfish, ye know, as some be. So 't I didn't trouble 'er to get +up no more teas for me. +</P> + +<P> +"'Nd still I kep' sly: they hadn't nobody the least idee o' what port I +was steerin' for. I tried four or five jest in the same way, but they +hadn't moderation enough o' dispersition, ye see, to set deown +beforehand and have a calm previous wrarstlin' o' the spirit along o' +them codfish bones. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, Leony Rogers—she 't was—cousin to Tryphosy—she was called the +harndsomest gal in them parts, 'nd I had considerable hopes. So 't +when she asts me, 'Neow what 'll ye have for tea, Leezur?'—'They ain't +nothin' I likes so well,' says I, ''s a mess o' codfish mixed up along +o' eggs and thickenin'.' +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, we sot deown together, 'nd she was so purty I stowed away a +mouthful, hardly thinkin'—'nd I run one o' these here main off-shutes +from the backbone of a ten-pound cod, abeout tew inches up into the +shrouds 'n' riggin' o' my left-hand upper jaw. +</P> + +<P> +"I was in sech a desp'rit agerny to git home that night I got onto +Leony's father's old white mar', 't was feedin' along by the road, an' +puttin' of 'er deown the hill, I'm dumed ef she didn't stumble and hove +me clean over her bows——" +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ye swore, father!" +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, thar'! mebbe I did, mother. But ye know when I jined the church +forty year ago, there was a kind o' takkit agreement atween Parson Roe +'n' me 't I could sweer when I wastellin' that pertick'lar story. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, the rute o' the matter was, 't as soon 's I was healed up inter +some shape ag'in, I went and see Phoeby Hamlin—she 't was." +</P> + +<P> +No need for personal explanation. Captain Leezur's tone! Mother +Leezur's softly shrouded eyes! +</P> + +<P> +"'What'll ye have for tea, Leezur?' says she. 'They ain't nothin' I +likes so well,' says I, ''s a mess o' codfish mixed up along o' eggs +and thickenin'.' Wal, Phoeby, she went eout, and she was gone a long +time—looked kind o' 's though I was gittin' into port. +</P> + +<P> +"'Nd thar I sot and sot; 'nd every minute 't I sot there I was gittin' +surer somehow 't I was sightin' land. By 'n' by, Phoeby, she comes in, +and we sot deown together, 'nd I kep' takin' one help arfter another; +for arfter what I'd been through I was goin' to make sure whether I'd +got inter safe harbor or not. But deown she all went, slick as ile, +an' nary bone nor sign o' bone anywheres. +</P> + +<P> +"'Phoeby,' says I, 'ye've wrarstled, and ye've conquered!' 'What on +'arth d'ye mean, Leezur?' says she. For figgeral language, ye know, +requires a very moderate dispersition; and women, even the moderatest +on 'em, haves tew quick perceptions for t' be entertained long with +figgeral language." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A CALL FROM NOTELY'S YACHT +</H3> + +<P> +"Why did you never come? I sent for you." +</P> + +<P> +"I was afraid, Vesty, that new burden of motherhood, which you carried, +might take some physical mark or blight from a presence like mine. But +he is beautiful!" +</P> + +<P> +He lay upon her arm, and he was beautiful, full fed from her breasts, +formed large and fair, his hair already waved as by a court barber! +Her eyes rested on him. Would all the weak and miserable of the world +be well-nigh forgotten now? She raised them to me again—Basin +eyes—all the weak and miserable of the world were dearer. +</P> + +<P> +"He looks that proud way," she laughed, "when the boys play him to +sleep; they played him to sleep again before they went to their traps +this morning. They used to play me to sleep, before baby came. I used +to think of so many things. I wanted to see you." +</P> + +<P> +"Things cannot ever be thought out, after all, Vesty; but if the boys +can play one to sleep—well, that is best." +</P> + +<P> +She took my hand; the tenderness in her eyes covered their pity. I +felt no sting. "I feel safe when you will come sometimes," she said; +"you are so strong—so strong!" She touched my hand admonishingly; it +was as though she lifted me. +</P> + +<P> +"I misjudged your husband, Vesty; rather, I did not know him. He is a +good lad, this Gurdon." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he is!" A dream swept over her face, as dreams will; the mad +birds whistling "love" down by the sea-wall, the gay waters +flashing—Notely Garrison. +</P> + +<P> +"And so the father plays him to sleep? Many a duke would give half his +possessions for a boy like that!" +</P> + +<P> +She buried her face rapturously beside him for a moment, then turned to +me calmly: +</P> + +<P> +"What do you know of Notely?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Only what rumor knows, what may have been told you. His wife found no +enduring attractions in this locality, you know: they have built a +summer place at Bar Harbor; his wife and his mother and Mrs. Langham, +it is said, are all devoted to his happiness. He has a fine yacht now, +and is sometimes seen skipping by off shore. He is gifted in address +and with the pen. His name is seen often." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty listened hungrily. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you seen him? Is he happy?" +</P> + +<P> +"I saw him only as he was passing me, with some of his companions; they +had come ashore to see the old Garrison place. He looked very happy." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I am glad!" said Vesty of the Basins, clasping her hands. I +looked at her; if he was happy she was utterly glad. +</P> + +<P> +"He will be a great man," she said: "he is already famous, that <I>is</I> to +be great." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"As Christ went down the Lonesome Road,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +sang Uncle Benny, who was voluntary housekeeper at Vesty's during some +hours of the day, while the father and boys were away at the fishing: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"As Christ went down the Lonesome Road—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee.</SPAN><BR> +He left the Crown and He took the Cross!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee—</SPAN><BR> +Oh, He left the Crown and He took the Cross—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee!"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He came forward to take the baby, who had awakened before he began to +sing. The Basin matrons ran in very much, but there was no "Vesty" to +enter and take the continued care, in this case, until the young mother +should be strong again. +</P> + +<P> +"You can sweep up, major," said Uncle Benny, cheerfully pointing me to +the broom. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Sail away to Galilee,<BR> +Sail away to Galilee—"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he sang, walking so proudly with the infant that his gait was most +innocently jaunty and affected. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty laughed and shook her head at me, but I had the broom and was +hobbling about at work with it, pleased to find that Uncle Benny had +rather neglected this humble office for the more important one of +minding the baby. +</P> + +<P> +He next set me to washing the dishes and turning the churn; he would +not trust me with the child, and wisely. That he held in his own +strong arms, but he sat down beside me after my work was done and +gently commiserated me. +</P> + +<P> +"Nature has not done so much for you as she has for some, you know," he +said. +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed," I murmured. +</P> + +<P> +At that he took off his blue necktie and held it toward me, with a tear +of pity in his eye. +</P> + +<P> +I took it and tied it simply around my neck above the collar. +</P> + +<P> +"It improves you—some," he said, but his look only too plainly +indicated that there was still much to be desired. +</P> + +<P> +We were sitting thus on the doorstep, Uncle Benny with the baby, and I +peeling the potatoes, with his blue ribbon tied around my neck, when I +heard a half-familiar little scream and laugh, and, looking up, beheld +a fashionable company. +</P> + +<P> +"We hailed Gurdon, off Reef Island, and he said we might come and see +the son and heir—hurrah!" +</P> + +<P> +Notely spoke in his gay voice, but the look he gave Vesty's +child—Vesty's sweet self in that form—leaped with a passionate pain. +</P> + +<P> +There was a small, brilliant-looking woman beside him, with +eye-glasses. "O you divine infant!" she exclaimed, regarding the +child. "Where is the Madonna?" +</P> + +<P> +Now, I was purposely gathering up the potato peelings very slowly from +the doorway, so that the "Madonna" might have time to take down a +certain blue sack from the bedpost at hand, and put it on, and give +those little finger-touches to the hair that women covet; so I stumbled +over the peelings and got mixed up with them, until even Uncle Benny +felt called upon to apologize for me. +</P> + +<P> +"He looks some better," he said dubiously, touching his neck: "but," he +continued, in a very soft and confidential tone, "Nature has not done +so much for him as she has for some, you know." +</P> + +<P> +All the party had the air of having just had a very merry luncheon on +board the yacht. +</P> + +<P> +By the side of Notely's bride was one of the handsomest young athletes, +almost as handsome as Fluke and Gurdon Rafe. +</P> + +<P> +"What-th—what-th the admithion?" he whispered to Grace, plunging his +hand in among the coin in his pockets; "ith—ith there any more of the +thame kind inthide?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hush!" said she quickly, for she knew that I had heard. She lifted a +hand impulsively toward his mouth: he caught her hand and looked as +though he would have held it; she drew it away, blushing sweetly, and +sighed, as she had sighed at Notely. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty saw that, as they entered; saw Notely enter with his easy, +unobservant swagger, lest the unexpected visit of this fashionable +company should embarrass her. He walked across the room, humming an +air, to his old violin. +</P> + +<P> +He touched a strain or two. "Do you remember, Vesty," he said airily, +drawing nearer, "this?—and this? You have such a beautiful little +boy, Vesty! I am so glad!—so glad! And this?—do you remember?" He +played as though he could play away the pallor from that tender face +upon the pillows; the pitiful, fine little blue sack added to it. I +had left the dust-pan loaded with its spoils, the ragged handle, as I +now perceived, not quite hidden behind the door: it caught on to the +skirts of the brilliant lady with the eye-glasses, and went trailing +loudly after her along the floor. As I stooped down to detach it, +sheltered behind those fine draperies, I gave Vesty such a side glance +that a smile and color came over her face in spite of herself. +</P> + +<P> +"Such power of attraction!" said Notely, turning to the lady his +laughing eyes, with that unconscious pathos which a lovely woman never +failed to discover in them; "even the dust-pans"—he swept the strings +of the violin—"even the dust-pans become attached to you." +</P> + +<P> +"On the contrary," said she, giving him a sharp glance which he +relished from her very bright though near-sighted eyes; "it is not +often that I have become attached to anything so useful." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed with mettlesome good-nature. +</P> + +<P> +The bride, with her attendant brave, had gone up to Uncle Benny and the +baby. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me take him," she said, holding up her beautiful arms. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Benny smiled at her, half remembering her—it was an old joke, +his becoming engaged to every pretty woman he met—but shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"It 's a particular trust," he said, in his very soft, sweet voice; +"from Jesus Christ and mother. What if somebody should drop him, or +hurt him? I have to be very careful, for it 's a trust. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'There 's a tree I see in Paradise—'"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he suddenly broke into the song again in a loud and perfectly +unembarrassed tone: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"'Sail away to Galilee.</SPAN><BR> +It 's the beautiful, waiting Tree of Life—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee.'"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em; letter-spacing: 4em">******</SPAN><BR> + +<P> +"Good gwaciouth!" said the young man, fumbling the coin in his pockets +and listening in a dazed state of appreciation at the unexpected +resources of this menagerie. +</P> + +<P> +"Doctor!" cried Notely—and that address delighted Uncle Benny—"Dr. +Spearmint, let me make you acquainted with Mrs. Forrester"—some +wailing strains from the violin—"she could get a divorce from her +present consort, I suppose—ahem!—if there were encouragement enough +from some one sufficiently endowed by nature." +</P> + +<P> +"It is better to be simple than to be wicked," instantly retorted the +bright little woman, regarding Uncle Benny humorously and not without +compassion. +</P> + +<P> +But Uncle Benny was not to be disturbed again; he had his cue. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, thank you!" he murmured; "but I couldn't think of it, anyway. +I've got so many trusts. There 's Vesty's baby, and there 's the +little children I take to school every day and go to fetch them. I'm +very careful, because they're trusts, you see;" and he marched on +gladly with the baby, singing. +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to be ashamed, all of you!" said Mrs. Forrester; and sat +down by Vesty with friendly advice and prattle about her own babies. +</P> + +<P> +Notely dreamed away on his violin: that made it easy for the rest. His +bride and the handsome young man flirted with ardor, yet quite +transparently: there was a smile wholly devoid of bitterness on +Notely's lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Grace!" cried the sharp little woman at last; "we've some superfluous +shawls on board the yacht that would make such charming rugs for Mrs. +Rafe's baby. If Mrs. Rafe could send one of her servants down to the +shore to call a man from the boat." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd thend—thend the one with the body," said the young man, still +afflicted with wonder at Uncle Benny and myself, and indicating Uncle +Benny the more hopefully. +</P> + +<P> +"I prefer the one with the mind," said Mrs. Forrester gravely, snapping +a glance at him that was not without meaning. "Why, when you have been +drinking too much wine, Cousin Jack, can you not go and sit down in a +corner and amuse yourself innocently by yourself as Mr. Garrison does?" +</P> + +<P> +At that Notely looked up and shot at her a long, gay challenge without +words: his eyes in themselves seemed to fascinate her, as they did most +people; she brightened with a caressing, artistic sense of pleasure in +them. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I like that!" said her cousin, having by this time framed a +rejoinder to her question. "Grace and I haven't thpooned anything like +you and Note did, thailing down, only you're so deuced thly about it!" +</P> + +<P> +"You are disgusting," said she, too lofty and serene to be annoyed. +</P> + +<P> +I had my hat and was slipping out on my errand to the boat. Vesty, +with evident distress, was about to explain: I put my finger to my lips +with another side glance of such meaning that she kept still and even +smiled again. +</P> + +<P> +I called a man and brought him to the house for Mrs. Forrester's +directions. He soon returned with the rugs, which Vesty accepted for +her baby as well as she could; Uncle Benny all the time singing +gleefully. +</P> + +<P> +The party moved to go; in passing through the door Mrs. Forrester +dropped her handkerchief. I picked it up and handed it to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, my poor fellow," she said; "you have the manners of a +prince!" and put a coin in my hand—a piece of silver. I took the +money. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty was still, after they were gone, her hands over her face. I knew +well what thoughts she was thinking. +</P> + +<P> +"Do not go," she said to me, and her voice was like the low cry of her +own child; "you are smiling still." She looked at me with strained +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, perhaps because I am glad Mrs. Garrison would not adopt you and +take you away from the Basin; perhaps because I am glad no handsome +rake will ever ogle you as our lisping young man did Mrs. Notely +Garrison." +</P> + +<P> +"It meant nothing between them all," said Vesty, her hand over her +eyes; "you know that better than I. It is only the way they do." +</P> + +<P> +"It meant nothing! It is only the way they do." +</P> + +<P> +I put away the violin Notely's fingers had so lately touched. The +tears stole down Vesty's cheeks and trembled on her lips. +</P> + +<P> +"He does not care," she said; "that is the worst! He does not care as +he did once." +</P> + +<P> +"For what, Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +"For anything but having a good time and making fun with people, and +all that. He used to talk with me—oh, so high and noble, about +things!" Her eyes flashed, then darkened again with pain. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, I know he has seen the model and been pierced with it. He can +never forget; he will come back." +</P> + +<P> +"The model?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know once there was a Master who was determined all his people +should paint him a picture after a great model he had set before them. +It seemed not to be an attractive model; it seemed full of pain and +loss; the world looked to be full of other designs more desirable. +</P> + +<P> +"So that there were hardly any but that wandered from it, to paint +pictures of their own; there was hardly, if ever, a great or a true and +patient artist—for they are the same thing. +</P> + +<P> +"Some found the colors at hand so brilliant, and were so possessed with +the beauty of dreams of their own, that they spent long years in +painting for themselves splendid houses in bewitching landscapes, red +passion roses, and heaps of glittering gold, that looked like +treasures, but were nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"Some painted dark, sad glimpses of earth and sea and sky that were +called beautiful, the skill in them was so perfect. Looking at them, +one saw only the drear night drawing on. +</P> + +<P> +"But there were some who had no great dreams of their own to work out, +or if they had they turned from them with obedience above all: and +many, many, broken-hearted from their failure in their own designs, who +turned now to follow the Master's model. And it was strange, but as +they regarded it intently and faithfully there grew to be in it for +them a beauty ever more and more surpassing all earthly dreams. +</P> + +<P> +"They were dim of sight and trembling of hand; often they mixed the +colors wrong, they spilled them, they made great blotches and mistakes; +but they washed them out with tears and went to work again, yearning +pitifully after the model; in hope or despair, living or dying, their +fingers still moved at the task as they kept looking there. +</P> + +<P> +"And always the Master knew. This was the strangest of all, that some +of the dimmest, wavering outlines, some of the saddest blotted details, +were the beautifullest in his eyes, because he read just the depth of +the endeavor underneath; until, in this light, as he lifted it up, some +poor, weary, tearful, bungled work shone fairer than the sun!" +</P> + +<P> +Keeping faithful watch of the clock, Uncle Benny at the appointed hour +had given up the baby to Vesty, to go and bring the children home from +school. We heard him in the distance still singing joyfully his "Sail +away to Galilee!" +</P> + +<P> +"There is a faithful artist," I said, and smiled; "would God I had come +up to him, with his unceasing watch over the little ones! And Blind +Rodgers too, who never complains, and who will not trouble anybody, but +keeps his life so spotless." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty lay very still. "Do you think Notely was painting a picture of +his own?" she said. "Do you think I was proud because he could paint +such pictures of his own, and wanted him to? You said he had been +pierced with it"—she was talking to herself now—"he will come back." +</P> + +<P> +"He will come back." +</P> + +<P> +"Who are you?" she said, her Basin eyes turned clear and full upon me. +"You let them call you my servant!" +</P> + +<P> +"Not because I was afflicted with humility, but because I was proud and +happy to be that. And because it was a good joke: you do not mind my +enjoying a good joke, I hope? Then you do not know how happy it made +me; I have had so much done for me, and have been so little useful." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty was not satisfied. Her clear, impersonal gaze held me with a +look fearless of its compassion, single and direct. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you would not leave the Basin," she said. "I am never—I am +never happy when you are away." +</P> + +<P> +"God bless you, my little girl!" I said, and hobbled away to finish the +housework, but my heart seemed to take on a pair of pure white wings, +like dove's wings. I forgot withal that I was lame. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ANOTHER NAIL +</H3> + +<P> +"Chipadees sing pretty," said Captain Pharo, drawing a match along the +leg of his trousers and lighting his pipe, as we stood amid the song of +birds in the lane—"but robins is noisy creeturs, always at the same +old tune—poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-117a"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-117a.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'"" BORDER="0" WIDTH="281" HEIGHT="43"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he paused there, having his pipe well going. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said I, gulping down some unworthy emotions of my own; "yes, +indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"Come down to see ef ye wouldn't like t' go up t' the Point with us, t' +git a nail put in the hoss's shu-u?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, thank you! by all means," I replied. +</P> + +<P> +"My woman heered—poo! poo!— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-117b"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-117b.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r,'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="215" HEIGHT="43"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +—she heered 't there was goin' to be a show up thar' to-night—some +play-actor folks. 'Ten Nights in a Ba-ar Room'"—the captain took the +pipe out of his mouth and yawned with affected unconcern. "I've heered +o' worse names for a show; but ye know what women-folks is when there +'s any play-actin' around. They're jest like sheep next to a turnip +patch." +</P> + +<P> +"Are they?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, by clam! ye don't know nothin' 'bout female grass yit, +major—nothin'. Bars can't shet 'em out." I followed his sad gaze to +the west, and we sighed in unison. +</P> + +<P> +"By the way, how 's your show stock gittin' along, major?" +</P> + +<P> +"My show stock?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, sartin; we thinks all the more on ye, ef that c'd be, for havin' +some business. Ye see, the way my woman found it out, she runs over to +Lunette's every mail day and helps her sort the mail, 'nd she said all +the letters 't come directed to 'Mr. Paul Henry' had a mess o' wax run +onto the fold of every envelope with a pictur' stamped inter it o' a +couple o' the cur'osest-lookin' creeturs; said 'twas jest the head an' +necks of 'em an' they looked to be retchin' up ter eat out o' the same +soup plate; said 't must be your stock to the circus; for business +folks often has their business picturs put on outside their envelopes, +ye know, and jedgin' by the cur'osity of 'em, she thought they must be +doin' pretty well by ye." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, they are, captain," I sighed; "yes, they're doing pretty well by +me." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal now, ef you've got a comf'tably good thing, major, be content with +it; 'tain't easy to git onto a new job nowadays. Ain't there some +pertick'lar spear o' grass ye'd like t' have set on the back seat with +ye?" he continued cheerfully. "She rides easier for havin' +consid'rable ballast, ye know." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know of any. Mrs. Lester is away at her daughter-in-law's." +</P> + +<P> +"Hain't ye never thought—poo! poo! hohum!—wal, wal— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-119a"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-119a.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="220" HEIGHT="45"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +hain't ye never thought o' Miss Pray?" +</P> + +<P> +"In what way, captain?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, as a—poo! poo!— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-119b"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-119b.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'She--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="88" HEIGHT="45"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +as a pertick'lar spear, ye know?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"In course human nature turns natchally to pink and white clover, like +Vesty; but I tell ye, major, when it comes to a honest jedgment o' +grass thar' 's lots o' comfort arter all to be took out o' old red +timothy. Old red timothy goes to shutin' right up straight an' minds +her own business. She ain't a-tryin' so many o' these d—d ructions on +ye. My foot 's some better," said he, lifting the maimed member; "but +she ain't yit what she use ter be. It 'u'd make a home for ye, 'ithout +payin' no board, an' ef ye got red o' payin' yer board ye wouldn't mind +ef she didn't treat ye quite so well—for that's the way 'ith all +female grass, clover 'n' all, when they once gits spliced onto ye. But +'ith what ye gits from yer show ye c'd buy a hoss, an' when the wind 's +in the nor'-east ye c'd tack away from home on some arrant—see? But +don't arsk her, 'less ye means ter stand by it, major, for the +women-folks has got to settin' onaccountable store by ye, ye kind o' +humors of 'em so." +</P> + +<P> +I limped down the lane to invite Miss Pray on our excursion, with light +feet. Was it the air again, or was it the new consciousness that I was +developing into a beloved and coveted beau? +</P> + +<P> +I stepped into the cottage through the low window, as I often did. At +the same moment the cover of the wood-box flew up, and I beheld the +rosy, good-natured visage of Miss Pray's orphan girl looking out: she +put her finger on her lip. +</P> + +<P> +"Sh!" +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" I said. +</P> + +<P> +She pointed upward. I saw on the long spike which held the horseshoe +over the door a pail of water so delicately hung that whoever first +entered there must receive its contents in one fell unmitigated deluge +upon the crown. +</P> + +<P> +"Sh! It 's Wesley's" (her fellow-orphan) "it 's Wesley's birthday. I +ain't got no present to give him, so I'm going to <I>souze</I> him with cold +water: he 's bringin' in some wood—there 's steps! Sh!" +</P> + +<P> +She ducked into the wood-box, which had subterranean channels of +escape, with anticipated delight, and put down the cover, leaving me +alone in the room with the approaching victim and in the unenviable +position of appearing to be the sole perpetrator of this malign deed. +</P> + +<P> +I had the merest time to master this idea, when the door swung in upon +its hinges, and not Wesley, but Miss Pray herself, stood before me, a +mad and a blighted object. +</P> + +<P> +I gazed at her, horror-struck, and was endeavoring to speak, when +Wesley, staggering in behind her with his arms full of wood, came to my +relief. "O Miss Pray, 'twan't major, honest 'twan't, nor 'twan't me, +Miss Pray: 'twas that Belle O'Neill, an' she 's mos' got to the graves +by this time. I seed her runnin', through the windy. O Lord! O Miss +Pray! how wet you looks when you're as wet as you be now, Miss Pray!" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed it was not meant for you," I cried. "Belle meant it for a +birthday jest on Wesley." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I wish it had b'en, Miss Pray," gasped poor Wesley, with ill-timed +sympathy; "I'm so much more used to bein' wet 'n you be." +</P> + +<P> +It was doubtful toward which Miss Pray was waxing most warm—the +recusant Belle O'Neill, or the stupid, open-mouthed Wesley—when I +stepped in at this juncture and entreated her with the Kobbes' +invitation. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go," said she, with evident satisfaction gleaming even through +her dripping state, "'s soon 's I've changed my do's and whipped Belle +O'Neill." +</P> + +<P> +During the former process I volunteered, as one whom she would trust, +to watch for Belle, and lure her, if possible, to the house. I +repeatedly saw that damsel's head peering out from behind the +gravestones of Miss Pray's ancestors, down by the sea-wall, and making +signals to me to know if advance were safe. +</P> + +<P> +And every time, prostituting sublime justice to a weak sense of +compassion, I waved her back to her fastness until after we should be +gone. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I tell her 't you'll whip her after you git back, Miss Pray?" +said Wesley, with deep relish. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Miss Pray, who had now appeared, resplendent in holiday +attire. "Do you want her to run away, and leave me without help? +All'as keep your mouth shet—that 's the safest commands for you; +all'as keep your mouth shet." +</P> + +<P> +Wesley closed that wide organ, with a look of wondering surprise. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray was lean and resplendent, not gray and comfortable like my +friend Mrs. Lester. There was no blueberry "turnover" to devour. As +we passed over the jolting road I clung desperately to the carriage +bars. +</P> + +<P> +But it appeared that the captain had an abnormal design, before +entering the Point, of descending into a shallow branch of Crooked +River, there to wash the mud of past happy epochs from the carriage. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his young wife, stultified with amaze at +this proceeding, "I should like to know what's took you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Adm'r'l bet, spell ago, 't he could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud +off'n my two-seated kerridge next time I driv her to the Point. Jest +keep yer eyes up the road," said Captain Pharo, standing, diligently +and furtively swashing, with his unconscious boots submerged in water, +"t' see that thar' ain't nobody lookin'." +</P> + +<P> +"What 's he goin' to give ye, if ye win the bet, cap'n?" said his +lively wife. +</P> + +<P> +The captain cast me a dark and fleeting wink over his shoulder. "Poo! +poo!" he sang: "hohum! +</P> + +<A NAME="img-123a"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-123a.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass. Or as--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="278" HEIGHT="42"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +anybody in sight, major?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; the road is all clear." +</P> + +<P> +"What 's he goin' to give ye, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, if ye win the bet?" +</P> + +<A NAME="img-123b"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-123b.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r, The blight--'"" BORDER="0" WIDTH="278" HEIGHT="44"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Ye needn't keep on singin', Captain Pharo Kobbe; for the sake o' the +company, I shan't ask ye nothin' more." +</P> + +<P> +Saddened by this blight, his evil and surreptitious deed being +accomplished, Captain Pharo backed out of the stream. +</P> + +<P> +But the triumphant smile returned to his countenance as he advanced on +the Point and found Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up sitting within the porch of +the grocery with other of his townsmen. +</P> + +<P> +"Adm'r'l," said Captain Pharo, "I want ye to step down here and scrape +twenty-five pound o' mud off'n my two-seated kerridge." +</P> + +<P> +The admiral regarded us fixedly for some moments, fireless pipe in +expressionless mouth, and then rose and descended to us. The women had +already contemptuously left our company and gone about their shopping. +</P> + +<P> +"Come along, Kobbe!" said the admiral, "and bring"—he glanced with +calm, meaningless vision at me—"bring all the rest on ye." +</P> + +<P> +He led us under the loud sign of a tin shop, where, after sedate +speculation in the matter of purchasing a tea-kettle with a consuming +leak in the bottom, he cleared his throat. "'S I sums it up," said he +to the proprietor, without further utterance; that individual looked +doubtfully at me. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he 's all right," said Captain Pharo; "he 's a cousin o' mine in +the show business." +</P> + +<P> +This introduction proving more than satisfactory, we were ushered into +a small room apart and the door locked behind us: but missing Uncle +Coffin's inspiration in this case, and remembering the quality of the +liquid, I made a smart show of drinking, without in the least +diminishing the contents of the bottle. +</P> + +<P> +Not so, however, good Captain Pharo: from this time on his conduct +waxed sunny and genial, as well as irresponsible of the grave duties +which had hitherto afflicted him. +</P> + +<P> +"Thar' 's a lot o' winter cabbage, 't was sp'ilin' down in my suller, +'t I put in onto the kerridge floor, major," said he; "ef ye're mind +ter sell 'em out for what ye can git, to harves, ye're welcome. Sell +'em out to hulls, by clam!" he called after me. "I ain't so mean 't I +carn't help a young man along a little." +</P> + +<P> +I returned to the carriage and arranged my fading cabbages as +attractively as possible, offset by the glories of the star bed-quilt; +and whether it was because the news had already spread that I was in +the show business, or by reason of some of those occult charms at which +Captain Pharo had hinted, I was soon surrounded by a lively group of +women. +</P> + +<P> +"Here 's one 't ain't worth but two cents," said one fair creature, +holding up a specimen of my stock, whose appearance beside her own +fresh beauty caused me to writhe for shame. "I shan't give a mite more +for her." +</P> + +<P> +"O madam, is she worth that?" I denied impulsively. +</P> + +<P> +The woman, speechless, dropped the cabbage to the earth. +</P> + +<P> +"Here 's a nickel, anyway, for your bein' so honest," she exclaimed, +soon afterward. +</P> + +<P> +I took it with a bow. And here sordid considerations ceased, as they +had begun: my pious emotions toward the sex conquered, and I became not +the base purveyor but the elegant distributor of cabbages, right and +left, only with murmured apologies for gifts so unworthy. +</P> + +<P> +I was now evidently classified as belonging high in the spectacular +drama; when the horse, having finished the meal of cracked corn he had +been enjoying by the roadside, with the reins thrown slack over his +neck, suddenly lifted his head with an air of arriving at some instant +conclusion and started merrily down the road. +</P> + +<P> +Too lame to jump from a moving vehicle, my first emotions of dismay +gradually disappeared, however, as I found that our passage was not +disturbed even by the most untoward outward events. For a base-ball +from the bat of some players in an adjoining field hit the noble animal +full in the flank without occasioning any alarm to his gait or +divergence from his resolved purpose. +</P> + +<P> +He turned down the Artichoke road and went straight to Uncle Coffin's. +"I've come to take you and Aunt Salomy to the show," I said, lifted out +and knocked hither and thither by my friend in his tender ecstasy. +</P> + +<P> +"Cruisin' out on the high seas without no rudder, you—you young spark, +you!" he cried delightedly. "You're 'most too full o' the devil t' +exist!" he exclaimed at last, holding me out at arm's-length admiringly. +</P> + +<P> +Proud now of my wickedness as I had formerly been of my charms, I +steered my friends to the Point by the conventional means of the +rudder. Captain Pharo, who had been so congenially occupied that he +had not even missed me, heaped encomiums upon me, and receiving Uncle +Coffin almost with tears of joy in his eyes, led him away to the tin +shop. +</P> + +<P> +I secured more cracked corn for the horse and shed-room, where I tied +him with retrospective security. There being no restaurant, I obtained +some biscuits and cheese, and with these and six tickets for the very +front row, Aunt Salomy and Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray and I stole early +into the hall and sat us down to rest. +</P> + +<P> +There were already figures as for a rehearsal behind the curtain; +indeed, that thin structure revealed angry silhouettes, and loud voices +reached us. +</P> + +<P> +"Sh!" came from that source: "or them fools down there, eatin' crackers +an' cheese, 'll hear ye." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care if the whole town hears me," replied a passionate female +voice. "You said I could have twenty dollars, and now you won't give +it to me. I won't play to-night till I do have it—hear that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Sh! or I'll shake ye! Don't make a fool o' yourself, Maud. Wait till +I get to-night's receipts——" +</P> + +<P> +"I won't! I'd like to see you shake me; ha! ha!" +</P> + +<P> +Here the angry figures became plastic and tilted at each other +menacingly; the woman seized something and threw it; there was a crash. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Salomy choked placidly over her cracker crumbs. Mrs. Kobbe gazed +with faithful interest. +</P> + +<P> +Soon the very tall and hard-looking young man who had sold me the +tickets came down from behind the curtain, with a hang-dog air, and his +handkerchief bound about his head, and returned to the office at the +door. +</P> + +<P> +Almost at the same moment Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin walked +fearlessly up the aisle, their familiar hats on their heads, their +pipes in harmonious glowing action, and sat down beside us with beams +of recognition. +</P> + +<P> +The hard young man, who appeared to be pecuniary manager as well as +leading star of the show, came to us. "No smoking here!" he said, +severely. +</P> + +<P> +"No smokin'!" replied Captain Pharo. "Ye'd orter put it on yer +plackards then! D'ye s'pose I'd come to yer show ef I'd known that? +Come along, Coffin! I'm goin' ter hang out outside, by clam! +</P> + +<A NAME="img-128"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-128.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'"" BORDER="0" WIDTH="274" HEIGHT="40"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"No singing, either, sir, on the part of the audience. This company is +from Boston, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Is she?" said Captain Pharo, with blighting sarcasm, new-lighting his +pipe preparatory to leaving the hall; "I thought she was from Jaffy!" +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, wirily folding his powerful +arms; "keep yer seat, Pharo, and keep yer pipe. Ef any man from +Boston, or any other man, wants ter take the pipe outer my mouth, or +outer Pharo Kobbe's mouth, let 'im come on an' try it!" +</P> + +<P> +At this opportunity, I silently pressed a coin of such meaning into the +manager's hand that he skipped gracefully past us to the stage, where +he proceeded to explain—while the ribs of court-plaster with which he +had endeavored to conceal his wounds kept constantly falling upon the +floor—that, owing to the unavoidable illness of some of the actors, he +should be obliged to give us a choice variety entertainment instead of +the play advertised. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin, not yet comprehending this idea, and +smoking triumphantly with their hats on, listened to several ranting +recitations from the wife who had so inopportunely defaced her +husband's visage; but when, after a brief recess, she again appeared +with a stage bow, Captain Pharo looked blankly at Uncle Coffin. +</P> + +<P> +"Where 's the ba-ar, Coffin?" +</P> + +<P> +"I kind o' suspicion they've giv' it up, Pharo; goin' to have +recitationers 'nstead." +</P> + +<P> +"Curfew <I>shall</I> not ring to-night!" yelled the woman on the stage, with +a leap of several feet perpendicularly. +</P> + +<P> +"By clam!" cried poor Captain Pharo, rising; "I don' know what she is, +but she is goin' to ring, and she 's goin' to ring loud too, by clam! +I come here to see 'Ten Nights in a Ba-ar Room,' I didn't come here t' +see contortioners and recitationers. Give us any more o' yer——" +</P> + +<P> +Here, an onion, thrown from the rear of the room by some sympathetic +partner in Captain Pharo's woes, came whizzing over our heads and just +missed the woman, by good aim; she retreated without the formality of +her usual sweeping bow. The manager began hastily to get together his +stage setting for the play. A table and a bottle were first produced; +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin began to nudge each other with choice +anticipation of the advancing drama, when another onion, thrown with +unerring vision, took the bottle and shattered it, with its contents, +upon the stage floor, directly under our faces. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo leaned forward and sniffed; so did Uncle Coffin. +</P> + +<P> +"Water! Coffin, by clam!" said Captain Pharo, rising. "Plackards said +'twas goin' to be a re'listic play—and here, by clam! I've rode +twelve miles over a hubbly road an' waited 'round here all day, jest t' +hear a spear o' female grass screech, an' see a pint bottle o' water +busted! Come along! I'm goin' home." +</P> + +<P> +How futile indeed are the poor effects of the stage compared with the +ever new and varied drama of life itself! +</P> + +<P> +As Miss Pray and I came in sight of her cottage, at this now uncanny +hour of the night, we saw that the house was all alight, and Belle +O'Neill stood in the doorway, loudly and gleefully ringing the +dinner-bell. +</P> + +<P> +"O Miss Pray, there was a dead pig washed ashore to-day, right down on +your clam-bottoms—such a beautiful one!—jest as fat!—and me and +Wesley brought it up and roasted it, and we've been expectin' you, an' +expectin' you, an' tryin' to keep it hot——" +</P> + +<P> +"A dead pig!" hissed Miss Pray. "Do you want to murder us? Do you +want to drown me in the morning and p'ison me at night, Belle O'Neill? +For heaven's sake, have you et any of it?" +</P> + +<P> +The appearance of the dish testified only too plainly that she and +Wesley had dined. +</P> + +<P> +"You're p'isoned!" shrieked Miss Pray: "be you prepared, Belle O'Neill? +Fat pig! He was prob'bly bloated with p'ison! Oh, dear! oh, mercy! +you're prob'bly dyin' this very minit." +</P> + +<P> +Belle O'Neill began to howl, Wesley to weep dismally with low moans, +his fists in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +I had a medicine which I administered to the two, in case the exigency +were as fearful as Miss Pray predicted, which I strongly doubted. From +this, as Belle O'Neill recovered, she turned to Miss Pray with the +confessional fearlessness of one who has been at the grave's brink. +</P> + +<P> +"And, oh, Miss Pray! the brindle cow 's calved and hid it in the woods!" +</P> + +<P> +"So you've been down by the sea-wall, hunting up things to p'ison the +only friend you ever had on earth with, and left the brindle cow and +her calf to die in the woods?" +</P> + +<P> +But Belle O'Neill had reached that plane of despondency where the +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune could no longer sting her. +</P> + +<P> +"I meant it for the best, Miss Pray," she said, as we all started, with +the lantern, for the woods. +</P> + +<P> +Never had I engaged in a scene of such eerie fascinations; especially +as, when we discovered the cow with her calf, and endeavored to set the +latter on its feet and lead it, the cow shook her horns at us with such +an aggressive lunge, I fled without apology behind a tree, where Miss +Pray and Wesley, dropping the lantern, pursued me with entreaties for +protection! +</P> + +<P> +But Belle O'Neill, seemingly conscious that she had to redeem herself +by some heroic act or die, picked up the lantern and continued leading +the calf, at which the cow singled her out with respect and obediently +followed her: so that we who had witnessed her disgrace now followed +meekly, afar off, her triumphal procession homeward. +</P> + +<P> +"That girl has done nobly," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Belle O'Neill," said Miss Pray, before we finally sought that repose +which is the guerdon of all nobly sustained adventure, "the drownin' +and the p'isonin' is both forgot, and next time the jew'lry pedler +comes along you shall have a breas'pin—that is, if you're livin', +Belle O'Neill." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Belle will live," I cried; "the danger is over." +</P> + +<P> +"Whether I lives or whether I dies," said Belle O'Neill, calm now on +heights above us all, "I meant that roast pig for the best, Miss Pray." +</P> + +<P> +But before I could get to sleep that night I gave myself up to folly; I +rolled in inextinguishable fits of laughter. My gray heraldry, my +ancient coat of arms, innocently maligned as they had been, stared down +reproachfully at me through the night. I feebly wiped my weeping eyes +and rolled and laughed the more, and slept at last such a sleep as only +the foolish and blessed of mortality know. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE MASTER REVELLER +</H3> + +<P> +"Notely! You will be leading Fluke to go wrong, Notely. He takes no +interest at home or in the fishing since you and those pleasure-men you +have with you have been keeping open house at the Neck. When he comes +home he has been wild and drinking, and is moody. It is a week since +you have been away from your home and wife with your yacht anchored +here off shore, hunting and cruising, and such times at the old +Garrison place at night—it is the talk!" +</P> + +<P> +Notely laughed and rose. Vesty had been standing looking down at him +earnestly, where he sat in her doorway: she held her baby asleep on one +strong arm, its face against her neck. +</P> + +<P> +Notely turned his own face away a little, jingling the free coin in his +pockets. "Why, I have been making money on my own account, Mrs. Gurdon +Rafe," he cried gayly, "since I opened the quarry. And no man, nor no +woman either, now says to me, Do this or do that, go here or go there. +From all accounts, moreover, my wife and mother are enjoying themselves +extremely well as ever during my absence. As for Fluke Rafe, he is a +good fellow, but he was always wild as a hawk." +</P> + +<P> +"O Notely! if you would only help such men, as you might, instead of +being as wild as a hawk with them!" +</P> + +<P> +"It takes a hawk to catch a hawk, my dear: all the ministers will tell +you that." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that what you are doing it for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, no; since you are a Basin, and only truth avails, there has been +hitherto no deep moral design in my merry orgies at the Neck. But +to-night, Vesty, is my grand affair; to be hallowed by the presence of +all the Basins: my feast and ball to them, you know—my oldest and best +friends. And you—why, Vesty," he went on, in another tone, "you +remember we had always a dance a week at the Basin, and you and I led +them off together. Come, then, for the sake of old times and the +feeling of the rest, though you may enjoy it yourself no more." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke with reckless meaning, and his eyes, that had such fatal power +of expression in them, looked deep into hers. She paled; the baby +threw up a sleeping hand against her face. +</P> + +<P> +"There is another thing, Notely," she said. "Gurdon does not like it +that you come here for an hour or more every day to sit and talk alone +with me while they are at the fishing. He is not much to suspect, and +he was always fond of you and trusted you; but it is not doing right by +Gurdon." +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes looked infinitely sorrowful into his; blushes, like pain, dyed +her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"O Vesty, my pure one!—then tell me that you love me still—love me as +you used to do—and I'll go away content, and not come any more. Touch +my head as you used to do; kiss me once more, with those words, and——" +</P> + +<P> +The baby's white, sleeping palm pressed hard against the mother's +burning cheek. +</P> + +<P> +"Such words must not be any more, Notely. Go away and be the good, +powerful man God meant you to be, and I shall love you more than I ever +did in my life." +</P> + +<P> +"Saint Vesta! I have lost you!" said Notely: his voice shook with +passion; the thin, strong hand that he put up, as if shading his eyes, +hid wild and angry tears. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been faithfully engaged in the career to which you so tenderly +and considerately dedicated me," he went on. "What will you have? I +worked last winter like a dog; nothing is easy won, I think: but there +is no young man in this State who has been so flattered with public +notice as I. I am making my own money—no young man more shrewdly, +they say. What will you have? I have growing fame, prosperity, an +accomplished society woman for my wife. Was not that what you wished +for me?" His words stung. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty had her dim look; she had turned cold; her speech groped +pitifully. "But I think I saw—I think I understood a little, after +all—because I loved you—what are you doing it <I>for</I>, Notely?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, there, indeed!—what for? I have lost my object, you know, Saint +Vesta. For fame and frolic and the devil, I suppose—since we are +talking face to face with an immortal Basin—and to fill up the time +generally." +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad that I did what I did," cried the poor girl, her tongue +touched with sudden fire, as if from outside herself; "you loved me a +little, but you did not love me much!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" he caught his breath, his deep eyes thrilled her. +</P> + +<P> +"If you had loved me much—such a man as to be true to me through hard +work and time and sorrow and all—then you could not have borne to be +any less a man, Notely Garrison, though you lost me, or whatever you +lost. But if anything could turn you from <I>that</I>, then time and trial +and all would have turned you, sooner or later, to be unkind and untrue +to me. I know it. Before God, I know it! You loved me a little, but +you did not love me much!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad, for your sake and for my own," she said; "I am glad that I +did not marry you." +</P> + +<P> +Then, as the fire flamed out, tears of despair rushed to her eyes, +because he looked as though she had hurt him so—his face more like a +beautiful cameo than ever, pure and sharp; he who was so debonair and +generous with them all, genial toward them always, and familiar with +the simplest and poorest. She longed impulsively to take him to her +heart, to give him with yearning tenderness the one caress he had +pleaded for: but, still seeing dimly where he was blind, she would not. +</P> + +<P> +Notely watched that struggle, saw the impulse fade upon her face into a +white resolve; watched her keenly meanwhile with tumultuous hope. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty, once when we were little more than children, we were playing on +Ladle Rock and I fell. You did not leave me, frightened; insensible as +I was, you bathed my face and stayed by me. When I came to myself my +head was in your lap. You had on a brown cotton frock, made in an +old-womanish grave fashion, and you were looking down at me. From that +moment all my life changed—who can explain it? I was a child in my +feeling toward you no longer, with childish thoughts. I loved +you—loved you as I love you now—but you have robbed me of my life." +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said. That sad fire from outside herself came back to her. +"You have only been denied one pleasure the more that you wanted, and +that would not have been so dear to you long if you had not lost it. +Life is above that, you used to tell me, but you have forgotten." +</P> + +<P> +"Rather, I have grown wiser," he said, but for the instant he set his +clear, fine face away from her. "It is a distorted notion that our +existence here is for cold denial, from however pure an imagination. +It is better to run with life, to follow joyfully the great trend of +nature." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her: her staid, unreproachful eyes, her calm and holy +face, smote him. +</P> + +<P> +"My pleasure-friends, as you call them, say that the Basins are simple. +That is a superficial observation;" he laughed with despair, and +proceeded to fill his pipe. "The Basins are like a rock." +</P> + +<P> +"Notely," said she very slowly then, "your face is dear to me as this +little one upon my breast; it eats into my heart." +</P> + +<P> +All life's sorrow looked through her, and a faith, a purpose, stronger +than life. Notely cast his misery from him with a sigh; the game was +over. +</P> + +<P> +"Saint Vesta," said he simply, "I have lost you; that is the sad fact, +and I accept it. Still, since you care for me some, I shall be a +little merry. Come to my ball—Gurdon promised me you would both come." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CAPTAIN LEEZUR RELATES HOW MIS' GARRISON ATE CROW +</H3> + +<P> +"It 's said," said Captain Leezur, who sat on the log fondly applying +his deer-bone toothpick, which had been restored to him for a season, +"'t ye keep yer mouth shet, and ye won't eat no crow." +</P> + +<P> +His smile embraced the heavens, as the source of such philosophy, with +transcendent admiration. +</P> + +<P> +"That 's figgeral language, ye know. Have a narvine lozenge. I all'as +enj'ys 'em with a friend more'n what I dew meltin' on 'em deown alone." +</P> + +<P> +We sucked deliciously. +</P> + +<P> +"Afore I got my dispersition moderated deown inter the shape she is +neow, I was dreadful kind o' sly and ongodly abeout cuttin' up tricks," +he continued, his countenance now conveying only the tranquillity of +one restored and forgiven. +</P> + +<P> +"Mis' Garrison, Notely's mother, she was all'as puttin' on airs tew the +Basins, 's if they was beneath her; and when they'd first begun to live +over there to the Neck, she sent a man deown t' me, 't said Mis' +Garrison had 'ordered' a pair o' partridge on me. +</P> + +<P> +"'What?' says I to the man. +</P> + +<P> +"'Mis' Garrison said t' order a couple o' partridge on ye,' says he, +'an' she wants 'em at tew o'clock.' +</P> + +<P> +"'All right,' says I; 'yew go home an' tell her 't she shall have that +'ere order filled eout complete,' says I. +</P> + +<P> +"So I went eout and gunned one partridge and one old crow, 't had been +ha'ntin' my corn patch ever senct I could remember, so 't he was jest +as familiar tew me as the repair on the slack o' my britches, and I +dressed 'em both, dreadful tasty an' slick—they was jest 'beout the +same size dressed—an' rigged 'em eout esthetiky with some strips o' +pink caliker; and 'long at the 'p'inted time the man he come deown +arter 'em. +</P> + +<P> +"'Yew tell Mis' Garrison,' says I, ''t birds is so thick 'reound my +premmuses this year I couldn't think o' chargin' nothin' for 'em, +'specially to an old Basin like her!' +</P> + +<P> +"For in them days, 'fore I got moderated, I didn't mind p'intin' hints +at nobody, or weoundin' their feelin's, 'specially ef it jibed along in +with playin' some ongodly trick on 'em." +</P> + +<P> +The joy of a ransomed soul played across Captain Leezur's features. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, Notely was areound a day or tew arter-wards—Notely an' me was +great mates—'nd says I, 'Heow'd yer mother like them birds I sent up +tew 'er?' says I. 'Why, one on 'em was r'al good, Uncle Leezur,' says +he, 'and one on 'em'"—Captain Leezur glanced cautiously toward the +house-door before he continued—"'one on 'em was tough as the devil's +kite-string; tough as a d—d old crow!' says he. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I made it up to Note in more ways 'n one, for him and me was +great mates; but I never let on 'beout that pertickaler mess o' birds. +Keep yer mouth shet, ye know, and ye won't eat no crow—that is, 'less +somebody 's been playin' some ongodly trick on ye." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Leezur never laughed aloud: his smile simply widened and +broadened until it became a scintillating sun, without the disgrace of +cachinnation. +</P> + +<P> +"Neow there 's all'as a meanin' in figgeral language," he continued, +"an' when Mis' Garrison got set ag'inst Note and Vesty's marryin', jest +'cause Vesty was poor an' a Basin, an' set ter work ter break it off by +fair means or by feoul, she got her meouth open for a good-sized +ondigestible mess o' crow. +</P> + +<P> +"In figgeral language; for I don't reck'lect jest the exac' date when +she did r'a'ly eat crow; 'twas a good many years ago, 'n' I wouldn't +have her hear of it neow for nothin'. I'm natch'ally ashamed o' them +ongodly tricks neow—'nd besides, it 'u'd lay harder on her stommick 'n +a high-school grammar." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't tell her," I said. "I'm hardly acquainted with her, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd give all I've got, every mite, ef it c'd help save Note," said +Captain Leezur, a tear trickling down his sun-face. "All things is +good ef we use 'em in moderation; but we've got ter use moderation, in +eatin' an' drinkin', an' lobster sallid—yes, an' even in passnips. +Nothin' 'll dew but the same old rewl, even in passnips. +</P> + +<P> +"I heered voices deown to the shore last night," he continued, with a +sort of yearning confidence toward me, so that I bent my ear nearer, +with some of his own sorrow. "I reckoned one on 'em was Notely's +voice, talkin' and larfin' as hilar'ous as ef 'twas sun-up. So I went +deown there, and there was Note and one o' them fellers with him, each +on 'em with a stiff tod o' whiskey aboard, a-pullin' there for dear +life, an' the dory anchored fast as fast could be to the staple! +</P> + +<P> +"They was lookin' for lan'marks and pullin' and sheoutin' and +larfin'—'twas kinder moonlight, ye know—and one on 'em says, 'Seems +ter me 't takes a cussed long time t' git to the Neck to-night,' says +he. I sot there an' watched 'em; knew 'twouldn't do 'em no harm t' +pull, knew 'twas doin' 'em good an' steadyin' of 'em. By an' by, I ups +an' says, 'Ship ahoy!' +</P> + +<P> +"'Hello!' says Note. +</P> + +<P> +"'Why don't ye weigh anchor?' says I. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, when that idee come deown atop of 'em, ye never see a couple +sobered so quick as they was. They giv' three cheers, an' nothin' 'd +dew but I must git into the dory an' go up to the Neck with 'em. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I had my objec'; an' when they took me in t' treat me, the rest +o' Note's company was settin' 'reound there, an' I ups an' says, 'Jest +one glass, an' ef <I>yew</I> takes <I>any</I> more I won't tetch even that,' says +I. 'Yew've had enough—tew much,' says I. 'Moderation in all things,' +says I, 'even as low deown as passnips.' +</P> + +<P> +"They all giv' me another three cheers; but they didn't drink no more. +An' nothin' 'd dew but I must set deown, an' then nothin' 'd dew but I +must give 'em my views on moderation!" +</P> + +<P> +Captain Leezur did swallow a little hard with the effort not to appear +too highly flattered! +</P> + +<P> +"So I sot there an' giv' 'em my views on moderation. I must say for +'em, they appeared dreadful interested; they sot kind o' leanin' +forrards, with their meouths not more 'n harf—'n' sartin not more 'n a +quarter ways—shet; an' when I'd got through, they giv' me another +reousin' three cheers ag'in. +</P> + +<P> +"They told me all abeout Lot's wife, tew," said Captain Leezur, with +grateful seriousness; "they've been great travellers, ye know; all +abeout the appearance o' that location where she sot, an' heow it +looked arfter she'd got up an' went, an' the aspec's o' Jaffy, an' all +them interestin' partickalers, more'n what I ever heered from anybody +afore." +</P> + +<P> +I looked at Captain Leezur to see if no suspicion of earthly treachery +was on his sun-blessed visage. None. +</P> + +<P> +I lifted my hat with a nameless reverence too deep for words, and left +him, still smiling upward. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"TAR-A-TA!" OF THE TRUMPET +</H3> + +<P> +Fluke played, with the dense black hair tossing above his handsome +eyes, but Gurdon with a calm brow, though he too loved the music and +dancing. +</P> + +<P> +"Go and have a turn with Vesty yourself," said Fluke; "we'll keep up +fiddling, change about, with the organ." +</P> + +<P> +For Notely, studying every heart-throb of the Basins, had had a little +parlor organ brought in for the night and put up in place of his piano; +at it sat Mrs. Judah Kobbe, cousin and guest of the Pharo Kobbes, +playing with such lively spirit and abandon that the very lamps danced +upon the organ-brackets in untripping time with the feet of the dancers +on the floor. +</P> + +<P> +I had already detected in the tone of society toward Mr. and Mrs. Judah +Kobbe that they were awesome cosmopolites from some source. I now +learned that they were from a crowded mart called Machias. Captain +Pharo also told me mysteriously, in the pauses of his pipe, "'t they +was l'arneder 'n any fish 't swims;" so I gazed at them with wonder +from a distance, but did not much dream that it would be for me to +speak with them. +</P> + +<P> +All along the edges of the floor were strewn children and babies, +comfortably wrapped and laid to sleep; the habit of the Basins, who had +no servants at home wherewith to leave them. +</P> + +<P> +Notely Garrison had led the dance with Vesty; now she sat rocking her +baby, near Gurdon, who turned to them with a smile and swept a softer +strain now and then, as when he played them to sleep at home. +</P> + +<P> +"Introduce me to the 'mezzo-tint' study yonder, the mediaeval picture +over there, rocking her infant, back of the fiddlers." +</P> + +<P> +Notely slightly turned from his fellow-reveller, flushing. +</P> + +<P> +"There are pretty girls enough here for you to dance with, Sid; she +would not like it. They are such simple people they would not +understand. She is married, you see." +</P> + +<P> +"You danced with her." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I am an old friend." +</P> + +<P> +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" went Captain Judah's trumpet, and I looked up to +see what new event its blast denoted. For, Captain Judah was a stage +driver, and having brought his horn along as a signal compliment to the +occasion, he was now conducting the first stages of the ball with those +loud flourishes and elegant social convenances which only those +sophisticated by extreme culture are supposed to understand. +</P> + +<P> +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" +</P> + +<P> +I saw that Vesty and Gurdon had risen to dance together. Vesty wrapped +and laid her sleeping baby among the others, and Gurdon stepped out to +perform first that solitary jig or shuffle which is demanded of every +householder among the Basins, before he can lead his partner to the +dance. +</P> + +<P> +Notely and the young man he had called "Sid" watched him shaking his +long legs, his heavy, noble face perfectly sincere and unembarrassed; +for was it not the ancient, honorable custom of the Basins? +</P> + +<P> +"Stolid cart-horse, by Jove!" sneered Sid, casting a glowing glance at +Vesty, "for such a Venus!" +</P> + +<P> +Notely did not like the tone. "There 's some stolid granite in my +quarry," he snarled softly; "but it 's everlasting good granite, all +the same, Sid." +</P> + +<P> +"You've been knocked over, I see," said the irrepressible Sid, smiling +intelligently at him. "Well, I'm off for the jig." +</P> + +<P> +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" +</P> + +<P> +The trumpet punctually announced the appearance of so much colorless +linen and broadcloth on the floor; but the Basins, who were fine, gazed +at his severe costume with tender pity. +</P> + +<P> +"Sid," appreciating this, dared not laugh: he endeavored to redeem this +lack of beauty by a display of his white bediamonded hand on his +watch-guard, as he entreated a partner for the dance, but he was not +held for much; that was evident. +</P> + +<P> +Now and then in the reel he touched Vesty's hand, or swung with her, +and he stared at her consistently and immoderately throughout; but +always for him the holy lids were low over her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +My heart exulted something like the next blast of the trumpet; I turned +to look. Vesty was safe. +</P> + +<P> +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" +</P> + +<P> +But Captain Pharo needed no stirring strain to his consciousness as he +walked, with scarcely perceptible limp, to the middle of the floor. +</P> + +<P> +That flowered jacket, the arnica bloom glowing like sunrise on the +back! Those new trousers, of "middling" sacks, "Brand No. 1" proudly +distinct upon the right leg! +</P> + +<P> +"Give me sea-room here, give me sea-room," said the hero; "and jest +wait till I git my spavins warmed up a little!" +</P> + +<P> +A wide, clear swath was cut from the billows that surrounded Captain +Pharo. +</P> + +<P> +"Now then," said he, pulling his pipe from his pocket, and drawing a +match in the usual informal way; "Poo! poo! hohum!— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-147"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-147.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="278" HEIGHT="46"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +strike up somethin' lively over there, Gurd. Give us 'The Wracker's +Darter,' by clam!" +</P> + +<P> +Gurdon, who had returned to relieve Fluke at the violin, good-naturedly +struck up "The Wrecker's Daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't ye put a little sperrit into 'er, Gurd? Is this 'ere a fun'al? +That 's it! Now then—'Touch and go is a good pilot.'" +</P> + +<P> +With these words, Captain Pharo sprang with ox-like levity from the +floor, and amid the giddy swiftness of the music I was occasionally +conscious of hearing his mailed heels flow together with a clash that +made the rafters ring. He descended at last ominously, but when the +reverberations died away I looked, and saw that he was whole. +</P> + +<P> +Notely came over and shook hands with him, laid an arm proudly on his +proud shoulder, and led him away to the "mess" room, where his stewards +were busy. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" cried a voice from the fondest of the +Artichokes, seizing him with an exultant pride which he affected to +hide under derogatory language; "was that you I seen in there jest now, +stompin' the frescoes off'n the ceilin'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Altogether most entertaining jig that has been danced this evening," +said one of Notely's broadcloth guests, very superciliously. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I hain't danced none yit," said Captain Pharo, too confident to +show contempt; "only warmin' my spavins;" and he heartlessly turned the +complete flower in view for the further annihilation of the gentleman +in black. +</P> + +<P> +"Ef I c'd 'a' got on my scuffs," said Captain Leezur, his sun-visage +showing against the crimson back of an easy-chair, "I don't know but +what I sh'd been 'most tempted ter jine the darnce myself. But no; I +couldn't pervail with 'em—so long sence I've wrarstled with 'em—so I +come right 'long in my felts." +</P> + +<P> +"No, ye can't dance 'The Wracker's Darter,' that is, not as she orter +be danced, in felts," said Captain Pharo; "she 's a tune 't wants the +emphasis brought right down onto her; felts won't do it, nor scuffs +neither." +</P> + +<P> +"That off foot o' mine kind o' b'longs to the church, anyway," said +Captain Leezur sweetly; "has for years; don't pain me much as I knows +on, but she ain't seound: if t'other one starts off kind o' skittish +she 's sartin to hold back——" +</P> + +<P> +"Ye'd orter be thankful 't ye only has to contend with natch'al +diserbilities," interposed Captain Pharo, "'n' don't have any o' these +d—d ructions played on ye." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, by the way, what are 'ructions'?" inquired the guest of +supercilious temperament. +</P> + +<P> +"Le' me see," said Captain Pharo; "you're the one 't Note said was from +Washin'ton, ain't ye? Washin'ton, D.C.?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly." +</P> + +<P> +"P'litical centre o' the United States of Ameriky?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes." +</P> + +<P> +"An' you don't know what ructions be!" +</P> + +<P> +Loud laughter greeted this sally; only the man who had been in +California sat moody, his basilisk eye fixed upon me. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll tell ye what ructions be," proceeded Captain Pharo, +breathing stertorously through his pipe; "it's repealin' all our +optional acts, for one thing! We can't institoot an optional act down +here, but what you go an' repeal it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, stuff!" said the high and hot-headed young man, quite taken off +his level by the laughter round him; "I don't either!" +</P> + +<P> +"I say ye do!" said Captain Pharo, waxing more and more wroth; "ye sets +some feller t' work there, 't never see salt water, t' make our laws +for us; 'lows us to ketch all the spawn lobsters and puts injunctions +onter the little ones: like takin' people when they gits to be sixteen +or twenty year old, 'n' choppin' their heads off—yer race is goin' to +multiply almighty fast, ain't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I hadn't observed any lack of increase in your amiable race, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye hadn't, hadn't yer?" said Captain Pharo, in the voice of a +smouldering volcano, laying a fresh match to his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"Moderation," liquidly pealed in the voice of Captain +Leezur—"moderation 's the rewl——" +</P> + +<P> +"'N' I'll tell ye of another optional act o' ourn 't ye repeals; but ye +can tell 'em 't we git it jest the same—though it 's racktified 'tell +it 's p'ison." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye can't all'as git it, even racktified," said Shamgar: "onct when the +boat wa'n't in for a couple o' weeks, I got kind o' desp'rit over a +pain in my chist; hadn't nothin' but two bottles o' 'Lightnin' External +Rheumatiz Cure,' so I took 'em straight. They said 't for a spell +thar' I was the howlin'est case o' drunk they ever see." +</P> + +<P> +"The wu'st case o' 'nebr'ancy this State 's ever known," said Captain +Dan Kirtland, "was a man up to Callis jail, 't had been 'bleedged to +take a spree on 'lemon extract;' he sot fire t' everything he could lay +his hand to." +</P> + +<P> +"Look a' that, will ye?" said Captain Pharo to the haughty +Washingtonian; "yit you don't know nothin' 'bout ructions. You can +repeal every optional act 't a man makes, but you ain't got no idee o' +ructions——" +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo's voice had now reached such a pathetic and eloquent +pitch that Captain Judah left his trumpet in the ball-room and joined +us, in time to mingle with the cheers that were still further +discomfiting the high and hot-headed young man. +</P> + +<P> +"What you talkin' about?" retorted the latter through his dazzling +white teeth. "I'm not in politics." +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't ye say so, then?" said Captain Pharo calmly, "and not keep +me standin' here wastin' my breath on ye?" +</P> + +<P> +"Moderation," sweetly chimed in the voice of Captain +Leezur—"moderation in all things, even as low down as passnips." +</P> + +<P> +The man who had been in California had been constantly drawing near me, +but Captain Judah, anticipating him, was already at my side. +</P> + +<P> +"You're a stranger," said he: "perhaps you never heard any of Angie +Fay—Angie Fay Kobbe's poetry?" +</P> + +<P> +He had a rosy face: in spite of former long sea-wear, not blowzed, but +delicately tinted; he snuffled when he talked in a way which I could +only define as classical; and it was admitted that his nosegay vest and +blue coat, as far as tender refinement went, far surpassed anything in +the room. +</P> + +<P> +"That's Angie Fay Kobbe, my wife, at the organ. Ten years ago, when I +was still cruising, I found and rescued her from a southern cyclone!" +</P> + +<P> +I murmured astonishment, though in truth something of a cyclonic +atmosphere still hovered about Mrs. Kobbe, not only in her method of +performance on the organ, but in her sparkling features, young and +beautiful, her wide-flowing curled hair. +</P> + +<P> +"How old does she seem to you to be, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"She looks to me," I said, with honesty, "to be eighteen or +twenty—twenty-five at the most." +</P> + +<P> +"Sir, she is forty!" said Captain Judah proudly. Angie Fay shot him a +bewitching glance through the open door. +</P> + +<P> +"She is not only a skilled performer on the keys, as you see, but she +is a wide-idead thinker. If it would not detain you, sir, against +previous inclination to the ball-room, I should like to read you some +of her poetry." +</P> + +<P> +Glances too oppressed by awe to contain envy were cast upon me by my +former companions from afar; even the man who had been in California +was retreating in baffled dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"This first," said Captain Judah, drawing a roll from his pocket, +"though brief, has been called by many wide-idead thinkers a 'rounded +globe of pathos:' men, strong men, have wept over it. It has had a +yard built around it; in other words, it has been framed, and hung in +many a bereaved household; let me read: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Farewell, my husband dear, farewell!<BR> +Adieu! farewell to you.<BR> +And you, my children dear, adieu!<BR> +Farewell! farewell to thee!<BR> +Adieu! farewell! adieu!'<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Were you looking for your handkerchief, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said I, accidentally swallowing whole a nervine lozenge which +Captain Leezur had given me. +</P> + +<P> +"This," said Captain Judah, with an expressive smile, as he opened +another roll, "if you will excuse the egotism, refers to an experience +of my own. I was once, when master of a whaler, nearly killed in a +conflict with a whale; in fact, I am accustomed to speak of it +paradoxically—or shall I say hyperbolically—as 'The time when I was +killed!' My account of it made a great impression upon Angie; but I +will read: +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"'Upon the deep and foaming brine,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My Judah's blood was spilled.</SPAN><BR> +The anguished tears gush from my eyes.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">O Judah, wast thou killed?</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"'Had I beheld that awful scene,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I should have turned me pale,</SPAN><BR> +My eyes were mercifully hence,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When Judah killed the whale.'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"It was I, so to speak, that was killed," said Captain Judah, with his +peculiar smile; "the whale escaped. But for the sake of symphony, +Angie has used that poetic license, familiar, as you know, to +wide-idead thinkers. Or let me read you this——" +</P> + +<P> +Dimmer and dimmer grew the faces of my former jovial company; but I had +one friend, stout, even for this emergency. +</P> + +<P> +I heard a voice coming— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-154a"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-154a.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r, The blight--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="282" HEIGHT="44"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Judah! Judah! Judah! drop 'er, I say, an' come along!" Captain Pharo +winked. +</P> + +<P> +"On some other occasion, sir," said Captain Judah, returning the roll +to his pocket with cheerful haste, "I shall be happy." +</P> + +<P> +Almost before I was aware that I was liberated, the shifty spectre, +whose basilisk eye had not released me, stood at my side. +</P> + +<P> +"You oughter have seen," he began, "the time 't I was killed in +Californy——" +</P> + +<A NAME="img-154b"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-154b.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she with-'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="232" HEIGHT="47"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Major! major! major! drop 'er, I say, an' come along, by clam!" +</P> + +<P> +There was naught to do, in Captain Pharo's exalted frame of mind, but +to follow the commanding flower; but when that had become once more +congenially distracted I returned to the ball-room to observe there. +</P> + +<P> +The dancers were at rest, and Angie Fay too, the stewards serving them +with refreshments; but Fluke and Gurdon were playing softly together on +their violins, Fluke with waved hair on his forehead, Gurdon with still +brow. Vesty had taken up her sleeping child and was holding him. The +Basins loved sad music, low, mournful lullabys on the wind; they +listened. +</P> + +<P> +I listened so deeply, so strangely, it was like the awaking from a +dream when I heard Notely and his guests inviting the dancers again to +the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, major," Vesty whispered kindly, coming to me. She had her +shawl wrapped over herself and her infant, and was departing quietly +with her father-in-law, Captain Rafe. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I didn't get one eye-beam from her the whole evenin'—no, by Jove! +Note," said "Sid," watching that gently retreating figure; "not one! +And she just now leaned over and showered a whole peck of 'em on that +poor little——" +</P> + +<P> +"Hush!" said Notely. +</P> + +<P> +I witnessed with some sadness how Captain Pharo and Captain Judah were +walking the room, arm-in-arm, Captain Judah reading from some of Angie +Fay's most affecting strains, and Captain Pharo willingly melted to +tears thereat. +</P> + +<P> +"Read that ag'in, Judah," I heard Captain Pharo snivel, as they were +passing me. +</P> + +<P> +Then I heard the melodramatic snuffle of that "Adieu! farewell! adieu!" +</P> + +<P> +Still farther down the room sobs were echoed back to me from Captain +Pharo's bursting heart. +</P> + +<P> +So that I was gratified, at the next round, to hear Captain Pharo +declare that he felt the necessity of going home at once to have a copy +of the verses made and "a ya-ard built around 'em, Judah." +</P> + +<P> +Most of the Basins had gone; there were still some of the prettiest +girls upon the floor, not with proper Basin escort, but with Notely's +broadcloth guests, who were whispering sweet words of adulation to +tingling, unaccustomed ears. +</P> + +<P> +"Come!" Gurdon whispered to Fluke; "we should give up playing at this +hour, and take those girls home." +</P> + +<P> +Fluke shook his head. "Go home, you," he said: "one fiddle is enough! +If we want a merry time, don't bother." +</P> + +<P> +Gurdon stayed patiently, but with a brow waxing determined. The +flattered girls, the broadcloth guests cast unwelcome glances at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Go home, Gurd!" said Fluke, at last. "You spoil it all with a face +like that. Go on, and don't mind us, or you and I shall quarrel." +</P> + +<P> +"Not till those girls are ready to be taken home," said Gurdon. +</P> + +<P> +Fluke threw down his fiddle with an oath. "I said that you and I +should quarrel." +</P> + +<P> +"I would not strike my twin-brother for all the false men and foolish +girls in Christendom!" said Gurdon, standing before Fluke's threat, +with folded arms, and such a look at him that Fluke came to himself, +wincing. +</P> + +<P> +"We may as well go home," he said sulkily. +</P> + +<P> +The young men of the world watched this scene with amusement not +untempered with choler, while they proceeded elaborately to assist the +pretty Basins, who were wrapping themselves in their thin shawls. +</P> + +<P> +"I fancy we are not to be trusted to escort these young ladies home?" +said "Sid," with an elegant sarcastic inclination toward Gurdon. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said poor Gurdon stonily. For he had played for them with a +gracious heart all the evening, and it was hard to be hated. But he +marshalled his flock away without flinching. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BROTHERS +</H3> + +<P> +"There 's got to be a new deal to me in this world pretty soon," said +Wesley, "or I shall kick." +</P> + +<P> +I found him among the clam flats, leaning his spent and hopeless being +on his rake. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, Wesley?" +</P> + +<P> +"Belle O'Neill got me to help her set a trap to ketch a mink and a fox; +she said we should git two dollars apiece; and we caught—we caught +Miss Pray's tom-cat!" +</P> + +<P> +Wesley rubbed his grimy hand across his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"She scolded awful and told us to go down to the clam flats and not to +come home till we'd got two bushels o' clams for the hens. Fast as I +get a roller full and go over and emp'y 'em on the bank the crows come +'n' eat 'em up—look a' there!" +</P> + +<P> +I saw. +</P> + +<P> +"Wesley, your load does seem greater than you can bear." He wore +trousers of a style prevalent among the Basins, of meal sacks; only his +were not shaped at all—there was simply a sack for each leg, tied with +gathering strings at the ankles. His jacket was as much too small for +his stout little person as his trousers were voluminous; and Miss Pray, +who was artistic by freaks, had made it with an impertinent little tail +like a bird's tail. +</P> + +<P> +Wesley was not only afflicted, he was ludicrous in the face of high +heaven. +</P> + +<P> +"There 's got to be a new deal," blubbered he, with his fist in his +eyes, "or I shall kick." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Could</I> you kick in those trousers, Wesley?" I said. +</P> + +<P> +He regarded me curiously, then replied with evident faith: "I could, +nights." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! I'm so lame that I couldn't even kick much, nights, Wesley." +</P> + +<P> +His countenance changed from its self-pity; he removed the fist from +his eyes. "I've always wondered," he said, "'t you didn't kick more." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Belle O'Neill?" +</P> + +<P> +"I told 'er 't she'd got me to set the trap, 'nd she orter, 't least, +keep the crows off'n the clams; but she went over to Lunette's and +borrowed the book, 'n' she's settin' there in the graves, where Miss +Pray can't see her, readin' it." +</P> + +<P> +I sighed to think how early, among his other trials, Wesley was +learning the frailties of the lovable sex. +</P> + +<P> +"I will go up and keep the crows off of the clams for you, Wesley." +</P> + +<P> +"I think," said Wesley innocently, his face expressing a kindlier +gratitude than his words conveyed, "'t you could scare 'em off +first-rate!" +</P> + +<P> +While I reclined on the green bank, not far from the clams, a solemn +and fearful reprehension to the crows, I heard Belle O'Neill's voice +reading to herself aloud among the graves. The Basins possessed but +one secular volume, which they were accustomed to lend from house to +house, and which was designated without confusion as "the book." +</P> + +<P> +Belle O'Neill, peeping out from the graves, saw me, and came forward, +blushing timidly. Wesley rose from the clam flats and hissed at her +for her treachery, but she was very fair, and I received her kindly. +</P> + +<P> +"Major Henry," said she, "will you show me what this means, please?" +</P> + +<P> +She sat down close to me—for nobody minded me—and put her finger on +the place. +</P> + +<P> +Now "the book," though jointly purchased by the Basins from a +travelling salesman, as a highly illuminated volume, promising much of +a lively nature, had turned out to be to an altogether unexpected +degree serious and didactic. +</P> + +<P> +I followed Belle O'Neill's finger. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +"Impressive Lesson.<BR> +Perishableness!"<BR> +</P> + +<A NAME="img-160"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-160.jpg" ALT="Skull" BORDER="0" WIDTH="71" HEIGHT="62"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<P> +"What does it mean?" said the girl, with pale, inquiring lips. +</P> + +<P> +Now as I loved the courtly valor of my race, I laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"You do not understand those long words, Belle. It means, in those +peculiar words, something about a Jack-o'-lantern." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Belle, gazing at it with sudden refreshment, "I guess it 's +the only funny one in the book! They're usually so solemn." +</P> + +<P> +We turned to the next page: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +"Important Lesson.<BR> +Discontent.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The Bachelor's Button that wanted to be a sunflower: the scow that +wanted to be a schooner." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Why," said Belle, with her finger on the cut of the angry and +resentful bachelor's button that was throwing down its petals because +it could not be a sunflower—"why did it want to be a sunflower?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't imagine," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't you just as soon be a bachelor's button as a sunflower?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't know," I murmured; but while I affected still to be +pondering this subject doubtfully, Wesley came up from the clam flats. +</P> + +<P> +He pointed to the cut on the opposite page: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +"Warning Lesson.<BR> +Slothfulness."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +A plump and evidently highly contented maiden was here represented as +lolling on a sofa. +</P> + +<P> +"'T means <I>lazy</I>. She looks jest like Belle O'Neill, don't she?" said +Wesley, grinning maliciously. +</P> + +<P> +"Who"—flamed up Belle O'Neill—"put straws into the cow's teats, an' +let the milk run, while he laid out on the grass an' slep', and Miss +Pray found it out and flailed him with the broomstick?" +</P> + +<P> +Wesley's grin froze on his features; he returned wearily to his rake. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" ALIGN="center"> +"Comforting Lesson.<BR> +A saint walking among the saved, on Revival Terrace."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +But the saint, though tall and bearded, wore a ball dress such as the +unchastened belles of society sport upon earth, a profuse skirt, with +flashing train; and he was walking quite alone. +</P> + +<P> +"Where are the 'saved'?" said Belle, with ghastly hope. +</P> + +<P> +"They are just around the corner," said I cheerfully; "where that +suggestion of clouds is—see!" +</P> + +<P> +"N-no, but I guess they are. Ain't he the lookin'est thing you ever +saw?" +</P> + +<P> +"Quite the lookin'est!" +</P> + +<P> +Belle giggled. I bore her out in it sympathetically. +</P> + +<P> +Wesley, who observed how we were at least keeping the crows off of the +clams, smiled upon us with feeble indulgence. +</P> + +<P> +But as we read on, Belle did come to a lesson of such useful terror +that she decided to take her rake and assist Wesley among the flats. +</P> + +<P> +I approved her, and lay back, smiling, in the I heard Wesley's little +old voice pipe up, considerately: "You'll scare 'em jest as well if you +do go to sleep, major." +</P> + +<P> +I kept on smiling. The sun seemed a lake of glory and I a boatman, +fair and free, sailing vast distances upon it with just one stroke of +my wand-oar—and here I began to scare the crows unconsciously. +</P> + +<P> +The air of the Basin anon exhilarated one, anon soothed one into +wondrous, deep, peace-drunken slumber. +</P> + +<P> +When I awoke Vesty stood over me, calling me. +</P> + +<P> +There was a purple, dark sky—now but little after mid-day—glowing +with red at the edges like a sunset; the wind was blowing strong. It +was dark, yet all was distinct about me. I sprang to my feet with a +sort of solemn exultation and bared my head. +</P> + +<P> +"Wake, major, wake!" Vesty cried to me. She drew me and pointed out to +sea. "Notely's boat—it was trying to make home—it is on the reefs." +</P> + +<P> +I saw it then by a flash of that unearthly light, the wind descending +like the last of days. I hastened with Vesty to the low beach, where +the people were moving strangely, looking out on the sea with its +swift-crested breakers. +</P> + +<P> +From the yacht, beating helpless on the ledges, Notely and the few who +had sailed with him that morning were putting out the life-boat; but +Captain Rafe kept running his weather-stained hand down his white face, +his head shaking. +</P> + +<P> +"Bare chance t' save half of 'em in the gale—they'll swamp her; nay, +nay, they'll never get her home with that freight; and it's no sea—it +'s a herricane, above and below. I see the sky in broad day like that +but once before, and then——" +</P> + +<P> +His voice was hushed, the boat was off, was lost; then once again we +saw her; we felt the gale rushing; when we could see again, there were +a few struggling in the waves, a few climbing back upon the sinking +masts of the vessel, with wild signals. +</P> + +<P> +The little Basin boats were old and frail; only Gurdon had lately been +building a new fishing-boat. While we were looking off he had been +hauling it down the steep bank by the cottage. +</P> + +<P> +Now when we saw him Vesty ran to him and put the child in his arms and +clung to him. I saw a great light come over his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Gurd," said his father sternly, the old stained hand still stroking +his white face, "ye have strength and skill above the most—but look at +yon! Put up your boat, lad; it's no use. Moreover, there are five men +yonder on the masts—your boat, tested in an ordinar' sea, holds but +five alone!" +</P> + +<P> +"Will ye go out jest to give them another chance to wrack themselves, +and ye put yerself by to drown?" said another, with a trembling, +half-ferocious laugh. "Look to yer wife and child. Don't be a fool!" +</P> + +<P> +"There 's not one o' ye," cried Gurdon, "but if ye had a boat fit 'u'd +do all ye could, an' men sinkin' and a-wavin' ye like that—let me off! +There 's no other way——" +</P> + +<P> +His voice broke. He looked at his wife and child, a look the woman +understood for all eternity. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty stood like marble; her shawl had escaped from her own throat, but +was warm about the child that Gurdon had placed back on her breast. +</P> + +<P> +As we waited, watching, transfixed, Fluke came running breathless from +the woods where he had been as guide with the party of Notely's +pleasure-seekers who had stayed behind that morning. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Rafe ran to him, with the hand still stroking his pallid face: +"That was Gurdon out there, making so near the sinking boat—he would +go—only five——" +</P> + +<P> +But Fluke heard never a word. He saw; his face flushed with a kind of +mad joy; he tossed his hair back, and leaping into the waves, swam to +his own frail little fishing-boat that was tossing at anchor. +</P> + +<P> +His voice leaped back to us above the tumult of the wind: "Gurd and +me'll come home together!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a lull in the gale; the five were put off from the sinking +craft in Gurdon's boat. +</P> + +<P> +And the men were standing with ropes on the shore; but I only saw, as +the tempest moaned, to swell again, one figure on a bending mast, +between sea and sky, and one in a frail shell toiling toward him. +</P> + +<P> +The tempest fell and smote. Then did nothing seem to me fated +underneath those awful heavens, but grand and free; freest, mightiest +of all that figure imprisoned between storm and cloud, overwhelmed, +buried——triumphant, imperishable! Then did the dead that I had known +come forth and walk upon the waves before me: and I beheld that they +were not dead, but glorious and strong—that, rather, I was dead. +</P> + +<P> +Then all seemed black about me. I would have clutched at somewhat, but +I felt a cold hand grasp mine in appealing agony. They brought in with +ropes through the breakers the five men who had neared the shore in the +young sailor's new fishing-boat. +</P> + +<P> +But the "Twin Brothers," the sublime figure on the mast, the toiling +figure in the boat, had "gone home together!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE POPLAR LEAVES TREMBLE +</H3> + +<P> +It was Vesty's hand that had wrung mine. Captain Rafe, after he lost +his sons, hardly spoke without drawing his own trembling hand along his +piteous face. +</P> + +<P> +"Notely fell from the mast and was stunted; they put him in the boat: +else he wouldn't 'a' come and left my Gurd, I b'lieve." Tears rolled +down his cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty spoke to me so softly, as if her head were turned, or she were +wandering in a dream. "When Gurdon had anything that anybody needed, +and they asked him for it, he always gave it them. So they asked him +for his life—and he gave that!" +</P> + +<P> +Notely, on recovering consciousness, had been carried to his house at +the Neck: by the next morning they had his mother with him; he was in a +fever. +</P> + +<P> +Would Vesty remember now the promise she had asked of Mrs. Garrison? +</P> + +<P> +At all events, the sick man babbled deliriously of past days, had +fallen from the rock once more, and would have Vesty to nurse him: +"where," asking ever, "is Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison herself went to her, pleading his pain and danger. Vesty +came. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello! we're saved!—the Vesty!" cried Notely, whose fever had been +plunging him in cold sea-waves, his voice a feeble echo of its old gay +tone, as he put up his hand to her. +</P> + +<P> +So ashy and sunken was his face, Vesty took him on her arm as she would +her child; he fell asleep. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty stops the pain—no one lifts me like Vesty—sing, Vesty!" from +pathetic lips and wandering blue eyes that would die if one recalled +them to their sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +"Only stay," said Mrs. Garrison. "His life hangs upon it. Surely you +are not afraid to have your child with me?" +</P> + +<P> +Her heart was full of tenderness for the girl. "I would die rather +than anything should happen to your child, Vesty," she cried, with a +sincere impulse. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty lifted those Basin eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he is not old enough yet to understand my worldliness," said Mrs. +Garrison, with bitter lips. +</P> + +<P> +For, from entrusting the child at first to her servants, while Vesty +was in the sick-room, Mrs. Garrison had grown to have a jealous care +for him herself. He had taken an occasion, and he had conquered her. +</P> + +<P> +When she pleased him he dimpled and gave her, on appeal, an +ostentatious kiss, composed wholly of noise and vanity. When she first +displeased him he had tried conclusions with her by unhesitatingly +administering a slap on the face. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison, the select and haughty, tingling from this direct Basin +blow, watched the flame die out of the baby's eyes, in astonishment, +not in anger. The blow felt good to her. Vesty treated her, though +unconsciously, from such a height. +</P> + +<P> +"My darling," she said sorrowfully, lifting the child in her arms, +"would you hurt me, when I love you so?" +</P> + +<P> +A bit of sugar sealed the reconciliation: while he devoured it little +Gurdon leaned his head in tender remorse upon Mrs. Garrison's neck. +She had handsome eyes—for him, full only of love and longing—and he +saw strange tears in them. He never treated her again to corporeal +punishment; while she, on her part, indulged him fully. +</P> + +<P> +The attachment was so marked between them that he would, when he was +well and had dined, very cheerfully leave Vesty for her society, to +Vesty's secret chagrin and Mrs. Garrison's beating heart of joy. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say that you will take the child back again—back to +that squalid home—yes, for such it is, Vesty—that you will deprive +him of all that might be, and give him up to a fisherman's wretched +life and dreary fate?" +</P> + +<P> +"Will you make a better man of him in the world than his father was?" +said Vesty simply. +</P> + +<P> +"You know that I worship Gurdon Rafe's memory," cried Mrs. Garrison, +with adroit heat. "What do you think would please him best for his +wife and child—misery and cold with an old man who could have a better +home among his own kin, had he not to make the effort to support +you—or happiness and warmth and love, and a great sphere of +usefulness, happiness, and education for his child?" +</P> + +<P> +"You see," said Vesty, on the plain Basin path, "in trying to get those +things we might miss the only—the greatest—thing, that Gurdon had. +I'd rather my boy should learn to have that, and miss all the others." +</P> + +<P> +"O my dear! you shall teach your child, you shall be always with him. +I have some things to remember and regret, Vesty. I promise you +solemnly—and I do not break my word—I will not interfere. You shall +teach and guide your child as you will." +</P> + +<P> +Notely was awake and calling. +</P> + +<P> +"Go to him," said Mrs. Garrison, excitement in her eyes; "he will +explain to you, my child." There was a tenderness, a hope, a +voluptuousness of sweet earthly things in her manner toward the poor +girl now, which all her life Vesty had missed. +</P> + +<P> +Heart and flesh were weary, and Notely, who had been the light of her +life once, looked up at her with that weight of sorrow, so much darker +and heavier than her own; so much heavier because it was dark. +</P> + +<P> +"Help me to bear it!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +She understood all; she laid her head beside him, sobbing. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty, you know the doctors say that I shall live; but—now that I am +sane again, I do not know why I should wish to live." +</P> + +<P> +She put her hand on his. Alas! in spite of reckless wandering and +tragedy, and forsaken faith and duty, the touch only thrilled him with +his own dreams as of old. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen, Vesty!—just as you used to be my little woman and reason with +me. Ugh! how weak I am! I'm not worth saving. It is of little +consequence, truly; but, such as it is, it all lies with you. Some +time, Vesty—I am speaking of what must be some time, dearest; and +remember, it is often done in the world, among those who are highest +and richest and socially recognized—well, it is a familiar thing: as +soon as it can be well arranged—and that soon, now—my wife and I +shall be divorced. We have both wished it, we are unhappy together, it +is a wrong for us to live together. She has been untrue enough to me, +as I to her, but let that pass; such things are not for your ears to +hear, only you need have no qualms. Grace will be more congenially +wedded within two months after we are parted. +</P> + +<P> +"And then—Vesty? Well, will you not speak to me? Is it to be life +and honor, with your love at last, or despair and death? You were +promised to me once. In spite of all, you cannot hold yourself your +own; you are mine; the wife God meant for me. O Vesty! let us blot out +the confused past with all its mistakes! It is killing me—will kill +me body and soul if you leave me now. Let me find my lost home at +last: let me rest a little while before I die!" +</P> + +<P> +His weak and gasping breath warned her; she stilled his hands, the low +lids hiding the anguish in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +So there was a way out of it all, easy, luxurious, convenient for the +passions! And there was a straight Basin way, a high promise before +God and man, that, to the Basin sense, there was no taking back: Vesty +could not see upon any other road; she shuddered. +</P> + +<P> +But Notely's wasted, broken life clinging to her! +</P> + +<P> +"That was never done among the Basins, Notely. When we are married we +promise, and we hold to it till death. It would never seem to me that +I was your wife, but wicked and false to you and her—always that. I +would rather die!" +</P> + +<P> +"My Vesty, the Basin is a little, little part of the world, and +ignorant of life. I tell you what is right. You used to have faith in +me—so much that, if you would, you might still believe in me and my +ceaseless love for you. Do you think that I will ever leave you here? +My mother wants you and the child: we will be happy together at last, +with such quiet or such pleasures as you will. My quarries are turning +out wealth for me—it is for you and Gurdon's child. Think of Gurdon's +little boy!" +</P> + +<P> +As he spoke, Vesty seemed to see again a pale face with a great light +upon it, turning without question to its stern duty. +</P> + +<P> +"Notely, Gurdon gave me up, and the baby that he worshipped; though I +clung to him, he put us by, because, though it was hard, it was +right—it was the only way. I think it is often so between those two, +the right and what we want. I think that love, somehow, in this world +seems to be putting by—putting by what we want." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty struggled again in her dim way. +</P> + +<P> +"Why need it be?" cried Notely sharply. He raised himself on the +pillows as if stung; a deep crimson rushed to his cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"It is," said Vesty sadly, quietly—"it is. What we want—putting by. +Do you think I did not care for you?" +</P> + +<P> +His haggard face turned to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Will not always care for you? But you will never be a great man till +you can put by what you want, when they stand against each other, for +what is right, though it be hard. Then one would not only admire and +love you; they would trust you to death's door, though all the way was +hard." +</P> + +<P> +Notely had no answer for the tongue-loosed Basin. Besides, her words +had comforted him, her tears fell on him. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not think," she said, with a look and voice of such tenderness, +as though it were her farewell, "that it was all to us, that I should +marry you, or you should marry me—until we could live brave and true, +though we lost one another, and follow the only way we saw, though it +was hard. I do not believe we should have been happy—without +that—after a little while. +</P> + +<P> +"I could not love you if you left your wife and married me. I should +never trust you. I would rather we should both die. Go back to her +and win her with your own love and kindness, and be true to her, and I +shall never lose my love for you." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know what love is?" said Notely, with clinched teeth, tears +springing from between the wasted fingers pressed against his eyes. +"Do you know what it is to suffer?" +</P> + +<P> +She gave him no flaming retort. She put her head beside him. +</P> + +<P> +The past came back to him, and her poor, burdened, self-sacrificing +life. Wild sobs shook his heart. "All lost! all lost!" he moaned. +</P> + +<P> +"No, only not found yet," she said, looking at him through her tears; +"all waiting." +</P> + +<P> +It was such a simple Basin path, knowing so few things, but unswerving. +</P> + +<P> +"Not here, I know," she said, "for nothing is for long or without loss +and sorrow here. There is always somebody sick or hurt; and the poplar +trees, that the cross was made from, are always trembling and sighing: +but some time Christ will lay his hand upon them, and they will be +still and blessed again." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GOIN' TO THE DAGARRIER'S +</H3> + +<P> +"Ever sence the accident," said Captain Pharo, with a gloom not wholly +impersonal, "my woman 's been d'tarmined to haul me over to a +dagarrier's to have my pictur' took. +</P> + +<P> +"I told 'er that there wa'n't no danger in the old 'Lizy Rodgers,' sech +weather as I go out in. 'But ye carn't never tell,' says she; 'and +asides,' says she, 'ye're a kind o' baldin' off an' dryin' away, more +or less, every year,' says she, 'an' I want yer pictur' took afore——' +</P> + +<P> +"Gol darn it all!" said Captain Pharo, making an unsuccessful attempt +to light his pipe, and kicking out his left leg testily. +</P> + +<P> +"'Afore ye gits to lookin' any meachiner,' says she. +</P> + +<P> +"'When I dies,' says I, 'th' inscription on my monniment won't be by no +drowndin',' says I; 'it'll be jest plain, "Pestered ter death,"' says I. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, 't that she began a-boohooin', so in course I told 'er, says I, +'I s'pose I c'n go and have my dagarrier took ef you're so set on it,' +says I. +</P> + +<P> +"For with regards t' female grass, major, my exper'ence has all'as made +me think o' that man in Scriptur' 't was told to do somethin'. 'No, by +clam!' says he, 'I ain't a-goin' to,' and hadn't more 'n got the words +outer his mouth afore somehow he found himself a-shutin' straight outer +the front door to go to executin' of it. +</P> + +<P> +"When I thinks o' that tex'—an' I ponders on it more 'n what I does on +mos' any other tex' in Scriptur'—I says to myself, 'Thar' 's Pharo +Kobbe—thar' 's my dagarrier, 'ithout no needs o' goin' nowheres to +have it took." +</P> + +<P> +"I should think it would be very nice," I said, "to have somebody +wanting your picture.—I am not pressed with entreaties for mine." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo sighed kindly; his pipe was going. +</P> + +<P> +"Poo! poo! hohum! Never mind; never mind. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-176a"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-176a.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass. Or as--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="278" HEIGHT="41"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +I s'pose ye hain't never worked yerself up to the p'int o' propoundin' +nothin' yit to Miss Pray, have ye?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-176b"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-176b.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'Or as the morning flow'r,--" BORDER="0" WIDTH="171" HEIGHT="43"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"Why don't ye, major?" +</P> + +<P> +"When I think of how much better off she is with seven dollars a week +for my board than she would be taking me as a husband, for nothing——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, pshaw! major, pshaw!" said Captain Pharo, with deep returning +gloom; "seven dollars a week ain't nothin' to the pleasure she'd take, +arfter she'd once got spliced onto ye, in houndin' on ye, an' pesterin' +ye, an' swipin' the 'arth with ye." +</P> + +<P> +Conscious that he had rather over-reached himself in presenting this +picture of marital joys to my horizon, Captain Pharo resumed the +subject with sprightliness. +</P> + +<P> +"In course the first preliminary essence o' all these 'ere ructions +'ith female grass is, 't ye've got to go a-co'tin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"And in goin' a-co'tin', ye've got to ile yer ha'r out some, an' put +essence on yer han'kercher, an' w'ar a smile continnooal, an' keep +a-arskin' 'em ef tobakker smoke sickens on 'em, an' all sech o' these +ere s'ciety flourishes an' gew-gaws 's that." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said I, attentively. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd ort ter know," said Captain Pharo, alone with me in the lane, +assuming a gay and confident air, "f'r I've been engaged in co'tin' +three times, an' ain't had nary false nibble, but landed my fish every +time." +</P> + +<P> +"I know you have." +</P> + +<P> +"Now ef you don't feel rickless enough, major, and kind o' wanter see +how it 's done, you ask Miss Pray t' sail along with us up to Millport, +whar I've got to go to have my condum' pictur' took." +</P> + +<P> +The recollection of personal grievances again beclouded Captain Pharo; +he was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"And what?" I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal," said my soul's companion, with the fire all gone from his +manner, "I'll kinder han' 'er into the boat, an' shake my han'kercher +at 'er an' smile, when Mis' Kobbe ain't lookin', an' the rest o' these +ere s'ciety ructions, jest t' show ye how." +</P> + +<P> +I appreciated the motives, the sacrifice even, of this conduct as +anticipated toward Miss Pray, whose society, as far as his own peculiar +taste went, Captain Pharo always rather tolerated than affected. +</P> + +<P> +Still, it was with doubtful emotions, on the whole, that I wended my +steps with Miss Pray toward the enterprise. +</P> + +<P> +The scow "Eliza Rodgers" was waiting for us at anchor among the +captain's flats. We went first to the house. +</P> + +<P> +There it became at once evident to me that, rather than preparing +himself with oil and incense for the occasion, Captain Pharo had been +undergoing severe and strict manipulations at the hands of his wife. +He had on the flowered jacket, but as proof against the sea air until +he should be photographed, Mrs. Kobbe had applied paste to the locks of +hair flayed out formidably each side of his head beyond his ears. +</P> + +<P> +Altogether, I could not but divine that during my absence his flesh had +been growing more and more laggard to the enterprise, his spirit testy +and unreconciled. +</P> + +<P> +"'F I can't find my pipe I shan't go," said he, with secret source of +sustainment; "stay t' home 'nless I c'n find my pipe, that's sartin as +jedgment." +</P> + +<P> +Now I knew from the way the captain's hand reposed in his pocket that +his treasure was safely hidden there—that he was dallying with us. +Knowing, too, that he could not escape by such means, but was only +weakly delaying his fate, I took occasion to whisper in his ear, as I +affected to join in the search: +</P> + +<P> +"Take her out, captain, and light her up. Let 's go through with it. +Remember you promised to show me how to act." +</P> + +<P> +"Hello! why, here she is a-layin' right on the sofy," said he, in a +tone of forlorn acquiescence that could never have recommended him to +the footlights, especially as this remark antedated, by some anxious +breathings on my part, the sheepish and bungling withdrawal of his pipe +from his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"Captain Pharo Kobbe," said his wife, regarding him, "ain't you a smart +one!" +</P> + +<P> +The captain's manner certainly did not justify this taunt. As he led +us, with an exaggerated limp, toward the beach, I looked in vain for +any of those light and elegant attentions toward Miss Pray at which he +had hinted. But when we arrived in view of the "Eliza Rodgers" and saw +that the tide had so far receded that we must pick our way gingerly +thither over the mud flats, by stepping on the sparsely scattered +stones, Captain Pharo looked at me and took a stand. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Pray," said he, "'f it 's agreeable to you, I'll hist ye up an' +carry on ye over." +</P> + +<P> +"Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his wife, as if it were suddenly and +startlingly a subject of physics, "whatever is the matter with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Carn't I be p'lite ef I want to?" roared the captain; but as he +surveyed his contemplated burden, who was a good many inches taller +than he, and by all odds sprightlier, he paled. +</P> + +<P> +"Ef 't you <I>could</I> get anything, Cap'n Kobbe," said his wife, "I sh'd +think you had." +</P> + +<P> +This unblessed dark reminder of a causeless deprivation settled it. +Captain Pharo seized Miss Pray, blushing with alarm and amaze at such +sudden retributive lightning on the part of her long-delayed charms, +and bore her out into the mud. +</P> + +<P> +But he had labored but a few steps with her, giving vent meanwhile to +audible, involuntary groans, before it became evident to her, or to +them both, that his grasp was failing, his feet sinking. She threw up +a hand and partly dislodged his pipe; it was instantly a question of +dropping his pipe or Miss Pray; the captain dropped Miss Pray. +</P> + +<P> +Both women were now angry with him; between all that sea and sky +Captain Pharo appeared not to have a friend save his pipe and me. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray indignantly picked the rest of her steps alone. "Ye'll have +to do the rest o' yer co'tin' in yer own way," murmured the captain to +me, darkly and vaguely, as he stepped into the boat: "but my 'dvice to +ye is, drop it! drop it right whar 'tis!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that is all right," I tried to assure him. "I—I hadn't hardly +begun, you know." +</P> + +<P> +We scoured the bottom successfully with the "Eliza Rodgers," but as we +got into deep water there fell a perfect calm. +</P> + +<P> +"'T 'd be bad enough," said Captain Pharo, set against the world, and +tugging wrathfully at the oars, "t' go on sech idjit contractions as +these 'ith a breeze t' set sail to, but when 't comes to pullin' over +thar' twenty mile, with the sea as flat as a floor, t' have yer darn +fool pictur' took——" He laid down the oars with an undoubted air of +permanency, and lit his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Kobbe pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, +them 't knew you afore ever I was born say as 't you was the best +master of a vessel 't ever sailed, and everybody knows 't you can sail +this coast in the dark, an' though—though you did act queer a little +while ago, I don't—don't like to have you call yourself a da—darn +fool." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo glanced at me with suicidal despair. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray took out their knitting, with the implicit +Basin superstition of "knitting up a breeze." They as seriously +advised me to "scratch the mast and whistle," which, agreeably, I began +to do. +</P> + +<P> +Thus occupied, I saw a sudden light break over the captain's face, as +sighting something on the waves. +</P> + +<P> +"Fattest coot I've seen this year, by clam!" said he, seizing his gun +from the bottom of the scow and firing. He fired again, and then rowed +eagerly up to it. It was a little wandering wooden buoy bobbing +bird-like on the waters. +</P> + +<P> +We did not look at him. Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray knitted; I scratched +the mast with painful diligence. +</P> + +<P> +A breeze arose. The captain silently hoisted sail; at length he lit +his pipe again, and returned, in a measured degree, to life. +</P> + +<P> +As we sailed thus at last with the wind into Millport it seemed that +the "Eliza Rodgers" and we were accosted as natural objects of marvel +and delight by the loafers on the wharf. +</P> + +<P> +"What po-ort?" bawled a merry fellow, speaking to us through his hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, don't ye see?" said a companion, pointing to Captain Pharo, who +was taking down sail, with the complete flower turned shoreward; +"they're Orientiles!" +</P> + +<P> +A loud burst of laughter arose. Personal allusions equally +glove-fitting were made to Mrs. Kobbe, to Miss Pray, to me, and to the +"Eliza Rodgers." +</P> + +<P> +"Say! come to have your pictures took?" bawled the first merry fellow, +as the height of sarcasm and quintessence of a joke. +</P> + +<P> +"Look a' here, major," almost wept poor Captain Pharo, "how in thunder +'d they find that out?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind," said I; "we're going up to the hotel, and we'll have a +better dinner than they ever dreamed of." +</P> + +<P> +"Afore I'm took to the dagarrier's?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"See here, wife!" said Captain Pharo, completely broken down—for we +were all suffering, as usual, from the generic emptiness and craving of +our natures for food—"major says 't we're goin' up to git baited, +afore I'm took to the dagarrier's." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish 't you could have your picture took jest as you look now, +Captain Pharo Kobbe!" exclaimed his wife kindly and admiringly. +</P> + +<P> +At the inn the most conspicuous object in the reception-room was a sink +of water, with basins for ablutions. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo waited, visibly holding the leash on his impatience, for +a "runner"—or travelling salesman—to complete his bath, when he +plunged in gleefully, face and hands. Mrs. Kobbe drew him away with +dismay. The paste that had endured the whole sea voyage he had now +ruthlessly washed from one side of his head, the locks on the other +side still standing out ebullient. +</P> + +<P> +"'M sorry, wife," said the captain. But the captain, smelling the +smoke from the kitchen, was not the forlorn companion of our +treacherous voyage. "I reckon she'll stan' out ag'in, mebbe," said he, +"soon 's she 's dry." But he winked at me with daring inconsequence. +</P> + +<P> +In vain Mrs. Kobbe tried to flay out those locks to their former +attitude with the hotel brush and comb, which the runner had finally +abandoned. +</P> + +<P> +"Poo! poo! woman, never mind," said the captain; "one side 's fa'r to +wind'ard, anyhow. I can have a profiler took, jest showin' one side on +me, ye know." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't want a profiler," lamented Mrs. Kobbe; "I wanted a +full-facer." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, wal, woman, I hain't washed my face off, have I?" said the +captain cheerfully, resurrecting his pipe. "Put up them thar' public +belayin' pins," he added, referring to the hotel brush and comb, "and +don't le's worry 'bout nothin' more, 'long as we're goin' to be baited." +</P> + +<P> +The "runner" meanwhile was looking at us with the pale, scientific +interest of one who covets curiosities which he yet dare not approach +too intimately. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you smoke before eating, sir?" said he to the captain, at the same +time standing off a little way from the elephant. +</P> + +<P> +"Poo! poo!" said Captain Pharo, turning the whole flower indifferently +to his questioner, and drawing a match with a slight, genteel uplifting +of the leg; "I smoke, as the 'postle says, on all 'ccasions t' all men, +in season an' outer season, an' 'specially when I'm a darn min' ter." +</P> + +<P> +The runner, withered, vanquished by horse and foot, thereafter regarded +us silently. +</P> + +<P> +At the table I made haste first of all to catch the eye of our waiter, +who was also the proprietor of the little inn. I pressed a wordless +plea into his hand. "We are eccentric," I murmured in explanation, +"and you must look well to our wants." +</P> + +<P> +He winked at me as though we had been life-long cronies. "Eccentric +all ye wan' ter," said he, "the more on 'er the better." +</P> + +<P> +I pointed to the captain, who, the table-cloth before him, sat rigid +with hunger. +</P> + +<P> +"The ladies will consider the bill of fare," I said, "and request that +Captain Kobbe may be first served." +</P> + +<P> +"Which'll ye have—boil' salmon, corn' beef, beef-steak, veal stew, +liver an' bacon?" quickly bawled the proprietor into the captain's ear. +</P> + +<P> +"Sartin, sartin, fetch 'em along," said the compliant and nervy +captain, "and don't stand thar' no'ratin' about 'em—'ceptin' liver," +he added. "I hain't got so low down yit 's to eat liver." +</P> + +<P> +The runner, sitting with a few guests at another table, served by the +proprietor's daughter, gazed at us with fixed vision, not even having +taken up his knife and fork, for that pale, scientific interest which +absorbed him. +</P> + +<P> +"I know that squar's are fash'nable," said the captain, taking up the +napkin by his plate on the point of his knife and giving it an airy +toss into the middle of the table; "but I'd ruther have the sea-room. +Is your mess all fillers to-day, or have ye got some wrappers?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wrappers? Oh, certainly—doughnuts, mince pie, apple pie, an' rhubub +pie." +</P> + +<P> +"Sartin, sartin; fetch 'em along. I'll try a double decker o' +rhubub—I'm ruther partial to 'er. Fetch 'em all in: all'as survey yer +country, ye know, afore ye lays yer turnpike. F'r all these favors, O +Lord, make us duly thankful. Touch-and-go is a good pilot," mumbled +the captain in a religious monotone, and began. +</P> + +<P> +From this time on our table fairly scintillated with mirth and good +cheer, in the midst of which, his first hunger appeased, the captain's +resonant tones were frequently heard pealing through the dining-room, +singing, as if particularly, it seemed, to the edification of the pale +runner, that "His days were as the grass, or as the morning flower." +</P> + +<P> +I observed how Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray now and then warily conveyed a +"doughnut" from the table to their pockets, with an air of dark +declension from the moral laws. Having filled their own receptacles, +they whispered me an entreaty to do the same, as we might be late with +the tide and hungry on our way home. I complied in this, as in every +case, gallantly; but in my very first essay was detected by the +proprietor with a large edible of this description half-way to my +trousers' pocket. He winked unconsciously and obligingly turned his +back. Captain Pharo, however, oblivious to sense of guilt, approved my +action in clear words: "Tuck in the cheese too, major," said he; "it'll +do for the mouse-trap." +</P> + +<P> +I was equally unfortunate when, some time after, in settling for our +dinner I drew out first, instead of my purse, the very same fried cake +which had formerly betrayed me; and, to add to my discomfiture, Miss +Pray and Mrs. Kobbe, who had six of these stolen products each in their +capacious pockets, retired into a corner, innocently giggling. +</P> + +<P> +But an unexpected formidable dilemma arose when Captain Pharo, braced +up to such a degree by his dinner and his pipe, declared that "He +didn't know as he should be took to any dagarrier's, after all! Tide +and wind both serve f'r a fa'r sail home," said he, "and I'm a-goin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Not till we've been to a tobacconist's," said I, "anyway." +</P> + +<P> +I purchased a quantity of smoking tobacco. With this parcel peeping +enticingly from my pocket, and with persuasive argument that I could +never again leave the Basin without his likeness, as aid to Mrs. +Kobbe's tears, we at last seduced him up the stairs of the studio to +the long-anticipated ordeal. +</P> + +<P> +Now if young Mrs. Kobbe had had the discretion to keep silence! But "I +wish, pa," said she, made bodeful by the agonized and even villanous +aspect of the captain's usually stoical features, "'t you could look +just as you did when major said he was goin' to take us up to dinner!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord! woman, how can I tell how I looked then? I didn't see +myself, did I?" +</P> + +<P> +"You looked so—so happy!" moaned Mrs. Kobbe, "and your face was all +break—breaking out into a smile, and you didn't have that +suf—sufferin' kinder look 't you've got now." +</P> + +<P> +"I think, myself, sir," said the bland photographer—"ah! let me +arrange your hair a little, just this side—or this?—which side?—ah! +so—that a little less severe expression—we all have our trials, I +know, but——" +</P> + +<P> +"I hain't!" said the captain ferociously. "I hain't got a darn thing +t' worry me. 'F my woman wants me ter have to git a boat an' row out +for the 'Lizy Rodgers' on high tide, an' not git home till sun-up, I +don't care. What ye screwin' my head into—hey?" +</P> + +<P> +"Merely a head-rest, sir; merely an assistance toward composing +the—ah—features." +</P> + +<P> +"I can compose my feetur's without any darn nihilism machine back on +me," said the captain; which he straightway did in a manner that froze +the operator's veins. +</P> + +<P> +"Has nothing pleasant occurred to you recently, sir. No—ah?" +</P> + +<P> +"O Cap'n Kobbe," exclaimed his wife, with desperate fated mirth, "think +o' how you shot the buoy this mornin' 'stead of a coot!" +</P> + +<P> +The photographer, observing Mrs. Kobbe's face rather than his victim's, +and seizing this as probably the opportune moment, transferred the +captain's features to his camera. +</P> + +<P> +We waited for the result. After some time our artist approached us +with mincing steps and a hand thrust in his breast-pocket as if for +possible recourse to defence. +</P> + +<P> +In the type before us, even the gloom and wrath of the captain's +countenance were lost sight of in the final skittish and disastrous +arrangement, through the day's perils, of his hair. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye see now what ye've done, don't ye?" said the captain to his wife. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Kobbe came over and stood beside me. +</P> + +<P> +"'T looks 'like somethin' 't the cat brought in, don't it?" said she, +still gazing, pale with curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," I said, not knowing what to say; "does she bring in a +great variety?" +</P> + +<P> +"Awful!" said Mrs. Kobbe. Having said which, she put up her piteous +little hands to her face and began weeping as if her heart would break. +</P> + +<P> +The captain, like the man that he was, took a strong new tack. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind, darlin'," said he; "ye've got me, 'n' that 's better to ye +'n all the dagarriers. We'll stompede the blasted thing, 'n' we'll go +'n' have a nice sail home. +</P> + +<P> +"Ef I ever sees or hears or knows," he added to the photographer, +"anywheres on the face o' this 'ere wide an' at the same time narrer +'arth, o' any o' these here dagarrier-ructions 't you've played off on +me this day, bein' otherwise 'n destriyed, I sh'll take the first fa'r +wind up here, an' if thar' ain't no wind I sh'll paddle, an' my +settlemunt 'ith you'll be a final one. Good-arternoon." +</P> + +<P> +The captain and his wife strolled down to the beach, arm in arm, Miss +Pray and I following, forlorn and forgotten, behind. We saw the +captain tenderly pin the shawl about his wife's neck before he left us +on the windy wharf, to go out without a murmur to bring in the "Eliza +Rodgers." +</P> + +<P> +"How shall we get major down the slip?" I heard Mrs. Kobbe whisper +anxiously to Miss Pray. +</P> + +<P> +The "slip" was an inclined plane of boards, of some thirty feet in +length, ending in the water; it was without steps or railing, smooth, +green with sea-water and slime, and it was, at the present state of the +tide, the only way of boarding the "Eliza Rodgers." +</P> + +<P> +The captain now stood in the boat below, holding her to the slip. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray, leaving me with an encouraging smile, both +sat themselves down, and by the simplest means of descent slid safely +and swiftly down the incline, amid ringing cheers and acclamation from +the wharf. +</P> + +<P> +"Come on, major!" called the captain. "Touch-and-go——" +</P> + +<P> +And I! Where now are my faithful henchmen, the men of mighty stature +who do my bidding, the liveried giants who open the door of my +carriage? The breeze blew in my face, and the "Eliza Rodgers" waited +below, and I heard the rough audience from the wharf shouting that I +should be up to that much! +</P> + +<P> +Ay, and far more. +</P> + +<P> +I sat me down with a smile: that strange and swift period of passage is +still fresh in my memory; how the wind, aided by some slimy intervening +objects, turned me completely about, so that I bounded at last with +affectionate violence, back foremost, into the enfolding arms of my +friends below; cheered, too, from the wharf, especially as, not having +been able to make so judicious an arrangement of my earthly vestments +as Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray had done, I was now a startlingly marked +object of ridicule. +</P> + +<P> +Little cared we. That adventure down the slip, ignominious though it +was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's +scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the +convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little space +from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded +hilariously once more in my long-easeful, sluggish veins. +</P> + +<P> +The floor of our boat was covered with bright sea-spoils, the fog +lifted, the wind blew fair and strong. Hungry eternally, we munched +our stolen fried cakes with delight. +</P> + +<P> +The sun set in a spendthrift glory of state and color, the water was as +if translated to celestial climes, languidly the fair moon arose. +</P> + +<P> +And I—forever Vesty's face, in some dream of youth and happiness, +outlying my estate; pictured, apart from me, yet new-creating me with +joy. Afar off in earth-meadows, the love-note of the thrush—not for +me, yet passing dear and sweet. That slender, languorous moon pointed +me to humble village spires and grass-grown paths, pale lovers +whispering at a rustic gate. I, poor sprite, stooped down and loved +and blessed them, though I sped away to sail forever and forever on the +seas! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE +</H3> + +<P> +Say the philosophers how, to the properly sane mind, there is no +sorrow. But Vesty, only a Basin, fighting Christ's war against the +flesh—Vesty had sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +"It was," she confessed to me alone, I being as a ghost or +confessor—"it was like pulling my heart out, to have Notely go away +so. It was like taking little Gurd away—but it was the only way." +</P> + +<P> +"He has gone back to his wife?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." Vesty shivered. I had chanced to meet her in the lane, and the +wind was chill. +</P> + +<P> +"And what are you going to do, Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am going where they want me to help." She held the thin, frayed +shawl at her neck, the rosy child wrapped as usual on her arm: "there +is always some one wanting me to help, and little Gurd is not so much +care now but I can get along with it." +</P> + +<P> +"You go out as general drudge or charwoman!" I felt my nostrils quiver +and a bitter harshness in my voice. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty looked at me with surprise. "I go to help," she said, "just as +you helped me, with Uncle Benny, when I was sick." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I could do"—the child knew not with what a glance I studied her +face—"what it is hard to let you do, Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +A gentle pallor at that, as though I had been strong and seemly in her +sight; the Basin eyes fixed on me as if with a community of experience +and sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall you go away from the Basin this winter, as you did before?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think so;" for myself, I could not look at her. "You see, I have +my—'show,' that I must attend to a little in the winter: and here, +exposed to the hard climate, if I were taken ill, or should be in want, +there is no one who would care for me, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"You should never want or suffer," cried Vesty of the Basins, "while I +have two hands to work with!" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps then," I murmured gravely, with sphinx face, "I might stay. I +have to ask so much, Vesty, you see. All my life seems to be asking, +not giving." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know who you are!" said she, with puzzled brow, the utter +frankness of Basin speech escaping her unawares. "What I thought +first, when I saw you—I never mind that now. And you are poor and all +alone, and you never make anything of yourself—but somehow I always +think you are pretending; somehow—I think—you are stronger than us +all." +</P> + +<P> +"You are a little arch-flatterer," I said; "and the Basin, out of its +goodness of heart, has made me vain, that is all. It won't do. I need +to sweep some more floors and peel some more potatoes." She would not +smile; she shook her puzzled head at me. "And, Vesty," I said, "where +are you going now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, to Uncle Benny's! Didn't you know?" exclaimed the girl eagerly, +with whom the realities of life were always pressing, stern. "He stood +out in the water, <I>that day</I>, helping get the men in, and he was around +that evening, singing, without any dry clothes or fire; nobody thought, +then. And you know he 's had a cough ever since, and now—he 's sick." +</P> + +<P> +A thought smote me. "He won't lead the children to school any more, +then?" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty's lip quivered. "Come," she said; "he has asked for you." +</P> + +<P> +At sight of Vesty with her child and me, Uncle Benny, to whom the +shadows were coming as to the truly sane, without grief or surprise, +touched his unribboned throat with feeble apology. +</P> + +<P> +"I look dreadful," he murmured. That was not troubling him! He had a +secret beyond all that, I saw. +</P> + +<P> +"There 's been ten in to call to-day," he exulted sweetly, with folded +hands of satisfaction, death's bloom high in his cheeks; +"ten!—ahem!—to call." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty looked at me with her sad smile. "It is because we love you, +Uncle Benny," she said, "and you took—take such care of the children. +Who?" she asked, for his mind was on it. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother," said Uncle Benny, since he was sane now, "and"—he mentioned +a number of the living Basins, and went on, in the same tone—"and +Fluke and Gurd." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty looked at him with touching sorrow and despair, being troubled +and not sane. +</P> + +<P> +"They played," he said, his hands moving with the recollection of the +melody; "they played wonderful—but sometimes it was an organ!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good!" I said, Vesty stood so pale. "We are getting health, I see. +We are on the straight road now." +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Benny, hearing my voice, beckoned me. +</P> + +<P> +"All the things in the drawer!" he said, "because you were 'flicted." +His eyes shone lovingly and compassionately on me. "All for you. But +go and see!" +</P> + +<P> +Enough surely to relieve all physical defects! The worn and treasured +blue necktie, for one thing; a little pocket hand-glass, a pin-cushion +devoted to the tender ingathering of strayed and crooked pins, some +sprays of mint and lavender among the rest. +</P> + +<P> +I felt his eyes beaming proudly on me—treasures beautiful from long +habit, now yielded in a spirit so complete and lofty! I brushed the +back of my hand along my eyes, in the Basin way. +</P> + +<P> +"You mustn't feel bad," said Uncle Benny, as I came back to him: +"nature didn't do much for you, but it 's going to be all right. I had +a talk with mother." +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad of that, Uncle Benny." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes! it 's going to be all right." So full of secrets! he spoke +excitedly, with discreetly covered joy; "you needn't feel bad." +</P> + +<P> +He lay back, lest he should say too much. And so, as he, wise, covered +up his sublime knowledge among us, unwise, with smiling lips, he sank +into a sleep. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Benny, dying, slept with a smile on his lips; and little Gurd, +homeless, fatherless, laid in this poor habitation or in that, humbly +and roughly, slept in beautiful health with a smile on his lips; and +we, unwise, watched dolefully. +</P> + +<P> +"You must not stay," said Vesty. "You are not used to lose your rest. +I am so used to watching, and—I am not afraid. Lunette said she would +come to help me before morning." +</P> + +<P> +Starless, moonless darkness showed through the low window, and the +candle was burning dimly on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall stay," I said. I had a student's knowledge of death. "He +will wake soon, and then—it will be morning." +</P> + +<P> +But Vesty's dear face turned to me with the sorrow of dying. +</P> + +<P> +I was not used to lose my rest. I dozed faintly, with faithfully +sleepless lids. In that east of heavy blackness the candle made a +strange sun. The world, elsewhere so far from heaven, here at the +Basin ascended to it by a common stairway, and little children and the +pure of heart climbed upward without dread. +</P> + +<P> +"May I go?" I said, watching them. +</P> + +<P> +"If a child leads thee," said a voice. +</P> + +<P> +So I looked to a little child, to take my hand, and I saw my mother's +face waiting from above, and the beams of glory narrowed; it was the +candle burning dimly on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Notely!" I heard a voice calling. +</P> + +<P> +I started up. +</P> + +<P> +"Notely!" called Uncle Benny, very sweetly and tremulously from the +bed. "Where is he? I led him to school." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty had gone to the door, and leaned her head there, as if to press +back the unbearable anguish and pathos sweeping over her like a flood. +</P> + +<P> +"Notely! Little Note! He was the handsomest of them all, but +sometimes he ran away. Notely! Little Note! come home with Uncle +Benny now; come home!" +</P> + +<P> +"He will come," I said, going to him: "he will come home." +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty! Where is she? I led her to school." +</P> + +<P> +She tottered toward him and pressed her warm hands upon his, cold. +</P> + +<P> +"And you," he said, trying to turn to me, lovingly, faintly, "you are +one of them. I will bring you home. Sing, Vesty; sing 'Sail away——'" +</P> + +<P> +"'As Christ went down the Lonesome Road'"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Vesty's voice broke. +</P> + +<P> +"Sing, little one," said Uncle Benny, covering his glad secrets again +with a sort of heavenly duplicity; "it 's all right—sing." +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'He left the crown and He took the cross—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee!</SPAN><BR> +He left the crown and He took the cross—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee!</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em; letter-spacing: 2em">****</SPAN><BR> +"'There 's a tree I see in Paradise——'"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Sing, Vesty!" +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"It 's the beautiful waiting Tree of Life—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sail away to Galilee!</SPAN><BR> +It 's the beautiful——'"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Uncle Benny hushed her with an awed motion of the hand, and a look +upward of unspeakable recognition—he, without doubt, seeing now, +beyond us blind. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BASIN +</H3> + +<P> +"What I thought first when I saw you—I never mind that now." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty's words: and "You shall never want or suffer while I have hands +to work with." So it seems that, at the Basin, even one poor and +afflicted may have good hope to be sustained! +</P> + +<P> +There was a woman once, beautiful and high, who, spurning me, would +have married me for my wealth and name. +</P> + +<P> +But pity is sweet and true. I am not ashamed of pity. Some time—if +all things failed her—should I even say, "Vesty, could you marry me, +for pity—for pity, Vesty?" For it was the thought of the Basins that +compassion was greater than love, in some way the diviner side of love. +</P> + +<P> +Then should I turn on her and say, sly as Captain Leezur—alas! so much +slyer: "My lady! My Lady of M——; there are none, even among the rich +and high, who can condescend to you; wide lands have you, you and your +little son, possessions and palaces; and others you shall build where +you will, only come and be pitiful where you move: the world needs not +these, but love and pity like thine, O Vesty of the Basins!" +</P> + +<P> +But the time was not yet to plead my cause for pity. I shall know if +ever that time comes. I have never mistaken Vesty. I wait. +</P> + +<P> +"For pity"—for it is not in the power of gold or rank to exalt her. I +cannot exalt her. +</P> + +<P> +It is sweet to bear about with one the secret of a strange country. +But, ah me! I love the Basin. I love the ragged shawl that Vesty +holds at her throat. Nowhere else will the winter come so dreary and +beautiful, with wild hearth fires. And Fate, bidding me hope, may +crush me. As God wills. I wait. +</P> + +<P> +It is but late summer now. There is a meeting. +</P> + +<P> +"It 's been a very busy time o' year," said Elder Skates, with timid, +inoffensive apology; "and we've ruther neglected religion lately. But +I hope we've gathered here to the old school-house once more this +Sunday afternoon, with a dispersition and a willin' and firm +determination that as for us we will not let 'er drop." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty had a native sense of the humorous, but the holy lids were down; +only the mouth trembled a little. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar +were finishing a game of croquet with the one set of those implements +which the Basin possessed, dedicated for Sundays, and to the +school-house yard, as being dimly understood to be a sort of Sabbatical +pastime. Their voices pealed in with unconscious vigor through the +open windows: +</P> + +<P> +"Did ye shove her through the wire, Pharo?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yis, by clam! and I'm a-comin' for ye, Shamgar, an' the next crack I +git on that thar rollin' cruiser o' yourn, she'll wish she'd 'a' died +las' week!" +</P> + +<P> +The Basin conception of the game not being based on a spirit of +emulation so much as on the cheerful clash of immediate vivid strokes, +Captain Shamgar laughed loudly. +</P> + +<P> +"We are now open for remarks," intimated Elder Skates feebly, afflicted +but firm in his rubber boots. +</P> + +<P> +After a season of respectful silence within the school-house there was +a sepulchral whisper from one elderly female to another on the back +seats: +</P> + +<P> +"Did ye know 't Elvine had plucked her geese?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sartin. She plucked 'em too clost, and they was around fryin' in the +sun scand'lous; but I don't surmise as she knew no better." +</P> + +<P> +"In course not. Ye know Miss Lester's boardin' some folks 't Gov'ment +sent down t' inspect the lighthouse. It's a young man, an' he brought +his wife, an' after he'd finished his job they liked it so well they're +jest stayin' on, cruisin' 'round an' playin' tricks on each other. So, +ef you'll believe me, what does that Gov'ment young man do one day but +go an' bring home a passel o' snakes——" +</P> + +<P> +The voice, to the eager ears of the listeners, ventured more and more +upon audibility— +</P> + +<P> +"An' he fixed 'em in a box in the woodshed, with a string to the cover, +an' then stepped into the kindlin'-closet, holdin' the string, ter wait +till the women came out, ter pull it an' then see what the verdick +would be! Wal, what think you—but his wife she suspicioned of 'im, +an' she was around thar hidin', an' jest as soon as he stepped into the +closet, afore he could pull the string, she flounced up an' fastened +the door on the outside. An' she kep' 'im in there till he'd say: +'Wife, wife, there's lots o' green in my eye; but I'll make my supper +on humble pie. I'll dump them snakes in the pond, dear wife; an' ef +you'll only let me out I'll be good all my life." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, thar now!" said an admiring voice; "I should think she must be +r'al gifted. Did he say it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he got it out, somewheres along in the shank o' the evenin'. But +Miss Lester says it's jest as good as bein' to the front seat in a +show, the whole livin', endurin' time." +</P> + +<P> +"Gov'ment pays their board, in course?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sartin, and well it c'n be some use now an' then, settin' 'round +there, not knowin' nothin' in this world what to do with its surplice." +</P> + +<P> +A sharp peal rang through the window. +</P> + +<P> +"Thar, Pharo! Ef ye want to find yerself, ye'd better start on down t' +the south eend o' the Basin, 'n' negotiate around to leeward o' +Leezur's bresh-heap; that's the d'rection yer ball was a-startin' for, +las' time I seen 'er!" +</P> + +<P> +"Poo! poo!" said Captain Pharo, drawing a Sunday "parlor" match +explosively along his boot-leg; "jest hold on thar, Shamgar. Jest hold +on till I git my old chimley here a-goin' ag'in——" +</P> + +<P> +"The meetin' is open and patiently waitin' for remarks," said Brother +Skates, poising himself wearily but ever enduringly on one boot. +</P> + +<P> +After an appreciative silence within, the whisper finally arose once +more: "But he paid her off pretty well." +</P> + +<P> +"Dew tell!" +</P> + +<P> +"She took 'n' hid his pipe one day, and her clo's was hangin' out on +the line—she wears the mos' beautiful, 'labberotest-trimmed clo's you +ever see—so what does he do but go an' git a padlock an' padlocked +them clo's onto the line. 'When you git me my pipe,' says he, 'I'll +unlock your wardrobe,' says he." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I never! Ain't them ructions!" +</P> + +<P> +"Did the peddler come around to your house this month?" +</P> + +<P> +"He did so. I bought a pictur' 't was named 'Logan.' It's a fancy +skitch, I guess, 'but I'm goin' to have that pictur', Cap'n Nason Ted,' +says I, 'ef 't takes every egg the hens is ekil to from now t' +deer-stalkin',' says I. It jest completely drored me somehow; it had +sech a feelin' look." +</P> + +<P> +"Did Nason let ye buy it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yis, he did; but he was dreadful sneakish an' j'ilous. 'It's jest a +fancy skitch,' says he; "'tain't nothin' 't ever slammed around in +shoes,' says he." +</P> + +<P> +"I bought a pair o' black stockings," said the voice of a young matron. +"I remember 'cause I wore 'em the very day that Johnny swallowed six +buttons—and <I>smut!</I>—wal——" A picture too dark for the imagination +was relieved by the hum of a discussion now bravely finding voice on +the male side of the house. +</P> + +<P> +"There's some difference in the price of a hoss afore blueberryin' and +after blueberryin', I can tell ye." +</P> + +<P> +"All the difference 'twixt black an' white. Wal, thar's mos' things I +can do without, but when you find me without a hoss you'll find me done +'ith trouble altogether an' stretched out ca'm an' laid on the cooler." +</P> + +<P> +"Skates's raisin' a pretty good colt thar, 'ceptin' 't she's a leetle +twisty in her off hin' leg. What do you consider on her worth, Skates?" +</P> + +<P> +"I refused two hunderd dollars for 'er last week," said Brother Skates, +in a clearly round, secular tone of voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Now look a-here, Skates; that stock o' yourn's good workin'-stock, but +they're tirrible hard feeders. Ef you've been offered two hunderd +dollars for that colt don't you wait 'tell after blueberryin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe you think," said Brother Skates, now firmly established on both +boots, "'t I'm as green as a yaller cucumber!" +</P> + +<P> +"Look out thar, Shamgar!" rang through the windows. "Give me sea-room +here!—give me sea-room!"—we saw and heard the preparatory swinging of +Captain Pharo's mallet—"cl'ar the way thar, Shamgar; for by the +everlastin' clam, I'm a-goin' to give ye a clip that'll send ye t' the +west shore o' Machias!" +</P> + +<P> +A mighty concussion followed. +</P> + +<P> +Elder Skates, as if reminded by these thunders of his duty, blushed +deeply with shame and penitence. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," he pleaded tremulously, "will you start 'Carried by the +Angels'?" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty went to the little organ. +</P> + +<P> +Now we forgot all the rest, all that was rude and incongruous, forgot +how mean the school-house was, how few protective boards left upon it. +Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar dropped their mallets at the first +sound of Vesty's voice, and came in on tiptoe, with changed faces, +reverent. +</P> + +<P> +For there was the Basin sorrow in Vesty's voice, enough to subdue +greater discords, and the Basin hope in it, implicit, wonderful, +thrilled to tearful vision by a word: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Carried by the angels,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +she sang. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"Carried by the angels.</SPAN><BR> +Carried by the angels to the skies.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Carried by the angels,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Carried by the angels,</SPAN><BR> +"Gathered with the lost in Paradise."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Coat-sleeves began to do duty across moist eyes; seeing—we all being +simple Basins—winged white forms in the still air outside the battered +schoolhouse, bearing worn, earth-weary forms away— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Gathered with the lost in Paradise."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +It was not so hard to speak now. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got my finger on a tex' here," said a white-haired, +weather-beaten Basin, rising; "'In His love and in His pity He redeemed +us.' Now thar was a time when I didn't want nobody to say a word to me +about pity—no sir! Love I wanted and admirin' I wanted, but no pity; +that thar set me broilin'. But—now—I'd e'en a'most ruther have pity +than love; 'nd I thank God most o' all that, in my pride and in my +stren'th, and not wantin' no help an' gittin' mad at the thought of +it—all'as He pitied me, an' He pitied me cl'ar through to the end. +</P> + +<P> +"For I tell ye, thar can be love and admirin', that flashes up in the +pan mighty strong at first, an' goes out, an' nary mite o' pity in it. +But thar' ain't no pity 'ithout love; and it's a love 't ain't no +fine-spun thread, but a ten-inch hawser; a love 't stands by ye when +thar' 's a trackless path afore and a lost trail ahind; when ye're +scuddin' afore the squall, an' the seas come thunderin' down on ye; +when yer boat 's in splinters, and ye're a-bitin' the sand. Yis, an' +when yer cruisin' 's all done at las', an' ye're jest a poor old hulk +around in the way, driftin' in an' out 'ith the tides, 't calls out to +ye, as ef ye was somebody, 'Ship ahoy! What port?' +</P> + +<P> +"An' ye says, kind o' hopin', but not darin' nothin', 'The port as they +calls Heaven.' +</P> + +<P> +"An' 't shouts back to ye, strong across the wave, 'What are ye +doubtin', man? That 's a port sure! and home 's thar, and folks 's +thar, and the little children ye lost is thar. D'ye want a pilot?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Ay, ay, sir!—ay, ay, sir!'" +</P> + +<P> +The deep voice sank in tears, then broke out again: +</P> + +<P> +"Git under the lee o' the wrack! +</P> + +<P> +"For days an' nights once, in a storm 't I shall never forgit, we +pulled under the lee o' a wracked vessel, 'n' no other way could we 'a' +been saved. +</P> + +<P> +"An' it was so, 't, in this sea o' life, all open ter the winds o' +sorrer an' temptation, Christ come down, an' He giv' up joy an' a safe +harbor, 'n' all that, jest ter be made a wrack on, so 't we might git +under His lee, an' foller safe. +</P> + +<P> +"It 's the great Breakwater o' the seas; don't ye fear but it 's a safe +one! +</P> + +<P> +"Young man, I know 't ye think o' somethin' more'n this, an' vary +diffur'nt from this, a-startin' out each one in his clipper-bark, gay +an' hunky in every strand, 'ith a steady follerin' breeze, an' +everythin' set from skysail pole to the water's edge. +</P> + +<P> +"All right! ye are the lad for me; ye can pull side an' feather +stroke; ye can cl'ar a tops'l reef-tackle when the sail is full, ye are +the lad for me. Steer bold; only steer true, by night an' day. I wish +'t ye might no' meet wi' fogs an' icebergs an' collisions an' gales—— +</P> + +<P> +"An' yit, I wish it not. The sea an' the storm is jest to teach us t' +git under the lee o' the great wrack o' Love an' Pity, 't made hisself +lost for us; ay, an' so to make a wrack o' our own happiness for the +poor an' weak, 't's out a-tossin' shelterless, to lead 'em to the true +Breakwater. That 's life, that 's the sea, that 's the lesson. Till +we pass on, up the roads, into the harbor——" +</P> + +<P> +The old mariner's voice failed him; he sat down. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, and cleared his throat huskily; "Vesty, +will you start 'The Tempests broke on Thee'?" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty's voice: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'O Christ, it broke on Thee!<BR> +Thy open bosom was my ward,<BR> +It braved the storm for me.<BR> +Thy form was scarred, Thy visage marred,—<BR> +O Christ, it broke on Thee!'"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Great preachers have I heard dry-eyed, and skilled plaintive music +enough; but now I looked out through the broken Basin windows, on the +clear Basin sky, through a mist. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, "let 's keep right along into 'Beautiful +Valley o' Eden'!" +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'How often amid the wild billows,<BR> +I dream of thy rest, sweet rest,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sweet rest.'"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +sang Vesty, with eyes darkly circled and sunken, and the beautiful, +strong hand, labor-worn, and the thin old shawl fallen back from her +shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +There was a different tone now in the parting salutations of the Basins. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm a-comin' up to help ye paper," said one woman to another; "ye got +sick last year, and I'm a-comin', whether ye want me to or not." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I want ye bad enough, Mar'ette." +</P> + +<P> +But I knew what a struggle had been gone through with when I heard Miss +Pray say: +</P> + +<P> +"Car' Ann, if ye want to borry my ice-cream freezer I ain't a-usin' it +for to-morrer." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Pray alone of the Basins had acquired the monumental honor of +possessing an ice-cream freezer, esteemed by others with a no less +sacred jealousy than by herself; but she had hitherto refused all +intimations tending toward social interchange and fellowship in the +matter. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty's kind o' poorin' away," said one matron, looking wistfully +after the girl. +</P> + +<P> +"No wonder, with that great boy, and all she does. Aunt Low-ize tried +to hold him, jest while Vesty was singin', an' she had to take him out +and walk twict around Blueberry Hill t' keep him still; he's one o' +this 'ere all-alive, jumpin' kind. I sh'd think he'd kill her." +</P> + +<P> +I overtook Vesty in the lane; she was gathering flowers in Sunday +pastime for the baby. +</P> + +<P> +She turned to look at me with quiet gladness, kindness. +</P> + +<P> +"I love to hear Captain Seabale. He doesn't come very often," said +she, "but he makes me cry." +</P> + +<P> +"I believe he made me cry," I answered. I watched her shaking a +handful of flowers over the laughing boy. "How far do you think pity +could ever go, Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why?"—there was that high, grave study of me in her eyes, that +haunting thought that I was sly! But for all her pains, too simple was +she! No discovery; only the beautiful Basin unconsciousness. "Christ +never said where to stop, did He?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SOCIAL DIVERSIONS AT THE "POST-OFFICE" +</H3> + +<P> +Leafless and brown are the trees, but the Basin has diviner glories +than at midsummer, in colors unspeakable of sea and sky, of +wild-sailing cloud, of sunset and of moon. +</P> + +<P> +There come great news of Notely. In pursuance of which, "Did ye ever +notice," said Captain Leezur, sitting on the log in the late sunshine, +ambrosially sucking a nervine lozenge; "did ye ever notice, major, how +'t all the great folks, or them 't 's risin' tew be great—how 't they +all comes from a squantum place like this?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I said, "I've heard it as a remarkable fact." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mean t' say 't <I>everybody</I> in a squantum place is beound and +destined tew be great or die!" said Captain Leezur, with whole-souled +disparagement of such a thought: "no, no; they can't carry it on us so +fur as that. 'Forced-to-go,' ye know." +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed!" I consented. +</P> + +<P> +I accepted a nervine lozenge, and we braced ourselves firmly on the +log, placid, but set, against all resistance, not to be great! +</P> + +<P> +"What is this rewmer abeout Notely, major? I heered how 't you took a +lot o' noos-sheets." +</P> + +<P> +"It is fine. He is making for himself a name in your politics, and at +the same time there 's the old fire in him, flashing out over +conventions; one can almost hear him laugh. He rings out, clear, amid +any false notes; it is a grand satire; sometimes the dry bones quake." +</P> + +<P> +"Lord sakes!" said Captain Leezur, turning on me with deep-smitten +dismay; "I heered how't he was bein' successful!" +</P> + +<P> +"His financial speculations seem touched with magic, they say; he is +courted, feared, praised, maligned; he laughs and rings out, the true +note! His health is not strong, never since that fall. There; you +have all I know, Captain Leezur." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Leezur meditated. "There <I>be</I> times—I sh'd never want this +said except between you an' me, major—when I'm glad 't Notely Garrison +didn't marry Vesty, after all! Notely 'n' me was great mates, all'as. +But I'll tell ye this, when Notely got everythin' he wanted he'd carry +sail enough to sink the boat, all'as; couldn't never jump rough enough +or fast enough on a high sea; kept the rest on us bailin' water: that +was Note, when he had all the wind he wanted; that was Note, +all'as—but I all'as loved him better 'n them 't was more keerful +sailors." +</P> + +<P> +The sun saw itself globed in a tear that fell on Captain Leezur's felts. +</P> + +<P> +"Moderation in all things, ye know," he added, beaming, not to distress +me; "even in passnips." +</P> + +<P> +I mused with him in silent sympathy. "Oiling the saw again, I see," I +said at last glancing with reverent admiration of such benign industry +at the oil-can. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Captain Leezur kindly; "I wa'n't, I was a-goin' deown, by +'n' by, to the cove, to ca'm the water deown, 'n' see ef I c'd spear up +a few fleounders; but I ain't in no hurry. I'd jest as soon set +areound on the int'rust o' my money!" +</P> + +<P> +This was a joke insatiable between us, always bubbling over, always +enough of it left for next rime. At its utterance Captain Leezur's +countenance was accustomed to break up entirely, while I laughed with +an appreciation that never fainted or palled. +</P> + +<P> +We felt that there was never aught sparkling enough to be said after +it, but parted in succulent silence, Captain Leezur with his oil-can, +going down to compose the waters, while I pursued my less omnipotent +way to the Basin "post-office." +</P> + +<P> +"Ef there 's anything trying," said Lunette, though with the peculiarly +official air she always wore on post days, "it is dressin' sand-peeps. +But thar! Tyson come home with a harf-bushel, an' what are ye goin' to +do? Onct a year, Ty says, he wants ter jest stuff himself to the +collar-bone on sand-peep pie, an' then he don't want to see nary one, +nor hear 'em mentioned in his sight—not for another year." +</P> + +<P> +It might have troubled the casual observer at first to discover, in the +variety of Lunette's official capacity, which was post-office and which +was sand-peeps, so agreeably and informally did these two elements +combine in her surroundings. +</P> + +<P> +"Mis' Pharo Kobbe!" she called. +</P> + +<P> +That lady, thus summarily summoned, sprang forward from a cloud of +witnesses, as choice and flattered assistant. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you take them letters 't Major Henry's jest brought in, and +deface the stamps on 'em? Turn the ink enter them pictur's o' George +Washin'ton so 't his own mother's son wouldn't know him. I don't +calk'late to have no stamps 't 's sent out from the Basin post-office +washed out an' used over ag'in. The defacement they gets here is for +everlastin' an' for aye." +</P> + +<P> +I watched helplessly a full discharge of this command on the part of +Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, and proceeded to pluck one of the sand-peeps +meanwhile, along with the rest, waiting the arrival of the post bag. +</P> + +<P> +"Some o' the rusticators 't was here in the summer," continued Lunette, +sneezing over a culinary preparation of pepper, "though 't we ought to +have two mails a week! Ef I was so dyin' crazy for news 's that, I'd +go an' live to Machias!" +</P> + +<P> +"That does seem dissipated and unreasonable, certainly," I assented, +interested in the endeavor to extract the minutest pin-feathers from +the tail of the sand-peep. +</P> + +<P> +"Ef they was all like Major Henry, I told 'em, the post-office 'ud be +easy runnin', an' I don't care if I do say it afore his face. I'd say +it afore the meet'n-house—ef there was one. The very first time 't +Major Henry ever stepped inter this post-office he come up to me an' +handed me a five-dollar bill, 'n' says he: +</P> + +<P> +"'Mardam, could you kin'ly put my mail t' one side, me not all'as bein' +convienent to be here at its openin', maybe; an' all the mail that +ain't called for at its openin' bein' thrun up onter the top pantry +shelf,' says he, ''nd everybody 't comes in lookin' it over t' see ef +they've got anything, is a most beautiful compliment to human natur',' +says he, 'an' one that I wish I could interduce everywhere; but me not +bein' vary tall,' he says, 'an' kind o' near-sighted, I'm afeered as I +might git somethin' 't didn't belong to me. Have ye got anythin' like +a dror, or anythin' 't ye could lock up?' says he. +</P> + +<P> +"'No,' says I, 'I hain't, but I'll tell ye what I can do. I can put +'em inter th' old Gran'mother Tyson soup-turreen, 't I don't believe +the led of it 's been lifted this ten year; they'll be as safe as ef +they was buried an' in their graves,' says I. An' so I thought, but ye +know how things is all'as sartin to happen. +</P> + +<P> +"What, in the name o' ructions, did Ty do but come home that afternoon +with a bag o' ches'nits, which he knows I won't have in the pantry on +account o' breedin' worms; but me bein' over to Mis' Kobbe's, what does +he do, manlike, but dump them letters inter the churn, an' go an' sneak +his ches'nits inter th' old Granm'er Tyson soup-turreen. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, I all'as churn my butter Friday mornin', come hail, come wind: so +I gits up—an' 'twas kind o' dark yit—an' in I pours the pail o' cream +an' begins to churn, an' thinks I, 'This spatters onaccountable this +mornin',' an' took off the cover to see what the ructions was! +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, the verdick of it was, after I'd laid into Ty, I went down to +major with the five-dollar bill an' another atop of it, all I had in +this livin' world—'An' ef that 's any objec', major,' says I, a-wipin' +of my eyes, 'it's all I c'n do.' +</P> + +<P> +"Wall, what think you, but major laughs, an' wouldn't tetch ary cent of +it, but took 'is letters, an' says he, 'They've ackired a peculiar +richness,' says he, 'an' I'd orter be up there mail-openin' an' not +make a lady so much trouble,' says he. That's the kind o' poppolation +'s I, for one, sh'd like to fill up the Basin with!" said Lunette, +flourishing her rolling-pin. +</P> + +<P> +A murmur of approval ran through the room. +</P> + +<P> +Blushing, embarrassed, but swollen with pride, I picked up another +sand-peep to pluck. +</P> + +<P> +At that instant "Snipe," the household and post-office dog, ran across +the floor with high-careering head, holding a huge envelope in his +teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop him! stop him!" cries arose: "it's Elvine's registered letter, 't +'s goin' to Boston for a tea-set!" +</P> + +<P> +A rush followed Snipe into the bedroom, the door of which stood open; +the evil dog ran under the bed and into the farthest corner, where, +with his jaws formed into the semblance of a menace and a mocking +laugh, he assumed an attack upon that potential tea-set. +</P> + +<P> +Lunette rushed in after him. Now the bed, in default, for some unknown +though doubtless wise Basin reasons, of other stanchions, was set up on +four chairs, one at each corner, and as Lunette rushed under it, she +displaced the outermost chair; whereat the bed at that source collapsed +with a crash, imprisoning both her and the dog. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been a-threatenin' to have that bed fixed," said Tyson, with +politic zeal, as his wife and dog were delivered. +</P> + +<P> +Lunette with voiceless indignation seized one of a buttress of +birch-switches behind the door, and began applying it to the +consciously ruined Snipe, at the arising of whose howls the +post-carrier drove up, and, entering, threw the bag, in loud token of +his arrival, upon the floor. +</P> + +<P> +Snipe, of all places, ran and entrenched himself behind my feeble legs! +Whereat, "Don't whip him any more," I pleaded, being already flattered, +in one way and another, as high as mortal could sustain. +</P> + +<P> +Lunette turned unwillingly to the post. The post-driver stood about +seven feet in his boots, with a handsome face, all mud-bespattered. +Many voices beset him familiarly. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, Will, did ye bring down my molasses?" "Say, Will, did ye match +that ribbin f'r me?" "Say, Will," etc., etc. +</P> + +<P> +"You bet I did, every time!" he answered jovially, showing his white +teeth. Interest in the post was comparatively moribund; a general +parcel-distributing and hand-shaking followed—until we were startled +by a cry from Lunette: +</P> + +<P> +"Look a' this, Will Hunson!" said she; "look a' this, will ye? A whole +pot o' strawberry jam soaked right plumb inter the middle o' the United +States Governmunt!" +</P> + +<P> +It was only too true. The pile of letters and papers which she had +emptied onto the moulding table were red and glowing as the summer rose. +</P> + +<P> +Will hung his dismayed head. +</P> + +<P> +"Be them ructions, or ain't they?" coldly demanded Lunette, pointing to +the awful pile. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't mean to," said Will. +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't mean to!" cried Lunette. "Didn't mean to, lived in a lean-to!" +</P> + +<P> +Blasted by terror and sarcasm, we all hung our heads. Snipe grovelled +in still farther behind my legs. +</P> + +<P> +"There 's got to be something done!" cried Lunette. "Folks's got to +learn 't the United States Governmunt is a awful an' a solemn an' a +turrible thing. What ef it sh'd be told 't we hadn't no more respec' +for her down here to the Basin 'n to soak her through with strawberry +jam an' molarsses! These here ructions have been a-goin' on too long +with the Basin post-office. I'm a-goin' to fill out a blank an' send +it to Washin'ton!" +</P> + +<P> +Snipe howled. Lively apprehension, none the less poignant for being +vague, sat on every pale brow. +</P> + +<P> +"Here," continued Lunette, "'s major's business letters, looks as +though they'd been a-settin' in the dentist's chair, havin' all the old +stumps extracted for a whole set of uppers and unders!" +</P> + +<P> +Lunette's comparison, though tragic, was not inapt. +</P> + +<P> +"Here"—blind terror yielded to curiosity on many features—"here is +Jennie Cossey's letter from her beau, down to New London, with a +cardboard dagarrier in it. Yes," said Lunette, manipulating the +envelope curiously and holding it to the light; "I knew 't the next +thing he'd be sendin' his pictur'. How 'd you feel, Will Hunson, ef +you was stan'in' in his shoes an' had gone an' combed yer hair 'tell +yer arm ached, an' stuck the end o' yer hankercher outer yer pocket, +an' had yer pictur' took, an' then sot down an' wrote a lot o' +sweetness to wrop around it—an' when she took it out have it look like +Injuns a-yellin' on the warpath!" +</P> + +<P> +"Say, Lunette," said honest Will, his handsome face redder than any of +the lively imageries she had called up to terrorize his conscience; "I +got that front hair fascinater ye wanted, an' I sold the spruce gum for +two dollars for ye. Look a' here!" +</P> + +<P> +"Will Hunson, don't ye ride no more strawberry jam an' molarsses down +here in the middle o' the United States Governmunt ag'in, will ye?" +said Lunette, determined to fall gently. +</P> + +<P> +But it appeared then that no blank was to be filled out and sent to +Washington! +</P> + +<P> +With a sharp yelp of joy Snipe sprang from behind the impregnable +covert of my legs, and rushed out into the free and gladsome elements. +</P> + +<P> +I gathered up my portion of matter from the illuminated heap of +"government," beside the sand-peep pie on the table, and with a fond +smile at Lunette I also departed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BROKEN WINDOWS +</H3> + +<P> +Always now on the evening of post day, after I had read my newspapers, +came the worn shawl and the dark, weary eyes—Vesty, to sit awhile with +Miss Pray. +</P> + +<P> +"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?" +</P> + +<P> +Now and then I made her put the question, but oftener I was kind and +volunteered any information on this subject that I had been able to +glean; and at the news of joy or success for him, how her eyes glowed! +Basin pure and great, with no thought for the shadow of her own +lot—Vesty of the Basins. +</P> + +<P> +"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?" +</P> + +<P> +She was pinning the shawl at her throat after a short call, before +going out; and she gave me her direct, reproachful look, as though I +had been teasing her. +</P> + +<P> +But I was not teasing her; my heart yearned over her where she stood, +facing the dark. +</P> + +<P> +"I will tell you what I have read," I said, "as I walk home with you. +You are 'helping' them at your own father's again now?" +</P> + +<P> +She bowed her head. Her dark eyes filled me with a kind of frenzy to +make rest and comfort about her; and I had hard news for her! +</P> + +<P> +"In my papers of the past week the beginning of what concerned Notely +Garrison was a medley. 'Reformer,' 'The old never-heeded cry of a St. +John in the wilderness,' and again, from the other side, 'Fanatic,' +'Visionary,' 'Throwing out his by no means boundless wealth like water +for the sake of chimeras, ideally noble enough, but still vain +chimeras!' And the news at the week's end, 'Young Garrison stricken: a +shock. Overwork, over-excitement, and the result of an accident +suffered not long since. Recovery very doubtful.'" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to go to him," said Vesty. I heard her breath coming painfully +and quick. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew that. I have already made arrangements for you to leave early +in the morning." +</P> + +<P> +"Just to see him. I promised him. Notely! Notely! I can't bear +it—just as though it was little Gurd." +</P> + +<P> +"You shall see him by to-morrow night. I have sent a messenger to make +special arrangements for conveyance, in case you should desire this." +</P> + +<P> +"Major Henry, I forgot. I cannot; I have no money." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but you can and must. It is arranged." +</P> + +<P> +"And I do not know the way. I was never from the Basin." +</P> + +<P> +"I am going with you. In my country high ladies travel with a servant, +thus. Get what rest you can and be ready at four. They will take good +care of little Gurd while you are gone." +</P> + +<P> +"Some time," said Vesty, on the morrow, "when Gurd is a little older, +and I can take him away somewhere where I can earn wages, I can pay +you, Major Henry. They want me now—his mother wants me, somehow, I +know." +</P> + +<P> +"You are safe to think that." +</P> + +<P> +"My clothes are not like theirs," said Vesty quietly, when we came at +night more and more into the throngs of civilized life. "Do you mind? +I knew that I should not be dressed like them." +</P> + +<P> +"In my country high ladies wear what they will." +</P> + +<P> +She gave a low, perplexed laugh, looking at me with curious sorrow for +my hallucinations. +</P> + +<P> +"But I am only Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +"Surely. But you remind me so of a lady." +</P> + +<P> +At least Vesty travelled as a princess might. I brought her the long +and devious journey swiftly, with as little fatigue as possible: but it +was late at night when we mounted the steps of the Garrison town +residence; the house was all alight. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Garrison brushed past the servant at the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty Rafe! I knew it was you. I knew you would come, somehow, +child." She drew her in, and fell on her neck, weeping. +</P> + +<P> +"He is dying?" murmured Vesty then, with cold lips. +</P> + +<P> +"He has not spoken since the shock. He does not know us; but it may be +he will know you! Come!" +</P> + +<P> +Servants from the doorways of the wide, rich hall were staring +strangely at Vesty and at me. Vesty turned to me now, to consider me. +</P> + +<P> +I gave her the warning look. "I came to show Vesty the way," I said in +simple Basin speech. "I will go to my hotel. I will call." +</P> + +<P> +The girl's sad eyes looked reproach at me, but she obeyed me. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait," she said then; "I want to speak with Major Henry." She came to +me in the door. +</P> + +<P> +"When will you come back?" she murmured, low. +</P> + +<P> +"I will call in the morning." +</P> + +<P> +"You will come?" A strange abandoned distress was in her eyes, as of a +child lost in crowded city ways. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty!" +</P> + +<P> +She turned, chidden, but with a sort of wilful content. +</P> + +<P> +My heart bounded as I limped down the steps. I smiled to myself, safe +in the dark, sardonically. Make what you will of it, with other men +she was strong, womanly, serene; with me, she had the sweet grace to +show weakness. +</P> + +<P> +The carriage bounded over the paving-stones and stopped at my hotel. +The driver lifted his hat obsequiously. I, with sardonic smile, +entered the hotel, where I was not unknown. No doubt was made as to +the character of my apartments. +</P> + +<P> +I rested sumptuously, but could not sleep. +</P> + +<P> +"How was he now, who lay stricken yonder? Had he known her, or would +those rare blue eyes be lifted to her too, unrecognizing, and so break +her heart?" +</P> + +<P> +Eyes once seen, to haunt one, the handsomest in form and color and +expression that I had ever seen in human head. +</P> + +<P> +Now I saw them again, as I had first seen them at the meeting in the +Basin school-house; the firm, brown hand grasping the sailor's bonnet; +eyes omnipotent with health and joy, casting their mischievous, +beautiful glances over toward Vesty—she, patient, struggling, with her +holy look! +</P> + +<P> +And the Basin wind blew in through the cracked windows, and a bird flew +upward: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Softly through the storm of life,<BR> +Clear above the whirlwind's cry"—<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It all resolved itself into that at last; the human voice crying +upward, shivering, like the bird's flight; but with sure aim now! +</P> + +<P> +I saw how it was at the first look at Vesty's face, when I called the +next morning. +</P> + +<P> +Notely, waking once, had not known her among the group of doctors and +attendants; only stared at her as one of them, kindly, vaguely. +</P> + +<P> +But, for the most part, he slept in weary bliss. Once, later, they +thought her face had awakened some old memory. +</P> + +<P> +"The school-house—is growing—dark," he murmured, in indistinct, +half-recovered speech, then fell off again into his soundless slumbers. +</P> + +<P> +The doctors knew. I knew. The mother read no hope. +</P> + +<P> +"He has so much to leave," she sobbed, turning ever to Vesty, who, numb +with sorrow, yet tried to comfort her. +</P> + +<P> +So much to leave!—but who knows ever to how much going! Not so Mrs. +Garrison. The bright way ended at this pass, in blank darkness. +</P> + +<P> +And Notely slept on, wearied, heedless; soft, luxurious trappings of +life all about him; his reconciled young wife; his hope now of an heir +for his name and fortune; the work he had struggled at last so +unrestingly to do; and the dear, lost love of his youth, Vesty, bending +over him. +</P> + +<P> +Leaving them, not able to be heedful, so deep-wrapped in unknown +dreams. Waking once more and turning from them vaguely (ah, the +sublime, unconscious contempt of death!); turning from them vaguely, as +though in some far Basin the dawn were breaking! +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Benny," said he, holding out his wasted hand, "the school-house +is very dark—I'll go home now." +</P> + +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 4em; letter-spacing: 4em">******</SPAN><BR> + +<P> +So Vesty's heart was broken in her, and to me she came, as to a father, +or more as to a friendly, favoring ghost. +</P> + +<P> +"Take me back to the Basin!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +She sat in a kind of patient apathy, numb, her heart faithful with the +dead. +</P> + +<P> +"How little Gurd will call for you when he sees you again!" I spoke; +but to waken her was to bring such a torrent of tears, choking, she +entreated me not. +</P> + +<P> +But, "It is well, I believe," I said to her; "there is life enough! Be +sure he does not lack for life. What! do you think we have found the +best of it, and all of it, here? I imagine God has enough! It is not +because His bread fails Him that any go hungry, or because He lacks for +gold that any are poor, but only for His purpose—we must guess—and +when the poor, shattered school-house grows dark the light breaks +elsewhere." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty had not slept for two nights; the sweet face was haggard. +</P> + +<P> +Again passing among crowds of restless, hurrying life, faces cold and +strange, or often staring curiously, the haunted look of one lost came +again into her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I must go and take care of Gurd," she said, "as well as I can, while I +live. O God! I hope he never may get lost, out in the world." +</P> + +<P> +"No; how could he, in God's world?" +</P> + +<P> +"When we get back to the Basin then you will be tired of staying there +in the bleak and cold. You will never wait for me to pay you; you will +laugh at me, and you will go back to the world." +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty!" +</P> + +<P> +Wearily she turned her heavy eyes on me—a ghost; there was the forced, +unconscious cry in them of the child, or even of the woman. +</P> + +<P> +Sacredly I shielded their glance, and ghostly; it was as though I had +not seen. +</P> + +<P> +"You mistake my courage. There is no winter," I said, smiling, "strong +enough to drive me from the Basin." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"NEIGHBORIN'" +</H3> + +<P> +Vesty never said "Stay!" but that unconscious look in her eyes made a +sort of forlorn fireplace of hope to me, desolate, open to all the +winds. As God wills. I wait. +</P> + +<P> +I went often to Captain Leezur; the nervine lozenges were potent. +</P> + +<P> +"We all'as dew neighbor a great deal in winter," said he approvingly, +stretching those dear felts before the blaze. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that a piece of the log we used to sit on?" I inquired mournfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, neow! I r'a'ly believe ye feel a kind o' heart-leanin' to'ds +her, don't ye?" +</P> + +<P> +"How can I help it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sartin! sartin!" said he, delighted; "we're jest like twin-brothers. +But neow don't you werry one mite. She 's done a good werk an' she 's +returnin' to Natur's God. I've got another one 't I'm goin' to roll +deown, first hint o' spring. I don't calk'late ever to be feound, like +them wise an' foolish virgins, without no log to set on." +</P> + +<P> +"Thar 's somethin' abeout a log," continued Captain Leezur; "when ye go +inter the heouse in warm weather, an' sets deown in a cheer, the women +kind o' looks at ye as though you was sick or dreffle lazy; but when +ye're eout settin' on a log ye feels as though God was on yewr side, +an' man nor woman wa'n't able to afflict ye. They 's a depth an' a +ca'm to the feelin' of it, 't them 't sets on fringe an' damarsk sofys +don't know nothin' abeout." +</P> + +<P> +"You must have required a great deal of oil in sawing up the old log, +captain," I said. +</P> + +<P> +The captain gave the restful sigh of battles overpast. +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe you think 't the drippin's o' one skunk did it," said he; "but +they didn't. Did ye ever think," he resumed, "o' what a wonderful +thing ile is, an' what 'd we dew without 'er?—heow the wringin' +machine 'ud seound when ye was turnin' on 'er for yer wife, Monday +mornin's?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said I sadly. +</P> + +<P> +"Then ag'in, it 's ile in yer natur' keeps ye ca'm an' c'llected, an' +it's ile in yer dispersition l'arns ye t' say, 'Moderation 's the rewl, +even in passnips.'" +</P> + +<P> +Lubricated with a sense of peace and blessing, I arose. +</P> + +<P> +"Ye're jest like me," gurgled Captain Leezur; "ye don't feel easy in a +cheer! Ye wanter be eout on the old log, don't ye?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said I. "This isn't quite like." +</P> + +<P> +"We're nateral twin-brothers!" he exclaimed, following me to the door. +There he looked cautiously backward. +</P> + +<P> +"Dew you remember what I said to ye once," said he, "on the subject o' +kile?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ahem!—female affection?" I inquired gently. "Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Some calls it that," said my twin-brother, beaming on me, "and some +calls it kile. Wal, neow, ef a sartin person shows a dispersition to +kile, let 'em! Let 'em," said Captain Leezur, irradiating my thin +being with the glory of his countenance; "let em." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said I, and shook my head again sadly, "I think more and more we +will have to go our pilgrimage without that, my friend." +</P> + +<P> +"Neow you look a' here," said Captain Leezur. "I ain't a-sayin' +nothin', that they will or that they won't, but if they dew, let 'em. +Did ye ever think o' what a heap o' wisdom there is in a poor old +bean-pole? +</P> + +<P> +"Mornin' glory comes up an' looks at it. Bean-pole stands up stiff, +without no feelin's: don't look at 'er, nor bend over an' kiss 'er, nor +nothin'. Mornin' glory don't git skeered, an' she peouts out a lot o' +leaves an' tenderls an' begins to kile. Bean-pole takes a chaw o' +terbakker an' looks off t'other eend o' the field t' see what the +pertater crop 's goin' to be. Mornin' glory peouts out more leaves an' +blossoms, an' keeps a-kilin'. By 'n' by thar ain't no poor old +God-forsaken bean-pole standin' there—it 's all one mess o' kile an +mornin' glory! +</P> + +<P> +"I tell ye, major, we need once in a while for t' l'arn a lesson from +natur'. I ain't a-goin' to press ye to stay longer, for I know ye +wanter go neighborin'!" +</P> + +<P> +Dazzled, I turned away from the refulgent keenness of his wink. +</P> + +<P> +But I did not take the direction that wink had indicated. I had an +invitation, not from Vesty, but from the two most ancient of the Basins +to tea, and I stopped in, a solitary and thoughtful bean-pole, at +Captain Pharo's on the way. +</P> + +<P> +The music-box was playing. I was glad to hear that; a tune in +undertone, like waves slowly, softly breaking. +</P> + +<P> +"She used ter play fifteen different tunes when we first had her," said +Captain Pharo pensively; "but she got to squeakin', an' so we had +Leezur up to ile 'er, an' ever sence she 's played one tune fifteen +times! Poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-231a"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-231a.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass--'" BORDER="0" WIDTH="220" HEIGHT="42"> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Shouldn't care so much, though, ef 'twas only 'The Wracker's Darter.' +</P> + +<P> +"I've threatened a good many times to overhaul her myself, but I ain't +no knowledge o' instermental music, and I s'pose I might spend a week +on 'er, and not combine 'er insides up to playin' no 'Wracker's +Darter,' arter all. Hohum! +</P> + +<A NAME="img-231b"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-231b.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r." BORDER="0" WIDTH="144" HEIGHT="44"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<P> +At each successive pause the organs of the music-box wheezed, +struggled, almost faintly let go of life, then began again the +undertone, of waves softly breaking. +</P> + +<P> +"I like it," I said. "I like it wonderfully." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo gave me a keen look and went to the door and winked. I +was no longer supine under such invitations. I rose and followed him. +"Look a' here, major," said he, when we were alone, coughed. "My foot +'s 'most well." +</P> + +<P> +"I am glad of it, captain." +</P> + +<P> +"Look a' here, major," said he, desperately, "what makes you so took up +with that 'ere monotonous tune in thar? I'm afeered I may 'a' misled +ye, times past, with regards to female grass." He coughed again and +lit his pipe. I waited. +</P> + +<P> +"'Specially," he groaned, "some things I may h've said with regards to +red and white clover." +</P> + +<P> +Still I waited. +</P> + +<P> +"Look a' here, major, when anybody sets down 'n' admires to sech a +monotonous tune as that in thar, thar's somethin' the matter with 'em." +</P> + +<P> +Still I would not speak. Tears almost were in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Now I may h've said some things on partickaler pesterin' 'casions in +times past, but in general my verdick—hohum!—is fav'rable to female +grass; 'specially—hohum! hohum!—wal, wal, ye knows my meanin', +major—'specially with regards to red and white clover: hohum! how 's +Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +The captain gave a sigh that would have exculpated him from the gravest +of crimes, and looked steadfastly toward the west. +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't seen her to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"Ye'll think it over, won't ye, major?" said he, still with that far +withdrawn vision. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, yes; I'll think it over." +</P> + +<P> +I had proceeded but a little way when he called me back. +</P> + +<P> +"I had it on my mind to tell ye," said he, "when I heered 't ye'd been +'nvited down t' Aunt Gozeman's and Aunt Electry's t' tea; ef they give +ye some o' their green melon an' ginger persarves, do ye manage to +bestow 'em somewhar's without eatin' of 'em, somehow. They're amazin' +proud an' ch'ice of 'em, an' ye don't want to hurt their feelin's, but +ye'd better shove 'em right outer the sasser inter yer britches pocket +'n eat 'em—leastways that 's the way they 'fected me." +</P> + +<P> +Visions of a past mortal suffering flitted across Captain Pharo's face. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll try," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Ef thar 's melon an' ginger persarves settin' by yer plate, d'ye ask +them two old women, in some kind of genteel s'ciety ructions sort o' a +way, ter go outer the room an' git ye somethin', an' soon 's they've +gone d'ye jump up an' thring a shawl over that darn' parrot o' theirn +'t stands there noticin' 'an' swearin', an' chuck 'em in over behind +the wood-box or somewhar's, but don't eat 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"All right," I said, as he shook my hand with suggestive earnestness +once more in parting. +</P> + +<P> +The sisters, by mutual adoption, not by birth, lived together in the +"Laury Gleeson;" the sign of a wrecked schooner nailed up over their +shanty door. +</P> + +<P> +"And why not? We be all a-sailin', been't we?" said Aunt Electry, who +was ninety years old, lighting her pipe; "only I wish 't some 't 's +sailin' solitary had mates 't 's fit for 'em—how is Vesty?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," I began, afflicted with a sort of lightness of head. I +wanted to take out Uncle Benny's pocket-mirror that I carried with me +now. Was I beautiful, and tall, and fair? What had happened me! +</P> + +<P> +"Lectry 's a great girl for straight-for'ard langwidge," said Miss +Gozeman kindly, pitying my confusion; she was only eighty and did not +smoke. +</P> + +<P> +They led me out more nimbly, almost, than I could follow, to show me +the "stock"—some forlorn, fantastic stumps of trees, long dead, all +whitewashed with tender art! the pet coon, the tame crow, the wicked +goat. +</P> + +<P> +There was another treasure; who, as we came in and sat down to tea, +eyed me from his cage with grudging and disfavor: it was the parrot; +and I presume injunctions were upon him to keep still, but I did not +know. +</P> + +<P> +"Does he talk?" I Inquired kindly. +</P> + +<P> +He snapped viciously at the cage. +</P> + +<P> +"A friend 't had him on shipboard gave him to us long ago," explained +Miss Gozeman, with gentle evasion; "we ain't ever been able to break +him of it." What the habit was of which they had not been able to +break him I sadly inferred. +</P> + +<P> +There was a munificent dish of the green melon and ginger preserves by +my plate. I was chatting with my friends, and at the same time +meditating what to do, when the tame crow, who had slyly entered the +house behind us and stolen Miss Gozeman's spectacles, was now +discovered through the window hastening to hide them in the chip-pile. +</P> + +<P> +My entertainers trotted nimbly out after him. I rose, and, lifting the +cover of the stove, dashed in the contents of my saucer—when I was +startled by a shrill voice and a mocking laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I see ye! I'll tell!" +</P> + +<P> +I had forgotten to cover the parrot. +</P> + +<P> +"You are no gentleman if you do!" I retorted, forgetting with whom or +what I was talking. +</P> + +<P> +"Shut up!" said the parrot, and laughed. "I see ye, d—n ye! I'll +tell!" +</P> + +<P> +At all events I turned, with the intention of going out to assist the +ladies in their search for the spectacles, when the scene through the +window held me for a moment spellbound. +</P> + +<P> +The crow, having accomplished his mischievous device, was perched near +by, gravely regarding the search of the two estimable and time-honored +women, who were peering with their faces near the earth, and their +backs turned unconsciously; when the cherished goat, creeping +maliciously up, made a rush at them from the rear, and pitched them +both into the chip heap. +</P> + +<P> +This unspeakably base proceeding had the result, however, of +discovering to them the glasses, with which they soon after entered, +smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"Bill often hides our glasses," said Aunt Electry. +</P> + +<P> +"Does the goat often bunt you over?" I inquired, with dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"Shut up!" said the parrot, at the sound of my voice. "Oh, I see ye! +I'll tell!" +</P> + +<P> +My kind friends gave him a sharp glance, but considerately did not look +at me. They saw my emptied preserve plate, however, and concluding +that I had taken advantage of their absence the more greedily to gorge +myself on its contents, they generously piled it full again of what +they imagined to be the same coveted substance. +</P> + +<P> +Seeing this, the parrot shrieked with fiendish joy. +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed it is excellent——" I began. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, stow your gab!" sneered the parrot, in a suddenly gruff bass voice. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Electry rose and stamped her foot at him. +</P> + +<P> +"He only knows what he 's been taught long ago—by a friend," said Aunt +Gozeman reassuringly; "he can't—tell anything new, right out!" +</P> + +<P> +All the crime they imputed to me then was gluttony in the matter of +preserves! Very well; I preferred that. +</P> + +<P> +"They were really so delightful," I began, with the natural reaction +from my qualms. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, wur-r-r!" interrupted that horrible grating voice, and then +laughed high and loud. +</P> + +<P> +The sisters in affliction rose and bore the cage out into the shed But +I heard oaths and cackles of malicious intention fired at me through +the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Sing 'We be a-sailin',' sister," said Aunt Electry, when we had +retired again to the fireside. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Gozeman obediently began, in a soft, timid tremulo. +</P> + +<P> +"We are <I>eout</I> on the ocean <I>sail</I>ing," came in mocking, strident +accents from the wood-shed; "Oh, h—ll! give us a rest!" But dear Aunt +Gozeman sang right on, smiling pitifully: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"'To our home beyond the tide.'"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Ah, what tides! what tides had been in these two lives! And stranded +here for a little, how they cherished with a great heart of compassion +the dead trees that bore them no fruit, loving and pitying the wicked +parrot that mocked at them, the crow that stole from them, the goat +that upset them. +</P> + +<P> +My own notions of charity seemed so little and mean in comparison. +</P> + +<P> +"Ask me again," I pleaded; "I have been so seldom invited to tea. I +have enjoyed it." +</P> + +<P> +Even the fate of the green melon and ginger preserves lay hard on my +awakened conscience. But I made up for that. Not for this winter nor +any winter, so long as they live, should Aunt Electry or Aunt Gozeman +want either for preserves or less brilliant condiments. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, I play at making home and occupation, and they of the Basin are +to me as my sheep through this wild, strange winter; and I as their sly +shepherd—sly, like Captain Leezur. +</P> + +<P> +All except Vesty. To her child I can make gifts, unknown, through my +stanch friend, Lunette, even of food and clothing, but not to her. The +old frayed shawl is grander than any ermine, and the goddess' chest is +erect and broad; the winter will not kill her—but I have gazed sadly +in the mirror, and I go often to Captain Leezur. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE "FLAG-RAISIN'," OR "THE OCCASION" +</H3> + +<P> +"If there 's any fun going on," frankly admits Mrs. Kobbe, "you'll +all'as find me up an' dressed!" Perhaps I sympathize more truly with +her kind-hearted spouse, who says with a deep sigh: "We mustn't be +tackiturn jest because the wind's off the snow-banks." +</P> + +<P> +So I go to the flag-raising. +</P> + +<P> +"The Crooked Rivers and Capers have had their flag up these three +weeks," said Lunette; "and I heard how the Artichokes had h'isted +theirn yesterday. When the Artichokes have got their flag up, seems as +though the Basins had better be thinkin' o' what time it is in the +mornin'!" +</P> + +<P> +"What is the flag to be raised for?" I inquired, with unsuspecting +innocence. +</P> + +<P> +There was an afflicted silence; still they loved me. Lunette alone +answered at last, turning to Tyson, not to me. +</P> + +<P> +"I should think it 's enough to have a flag-raisin' without a-askin' +what it is for!" said she. "What does trees grow for? What does +anything in natur' act the way it does for?" +</P> + +<P> +I, ever safe anchored behind Lunette's championship, looked out +securely at the derelict Tyson, to see if he could answer. He could +not, but was abashed. Still I so far appropriated the hint, wisely and +delicately delivered, that I made no further inquiries, only giving +myself unhesitatingly to the joy of preparation. +</P> + +<P> +The flag was to be raised over the school-house, and instead of wending +our way dissonantly thither, as was our habit in attending the +meetings, we were to go in procession! +</P> + +<P> +A curious awe attached to this idea, in which I fully shared, as, being +formed in line, I tried to limp martially behind the valiant Lunette. +</P> + +<P> +"Halt, by clam!" said our general. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" came in whispers along the line. +</P> + +<P> +"Jakie Teel" (one of the sculpins) "'s got his trousers on hind side +afore!" +</P> + +<P> +"Flory dressed him by candlelight this mornin', so 't she could get +time to make three loaves o' angel-cake for the flag-raisin'." +</P> + +<P> +The victim of this mysterious adventure was led away by his mother for +reaccoutrement, while we as a regiment waited patiently for his return +to warlike rank and file. +</P> + +<P> +"If these condummit ructions are over," said our general—for the wind +was blowing cold—"forwards ag'in, by clam!" and we marched upon the +schoolhouse; but we encountered so many difficulties, of wayward ropes, +in hoisting our ensign, that Captain Pharo declared, rubbing his +chilled hands: +</P> + +<P> +"'T we'd omit the usual cheerin' 'tell we'd been in and thawed out—ef +they was any thaw to us—leastways baited." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty was there with the rest, munching a slice of angel-cake—fit food +for her! I smiled kindly upon her, but did not forget that I was an +indifferent bean-pole. +</P> + +<P> +"Major!" cried the Basin, toward the close of the repast, with its +mouth sweet and full—"Major, a speech! a speech!" +</P> + +<P> +Now I had a heart given to the Basin, with a simple thought or two, and +I requisitioned the best of my forces for the "Occasion," conscious of +my morning glory there—oh, she of the skies! munching angel's food. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever I had said or done, moreover, the Basin would have applauded; +yet such cheers as I heard now left no doubt upon my too-willing and +plastic sense of a phenomenal and hitherto unsuspected ability. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, starting to his feet, "will you +start—start—start—anything?" +</P> + +<P> +"We always <I>do</I> sing +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'In the prison cells I set,<BR> +Thinking, mother dear, of you,'<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +to flag-raisin'," said the ever well-informed and officious Lunette. +</P> + +<P> +"Somehow," said Captain Pharo, shrugging his shoulders, "thar 's too +much of a sea-rake blowin' acrost the back o' my neck t' sing 'Prison +Cells;' 'tain't clost enough for it here. What d'ye say to 'Hold the +Fort'?" +</P> + +<P> +What they said was unanimous. Even Captain Leezur knew it, and the +sculpins, of terrible voice. It was sung with such complete personal +abandonment to strong oral gifts that, at the second verse, the +remaining quota of plastering upon the school-house roof became +loosened and fell with a crash upon the head of that very unfortunate +sculpin who under other blighting circumstances had been forced to +undergo temporary absence from our ranks in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +He uttered a mature sea-oath, and was again marched violently from our +presence by his mother; but I was happy to see that he returned soon +afterward and renewed his portion of the song with a gusto which the +added quality of defiance now rendered deafening, while through all our +din sounded true the flute of Vesty's sweet voice. +</P> + +<P> +"We mustn't forgit the occasion, I s'pose," said Captain Pharo, our +general, at length. "Poo! poo! hohum! I s'pose it's about time we was +thinkin' o' goin' out to cheer the flag. Forwards, by clam! Poo! poo! +hohum! Wal, wal— +</P> + +<A NAME="img-242"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-242.jpg" ALT="Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass--'"" BORDER="0" WIDTH="226" HEIGHT="41"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Sh!" said Mrs. Kobbe, deftly getting audience at his ear. +</P> + +<P> +"Ladies an' gentlemen an' childern," said Captain Pharo, taking his +place beside the flag; "we've h'isted of 'er, an' here she blows"—he +put his hand in his pocket for his pipe, and drew from his vest a match. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Kobbe coughed loudly, and even shook her head at him: he put them +back. +</P> + +<P> +"We have h'isted on 'er," he continued, "an' here she blows!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Kobbe's cough of deeper warning and high-mounting blushes on his +account nerved him. +</P> + +<P> +"We've h'isted of 'er," he shouted with desperate defiance, "and thar +she blows, don't she, by clam! on the full, the free, the glorious, an' +the ever-lastin' h'ist!" +</P> + +<P> +A sturdy round of applause was not wanting, but on this point Mrs. +Kobbe was visibly sceptical: she received her lord with sniffs of +disdain. +</P> + +<P> +"'The full, the free, the glorious, an' the ever-lastin' h'ist'!" said +she. "Where was you eddicated, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?" +</P> + +<P> +"It don't make but darn little difference whar ye've been eddicated," +replied Captain Pharo, "when ye're tryin' to make a speech, an' one o' +them devil-fish boys goes around behind ye an' snaps a live lobster +onto the slack o' yer britches!" +</P> + +<P> +Giggles from a school of sculpins safe hidden somewhere lent further +aggravation to the dilemma. +</P> + +<P> +"Jakie Teel an' Pharie Kobbe, Junior, 'll come to judgment," cried Mrs. +Kobbe, in a loud voice, "'specially Pharie Kobbe as soon 's ever he +gits home," whereat giggling from that miscreant quarter ceased, and +she relieved her lord of his painful embarrassment. +</P> + +<P> +But at this point a new and surprising development arose. The Basin +horses attached to some wholesale herring-boxes, extemporized as +sleighs, were driven to the scene. Captain Pharo, with heart-whole joy +at the sight, lit his pipe and declared, with now beaming countenance: +</P> + +<P> +"It has been arranged, to crown this happy 'casion, for all our +unmarried Basins over sixteen year o' age, not forgettin' widders under +forty, to have a sleigh ride. Elder Skates'll reel off the names, +accordin' to which you can pile yerselves in accordin'ly, two 'n' two, +side by side, thus 'n' so, male an' female, created He them!" +</P> + +<P> +Flushed with inspiration, Captain Pharo glanced triumphantly at his +wife, who, at this more than Pentateuchal illustration, refused to +sneer. +</P> + +<P> +So absorbed was I in watching the gleeful embarkation, and so little +dreamed I of being considered in a case like this, it had not even +occurred to me that I too was an unmarried Basin widely over sixteen +years of age, and yet a little under forty, when— +</P> + +<P> +To the choicest seat in the very largest herring-box, the back of which +was stylishly bedizened by the splendors of the star bedquilt, I heard +my own name called: +</P> + +<P> +"Major Paul Henry and the Widder Rafe!" +</P> + +<P> +Who and where was the Widow Rafe? Lo! Vesty stepped out. To be +sure—the formal, the flag-raising, the "Occasion" name of Vesty! +</P> + +<P> +I led her to her place, but, as for me, I sat down, lost to mortal +woes, silent and dazed, among the stars. +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't you want to sit with me?" said Vesty, her face rather grave. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, why do you ask that?" +</P> + +<P> +"You looked, when they called our names, as though you didn't want to." +</P> + +<P> +Now I tried to dwell upon the words of Captain Leezur, but, however +callous I succeeded in appearing on the outside, at heart I was a +happy, happy bean-pole. +</P> + +<P> +"I was stunned," I said. "Besides, you see, I did not expect to be +invited." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not, Major Henry?" +</P> + +<P> +Oh, the beautiful Basin! the beautiful Basin! I tried to speak, but +could not. +</P> + +<P> +"You never seemed before," said she, a sea-shell color glowing in her +cheeks, "to feel above us!" +</P> + +<P> +She felt humbled, and my poor brain was too dizzy and incredulous to +frame fitting words. I swallowed hard; that was a Basin prerogative, +and by exerting it a direct Basin inspiration seemed to come to me. +</P> + +<P> +"Feel above you! O Vesty!" +</P> + +<P> +At that the sea-shell color went away down low, even to her lips, but +no further illumination came to me. +</P> + +<P> +Past ghostly hill and moor and still-gleaming flood we flew. "I am +happy," I could say at last, "as I ought not to be. In all scenes and +places where I may ever be I shall remember this, Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +She shivered a little. Ah! the sad old shawl! I clinched my hands. +</P> + +<P> +Past hill and moor and still-gleaming flood: the light of day changed +to one unfathomed, possible, as of sweet, unspoken dreams becoming +blessed at nightfall. +</P> + +<P> +Then all at once, round and full above a distant hill-top, rose the +hoyden moon, and the Basins saluted her with shouts of natural delight, +all save Vesty and I, who were silent. +</P> + +<P> +Now, I saw, was the hour when each Basin put his arm about his girl. I +could not have touched my girl, not under all the rollicking moonbeams +that ever fired the heart of youth and man. Farther she seemed to me +than that far white hill-top, glittering and high. +</P> + +<P> +Yet it pierced me that it was a gloomy ride for her. "It was good and +kind of them," I said, "to place a poor old fellow like me here beside +you; but you should have one of those rosy, handsome lads with you; you +so young, though we forget it. Your life is yet to live." +</P> + +<P> +At the reproach in her eyes—a look of anger, too, but for its wild and +dark distress—my heart had almost leaped to my lips. +</P> + +<P> +But—too merry the rollickers, who had fallen behind us, driving on the +homeward road; there had been several laughing, reckless adventures of +overturned herring-boxes in the snow-drifts; now the pole attached to +one of these had broken; the frightened horses had cleared themselves +and were veering madly on the narrow road, with the swinging cross-bar, +toward that side of the sled where my girl sat, unconscious of the +danger, still and pale. +</P> + +<P> +I sprang, fell in a heap, but rose again somehow; and now at last I put +up my arm. It was not without strength—in this case more than mortal +strong—still, in the end, I fell. +</P> + +<P> +When I came to myself we were still flying through the wild, +swift-changing scene, homeward bound; one of my hands was numb, and my +wrist bandaged, and my head—was on Vesty's shoulder! We were in right +Basin fashion now, only by needs it was Vesty's arm that was about me. +</P> + +<P> +"Am I dead, Vesty?" said I, half believing it in my bliss; besides, I +had ever a great appreciation of the Irish humor. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't, major; don't!" said Vesty; "you saved me from getting +terribly hurt, they say—or——" +</P> + +<P> +"Ugh!" I groaned. +</P> + +<P> +"Your poor arm!" said she. "Oh, the pain!" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing pains me," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Your arm wasn't broken, major; but it 's terribly bruised and +sprained." +</P> + +<P> +"And my neck, Vesty—you are sure that was not broken?" +</P> + +<P> +She sighed, but since I was bent, she followed my humor. +</P> + +<P> +"Never fear," said this demure young woman; "that 's too proud ever to +get a twist." +</P> + +<P> +Here was a dilemma—that I should be developing into a wit and Vesty +into a coquette! +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said I, "I must try and straighten myself up again," and with +that endeavor the pain did cut me so cruelly I fainted, quite without +any maiden affectation, back again on to Vesty's arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Try and think," said she, when I could hear her voice, "that I am some +old woman, just trying to take care of you—somebody not disagreeable +to you, and keep still till we get home." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," said I, tormenting myself with the thought that she was +acting under some compelling sense of obligation; and that should never +be. +</P> + +<P> +So I answered briefly all at once; and no sooner had I spoken than I +endured a gnawing consciousness that I was the hatefullest thing that +had escaped extermination that night. I kept still, however; the pain +was something to dread. +</P> + +<P> +At least I had my beautiful mother's hair, thick and curling; that was +all Vesty could see now there on her shoulder. I comforted myself with +that thought as a child. I was weak, and I let some tears roll down my +face that Vesty could not see. +</P> + +<P> +When the strong fellows took me out of the sleigh and bore me very +gently up to the door they stopped there for a moment, while I +wondered; and if any bitter sense of their physical supremacy pierced +me at that moment it ceased forever, as with a preconcerted signal from +the foremost they lifted the caps from their heads and cheered my name, +thrice and again, and again, with ringing cheers—and Vesty standing by! +</P> + +<P> +The old Basin flag—almost as dilapidated as I—had heard nothing like +it; but when they dressed the swollen arm pain sent me off into +oblivion again. Vesty's was the last face I saw bending over me: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you"—timidly—"do you want me to come to-morrow, and see how you +are?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if you will—thank you! Still, I am all right—I shall be all +right, never fear." +</P> + +<P> +She lingered still a moment, but spoke calmly: +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't care anything about me why did you risk your life to save +me from getting hurt?" +</P> + +<P> +A demon possessed me. Pity I could have endured, but if she were stung +on by that inflicted sense of gratitude? +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you risk your life to save me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it was <I>pity</I>, child," I answered her; the surging bitterness +within made it almost a sneer—"natural human pity: it is strong in all +my race." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at me with a beautiful sorrow, and as though she called me +proudly, to a better contempt of myself. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you had a mother," said she then, and flushed, the holy eyelids +low, pinning the old shawl—"as it is, I don't know what to say." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE STORY OF THE SACRED COW +</H3> + +<P> +Vesty came next day at evening, but she took pains to be found in +company with almost the entire Basin. +</P> + +<P> +I was so much better that I was able to be about and receive my guests; +at sight of Uncle Coffin even the maimed hand seemed to tingle +healthily. He marched me to a chair with an ostentation of violence, +that really treated me, however, with the softest gentleness, and sat +me down. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye!" he cried, standing off and regarding me. "What ye been +a-doin' of, you young smashin', slashin', cavortin'-all-around young +spark, you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said I, naturally feeling rakish after this, "I will tell you. +Miss Pray had a brood of chickens come off unseasonably to-day, who +desired particularly and above all things, having taken a general +outlook on life, not to live. Under Miss Fray's directions I have been +amusing myself with trying to defeat that purpose. I have watched for +any signs of hope in their world-disgusted eyes, dipped their unwilling +beaks in food, put chips upon their backs to help them maintain an +earthly equilibrium—so little desired by them, however, that oftener +they have toppled over and turned their infantile legs entreatingly +upward; but I have conquered; they live." +</P> + +<P> +"Wal, neow," said Captain Leezur, my chiefest admirer, "ef you ain't a +case to describe anything in natur'! Ef I had you areound I shouldn't +never want no dagarrier of a sick chicken, for you'd call 'em right up +afore me!" +</P> + +<P> +I murmured my low thanks, blushing as usual under flattery. +</P> + +<P> +Vesty was talking brilliantly with some of the company, quite away from +me. She had a bright, disdainful look, when I chanced to glance that +way, new to her, but quite befitting—ah me! ah me!—some lady one +might dream of, of high, disdainful quality. +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't he a case neow to describe anything in natur'?" joyfully +reiterated Captain Leezur to Uncle Coffin. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Coffin, with his hands on his knees, shook his head at me, +finding no words quite to the mark. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye!" said he; "you sly young dog, you!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I tell him!" rippled the deep-gurgling brook of Captain +Leezur's voice; "we're jest like nateral twin-brothers. Only," he +added tenderly and gravely, "he ain't nigh so ongodly as I use' ter be." +</P> + +<P> +"Ongodly! Why, dodrabbit ye, Leezur!" said this native Artichoke, "ye +never done an ongodly thing in yer life—'cept, maybe," he added, "to +cuss a little when ye was fishin' for the bucket." +</P> + +<P> +"'Specially," said Captain Leezur intelligently, "when the women folks +has been thar afore ye, r'ilin' the water and jabbin' of her furder +deown." +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Coffin gave me an irresistible but a loving and true, not a +malicious, wink. +</P> + +<P> +"Speakin' o' women folks, Leezur," said he, "is there any news from +Lot's wife?" +</P> + +<P> +Captain Leezur cleared the mellow symphonies of those organs through +which he intoned his speech; and was about to reply, fully and sweetly, +when Captain Pharo made his appearance at the door. +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Coffin sprang from his chair, and with a grave face, which only +later broke out into those beams of affection which were storming his +bosom, shook him violently by the collar, dragged him across the floor, +and set him in a chair by the fireplace with a loud, conclusive thump. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye, man!" said he, "I hain't heered your voice since I was a +baby." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo, with a countenance full of delight and sympathy, pulled +his ruffled jacket down nearer to the waist line, and lit his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" continued Uncle Coffin, and turned from his pet +to me with another wink, "what are yer days like now? They ain't like +the grass, are they? I b'lieve they are, jest like the same old grass, +or like the morning flower, the blighting wind sweeps o'er. She +withers in an'—why don't ye never finish on 'er out, Pharo? Why don't +ye never ring the last note on 'er—eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with a smile of deep meaning, +"because thar's so many things that when they're onct finished they 're +completely done for in this world; eat a meal o' vittles and thar 's +the end on't; smoke a pipe an' she runs dead; I like t' have one thing +left over. I like to feel, Coffin, by clam! 't thar's somethin' 't +thar ain't go'n' to be no end on!" +</P> + +<P> +Uncle Coffin had been studying him attentively, with his hands on his +knees. +</P> + +<P> +"Kobbe," said he, "you're a philosoffarer." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo wiggled uneasily. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't say hippopotamar nor rhinosossarer," said Uncle Coffin; "I say +philosoffarer." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo drew a strange breath of relief. +</P> + +<P> +"Mebbe we're a little alike in that respec'," Captain Leezur assured +him deliciously; "'cept 't he ain't nigh so ongodly as I use' ter be." +</P> + +<P> +"I don' know," said Captain Pharo. "I have worked sometimes, +Sundays—poo! poo! hohum!—but not 'less 'twas somethin' 'mportant, +gettin' in hay or somethin' like that. And I have—poo! poo! hohum! +Wal, wal—hauled out my lobster car sometimes Sundays waitin' for the +smack—hohum!" +</P> + +<P> +"Pharo," said Uncle Coffin, holding up his finger, "no more! I know +ye. Thar ain't an ongodly bone in yer body—'cept maybe when ye've +lost yer pipe an' cussed a little." +</P> + +<P> +"An' the women folks wants to haul ye over somewhar's on a flat sea to +have yer gol darn pictur' took!" said Captain Pharo, with poignant +recollection of a still unquiet grief. +</P> + +<P> +"Kobbe," said Uncle Coffin, "no more!" +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'I know not why I love her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The fair an' beau'chus she;</SPAN><BR> +She bro't the cuss upon me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Und'neath the apple-tree:</SPAN><BR> +But she asked me for my jack knife,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And halved 'er squar' with me,</SPAN><BR> +Sence all'as lovely woman<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Gives the biggest half to thee.'"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Judah's wife writ that," exclaimed Captain Pharo, with a generic awe +of poetry as poetry. +</P> + +<P> +"She did," said Uncle Coffin, with eyes appreciative of the muse fixed +gravely on the fire, "she did." +</P> + +<P> +There was a daughter of Eve who was treating me very severely. +</P> + +<P> +Instead of the old encouraging smile and gleam of merry recognition or +sympathy in her eyes, there was now an averted gaze, bent very +brightly, it seemed, on every one but me; in that direction alone, a +studied coldness, a haughty carriage of the head. What could I +expect?—but it broke my heart. +</P> + +<P> +I subscribed silently to the mood of Belle O'Neill, whose mind was +subject to vagaries, and who in the midst of the gay company was +playing weird, plaintive "revival" tunes upon the mouth-harp, +enthusiastically absorbed in her art. +</P> + +<P> +Her mistress, Miss Pray, who notably for some time had been receiving +the attentions of Pershal, the man who had been in California, had +withdrawn with him, with tacit understanding of apologies, to the +kitchen, where they were carrying on their courting, as all good Basins +should, undisturbed. +</P> + +<P> +The young people were playing a game of forfeits. I heard Vesty's +penalty pronounced; it was, to go and put her hand upon "the handsomest +man in the room." +</P> + +<P> +She began to move, with her lovely, erect head and brilliant, averted +smile, toward the fireplace. Surely she would not put any ignominy or +mockery upon me—ah, no! I knew in my heart. But she came nearer, and +I gazed, spellbound; and then she bowed her beautiful head with a +tender, laughing smile, and laid her hand on Captain Leezur's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Here!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Oh, how he laughed! Robins by the brook, and sun-sparkles. +</P> + +<P> +"That 's right, Vesty!" he exclaimed; "that 's right, darlin'. Come +and kile yourself areound them 't 's got some feelin's!" +</P> + +<P> +He winked at Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin. The sweet girl blushed +disdainfully—for some one—and, with a lingering touch on the dear +man's shoulder, went away. +</P> + +<P> +"I've all'as been kiled over a good deal," explained Captain Leezur +gently, with a smile the subtlety of which he sought in a measure to +hide. +</P> + +<P> +"And we mustn't forgit," he added, "that thar 's a time for all things +under the sun. Thar 's a time to be a bean-pole and thar 's a time to +kile." +</P> + +<P> +He winked at me; fearing that I had not understood, he winked still +broader; then, moving his back toward his two companions, he directed +full upon me a wink so vast and expressive that I endeavored at once to +signify my enlightenment by replying in kind; but, unpractised as I was +in the art, I could only infer what the unlovely aspect of my features +must have been from the look of sorrowful disgust which immediately +thereafter overspread Vesty's own. +</P> + +<P> +But it transpired that that look of disgust was not for me. It was for +Belle O'Neill, who, moved by another inspiration, had thoughtfully +abandoned her mouth-harp to creep through the surreptitious channel of +the wood-box and learn how Miss Pray and Pershal were progressing in +their courting. +</P> + +<P> +She returned with a face of excitement. +</P> + +<P> +"Be they j'indin' hands, or anything like that?" we asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Belle O'Neill: "he told 'er winter pears was the pears for +him, an' she giv' him a slap an' started down suller to get a dish o' +fruit, an' he told 'er when she come back he was goin' ter tell her a +story 't he hadn't never told or dreamed o' tellin' to anybody but her; +he said he'd all'as kep' it to himself, 'cause folks 't hadn't been in +Californy was ign'runt an' env'ous, an' wouldn't believe nothin' 't was +told 'em, but he guessed she loved him well enough to b'lieve it; an' +he said the name of it was 'The Story o' the Sacred Cow!'" +</P> + +<P> +On uttering these words with a countenance of feverish eagerness and +expectation, Belle O'Neill unhesitatingly turned and crept back through +the passage. +</P> + +<P> +Not long afterward I found myself lifted bodily over into the wood-box, +and guided by the silent wake of Captain Pharo's pipe before, and +entreated gently by Uncle Coffin from behind, I crawled to the little +store-room adjoining the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +The door was slightly ajar; and with whatever shame I have only to +record that I stood with delectation by this door and waited for the +Man-Who-had-Been-in-California to tell "The Story of the Sacred Cow." +</P> + +<P> +"Arter all, Jane," said he, plunging his knife into a choice pear, +"you'd orter seen the winter fruit we use' ter have in Californy!" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Fray's face fell. We heard Captain Pharo groan silently; +moreover, his pipe had gone out, and he dared not relight it. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you was goin' to tell a new one—about the Sacred Cow?" said +Miss Pray. +</P> + +<P> +"So I will, Jane," said Pershal; "but the fact is, it 's sech a true, +sech a solemn an' myster'ous thing, that I fa'rly dread to tackle it!" +</P> + +<P> +Belle O'Neill would have gasped, had she dared. She kicked the calf of +my lame leg convulsively instead. +</P> + +<P> +"Thar's been a great many stories," continued Pershal, "about sacred +cows. Folks has claimed t' seen 'em. Circuses has claimed t' had 'em: +but the fact, an' the solemn fact, is, thar wa'n't never but one Sacred +Cow, and that was raised on my farm in Californy. +</P> + +<P> +"She was white, and nothin' monst'ous, jest about the size of an +ordinary cow"—Captain Pharo drew an inaudible sigh of relief—"it was +the intellex of her and the sacredness; wal, the go-to-meet'n-ness of +her, as ye might say, that was so monst'ous an' so strange that I +trem'le to call it up ag'in; but I've promised, an' I will." +</P> + +<P> +Belle O'Neill, pale in the darkness, stifled another gasp. +</P> + +<P> +"She wa'n't nothin' byordinar' as a calf; run an' gambil around with +the other calves, bunt everythin', an' shake her heels out with the +sinfullest. It was when she got to be a cow, and a old cow, that these +here ructions o' sacredness, as ye might say, begun to develop +themselves in her. +</P> + +<P> +"First I knew, she wouldn't eat nothin': we warmed her mess an' we +salted it; no, nothin' 'u'd do. We tried all manner o' gimcracks an' +fussin' with her. Finally says Jim—my man—say she: 'Perhaps she's +the Sacred Cow,' says he, laffin', an' went in an' got a hymn-book an' +sot it up afore her, and"—Belle O'Neill shivered—"what does the old +cow do but pitch in and eat her mess regalar! Minit we took that +hymn-book away or shet it up, she'd stop eatin'." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin nudged each other in voiceless agony. I +felt, but could not see, the calm irradiance of Captain Leezur's look. +</P> + +<P> +"Then another singalar thing begun to be noticed. All them 't drunk +the milk from her was took an' possessed to jine the church! I use' +ter send out peddlin' carts o' milk—for my ranch was the biggest in +that section—it use' ter be all mixed together in course, an' the +smallest elemunt o' that old cow's milk in it made it jest the same as +ef 'twas all hern. Sometimes I thought ser'ously whether I hadn't +ought to take her and go around an' start seasons o' special interest +with her all over the kentry; and then thinks I—no, I'll stay here and +I'll let 'em build new churches. So they kep' a-goin' up—three new +Baptis', four new Methodis', in a month's time." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Leezur was softly but strenuously sucking a nervine lozenge. I +heard Captain Pharo crunching one down stormily, at the same time one +was pressed into my hand. "They come high," whispered the beloved +voice; "cent apiece, dollar a hunderd, but——" +</P> + +<P> +"But the strangest and singalarest of it all, I didn't find out till +'long toward the last. I was a-milkin' on her one day, an' I spilled +the milk accidental, an' I said a word that I hadn't ort'er said. When +she heered that she up an' kicked me, an' I give her tail a yank, an' +she began to sing——" +</P> + +<P> +Belle O'Neill clutched me by the neck. +</P> + +<P> +"I don' say that she sung as Vesty doos. I don' say that she +pernounced the words jest regalar; but as fur as tune goes, she hit the +tune right squar' in the bull's eye every time. She sung: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'From Greenlan's icy mountings,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">From Injy's coral stran',</SPAN><BR> +Whar Aferk's sunny fountings<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Roll down their goldin' san';'"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +And when she got as fur as that"—Pershall showed evidences of lively +distress—"she keeled right over an' died." +</P> + +<P> +"You've heered o' the tewn 't the old cow died on? Wal, that 's whar +it all started, Jane; right thar. That was the very cow and the very +event. It was <I>my</I> old cow that died." +</P> + +<P> +"Give me sea-room here, by clam!" muttered Captain Pharo, shooting his +arms about. +</P> + +<P> +"Ef I b'lieved in gho's, I sh'd say 't your but'ry was harnted, Jane," +came from the kitchen the solemn and shifty voice of the +Man-Who-had-Been-in-California: "le's step around by the outside way to +the door whar the folks is. Jest look at the stars, Jane," he +continued, when they were safe out. "See anythin' o' my old cow up in +the Milky Way? Down in the southern latitude, whar I was, the Milky +Way use' ter be so plain some nights 't ye could see——" +</P> + +<P> +We lost it in the distance, as we returned, by the honorable and +legitimate highway now offered us, to the guest-room. "I never keered +so much about money in the bank," said Uncle Coffin, giving me a nudge; +"all 't I ever as't for was luck!" +</P> + +<P> +But I yearned in secret to know the developments of the Milky Way; +especially as the length of time absorbed by Pershal and Miss Pray in +walking between the two doors advised me with an only too tragic hint +of the marvel and interest I had lost. +</P> + +<P> +I could not wonder that Vesty was now loftier toward me than ever. +Uncle Coffin, Captain Pharo, Captain Leezur and I kept close together +as a sort of brazen and disgraceful community. Uncle Coffin, having to +retrace his steps to Artichoke, was the first to leave the party. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't tell ye, Miss Pray," said he, "how much I've enjiyed the +evenin'—no, honest, I can't tell ye!"—he winked at Captain Pharo, who +choked and had to resort to song—"but I und'stand thar 's a happy +event comin', an' I wish ye jiy; ye know I do!" +</P> + +<P> +As he disappeared down the road he indulged in a continued, loud, and +exact imitation of Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up (who was also a justice of +the peace, and who married people): +</P> + +<P> +"G'long, ye old fool! Git up, ye old skate!" +</P> + +<P> +At which we all, including Pershal and Miss Pray, laughed inordinately, +gazing out into the sweet Basin night; and indeed I was even ready to +avow with my life that it was a joke of the extremest savor. Even had +all Uncle Coffin's sins been known, he would have been forgiven. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Leezur put on Vesty's shawl for her: +</P> + +<P> +"Sence I'm the han'somest man in the room," he gurgled. +</P> + +<P> +"So you are!" The tender, girlish light of her great eyes was on him; +no kind look for me. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty!" Captain Leezur whispered, but a whisper that could not be dark +and secret to save itself; I heard: "why don't ye speak to major? Ye +ain't spoke tew words tew him the hull endurin' evenin'." +</P> + +<P> +She darted a dark flash at him too. +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty! Vesty!" said the beloved old man, in that whisper that so +thoroughly deceived him—"I know 't I set ye up to this bean-pole +business. But it won't dew for both on ye to be bean-poles. One or +the other on ye 's got to kile. Neow, Vesty, ye know 't major 's got +some misfortin's in his looks 't makes him beound to be preoud; ye +wouldn't have him other ways. Ye see, Vesty, he don't know 't——" +</P> + +<P> +She stopped him with a haughty look. +</P> + +<P> +"An' in course," said he, "I don't know, neither. But it dews make me +feel dreadful t' think I've started sech a rank bean-pole farm as this, +when I've all'as told ye, my little gal, 't we'd ort'er use +moderation"—Captain Leezur wiped his blessed shining eyes—"moderation +in all things, even in passnips—I have said—an' neow I change it to +bean-poles." +</P> + +<P> +Vesty's mouth quivered; her eyes looked fit to enfold the whole sinful +world for his sake. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, major!" she said coldly; but she had spoken. And, +beautiful and tall, she passed out of sight. +</P> + +<P> +As Captain Leezur turned to me, in spite of the dark duplicity of his +conduct toward me, my heart gushed out to him unawares. I grasped his +hand silently. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN THE LANE +</H3> + +<P> +I met her on the morrow in the lane. She would have passed me with a +mere morning salutation, but I spoke to her. "I will tell the story at +least," I thought, "before I go away." +</P> + +<P> +"Vesty," said I timidly. Even the handsomest of the Basins were timid +in putting the question; and I, so miserable, and believing it not to +be a question at all, but only a confession, was choking. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir," said Vesty, with reassuring meekness, but there was +something wicked about her mouth and eyes. O Vesty, had you been of +the world I fear you would have been a sad one! +</P> + +<P> +"What did you mean," said I, starting in wise Basin fashion, at a +millennium distance from the intended point, "what did you mean, the +other night, when you said that you wished I had a mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, because we all need them, for comfort—and then, sometimes—for +correction." +</P> + +<P> +"And which did you think that I needed one for?" +</P> + +<P> +Vesty turned her sheathed eyes away toward the safe west with a smile +that gave me no other answer. +</P> + +<P> +"It is lifting to be a glorious day," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"If you want to talk about the weather," rippled the girl's voice, +quite gently, "why don't you go and sit on the log with Captain Leezur? +He rolled down another this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"I am going," I sighed. "What do you think he would tell me about the +weather?" +</P> + +<P> +"What we all say: 'The wind's canting in from the west, and you'll see +this fog hop.'" +</P> + +<P> +"It is what I say, and shall say forever, in such a case. 'The wind's +canting in from the west, and you'll see this fog hop.'" +</P> + +<P> +"You only pretend to be a Basin!" +</P> + +<P> +"God forgive you! No; I don't pretend. I shall never get over it. I +shall be one forever and ever, wherever I go, Vesty." +</P> + +<P> +She looked down and paled. "Are you going away, major?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." Then said I, looking at her, "How far do you think pity could +lead one, Vesty—you, so pitiful and kind? Do you think that it could +even lead you—to marry me? To take little Gurd and go away with +me—and help me to live—for pity?" +</P> + +<P> +"No! oh, no!" she gasped. +</P> + +<P> +"Then," said I, grasping hard on my cane with my feeble hand, "as God +wills!" +</P> + +<P> +"Because," said Vesty, "I'm not so unselfish as that. I can't marry +you for that reason—because—I love you!" +</P> + +<P> +The red of the Basin sunset, that would be by and by unsurpassed, +glowed in her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +As for me—forever a Basin—I dashed my hand across my eyes. A Voice +above land and sea rolled toward me in that moment, through her voice, +in gathering waves that covered all the pitiful accident and despair of +a maimed, halting, birth-marked universe: +</P> + +<P> +"And the crooked places shall be made straight; and the rough places +plain. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XXVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JUST THE SCHOOL-HOUSE +</H3> + +<P> +Waves, slowly, softly breaking, not on the Basin shore: though ever, in +remotest lands, we dream of that. +</P> + +<P> +We hold it mystic more and more, for love of it!—ay, we have it +mingled in our thoughts with that one safe and sweet possession, the +Land unspoken, the Basin whose colors dawn at eventide! +</P> + +<P> +And we never count: "Such an one was lost," and, "Such an one was +living, when we knew." For there, there are none lost. They live +again! +</P> + +<P> +I suggested once that we should build a house fitting those grand +sea-cliffs, sometimes to occupy it. +</P> + +<P> +But Vesty, ever wise, was silent, troubled, and I read her thought. +</P> + +<P> +No, we should introduce no discordant element there, of liveries and +servants, and riches and seclusive walls, of <I>mine</I> and <I>thine</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"Mine <I>is</I> thine if thou needest it," was ever the Basin code: "even my +life!" Before such a spirit the admission of worldly wealth and rank +were tawdry. +</P> + +<P> +But Vesty communicates with them (dear to me when they arrive are the +stamps unutterably erased by Lunette's faithful art): and we know that +they are happier for us, and by us comforted. +</P> + +<P> +And do I never blush for Vesty in her new position? Ay, a thousand +times, for pride and joy! Her manners are from a high source indeed; +you will not find me any that are higher. +</P> + +<P> +Full are her hands of charity and mercy, given, as the great Founder of +our nobilities gave, without stooping, of condescension. Saint Vesta! +who gives a glory to my name it never had before—the high and noble +lady of my house! +</P> + +<P> +And love makes, as fully as may be in this world, security about her +steps, which yet it would not hamper. +</P> + +<P> +Driven in her state carriage, robed in velvet and sable, she is royal; +yet not so queenly, not so matchless, as when walking, pitiful, lonely, +and strong against misfortune, by the Basin shores, with her child +upheld upon her arm, and the old shawl. +</P> + +<P> +One evening I found her by the window, gazing out wistfully where the +wind was tossing the rain, which ceased now and then in strange +intermittent gusts, still wild of the tempest. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at me with a smile, trustful, but earnest and pathetic. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to go out in the storm," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Then go, child," I answered her. "Your possessions are wide, and, as +we of the Basin say, you are not made of sugar, to melt; neither," I +added, "are you like Lot's wife." +</P> + +<P> +She showed her fine teeth over that old tender and beloved +reminiscence, but the wistful look, and sad, was still in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"And—I would like to put on the old shawl again, just this once," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said I, "that is another thing. That is priceless, and I have +it, as you know, locked among my treasures. Still, this once, yes." +And I brought it to her. +</P> + +<P> +Still smiling at me, as pleading for her fancy, she held it at her +throat as of old. +</P> + +<P> +I made haste to resume my reading with seeming preoccupation apart, for +I thought she wished to go alone. +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't you coming?" said she, wistfully again, and paled and turned to +me. +</P> + +<P> +The look in her eyes—she wanted me! Oh, how my heart leaped—a trick +taught it at the Basin, which now it will never get over. +</P> + +<P> +But, sly as Captain Leezur, I hid my delight in the folds of my great +overcoat. +</P> + +<P> +Long we walked together. "What inspired you to this? This is best of +all," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" said Vesty, glowing and beautiful. +</P> + +<P> +"Because now I see again that you are 'Vesty.' And my Lady of M—— +was a possible dream always. But Vesty seemed unattainable. +</P> + +<P> +"That rose color," I added, looking at her cheeks, "I never saw +anywhere except at certain sunsets—you know where." +</P> + +<P> +For we of the Basin—however wilfully inclined sometimes, as Captain +Pharo—at heart bow down to our wives, and make love to them, long, +long after we are married: quite, indeed, until death do us part, as +all true Basins should. +</P> + +<P> +"Paul!" said Vesty. Now "Paul" was really my name, with considerable +before and after it, but never mind all that. +</P> + +<P> +"Paul!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" I said. +</P> + +<P> +Confused with the rose-color blushes: "I forgot," she murmured, "what I +was going to say." +</P> + +<P> +No, she had not forgotten it! Her face was eloquent; only she cannot +talk with that fluency with which she can look beautiful and sigh. +Especially when she would express anything of deep feeling, she has a +way of brushing a speck of dust from my right shoulder, and letting her +hand rest there a moment, that tells me worlds, but would not go for +much, I admit, on a smart female rostrum. +</P> + +<P> +But "Paul!" that voice creeps to me at all times, for counsel, for +sympathy; comes impulsively, that is the best of it—comes ever +impulsively. I do not know why I am so blessed among my fellows! Just +as the lad comes to me—he, too, of the highest breeding. I never saw +a look of wonder or shrinking on his face; and once, in an illness that +he had he clung to me, cried for me, even above his mother. +</P> + +<P> +I gave my heart to him then. When a sick child, with a mother like +Vesty, turns and clings to one—well, it is like to set one up. +</P> + +<P> +He quotes me, refers to me, defends me, apes all my mannerisms, and +struts with them proudly as clear legal type and documentary evidence. +</P> + +<P> +He has my name, Gurdon "Paul," with the rest: he is my heir. Handsome, +stalwart, as our race has notably been; loving, generous, fearless, all +that the world can give him will be his besides; tutors, splendors, +wide, luxurious travel, the entrance to glittering courts—only, God +grant that he may find just the Basin at last!—the true, the pitiful, +the pure of heart: that he may come up to the stature of his father, +who knew but one plain path, and that the royal one; who, in the battle +with fear and death, was greater than the storm. +</P> + +<P> +So, often in rich and high cathedrals with Vesty by my side, the organ +has but to peal forth plaintively, and those stately, emblematic +windows fade away to others, broken, swaying in the wind, and the roar +of the tides comes in, and high above the great clouds pass wondrously. +</P> + +<P> +And I think how the Christ, painted in purple and crimson glories in +these walls, and before whose image the hosts bow down, was a poor +Basin of the Basins, in His birth and in His death; who had never a +sure pillow, and who minded all woes save His own. +</P> + +<P> +And above the written scroll of the preacher I hear the old prophetic +voice, how "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not +many noble, are called." … +</P> + +<P> +Vesty walks this new way with me, that was not of her knowledge or +choosing with a patience in any tedious form or imposed convention, far +surpassing mine. +</P> + +<P> +Then I tell her that I am only an adopted Basin, and have missed so +many of the first important years of good breeding; when I was taught +to be only moody, if I would, and solitary and selfish. +</P> + +<P> +Then she turns the rose-color, and her eyes shine on me; and if I have +been patient with some vapid visitor, uttering weary commonplaces +(longing, oh how infinitely, all the while in my heart, for Captain +Leezur and the log!) she comes to me afterward, and leans over me with +a caress and says, "That 's a dear Basin!" +</P> + +<P> +Thus I observe always my lady's rank, and am happy when she exalts me +to it. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes in dark hours, when gigantic shadows, unexplained, oppress +heart and soul——lo! the "Boys" play softly to us once again upon +instruments above our art, with a touch that thrills above these +masters. +</P> + +<P> +We recognize that life is not a draught, either of joy or misery, but a +sweet, stern task set us, in a failing tenement; and half between +smiles and tears we dream how, to that darkening school-house, when the +shadows grow heartbroken and weary, some loving Basin, only great +because of the faith that was in him, shall come to lead us home. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Vesty of the Basins, by Sarah P. 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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vesty of the Basins, by Sarah P. McLean Greene + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vesty of the Basins + +Author: Sarah P. McLean Greene + +Release Date: May 15, 2007 [EBook #21443] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VESTY OF THE BASINS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Cover Art] + + + + + + +VESTY OF THE BASINS + +_A Novel_ + + +BY + +SARAH P. McLEAN GREENE + + +AUTHOR OF CAPE COD FOLKS, ETC. + + + + + +NEW YORK + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS + + +Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers + + + + +Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +All rights reserved. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE MEETIN' + II. "SETTIN' ON THE LOG" + III. "GETTIN' A NAIL PUT IN THE HOSS'S SHU" + IV. LOVE, LOVE + V. COLUMBUS AND THE EGG, AND LOT'S WIFE + VI. THIS GREATER LOVE + VII. "SETTIN' ON THE FENCE"--THE SHIFTY SPECTRE + VIII. "VESTY'S MARRIED" + IX. THE TALE OF CAPTAIN LEEZUR'S SLY COURTSHIP + X. A CALL FROM NOTELY'S YACHT + XI. ANOTHER NAIL + XII. THE MASTER REVELLER + XIII. CAPTAIN LEEZUR RELATES HOW MIS' GARRISON ATE CROW + XIV. "TAR-A-TA!" OF THE TRUMPET + XV. THE BROTHERS + XVI. THE POPLAR LEAVES TREMBLE + XVII. GOIN' TO THE DAGARRIER'S + XVIII. UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE + XIX. THE BASIN + XX. SOCIAL DIVERSIONS AT THE "POST-OFFICE" + XXI. BROKEN WINDOWS + XXII. "NEIGHBORIN'" + XXIII. THE "FLAG-RAISIN'," OR THE "OCCASION" + XXIV. THE STORY OF THE SACRED COW + XXV. IN THE LANE + XXVI. JUST THE SCHOOL-HOUSE + + + + +VESTY OF THE BASINS + + +I + +THE MEETIN' + +Now is it to be rain or a storm of wind at the Basin? + +I love that foam out on the sea; those boulders, black and wet along +the shore, they are a rest to me; the clouds chase one another; in this +dim north country the wind is cool and strong, though it is now +midsummer; at sunset you shall see such color! + +From a little, low, storm-beaten building comes the sound of a +fog-horn. That is the gift of Melchias Tibbitts, deceased, to the +Basin school-house. Yonder is his schooner, the "Martha B. Fuller," +long stranded, leaning seaward, down there in the cove. + +It is Sunday afternoon; the fog-horn that Melchias Tibbitts gave--it +serves as bell; the battered schoolhouse as church; and for Sunday +raiment? some little reverent, aspiring compromise of an unwonted white +collar, stretched stiff and holy and uncomfortable about the stalwart +neck above a blue flannel shirt, or a new pair of rubber boots--the +trousers much tucked in--worn with an air of conscious, deprecating +pride. + +But the women will be fine. God only knows how! but be sure, in some +pitiful, sweet way they will be fine. + +There are many panes of glass out of the windows, the panels of the +doors are out; so better they can see the clouds pass: it is beautiful. + +Oh, naught have I either, nor wisdom, nor fine speech--only a little +knowledge of shipwreck out yonder, and mirth, and tears, and love. The +windows and panels of my life are no strong plate, polished and +glittering to all beholders; they are stained and broken through. Let +me come in and sit with ye. + + +"We should like to open our meetin' with singin'," said Superintendent +Skates; "will one of the Pointers lead us in singin'?" + +The Pointers were the aristocrats of this region, living twelve miles +away at the Point, in the midst of two grocery stores and a millinery +establishment; there were two of them here for a Sunday drive and +pastime. They were silent. + +"I see," said Elder Skates patiently, "that a few of the Crooked Rivers +have drove down to-day, too. Will one of the Crooked Rivers lead us in +singin'?" + +Lower down in the scale than the Pointers were they of Crooked River, +but still far above the Basins; those present were not singers, they +were silent. + +"Then will one of the Capers lead us in singin'?" very meekly and +patiently persisted Elder Skates. + +Nearer, and of low degree, were they of the Cape, but still above the +Basins. They were silent. + +"I know," said Elder Skates, his subdued tone buoyant now with an +undertone of hope, "that one of the Basins will lead us in singin'!" + +For the Basins had reached those cheerful depths where there is no +social or artistic status to maintain; so low as to be expected to do, +or attempt to do, whatever might be asked of them, even though failure +plunged them, if possible, in deeper depths of abasement. There was +nothing beneath them except the Artichokes; and it was seldom, very +seldom, an Artichoke was present. + +But the Basins, though so low, were modest. + +"Can't one of the Basins start, 'He will carry you through'?" said the +enduring Brother Skates; "where is Vesty?" + +"She 's a-helpin' Elvine with her baby," came now a prompt and ready +reply: "she said she'd come along for social meetin', after you'd had +Sunday-school, ef she could." + +"How is Elvine's baby?" spoke up another voice. + +"Wal', he 's poored away dreadful, but Aunt Lowize says he 's turned to +git along all right now, and when Aunt Lowize gives hopes, it 's good +hopes, she 's nachally so spleeny." + +"Sure enough. Wal', I've raised six, and nary sick day, 'less it was a +cat-bile or some sech little meachin' thing. I tell you there ain't no +doctor's ructions like nine-tenths milk to two-tenths molasses, and sot +'em on the ground, and let 'em root." + +At this simple and domestic throwing off of all social reserve, voices +hitherto silent began to arise, numerous and cheerful. + +"Is there any more rusticators come to board this summer?" + +"There 's only four by and large," replied a male voice sadly. "These +here liquor laws 't Washin'ton 's put onto nor'eastern Maine are +a-killin' on us for a fash'nable summer resort. When folks finds out +'t they've got to go to a doctor and swear 't there 's somethin' the +matter with their insides, in order to git a little tod o' whiskey +aboard, they turns and p'ints her direc' for Bar Harbor and Saratogy +Springs; an' they not only p'ints her, they h'ists double-reef sails +and sends her clippin'!" + +"Lunette 's got two," came from the other side of the house. + +"What do they pay?" + +"Five dollars a week." + +"Pshaw! what ructions! Three dollars a week had ought to pay the board +of the fanciest human creetur 't God ever created yit. But some folks +wants the 'arth, and'll take it too, if they can git it." + +"Wal', I don' know; they're kind o' meachy, and allas souzlin' +theirselves in hot water; it don't cost nothin', but it gives yer house +a ridick'lous name. Then they told Lunette they wanted their lobsters +br'iled alive. 'Thar,' says she, 'I sot my foot down. I told 'em I' +wa'n't goin' to have no half-cooked lobsters hoppin' around in torments +over my house. I calk'late to put my lobsters in the pot, and put the +cover on and know where they be,' says she." + +"I took a rusticator once 't was dietin' for dyspepsy--that's a state +o' the stomick, ye know, kind o' between hay and grass--and if I didn't +get tired o' makin' toast and droppin' eggs!" + +"I never could see no fun in bein' a rusticator anyway, down there by +the sea-wall on a hot day, settin' up agin' a spruce tree admirin' the +lan'scape, with ants an' pitch ekally a-meanderin' over ye." + +"Lunette's man-boarder there, the husban', he 's editor of a +noos-sheet, and gits a thousand dollars a year--'tain't believable, but +it's what they say--an' he thinks he knows it all. He got Fluke to +take him out in his boat; he began to direc' Fluke how to do this, an' +how to do that, and squallin' and flyin' at him. Fluke sailed back +with him and sot him ashore. 'When I take a hen in a boat, I'll take a +hen,' says he." + +"Did ye hear about Fluke's tradin' cows?" + +"No."---- + +Meanwhile Brother Skates had been standing listening, patient, +interested, but now recovered himself, blushing, in his new rubber +boots. + +"Can't one of the Basins start 'He will carry you through'?" he +entreated. + +"I'd like to," said one sister, the string of her tongue having been +unloosed in secular flights; "I've got all the dispersition in the +world, Brother Skates, but I don't know the tune." + +"It 's better to start her with only jest a good dispersition and no +tune to speak of," said Brother Skates with gentle reproof, "than not +to start her at all." + +Thus encouraged the song burst forth, with tune enough and to spare. + +It was this I heard--I, a happy adopted dweller, from the lowest +handle-end of the Basin, while driving over through the woods with +Captain Pharo Kobbe and his young third wife and children. + +"Come, git up," said Captain Pharo, at the sound, applying the lap of +the reins to the horse; "ye've never got us anywheres yet in time to +hear 'Amen'! Thar 's no need o' yer shyin' at them spiles, ye darned +old fool! Ye hauled 'em thar yourself, yesterday. Poo! poo! Hohum! +Wal--wal--never mind-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass. Or as--'] + +Git up!" + +As we alighted at the school-house, we listened through the open panel +with comfort to the final but vociferous refrain of "He will carry you +through," and entered in time to take our seats for the class. + +Elder Skates stood with a lesson paper in his hand, from which he asked +questions with painful literalness and adherence to the text. + +The audience, having no lesson paper or previous preparation of the +sort, and not daring to enter into these themes with that originality +of thought and expression displayed in their former conversation, +answered only now and then, with the pale air of hitting at a broad +guess. + +"Is sin the cause of sorrow?" said Elder Skates. + +No reply. + +"Is sin the cause of sorrow?" he repeated faithfully. + +At this point, one of a row of small boys on the back seat, no more +capable of appreciating this critical period of the Sunday-school than +the broad-faced sculpin fish which he resembled, took an alder-leaf +from his pocket and, lifting it to his mouth, popped it, with an +explosion so successful and loud that it startled even himself. + +His guardian (aunt), who sat directly in front of him, though deaf, +heard some echo of this note; and seeing the sudden glances directed +their way, she turned and, observing the look of frozen horror and +surprise upon his features, said severely, "You stop that sithing" +(sighing). + +Delighted at this full and unexpected escape from guilt and its +consequences, the sculpin embraced his fellow-sculpins with such +ecstasy that he fell off from his seat, upon the floor. + +His aunt, turning again, and having no doubt as to his position this +time, lifted him and restored him to his place with a determination so +pronounced that the act in itself was clearly audible. + +"You set your spanker-beam down there now, and keep still!" she said. + +Elber Skates took advantage of this providential disturbance to slide +on to the next question: + +"How can we escape trouble?" + +No reply. + +"How can we escape trouble?" he meekly and patiently repeated. + +"Good Lord, Skates!" said Captain Pharo, and put his hand in his pocket +for his pipe, but bethought himself, and withdrew it, with a deep sigh. + +Elder Skates had looked at him with hope, but now again mechanically +reiterated: + +"How--can--we--escape--trouble?" + +"We can't! we can't no way in this world!" said Captain Pharo. "Where +in h--ll did you scrape up them questions, Skates? Escape trouble? Be +you a married man, Skates? I'd always reckoned ye was! Poo! poo! +Hohum! Wal--wal--never mind-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or the morn-ing flow'r. The blight--'"] + +He bethought himself again of his surroundings, spat far out of the +window as a melancholy resource, and was silent. + +Elder Skates, alarmed and staggered, looked softly down his list of +questions for something vaguely impersonal, widely abstract, and now +lit upon it with a smile. + +"What is the meaning of 'Alphy and Omegy'?" he said--and waited, weary +but safe. + +But at the second repetition of this inscrutable conundrum, a lank and +tall girl of some fifteen summers, arose and said, not without +something of the sublime air becoming a solitary intelligence: "It's +the great and only Pot-entate." + +Elder Skates showed no sign of having been hit to death, but gazed +vaguely at each one of his audience in turn, and then turned with dazed +approval to the girl. + +"Very good. Very good indeed," said he. "How true that is! Let us +try and act upon it during the week, according to our lights. +Providence--nor nothin' else--preventin', we will have our +Sunday-school here as usual next Sunday, and I hope we shall all try +and keep up religion. Is there anybody willing to have the 'five-cent +supper' this week, in order to raise funds for a united burying-ground? +We have been long at work on this good cause, but, I'm sorry to say, +interest seems to be flaggin'. Is there anybody willin' to have the +five-cent supper this week?" + +"I can, I suppose," said the woman who had been willing to sing without +tune. "But I can't give beans no longer. I can give beet greens and +duck." + +"I don't think it was any wonder we was gettin' discouraged," said +another now resuscitated voice. "Zely had the last one, and Fluke for +devilment gets a lot of the Artichokes over early ter help the cause. +Wal, you might know there wa'n't no beans left for the Capers and +Basins, and Zely was dreadful mortified, for there was several Crooked +Rivers." + +"Cap'n Nason Teel says," continued that individual's wife, "that the +treasury 's fell behind; he says there ain't nothin' made in five-cent +suppers, Artichokes or no Artichokes--in beans and corn-beef; he says +we've got to give somethin' that don't cost nothin'. Beet greens and +duck don't cost nothin', and if that 's agreeable, I'm willin'." + +"All the same, beet greens and duck is very good eatin', I think," +proposed Elder Skates, and receiving no dissenting voice, continued: + +"Providence--nor nothin' else--preventin', there will be a five-cent +supper at Cap'n Nason Teel's, on Wednesday evenin'. Beet greens and +duck. I will now close the Sunday-school, trusting we shall do all we +can during the week to help the cause of the burying-ground and of +religion. As soon as Brother Birds'll arrives, we can begin social +meetin'." + +"It 's natch'all he should be late; somebody said 't he was havin' +pickled shad for dinner." + +"Here he comes now, beatin' to wind'ard," said Captain Pharo from the +window. "He'll make it! The wind 's pilin' in through this 'ere +school-house on a clean sea-rake. I move 't we tack over to south'ard +of her." + +This nautical advice was being followed with some confusion; I did not +see Vesty when she came in, but when the majority of us had tacked to +south'ard, I, electing still to remain at the nor'east, saw her, not +far in front of me, and knew it was she. + +The wind was blowing the little scolding locks of dusky brown hair in +her neck; her shoulders were broad to set against either wind or +trouble; she was still and seemed to make stillness, and yet her breast +was heaving under hard self-control, her cheeks were burning, her eyes +downcast. + +I looked. Nestled among those safe to the south'ard was a young man +with very wide and beautiful blue eyes, that spoke for him without +other utterance whatever he would. Of medium height and build, yet one +only thought, somehow, how strong he was; clad meanly as the rest, even +to the rubber storm-bonnet held in his tanned black hand, it was yet +plain enough that he was rich, powerful, and at ease. + +His wide eyes were on Vesty, and shot appealing mirth at her. + +She never once glanced at him, her full young breast heaving. + +"Can't some of the brothers fix this scuttle over my head?" said Elder +Birds'll nervously, addressing the group of true and tried seamen, +anchored cosily to south'ard. + +One, Elder Cossey, arose, a Tartar, not much beloved, but prominent in +these matters. In his endeavors he mounted the desk and disappeared, +wrestling with the scuttle, all except his lower limbs and expansive +boots. + +"My Lord!" muttered one who had been long groaning under a Cossey +mortgage; "ef I could only h'ist the rest of ye up there, and shet ye +up!" + +"I sh'd like to give him jest one jab with my hatpin," added a sister +sufferer, under her breath. + +"The scuttle is now closed," said Elder Birds'll gravely, as Elder +Cossey descended, "and the social meetin' is now open." + +Here the blow of silence again fell deeply. + +The wide blue eyes gave Vesty a look, like the flying ripple on a deep +lake. + +She did not turn, but that ripple seemed to light upon her own sweet +lips; they quivered with the temptation to laugh, the little scolding +locks caressed her burning ears and tickled her neck, but she sat very +still. I fancied there were tears of distress, almost, in her eyes. I +wanted her to lift her eyes just once, that I might see what they were +like. + +"Hohum!" began Elder Cossey, with wholly devout intentions--"we thank +Thee that another week has been wheeled along through the sand, about a +foot deep between here and the woods, and over them rotten spiles on +the way to the Point, and them four or five jaggedest boulders at the +fork o' the woods--I wish there needn't be quite so much zigzagging and +shuffling in their seats by them 't have come in barefoot afore the +Throne o' Grace," said Elder Cossey, suddenly opening his eyes, and +indicating the row of sculpins with distinct disfavor. + +"Yes," he continued, "we've been a-straddlin' along through +troublements and trialments and afflickaments, hanging out our phiols +down by the cold streams o' Babylon, and not gittin' nothin' in 'em, +hohum!" + +Vibrating thus mysteriously, and free and unconfined, between +exhortation and prayer, Elder Cossey finally merged into a recital of +his own weakness and vileness as a miserable sinner. + +And here a strange thing happened. A brother who had been noticing the +winks and smiles cast broadly about, and thinking in all human justice +that Elder Cossey was getting more than his share, got up and declared +with emotion, that he'd "heered some say how folks was all'as talkin' +about their sins for effex, and didn't mean nothin' by it, but I can +say this much, thar ain't no talkin' for effex about Brother Cossey; he +has been, and is, every bit jest as honest mean as what he 's been +a-tellin' on!" + +Elder Skates arose, trembling. "Vesty," said he, with unnatural +quickness of tone; "will you start 'Rifted Rock'?" + +The blue, handsome eyes were on her mercilessly--she was suffocating +besides with a wild desire to laugh, her breath coming short and quick. +She gave one agonized look at Brother Skates, and then, lifted her eyes +to the window. + +The clouds were sad and grand; there was a bird flying to them. + +She fixed her eyes there, and her voice flowed out of her: + + "'Softly through the storm of life, + Clear above the whirlwind's cry, + O'er the waves of sorrow, steals + The voice of Jesus, "It is I."'" + + +The music in her throat had trembled at first like the bird's flight, +winging as it soared, but now all that was over; her uplifted face was +holy, grave: + + "'In the Rifted Rock I'm resting.'" + + * * * * * * + +Elder Cossey forgot his wrath in mysterious deep movings of +compunction. Fluke, who had entered, was soft, reverent, his fingers +twitching for his violin. Even so, I thought, as I listened, it may be +will sound to us some voice from the other shore, when we put out on +the dark river. + +"Vesty," said a mite of a girl, coming up to her after meeting, "Evelin +wants to know if you can set up with Clarindy to-night. She 's been +took again." + +"Yes," said Vesty, the still look on her face, "I'll come." + +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, "when can you haul over the organ and swipe +her out? She 's full o' chalk." + +"I'll try and do it to-morrow." Vesty looked at Elder Skates and +smiled, showing her wholesome white teeth. + +"Vesty," said Mrs. Nason Teel; "I want ye to set right down here, now +I've got ye, and give me that resute for Mounting Dew pudding." + +The blue eyes at the door gave Vesty an imperative, quick glance. + +But she sat down by Mrs. Nason Teel; she sat there purposely until all +the people were dispersed and the winding lanes were still outside. + +Then she went her own way alone, something like tears veiled under +those long, quiet lashes. + +She saw first a muscular hand on the fence and dared not look up, until +Notely Garrison had vaulted over at a bound and stood before her, his +glad eyes flashing, his storm hat in his hand. + +Then her look was wild reproach. + +"Vesty!" he cried. "Is this the way, after all we have been to one +another? Have you forgotten how we were like sister and brother, you +and I? how Doctor Spearmint led us to school together?" he laughed +eagerly. "How"---- + +"I haven't forgotten, Note. But it can't be the same again, as man and +woman, with what you are, and what I am." + +"Better! O Vesty!"--he stood quite on a level with her now; she was +glad of that. She was a tall girl, taller than he when they parted. +"O Vesty!" he drank in her beauty with an awe that uplifted her in his +frank, bright gaze--"God was happy when He made you!" + +But the girl's eyes only searched his with a Basin gravity, for faith. + +A fatal step, searching in Notely's eyes! A beautiful pallor crept +over her face, flushing into joy. She ran her hand through his rough, +light hair in the old way. + +"It has not changed you, being at the schools so long, as I thought it +would," she said wistfully, stroking his hair with mature gentleness, +though he was older than she. "Why, Note; you look just as brown, and +hearty, and masterful as ever!" + +"Oh, but it wasn't book-schools I went to, you know. It was rowing and +foot-ball and taking six bars on the running leap, and swinging from +the feet with the head downward, and all that. I can do it all." + +He looked away from her with mischief in his eyes, and hummed a line +through his fine Greek nose, as Captain Pharo might. + +"I don't doubt it, but you were high in the college too--for Lunette +saw it in a paper: so high it was spoken of!" + +"I just asked them to do that, Vesty. People can't refuse me, you +know. I get whatever I ask for." + +He turned to her with a sort of childish pathos on his strong, handsome +face. + +She bit her lip for joy and pride in him, even his strange, gay ways. + +"Come, Vesta!" he said, with an air of natural and graceful +proprietorship; "a stolen meeting is nonsense between you and me. I +shall see you home." + + + + +II + +"SETTIN' ON THE LOG" + +His face invited me, the skin drawn over it rather tightly, resembling +a death's-head, yet beaming with immortal joy. + +He was sitting on a log; his little granddaughter, on the other side of +him, was as cheerfully diverted in falling off of it. He was picking +his teeth with some mysterious talisman of a bone, selected from the +forepaw of a deer, and gazing at the heavens as at a fond familiar +brother. + +"Won't you set down a spa-ll," he said, and the way he said spell +suggested pleasing epochs of rest. + +"Leezur's my name; and neow I'll tell ye how ye can all'as remember it; +it's jest like all them great discoveries, it's dreadful easy when it's +once been thought on. Leezur--leezure--see? Leezure means takin' +things moderate, ye know, kind o' settin' areound in the shank o' the +evenin'--Leezur--lee-zure--see!" + +Oh, how he beamed! The systems of Newton and Copernicus seemed dwarfed +in comparison. I sat down on the log; the little girl, gazing at me in +astonishment, fell off. + +"What's the marter, Dilly?" said her grandfather, in the same slow, +mellow, jubilant tone with which he had propounded his discovery, and +not withdrawing his fond smile from the heavens; "'s the log tew +reoundin' for ye to set stiddy on?" + +A rattling brown structure rose before us, surrounded by a somewhat +firm staging; a skeleton roof, with a few shingles in one corner, +twisted all ways by the wind. It told its own tale, of an interrupted +vocation. + +"I expect to git afoul of her agin to-morrer," continued Captain +Leezur; "ef Pharo got my nails when he went up to the Point to-day. +Some neow 's all'as dreadful oneasy when they gits to shinglin'; wants +to drive the last shingle deown 'fore the first one's weather-shaped. +Have ye ever noticed how some 's all'as shiftin' a chaw o' tobakker? +Neow when I takes a chaw I wants ter let her lay off one side, and +compeound with her own feelin's when she gits ready to melt away. +Forced-to-go never gits far, ye know. + +"Some 's that way," he resumed; "and some 's sarssy." + +I looked up incredulously, but his fostering, abstracted smile was as +serene as ever. + +"Vesty, neow, stood down there in the lane this mornin', and sarssed me +for a good ten minits; sarssed me abeout not havin' no nails, and +sarssed me abeout settin' on the log a spall; stood there and sarssed +and charffed." + +"She is some relative--some grandniece of yours, Captain Leezur?" + +"No, oh no. Vesty and me 's only jest mates; but we charff and sarss +each other 'tell the ceows come home." + +I thought of the tall girl with the holy eyelids and the brave +resistance against mirth, and in spite of my predilection for Captain +Leezur, his words seemed to me like sacrilege. + +"I saw her, Sunday," I said. + +"Wal, thar' neow! Vesty 's jest as pious lookin', Sundays, as Pharo's +tew-seated kerridge. I tell her, I'm dreadful glad for her sake that +there ain't but one Sunday tew a week, she couldn't hold out no longer. +Still, she's vary partickeler, Vesty is, and she 's good for taking +keer o' folks. Elder Birds'll says 't ef Vesty Kirtland ain't come +under 'tonin' grace, then 'tonin' grace is mighty skeerce to the Basin." + +"She is beautiful," I said. + +"Oh, I don't know 'beout that. Vesty 's a little more hullsome lookin' +sometimes 'long in the winter, when she gits bleached out and poored +away a bit." + +"People seem to depend on her a great deal." + +"Sartin they dew. Wal, Vesty 's gittin' on. She 's nineteen year old. +She can row a boat, or dew a washin', or help in a deliverunce case, +and she 's r'al handy and comfortin' in death-damps." + +"All that! Vesty--and nineteen!" I think I sighed. + +"Ye mustn't let her kile herself reound ye," said Captain Leezur. + +I looked up in dismay. Had he not seen my weakness of body, and my +birth-scarred face? + +No, apparently he had not; his benign blessed face uplifted, and his +voice so glad: + +"Ye know how 'tis with women folks; they don't give no warnin', but +first ye know they're kilin' themselves all reound and reound yer +h'art-strings. They don't know what it 's for and ye don't know what +it 's for; but take a young man like you, and ef ye ain't keerful, +Vesty'll jest as sartin git in a kile on you as the world." + +"How about that strong-looking young man?" I said. "Very easy, +swaggers gracefully--with the blue eyes." + +"Neow I know jest who you mean! You mean Note Garrison. Sartin, Vesty +'s done herself reound him from childhood to old age, as ye might say. +I don't know whether he c'd ever unkile himself or not, but I shouldn't +want to bet on no man's 'charnces with a woman like Vesty all weound +areound and reound him that way. Some says 't he wouldn't look at a +Basin when it comes to marryin'. But thar'! Note all'as kerries sail +enough ter sink the boat--but what he says, he'll stick to." + +"He is rich, then?" + +"Wal, yes. They own teown prop'ty somewhars, and they own all the Neck +here, and lays areound on her through the summer. Why, Note's +father--he 's dead neow--he and I uster stand deown on the mud flats +when we was boys, a-diggin' clarms tergether, barefoot; 'tell he +cruised off somewhar's and made his fortin'. + +"I might 'a' done jest the same thing," reflected Captain Leezur aloud, +with a pensiveness that still had nothing of unavailing regret in it, +"ef I'd been a mind tew; and had a monniment put up over _me_ like one +o' these here No. 10 Mornin' Glory coal stoves." + +I too mused, deeply, sadly. + +O placid, unconscious sarcasm! innocent as flowers: wise end, truly, of +all earthly ambition! How much more distinguished, after all, Captain +Leezur, the spireless grave waiting down there in the little home lot +by the sea. Since five-cent suppers do not enrich the donor, and the +treasury of the United Burying Ground is permanently low. + +"Never mind, Dilly! crawl up agin. What ef ye did tunk onto yer little +head; little gals' skulls is yieldin' and sof'." + +"What is the weather going to be, Captain Leezur?" I said, following +his gaze skyward. + +"Wal, I put on my new felts," said he, indicating without any false +assumption of modesty those chaste sepulchres enclosing his +feet--"hopin' 'twould fetch a rain! said I didn't care ef I did spot my +new felts ef 'twould only fetch a rain! One thing," he continued, +scanning the dilatory sky with a look that was keen without being +severe; "she'll rain arfter the moon fulls, ef she don't afore." + +I reluctantly made some sign of going, but was restrained. "Wait a +spall," he said; and ran his hand anticipatively into his pocket. He +brought to light some lozenges that had evidently just been recovered +from blushing intimacy with his "plug" of tobacco. + +"Narvine lozenges," he explained; "they're dreadful moderatin' to the +dispersition; quiet ye; take some. + +"They come high," he confided to me, with the idea of enhancing, not +begrudging the gift, as we sucked them luxuriously; "cent apiece, +dollar a hunderd. Never mind, Dilly; here 's one o' Granpy's narvine +lozenges; p'r'aps it'll help ye to set stiddier." + +So, with a glad view to moderating my disposition, I sat with Captain +Leezur and the little girl on the log, and ate soiled nervine lozenges, +tinctured originally with such primal medicaments as catnip and +thoroughwort; and whether from that source or not, yet peace did +descend upon me like a river. + +As I finally rose to go-- + +"D'ye ever have the toothache?" said Captain Leezur kindly; "ef ye do, +come right straight deown to me, and ef she 's home you shall have +her"--and he exhibited beamingly that talismanic little bone cleft from +the forepaw of a deer, "Ye pick yer teeth with 'er and ye're sartin +never to have the toothache, but ef you've got a toothache, she'll cure +ye. + +"Mine 's been lent a great deal," he continued proudly. "She 's been +as far as 'Tit Menan Light, and one woman over to Sheep Island kep' her +a week once. She 's been sent for sometimes right in the middle o' the +night! When there ain't nobody else a-usin' of her, I takes the +charnce to pick away with her a little myself. But ef you ever feel +the toothache comin' on, come to me direc'--and ef she 's home, you +shall have her." + +I thanked him with a swelling heart. We shook hands affectionately, +and I went on up the lane. + +I turned the corner by the school-house. Away back there among the +spruce trees, I saw moving figures, red, green, blue, and heard low +voices and laughter. + +Then I remembered how I had heard the orphan "help" of my hostess, Miss +Pray, make a request that she might go "gumming" with the other girls +that afternoon. + +It was a long perspective to limp through alone, with all those bright, +merry eyes peering from behind the spruce trees. But I had not labored +over half the way, when I saw one, the tallest one, coming toward me. + +Vesty. + +"Won't you have some?" she said. "Strangers don't know how good it is; +it is very good for you--a little." Yes, she was chewing the gum--a +little--herself; but that wild pure resin from the trees, and with, oh, +such teeth! such lips! a breath like the fragrant shades she had issued +from. + +She poured some of her spicy gleanings into my hand. + +And now I could see her closely. + +I do not know how she would have looked at other men, strong men; but +at me she looked as the girl mother who bore me, untimely and in +terror, might have done, had she been now in the flesh, mutely +protective against all the world, without repugnance, infinitely tender. + +"I am coming up to sit with you and Miss Pray, some evening," she said. +Her warm brown fingers touched mine. She did not blush; she had her +Sunday face--holy, grave. + +"Come! God bless you, child!" I said, and limped on, strong against +the world. + +I sat by the fireplace that evening; not a night in all the year in +this sweet north country but you shall find the fire welcome. + +Miss Pray's fireplace stretched wide between door and door. Opposite +it were the windows; you saw the water, the moon shone in. + +Miss Pray did her own farming and was sleepy, yet sat by me with that +religious awe of me as befitting one who had elected to pay seven +dollars a week for board! I surprised a look of baffled wonder and +curiosity on her face now and then, as well as of remorse at allowing +me to attach such a mysterious value to my existence. + +She did not know that her fire in itself was priceless. + +It burned there--part of a lobster trap, washed ashore, three buoys, a +section of a hen-coop, a bottomless chopping tray, a drift-wood stump +with ten fantastic roots sending up blue and green flame, a portion of +the wheel of an outworn cart, some lobster shells, the eyes glowing, +some mussel shells, light green, and seaweed over all, shining, +hissing, lisping. + +Miss Pray snored gently. I put some of the spruce gum Vesty had given +me into my mouth; well, yes, by birth I have very eminent right to +aristocratic proclivities. + +But the spruce woods came again before me with their balm, and her +face. I dwelt upon it fondly, without that pang of hope which most men +must endure, and smiled to think of Captain Leezur's dismay if he +should know how Vesty had already coiled herself around my +heart-strings! + + + + +III + +"GETTIN' A NAIL PUT IN THE HOSS'S SHU" + +They never noticed my physical misfortune except in this way: they +invited me everywhere; to mill, to have the horse shod, all voyages by +sea or land; my visiting and excursion list was a marvel of repletion. + +Captain Pharo came down--my soul's brother--with more of "a h'tch and a +go," than usual in his gait. + +"My woman read in some fool-journal somewheres, lately," he explained, +"about pourin' kerosene on yer corns and then takin' a match to her and +lightin' of her off. + +"Wal', I supposed she was a-dressin' my corns down in jest the old +usual way, last Sunday mornin', when--by clam! ye don't want to splice +onto too young a shipmate, major." (This last was a divinely Basin +thought, treating me as a subject of the wars.) + +"I've married all states but widders," said Captain Pharo, with a +_blase_ air of conjugal experience; "but my advice above all things +is," he murmured, lifting his maimed foot, "don't splice onto too young +a shipmate. They're all'as a-tryin' some new ructions on ye. Now +Vesty, even as stiddy as she is, she 's all'as gittin' the women folks +crazy over some new patron for a apern, or some new resute for pudd'n' +and pie. So," he added, "ef you sh'd come to me, intendin' to splice, +all the advice 't I c'd give 'ud be, I _don't_ know widders; poo! +poo!--hohum! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass, Or as--'] + +_try_ widders." + +As I stood speechless with conflicting emotions, he lit his pipe and +continued, more hopefully: + +"I've got to go up to the Point to git a nail put in the hoss's shu, so +I come down to ask you to go up to the house and jine us." + +Now I already knew that the Basin way of proceeding to get a nail put +in the horse's shoe meant a day of widely excursive incident and +pleasure, in which the main or stated object was cast far from our +poetical vision. I accepted. + +"My woman invited Miss Lester to go with us. The old double-decker +rides easier for havin' consid'rable ballast, ye know--and Miss Lester +tips her at nigh onto about two hunderd; she 's a widder too, ain't +she, by the way? but she 's clost onto sixty-seven; hain't no thoughts +o' splicin', in course. Miss Lester 's a vary sensible woman. But I +thought cruisin' 'round with her kind o' frien'ly on the back seat, ye +might git a sort of a token or a consute in general o' what widders is." + +"True," said I gratefully, with flattered meditation. + +"It 's a scand'lous windy kentry to keep anything on the clo's-line," +said the captain, as we walked on together, sadly gathering up one of +his stockings and a still more inseparable companion of his earthly +pilgrimage from the path. + +"What 's the time, major?" said he, as he led me into the kitchen, "or +do you take her by the sun? I had Leezur up here a couple o' days to +mend my clock. 'Pharo,' says he, 'thar 's too much friction in her.' +So, by clam! he took out most of her insides and laid 'em by, and +poured some ile over what they was left, and thar' she stands! She +couldn't tick to save her void and 'tarnal emptiness. 'Forced-to-go +never gits far,' says Leezur, he says--'ye know.'" + +Captain Pharo and I, standing by the wood-box, nudged each other with +delight over this conceit. + +"'Forced-to-go never gets far, you know,'" said I. + +"'Forced-to-go,'" began Captain Pharo, but was rudely haled away by +Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, to dress. + +That was another thing; apparently they could never get me to the house +early enough, pleased that I should witness all their preparations. +They led me to the sofa, and Mrs. Kobbe came and combed out her +hair--pretty, long, woman's hair--in the looking-glass, over me; and +then Captain Pharo came and parted his hair down the back and brushed +it out rakishly both sides, over me. Usually I saw the children +dressed; they were at school. It was too tender a thought for +explanation, this way of taking me with brotherly fondness to the +family bosom. + +"How do you like Cap'n Pharo's new blouse?" said his wife. + +In truth I hardly knew how to express my emotions; while he sniffed +with affected disdain of his own brightness and beauty, I was so +dim-looking, in comparison, sitting there! + +"When I took up the old carpet this spring, I found sech a bright piece +under the bed, that I jest took and made cap'n a blouse of her--and +wal, thar? what do you think?" + +I looked at him again. The hair of my soul's brother had ceased from +the top of his head, but the long and scanty lower growth was brushed +out several proud inches beyond his ears. He was not tall, and he was +covered with sections of bloom; but as he turned he displayed one +complete flower embracing his whole back, a tropical efflorescence, +brilliant with many hues. + +"She is beautiful," I murmured; "what sort of a flower is she?" + +"Oh, I don' know," said Captain Pharo, with the same affected +indifference to his charms, but there was--yes, there was--something +jaunty in his gait now as he walked toward the barn; "they're rather +skeerce in this kentry, I expect; some d--d arniky blossom or other! +Poo! poo! + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r, The blighting +wind sweeps o'er, she with-'] + +Come, wife, time ye was ready!" + +I was not unprepared, on climbing to my seat in the carriage, to have +to contest the occupancy of the cushions with a hen, who was accustomed +to appropriate them for her maternal aspirations. I was in the midst +of the battle, when Mrs. Kobbe coolly seized her and plunged her entire +into a barrel of rain-water. She walked away, shaking her feathers, +with an angry malediction of noise. + +"Ef they're good eggs, we'll take 'em to Uncle Coffin Demmin' and Aunt +Salomy," said Mrs. Kobbe. + +She brought a bucket of fresh water, benevolently to test them, but +left the enterprise half completed, reminded at the same time of a jug +of buttermilk she had meant to put up. + +She went into the house, and Captain Pharo, absorbed in lighting his +pipe, and stepping about fussily and impatiently, had the misfortune to +put a foot into two piles of eggs of contrasting qualities. + +"By clam!" said he, white with dismay. "Ho-hum! oh dear! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as--'] + +Guess, while she 's in the house, I'll go down to the herrin'-shed and +git some lobsters to take 'em; they're very fond on 'em." He gave me +an appealing, absolutely helpless smile of apology, and the arnica +blossom faded rapidly from my vision. + +Left in guardianship of the horse, I climbed again to my seat and +covered myself with the star bed-quilt, which served as an only too +beautiful carriage robe. Thus I, glowing behind that gorgeous, +ever-radiating star, was taken by Mrs. Kobbe, I doubt not, for the +culprit, as she finally emerged from the house and the captain was +discovered innocently returning along the highway with the lobsters. + +Let this literal history record of me that I said no word; nay, I was +even happy in shielding my soul's brother. + +"Now," said Mrs. Kobbe, as we set forth, "Miss Lester said not to come +to her house for her, but wherever we saw the circle-basket settin' +outside the door, there she'd be." + +"I wish she'd made some different 'pointment," said the captain, with a +sigh. + +"Why?" + +"Why! don't it strike ye, woman, 't they 's nothin' ondefinite 'n +pokin' around over the 'nhabited 'arth, lookin' for the Widder Lester's +circle-basket? I was hopin' widders was more definite, but it seems +they're jest like all the rest on ye: poo! poo! hohum--jest like all +the rest on ye." + +"We've got to find her, cap'n; she sets sech store by talkin' along o' +major." + +"Major!" sniffed the captain; "she ain't worthy to ontie the major's +shoe-lockets; they ain't none on 'em worthy, maids, widders--none on +'em!" + +I knew to what he referred, what gratitude was moving in his breast. + +"Wal, thar now, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe! ain't Vesty Kirtland worthy?" + +"Vesty!" said the captain, undismayed--"Vesty 's an amazin' gal, but +she ain't nowheres along o' major!" + +"Wal, I must say! I wonder whatever put you in such a takin' to major." + +He did not say. + +We travelled vaguely, gazing from house to house, and then the road +over again, without discovering any sign of the basket. + +"By clam! it 's almost enough to make an infidel of a man," said the +captain, furiously relighting his pipe. + +"Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, you're all'as layin' everything either to women or +religion." + +"Don't mention on 'em in the same breath," said the captain; "don't. +They hadn't never orter be classed together!" + +Fortunately at this juncture we saw Mrs. Lester afar off at a fork of +the roads standing and waving her arms to us, and we hastened to join +her, but imagine the captain's feelings when from the circle-basket she +took out a large, plump blueberry pie, or "turnover," for each of us, +with a face all beaming with unconscious joy and good-will. + +"How do you feel now, eatin' Miss Lester's turnover, after what you've +been and said?" said his wife. + +"What'd I say?" said the captain boldly, immersed in the joys of his +blueberry pie; for a primitive, a generic appetite attaches to this +region: one is always hungry; no sooner has one eaten than he is +wholesomely hungry again. + +"Do you want me to tell what you said, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?" + +"Poo! poo!" said the captain, wiping his mouth with a flourish. + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r, The blighting +wind sweeps o'er, she--'"] + +"You'd ought to join a concert," said his wife, at the stinging height +of sarcasm, for the captain's singing was generally regarded as a +sacred subject. + +But there was one calm spirit aboard, my companion, Mrs. Lester. Ah +me! if I might but drive with her again! Her weight was such, settling +the springs that side, that I, slender and uplifted, and tossed by the +roughness of the road, had continually to cling to the side bars, in +order to give a proper air of coolness to our relationship. + +But when it came to the pie I had to give up the contest, and ate it +reclining, literally, upon her bosom. + +"I'm glad I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk," said she tenderly; "it +might 'a' got spotted. I'm all'as a great hand to spot when I'm eatin' +blueberry pie." + +Blessed soul! it was not she; it was my arm that was scattering the +contents of the pie. + +"You know I board 'Blind Rodgers,'" she went on, still deeper to bury +my regret and confusion. I had heard of him; his sightless, gentle +ambition it was to live without making "spots." + +"Wal, we had blueberry pie for dinner yesterday--and I wonder if them +rich parents in New York 't left him with me jest because he was blind, +and hain't for years took no notice of him 'cept to send his board--I +wonder if they could 'a' done what he done? I made it with a lot o' +sweet, rich juice, and I thought to myself, 'I know Blind Rodgers'll +slop a little on the table-cloth to-day,' and I put on a clean +table-cloth, jest hopin' he would. But where I set, with seein' eyes, +there was two or three great spots on the cloth; and he et his pie, but +on his place at table, when he got up, ye wouldn't 'a' known anybody'd +been settin' there, it was so clean and white!" + +Some tears coursed down her cheeks at the pure recollection--we, who +have seeing eyes, make so many spots! I felt the tears coming to my +own eyes, for we were as close in sympathy as in other respects. + +Meanwhile the ancient horse was taking quite an unusual pace over the +road. + +"Another sail on ahead there somewhere," said Captain Pharo; "hoss is +chasin' another hoss. It 's Mis' Garrison's imported coachman, takin' +home some meal, 'cross kentry. He'll turn in to'ds the Neck by'n'by. +Poo! poo! Mis' Garrison wanted Fluke to coach for her; he was so +strong an' harnsome; an' she was tellin' him what she wanted him to do, +curchy here, and curchy there. 'Mis' Garrison,' says Fluke, 'I'll +drive ye 'round wherever ye wants me to, but I'll be d--d if I'll +curchy to ye!' So she fetched along an imported one." + +Whatever the obsequious conduct of this individual toward Mrs. +Garrison, his manners to us were insolent to a degree. Having once +turned to look at us, he composed his hat on one side, grinned, +whistled, and would neither turn again nor give us room to pass, nor +drive out of a walk, on our account. + +"Either fly yer sails, or cl'ar the ship's channel there," cried +Captain Pharo at last, snorting with indignation. + +The wicked imported coachman continued the same. + +It was now that our horse, who had been meanwhile going through what +quiet mental processes we knew not, solved the apparent difficulty of +the situation by a judicious selection of expedients. He lifted the +bag of meal bodily from the coachman's wagon with his teeth, and, +depositing it silently upon the ground by the roadside, paused of his +own accord and gravely waited for us to do the rest. + +The coachman was pursuing his way, unconscious, insolent, whistling. + +"She'll take it out o' yer wages; she 's dreadful close," chuckled +Captain Pharo, as we tucked the bag of meal away on the carriage floor. +"See when ye'll scoff in my sails, and block up the ship's channel +ag'in! Now then; touch and go is a good pilot," and we struck off on a +divergent road at a rattling pace. + +But these adventures had exhausted so much time, when we arrived at +Crooked River it was high tide, and the bridge was already elevated for +the passage of a schooner approaching in the distance. + +"See, now, what ye done, don't ye?" said Captain Pharo--I must say +it--with mean reproach, to his wife; "we've got to wait here an hour +an' a half." + +"Wal, thar, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, seems to me I wouldn't say nothin' +'g'inst Providence nor nobody else, for once, ef I'd jest got two +dollars' worth o' meal, jest for pickin' it up off'n the road." + +Touched by this view of the case, the captain sang with great +cheerfulness that his days were as the grass or as the morning +flower--when an inspiration struck him. + +"I don' know," said he, "why we hadn't just as well turn here and go up +Artichoke road, and git baited at Coffin's, 'stid er stoppin' to see +'em on the way home. I'm feelin' sharp as a meat-axe ag'in." + +"I don' know whether the rest of ye are hungry or not," said plump +little Mrs. Kobbe; "but I'm gittin as long-waisted as a +knittin'-needle." + +The language of vivid hyperbole being exhausted, Mrs. Lester and I +expressed ourselves simply to the same effect. We turned, heedful no +longer of the tides, and travelled delightfully along the Artichoke +road until we reached a brown dwelling that I knew could be none other +than theirs--Uncle Coffin's and Aunt Salomy's; they were in their sunny +yard, and before I knew them, I loved them. + +"Dodrabbit ye!" cried Uncle Coffin Demmin, springing out at us in +hospitable ecstasy, Salomy beside him; "git out! git out quick! The +sight on ye makes me sick, in there. Git out, I say!" he roared. + +"No-o; guess not, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with gloomy observance +of formalities; "guess I ca-arnt; goin' up to the Point to git a nail +put in my hoss's shu-u." + +But Uncle Coffin was already leading the horse and carriage on to the +barn floor. + +"Dodrabbit ye!" he exclaimed, "git out, or I'll _shute_ ye out." + +At this invitation we began to descend with cheerful alacrity. + +As the horse walked into an evidently familiar stall, Uncle Coffin +seized Captain Pharo and whirled him about with admiring affection. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" he cried, struck with the new jacket; "ye've +been to Boston!" + +"I hain't; hain't been nigh her for forty year," said Captain Pharo, +but he was unconscionably pleased. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo! ye've been a-junketin' around to Bar Harbor; that +'s whar' ye been." + +"I hain't, Coffin; honest I hain't been nigh her," chuckled Captain +Pharo. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, seizing the hat from his head +and regarding its bespattered surface with delight; "ye've been +a-whitewashin'!" + +This Captain Pharo proudly did not deny. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said +our fond host, giving him another whirl, "yer hair 's pretty plumb +'fore, but she 's raked devilish well aft. Ye can't make no stand fer +yerself! Ye're hungry, Pharo; ye're wastin'; come along!" + +Uncle Coffin seized me on the way, but in voiceless appreciation of my +physical meanness he supported me with one hand, while he +affectionately mauled and whirled me with the other. + +"Dodrabbit ye! you young spark, you! whar' ye been all this time?" he +cried--though I had never gazed upon his face before! + +His rough touch was a galvanic battery of human kindness. It thrilled +and electrified me. No; he had not even seen my pitiful presence. I +do not know where the people of the world get their manners; but these +Artichokes got theirs, rough-coated though they were, straight from the +blue above. + +"Say! whar' ye been all this time? That 's what I want to know," +sending a thrill of close human fellowship down my back. "Didn't ye +reckon as Salomy and me 'ud miss ye, dodrabbit ye! you young +lawn-tennis shu's, you!" + +I glanced down at my feet. They were covered with a thick crust of +buttermilk and meal. I remembered now to have experienced a pleasant +sensation of coolness at my feet at one time, being too closely wedged +in with Mrs. Lester and the meal, however, to investigate. + +We found, on searching the carriage, that the jug had capsized, and one +of the lobsters had extracted the cork, which he still grasped tightly +in his claw. + +"Look at that, Coffin," said Captain Pharo sadly; "even our lobsters is +dry!" + +"Wal, I'm cert'nly glad now," said Mrs. Lester, surveying the bottom of +her gown, "'t I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk." + +"Why so, Mis' Lester; why so?" said Uncle Coffin, performing a waltz +with the small remaining contents of the buttermilk jug. "Ef it's a +beauty in her to have her lustre dead, why wouldn't she be still +harnsomer to have her lustre dedder!" + +He drew me aside at this, and for some moments we stood helplessly +doubled over with laughter. For the climate serves one the same in +regard to jokes as in food. One is never satiated with them, and there +are no morbid, worn distinctions of taste--an old one, an exceedingly +mild one, have all the convulsive power of the keenest flash from less +healthy and rubicund intellects. + +When we had recovered ourselves sufficiently to walk, we went into the +house, arm in arm. There Uncle Coffin seized Captain Pharo again and +threw him delightedly several feet off into a chair. + +"Ye're weary, Pharo, dodrabbit ye! Set thar'. Repose. Repose. Wait +'tell the flapjacks is ready. They're fryin'. Smell 'em?" + +We perceived their odor, and that of the wild strawberries and coffee +which Mrs. Lester had taken from her circle-basket. + +"Why, father," said Aunt Salomy, as we sat at table, giving me a glance +indicative of a beaming conversance with elegant conventionalities; "ye +_shouldn't_ set the surrup cup right atop o' the loaf o' bread.' + +"Never mind whar' she sets, mother," said Uncle Coffin gayly, "so long +as she 's squar' amidships." + +He would pour out the treacle for us all--for that it was sweeter, +sweeter than any refined juices I ever tasted. No denials, no +protestations would avail to stay the utter generosity of his hand. + +The griddle-cakes were of the apparent size of the moon when she is +full in the heavens. + +"Come, Pharo, brace up. Eat somethin', dodrabbit ye! Ye're poorin' +away every minute ye're settin' there; ye hain't hauled yerself over +but two yit." + +"By clam! Coffin, sure as I'm a livin' man, I've hauled myself over +fourteen," said Captain Pharo seriously. + +"Come, come, major; ye're fadin' away to a shadder. Ye hain't hauled +yerself over nothin' yet." + +"Oh, I have," I rejoined, with urgent truth and unction. "I can't, +honestly I can't, haul myself over anything more." + +In spite of some suggestive winks directed on my behalf, not then +understood, I remained innocently with Mrs. Lester and Aunt Salomy +while they were doing the dishes. But presently through the open +window where I sat I felt a bean take me sharply in the nape of the +neck, and, turning, I discovered Captain Pharo outside. He winked at +me. I naively winked back again. He coughed low and meaningly; I +smiled and nodded. + +He disappeared, and ere long I felt one of my ears tingling from the +blow of another bean. It was Uncle Coffin this time; his wink was +almost savage with excess of meaning. I returned it amiably. He +coughed low and hopelessly, and disappeared. + +But soon after he came walking nonchalantly into the room. + +"Dodrabbit ye, major!" said he, punching me with a vigorous hand, +"don't ye take no interest in a man's stock? Come along out and look +at the stock." + +At that I rose and followed him. Captain Pharo was waiting for us. +They did not speak, but they led the way straight as the flight of an +arrow to the barn, walked undeviatingly across the floor, lifted me +solemnly ahead of them up the ladder to the hay-mow, stumbled across it +to the farthest and darkest corner, dived down into it and brought up +an ancient pea-jacket, unrolled it, and produced from the pocket a +bottle, labelled with what I at once knew to be Uncle Coffin's own +design: + + "RAT PISON TO TOUCH HER IS DETH." + + +"Drink!" said Uncle Coffin. + +All his former levity was gone. He had the look of bestowing, and +Captain Pharo of witnessing bestowed, upon another, a boon inestimable, +priceless, rare. + +A temperate familiarity with the use of the cup informed me at once of +the nature of this liquid. It was whiskey of a very vile quality. + +But even had it contained something akin to the dark sequel on its +label, I could not have refused it from Uncle Coffin's hand. + +Slightly I drank. Captain Pharo drank. Uncle Coffin drank. + +The bottle was replaced, and we as solemnly descended. + +I had never been unwarily affected, even by a much larger quantity of +the pure article; perhaps by way of compensation an electric spark from +Uncle Coffin's own personality had entered into this compound. More +likely still, it was the radiant atmosphere. + +But I remembered standing out leaning against the pig-pen, with Captain +Pharo and Uncle Coffin, of nudging and being nudged by them into +frequent excess of laughter over some fondly rambling anecdote or +confiding witticism, until Captain Pharo, "taking the sun," decided to +put off until some other day going to the Point to get a nail put in +the horse's shoe. + +I remembered--well might I, for they were in my own too--the honest +tears in the eyes of Uncle Coffin and Aunt Salomy as we parted; of +being tucked in again under the Star, with new accessions to our store, +of dried smelts and summer savory, and three newly born kittens in a +bag, which I was instructed to hold so as to give them air without +allowing them to escape. Yes, and of the dying splendor of the sun, +the ineffable colors painting sea and sky; and of knowing that if I had +not already become a Basin, I should inevitably have joined the +Artichokes. + + + + +IV + +LOVE, LOVE + +At Garrison's Neck was the old Garrison "shanty"--Notely's ideal; well +preserved; built onto it a spacious dwelling, with stables attached, +after Mrs. Garrison's idea. + +Notely's shanty was a mixture of elegant easy-chairs and drying +oil-skin raiment, black tobacco pipes, books, musical instruments, +fishing-tackle, mirth and evening firelight; all the gravitation of the +premises was toward it--the Garrison guests yearned for it. + +His mother was with him now. + +"You will drive down to the boat with me and meet them, Notely?" + +Notely whistled with respectful concern, but his eyes were as happy as +the dawn. + +"Oh, well, ah--h--I'll have to ask you to let Tom drive you down +to-day, mother. I've an engagement to sail over to Reef Island." + +Mrs. Garrison did not condescend to look annoyed. She smiled, sweet +and high. + +"Considering the social position of Mrs. Langham and her daughter, and +their wealth, Notely, you might postpone even that engagement. +Possibly you could arrange to play with the fisher girl some other day." + +When Notely was puzzled or provoked he felt for the pipe in his pocket, +just like old Captain Pharo, laughed, and came straight again. + +"Why, mother! you were a Basin girl yourself--the 'Beauty of the +Basins,'" he said, with soft pride--he knew no better--and smiled as +though he saw another face. + +"Are you foolish?" said his mother, giving way sharply. + +When one has come from such degree, has sought above all earthly good, +and earned, a social eminence such as Mrs. Garrison had attained, it +will leave some unbending lines on lip and brow; the eyes will not melt +easily, although it wrings one's heart to find that one's only child +is, after all, an ingrained Basin; yet their features were the same, +only Notely's were simple, expressive Basin eyes--hers had become +elevated. + +"You! who have _in_ you such success, if you only would!" she cried. + +"'Success,' I'm afraid, mother," said Notely, with one of those sighs +that was like a wayward note on his violin; "it 's a diviner thing, +however, you know, to have in you the capacity for failure." + +"You are as remarkable a mixture of barbarism and sentiment as your +shanty," sneered Mrs. Garrison, looking about. "Do you speak in the +Basin 'meetings'?" + +"No," said Notely. "I ought to. Think of what I have had, and their +deprivations. But there 's always something comes up so d--d funny!" + +Mrs. Garrison smiled sympathetically now. "O Notely, think of the +Langhams, and Grace even willing to show her preference for you, +decorously, of course, but we all know." + +Notely grabbed his pipe hard and shook his head. + +"Why?" said his mother again, sharply. "I am sure Miss Langham is +nearly as boisterous and in as rude health as the fisher girl. I have +even known her to make important endearing lapses in grammar." + +Notely was silent. + +"Do you think, after a life-struggle to earn a place in society, it is +filial and generous on your part, for the sake of a fisher sweetheart, +to be willing to sink your family back again into skins and Gothicism?" + +"Yes," said the young man, a hurricane in his blue eyes, which his +strong hands gripped back. + +"Very well; if you so elect, go back then, and be a common fisherman; +but you shall have no countenance of mine." + +"Shouldn't wonder if it would be a good thing. With the health I have, +give me leisure and plenty of money, and I'm always certain to break +the traces and make a run. Common fisherman it is." But he stood out +bravely at the same time in an extravagant new yachting costume, for he +was going by appointment to meet his sweetheart. + +"You might help her up, mother--socially, that is; she needs no other +help." + +"Never!" + +Notely lifted his cap to his mother--the reproach in his eyes was as +dog-like as if he had not just graduated from the schools--and walked +away. + +She looked after him, a scornful sweet smile curving her lips. As the +apple of her eye she loved him; it is necessary but hard to be elevated. + +Notely put up sail and skirted the shore with his boat till he came to +the waters of the Basin. Then he looked out eagerly, but Vesty was not +on the banks waiting. + +"Was there ever a Basin known to be on time?" he muttered, smiling and +flushing too. He was always jealous of her. + +He made fast his boat and sprang with light steps over the sea-wall. + +Here was a good sign; so the Basins held. No sign so propitious to a +love affair as meeting with one of God's innocent ones--a "natural." +And here was Dr. Spearmint (Uncle Benny) leading the children to +school--the very little ones. They clung to him, and one he carried. + +And he was singing, in a sweet, high voice: + + "We all have our trials here below, + Sail away to Galilee! + * * * * + There's a tree I see in Paradise, + Sail away to Galilee! + * * * * + Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee, + Put on your long white robe of peace, + And sail away to Galilee!" + + +"Hello! Uncle Benny--'Dr. Spearmint'"--he liked that best. "Well, how +are you? how are you? and have you seen Vesty this morning?" + +"Fluke and Gurd 's keepin' company with her this mornin'," said Dr. +Spearmint, in a voice softer than a woman's. "I jest stopped to sing a +little with 'em on the way. I _look_ dreadful," he added, rather +ostentatiously fingering a light blue necktie. + +"Oh, no, doctor; fine as usual," exclaimed Notely, anger in his soul, +but with heart-broken eyes. + +"I suppose," said the soft, sweet voice, "there 's a great deal o' +passin' in New York, ain't there?" + +"What, doctor?" + +"A great deal o' passin' there, ain't there?" + +"Oh, sights of it! Oh, my, yes! passing along the streets all the +time." + +"Some there 's worth four or five thousand dollars, ain't they?" said +the sweet, incredulous voice. + +"God bless you! yes, doctor! the more 's the pity," said Notely, with +strange earnestness. "And how 's fruiting?" + +"Dangleberries are quite plenty, thank you," the voice replied. When +he had left the little ones at school he would go off and gather +berries; but he would call for them without fail and lead them home. +The little, tired, restless souls always found him out there in the +sweet air and sunshine, waiting. Notely remembered; so he and Vesty +had been led. + +He passed, singing, out of sight with the children: + + "Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee, + Put on your long white robe of peace, + And sail away to Galilee!" + + +Notely felt a homesick pang. Vesty was his home; he walked on toward +her threshold. Vesty's father had taken a new wife, and Vesty was +almost always seen now with a baby in her arms. + +So she was sitting as Notely drew near; and Fluke and Gurdon were +there, with a pretence of fingering their violins. They looked up, as +if expecting him. + +"Why did you not come, Vesty?" said her lover. "You promised me." + +"I've got something to say about that," said Fluke. "I sot Vesty down +on that doorhold, and I threatened to shute her ef she moved off'n it. +When she was tellin' Gurd' that you was 'round again wantin' to keep +company with her jest the same, says I, 'We'll see about that.' Vesty +hain't got no brothers, nor no mother, to look after her, and so Gurd' +and me, which is twin brothers to each other, is also goin' to be +brothers to her, and see that there ain't no harm done to Vesty." + +"Well, then, Fluke, you are the best friends that either of us have," +said Notely calmly. + +"Why didn't ye let her alone in peace?" blurted out Fluke. "She was +keepin' company contented enough along o' Gurd', ef you'd only left her +alone. What'd ye come back a-makin' love to her for?" + +"Because she is going to be my wife," said Notely. "We always kept +company together; since we were that high! Belle Birds'll was Gurdon's +company. Vesty was my company." His voice trembled. This was simple +Basin parlance and unanswerable. + +"Ye mean it?" + +"If you want to fight, Fluke, come out and fight." Notely's eyes cut +him. + +"All the same," said he, "ef you sh'd happen to change your mind by 'n' +by, as fash'nable fellers in women's light-colored clo's does +sometimes, there 's a-goin' to be shutin'." + +Notely grabbed his pipe, and his laugh rang out. + +"Come," he said, "you know me! you know me! Confound the pretty +clothes! I only put them on so as to try and have Vesty like me!" + +"Wal' now, Vesty, make your choice. You'd ruther keep company along o' +Note than Gurd', had ye?" But he could not restrain the severe +contempt in his voice in making the comparison. + +Vesty had been soothing her face in the baby's frowzled hair. + +"_I told you_," she said. But she glanced up at Gurdon, and her face +was piteous, his had turned so white. + +"Come, Gurd'! What d'ye care? Go on, Vesty, ef ye want to. Gurd 'n' +me'll tote the baby till Elvine gits back." He took the infant and +began to toss it, to compensate it for Vesty's withdrawal. His thick +black hair fell over his forehead, his nose was fine and straight. +Gurdon came forward obediently to assist him. He had the same great +bulk, and even handsomer features, only that his hair was smooth and +parted. + +Vesty and her lover passed on together. Her heart was leaping with joy +and pride of him; still, she saw Gurdon's look. + +"You have been so long at that great college, Notely." + +"Yes." + +"Why must some one always be hurt?" + +"We go to school, but the schools can't teach us anything, Vesty. + + "'Oh, sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee!'" + +he hummed airily, gayly. "What was it you 'told them' back there, +Vesty?" + +Where now was Vesty's Sunday face? You would look far to find it. + +"I told them you were a dude," said she. + +"Did you, indeed! Girls who lead the singing in Sunday-school are not +telling many very particular fibs this morning, are they? But you +shall own up before night." + +O Vesty!--the call of the "whistlers" down in the meadow by the +sea-wall--"love! love! love!" No other note; it is that, too, +breathing in the swift Bails and bounding the sea! + +"You sail your boat as well as ever, Captain Notely." + +"And why not--wife?" + +These were the appellations of the old days, taken from their +elders--"cap'n" and "wife." + +Vesty did not think he would have dared _that_. Her dark eye chastised +him. But he was not looking impudent; he was resolute and pale. + +Vesty shivered. With all her earnest, sad experience of life, with her +true love for Notely, she was yet in no haste to be bound. Wild, too, +at heart; or else somehow the sea wind and the swift sails had freed +her. + +"Don't say that again. Come, catch the fish for our dinner, Note." + +"I'm only a humble Basin, Miss Kirtland. I didn't think to fetch no +bait." + +Vesty took a parcel of six small herrings from her pocket, laughing. + +"Yes, our women are smart," sighed Notely. + +"Shall you catch, or will I?" + +"You," said Notely, tossing out the anchor. + +He watched her, strong and beautiful, her lips pursed with the feline +pursuit of prey, as she baited her hook and threw out the line, quite +oblivious now, apparently, of him. + +He saw her thrill with excitement as the line stiffened and she began +to haul in, hand over hand; it was a big cod too. Vesty always had the +luck. There was glory in her cheeks when she brought the struggling, +flopping fish over into the boat. + +"Vesty," said Note mischievously, drawing near, "how would _you_ feel +to be caught like that on the end of somebody's line--struggling, +flopping?" + +His sentimental tone gave way in spite of himself. She turned and gave +him a smart box on the ear. + +"Very well, Miss Vesty Kirtland, very well. But there 's a marriage +ceremony and a binding to 'love, honor and obey,' after which young +women don't box their husbands' ears--aha!--at least, mine won't." + +"Notely Garrison," said Vesty, with Basinly and womanly indignation, "I +never fished for you in all my life--never!" + +"Instinctive, darling; not your fault. Unconscious cerebration; do you +understand?" + +She did, a little, and she grievously disapproved of him. + +"Kiss me, dearest," he pleaded. "You kissed me once, when I first came +home." + +"All the m-more reason why you ought not to ask me now. I w-wish you'd +get your m-mind on something besides me." + +Notely walked away, pulled up the anchor, and set sail again. Vesty +composed herself at the end of the boat. + +"Sweet-tempered child!" said he, regarding her from the helm. + +She dipped her hand in the water and smoothed her stray locks; they +curled up again. She was distressed, and Notely's mirthful eyes gave +her no rest. + +"My mind is still on you, Vesty--and will be for ever and aye, +sweetheart." + +With that he turned kindly and looked away, and Vesty bound up her hair. + +Presently: "The tapestries are beautiful to-day, Note," she said. + +They were sailing through the shallows near Reef Island, and they +looked down through the green water. Gold, bronze and yellow, and dark +velvet green, the tracings of broad sea-leaf and trailing vine on that +floor. + +"There isn't another house in any land tapestried like ours, Vesty. +Say, wouldn't that be a charming place, after all, to rest, when----" + +"You're getting aground, Note!" + +"Thank you! How fortunate that you are aboard! I know how to steer a +boat a little, of course, but nothing like----" + +Vesty laughed, dazzled by this sarcasm. "But you didn't think of the +bread or the salt or the pork for the chowder," said she triumphantly. + +"Ah, I see you have them. You always think of those things. You were +always my little woman, you know. You are my home." + +As the boat touched the ledge she sprang out before him. By the time +he had fastened his boat and clambered over the ledges with the kettle +which he had brought from the crane in his shanty, Vesty had a fire of +drift-wood burning. + +She prepared the chowder, while he whittled out some forks of wood and +gathered firm pieces of kelp for dishes. + +They ate, with only the voice of the gulls, screaming, flying in +disturbed, beautiful flight over the wide, lone island. + +"Now for the gulls' eggs," said Vesty, rising, no dishes to put away. + +"What a carnivorous little wild-cat it is--for one so necessary to the +sick and afflicted!" + +"Didn't you come to hunt gulls' eggs, Note?" + +"You know that that is my sole aim and ambition in life. Come!" + +Over ledges and salt marshes, at the feet of the thin, storm-broken +trees, they found them, nestled there, three, four, eight in a nest, +the birds flying, circling overhead. Vesty gathered them in her apron, +eager, searching from tree to tree. Her hair came down. She looked up +at Note, apologetic, humble, so eager she hardly minded. + +"Hold my apron, Note." + +This he did obediently. + +With downcast eyes and a blush on her cheeks that would have exonerated +Eve, she wound up her hair again, and restored her own hold on her +apron. + +"I did not kiss you then, Vesty." + +"Well, of course." + +"I'm good, but my mind is still on you." + +Over ledges and salt marshes, and the thin, storm-broken trees, and out +there on the water there 's a strange color growing. Even the Basins +seldom fail to _start_, at least, for home by sunset. + +So a little white sail puts out on the crimson sea. The breeze is +dying out, the waters lap, subside. Notely takes down the sail and +rows. + +The sea fades to softer colors, hushed, wondrous, near the dim shore. + +"It isn't ever known, in any place in all the world, that angels--no, I +know--but look, Note!--they almost might." + +"Only here at the Basin, Vesty; when that very last light fades. I saw +two flying up--flying back again--just now. How many did you see?" + +She turned her happy, awesome eyes on him, but his keen face, in that +light, was as simple and pathetic as her own. + +"But my mind is on _you_, Vesty. Now, before we touch the shore, when +will you marry me?" + +"I've been thinking. O Note, perhaps it isn't my place to marry you; +perhaps I wouldn't do you any good to marry you, Note. They say you +were first in your class, off there, and there are so many things for +you, and your mother, and friends, will help you so much more--if I +don't." + +"I may as well tell you the truth, Vesty. I'm not that strong person +that I look"--the angels that he saw, flying up, will forgive that sly +smile on the boy's mouth--"I couldn't go away and leave you, and go +into that false, feverish struggle out there, and live anything more +than the wreck of a life, at least. I'm affected." + +"Where is it that you have such trouble, Note?" + +"It 's my heart, Vesty Kirtland. I must have a Basin for my wife, +calm, strong, sweet; one who can see the 'angels' now and then--just +you, in fact." + +He handed her out of the boat and walked home with her. At the edge of +the alders they stood. They could see the light in her father's house. + +"When, Vesty?" he repeated. + +"O Note, I love you!" she sobbed; "but I must have a little time to +think. Every girl has that." + +"Very well. You must _keep your mind on me_, however." + +"Hark! hear the poplars tremble. You know what always makes them sigh +and shiver that way, Note?" + +"I've forgotten." + +"They made the cross for Christ out of the poplars; they never got over +it--see them shiver!--hush!" + +"O my beautiful one!" He took her hands. "What was it you 'told them' +back there this morning, Vesty, before we started?" + +"You are cruel! O Note!" + +He drew her to him. Her lips would not tell. Her Basin eyes, that he +was gazing mercilessly into, betrayed her. + +"Good child! sweet child! with my strong right arm, and a willingness +for all toil and patience and endeavor, and all my soul's love, I thee +endow." He kissed her solemnly. + +"Love, love, love," chanted in ecstasy a thrush from the dim recesses +of the wood. + + + + +V + +COLUMBUS AND THE EGG, AND LOT'S WIFE + +"I often thinks o' Columbus and the egg. All them big folks in Spain +was settin' areound, ye know, ta'ntin' of him, and sayin' as how an egg +couldn't be made to sot. + +"So Columbus, he took one up and give her a tunk, pretty solid, deown +onto the table. 'There!' says he; 'you stay sot,' says he, 'and keep +moderate a spall,' says he. 'Forced-to-go never gits far,' says he. + +"Then there was Lot's wife. + +"I don't remember jest the partickelers, nor what she was turnin' +areound to look for; whether she was goin' to a sewin'-circle and +lookin' back to see what Lot was dewin' to home, or whether she was +jest strokin' deown her polonaise a little, the way women does; but +anyway, she was one o' this 'ere kind that needed moderatin'. + +"So she got turned into a pillar o' salt, and there she sot. But I've +heerd lately that she 's got up and went?" + +"I don't know," I murmured. + +"Yes; Nason was tellin' me how 't, the last time he went cruisin', he +met a man 't 'd jest come from Jaffy, 't told him how 't Lot's wife had +got up and went. + +"Wal, I was glad to hear on't. Moderation 's a virtu', even in all +things. She must 'a' sot there some three or four hunderd pretty +consid'rable number o' years, 's it was. Don't want to ride a free +hoss to death, ye know. I wish 't this critter that's visitin' up to +Garrison's Neck could be got sot a spall. She fa'rly w'ars me out." + +Captain Leezur blinked at the sun, however, all heavenly placid and +unworn. + +"I happened to meet her in the lane," I said. "She had not seen me +before. She screamed." + +"Thar'! that 's jest her! Wal, neow, I hope ye didn't mind. Sech +folks don't do no harm 'reound on the 'arth, no more'n lady-bugs, 'nd +r'a'ly, they dew help to parss away the time. + +"Neow this Langham girl, she driv up here with Note t'other day, to git +some lobsters. + +"'O Mr. Garrison,' says she, 'see that darlin' old aberiginile +a-settin' out thar' on that log,' says she. 'Dew drive up; I want ter +talk to him,' says she. + +"Wal, I put in a chaw o' tobackker, and tucked her up comf'table one +side, and there I sot, with my head straight for'ards, not lettin' on +as I'd heered a word; t'wouldn't dew, ye know. + +"So she came up with a yaller lace parasol, abeout twelve foot in +c'cumf'rence, sorter makin' me think of a tud under a harrer; though, I +sh'd have to say it afore the meetin'-house, she was dreadful +purty-lookin', an' blamed ef she didn't know it. + +"Wal, I see she'd made up her mind to kile herself 'reound me, ef she +could. She kept a-arskin' questions, and everything she arsked I +arnswered of her back dreadful moderate, and every time I arnswered of +her back she'd give a little larff, endin' up on 'sol la ce do,' sorter +highsteriky; so't I was kind o' feelin' areound in my pocket t' find +her a narvine lozenger. + +"And then I thought I wouldn't. All they want is the least little +excuse and they'll begin to kile. When ye're in deoubt, ye know, stand +well to leeward." + +I looked at my friend with new gratitude, for the perils he had passed. + +"She said she thought the folks to the Basin was so full of yewmer and +pathers, 'don't yew?' says she. + +"Wal, I told her I didn't know ars to that. 'Yewmer 's that 'ar' +'diction 't Job had, ain't it?' says I,' and pathers--thar' ye've kind +o' got me,' says I, ''less maybe it 's some fancy New York way o' +reelin' off pertaters,' says I. + +"'Oh, dear!' says she, kind o' highsteriky ag'in, and Note driv off +with her, she a-wavin' her hand to me: but I set straight for'ards, not +lettin' on to take no notice of her. 'No, no, young woman,' thinks I +to myself, 'ye don't git in no kile on me!'" + +The nervine lozenge which my friend had cautiously refrained from +giving Miss Langham he now bestowed upon me. I accepted it, for I was +in sore need of it. + +I could not refrain from asking him, however, if he had offered Miss +Langham his deer-bone tooth-pick. + +"No," said he, "she's lent neow, anyway. John Seabright 's got her +over to Herrinport. I don't say but what if that 'ar' Langham girl +sh'd have a r'al bad spall o' toothache come on, but what I'd let her +take her, but I'd jest as soon she didn't know nothin' 'beout it. I'd +ruther not make no openin' for a kile." + +We sucked our nervine lozenges with mutual earnestness. + +"You are getting on finely with the barn," I said, noticing several new +rows of shingles on the roof. + +"Yes, I sh'd be afoul of her ag'in to-day, only 't Nason come over +yisterday and borrowed my lardder. I'm expectin' of him back with her +along in the shank o' the evenin'. Preachin' ain't so bad," continued +my friend, contemplatively, as the school-teacher passed by; "but I'd +ruther be put to bone labor 'n school teachin'. Ye've all'as got to be +thar', no marter heow many other 'ngagements----" + +"Leezur!" called the soft voice of a Basin matron from the door. +"Leezur, have ye fished the bucket out o' the well?" + +"Jest baitin' my hook, mother," said my friend, his face breaking into +the broadest human beam I ever saw. + +He rose, and we walked toward the well. Now first I noticed his gait; +every step was a smiling protest against further advancement, which, +however, was made not unwillingly. + +I observed, too, an illustration of this same smile in his rear, made +by an unconscious and loving wife, in a singular disposition of +patches: three on his blouse fortuitously representing eyes and nose, +and a long horizontal one, lower down, combining with these in an +undesigned but felicitous grin. + +My friend disclosed this smiling posterior to full view, stretching +himself face downward on the earth, and burying his head, with the +grappling pole, in the well. + +"This 'ere job," his voice came to me with resonant jubilance, +"requires a vary moderate dispersition: 'specially arfter the women +folks has been a-grapplin' for her, and rilin' the water, and jabbin' +of her furder in. But ef we considers ourselves to' be--as we +be--heirs of etarnity---- + +"Thought I'd got ye that time! But neow don't be too easy abeout +gittin' caught, down there! Priceless gems holds themselves skeerce, +ye know." + +In which sarcastic but ever reasonable and moderate conversation with +that coy bucket I left my friend, and continued on my way with my +basket, under Miss Pray's commission to purchase "dangle-berries" at +the home of Dr. Spearmint. + +I heard as I approached: + + "Oh the road is winding, the road is dark, + But sail away to Galilee! + Sail away to Galilee!" + + * * * * * * + +There was a company as usual gathered at Dr. Spearmint's weather-beaten +hut: the door wide open, one could see his bed neatly made by his own +hands within, his mother's picture against the wall, a sweet, +intelligent face--like his, only that in his there was some light gone +out forever for this world. + +Notely was there with Miss Langham, to hear Dr. Spearmint sing, and to +purchase berries, and to be entertained a little in this way in the +growing evening. + +Miss Langham did not scream on seeing me now. She smiled upon me with +manifest kindness and condescension. She had beautiful bright brown +eyes, and the "style" of town life pervaded her very atmosphere. + +"Doctor," said Notely, "Miss Langham has heard about you, and, ahem! +considering what she has heard, she is perfectly willing to make the +first advances." + +Dr. Spearmint bowed, stammering before such new bewitchment and beauty. + +"I _look_ dreadful," he said, fingering his blue necktie. + +"Oh, dear, no, doctor!" rippled out Miss Langham's voice, in willing +accompaniment of the joke; "I'm sure you are perfectly charming!" + +"Miss Langham is from New York," said Notely. + +"There 's a great deal o' passin' there, ain't there?" said Dr. +Spearmint in his soft voice, turning to her. + +"What?" said she to Notely. "Oh, my! oh, how funny! oh dear, yes, +doctor; you've no idea!" + +"Some there 's worth----" + +Notely, laughing, pressed with his muscular brown hand a note into Dr. +Spearmint's hand that would do more for his next winter's comfort than +many weeks of dangleberrying. + +"Miss Langham would like to have her fortune told, doctor," he said. + +She pulled off her glove with a laughing grace. As Dr. Spearmint took +her slender jewelled hand in his he trembled with vanity and happiness. +He brushed a joyful tear from his eye, and began: + +"I see a bew-tiful future here," he said. + +"Oh, my!" said Miss Langham, looking up at him, her mirthful eyes full +of incredulous rapture. + +"Yes, I see a tall man, quite a tall man." + +Dr. Spearmint himself was quite a tall man. + +"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Langham. + +"He has curly brown hair and a--a smooth face," said Dr. Spearmint, +delighted in his delight. _He_ had curly brown hair and a smooth face. + +"He has blue eyes"--he glanced, a little troubled, at Notely's big +sparkling orbs--"_mild_ blue eyes," he corrected the statement, in such +a soft voice! + +"Indeed they must be _mild_," cried Miss Langham. + +Dr. Spearmint coughed considerably, and blushed. + +"He--he wears a blue necktie," he said, the mild blue eyes falling. + +"O Dr. Spearmint! I believe--why, it must be _you_!" cried the merry +girl, with a laugh as gay as rushing brooks. + +The boys and girls in the audience laughed loudly at this not +unexpected climax. + +Dr. Spearmint, much embarrassed, went inside to put away his money, but +was seen to steal sly glances, and a rearrangement of the blue +neck-ribbon in his little cracked mirror. + +"Dew come again!" he said faintly, as they were going. + +"Why, certainly, as the understanding is now, Miss Langham will expect +to call often, I suppose," said Notely. + +"Oh, dear me! yes," cried Grace Langham. + +"Are we--ahem!"--Dr. Spearmint could not lift those mild blue +eyes--"are we engaged?"--his sweet voice sinking, almost inaudible. + +"Oh, positively, doctor! Why, of course! Oh, dear me! good-by, poor +dear. Oh, how pathetically amusing!" said she, walking with Notely +toward the carriage. + +A tall girl had come up, and stood in the shadow, in the doorway. + +Notely, catching a glimpse of her in passing, lifted his cap, his face +burning, his eyes glowing, with a look of intense love and of +possession. + +Grace Langham turned, with a woman's instinct. + +Vesty, standing there, dim and tall, in her laceless, fashionless gown, +met her glance with a long, serious look that contained nothing either +of alarm or suspicion. + +"I know," murmured Grace. "I've heard the name of 'Vesty'--_that_ is +Vesty." + +"That is Vesty," said her companion. + +"And you love her, I believe," said Grace Langham to her own breast, +but sighed aloud; a gentle, bewitching sigh that divined deeper of +Notely's mood than further laughter would have done then. + +As they passed out of sight, riches and gay things and the last light +of day seemed to go with them. + +The mirth the children were having, congratulating Dr. Spearmint on his +engagement, sounded crude. + +"Nature has done so much for me, you know," he said, with his weak, +throbbing vanity, his hand nervously on the blue tie. + +Vesty went over to him and put both hands on his head. + +The children hushed. + +"Here are the pennies for my berries, Uncle Benny," she said quietly. +"I've taken just a quart." + +"Yes, yes; all right, Vesty. I'm--ahem!--_engaged_, Vesty. Such a +bew-tiful----" + +Vesty held her hands on his head. "Uncle Benny" (she would never, even +to please him, call him Dr. Spearmint), "you must not think of that. +She did not mean that. Besides, you have promised to be always a +friend to me, don't you remember?--and to lead the children home from +school. You know your mother expects"--they glanced up together at the +picture--"that you will do what Jesus told you about doing--that about +leading the little children home from school. What if one of them +should get lost, or hurt? O Uncle Benny!" + +"Oh, my!" he gasped. "I didn't think, Vesty," tears streaming down his +pale but now placid and restored face. + +Vesty smiled, standing there. A light crossed her face; she began to +sing: + + "The road is winding, the road is dark, + Sail away to Galilee!" + + * * * * * * + +Her voice seemed to me, in that dim hour, to take up Uncle Benny and +bear him away, with his great hurt, to the breast of his mother, in +heaven, to be healed. + +He joined her in the chorus, and then they sang together, she +modulating sweetly her full, rich tones to his. Her voice made +heavenly rapture of Uncle Benny's song: + + 'There 's a tree I see in Paradise-- + Sail away to Galilee. + It 's the beautiful, waiting Tree of Life-- + Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee, + Put on your long white robe of peace, + And sail away to Galilee." + + + + +VI + +THIS GREATER LOVE + +"How can I approach the girl?" thought Mrs. Garrison. "If I should +send word for Vesta Kirtland to come here and see me, Notely would be +sure to hear of it; he would wonder; ask questions. If I go down and +see her it will provoke endless comment and wonder among those people. +I never visit them. There is no other way. Notely takes the Langhams +for the day in his boat to-morrow. I will be driven to the Basin. I +will ask Vesta indifferently, by the way, to go with me in those woods +where I played in childhood, too timid now to walk there alone. They +will say, as well as they can express it, that sentiment must be +getting fashionable! Never mind. I shall see and talk with the girl. +We will see." + +Mrs. Garrison alighted from her carriage before she reached Vesty's +door. + +"Wait here," she said to her coachman. Vesty saw her approach. Off +there in the bay, sublimely guarding and making a gateway to its +waters, were two little green mountain peaks of islands, just a narrow +surge of the waters flowing between; the "Lions," the "Twin Brothers," +they were called. + +One does not look off daily, from one's very infancy, on such a view +for nothing. Mrs. Garrison saw the "lion" in Vesty's quick-divining +eyes, and was glad. + +"Anything but heart-break and slow consumption. Of battle I am not +afraid," she said to herself. + +"I took a fancy to leave my carriage and walk a bit among those old +trees. I used to know them well. Will you go with me, child?" + +"Certainly, Mrs. Garrison." Vesty handed the baby which she was +tending to its mother, and walked away with the fine lady. + +"Vesta Kirtland," said Mrs. Garrison, as they entered the shadow of the +woods, "your face tells me plainly that you know I have some object in +asking you to walk with me here. I have. + +"I am proud, cold, indifferent regarding you people here; I have not +noticed you, hardly even by recognition, if we chanced to meet in the +lanes; yes, I know. I bring no personal claims. But"--she was going +to say, "you are fond of Notely," but she looked at the girl, and a +proud, sarcastic smile curved her lips instead--"my son, Notely +Garrison, adores you, I believe? I do not know whether you care for +him; I presume not so ardently; but if you were even a little fond of +him, for the sake of childhood days when he made you his little +playmate--you would try to do the best for his good now--would you not, +child?" + +Vesty showed so few symptoms of slow consumption, and the lions in the +gateway of her soul glowed so ominously, that Mrs. Garrison concluded +to be brief. She turned her face away a little; the operation was +unpleasant, and she took out the knife, only in speech. + +"Notely has quixotic ideas in many ways: if he had given any ground for +a foolish confidence in his boyhood he would hold to it now, against +all his life's advancement, filial duty--yes, even against personal +inclination, for that matter." + +Mrs. Garrison was a resolved surgeon. "Do you know what Notely's +prospects are in life--socially, politically, financially? But he must +take the tide as it serves. To turn now is to lose all. He has many +friends. He is beloved by a rich, beautiful, accomplished girl, +influential in that sphere where her family have for so long moved. I +seem cruel, child." + +"Call me by my name. Call me Vesty Kirtland. I hate you! With my +whole heart and soul I hate you!" + +So the bold lions at the gate, desperately guarding sea-depths of pain +behind. + +"Really, Vesta Kirtland! if things were different I would rather be +mother-in-law to you than to Grace Langham. You are a pupil worthy of +my metal! You are fire, I see. Bravo!" + +Vesty stood with her head on her arm, resting against a tree, holding +herself. + +"I do not know that there is anything more to say. Notely will never +seek his own release. But, if you loved him _truly_----" + +"I do!" + +Flaming scorn and a smile as defiant as Mrs. Garrison's own. + +"Do you?" said the surgeon. "Then release him." + +"You told a lie. Notely does not want to be released. He loves me, +not Grace Langham. You know how it is with men. If I should go to +your house and say to him, 'Come with me; come down to my father's +house, since there is no other way, and help troll, and haul the traps, +and make the nets, and be with me,' he would come!" + +"Yes," said the lady, pale, "he would go. Therefore, as I said, do you +save him." + +"What makes that life so much better, out there, than ours, that I +should give him up to it, and break my heart and his? Are you one that +they make?" + +"All people do not regard me with such disfavor." She looked at the +girl almost wistfully. "Life _is_ hard, Vesta, and exacting, spite of +all that we can do; and the world is hard and exacting, supercilious, +ready to pick at a flaw--you do not know." + +"Well, I think Notely will be happier here with me." + +Yet one could see the girl's pale resolve, only she was turning the +knife a little on the heartless surgeon. It cut sharply. + +"For a month or two, Vesta, yes." + +"And then?" + +"One who has been accustomed to champagne from an ice-cooler will not +be satisfied forever with sucking warm spring water in the sun, however +wholesome." + +"Ah!" + +"He will grow very tired. He will not speak, but he will regret." + +"Ah! he will think what he has given up; and it _is_ so much, all in +all; yes, it is too much!" + +Mrs. Garrison turned, startled at the girl's voice. The lions held the +gateway, sad and gloomy. Into those heaving depths behind she should +not enter. + +"You have not told me anything. I only got you to say it over. I had +thought it all out for myself. I do not mean, any more, that Notely +shall marry me." + +Mrs. Garrison gave her a wild glance of gratitude, of sorrow. In that +instant her heart yearned intensely over the long-limbed girl, standing +so sorrowful and proud, and cut by Fate. + +"How will you manage?" she cried impulsively. "He _is_ so fond of you!" + +"I can manage. Promise me one thing?" + +"Anything I have." + +Vesty smiled. "Promise me, if Notely should be sick, in danger, I +mean, or hurt, unfortunate, it might be--you would let me know, and let +me come and care for him, just while he needed care. I want you to +promise me!" + +Her voice took the sharp tone, her eyes the frenzy, of a bird guarding +its young. + +"Ah, Vesta Kirtland, you did love him! Oh, I promise." + +"If you did not, there 's such a feeling toward him, different from the +others, I can't tell; if you did not, and I should ever know, it would +be like I had some little child of my own--yes, like I had some poor +little baby of my own, crying for me, and I did not come--I did not +come!" + +Vesty turned. The tide had run so high those wild ocean guards were +covered by the surge. + +She led the way to the outskirts of the wood and stood aside for Mrs. +Garrison to pass. The woman would have drawn near her; she waved her +hand, standing aside from her. Mrs. Garrison hesitated. The sight of +Dan Kirtland's low, brown cottage, the squalid babies in the doorway, +the fishing-nets, Vesty's last week's cotton gown swinging on the line, +some humiliating, harsh memories of her own, spurred her on, with a +sigh. + +"She is fire, thank God! It will be all right," she said. + +Vesty drew back into the woods. + +She pressed her forehead hard against the rough bark of a tree. To +"fall down there, and to be found and taken home and put away beside +her own mother in the little home lot by the sea-wall--not to have to +stand up wearily any more, and walk back, dazed and sick, into the +light"--so she yearned--"what was there to stand up for?" + +A pitiful little wail, and "Lowizy's" weary voice trying to sing +reached her. + +Clouds drifted over the sky. The poplars shivered; no voice of the +thrush now chanting from the wood-depths; but the poplars, that +Christ's cross was made from, what soft voice is this of theirs +falling? "Love, love, love"--this too? sighing with strange rapture. + +Vesty pulled her thick hair down over the bruised place on her +forehead. She went out of the woods, toward her father's poor house +and the wailing and the feeble singing. + +"Vesty! Vesty!" one of the school-children came running toward her. +"Lowizy said you was up here. I came to look for you. Here 's a note +Jane Pray sent." + + +DEAR VESTY: You told me last meetun you was comern up to sett with me +and my border some evening. Come tonyte. hees a poor erflickted +creetur, seems to me. hees lamer 'an ever an smaller 'an ever this +week, an' the burth-scalds on his face shows more, seems to me. Ef +that he was payin' 3 dollars a week, I should feel easier, bring your +soing an' sett a good long spale. + +yours truly, + JANE PRAY. + + +Vesty came, just as the firelight grew welcome and tender. She put +aside her hat and shawl, unrolled her parcel of sewing-work, and sat +down by the little lamp at one end of the room with Miss Pray. + +She took in my presence naturally, with no obtrusive kindness; she was +at a necessitous task--putting a broad gray patch, the best available +from the resources at home, on Jimmy Kirtland's brown jacket, doing it +deftly with her supple hands. + +"You'll be doing that for some boys of your own by and by," said Miss +Pray, intending to have a cheerful evening. + +Vesty grew sweet and pale; she shook her head. Her dark eye-sockets +had a look, I thought, as though she had been ill and fasting. I mused +in the firelight. + +"And what if that should not be your fate indeed, Vesta Kirtland: not +bearing, and toil, and pain, and all the heart-breaking vicissitudes of +woman's life, but some peculiar station? + +"So tall and gracious, to go robed costly, to ride splendidly accoutred +and attended, to condescend almost to _all_, to give gracious +_downward_ smiles. + +"What if they knew the power of wealth and alien rank, for that matter, +I held in that miserable, lean, little paw of mine! You should +outshine Grace Langham as the sun, Vesty. Some time, if she were +wronged and sorrowful, could I point her, delicately, with all +forbearance and worship of my own, that way?" + +"Be you rebellious?" Unsuccessful in her cheerful attempts with Vesty, +Jane Pray had turned to me. + +But Vesty resented her companion's question, almost involuntarily +turning to me with a quick and awful pity. + +(No; I had been lost, dreaming: not that way, surely; not though her +heart were moved with the purest pity angels could bestow; not thou, +Vesty, above all, sweet one, beautiful one! to a union so unfit and +repelling.) + +But I had to bring my thoughts back from a long way to answer Miss +Fray's question. + +"No," I said. "I settled that with God long ago. It is all right +between us." + +Miss Pray, confused by Vesty's look, blushed painfully. + +"Thank you for asking me about it," I said gently. + +At that Miss Pray rose. "Come; le's play words," she said. + +So the girl and the woman folded their sewing, and Miss Pray brought +from some hitherto unknown recreative source a little box of cardboard +letters, and we sat at the table together. + +Miss Pray and Vesty thoughtfully selected some letters and shook them +together and handed them each to me to make into words. I gave them +each a word. + +The letters I gave Miss Pray composed a simple and striking feature of +the Basin vocabulary, "w-h-a-l-e." + +Those I gave Vesty I studied to make a little more difficult, +"c-o-n-t-i-n-u-e." + +Miss Pray gave me three letters. It happened as I dropped them on the +table that they fell of themselves into complete literary sequence, +"c-o-w." But Vesty handed me eleven shuffled letters, a ladylike +aspiration, and looked at me with a little appealing blush--the Basin +school is so brief, so limited in its curriculum. + +Miss Pray put on her glasses and studied wearily and long on her +letters, placing them every way. I saw that she had them now at last, +"w-h-a-l-e," but was regarding them as blankly as ever. + +"Pray do not move them again," I cried hopefully, finding the game more +exciting than I had anticipated. "You have it, 'w-h-a-l-e,' +whale--see?" + +Miss Pray looked shocked and dubious. I saw at once that she was +suffering under the sorrowful mental conviction that I had spelled the +word wrongly: but that she was resolved not again to wound my feelings. +She turned to assist Vesty. + +"That," she said at length, struck by some suggestive combination, +"might be 'continnu,' Vesty, ef it had more 'n's and no 'e'." + +"Oh," said Vesty, pleased and enlightened. "But major knows," she +added promptly, "about the spelling." + +"I have your word, you see, Vesty," I said. "'S-e-p-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n.'" + +I had it spread out proudly on the table. She looked at me and blushed +again. I smiled, only as I would at a priceless child. + +"You _are_ cute at _guessin'_, major," said Miss Pray admiringly; but I +saw that she held me deficient in the classical prearrangement of +words, and that the game had lost interest to her on that account. So +we laid it by. + +When Vesty rose to go home, "I will go with you," I said, wrapping my +sad little presence in an overcoat. + +Miss Pray looked as she had when she asked me if I was rebellious. + +But Vesty said quickly: "I wish you would. I am so afraid in the dark!" + +Afraid in the dark! Not she; but this was some ointment for that +unconscious thrust Miss Pray had given. + +I walked home with her. Coming back, there was ever a slight crackling +in the bushes and stealthy breathing behind me. It was the lad, Jimmy +Kirtland, sent by Vesty surreptitiously to see that I arrived safely at +Miss Pray's. + +I regarded sacredly this innocent device, but, arrived in the house, I +heard Jimmy outside pleading cautiously to Miss Pray through the window +that he was afraid to go back alone. + +Miss Pray tried to arouse one of her two orphans--her help: for answer +they screamed aloud, sinking back into a sleep deep with snores of +utter repose. + +"Sh! sh!" she said. "I'll go home with you, Jimmy." + +I had not taken off my great-coat. I went out of my room and followed +them, unseen. In sight of the Kirtland home-light Jimmy ran in, glad. +Miss Pray turned to face the darkness alone; she went a few paces, +stopped, hesitated, and began to weep softly. + +"I am here to walk home with you, Miss Pray," I said. "Come; I can see +very well in the dark." + +"Thank God!" said she, and came toward me with a little bound; for it +seemed that it did not make any difference to her in this emergency +that I did not know how to spell. + + + + +VII + +"SETTIN' ON THE FENCE"--THE SHIFTY SPECTRE + +"Admiral 's I sum-sit-up," collector of road-taxes, a title cheerfully +accorded him through the genial courtesy of the Basin, came down from +the Point. + +In the distance we could hear him approaching as usual, the passionless +monotone of his voice growing ever nearer and more distinct, as he +flapped methodically first one rein, then the other, over the unhurried +action of his horse, sagely admonishing him to "G'long! ye old fool! +Git up! ye old skate!" + +His mortal conversation, too, though cutting and profound, was, in the +deepest sense, without rancor or emotion. + +"'S I sums it up," said he, "yer road down through the woods 's gittin' +more ridick'lous 'n ever." + +"Poo! poo! Wouldn't be afraid to bet ye she ain't," said Captain Pharo +Kobbe, with glowing pipe. + +"Ye seem to boast yerselves 't ye don't belong to nothin' down here," +continued the admiral; "but ye does. Ye belongs to a shyer town. Ye +orter have some pride. 'S I sums it up, be you goin' to pay yer rates, +or work 'em out mendin' yer roads?" + +"I've noticed pretty darned well 't I don't belong to no town, only +when it comes to votin' some on ye into offis' up there and payin' +taxes," said one of the Basin group--Captain Dan Kirtland, Vesty's +father. "I ain't a-goin' to pay no rates, nor work 'em out on no roads +neither. When I goes I goes by boat, 'n' I didn't see, when I was out +pollockin' this mornin', but what the water 's jest as smooth as she +ever was!" + +A low murmur of sympathetic laughter ran through the group. + +"I goes by boat--when I goes," said Captain Leezur benignantly. "She +_is_ smoother, sartin she is. But some, ye know, 's never sartisfied. +Some neow 's all'as shiftin' a chaw o' tobackker----" + +"Comparin' of the road with the water," said Captain Rafe, father of +Fluke and Gurdon, "I permits it to ye all that thar' ain't that +steadiness about the land that thar' is about the water. Thar 's a +kind o' a weaviness and onsartainty about the land." + +"'S I sums it up," said the imperturbable collector, grave pipe of +expired ashes in mouth, "thar 's some bottom to the water, but it 's +purty nigh fell out o' yer roads down here. Ye're a disgrace to a +shyer town." + +Loud and unoffended laughter from the group. + +"I permits 't thar 's some advantages about the land," continued +Captain Rafe. "I wants ter go out and shute me a mess o' coots once in +a while, and ketch me a mess o' brook-trout, but as for tinkerin' over +the roads--why, that artis' that was down here three months las' +summer, paintin' a couple o' Leezur's sheep eatin' rock-weed off'n a +nubble, said 't our roads was picturusque. You don't suppose I'm goin' +around a-shorin' up and sp'ilin' the picturusque, do ye?" + +Inextinguishable laughter from the group. At this juncture Captain +Shamgar came up with his cows. + +"Ain't ye drivin' yer cows home ruther early, Shamgar? Sun 's +a-p'intin' 'bout tew in the arternoon." + +"Wal, yes, but I got through cuttin' weir-stays, and thought 's the +cows was over there, I'd take 'em along home with me. Save goin' back +arter 'em by 'n' by, ye know." + +Captain Shamgar disposed himself on the fence, and the cows fell to +browsing in the lane. + +"Got your road-tax ready for the adm'r'l, Shamgar?" + +"Sartin, sartin," said that individual, firmly and permanently +buttressing his cowhide boots between the rails; "charge 'er to the +town pump, and take 'er out o' the handle!" + +Uproarious laughter. + +"You'd orter see the roads in Californy," said a dark spectre with +shifty eyes on the outskirts of the group. + +"Gold, ain't they, Pershal?" + +"No, no," said the spectre modestly; "jest common silver-leavin's. +Arfter they've made silver dollars they scrape up all the cornder +pieces and leavin's, and heave 'em out into the road. They wears down +smooth in a little while--and shine? Wal----" + +"Speakin' o' coots," firmly interposed Captain Dan Kirtland, "onct when +I was cruisin' to Boston, I seen a lot o' coots hangin' up thar' in the +market 't looked as though they'd been hangin' thar' ever senct before +Adam cut his eye-teeth. 'How long be you goin' to keep them coots?' +says I. 'Coots!' says he; 'them's converse-back ducks.' +'Converse-back ducks!' says I; 'them 's coots,' says I, 'and they're +gittin' to be _old_ coots too,' says I. 'You come from Maine, I guess, +don't ye?' says he. 'Never mind whether I come from Maine or whether I +come from Jaffy,' says I, 'I come from sech a quarter of this 'arth as +whar' coots is jest _coots_,' says I." + +"Ye'd orter see the coots in Californy," wailed the voice of the shifty +spectre on the outskirts. + +"Kind o' resemblin' cows in size, ain't they, Pershal?" + +"No, no; the biggest I ever seen was the size o' Shamgar's tom-turkey; +but plenty? Wal----" + +"Speakin' o' Jaffy," said Captain Leezur; "somebody was tellin' me 't +they'd heered how 't Lot's wife--she that was turned into a pillar o' +salt, ye know----" + +"Ye'd orter see the hunks o' salt in Californy!" moaned triumphantly +the spectre. + +"Had got up and went!" joyfully concluded Captain Leezur. + +"Wal, now, speakin' o' trout (I permits that they have termenjus trout +in Californy," wisely subjoined Captain Rafe), "larst Sunday I was +startin' for Shadder Brook with my pole and line, and I met this +noospaper man's wife, 't's boardin' up to Lunette's. She was chopped +down so small tow'ds the waist line, looked as ef, ef she sh'd happen +to get ketched in a nor'wester, she'd go clean in tew. Didn't bear no +more resemblance to your Vesty, Dan, than a hourglass on the shelf does +to the nateral strompin' figger o' womankind (I permits the women has +splendid figgers in Californy). + +"'Wal,' says she to me, and sighs. 'I wish 't there was a chapel to +this place,' says she. 'I know,' says I; 'I've all'as said, ef they'd +start 'er up I'd contribbit to 'er--'s fur as my purse 'u'd allow.'" + +Exhaustive laughter for some cause from the group. + +"'Do you think it's right to go a-fishin' Sunday?' says she. 'No, +marm,' says I, 'not big fish, but little treouts?' says I; 'won't you +jest think it over, marm?' says I. And while she was thinkin' I kind +o' shied and sidled off, an' got away outer the ship's channel." + +"Wal, thar' neow," said Captain Leezur, beaming with fond sympathy at +the heavens, "sech folks dew help to parss away the time, amazin'." + +"'S I sums it up," said the impassively listening collector, "ef ye +don't pass away some o' yer time on yer roads down here, ye'll break +some o' yer d--d necks." + +Renewed unresentful laughter from the group. + +"Grarsshoppers, neow," said Captain Leezur, seriously and reflectively, +"makes better treoutin' bait 'n angle-worms (I know 't we don't have no +sech grarsshoppers nor angle-worms neither as they dew in Californy). + +"Nason was over t'other day, helpin' me shingle my barn. 'Twas a +dreadful warm day, and we was takin' our noonin' arfter dinner, settin' +thar' on the log, 'nd there was a lot o' these 'ere little green +grarsshoppers hoppin' areound in the grarss: so arfter a spall, we +speared up some on 'em and----" + +"'S I sums it up, ef ye want to stay here and ketch the last fish 't +God ever made, 'ste'd o' bracin' up and mendin' yer roads and takin' +yer part in a shyer town, ye must do so." + +"Sho!" said Captain Leezur, regarding him with wistful compassion; "I +hain't seen as fish was gittin' skeerce." + +By winks and insinuations of niggardliness, through Captain Rafe, +father of Fluke, he was moved to take a nervine lozenge out of his +pocket and display it temptingly before the sapient, immovable +countenance of the collector. The latter, cold pipe in mouth, solemnly +shook his head. + +"They _dew_ come kind o' high, I know," said Captain Leezur, "but I'm +all'as willin' to sheer 'em with a friend. I ain't one o' that kind +that's all'as peerin' anxiously into the futur'." + +"The furderest time 't I ever looked into the futur'," said Captain Dan +Kirtland, "was once when I was a boy 'bout nineteen, and my father told +me not to take the colt out. He was a stallion colt (I know 't we +don't have no sech colts here as they do in Californy), jest three +years and two months old, and sperrited--oh, no; I guess he wa'n't +sperrited none! Wal, my father was gone one day, and I tackled him up +and off I went. Might 'a' fetched up all right, but 't happened jest +as I was passin' by them smoke-houses to Herrinport, some boys 't was +playin' with a beef's blawder had hove her up onto the roof, and she +bounded down right atween that stallion's ears and eyes. In jest about +one second I looked so far into the futur' that I run my nose two +inches into the 'arth, and she 's been broke ever since." + +"Never mind, Kirtland, she 's all thar'. The furderest time 't I ever +looked ahead," said the voice of Shamgar, "was once in war time. Flour +fifteen dollars a barrel, seven girls and five boys (I know 't we don't +raise no sech families here as they do in Californy), everything high. +All to once the thought come to me, 'Mebbe herrin'll be high tew.' And +sure enough herrin' was high!" + +"The furderest time 't I ever looked ahead----" deliciously began +Captain Leezur. + +"G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!" + +Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up was turning his horse about. + +"I believe you and me 's got a bet on, ain't we, adm'r'l?" said Captain +Pharo. + +"I told 'em 'twas wastin' waggin ile to come down here to c'lect. +G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate! 'S I sums it up, bet ye, +goin' 'tween here and the Point I could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud +off 'n yer kerridge time ye gits thar', Kobbe. G'long! ye old fool! +Git up! ye old skate!" + +His unbaffled monotone grew gradually faint in the distance. + +"Roads _be_ all porridge up there a piece, I reckon," chuckled Captain +Pharo; "but as long as Crooked River runs, I don't calk'late to lose no +bet. Poo! poo!" + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass, Or as--'] + +"Jest give me time," beamed Captain Leezur, sounding mellifluously, +"'n' I can row any Pointer ashore in an argyment 't ever was born yit. +I takes a moderate little spall to dew it in. Forced-to-go----" + +"Ye be a lazy, yarn-reelin' set, all on ye," said Captain Rafe, +grinning with affection and delight on the group. "I'm going to have +ye all posted and put on the teown!" + +Murmurs of rich and deep laughter. + +A tall, dark form, shifty-eyed, had been insensibly moving and +disintegrating me from the group. I found myself drifting strangely +ever farther and farther away. I was sitting beside him on a rock in +the covert of the woods, the sun setting over the bay, and all was +still save his voice. + +"I went to Californy minding" (mining), said he. "She ain't nothin' so +wonderful of a State as you might think: she ain't no bigger 'n Maine +'n' New York and Alabamy, 'n' Afriky 'n' Bar Harbor all put into one!" + +"Great heavens!" said I, scratching my feeble little cane into the +earth, "is she that?" + +Of all that had been denied him in the recent general conversation, of +colossal hunks of salt, of grasshoppers "no larger than Dorking hens," +of fishes, women, horses fabulous, I listened, rapt with wonder and +admiration. + +The sun went down, the moon arose, and still I listened. I was not +weary, I was not hungry; I was absorbed in sincere and awful attention. +But the world is callous and cold, and I shall not repeat those tales. + +The world is callous and cold; but, as the shifty spectre at last +pointed me, unwilling, homeward, he murmured, with tears in his eyes: +"I never found sech an intellergent listener as you be--not in the +whole length and breadth of Californy." + + + + +VIII + +"VESTY 'S MARRIED" + +"Vesty 's married Gurd! Vesty 's gone and got married to Gurd!" said +the children, big and joyful with news, on their way to school. + +Yes, that was what she had done! I leaned heavily for a moment where I +stood. That was Vesty! + +Oh, child-madness! Sweet, lost child! Oh, pity of the world! and I +crawling on with such a hurt; I did not think that should have wrung me +so. + +I was getting near her door; not anywhere else could I have gone. She +would be at the Rafes' cottage now--so easily do the Basin brides move, +without wedding journey or trousseau. + +The wash-tubs and cooking-stove stood at one end of the long, +low-raftered room, the cabinet organ and violins at the other. Captain +Rafe and the boys were out, hauling their sea-traps, and Vesty had been +doing the washing that they were wont to do for themselves; the mother, +like her own, being dead. + +The room was nice as I had never seen it before, and Vesty was putting +some pitiful little ornaments to rights at the cabinet-organ end. + +She turned to me with so strange and febrile a look, yet with so wild +and startled a welcome in her eyes. + +"Hush!" I said. "You wanted me, child; I am here." + +I saw that she had turned to lean against the organ, and that she was +shaken with sobs. + +"What have you done, Vesty? Wicked and false beyond any woman I +know--_you_!" + +"Have you seen him?" she sobbed. + +"No, I have not seen Notely. You were married only last night." + +"I wrote to him. There was only one way to save Notely from marrying +me--only one way." + +"You might have waited." + +"Notely would never have waited. Notely meant to marry me." + +"You should have married him, and not been false." + +"I would rather be false than ruin Notely." + +"You thought that it would ruin him? You had some assistance in that +belief; his lady mother came to see you; the property is hers. If he +transgresses, no property, no wealthy Grace Langham, no easy glory at +the bar or in the state. What were those to your love, Vesty?" + +She looked up, dim, and shook her head. "You have done a wilful, +blind, impetuous thing. You were piqued, proud, angry, and so you gave +yourself, body and soul, to this mad leap." + +"I don't care for my body (sob) or soul (sob) if Notely isn't sick." + +"There is One who is above Notely, to punish as well as to pity, Vesty." + +"God"--very softly--"oh, yes!" The bewildered, grief-tormented eyes +looked faith into mine. "I didn't mean that. I asked Him. I could +only find one way. He won't let Notely come to harm, but help him to +make the best of himself." + +"Your lover is a brave man. He would not have been selfish toward you +as this great hulk, Gurdon. He knew you intelligently. He would have +lifted, considered, cared for you." + +Vesty held herself aloft, pale. "Gurdon is good. If any one ever +asked Gurd for anything he always gave it to them." + +I leaned my head on my hand, my heart leaping. Vesty came near me. +"Tell me that you do not think it is a great mistake--such a great--a +lost--mistake; for Notely's sake, tell me! I looked so for you to +come. I wanted you." + +To have touched one thread of her dark hair, bowed there before me! I +did not touch her. + +"Ah, the mistake!" I said; "ah, the pity of it! You do not tell me how +_you_ have suffered, Vesty; how your own heart has been torn." + +She took my hand, and, turning her head, pushed it gently away from +her, as some blind instrument of torture. + +"The last time I heard you sing, Vesty, you put your hands on Uncle +Benny's poor, confused head and soothed and guided him. Who was there +to help or guide you, motherless child, confused and lost?" + +"Could you have seen the way?" How she entreated me! + +"No one sees the way. But a broken heart and a life--misguided and +lost though it be--_given_." + +She looked up, dim, again. + +"You will make them happy here," I added. Ah, that she understood! +She looked about the room with a sad, brave pride, and rose and stood +again, a striking picture there. + +"They did need _me_," she said; "_he_ needed me more than Notely. And +I shall get time, besides, to go over to father's and help with the +children." + +I nodded. "Oh, it is bravely done," I said. "We shall get on." For +she was worn from her long mental struggle, and nearly wild in those +dark-circled eyes. "There will be no more feathers in Captain Rafe's +cake. Did I tell you? He and the boys invited me here to tea. They +had been dressing birds and baking in the same morning. The plum cake +was full of feathers, Vesty." + +She laughed, and looked at me with shocked gratitude because I had made +her laugh. + +"Not chopped or sugared feathers, Vesty, but whole winged feathers of +the natural flavor." + +"Oh!" she said, "shouldn't you think they needed me?" + +"Infinitely." + +"Wait. Won't you come--come and see me often? Come evenings and hear +the boys play--they _can_ play!--and tell me"--her hands +trembled--"tell me about Notely!" Her soul bare in her uplifted eyes. +Only to one as a wraith, a shadow, out of the ordinary pale of +humanity, could she have looked like that! + +"Always, whatever I hear or know," I answered her. "Gurdon will not be +jealous of me." I smiled at her. + +She smiled back in her dim way. "Jealous?" she said. "What! after we +are married?" + +"Ay, surely! The Basins are true to each other then always." + +"That is the way," she said. + +"That is the way," I said, and left her. + + +When Notely Garrison received the letter that Vesty had written him he +read at the end: "When you get this I shall be married;" and the "for +love of you, Notely, God knows that! You must make the most of all He +gives you." Notely seemed to see her eyes. + +Then he lost them and went down into a mental gulf. He locked himself +in his room, to be ever alone; thoughts came to him that he could not +bear: he rose and filled a glass twice with brandy and drained it. He +ran his hand through the tumbled light hair that Vesty had so loved, +and reeled out of the room with a laugh on his lips and a flush on his +face. + +"Mother, I have lost my girl!" + +"O Notely! however mistaken I have been, what have I loved, whom have I +loved in all this world but you, my child? Do not break my heart!" + +"No, no, mother!" said Notely, going and standing beside her; "I am +your natural--natural--protector." + +As he stood thus, looking out with his drunken yet bright and tender +eyes, the child of her breast whom she had robbed, she laid her head on +his shoulder and began to cry. "Why, mother!" he said, almost sobered +for the instant. Never had this son seen this mother weep. He led her +to a lounge. + +"I think," he said, struggling for thought very seriously; he racked +his stormy, fuddled brain for what would most please her. "Now, when +shall we have a wedding, mother? Grace--Grace Langham." + +"O Notely!" She tried to detain him with her hand. + +"I'll go--go ask her," he said. He passed out with an easy +exaggeration of his usual lordly air, debonair and high, and at the +same time genial. + +Grace was alone in the arbor, in her favorite hammock, with a book, +when Notely came up. + +The look she gave him was full of amusement and anger and disgust. + +These qualities somehow attracted him now. He was a gentleman; he +tried to hold himself very erect against the trellis, and put the +question delicately. + +"Light--light--light of my soul!" he said. + +Grace threw down her book and screamed. Then she put her hands over +her face and fell to crying. + +Notely took out his handkerchief and wiped his own eyes with the +choicest deliberation of sympathy. + +"All--all seem to be weeping to-day," he said. + +"Oh, you wretch! you brute! you brute!" cried Grace. + +Notely, though much flattered, continued diplomatically mopping his +eyes. + +At length he desisted; and Grace, looking out and seeing his keen, +handsome profile staring out so desolately, came down from the hammock. + +She shivered a little; drunken men were horrid, even dangerous. But +Notely! She came up heroically and put her hand on his sleeve. + +"There is one condition, Notely, on which I can--consider your +proposal." + +"Name," said Notely, with touching legal precision, "condition on which +you'll marry me." + +"You must never, never drink like this again. I did not know that you +ever did this. Oh, how it has hurt me!" The lace fell back from her +white arms, there was a perfume of flowers about her; bright brown eyes +are lovelier when suffused with tears. + +"Thanks!" said Notely, meaning to come up to the full measure of the +occasion. "I'm not--not worthy. No--no--no previous engagement, +how'ver." + +But he was so gentle, she took his arm and led him in. Mrs. Langham, +who always spoiled him, entering stately in silk and gems, engaged him +in a game of cribbage, humoring gravely all his startling and original +vagaries in the game. + +"What does it mean?" cried Grace to Mrs. Garrison. + +"It was an accident, not an excess, my child," said the mother, smiling +proudly. "It should never be mentioned in connection with my son; it +is no part of _him_." + +Mrs. Garrison was strangely assured in her own heart that Vesty +Kirtland would never tell the son of his mother's visit to her. She +did not mean that Grace Langham should ever know the full cause that +had unsettled him. + +"We must be very tender with him, keep near to him," she said, "or, +when he recovers, he may do himself harm, with remorse, and--the fear +of losing your love, Grace." + +They were very tender with him. And by good chance, too, the post +brought a famed "Review," copying entire the brilliant fellow's essay +on "American Politics," with the editor's comment of "masterly." + +"See!" screamed Grace; "it says 'masterly.'" + +"Of course it 's mast--mast--masterly," said Notely, his beautiful eyes +burning. + +They drove with him, the stout coachman perched for safety on the seat +beside him. At evening he tried to catch Grace in the arbor and kiss +her. She screamed and escaped. + +"Come, dearest!" said his mother. She left the door wide between his +sleeping-room and hers, and laid the triumphant review at his hand for +his waking in the morning. + +But on the morrow he was neither remorseful nor subdued, though his +eyes were hollow. He smoked a great deal, and sang melancholy, +unembarrassed snatches of song, after the manner of Captain Pharo, and +made love to Grace, who was beautiful. + +At evening he tucked his violin under his arm. "I am going down to +call on the new Basin bride," he said, with airy, cheerful contempt for +that class. + +His mother paled. He went up to her and kissed her. "Do not fear, +mother," he whispered. + +The boys welcomed him somewhat eagerly. He had been their teacher on +the violin, as well as the original donor of those beloved instruments. +And they had thought he might not come to that house again. + +"I've a new tune for you, boys," he said. Vesty came in. He rose and +bowed, taking her hand. "I congratulate the new bride!" He would not +look at her pallor or her great beseeching eyes. + +"I've this to show you, boys, that I've been practising to-day." He +had not touched the strings for forty-eight hours! There was a covert +smile, sad, playful, not malicious, on his face as his hands touched +them now. + +Where he had been "practising" indeed! From what source he had got +that music that he played for them now! He would never play the like +again. + +"Bah!" said he, at the close, with his old cheerful manner; "it is too +sad! When one is possessed only for minor strains better cease +fiddling. Do you want me to break this, or throw it into the fire when +I get home, Gurdon? Then take her, lad! She 's a fine one, finer than +yours. Take her in all good faith. Come!" + +Gurdon reached out his hand, hesitating, voiceless pity in his honest +eyes. + +Notely sat and listened to the others; applauded in the old way. "You +are beyond my teaching, lads," he said--and they played exquisitely. +"You excel your master now. Well, well, my mellow old fiddle is better +here with you." But he would never once look at Vesty, so pale and +beseeching. + +As he passed out Vesty started impulsively, then looked at her husband. + +"Go and speak to him, Vesty," said Gurdon. "Maybe he wanted to speak +with you a moment." + +Vesty stepped out into the dark, and she called, almost in a breathless +voice: "Notely!" + +"Ah!" He came back. + +She held out her hands to him. "Forgive me, Notely! I meant it for +your--I meant----" + +He took her hands firmly in his and pressed his lips down to hers. "My +wife!" he said, slowly and solemnly; "my wife!" and dropped her hands +and left her. + +She stepped back through the doorway, sobbing. + +"Was he angry with you, Vesty?" her husband said. + +"No! no!" + +"Did he say as he was still fond of you, or anything like that?" said +the bold brother Fluke. + +"Nay! nay!" said Gurdon. "Vesty's married now: nor Vesty nor he would +ever have word like that." + + + + +IX + +THE TALE OF CAPTAIN LEEZUR'S SLY COURTSHIP + +It has not been a seven months, surely, since I heard the roar of those +waters down in the Basin's Greater Bay! + +Captain Leezur has not been housed through icy snow-fall and winter +blast!--nay, he has been ever there, as when I left him sitting on the +log, beaming, tranquil heir of eternity. + +"Ilein' my saw, ye see," said he, springing up and grasping my hand; +"ef I remembers right, I was settin' here ilein' my saw, when ye come +and bid me good-by?" + +"You were." + +"And here I be, right in the same place, ilein' of 'er ag'in!" he +cried, struck with joyful surprise at such a phenomena of coincidence. +"Set deown! why, sartin ye must! I carn't let ye go." + +Oh, the taste, sweeter than ancient wine, of that nervine lozenge once +more! The time was weary while I was away. Now that I am back again, +it seems as nothing. + +"Some neow 's all'as runnin' their saw right through everythin', no +marter heow hard she wrarstles and complains ag'in' it. But when mine +gives the first squeak, I sets right deown with 'er and examines of +'er, and then I takes a swab-cloth and I swabs her. +Forced-to-go--'specially ef she ain't iled--never gits far, ye know." + +O delicious sound of uncorrupted philosophy once more! + +Mrs. Leezur came out to welcome me, and sat on the doorstep near. She +was chopping salt codfish in a tray for dinner. When her knife struck +a bone, she put on her glasses, and after deliberate and kindly +research extracted it. + +"Did ye hear anything from Jaffy?" said the mellow, glad voice of +Captain Leezur. + +"I'm inclined to think what you heard was true, captain. It seems to +be confirmed from every source; she is gone." + +"Thar' neow! I told 'em 't you'd make inquiries. I could see, says I, +when I was talkin' to him 'beout it, 't he'd got waked up to more 'n +common interest in the subjec'. Wal, I'm glad on 't; she'd sot there +so long neow--didn't ye hit a bone then, mother? Seounded kind o' as +though ye struck a bone, but mebbe 'twas only the bottom o' the tray." + +"We've been threatenin' to clean dooryard," said Mrs. Leezur, looking +about on a scene that demanded no more particular explanation. + +"Thar' 's three times," said Captain Leezur, "that I've had them bresh +'n' things all hove up into piles, 'n' every time the wind 's raked in +and swep' 'em areound all over the farmimunt ag'in." + +"Perhaps, father," said Mrs. Leezur, in a mildly suggestive tone, as +far from sarcasm as heaven is from earth; "perhaps, if 't when you'd +got 'em up in piles, you'd keeried of 'em off, they wouldn't 'a' got +swep' areound ag'in." + +"Wal, I don' know 's they would, mother; but it 's been a dreadful busy +time o' year, ye know," said Captain Leezur, mellifluously. "Didn't ye +strike a bone then, mother? Seounded 's though ye run afoul of a bone, +but mebbe, arfter all, 'twas only the bottom o' the tray." + +"I like the yard," I said. "I wouldn't like to miss those--things." + +"I guess you're kind o' like that artis' that was here, 't was so +keeried away with the picturusque. He run afeoul o' a couple o' old +sheep o' mine up on the headlan's somewheres, an' spent a 'tarnal three +months a-paintin' of 'em deown onto some canvarss. I told 'im, says I, +'Thar'!' says I, 'I'm glad to see them sheep put somewheres 't they'll +stay,' says I. 'It'll be the first time in existence 't they hain't +broke fence,' says I. 'I'm r'a'ly obleeged to ye. I hain't seen the +livin' presence o' them sheep senct I don't know when,' says I. 'I've +been a-threatenin' these tew years t' go and hunt em up, but the +glimpst I've had o' 'em in this 'ere pictur'll dew jest as well,' says +I; 'fur 's I can see, they look promisin', an' gettin' better points 'n +ever for light-weight jumpers,' says I----Sartin ye hit a bone then, +mother! Thar'! I told ye so. Heave 'er eout. I knowed 't you'd +fetch 'er, mother. Did I ever tell ye," said Captain Leezur to me, +"heow sly I was when I went a-courtin'?" + +"No," said I. Mother Leezur's face was modest, yet all beautifully +alight. + +"Wal neow," said Captain Leezur seriously, "my experience has been, +there ain't nothin' so onpleasant, when ye're eatin' picked-up codfish, +'s to feel the rufe o' yer mouth all runnin' in afeoul along o' a mess +o' bones. + +"So 't when it got at an age and a time 't I was goin' courtin', I was +jest as sly abeout it as could be, 'nd I never let on nothin' o' what +port in pertick'lar I was steerin' for. + +"So 't I was up settin' a spall with Tryphosy Rogers--she 't was; 'nd +says she, 'Neow what shall I get for tea, Leezur?' (The gals all made a +great deal on me in them days.) 'They ain't nothin' I likes so well,' +says I, 'as a mess o' codfish mixed up along o' eggs and thickenin'.' +Wal, she flew 'reound 'nd got supper, 'nd we sot deown together--and I +swan! ef that 'ar mess o' codfish 't Tryphosy heaped onto my plate +wa'n't worse tangled up with bones 'n the maze o' human destiny. + +"Wal, I knew 't Tryphosy had bo's enough; 'nd all ain't so pertick'lar +abeout codfish, ye know, as some be. So 't I didn't trouble 'er to get +up no more teas for me. + +"'Nd still I kep' sly: they hadn't nobody the least idee o' what port I +was steerin' for. I tried four or five jest in the same way, but they +hadn't moderation enough o' dispersition, ye see, to set deown +beforehand and have a calm previous wrarstlin' o' the spirit along o' +them codfish bones. + +"Wal, Leony Rogers--she 't was--cousin to Tryphosy--she was called the +harndsomest gal in them parts, 'nd I had considerable hopes. So 't +when she asts me, 'Neow what 'll ye have for tea, Leezur?'--'They ain't +nothin' I likes so well,' says I, ''s a mess o' codfish mixed up along +o' eggs and thickenin'.' + +"Wal, we sot deown together, 'nd she was so purty I stowed away a +mouthful, hardly thinkin'--'nd I run one o' these here main off-shutes +from the backbone of a ten-pound cod, abeout tew inches up into the +shrouds 'n' riggin' o' my left-hand upper jaw. + +"I was in sech a desp'rit agerny to git home that night I got onto +Leony's father's old white mar', 't was feedin' along by the road, an' +puttin' of 'er deown the hill, I'm dumed ef she didn't stumble and hove +me clean over her bows----" + +"Father!" + +"Wal, mother?" + +"Ye swore, father!" + +"Wal, thar'! mebbe I did, mother. But ye know when I jined the church +forty year ago, there was a kind o' takkit agreement atween Parson Roe +'n' me 't I could sweer when I wastellin' that pertick'lar story. + +"Wal, the rute o' the matter was, 't as soon 's I was healed up inter +some shape ag'in, I went and see Phoeby Hamlin--she 't was." + +No need for personal explanation. Captain Leezur's tone! Mother +Leezur's softly shrouded eyes! + +"'What'll ye have for tea, Leezur?' says she. 'They ain't nothin' I +likes so well,' says I, ''s a mess o' codfish mixed up along o' eggs +and thickenin'.' Wal, Phoeby, she went eout, and she was gone a long +time--looked kind o' 's though I was gittin' into port. + +"'Nd thar I sot and sot; 'nd every minute 't I sot there I was gittin' +surer somehow 't I was sightin' land. By 'n' by, Phoeby, she comes in, +and we sot deown together, 'nd I kep' takin' one help arfter another; +for arfter what I'd been through I was goin' to make sure whether I'd +got inter safe harbor or not. But deown she all went, slick as ile, +an' nary bone nor sign o' bone anywheres. + +"'Phoeby,' says I, 'ye've wrarstled, and ye've conquered!' 'What on +'arth d'ye mean, Leezur?' says she. For figgeral language, ye know, +requires a very moderate dispersition; and women, even the moderatest +on 'em, haves tew quick perceptions for t' be entertained long with +figgeral language." + + + + +X + +A CALL FROM NOTELY'S YACHT + +"Why did you never come? I sent for you." + +"I was afraid, Vesty, that new burden of motherhood, which you carried, +might take some physical mark or blight from a presence like mine. But +he is beautiful!" + +He lay upon her arm, and he was beautiful, full fed from her breasts, +formed large and fair, his hair already waved as by a court barber! +Her eyes rested on him. Would all the weak and miserable of the world +be well-nigh forgotten now? She raised them to me again--Basin +eyes--all the weak and miserable of the world were dearer. + +"He looks that proud way," she laughed, "when the boys play him to +sleep; they played him to sleep again before they went to their traps +this morning. They used to play me to sleep, before baby came. I used +to think of so many things. I wanted to see you." + +"Things cannot ever be thought out, after all, Vesty; but if the boys +can play one to sleep--well, that is best." + +She took my hand; the tenderness in her eyes covered their pity. I +felt no sting. "I feel safe when you will come sometimes," she said; +"you are so strong--so strong!" She touched my hand admonishingly; it +was as though she lifted me. + +"I misjudged your husband, Vesty; rather, I did not know him. He is a +good lad, this Gurdon." + +"Oh, he is!" A dream swept over her face, as dreams will; the mad +birds whistling "love" down by the sea-wall, the gay waters +flashing--Notely Garrison. + +"And so the father plays him to sleep? Many a duke would give half his +possessions for a boy like that!" + +She buried her face rapturously beside him for a moment, then turned to +me calmly: + +"What do you know of Notely?" she said. + +"Only what rumor knows, what may have been told you. His wife found no +enduring attractions in this locality, you know: they have built a +summer place at Bar Harbor; his wife and his mother and Mrs. Langham, +it is said, are all devoted to his happiness. He has a fine yacht now, +and is sometimes seen skipping by off shore. He is gifted in address +and with the pen. His name is seen often." + +Vesty listened hungrily. + +"Have you seen him? Is he happy?" + +"I saw him only as he was passing me, with some of his companions; they +had come ashore to see the old Garrison place. He looked very happy." + +"Then I am glad!" said Vesty of the Basins, clasping her hands. I +looked at her; if he was happy she was utterly glad. + +"He will be a great man," she said: "he is already famous, that _is_ to +be great." + + + "As Christ went down the Lonesome Road," + +sang Uncle Benny, who was voluntary housekeeper at Vesty's during some +hours of the day, while the father and boys were away at the fishing: + + "As Christ went down the Lonesome Road-- + Sail away to Galilee. + He left the Crown and He took the Cross! + Sail away to Galilee. + Sail away to Galilee-- + Oh, He left the Crown and He took the Cross-- + Sail away to Galilee!" + + +He came forward to take the baby, who had awakened before he began to +sing. The Basin matrons ran in very much, but there was no "Vesty" to +enter and take the continued care, in this case, until the young mother +should be strong again. + +"You can sweep up, major," said Uncle Benny, cheerfully pointing me to +the broom. + + "Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee--" + +he sang, walking so proudly with the infant that his gait was most +innocently jaunty and affected. + +Vesty laughed and shook her head at me, but I had the broom and was +hobbling about at work with it, pleased to find that Uncle Benny had +rather neglected this humble office for the more important one of +minding the baby. + +He next set me to washing the dishes and turning the churn; he would +not trust me with the child, and wisely. That he held in his own +strong arms, but he sat down beside me after my work was done and +gently commiserated me. + +"Nature has not done so much for you as she has for some, you know," he +said. + +"No, indeed," I murmured. + +At that he took off his blue necktie and held it toward me, with a tear +of pity in his eye. + +I took it and tied it simply around my neck above the collar. + +"It improves you--some," he said, but his look only too plainly +indicated that there was still much to be desired. + +We were sitting thus on the doorstep, Uncle Benny with the baby, and I +peeling the potatoes, with his blue ribbon tied around my neck, when I +heard a half-familiar little scream and laugh, and, looking up, beheld +a fashionable company. + +"We hailed Gurdon, off Reef Island, and he said we might come and see +the son and heir--hurrah!" + +Notely spoke in his gay voice, but the look he gave Vesty's +child--Vesty's sweet self in that form--leaped with a passionate pain. + +There was a small, brilliant-looking woman beside him, with +eye-glasses. "O you divine infant!" she exclaimed, regarding the +child. "Where is the Madonna?" + +Now, I was purposely gathering up the potato peelings very slowly from +the doorway, so that the "Madonna" might have time to take down a +certain blue sack from the bedpost at hand, and put it on, and give +those little finger-touches to the hair that women covet; so I stumbled +over the peelings and got mixed up with them, until even Uncle Benny +felt called upon to apologize for me. + +"He looks some better," he said dubiously, touching his neck: "but," he +continued, in a very soft and confidential tone, "Nature has not done +so much for him as she has for some, you know." + +All the party had the air of having just had a very merry luncheon on +board the yacht. + +By the side of Notely's bride was one of the handsomest young athletes, +almost as handsome as Fluke and Gurdon Rafe. + +"What-th--what-th the admithion?" he whispered to Grace, plunging his +hand in among the coin in his pockets; "ith--ith there any more of the +thame kind inthide?" + +"Hush!" said she quickly, for she knew that I had heard. She lifted a +hand impulsively toward his mouth: he caught her hand and looked as +though he would have held it; she drew it away, blushing sweetly, and +sighed, as she had sighed at Notely. + +Vesty saw that, as they entered; saw Notely enter with his easy, +unobservant swagger, lest the unexpected visit of this fashionable +company should embarrass her. He walked across the room, humming an +air, to his old violin. + +He touched a strain or two. "Do you remember, Vesty," he said airily, +drawing nearer, "this?--and this? You have such a beautiful little +boy, Vesty! I am so glad!--so glad! And this?--do you remember?" He +played as though he could play away the pallor from that tender face +upon the pillows; the pitiful, fine little blue sack added to it. I +had left the dust-pan loaded with its spoils, the ragged handle, as I +now perceived, not quite hidden behind the door: it caught on to the +skirts of the brilliant lady with the eye-glasses, and went trailing +loudly after her along the floor. As I stooped down to detach it, +sheltered behind those fine draperies, I gave Vesty such a side glance +that a smile and color came over her face in spite of herself. + +"Such power of attraction!" said Notely, turning to the lady his +laughing eyes, with that unconscious pathos which a lovely woman never +failed to discover in them; "even the dust-pans"--he swept the strings +of the violin--"even the dust-pans become attached to you." + +"On the contrary," said she, giving him a sharp glance which he +relished from her very bright though near-sighted eyes; "it is not +often that I have become attached to anything so useful." + +He laughed with mettlesome good-nature. + +The bride, with her attendant brave, had gone up to Uncle Benny and the +baby. + +"Let me take him," she said, holding up her beautiful arms. + +Uncle Benny smiled at her, half remembering her--it was an old joke, +his becoming engaged to every pretty woman he met--but shook his head. + +"It 's a particular trust," he said, in his very soft, sweet voice; +"from Jesus Christ and mother. What if somebody should drop him, or +hurt him? I have to be very careful, for it 's a trust. + + "'There 's a tree I see in Paradise--'" + +he suddenly broke into the song again in a loud and perfectly +unembarrassed tone: + + "'Sail away to Galilee. + It 's the beautiful, waiting Tree of Life-- + Sail away to Galilee. + Sail away to Galilee.'" + + * * * * * * + +"Good gwaciouth!" said the young man, fumbling the coin in his pockets +and listening in a dazed state of appreciation at the unexpected +resources of this menagerie. + +"Doctor!" cried Notely--and that address delighted Uncle Benny--"Dr. +Spearmint, let me make you acquainted with Mrs. Forrester"--some +wailing strains from the violin--"she could get a divorce from her +present consort, I suppose--ahem!--if there were encouragement enough +from some one sufficiently endowed by nature." + +"It is better to be simple than to be wicked," instantly retorted the +bright little woman, regarding Uncle Benny humorously and not without +compassion. + +But Uncle Benny was not to be disturbed again; he had his cue. + +"Oh, thank you!" he murmured; "but I couldn't think of it, anyway. +I've got so many trusts. There 's Vesty's baby, and there 's the +little children I take to school every day and go to fetch them. I'm +very careful, because they're trusts, you see;" and he marched on +gladly with the baby, singing. + +"You ought to be ashamed, all of you!" said Mrs. Forrester; and sat +down by Vesty with friendly advice and prattle about her own babies. + +Notely dreamed away on his violin: that made it easy for the rest. His +bride and the handsome young man flirted with ardor, yet quite +transparently: there was a smile wholly devoid of bitterness on +Notely's lips. + +"Grace!" cried the sharp little woman at last; "we've some superfluous +shawls on board the yacht that would make such charming rugs for Mrs. +Rafe's baby. If Mrs. Rafe could send one of her servants down to the +shore to call a man from the boat." + +"I'd thend--thend the one with the body," said the young man, still +afflicted with wonder at Uncle Benny and myself, and indicating Uncle +Benny the more hopefully. + +"I prefer the one with the mind," said Mrs. Forrester gravely, snapping +a glance at him that was not without meaning. "Why, when you have been +drinking too much wine, Cousin Jack, can you not go and sit down in a +corner and amuse yourself innocently by yourself as Mr. Garrison does?" + +At that Notely looked up and shot at her a long, gay challenge without +words: his eyes in themselves seemed to fascinate her, as they did most +people; she brightened with a caressing, artistic sense of pleasure in +them. + +"Well, I like that!" said her cousin, having by this time framed a +rejoinder to her question. "Grace and I haven't thpooned anything like +you and Note did, thailing down, only you're so deuced thly about it!" + +"You are disgusting," said she, too lofty and serene to be annoyed. + +I had my hat and was slipping out on my errand to the boat. Vesty, +with evident distress, was about to explain: I put my finger to my lips +with another side glance of such meaning that she kept still and even +smiled again. + +I called a man and brought him to the house for Mrs. Forrester's +directions. He soon returned with the rugs, which Vesty accepted for +her baby as well as she could; Uncle Benny all the time singing +gleefully. + +The party moved to go; in passing through the door Mrs. Forrester +dropped her handkerchief. I picked it up and handed it to her. + +"Thank you, my poor fellow," she said; "you have the manners of a +prince!" and put a coin in my hand--a piece of silver. I took the +money. + +Vesty was still, after they were gone, her hands over her face. I knew +well what thoughts she was thinking. + +"Do not go," she said to me, and her voice was like the low cry of her +own child; "you are smiling still." She looked at me with strained +eyes. + +"Well, perhaps because I am glad Mrs. Garrison would not adopt you and +take you away from the Basin; perhaps because I am glad no handsome +rake will ever ogle you as our lisping young man did Mrs. Notely +Garrison." + +"It meant nothing between them all," said Vesty, her hand over her +eyes; "you know that better than I. It is only the way they do." + +"It meant nothing! It is only the way they do." + +I put away the violin Notely's fingers had so lately touched. The +tears stole down Vesty's cheeks and trembled on her lips. + +"He does not care," she said; "that is the worst! He does not care as +he did once." + +"For what, Vesty?" + +"For anything but having a good time and making fun with people, and +all that. He used to talk with me--oh, so high and noble, about +things!" Her eyes flashed, then darkened again with pain. + +"Ay, I know he has seen the model and been pierced with it. He can +never forget; he will come back." + +"The model?" + +"You know once there was a Master who was determined all his people +should paint him a picture after a great model he had set before them. +It seemed not to be an attractive model; it seemed full of pain and +loss; the world looked to be full of other designs more desirable. + +"So that there were hardly any but that wandered from it, to paint +pictures of their own; there was hardly, if ever, a great or a true and +patient artist--for they are the same thing. + +"Some found the colors at hand so brilliant, and were so possessed with +the beauty of dreams of their own, that they spent long years in +painting for themselves splendid houses in bewitching landscapes, red +passion roses, and heaps of glittering gold, that looked like +treasures, but were nothing. + +"Some painted dark, sad glimpses of earth and sea and sky that were +called beautiful, the skill in them was so perfect. Looking at them, +one saw only the drear night drawing on. + +"But there were some who had no great dreams of their own to work out, +or if they had they turned from them with obedience above all: and +many, many, broken-hearted from their failure in their own designs, who +turned now to follow the Master's model. And it was strange, but as +they regarded it intently and faithfully there grew to be in it for +them a beauty ever more and more surpassing all earthly dreams. + +"They were dim of sight and trembling of hand; often they mixed the +colors wrong, they spilled them, they made great blotches and mistakes; +but they washed them out with tears and went to work again, yearning +pitifully after the model; in hope or despair, living or dying, their +fingers still moved at the task as they kept looking there. + +"And always the Master knew. This was the strangest of all, that some +of the dimmest, wavering outlines, some of the saddest blotted details, +were the beautifullest in his eyes, because he read just the depth of +the endeavor underneath; until, in this light, as he lifted it up, some +poor, weary, tearful, bungled work shone fairer than the sun!" + +Keeping faithful watch of the clock, Uncle Benny at the appointed hour +had given up the baby to Vesty, to go and bring the children home from +school. We heard him in the distance still singing joyfully his "Sail +away to Galilee!" + +"There is a faithful artist," I said, and smiled; "would God I had come +up to him, with his unceasing watch over the little ones! And Blind +Rodgers too, who never complains, and who will not trouble anybody, but +keeps his life so spotless." + +Vesty lay very still. "Do you think Notely was painting a picture of +his own?" she said. "Do you think I was proud because he could paint +such pictures of his own, and wanted him to? You said he had been +pierced with it"--she was talking to herself now--"he will come back." + +"He will come back." + +"Who are you?" she said, her Basin eyes turned clear and full upon me. +"You let them call you my servant!" + +"Not because I was afflicted with humility, but because I was proud and +happy to be that. And because it was a good joke: you do not mind my +enjoying a good joke, I hope? Then you do not know how happy it made +me; I have had so much done for me, and have been so little useful." + +Vesty was not satisfied. Her clear, impersonal gaze held me with a +look fearless of its compassion, single and direct. + +"I wish you would not leave the Basin," she said. "I am never--I am +never happy when you are away." + +"God bless you, my little girl!" I said, and hobbled away to finish the +housework, but my heart seemed to take on a pair of pure white wings, +like dove's wings. I forgot withal that I was lame. + + + + +XI + +ANOTHER NAIL + +"Chipadees sing pretty," said Captain Pharo, drawing a match along the +leg of his trousers and lighting his pipe, as we stood amid the song of +birds in the lane--"but robins is noisy creeturs, always at the same +old tune--poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'"] + +he paused there, having his pipe well going. + +"Yes," said I, gulping down some unworthy emotions of my own; "yes, +indeed." + +"Come down to see ef ye wouldn't like t' go up t' the Point with us, t' +git a nail put in the hoss's shu-u?" + +"Oh, yes, thank you! by all means," I replied. + +"My woman heered--poo! poo!-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r,'] + +--she heered 't there was goin' to be a show up thar' to-night--some +play-actor folks. 'Ten Nights in a Ba-ar Room'"--the captain took the +pipe out of his mouth and yawned with affected unconcern. "I've heered +o' worse names for a show; but ye know what women-folks is when there +'s any play-actin' around. They're jest like sheep next to a turnip +patch." + +"Are they?" + +"Oh, by clam! ye don't know nothin' 'bout female grass yit, +major--nothin'. Bars can't shet 'em out." I followed his sad gaze to +the west, and we sighed in unison. + +"By the way, how 's your show stock gittin' along, major?" + +"My show stock?" + +"Why, sartin; we thinks all the more on ye, ef that c'd be, for havin' +some business. Ye see, the way my woman found it out, she runs over to +Lunette's every mail day and helps her sort the mail, 'nd she said all +the letters 't come directed to 'Mr. Paul Henry' had a mess o' wax run +onto the fold of every envelope with a pictur' stamped inter it o' a +couple o' the cur'osest-lookin' creeturs; said 'twas jest the head an' +necks of 'em an' they looked to be retchin' up ter eat out o' the same +soup plate; said 't must be your stock to the circus; for business +folks often has their business picturs put on outside their envelopes, +ye know, and jedgin' by the cur'osity of 'em, she thought they must be +doin' pretty well by ye." + +"Oh, they are, captain," I sighed; "yes, they're doing pretty well by +me." + +"Wal now, ef you've got a comf'tably good thing, major, be content with +it; 'tain't easy to git onto a new job nowadays. Ain't there some +pertick'lar spear o' grass ye'd like t' have set on the back seat with +ye?" he continued cheerfully. "She rides easier for havin' +consid'rable ballast, ye know." + +"I don't know of any. Mrs. Lester is away at her daughter-in-law's." + +"Hain't ye never thought--poo! poo! hohum!--wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she--'] + +hain't ye never thought o' Miss Pray?" + +"In what way, captain?" + +"Wal, as a--poo! poo!-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'She--'] + +as a pertick'lar spear, ye know?" + +"No." + +"In course human nature turns natchally to pink and white clover, like +Vesty; but I tell ye, major, when it comes to a honest jedgment o' +grass thar' 's lots o' comfort arter all to be took out o' old red +timothy. Old red timothy goes to shutin' right up straight an' minds +her own business. She ain't a-tryin' so many o' these d--d ructions on +ye. My foot 's some better," said he, lifting the maimed member; "but +she ain't yit what she use ter be. It 'u'd make a home for ye, 'ithout +payin' no board, an' ef ye got red o' payin' yer board ye wouldn't mind +ef she didn't treat ye quite so well--for that's the way 'ith all +female grass, clover 'n' all, when they once gits spliced onto ye. But +'ith what ye gits from yer show ye c'd buy a hoss, an' when the wind 's +in the nor'-east ye c'd tack away from home on some arrant--see? But +don't arsk her, 'less ye means ter stand by it, major, for the +women-folks has got to settin' onaccountable store by ye, ye kind o' +humors of 'em so." + +I limped down the lane to invite Miss Pray on our excursion, with light +feet. Was it the air again, or was it the new consciousness that I was +developing into a beloved and coveted beau? + +I stepped into the cottage through the low window, as I often did. At +the same moment the cover of the wood-box flew up, and I beheld the +rosy, good-natured visage of Miss Pray's orphan girl looking out: she +put her finger on her lip. + +"Sh!" + +"What is it?" I said. + +She pointed upward. I saw on the long spike which held the horseshoe +over the door a pail of water so delicately hung that whoever first +entered there must receive its contents in one fell unmitigated deluge +upon the crown. + +"Sh! It 's Wesley's" (her fellow-orphan) "it 's Wesley's birthday. I +ain't got no present to give him, so I'm going to _souze_ him with cold +water: he 's bringin' in some wood--there 's steps! Sh!" + +She ducked into the wood-box, which had subterranean channels of +escape, with anticipated delight, and put down the cover, leaving me +alone in the room with the approaching victim and in the unenviable +position of appearing to be the sole perpetrator of this malign deed. + +I had the merest time to master this idea, when the door swung in upon +its hinges, and not Wesley, but Miss Pray herself, stood before me, a +mad and a blighted object. + +I gazed at her, horror-struck, and was endeavoring to speak, when +Wesley, staggering in behind her with his arms full of wood, came to my +relief. "O Miss Pray, 'twan't major, honest 'twan't, nor 'twan't me, +Miss Pray: 'twas that Belle O'Neill, an' she 's mos' got to the graves +by this time. I seed her runnin', through the windy. O Lord! O Miss +Pray! how wet you looks when you're as wet as you be now, Miss Pray!" + +"Indeed it was not meant for you," I cried. "Belle meant it for a +birthday jest on Wesley." + +"Oh, I wish it had b'en, Miss Pray," gasped poor Wesley, with ill-timed +sympathy; "I'm so much more used to bein' wet 'n you be." + +It was doubtful toward which Miss Pray was waxing most warm--the +recusant Belle O'Neill, or the stupid, open-mouthed Wesley--when I +stepped in at this juncture and entreated her with the Kobbes' +invitation. + +"I'll go," said she, with evident satisfaction gleaming even through +her dripping state, "'s soon 's I've changed my do's and whipped Belle +O'Neill." + +During the former process I volunteered, as one whom she would trust, +to watch for Belle, and lure her, if possible, to the house. I +repeatedly saw that damsel's head peering out from behind the +gravestones of Miss Pray's ancestors, down by the sea-wall, and making +signals to me to know if advance were safe. + +And every time, prostituting sublime justice to a weak sense of +compassion, I waved her back to her fastness until after we should be +gone. + +"Shall I tell her 't you'll whip her after you git back, Miss Pray?" +said Wesley, with deep relish. + +"No," said Miss Pray, who had now appeared, resplendent in holiday +attire. "Do you want her to run away, and leave me without help? +All'as keep your mouth shet--that 's the safest commands for you; +all'as keep your mouth shet." + +Wesley closed that wide organ, with a look of wondering surprise. + +Miss Pray was lean and resplendent, not gray and comfortable like my +friend Mrs. Lester. There was no blueberry "turnover" to devour. As +we passed over the jolting road I clung desperately to the carriage +bars. + +But it appeared that the captain had an abnormal design, before +entering the Point, of descending into a shallow branch of Crooked +River, there to wash the mud of past happy epochs from the carriage. + +"Wal, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his young wife, stultified with amaze at +this proceeding, "I should like to know what's took you!" + +"Adm'r'l bet, spell ago, 't he could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud +off'n my two-seated kerridge next time I driv her to the Point. Jest +keep yer eyes up the road," said Captain Pharo, standing, diligently +and furtively swashing, with his unconscious boots submerged in water, +"t' see that thar' ain't nobody lookin'." + +"What 's he goin' to give ye, if ye win the bet, cap'n?" said his +lively wife. + +The captain cast me a dark and fleeting wink over his shoulder. "Poo! +poo!" he sang: "hohum! + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass. Or as--'] + +anybody in sight, major?" + +"No; the road is all clear." + +"What 's he goin' to give ye, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, if ye win the bet?" + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r, The +blight--'"] + + +"Ye needn't keep on singin', Captain Pharo Kobbe; for the sake o' the +company, I shan't ask ye nothin' more." + +Saddened by this blight, his evil and surreptitious deed being +accomplished, Captain Pharo backed out of the stream. + +But the triumphant smile returned to his countenance as he advanced on +the Point and found Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up sitting within the porch of +the grocery with other of his townsmen. + +"Adm'r'l," said Captain Pharo, "I want ye to step down here and scrape +twenty-five pound o' mud off'n my two-seated kerridge." + +The admiral regarded us fixedly for some moments, fireless pipe in +expressionless mouth, and then rose and descended to us. The women had +already contemptuously left our company and gone about their shopping. + +"Come along, Kobbe!" said the admiral, "and bring"--he glanced with +calm, meaningless vision at me--"bring all the rest on ye." + +He led us under the loud sign of a tin shop, where, after sedate +speculation in the matter of purchasing a tea-kettle with a consuming +leak in the bottom, he cleared his throat. "'S I sums it up," said he +to the proprietor, without further utterance; that individual looked +doubtfully at me. + +"Oh, he 's all right," said Captain Pharo; "he 's a cousin o' mine in +the show business." + +This introduction proving more than satisfactory, we were ushered into +a small room apart and the door locked behind us: but missing Uncle +Coffin's inspiration in this case, and remembering the quality of the +liquid, I made a smart show of drinking, without in the least +diminishing the contents of the bottle. + +Not so, however, good Captain Pharo: from this time on his conduct +waxed sunny and genial, as well as irresponsible of the grave duties +which had hitherto afflicted him. + +"Thar' 's a lot o' winter cabbage, 't was sp'ilin' down in my suller, +'t I put in onto the kerridge floor, major," said he; "ef ye're mind +ter sell 'em out for what ye can git, to harves, ye're welcome. Sell +'em out to hulls, by clam!" he called after me. "I ain't so mean 't I +carn't help a young man along a little." + +I returned to the carriage and arranged my fading cabbages as +attractively as possible, offset by the glories of the star bed-quilt; +and whether it was because the news had already spread that I was in +the show business, or by reason of some of those occult charms at which +Captain Pharo had hinted, I was soon surrounded by a lively group of +women. + +"Here 's one 't ain't worth but two cents," said one fair creature, +holding up a specimen of my stock, whose appearance beside her own +fresh beauty caused me to writhe for shame. "I shan't give a mite more +for her." + +"O madam, is she worth that?" I denied impulsively. + +The woman, speechless, dropped the cabbage to the earth. + +"Here 's a nickel, anyway, for your bein' so honest," she exclaimed, +soon afterward. + +I took it with a bow. And here sordid considerations ceased, as they +had begun: my pious emotions toward the sex conquered, and I became not +the base purveyor but the elegant distributor of cabbages, right and +left, only with murmured apologies for gifts so unworthy. + +I was now evidently classified as belonging high in the spectacular +drama; when the horse, having finished the meal of cracked corn he had +been enjoying by the roadside, with the reins thrown slack over his +neck, suddenly lifted his head with an air of arriving at some instant +conclusion and started merrily down the road. + +Too lame to jump from a moving vehicle, my first emotions of dismay +gradually disappeared, however, as I found that our passage was not +disturbed even by the most untoward outward events. For a base-ball +from the bat of some players in an adjoining field hit the noble animal +full in the flank without occasioning any alarm to his gait or +divergence from his resolved purpose. + +He turned down the Artichoke road and went straight to Uncle Coffin's. +"I've come to take you and Aunt Salomy to the show," I said, lifted out +and knocked hither and thither by my friend in his tender ecstasy. + +"Cruisin' out on the high seas without no rudder, you--you young spark, +you!" he cried delightedly. "You're 'most too full o' the devil t' +exist!" he exclaimed at last, holding me out at arm's-length admiringly. + +Proud now of my wickedness as I had formerly been of my charms, I +steered my friends to the Point by the conventional means of the +rudder. Captain Pharo, who had been so congenially occupied that he +had not even missed me, heaped encomiums upon me, and receiving Uncle +Coffin almost with tears of joy in his eyes, led him away to the tin +shop. + +I secured more cracked corn for the horse and shed-room, where I tied +him with retrospective security. There being no restaurant, I obtained +some biscuits and cheese, and with these and six tickets for the very +front row, Aunt Salomy and Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray and I stole early +into the hall and sat us down to rest. + +There were already figures as for a rehearsal behind the curtain; +indeed, that thin structure revealed angry silhouettes, and loud voices +reached us. + +"Sh!" came from that source: "or them fools down there, eatin' crackers +an' cheese, 'll hear ye." + +"I don't care if the whole town hears me," replied a passionate female +voice. "You said I could have twenty dollars, and now you won't give +it to me. I won't play to-night till I do have it--hear that!" + +"Sh! or I'll shake ye! Don't make a fool o' yourself, Maud. Wait till +I get to-night's receipts----" + +"I won't! I'd like to see you shake me; ha! ha!" + +Here the angry figures became plastic and tilted at each other +menacingly; the woman seized something and threw it; there was a crash. + +Aunt Salomy choked placidly over her cracker crumbs. Mrs. Kobbe gazed +with faithful interest. + +Soon the very tall and hard-looking young man who had sold me the +tickets came down from behind the curtain, with a hang-dog air, and his +handkerchief bound about his head, and returned to the office at the +door. + +Almost at the same moment Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin walked +fearlessly up the aisle, their familiar hats on their heads, their +pipes in harmonious glowing action, and sat down beside us with beams +of recognition. + +The hard young man, who appeared to be pecuniary manager as well as +leading star of the show, came to us. "No smoking here!" he said, +severely. + +"No smokin'!" replied Captain Pharo. "Ye'd orter put it on yer +plackards then! D'ye s'pose I'd come to yer show ef I'd known that? +Come along, Coffin! I'm goin' ter hang out outside, by clam! + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'"] + +"No singing, either, sir, on the part of the audience. This company is +from Boston, sir." + +"Is she?" said Captain Pharo, with blighting sarcasm, new-lighting his +pipe preparatory to leaving the hall; "I thought she was from Jaffy!" + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, wirily folding his powerful +arms; "keep yer seat, Pharo, and keep yer pipe. Ef any man from +Boston, or any other man, wants ter take the pipe outer my mouth, or +outer Pharo Kobbe's mouth, let 'im come on an' try it!" + +At this opportunity, I silently pressed a coin of such meaning into the +manager's hand that he skipped gracefully past us to the stage, where +he proceeded to explain--while the ribs of court-plaster with which he +had endeavored to conceal his wounds kept constantly falling upon the +floor--that, owing to the unavoidable illness of some of the actors, he +should be obliged to give us a choice variety entertainment instead of +the play advertised. + +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin, not yet comprehending this idea, and +smoking triumphantly with their hats on, listened to several ranting +recitations from the wife who had so inopportunely defaced her +husband's visage; but when, after a brief recess, she again appeared +with a stage bow, Captain Pharo looked blankly at Uncle Coffin. + +"Where 's the ba-ar, Coffin?" + +"I kind o' suspicion they've giv' it up, Pharo; goin' to have +recitationers 'nstead." + +"Curfew _shall_ not ring to-night!" yelled the woman on the stage, with +a leap of several feet perpendicularly. + +"By clam!" cried poor Captain Pharo, rising; "I don' know what she is, +but she is goin' to ring, and she 's goin' to ring loud too, by clam! +I come here to see 'Ten Nights in a Ba-ar Room,' I didn't come here t' +see contortioners and recitationers. Give us any more o' yer----" + +Here, an onion, thrown from the rear of the room by some sympathetic +partner in Captain Pharo's woes, came whizzing over our heads and just +missed the woman, by good aim; she retreated without the formality of +her usual sweeping bow. The manager began hastily to get together his +stage setting for the play. A table and a bottle were first produced; +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin began to nudge each other with choice +anticipation of the advancing drama, when another onion, thrown with +unerring vision, took the bottle and shattered it, with its contents, +upon the stage floor, directly under our faces. + +Captain Pharo leaned forward and sniffed; so did Uncle Coffin. + +"Water! Coffin, by clam!" said Captain Pharo, rising. "Plackards said +'twas goin' to be a re'listic play--and here, by clam! I've rode +twelve miles over a hubbly road an' waited 'round here all day, jest t' +hear a spear o' female grass screech, an' see a pint bottle o' water +busted! Come along! I'm goin' home." + +How futile indeed are the poor effects of the stage compared with the +ever new and varied drama of life itself! + +As Miss Pray and I came in sight of her cottage, at this now uncanny +hour of the night, we saw that the house was all alight, and Belle +O'Neill stood in the doorway, loudly and gleefully ringing the +dinner-bell. + +"O Miss Pray, there was a dead pig washed ashore to-day, right down on +your clam-bottoms--such a beautiful one!--jest as fat!--and me and +Wesley brought it up and roasted it, and we've been expectin' you, an' +expectin' you, an' tryin' to keep it hot----" + +"A dead pig!" hissed Miss Pray. "Do you want to murder us? Do you +want to drown me in the morning and p'ison me at night, Belle O'Neill? +For heaven's sake, have you et any of it?" + +The appearance of the dish testified only too plainly that she and +Wesley had dined. + +"You're p'isoned!" shrieked Miss Pray: "be you prepared, Belle O'Neill? +Fat pig! He was prob'bly bloated with p'ison! Oh, dear! oh, mercy! +you're prob'bly dyin' this very minit." + +Belle O'Neill began to howl, Wesley to weep dismally with low moans, +his fists in his eyes. + +I had a medicine which I administered to the two, in case the exigency +were as fearful as Miss Pray predicted, which I strongly doubted. From +this, as Belle O'Neill recovered, she turned to Miss Pray with the +confessional fearlessness of one who has been at the grave's brink. + +"And, oh, Miss Pray! the brindle cow 's calved and hid it in the woods!" + +"So you've been down by the sea-wall, hunting up things to p'ison the +only friend you ever had on earth with, and left the brindle cow and +her calf to die in the woods?" + +But Belle O'Neill had reached that plane of despondency where the +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune could no longer sting her. + +"I meant it for the best, Miss Pray," she said, as we all started, with +the lantern, for the woods. + +Never had I engaged in a scene of such eerie fascinations; especially +as, when we discovered the cow with her calf, and endeavored to set the +latter on its feet and lead it, the cow shook her horns at us with such +an aggressive lunge, I fled without apology behind a tree, where Miss +Pray and Wesley, dropping the lantern, pursued me with entreaties for +protection! + +But Belle O'Neill, seemingly conscious that she had to redeem herself +by some heroic act or die, picked up the lantern and continued leading +the calf, at which the cow singled her out with respect and obediently +followed her: so that we who had witnessed her disgrace now followed +meekly, afar off, her triumphal procession homeward. + +"That girl has done nobly," I said. + +"Belle O'Neill," said Miss Pray, before we finally sought that repose +which is the guerdon of all nobly sustained adventure, "the drownin' +and the p'isonin' is both forgot, and next time the jew'lry pedler +comes along you shall have a breas'pin--that is, if you're livin', +Belle O'Neill." + +"Oh, Belle will live," I cried; "the danger is over." + +"Whether I lives or whether I dies," said Belle O'Neill, calm now on +heights above us all, "I meant that roast pig for the best, Miss Pray." + +But before I could get to sleep that night I gave myself up to folly; I +rolled in inextinguishable fits of laughter. My gray heraldry, my +ancient coat of arms, innocently maligned as they had been, stared down +reproachfully at me through the night. I feebly wiped my weeping eyes +and rolled and laughed the more, and slept at last such a sleep as only +the foolish and blessed of mortality know. + + + + +XII + +THE MASTER REVELLER + +"Notely! You will be leading Fluke to go wrong, Notely. He takes no +interest at home or in the fishing since you and those pleasure-men you +have with you have been keeping open house at the Neck. When he comes +home he has been wild and drinking, and is moody. It is a week since +you have been away from your home and wife with your yacht anchored +here off shore, hunting and cruising, and such times at the old +Garrison place at night--it is the talk!" + +Notely laughed and rose. Vesty had been standing looking down at him +earnestly, where he sat in her doorway: she held her baby asleep on one +strong arm, its face against her neck. + +Notely turned his own face away a little, jingling the free coin in his +pockets. "Why, I have been making money on my own account, Mrs. Gurdon +Rafe," he cried gayly, "since I opened the quarry. And no man, nor no +woman either, now says to me, Do this or do that, go here or go there. +From all accounts, moreover, my wife and mother are enjoying themselves +extremely well as ever during my absence. As for Fluke Rafe, he is a +good fellow, but he was always wild as a hawk." + +"O Notely! if you would only help such men, as you might, instead of +being as wild as a hawk with them!" + +"It takes a hawk to catch a hawk, my dear: all the ministers will tell +you that." + +"Is that what you are doing it for?" + +"Well, no; since you are a Basin, and only truth avails, there has been +hitherto no deep moral design in my merry orgies at the Neck. But +to-night, Vesty, is my grand affair; to be hallowed by the presence of +all the Basins: my feast and ball to them, you know--my oldest and best +friends. And you--why, Vesty," he went on, in another tone, "you +remember we had always a dance a week at the Basin, and you and I led +them off together. Come, then, for the sake of old times and the +feeling of the rest, though you may enjoy it yourself no more." + +He spoke with reckless meaning, and his eyes, that had such fatal power +of expression in them, looked deep into hers. She paled; the baby +threw up a sleeping hand against her face. + +"There is another thing, Notely," she said. "Gurdon does not like it +that you come here for an hour or more every day to sit and talk alone +with me while they are at the fishing. He is not much to suspect, and +he was always fond of you and trusted you; but it is not doing right by +Gurdon." + +Her eyes looked infinitely sorrowful into his; blushes, like pain, dyed +her cheeks. + +"O Vesty, my pure one!--then tell me that you love me still--love me as +you used to do--and I'll go away content, and not come any more. Touch +my head as you used to do; kiss me once more, with those words, and----" + +The baby's white, sleeping palm pressed hard against the mother's +burning cheek. + +"Such words must not be any more, Notely. Go away and be the good, +powerful man God meant you to be, and I shall love you more than I ever +did in my life." + +"Saint Vesta! I have lost you!" said Notely: his voice shook with +passion; the thin, strong hand that he put up, as if shading his eyes, +hid wild and angry tears. + +"I have been faithfully engaged in the career to which you so tenderly +and considerately dedicated me," he went on. "What will you have? I +worked last winter like a dog; nothing is easy won, I think: but there +is no young man in this State who has been so flattered with public +notice as I. I am making my own money--no young man more shrewdly, +they say. What will you have? I have growing fame, prosperity, an +accomplished society woman for my wife. Was not that what you wished +for me?" His words stung. + +Vesty had her dim look; she had turned cold; her speech groped +pitifully. "But I think I saw--I think I understood a little, after +all--because I loved you--what are you doing it _for_, Notely?" + +"Ah, there, indeed!--what for? I have lost my object, you know, Saint +Vesta. For fame and frolic and the devil, I suppose--since we are +talking face to face with an immortal Basin--and to fill up the time +generally." + +"I am glad that I did what I did," cried the poor girl, her tongue +touched with sudden fire, as if from outside herself; "you loved me a +little, but you did not love me much!" + +"Ah!" he caught his breath, his deep eyes thrilled her. + +"If you had loved me much--such a man as to be true to me through hard +work and time and sorrow and all--then you could not have borne to be +any less a man, Notely Garrison, though you lost me, or whatever you +lost. But if anything could turn you from _that_, then time and trial +and all would have turned you, sooner or later, to be unkind and untrue +to me. I know it. Before God, I know it! You loved me a little, but +you did not love me much!" + +"I am glad, for your sake and for my own," she said; "I am glad that I +did not marry you." + +Then, as the fire flamed out, tears of despair rushed to her eyes, +because he looked as though she had hurt him so--his face more like a +beautiful cameo than ever, pure and sharp; he who was so debonair and +generous with them all, genial toward them always, and familiar with +the simplest and poorest. She longed impulsively to take him to her +heart, to give him with yearning tenderness the one caress he had +pleaded for: but, still seeing dimly where he was blind, she would not. + +Notely watched that struggle, saw the impulse fade upon her face into a +white resolve; watched her keenly meanwhile with tumultuous hope. + +"Vesty, once when we were little more than children, we were playing on +Ladle Rock and I fell. You did not leave me, frightened; insensible as +I was, you bathed my face and stayed by me. When I came to myself my +head was in your lap. You had on a brown cotton frock, made in an +old-womanish grave fashion, and you were looking down at me. From that +moment all my life changed--who can explain it? I was a child in my +feeling toward you no longer, with childish thoughts. I loved +you--loved you as I love you now--but you have robbed me of my life." + +"No," she said. That sad fire from outside herself came back to her. +"You have only been denied one pleasure the more that you wanted, and +that would not have been so dear to you long if you had not lost it. +Life is above that, you used to tell me, but you have forgotten." + +"Rather, I have grown wiser," he said, but for the instant he set his +clear, fine face away from her. "It is a distorted notion that our +existence here is for cold denial, from however pure an imagination. +It is better to run with life, to follow joyfully the great trend of +nature." + +He looked at her: her staid, unreproachful eyes, her calm and holy +face, smote him. + +"My pleasure-friends, as you call them, say that the Basins are simple. +That is a superficial observation;" he laughed with despair, and +proceeded to fill his pipe. "The Basins are like a rock." + +"Notely," said she very slowly then, "your face is dear to me as this +little one upon my breast; it eats into my heart." + +All life's sorrow looked through her, and a faith, a purpose, stronger +than life. Notely cast his misery from him with a sigh; the game was +over. + +"Saint Vesta," said he simply, "I have lost you; that is the sad fact, +and I accept it. Still, since you care for me some, I shall be a +little merry. Come to my ball--Gurdon promised me you would both come." + + + + +XIII + +CAPTAIN LEEZUR RELATES HOW MIS' GARRISON ATE CROW + +"It 's said," said Captain Leezur, who sat on the log fondly applying +his deer-bone toothpick, which had been restored to him for a season, +"'t ye keep yer mouth shet, and ye won't eat no crow." + +His smile embraced the heavens, as the source of such philosophy, with +transcendent admiration. + +"That 's figgeral language, ye know. Have a narvine lozenge. I all'as +enj'ys 'em with a friend more'n what I dew meltin' on 'em deown alone." + +We sucked deliciously. + +"Afore I got my dispersition moderated deown inter the shape she is +neow, I was dreadful kind o' sly and ongodly abeout cuttin' up tricks," +he continued, his countenance now conveying only the tranquillity of +one restored and forgiven. + +"Mis' Garrison, Notely's mother, she was all'as puttin' on airs tew the +Basins, 's if they was beneath her; and when they'd first begun to live +over there to the Neck, she sent a man deown t' me, 't said Mis' +Garrison had 'ordered' a pair o' partridge on me. + +"'What?' says I to the man. + +"'Mis' Garrison said t' order a couple o' partridge on ye,' says he, +'an' she wants 'em at tew o'clock.' + +"'All right,' says I; 'yew go home an' tell her 't she shall have that +'ere order filled eout complete,' says I. + +"So I went eout and gunned one partridge and one old crow, 't had been +ha'ntin' my corn patch ever senct I could remember, so 't he was jest +as familiar tew me as the repair on the slack o' my britches, and I +dressed 'em both, dreadful tasty an' slick--they was jest 'beout the +same size dressed--an' rigged 'em eout esthetiky with some strips o' +pink caliker; and 'long at the 'p'inted time the man he come deown +arter 'em. + +"'Yew tell Mis' Garrison,' says I, ''t birds is so thick 'reound my +premmuses this year I couldn't think o' chargin' nothin' for 'em, +'specially to an old Basin like her!' + +"For in them days, 'fore I got moderated, I didn't mind p'intin' hints +at nobody, or weoundin' their feelin's, 'specially ef it jibed along in +with playin' some ongodly trick on 'em." + +The joy of a ransomed soul played across Captain Leezur's features. + +"Wal, Notely was areound a day or tew arter-wards--Notely an' me was +great mates--'nd says I, 'Heow'd yer mother like them birds I sent up +tew 'er?' says I. 'Why, one on 'em was r'al good, Uncle Leezur,' says +he, 'and one on 'em'"--Captain Leezur glanced cautiously toward the +house-door before he continued--"'one on 'em was tough as the devil's +kite-string; tough as a d--d old crow!' says he. + +"Wal, I made it up to Note in more ways 'n one, for him and me was +great mates; but I never let on 'beout that pertickaler mess o' birds. +Keep yer mouth shet, ye know, and ye won't eat no crow--that is, 'less +somebody 's been playin' some ongodly trick on ye." + +Captain Leezur never laughed aloud: his smile simply widened and +broadened until it became a scintillating sun, without the disgrace of +cachinnation. + +"Neow there 's all'as a meanin' in figgeral language," he continued, +"an' when Mis' Garrison got set ag'inst Note and Vesty's marryin', jest +'cause Vesty was poor an' a Basin, an' set ter work ter break it off by +fair means or by feoul, she got her meouth open for a good-sized +ondigestible mess o' crow. + +"In figgeral language; for I don't reck'lect jest the exac' date when +she did r'a'ly eat crow; 'twas a good many years ago, 'n' I wouldn't +have her hear of it neow for nothin'. I'm natch'ally ashamed o' them +ongodly tricks neow--'nd besides, it 'u'd lay harder on her stommick 'n +a high-school grammar." + +"I won't tell her," I said. "I'm hardly acquainted with her, anyway." + +"I'd give all I've got, every mite, ef it c'd help save Note," said +Captain Leezur, a tear trickling down his sun-face. "All things is +good ef we use 'em in moderation; but we've got ter use moderation, in +eatin' an' drinkin', an' lobster sallid--yes, an' even in passnips. +Nothin' 'll dew but the same old rewl, even in passnips. + +"I heered voices deown to the shore last night," he continued, with a +sort of yearning confidence toward me, so that I bent my ear nearer, +with some of his own sorrow. "I reckoned one on 'em was Notely's +voice, talkin' and larfin' as hilar'ous as ef 'twas sun-up. So I went +deown there, and there was Note and one o' them fellers with him, each +on 'em with a stiff tod o' whiskey aboard, a-pullin' there for dear +life, an' the dory anchored fast as fast could be to the staple! + +"They was lookin' for lan'marks and pullin' and sheoutin' and +larfin'--'twas kinder moonlight, ye know--and one on 'em says, 'Seems +ter me 't takes a cussed long time t' git to the Neck to-night,' says +he. I sot there an' watched 'em; knew 'twouldn't do 'em no harm t' +pull, knew 'twas doin' 'em good an' steadyin' of 'em. By an' by, I ups +an' says, 'Ship ahoy!' + +"'Hello!' says Note. + +"'Why don't ye weigh anchor?' says I. + +"Wal, when that idee come deown atop of 'em, ye never see a couple +sobered so quick as they was. They giv' three cheers, an' nothin' 'd +dew but I must git into the dory an' go up to the Neck with 'em. + +"Wal, I had my objec'; an' when they took me in t' treat me, the rest +o' Note's company was settin' 'reound there, an' I ups an' says, 'Jest +one glass, an' ef _yew_ takes _any_ more I won't tetch even that,' says +I. 'Yew've had enough--tew much,' says I. 'Moderation in all things,' +says I, 'even as low deown as passnips.' + +"They all giv' me another three cheers; but they didn't drink no more. +An' nothin' 'd dew but I must set deown, an' then nothin' 'd dew but I +must give 'em my views on moderation!" + +Captain Leezur did swallow a little hard with the effort not to appear +too highly flattered! + +"So I sot there an' giv' 'em my views on moderation. I must say for +'em, they appeared dreadful interested; they sot kind o' leanin' +forrards, with their meouths not more 'n harf--'n' sartin not more 'n a +quarter ways--shet; an' when I'd got through, they giv' me another +reousin' three cheers ag'in. + +"They told me all abeout Lot's wife, tew," said Captain Leezur, with +grateful seriousness; "they've been great travellers, ye know; all +abeout the appearance o' that location where she sot, an' heow it +looked arfter she'd got up an' went, an' the aspec's o' Jaffy, an' all +them interestin' partickalers, more'n what I ever heered from anybody +afore." + +I looked at Captain Leezur to see if no suspicion of earthly treachery +was on his sun-blessed visage. None. + +I lifted my hat with a nameless reverence too deep for words, and left +him, still smiling upward. + + + + +XIV + +"TAR-A-TA!" OF THE TRUMPET + +Fluke played, with the dense black hair tossing above his handsome +eyes, but Gurdon with a calm brow, though he too loved the music and +dancing. + +"Go and have a turn with Vesty yourself," said Fluke; "we'll keep up +fiddling, change about, with the organ." + +For Notely, studying every heart-throb of the Basins, had had a little +parlor organ brought in for the night and put up in place of his piano; +at it sat Mrs. Judah Kobbe, cousin and guest of the Pharo Kobbes, +playing with such lively spirit and abandon that the very lamps danced +upon the organ-brackets in untripping time with the feet of the dancers +on the floor. + +I had already detected in the tone of society toward Mr. and Mrs. Judah +Kobbe that they were awesome cosmopolites from some source. I now +learned that they were from a crowded mart called Machias. Captain +Pharo also told me mysteriously, in the pauses of his pipe, "'t they +was l'arneder 'n any fish 't swims;" so I gazed at them with wonder +from a distance, but did not much dream that it would be for me to +speak with them. + +All along the edges of the floor were strewn children and babies, +comfortably wrapped and laid to sleep; the habit of the Basins, who had +no servants at home wherewith to leave them. + +Notely Garrison had led the dance with Vesty; now she sat rocking her +baby, near Gurdon, who turned to them with a smile and swept a softer +strain now and then, as when he played them to sleep at home. + +"Introduce me to the 'mezzo-tint' study yonder, the mediaeval picture +over there, rocking her infant, back of the fiddlers." + +Notely slightly turned from his fellow-reveller, flushing. + +"There are pretty girls enough here for you to dance with, Sid; she +would not like it. They are such simple people they would not +understand. She is married, you see." + +"You danced with her." + +"Oh, I am an old friend." + +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" went Captain Judah's trumpet, and I looked up to +see what new event its blast denoted. For, Captain Judah was a stage +driver, and having brought his horn along as a signal compliment to the +occasion, he was now conducting the first stages of the ball with those +loud flourishes and elegant social convenances which only those +sophisticated by extreme culture are supposed to understand. + +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" + +I saw that Vesty and Gurdon had risen to dance together. Vesty wrapped +and laid her sleeping baby among the others, and Gurdon stepped out to +perform first that solitary jig or shuffle which is demanded of every +householder among the Basins, before he can lead his partner to the +dance. + +Notely and the young man he had called "Sid" watched him shaking his +long legs, his heavy, noble face perfectly sincere and unembarrassed; +for was it not the ancient, honorable custom of the Basins? + +"Stolid cart-horse, by Jove!" sneered Sid, casting a glowing glance at +Vesty, "for such a Venus!" + +Notely did not like the tone. "There 's some stolid granite in my +quarry," he snarled softly; "but it 's everlasting good granite, all +the same, Sid." + +"You've been knocked over, I see," said the irrepressible Sid, smiling +intelligently at him. "Well, I'm off for the jig." + +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" + +The trumpet punctually announced the appearance of so much colorless +linen and broadcloth on the floor; but the Basins, who were fine, gazed +at his severe costume with tender pity. + +"Sid," appreciating this, dared not laugh: he endeavored to redeem this +lack of beauty by a display of his white bediamonded hand on his +watch-guard, as he entreated a partner for the dance, but he was not +held for much; that was evident. + +Now and then in the reel he touched Vesty's hand, or swung with her, +and he stared at her consistently and immoderately throughout; but +always for him the holy lids were low over her eyes. + +My heart exulted something like the next blast of the trumpet; I turned +to look. Vesty was safe. + +"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" + +But Captain Pharo needed no stirring strain to his consciousness as he +walked, with scarcely perceptible limp, to the middle of the floor. + +That flowered jacket, the arnica bloom glowing like sunrise on the +back! Those new trousers, of "middling" sacks, "Brand No. 1" proudly +distinct upon the right leg! + +"Give me sea-room here, give me sea-room," said the hero; "and jest +wait till I git my spavins warmed up a little!" + +A wide, clear swath was cut from the billows that surrounded Captain +Pharo. + +"Now then," said he, pulling his pipe from his pocket, and drawing a +match in the usual informal way; "Poo! poo! hohum!-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'] + +strike up somethin' lively over there, Gurd. Give us 'The Wracker's +Darter,' by clam!" + +Gurdon, who had returned to relieve Fluke at the violin, good-naturedly +struck up "The Wrecker's Daughter." + +"Can't ye put a little sperrit into 'er, Gurd? Is this 'ere a fun'al? +That 's it! Now then--'Touch and go is a good pilot.'" + +With these words, Captain Pharo sprang with ox-like levity from the +floor, and amid the giddy swiftness of the music I was occasionally +conscious of hearing his mailed heels flow together with a clash that +made the rafters ring. He descended at last ominously, but when the +reverberations died away I looked, and saw that he was whole. + +Notely came over and shook hands with him, laid an arm proudly on his +proud shoulder, and led him away to the "mess" room, where his stewards +were busy. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" cried a voice from the fondest of the +Artichokes, seizing him with an exultant pride which he affected to +hide under derogatory language; "was that you I seen in there jest now, +stompin' the frescoes off'n the ceilin'?" + +"Altogether most entertaining jig that has been danced this evening," +said one of Notely's broadcloth guests, very superciliously. + +"Oh, I hain't danced none yit," said Captain Pharo, too confident to +show contempt; "only warmin' my spavins;" and he heartlessly turned the +complete flower in view for the further annihilation of the gentleman +in black. + +"Ef I c'd 'a' got on my scuffs," said Captain Leezur, his sun-visage +showing against the crimson back of an easy-chair, "I don't know but +what I sh'd been 'most tempted ter jine the darnce myself. But no; I +couldn't pervail with 'em--so long sence I've wrarstled with 'em--so I +come right 'long in my felts." + +"No, ye can't dance 'The Wracker's Darter,' that is, not as she orter +be danced, in felts," said Captain Pharo; "she 's a tune 't wants the +emphasis brought right down onto her; felts won't do it, nor scuffs +neither." + +"That off foot o' mine kind o' b'longs to the church, anyway," said +Captain Leezur sweetly; "has for years; don't pain me much as I knows +on, but she ain't seound: if t'other one starts off kind o' skittish +she 's sartin to hold back----" + +"Ye'd orter be thankful 't ye only has to contend with natch'al +diserbilities," interposed Captain Pharo, "'n' don't have any o' these +d--d ructions played on ye." + +"Oh, by the way, what are 'ructions'?" inquired the guest of +supercilious temperament. + +"Le' me see," said Captain Pharo; "you're the one 't Note said was from +Washin'ton, ain't ye? Washin'ton, D.C.?" + +"Certainly." + +"P'litical centre o' the United States of Ameriky?" + +"Why, yes." + +"An' you don't know what ructions be!" + +Loud laughter greeted this sally; only the man who had been in +California sat moody, his basilisk eye fixed upon me. + +"Then I'll tell ye what ructions be," proceeded Captain Pharo, +breathing stertorously through his pipe; "it's repealin' all our +optional acts, for one thing! We can't institoot an optional act down +here, but what you go an' repeal it!" + +"Oh, stuff!" said the high and hot-headed young man, quite taken off +his level by the laughter round him; "I don't either!" + +"I say ye do!" said Captain Pharo, waxing more and more wroth; "ye sets +some feller t' work there, 't never see salt water, t' make our laws +for us; 'lows us to ketch all the spawn lobsters and puts injunctions +onter the little ones: like takin' people when they gits to be sixteen +or twenty year old, 'n' choppin' their heads off--yer race is goin' to +multiply almighty fast, ain't it?" + +"I hadn't observed any lack of increase in your amiable race, sir." + +"Ye hadn't, hadn't yer?" said Captain Pharo, in the voice of a +smouldering volcano, laying a fresh match to his pipe. + +"Moderation," liquidly pealed in the voice of Captain +Leezur--"moderation 's the rewl----" + +"'N' I'll tell ye of another optional act o' ourn 't ye repeals; but ye +can tell 'em 't we git it jest the same--though it 's racktified 'tell +it 's p'ison." + +"Ye can't all'as git it, even racktified," said Shamgar: "onct when the +boat wa'n't in for a couple o' weeks, I got kind o' desp'rit over a +pain in my chist; hadn't nothin' but two bottles o' 'Lightnin' External +Rheumatiz Cure,' so I took 'em straight. They said 't for a spell +thar' I was the howlin'est case o' drunk they ever see." + +"The wu'st case o' 'nebr'ancy this State 's ever known," said Captain +Dan Kirtland, "was a man up to Callis jail, 't had been 'bleedged to +take a spree on 'lemon extract;' he sot fire t' everything he could lay +his hand to." + +"Look a' that, will ye?" said Captain Pharo to the haughty +Washingtonian; "yit you don't know nothin' 'bout ructions. You can +repeal every optional act 't a man makes, but you ain't got no idee o' +ructions----" + +Captain Pharo's voice had now reached such a pathetic and eloquent +pitch that Captain Judah left his trumpet in the ball-room and joined +us, in time to mingle with the cheers that were still further +discomfiting the high and hot-headed young man. + +"What you talkin' about?" retorted the latter through his dazzling +white teeth. "I'm not in politics." + +"Why didn't ye say so, then?" said Captain Pharo calmly, "and not keep +me standin' here wastin' my breath on ye?" + +"Moderation," sweetly chimed in the voice of Captain +Leezur--"moderation in all things, even as low down as passnips." + +The man who had been in California had been constantly drawing near me, +but Captain Judah, anticipating him, was already at my side. + +"You're a stranger," said he: "perhaps you never heard any of Angie +Fay--Angie Fay Kobbe's poetry?" + +He had a rosy face: in spite of former long sea-wear, not blowzed, but +delicately tinted; he snuffled when he talked in a way which I could +only define as classical; and it was admitted that his nosegay vest and +blue coat, as far as tender refinement went, far surpassed anything in +the room. + +"That's Angie Fay Kobbe, my wife, at the organ. Ten years ago, when I +was still cruising, I found and rescued her from a southern cyclone!" + +I murmured astonishment, though in truth something of a cyclonic +atmosphere still hovered about Mrs. Kobbe, not only in her method of +performance on the organ, but in her sparkling features, young and +beautiful, her wide-flowing curled hair. + +"How old does she seem to you to be, sir?" + +"She looks to me," I said, with honesty, "to be eighteen or +twenty--twenty-five at the most." + +"Sir, she is forty!" said Captain Judah proudly. Angie Fay shot him a +bewitching glance through the open door. + +"She is not only a skilled performer on the keys, as you see, but she +is a wide-idead thinker. If it would not detain you, sir, against +previous inclination to the ball-room, I should like to read you some +of her poetry." + +Glances too oppressed by awe to contain envy were cast upon me by my +former companions from afar; even the man who had been in California +was retreating in baffled dismay. + +"This first," said Captain Judah, drawing a roll from his pocket, +"though brief, has been called by many wide-idead thinkers a 'rounded +globe of pathos:' men, strong men, have wept over it. It has had a +yard built around it; in other words, it has been framed, and hung in +many a bereaved household; let me read: + + "'Farewell, my husband dear, farewell! + Adieu! farewell to you. + And you, my children dear, adieu! + Farewell! farewell to thee! + Adieu! farewell! adieu!' + + +"Were you looking for your handkerchief, sir?" + +"Yes," said I, accidentally swallowing whole a nervine lozenge which +Captain Leezur had given me. + +"This," said Captain Judah, with an expressive smile, as he opened +another roll, "if you will excuse the egotism, refers to an experience +of my own. I was once, when master of a whaler, nearly killed in a +conflict with a whale; in fact, I am accustomed to speak of it +paradoxically--or shall I say hyperbolically--as 'The time when I was +killed!' My account of it made a great impression upon Angie; but I +will read: + + "'Upon the deep and foaming brine, + My Judah's blood was spilled. + The anguished tears gush from my eyes. + O Judah, wast thou killed? + + "'Had I beheld that awful scene, + I should have turned me pale, + My eyes were mercifully hence, + When Judah killed the whale.' + + +"It was I, so to speak, that was killed," said Captain Judah, with his +peculiar smile; "the whale escaped. But for the sake of symphony, +Angie has used that poetic license, familiar, as you know, to +wide-idead thinkers. Or let me read you this----" + +Dimmer and dimmer grew the faces of my former jovial company; but I had +one friend, stout, even for this emergency. + +I heard a voice coming-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r, The +blight--'] + +Judah! Judah! Judah! drop 'er, I say, an' come along!" Captain Pharo +winked. + +"On some other occasion, sir," said Captain Judah, returning the roll +to his pocket with cheerful haste, "I shall be happy." + +Almost before I was aware that I was liberated, the shifty spectre, +whose basilisk eye had not released me, stood at my side. + +"You oughter have seen," he began, "the time 't I was killed in +Californy----" + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she +with-'] + +Major! major! major! drop 'er, I say, an' come along, by clam!" + +There was naught to do, in Captain Pharo's exalted frame of mind, but +to follow the commanding flower; but when that had become once more +congenially distracted I returned to the ball-room to observe there. + +The dancers were at rest, and Angie Fay too, the stewards serving them +with refreshments; but Fluke and Gurdon were playing softly together on +their violins, Fluke with waved hair on his forehead, Gurdon with still +brow. Vesty had taken up her sleeping child and was holding him. The +Basins loved sad music, low, mournful lullabys on the wind; they +listened. + +I listened so deeply, so strangely, it was like the awaking from a +dream when I heard Notely and his guests inviting the dancers again to +the floor. + +"Good-night, major," Vesty whispered kindly, coming to me. She had her +shawl wrapped over herself and her infant, and was departing quietly +with her father-in-law, Captain Rafe. + +"I--I didn't get one eye-beam from her the whole evenin'--no, by Jove! +Note," said "Sid," watching that gently retreating figure; "not one! +And she just now leaned over and showered a whole peck of 'em on that +poor little----" + +"Hush!" said Notely. + +I witnessed with some sadness how Captain Pharo and Captain Judah were +walking the room, arm-in-arm, Captain Judah reading from some of Angie +Fay's most affecting strains, and Captain Pharo willingly melted to +tears thereat. + +"Read that ag'in, Judah," I heard Captain Pharo snivel, as they were +passing me. + +Then I heard the melodramatic snuffle of that "Adieu! farewell! adieu!" + +Still farther down the room sobs were echoed back to me from Captain +Pharo's bursting heart. + +So that I was gratified, at the next round, to hear Captain Pharo +declare that he felt the necessity of going home at once to have a copy +of the verses made and "a ya-ard built around 'em, Judah." + +Most of the Basins had gone; there were still some of the prettiest +girls upon the floor, not with proper Basin escort, but with Notely's +broadcloth guests, who were whispering sweet words of adulation to +tingling, unaccustomed ears. + +"Come!" Gurdon whispered to Fluke; "we should give up playing at this +hour, and take those girls home." + +Fluke shook his head. "Go home, you," he said: "one fiddle is enough! +If we want a merry time, don't bother." + +Gurdon stayed patiently, but with a brow waxing determined. The +flattered girls, the broadcloth guests cast unwelcome glances at him. + +"Go home, Gurd!" said Fluke, at last. "You spoil it all with a face +like that. Go on, and don't mind us, or you and I shall quarrel." + +"Not till those girls are ready to be taken home," said Gurdon. + +Fluke threw down his fiddle with an oath. "I said that you and I +should quarrel." + +"I would not strike my twin-brother for all the false men and foolish +girls in Christendom!" said Gurdon, standing before Fluke's threat, +with folded arms, and such a look at him that Fluke came to himself, +wincing. + +"We may as well go home," he said sulkily. + +The young men of the world watched this scene with amusement not +untempered with choler, while they proceeded elaborately to assist the +pretty Basins, who were wrapping themselves in their thin shawls. + +"I fancy we are not to be trusted to escort these young ladies home?" +said "Sid," with an elegant sarcastic inclination toward Gurdon. + +"No," said poor Gurdon stonily. For he had played for them with a +gracious heart all the evening, and it was hard to be hated. But he +marshalled his flock away without flinching. + + + + +XV + +THE BROTHERS + +"There 's got to be a new deal to me in this world pretty soon," said +Wesley, "or I shall kick." + +I found him among the clam flats, leaning his spent and hopeless being +on his rake. + +"What is it, Wesley?" + +"Belle O'Neill got me to help her set a trap to ketch a mink and a fox; +she said we should git two dollars apiece; and we caught--we caught +Miss Pray's tom-cat!" + +Wesley rubbed his grimy hand across his eyes. + +"She scolded awful and told us to go down to the clam flats and not to +come home till we'd got two bushels o' clams for the hens. Fast as I +get a roller full and go over and emp'y 'em on the bank the crows come +'n' eat 'em up--look a' there!" + +I saw. + +"Wesley, your load does seem greater than you can bear." He wore +trousers of a style prevalent among the Basins, of meal sacks; only his +were not shaped at all--there was simply a sack for each leg, tied with +gathering strings at the ankles. His jacket was as much too small for +his stout little person as his trousers were voluminous; and Miss Pray, +who was artistic by freaks, had made it with an impertinent little tail +like a bird's tail. + +Wesley was not only afflicted, he was ludicrous in the face of high +heaven. + +"There 's got to be a new deal," blubbered he, with his fist in his +eyes, "or I shall kick." + +"_Could_ you kick in those trousers, Wesley?" I said. + +He regarded me curiously, then replied with evident faith: "I could, +nights." + +"Ah! I'm so lame that I couldn't even kick much, nights, Wesley." + +His countenance changed from its self-pity; he removed the fist from +his eyes. "I've always wondered," he said, "'t you didn't kick more." + +"Where is Belle O'Neill?" + +"I told 'er 't she'd got me to set the trap, 'nd she orter, 't least, +keep the crows off'n the clams; but she went over to Lunette's and +borrowed the book, 'n' she's settin' there in the graves, where Miss +Pray can't see her, readin' it." + +I sighed to think how early, among his other trials, Wesley was +learning the frailties of the lovable sex. + +"I will go up and keep the crows off of the clams for you, Wesley." + +"I think," said Wesley innocently, his face expressing a kindlier +gratitude than his words conveyed, "'t you could scare 'em off +first-rate!" + +While I reclined on the green bank, not far from the clams, a solemn +and fearful reprehension to the crows, I heard Belle O'Neill's voice +reading to herself aloud among the graves. The Basins possessed but +one secular volume, which they were accustomed to lend from house to +house, and which was designated without confusion as "the book." + +Belle O'Neill, peeping out from the graves, saw me, and came forward, +blushing timidly. Wesley rose from the clam flats and hissed at her +for her treachery, but she was very fair, and I received her kindly. + +"Major Henry," said she, "will you show me what this means, please?" + +She sat down close to me--for nobody minded me--and put her finger on +the place. + +Now "the book," though jointly purchased by the Basins from a +travelling salesman, as a highly illuminated volume, promising much of +a lively nature, had turned out to be to an altogether unexpected +degree serious and didactic. + +I followed Belle O'Neill's finger. + + + "Impressive Lesson. + Perishableness!" + +[Illustration: Skull] + + +"What does it mean?" said the girl, with pale, inquiring lips. + +Now as I loved the courtly valor of my race, I laughed. + +"You do not understand those long words, Belle. It means, in those +peculiar words, something about a Jack-o'-lantern." + +"Oh," said Belle, gazing at it with sudden refreshment, "I guess it 's +the only funny one in the book! They're usually so solemn." + +We turned to the next page: + + + "Important Lesson. + Discontent. + +The Bachelor's Button that wanted to be a sunflower: the scow that +wanted to be a schooner." + + +"Why," said Belle, with her finger on the cut of the angry and +resentful bachelor's button that was throwing down its petals because +it could not be a sunflower--"why did it want to be a sunflower?" + +"I can't imagine," I said. + +"Wouldn't you just as soon be a bachelor's button as a sunflower?" + +"Well, I don't know," I murmured; but while I affected still to be +pondering this subject doubtfully, Wesley came up from the clam flats. + +He pointed to the cut on the opposite page: + + + "Warning Lesson. + Slothfulness." + + +A plump and evidently highly contented maiden was here represented as +lolling on a sofa. + +"'T means _lazy_. She looks jest like Belle O'Neill, don't she?" said +Wesley, grinning maliciously. + +"Who"--flamed up Belle O'Neill--"put straws into the cow's teats, an' +let the milk run, while he laid out on the grass an' slep', and Miss +Pray found it out and flailed him with the broomstick?" + +Wesley's grin froze on his features; he returned wearily to his rake. + + + "Comforting Lesson. + A saint walking among the saved, on Revival Terrace." + + +But the saint, though tall and bearded, wore a ball dress such as the +unchastened belles of society sport upon earth, a profuse skirt, with +flashing train; and he was walking quite alone. + +"Where are the 'saved'?" said Belle, with ghastly hope. + +"They are just around the corner," said I cheerfully; "where that +suggestion of clouds is--see!" + +"N-no, but I guess they are. Ain't he the lookin'est thing you ever +saw?" + +"Quite the lookin'est!" + +Belle giggled. I bore her out in it sympathetically. + +Wesley, who observed how we were at least keeping the crows off of the +clams, smiled upon us with feeble indulgence. + +But as we read on, Belle did come to a lesson of such useful terror +that she decided to take her rake and assist Wesley among the flats. + +I approved her, and lay back, smiling, in the I heard Wesley's little +old voice pipe up, considerately: "You'll scare 'em jest as well if you +do go to sleep, major." + +I kept on smiling. The sun seemed a lake of glory and I a boatman, +fair and free, sailing vast distances upon it with just one stroke of +my wand-oar--and here I began to scare the crows unconsciously. + +The air of the Basin anon exhilarated one, anon soothed one into +wondrous, deep, peace-drunken slumber. + +When I awoke Vesty stood over me, calling me. + +There was a purple, dark sky--now but little after mid-day--glowing +with red at the edges like a sunset; the wind was blowing strong. It +was dark, yet all was distinct about me. I sprang to my feet with a +sort of solemn exultation and bared my head. + +"Wake, major, wake!" Vesty cried to me. She drew me and pointed out to +sea. "Notely's boat--it was trying to make home--it is on the reefs." + +I saw it then by a flash of that unearthly light, the wind descending +like the last of days. I hastened with Vesty to the low beach, where +the people were moving strangely, looking out on the sea with its +swift-crested breakers. + +From the yacht, beating helpless on the ledges, Notely and the few who +had sailed with him that morning were putting out the life-boat; but +Captain Rafe kept running his weather-stained hand down his white face, +his head shaking. + +"Bare chance t' save half of 'em in the gale--they'll swamp her; nay, +nay, they'll never get her home with that freight; and it's no sea--it +'s a herricane, above and below. I see the sky in broad day like that +but once before, and then----" + +His voice was hushed, the boat was off, was lost; then once again we +saw her; we felt the gale rushing; when we could see again, there were +a few struggling in the waves, a few climbing back upon the sinking +masts of the vessel, with wild signals. + +The little Basin boats were old and frail; only Gurdon had lately been +building a new fishing-boat. While we were looking off he had been +hauling it down the steep bank by the cottage. + +Now when we saw him Vesty ran to him and put the child in his arms and +clung to him. I saw a great light come over his face. + +"Gurd," said his father sternly, the old stained hand still stroking +his white face, "ye have strength and skill above the most--but look at +yon! Put up your boat, lad; it's no use. Moreover, there are five men +yonder on the masts--your boat, tested in an ordinar' sea, holds but +five alone!" + +"Will ye go out jest to give them another chance to wrack themselves, +and ye put yerself by to drown?" said another, with a trembling, +half-ferocious laugh. "Look to yer wife and child. Don't be a fool!" + +"There 's not one o' ye," cried Gurdon, "but if ye had a boat fit 'u'd +do all ye could, an' men sinkin' and a-wavin' ye like that--let me off! +There 's no other way----" + +His voice broke. He looked at his wife and child, a look the woman +understood for all eternity. + +Vesty stood like marble; her shawl had escaped from her own throat, but +was warm about the child that Gurdon had placed back on her breast. + +As we waited, watching, transfixed, Fluke came running breathless from +the woods where he had been as guide with the party of Notely's +pleasure-seekers who had stayed behind that morning. + +Captain Rafe ran to him, with the hand still stroking his pallid face: +"That was Gurdon out there, making so near the sinking boat--he would +go--only five----" + +But Fluke heard never a word. He saw; his face flushed with a kind of +mad joy; he tossed his hair back, and leaping into the waves, swam to +his own frail little fishing-boat that was tossing at anchor. + +His voice leaped back to us above the tumult of the wind: "Gurd and +me'll come home together!" + +There was a lull in the gale; the five were put off from the sinking +craft in Gurdon's boat. + +And the men were standing with ropes on the shore; but I only saw, as +the tempest moaned, to swell again, one figure on a bending mast, +between sea and sky, and one in a frail shell toiling toward him. + +The tempest fell and smote. Then did nothing seem to me fated +underneath those awful heavens, but grand and free; freest, mightiest +of all that figure imprisoned between storm and cloud, overwhelmed, +buried----triumphant, imperishable! Then did the dead that I had known +come forth and walk upon the waves before me: and I beheld that they +were not dead, but glorious and strong--that, rather, I was dead. + +Then all seemed black about me. I would have clutched at somewhat, but +I felt a cold hand grasp mine in appealing agony. They brought in with +ropes through the breakers the five men who had neared the shore in the +young sailor's new fishing-boat. + +But the "Twin Brothers," the sublime figure on the mast, the toiling +figure in the boat, had "gone home together!" + + + + +XVI + +THE POPLAR LEAVES TREMBLE + +It was Vesty's hand that had wrung mine. Captain Rafe, after he lost +his sons, hardly spoke without drawing his own trembling hand along his +piteous face. + +"Notely fell from the mast and was stunted; they put him in the boat: +else he wouldn't 'a' come and left my Gurd, I b'lieve." Tears rolled +down his cheeks. + +Vesty spoke to me so softly, as if her head were turned, or she were +wandering in a dream. "When Gurdon had anything that anybody needed, +and they asked him for it, he always gave it them. So they asked him +for his life--and he gave that!" + +Notely, on recovering consciousness, had been carried to his house at +the Neck: by the next morning they had his mother with him; he was in a +fever. + +Would Vesty remember now the promise she had asked of Mrs. Garrison? + +At all events, the sick man babbled deliriously of past days, had +fallen from the rock once more, and would have Vesty to nurse him: +"where," asking ever, "is Vesty?" + +Mrs. Garrison herself went to her, pleading his pain and danger. Vesty +came. + +"Hello! we're saved!--the Vesty!" cried Notely, whose fever had been +plunging him in cold sea-waves, his voice a feeble echo of its old gay +tone, as he put up his hand to her. + +So ashy and sunken was his face, Vesty took him on her arm as she would +her child; he fell asleep. + +"Vesty stops the pain--no one lifts me like Vesty--sing, Vesty!" from +pathetic lips and wandering blue eyes that would die if one recalled +them to their sorrow. + +"Only stay," said Mrs. Garrison. "His life hangs upon it. Surely you +are not afraid to have your child with me?" + +Her heart was full of tenderness for the girl. "I would die rather +than anything should happen to your child, Vesty," she cried, with a +sincere impulse. + +Vesty lifted those Basin eyes. + +"Oh, he is not old enough yet to understand my worldliness," said Mrs. +Garrison, with bitter lips. + +For, from entrusting the child at first to her servants, while Vesty +was in the sick-room, Mrs. Garrison had grown to have a jealous care +for him herself. He had taken an occasion, and he had conquered her. + +When she pleased him he dimpled and gave her, on appeal, an +ostentatious kiss, composed wholly of noise and vanity. When she first +displeased him he had tried conclusions with her by unhesitatingly +administering a slap on the face. + +Mrs. Garrison, the select and haughty, tingling from this direct Basin +blow, watched the flame die out of the baby's eyes, in astonishment, +not in anger. The blow felt good to her. Vesty treated her, though +unconsciously, from such a height. + +"My darling," she said sorrowfully, lifting the child in her arms, +"would you hurt me, when I love you so?" + +A bit of sugar sealed the reconciliation: while he devoured it little +Gurdon leaned his head in tender remorse upon Mrs. Garrison's neck. +She had handsome eyes--for him, full only of love and longing--and he +saw strange tears in them. He never treated her again to corporeal +punishment; while she, on her part, indulged him fully. + +The attachment was so marked between them that he would, when he was +well and had dined, very cheerfully leave Vesty for her society, to +Vesty's secret chagrin and Mrs. Garrison's beating heart of joy. + +"Do you mean to say that you will take the child back again--back to +that squalid home--yes, for such it is, Vesty--that you will deprive +him of all that might be, and give him up to a fisherman's wretched +life and dreary fate?" + +"Will you make a better man of him in the world than his father was?" +said Vesty simply. + +"You know that I worship Gurdon Rafe's memory," cried Mrs. Garrison, +with adroit heat. "What do you think would please him best for his +wife and child--misery and cold with an old man who could have a better +home among his own kin, had he not to make the effort to support +you--or happiness and warmth and love, and a great sphere of +usefulness, happiness, and education for his child?" + +"You see," said Vesty, on the plain Basin path, "in trying to get those +things we might miss the only--the greatest--thing, that Gurdon had. +I'd rather my boy should learn to have that, and miss all the others." + +"O my dear! you shall teach your child, you shall be always with him. +I have some things to remember and regret, Vesty. I promise you +solemnly--and I do not break my word--I will not interfere. You shall +teach and guide your child as you will." + +Notely was awake and calling. + +"Go to him," said Mrs. Garrison, excitement in her eyes; "he will +explain to you, my child." There was a tenderness, a hope, a +voluptuousness of sweet earthly things in her manner toward the poor +girl now, which all her life Vesty had missed. + +Heart and flesh were weary, and Notely, who had been the light of her +life once, looked up at her with that weight of sorrow, so much darker +and heavier than her own; so much heavier because it was dark. + +"Help me to bear it!" he said. + +She understood all; she laid her head beside him, sobbing. + +"Vesty, you know the doctors say that I shall live; but--now that I am +sane again, I do not know why I should wish to live." + +She put her hand on his. Alas! in spite of reckless wandering and +tragedy, and forsaken faith and duty, the touch only thrilled him with +his own dreams as of old. + +"Listen, Vesty!--just as you used to be my little woman and reason with +me. Ugh! how weak I am! I'm not worth saving. It is of little +consequence, truly; but, such as it is, it all lies with you. Some +time, Vesty--I am speaking of what must be some time, dearest; and +remember, it is often done in the world, among those who are highest +and richest and socially recognized--well, it is a familiar thing: as +soon as it can be well arranged--and that soon, now--my wife and I +shall be divorced. We have both wished it, we are unhappy together, it +is a wrong for us to live together. She has been untrue enough to me, +as I to her, but let that pass; such things are not for your ears to +hear, only you need have no qualms. Grace will be more congenially +wedded within two months after we are parted. + +"And then--Vesty? Well, will you not speak to me? Is it to be life +and honor, with your love at last, or despair and death? You were +promised to me once. In spite of all, you cannot hold yourself your +own; you are mine; the wife God meant for me. O Vesty! let us blot out +the confused past with all its mistakes! It is killing me--will kill +me body and soul if you leave me now. Let me find my lost home at +last: let me rest a little while before I die!" + +His weak and gasping breath warned her; she stilled his hands, the low +lids hiding the anguish in her eyes. + +So there was a way out of it all, easy, luxurious, convenient for the +passions! And there was a straight Basin way, a high promise before +God and man, that, to the Basin sense, there was no taking back: Vesty +could not see upon any other road; she shuddered. + +But Notely's wasted, broken life clinging to her! + +"That was never done among the Basins, Notely. When we are married we +promise, and we hold to it till death. It would never seem to me that +I was your wife, but wicked and false to you and her--always that. I +would rather die!" + +"My Vesty, the Basin is a little, little part of the world, and +ignorant of life. I tell you what is right. You used to have faith in +me--so much that, if you would, you might still believe in me and my +ceaseless love for you. Do you think that I will ever leave you here? +My mother wants you and the child: we will be happy together at last, +with such quiet or such pleasures as you will. My quarries are turning +out wealth for me--it is for you and Gurdon's child. Think of Gurdon's +little boy!" + +As he spoke, Vesty seemed to see again a pale face with a great light +upon it, turning without question to its stern duty. + +"Notely, Gurdon gave me up, and the baby that he worshipped; though I +clung to him, he put us by, because, though it was hard, it was +right--it was the only way. I think it is often so between those two, +the right and what we want. I think that love, somehow, in this world +seems to be putting by--putting by what we want." + +Vesty struggled again in her dim way. + +"Why need it be?" cried Notely sharply. He raised himself on the +pillows as if stung; a deep crimson rushed to his cheeks. + +"It is," said Vesty sadly, quietly--"it is. What we want--putting by. +Do you think I did not care for you?" + +His haggard face turned to her. + +"Will not always care for you? But you will never be a great man till +you can put by what you want, when they stand against each other, for +what is right, though it be hard. Then one would not only admire and +love you; they would trust you to death's door, though all the way was +hard." + +Notely had no answer for the tongue-loosed Basin. Besides, her words +had comforted him, her tears fell on him. + +"I do not think," she said, with a look and voice of such tenderness, +as though it were her farewell, "that it was all to us, that I should +marry you, or you should marry me--until we could live brave and true, +though we lost one another, and follow the only way we saw, though it +was hard. I do not believe we should have been happy--without +that--after a little while. + +"I could not love you if you left your wife and married me. I should +never trust you. I would rather we should both die. Go back to her +and win her with your own love and kindness, and be true to her, and I +shall never lose my love for you." + +"Do you know what love is?" said Notely, with clinched teeth, tears +springing from between the wasted fingers pressed against his eyes. +"Do you know what it is to suffer?" + +She gave him no flaming retort. She put her head beside him. + +The past came back to him, and her poor, burdened, self-sacrificing +life. Wild sobs shook his heart. "All lost! all lost!" he moaned. + +"No, only not found yet," she said, looking at him through her tears; +"all waiting." + +It was such a simple Basin path, knowing so few things, but unswerving. + +"Not here, I know," she said, "for nothing is for long or without loss +and sorrow here. There is always somebody sick or hurt; and the poplar +trees, that the cross was made from, are always trembling and sighing: +but some time Christ will lay his hand upon them, and they will be +still and blessed again." + + + + +XVII + +GOIN' TO THE DAGARRIER'S + +"Ever sence the accident," said Captain Pharo, with a gloom not wholly +impersonal, "my woman 's been d'tarmined to haul me over to a +dagarrier's to have my pictur' took. + +"I told 'er that there wa'n't no danger in the old 'Lizy Rodgers,' sech +weather as I go out in. 'But ye carn't never tell,' says she; 'and +asides,' says she, 'ye're a kind o' baldin' off an' dryin' away, more +or less, every year,' says she, 'an' I want yer pictur' took afore----' + +"Gol darn it all!" said Captain Pharo, making an unsuccessful attempt +to light his pipe, and kicking out his left leg testily. + +"'Afore ye gits to lookin' any meachiner,' says she. + +"'When I dies,' says I, 'th' inscription on my monniment won't be by no +drowndin',' says I; 'it'll be jest plain, "Pestered ter death,"' says I. + +"Wal, 't that she began a-boohooin', so in course I told 'er, says I, +'I s'pose I c'n go and have my dagarrier took ef you're so set on it,' +says I. + +"For with regards t' female grass, major, my exper'ence has all'as made +me think o' that man in Scriptur' 't was told to do somethin'. 'No, by +clam!' says he, 'I ain't a-goin' to,' and hadn't more 'n got the words +outer his mouth afore somehow he found himself a-shutin' straight outer +the front door to go to executin' of it. + +"When I thinks o' that tex'--an' I ponders on it more 'n what I does on +mos' any other tex' in Scriptur'--I says to myself, 'Thar' 's Pharo +Kobbe--thar' 's my dagarrier, 'ithout no needs o' goin' nowheres to +have it took." + +"I should think it would be very nice," I said, "to have somebody +wanting your picture.--I am not pressed with entreaties for mine." + +Captain Pharo sighed kindly; his pipe was going. + +"Poo! poo! hohum! Never mind; never mind. + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass. Or as--'] + +I s'pose ye hain't never worked yerself up to the p'int o' propoundin' +nothin' yit to Miss Pray, have ye?" + +"No." + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morning flow'r,--] + + +"Why don't ye, major?" + +"When I think of how much better off she is with seven dollars a week +for my board than she would be taking me as a husband, for nothing----" + +"Oh, pshaw! major, pshaw!" said Captain Pharo, with deep returning +gloom; "seven dollars a week ain't nothin' to the pleasure she'd take, +arfter she'd once got spliced onto ye, in houndin' on ye, an' pesterin' +ye, an' swipin' the 'arth with ye." + +Conscious that he had rather over-reached himself in presenting this +picture of marital joys to my horizon, Captain Pharo resumed the +subject with sprightliness. + +"In course the first preliminary essence o' all these 'ere ructions +'ith female grass is, 't ye've got to go a-co'tin'." + +"Yes." + +"And in goin' a-co'tin', ye've got to ile yer ha'r out some, an' put +essence on yer han'kercher, an' w'ar a smile continnooal, an' keep +a-arskin' 'em ef tobakker smoke sickens on 'em, an' all sech o' these +ere s'ciety flourishes an' gew-gaws 's that." + +"Yes," said I, attentively. + +"I'd ort ter know," said Captain Pharo, alone with me in the lane, +assuming a gay and confident air, "f'r I've been engaged in co'tin' +three times, an' ain't had nary false nibble, but landed my fish every +time." + +"I know you have." + +"Now ef you don't feel rickless enough, major, and kind o' wanter see +how it 's done, you ask Miss Pray t' sail along with us up to Millport, +whar I've got to go to have my condum' pictur' took." + +The recollection of personal grievances again beclouded Captain Pharo; +he was silent. + +"And what?" I said. + +"Wal," said my soul's companion, with the fire all gone from his +manner, "I'll kinder han' 'er into the boat, an' shake my han'kercher +at 'er an' smile, when Mis' Kobbe ain't lookin', an' the rest o' these +ere s'ciety ructions, jest t' show ye how." + +I appreciated the motives, the sacrifice even, of this conduct as +anticipated toward Miss Pray, whose society, as far as his own peculiar +taste went, Captain Pharo always rather tolerated than affected. + +Still, it was with doubtful emotions, on the whole, that I wended my +steps with Miss Pray toward the enterprise. + +The scow "Eliza Rodgers" was waiting for us at anchor among the +captain's flats. We went first to the house. + +There it became at once evident to me that, rather than preparing +himself with oil and incense for the occasion, Captain Pharo had been +undergoing severe and strict manipulations at the hands of his wife. +He had on the flowered jacket, but as proof against the sea air until +he should be photographed, Mrs. Kobbe had applied paste to the locks of +hair flayed out formidably each side of his head beyond his ears. + +Altogether, I could not but divine that during my absence his flesh had +been growing more and more laggard to the enterprise, his spirit testy +and unreconciled. + +"'F I can't find my pipe I shan't go," said he, with secret source of +sustainment; "stay t' home 'nless I c'n find my pipe, that's sartin as +jedgment." + +Now I knew from the way the captain's hand reposed in his pocket that +his treasure was safely hidden there--that he was dallying with us. +Knowing, too, that he could not escape by such means, but was only +weakly delaying his fate, I took occasion to whisper in his ear, as I +affected to join in the search: + +"Take her out, captain, and light her up. Let 's go through with it. +Remember you promised to show me how to act." + +"Hello! why, here she is a-layin' right on the sofy," said he, in a +tone of forlorn acquiescence that could never have recommended him to +the footlights, especially as this remark antedated, by some anxious +breathings on my part, the sheepish and bungling withdrawal of his pipe +from his pocket. + +"Captain Pharo Kobbe," said his wife, regarding him, "ain't you a smart +one!" + +The captain's manner certainly did not justify this taunt. As he led +us, with an exaggerated limp, toward the beach, I looked in vain for +any of those light and elegant attentions toward Miss Pray at which he +had hinted. But when we arrived in view of the "Eliza Rodgers" and saw +that the tide had so far receded that we must pick our way gingerly +thither over the mud flats, by stepping on the sparsely scattered +stones, Captain Pharo looked at me and took a stand. + +"Miss Pray," said he, "'f it 's agreeable to you, I'll hist ye up an' +carry on ye over." + +"Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his wife, as if it were suddenly and +startlingly a subject of physics, "whatever is the matter with you?" + +"Carn't I be p'lite ef I want to?" roared the captain; but as he +surveyed his contemplated burden, who was a good many inches taller +than he, and by all odds sprightlier, he paled. + +"Ef 't you _could_ get anything, Cap'n Kobbe," said his wife, "I sh'd +think you had." + +This unblessed dark reminder of a causeless deprivation settled it. +Captain Pharo seized Miss Pray, blushing with alarm and amaze at such +sudden retributive lightning on the part of her long-delayed charms, +and bore her out into the mud. + +But he had labored but a few steps with her, giving vent meanwhile to +audible, involuntary groans, before it became evident to her, or to +them both, that his grasp was failing, his feet sinking. She threw up +a hand and partly dislodged his pipe; it was instantly a question of +dropping his pipe or Miss Pray; the captain dropped Miss Pray. + +Both women were now angry with him; between all that sea and sky +Captain Pharo appeared not to have a friend save his pipe and me. + +Miss Pray indignantly picked the rest of her steps alone. "Ye'll have +to do the rest o' yer co'tin' in yer own way," murmured the captain to +me, darkly and vaguely, as he stepped into the boat: "but my 'dvice to +ye is, drop it! drop it right whar 'tis!" + +"Oh, that is all right," I tried to assure him. "I--I hadn't hardly +begun, you know." + +We scoured the bottom successfully with the "Eliza Rodgers," but as we +got into deep water there fell a perfect calm. + +"'T 'd be bad enough," said Captain Pharo, set against the world, and +tugging wrathfully at the oars, "t' go on sech idjit contractions as +these 'ith a breeze t' set sail to, but when 't comes to pullin' over +thar' twenty mile, with the sea as flat as a floor, t' have yer darn +fool pictur' took----" He laid down the oars with an undoubted air of +permanency, and lit his pipe. + +Mrs. Kobbe pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, +them 't knew you afore ever I was born say as 't you was the best +master of a vessel 't ever sailed, and everybody knows 't you can sail +this coast in the dark, an' though--though you did act queer a little +while ago, I don't--don't like to have you call yourself a da--darn +fool." + +Captain Pharo glanced at me with suicidal despair. + +Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray took out their knitting, with the implicit +Basin superstition of "knitting up a breeze." They as seriously +advised me to "scratch the mast and whistle," which, agreeably, I began +to do. + +Thus occupied, I saw a sudden light break over the captain's face, as +sighting something on the waves. + +"Fattest coot I've seen this year, by clam!" said he, seizing his gun +from the bottom of the scow and firing. He fired again, and then rowed +eagerly up to it. It was a little wandering wooden buoy bobbing +bird-like on the waters. + +We did not look at him. Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray knitted; I scratched +the mast with painful diligence. + +A breeze arose. The captain silently hoisted sail; at length he lit +his pipe again, and returned, in a measured degree, to life. + +As we sailed thus at last with the wind into Millport it seemed that +the "Eliza Rodgers" and we were accosted as natural objects of marvel +and delight by the loafers on the wharf. + +"What po-ort?" bawled a merry fellow, speaking to us through his hands. + +"Why, don't ye see?" said a companion, pointing to Captain Pharo, who +was taking down sail, with the complete flower turned shoreward; +"they're Orientiles!" + +A loud burst of laughter arose. Personal allusions equally +glove-fitting were made to Mrs. Kobbe, to Miss Pray, to me, and to the +"Eliza Rodgers." + +"Say! come to have your pictures took?" bawled the first merry fellow, +as the height of sarcasm and quintessence of a joke. + +"Look a' here, major," almost wept poor Captain Pharo, "how in thunder +'d they find that out?" + +"Never mind," said I; "we're going up to the hotel, and we'll have a +better dinner than they ever dreamed of." + +"Afore I'm took to the dagarrier's?" + +"Yes, indeed." + +"See here, wife!" said Captain Pharo, completely broken down--for we +were all suffering, as usual, from the generic emptiness and craving of +our natures for food--"major says 't we're goin' up to git baited, +afore I'm took to the dagarrier's." + +"I wish 't you could have your picture took jest as you look now, +Captain Pharo Kobbe!" exclaimed his wife kindly and admiringly. + +At the inn the most conspicuous object in the reception-room was a sink +of water, with basins for ablutions. + +Captain Pharo waited, visibly holding the leash on his impatience, for +a "runner"--or travelling salesman--to complete his bath, when he +plunged in gleefully, face and hands. Mrs. Kobbe drew him away with +dismay. The paste that had endured the whole sea voyage he had now +ruthlessly washed from one side of his head, the locks on the other +side still standing out ebullient. + +"'M sorry, wife," said the captain. But the captain, smelling the +smoke from the kitchen, was not the forlorn companion of our +treacherous voyage. "I reckon she'll stan' out ag'in, mebbe," said he, +"soon 's she 's dry." But he winked at me with daring inconsequence. + +In vain Mrs. Kobbe tried to flay out those locks to their former +attitude with the hotel brush and comb, which the runner had finally +abandoned. + +"Poo! poo! woman, never mind," said the captain; "one side 's fa'r to +wind'ard, anyhow. I can have a profiler took, jest showin' one side on +me, ye know." + +"I didn't want a profiler," lamented Mrs. Kobbe; "I wanted a +full-facer." + +"Wal, wal, woman, I hain't washed my face off, have I?" said the +captain cheerfully, resurrecting his pipe. "Put up them thar' public +belayin' pins," he added, referring to the hotel brush and comb, "and +don't le's worry 'bout nothin' more, 'long as we're goin' to be baited." + +The "runner" meanwhile was looking at us with the pale, scientific +interest of one who covets curiosities which he yet dare not approach +too intimately. + +"Do you smoke before eating, sir?" said he to the captain, at the same +time standing off a little way from the elephant. + +"Poo! poo!" said Captain Pharo, turning the whole flower indifferently +to his questioner, and drawing a match with a slight, genteel uplifting +of the leg; "I smoke, as the 'postle says, on all 'ccasions t' all men, +in season an' outer season, an' 'specially when I'm a darn min' ter." + +The runner, withered, vanquished by horse and foot, thereafter regarded +us silently. + +At the table I made haste first of all to catch the eye of our waiter, +who was also the proprietor of the little inn. I pressed a wordless +plea into his hand. "We are eccentric," I murmured in explanation, +"and you must look well to our wants." + +He winked at me as though we had been life-long cronies. "Eccentric +all ye wan' ter," said he, "the more on 'er the better." + +I pointed to the captain, who, the table-cloth before him, sat rigid +with hunger. + +"The ladies will consider the bill of fare," I said, "and request that +Captain Kobbe may be first served." + +"Which'll ye have--boil' salmon, corn' beef, beef-steak, veal stew, +liver an' bacon?" quickly bawled the proprietor into the captain's ear. + +"Sartin, sartin, fetch 'em along," said the compliant and nervy +captain, "and don't stand thar' no'ratin' about 'em--'ceptin' liver," +he added. "I hain't got so low down yit 's to eat liver." + +The runner, sitting with a few guests at another table, served by the +proprietor's daughter, gazed at us with fixed vision, not even having +taken up his knife and fork, for that pale, scientific interest which +absorbed him. + +"I know that squar's are fash'nable," said the captain, taking up the +napkin by his plate on the point of his knife and giving it an airy +toss into the middle of the table; "but I'd ruther have the sea-room. +Is your mess all fillers to-day, or have ye got some wrappers?" + +"Wrappers? Oh, certainly--doughnuts, mince pie, apple pie, an' rhubub +pie." + +"Sartin, sartin; fetch 'em along. I'll try a double decker o' +rhubub--I'm ruther partial to 'er. Fetch 'em all in: all'as survey yer +country, ye know, afore ye lays yer turnpike. F'r all these favors, O +Lord, make us duly thankful. Touch-and-go is a good pilot," mumbled +the captain in a religious monotone, and began. + +From this time on our table fairly scintillated with mirth and good +cheer, in the midst of which, his first hunger appeased, the captain's +resonant tones were frequently heard pealing through the dining-room, +singing, as if particularly, it seemed, to the edification of the pale +runner, that "His days were as the grass, or as the morning flower." + +I observed how Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray now and then warily conveyed a +"doughnut" from the table to their pockets, with an air of dark +declension from the moral laws. Having filled their own receptacles, +they whispered me an entreaty to do the same, as we might be late with +the tide and hungry on our way home. I complied in this, as in every +case, gallantly; but in my very first essay was detected by the +proprietor with a large edible of this description half-way to my +trousers' pocket. He winked unconsciously and obligingly turned his +back. Captain Pharo, however, oblivious to sense of guilt, approved my +action in clear words: "Tuck in the cheese too, major," said he; "it'll +do for the mouse-trap." + +I was equally unfortunate when, some time after, in settling for our +dinner I drew out first, instead of my purse, the very same fried cake +which had formerly betrayed me; and, to add to my discomfiture, Miss +Pray and Mrs. Kobbe, who had six of these stolen products each in their +capacious pockets, retired into a corner, innocently giggling. + +But an unexpected formidable dilemma arose when Captain Pharo, braced +up to such a degree by his dinner and his pipe, declared that "He +didn't know as he should be took to any dagarrier's, after all! Tide +and wind both serve f'r a fa'r sail home," said he, "and I'm a-goin'." + +"Not till we've been to a tobacconist's," said I, "anyway." + +I purchased a quantity of smoking tobacco. With this parcel peeping +enticingly from my pocket, and with persuasive argument that I could +never again leave the Basin without his likeness, as aid to Mrs. +Kobbe's tears, we at last seduced him up the stairs of the studio to +the long-anticipated ordeal. + +Now if young Mrs. Kobbe had had the discretion to keep silence! But "I +wish, pa," said she, made bodeful by the agonized and even villanous +aspect of the captain's usually stoical features, "'t you could look +just as you did when major said he was goin' to take us up to dinner!" + +"Good Lord! woman, how can I tell how I looked then? I didn't see +myself, did I?" + +"You looked so--so happy!" moaned Mrs. Kobbe, "and your face was all +break--breaking out into a smile, and you didn't have that +suf--sufferin' kinder look 't you've got now." + +"I think, myself, sir," said the bland photographer--"ah! let me +arrange your hair a little, just this side--or this?--which side?--ah! +so--that a little less severe expression--we all have our trials, I +know, but----" + +"I hain't!" said the captain ferociously. "I hain't got a darn thing +t' worry me. 'F my woman wants me ter have to git a boat an' row out +for the 'Lizy Rodgers' on high tide, an' not git home till sun-up, I +don't care. What ye screwin' my head into--hey?" + +"Merely a head-rest, sir; merely an assistance toward composing +the--ah--features." + +"I can compose my feetur's without any darn nihilism machine back on +me," said the captain; which he straightway did in a manner that froze +the operator's veins. + +"Has nothing pleasant occurred to you recently, sir. No--ah?" + +"O Cap'n Kobbe," exclaimed his wife, with desperate fated mirth, "think +o' how you shot the buoy this mornin' 'stead of a coot!" + +The photographer, observing Mrs. Kobbe's face rather than his victim's, +and seizing this as probably the opportune moment, transferred the +captain's features to his camera. + +We waited for the result. After some time our artist approached us +with mincing steps and a hand thrust in his breast-pocket as if for +possible recourse to defence. + +In the type before us, even the gloom and wrath of the captain's +countenance were lost sight of in the final skittish and disastrous +arrangement, through the day's perils, of his hair. + +"Ye see now what ye've done, don't ye?" said the captain to his wife. + +Mrs. Kobbe came over and stood beside me. + +"'T looks 'like somethin' 't the cat brought in, don't it?" said she, +still gazing, pale with curiosity. + +"I don't know," I said, not knowing what to say; "does she bring in a +great variety?" + +"Awful!" said Mrs. Kobbe. Having said which, she put up her piteous +little hands to her face and began weeping as if her heart would break. + +The captain, like the man that he was, took a strong new tack. + +"Never mind, darlin'," said he; "ye've got me, 'n' that 's better to ye +'n all the dagarriers. We'll stompede the blasted thing, 'n' we'll go +'n' have a nice sail home. + +"Ef I ever sees or hears or knows," he added to the photographer, +"anywheres on the face o' this 'ere wide an' at the same time narrer +'arth, o' any o' these here dagarrier-ructions 't you've played off on +me this day, bein' otherwise 'n destriyed, I sh'll take the first fa'r +wind up here, an' if thar' ain't no wind I sh'll paddle, an' my +settlemunt 'ith you'll be a final one. Good-arternoon." + +The captain and his wife strolled down to the beach, arm in arm, Miss +Pray and I following, forlorn and forgotten, behind. We saw the +captain tenderly pin the shawl about his wife's neck before he left us +on the windy wharf, to go out without a murmur to bring in the "Eliza +Rodgers." + +"How shall we get major down the slip?" I heard Mrs. Kobbe whisper +anxiously to Miss Pray. + +The "slip" was an inclined plane of boards, of some thirty feet in +length, ending in the water; it was without steps or railing, smooth, +green with sea-water and slime, and it was, at the present state of the +tide, the only way of boarding the "Eliza Rodgers." + +The captain now stood in the boat below, holding her to the slip. + +Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray, leaving me with an encouraging smile, both +sat themselves down, and by the simplest means of descent slid safely +and swiftly down the incline, amid ringing cheers and acclamation from +the wharf. + +"Come on, major!" called the captain. "Touch-and-go----" + +And I! Where now are my faithful henchmen, the men of mighty stature +who do my bidding, the liveried giants who open the door of my +carriage? The breeze blew in my face, and the "Eliza Rodgers" waited +below, and I heard the rough audience from the wharf shouting that I +should be up to that much! + +Ay, and far more. + +I sat me down with a smile: that strange and swift period of passage is +still fresh in my memory; how the wind, aided by some slimy intervening +objects, turned me completely about, so that I bounded at last with +affectionate violence, back foremost, into the enfolding arms of my +friends below; cheered, too, from the wharf, especially as, not having +been able to make so judicious an arrangement of my earthly vestments +as Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray had done, I was now a startlingly marked +object of ridicule. + +Little cared we. That adventure down the slip, ignominious though it +was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's +scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the +convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little space +from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded +hilariously once more in my long-easeful, sluggish veins. + +The floor of our boat was covered with bright sea-spoils, the fog +lifted, the wind blew fair and strong. Hungry eternally, we munched +our stolen fried cakes with delight. + +The sun set in a spendthrift glory of state and color, the water was as +if translated to celestial climes, languidly the fair moon arose. + +And I--forever Vesty's face, in some dream of youth and happiness, +outlying my estate; pictured, apart from me, yet new-creating me with +joy. Afar off in earth-meadows, the love-note of the thrush--not for +me, yet passing dear and sweet. That slender, languorous moon pointed +me to humble village spires and grass-grown paths, pale lovers +whispering at a rustic gate. I, poor sprite, stooped down and loved +and blessed them, though I sped away to sail forever and forever on the +seas! + + + + +XVIII + +UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE + +Say the philosophers how, to the properly sane mind, there is no +sorrow. But Vesty, only a Basin, fighting Christ's war against the +flesh--Vesty had sorrow. + +"It was," she confessed to me alone, I being as a ghost or +confessor--"it was like pulling my heart out, to have Notely go away +so. It was like taking little Gurd away--but it was the only way." + +"He has gone back to his wife?" + +"Yes." Vesty shivered. I had chanced to meet her in the lane, and the +wind was chill. + +"And what are you going to do, Vesty?" + +"I am going where they want me to help." She held the thin, frayed +shawl at her neck, the rosy child wrapped as usual on her arm: "there +is always some one wanting me to help, and little Gurd is not so much +care now but I can get along with it." + +"You go out as general drudge or charwoman!" I felt my nostrils quiver +and a bitter harshness in my voice. + +Vesty looked at me with surprise. "I go to help," she said, "just as +you helped me, with Uncle Benny, when I was sick." + +"Oh, I could do"--the child knew not with what a glance I studied her +face--"what it is hard to let you do, Vesty." + +A gentle pallor at that, as though I had been strong and seemly in her +sight; the Basin eyes fixed on me as if with a community of experience +and sorrow. + +"Shall you go away from the Basin this winter, as you did before?" + +"I think so;" for myself, I could not look at her. "You see, I have +my--'show,' that I must attend to a little in the winter: and here, +exposed to the hard climate, if I were taken ill, or should be in want, +there is no one who would care for me, you know." + +"You should never want or suffer," cried Vesty of the Basins, "while I +have two hands to work with!" + +"Perhaps then," I murmured gravely, with sphinx face, "I might stay. I +have to ask so much, Vesty, you see. All my life seems to be asking, +not giving." + +"I don't know who you are!" said she, with puzzled brow, the utter +frankness of Basin speech escaping her unawares. "What I thought +first, when I saw you--I never mind that now. And you are poor and all +alone, and you never make anything of yourself--but somehow I always +think you are pretending; somehow--I think--you are stronger than us +all." + +"You are a little arch-flatterer," I said; "and the Basin, out of its +goodness of heart, has made me vain, that is all. It won't do. I need +to sweep some more floors and peel some more potatoes." She would not +smile; she shook her puzzled head at me. "And, Vesty," I said, "where +are you going now?" + +"Why, to Uncle Benny's! Didn't you know?" exclaimed the girl eagerly, +with whom the realities of life were always pressing, stern. "He stood +out in the water, _that day_, helping get the men in, and he was around +that evening, singing, without any dry clothes or fire; nobody thought, +then. And you know he 's had a cough ever since, and now--he 's sick." + +A thought smote me. "He won't lead the children to school any more, +then?" + +Vesty's lip quivered. "Come," she said; "he has asked for you." + +At sight of Vesty with her child and me, Uncle Benny, to whom the +shadows were coming as to the truly sane, without grief or surprise, +touched his unribboned throat with feeble apology. + +"I look dreadful," he murmured. That was not troubling him! He had a +secret beyond all that, I saw. + +"There 's been ten in to call to-day," he exulted sweetly, with folded +hands of satisfaction, death's bloom high in his cheeks; +"ten!--ahem!--to call." + +Vesty looked at me with her sad smile. "It is because we love you, +Uncle Benny," she said, "and you took--take such care of the children. +Who?" she asked, for his mind was on it. + +"Mother," said Uncle Benny, since he was sane now, "and"--he mentioned +a number of the living Basins, and went on, in the same tone--"and +Fluke and Gurd." + +Vesty looked at him with touching sorrow and despair, being troubled +and not sane. + +"They played," he said, his hands moving with the recollection of the +melody; "they played wonderful--but sometimes it was an organ!" + +"Good!" I said, Vesty stood so pale. "We are getting health, I see. +We are on the straight road now." + +Uncle Benny, hearing my voice, beckoned me. + +"All the things in the drawer!" he said, "because you were 'flicted." +His eyes shone lovingly and compassionately on me. "All for you. But +go and see!" + +Enough surely to relieve all physical defects! The worn and treasured +blue necktie, for one thing; a little pocket hand-glass, a pin-cushion +devoted to the tender ingathering of strayed and crooked pins, some +sprays of mint and lavender among the rest. + +I felt his eyes beaming proudly on me--treasures beautiful from long +habit, now yielded in a spirit so complete and lofty! I brushed the +back of my hand along my eyes, in the Basin way. + +"You mustn't feel bad," said Uncle Benny, as I came back to him: +"nature didn't do much for you, but it 's going to be all right. I had +a talk with mother." + +"I am glad of that, Uncle Benny." + +"Oh, yes! it 's going to be all right." So full of secrets! he spoke +excitedly, with discreetly covered joy; "you needn't feel bad." + +He lay back, lest he should say too much. And so, as he, wise, covered +up his sublime knowledge among us, unwise, with smiling lips, he sank +into a sleep. + +Uncle Benny, dying, slept with a smile on his lips; and little Gurd, +homeless, fatherless, laid in this poor habitation or in that, humbly +and roughly, slept in beautiful health with a smile on his lips; and +we, unwise, watched dolefully. + +"You must not stay," said Vesty. "You are not used to lose your rest. +I am so used to watching, and--I am not afraid. Lunette said she would +come to help me before morning." + +Starless, moonless darkness showed through the low window, and the +candle was burning dimly on the table. + +"I shall stay," I said. I had a student's knowledge of death. "He +will wake soon, and then--it will be morning." + +But Vesty's dear face turned to me with the sorrow of dying. + +I was not used to lose my rest. I dozed faintly, with faithfully +sleepless lids. In that east of heavy blackness the candle made a +strange sun. The world, elsewhere so far from heaven, here at the +Basin ascended to it by a common stairway, and little children and the +pure of heart climbed upward without dread. + +"May I go?" I said, watching them. + +"If a child leads thee," said a voice. + +So I looked to a little child, to take my hand, and I saw my mother's +face waiting from above, and the beams of glory narrowed; it was the +candle burning dimly on the table. + +"Notely!" I heard a voice calling. + +I started up. + +"Notely!" called Uncle Benny, very sweetly and tremulously from the +bed. "Where is he? I led him to school." + +Vesty had gone to the door, and leaned her head there, as if to press +back the unbearable anguish and pathos sweeping over her like a flood. + +"Notely! Little Note! He was the handsomest of them all, but +sometimes he ran away. Notely! Little Note! come home with Uncle +Benny now; come home!" + +"He will come," I said, going to him: "he will come home." + +"Vesty! Where is she? I led her to school." + +She tottered toward him and pressed her warm hands upon his, cold. + +"And you," he said, trying to turn to me, lovingly, faintly, "you are +one of them. I will bring you home. Sing, Vesty; sing 'Sail away----'" + + "'As Christ went down the Lonesome Road'" + +Vesty's voice broke. + +"Sing, little one," said Uncle Benny, covering his glad secrets again +with a sort of heavenly duplicity; "it 's all right--sing." + + "'He left the crown and He took the cross-- + Sail away to Galilee! + He left the crown and He took the cross-- + Sail away to Galilee, + Sail away to Galilee! + * * * * + "'There 's a tree I see in Paradise----'" + + +"Sing, Vesty!" + + "It 's the beautiful waiting Tree of Life-- + Sail away to Galilee! + It 's the beautiful----'" + + +Uncle Benny hushed her with an awed motion of the hand, and a look +upward of unspeakable recognition--he, without doubt, seeing now, +beyond us blind. + + + + +XIX + +THE BASIN + +"What I thought first when I saw you--I never mind that now." + +Vesty's words: and "You shall never want or suffer while I have hands +to work with." So it seems that, at the Basin, even one poor and +afflicted may have good hope to be sustained! + +There was a woman once, beautiful and high, who, spurning me, would +have married me for my wealth and name. + +But pity is sweet and true. I am not ashamed of pity. Some time--if +all things failed her--should I even say, "Vesty, could you marry me, +for pity--for pity, Vesty?" For it was the thought of the Basins that +compassion was greater than love, in some way the diviner side of love. + +Then should I turn on her and say, sly as Captain Leezur--alas! so much +slyer: "My lady! My Lady of M----; there are none, even among the rich +and high, who can condescend to you; wide lands have you, you and your +little son, possessions and palaces; and others you shall build where +you will, only come and be pitiful where you move: the world needs not +these, but love and pity like thine, O Vesty of the Basins!" + +But the time was not yet to plead my cause for pity. I shall know if +ever that time comes. I have never mistaken Vesty. I wait. + +"For pity"--for it is not in the power of gold or rank to exalt her. I +cannot exalt her. + +It is sweet to bear about with one the secret of a strange country. +But, ah me! I love the Basin. I love the ragged shawl that Vesty +holds at her throat. Nowhere else will the winter come so dreary and +beautiful, with wild hearth fires. And Fate, bidding me hope, may +crush me. As God wills. I wait. + +It is but late summer now. There is a meeting. + +"It 's been a very busy time o' year," said Elder Skates, with timid, +inoffensive apology; "and we've ruther neglected religion lately. But +I hope we've gathered here to the old school-house once more this +Sunday afternoon, with a dispersition and a willin' and firm +determination that as for us we will not let 'er drop." + +Vesty had a native sense of the humorous, but the holy lids were down; +only the mouth trembled a little. Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar +were finishing a game of croquet with the one set of those implements +which the Basin possessed, dedicated for Sundays, and to the +school-house yard, as being dimly understood to be a sort of Sabbatical +pastime. Their voices pealed in with unconscious vigor through the +open windows: + +"Did ye shove her through the wire, Pharo?" + +"Yis, by clam! and I'm a-comin' for ye, Shamgar, an' the next crack I +git on that thar rollin' cruiser o' yourn, she'll wish she'd 'a' died +las' week!" + +The Basin conception of the game not being based on a spirit of +emulation so much as on the cheerful clash of immediate vivid strokes, +Captain Shamgar laughed loudly. + +"We are now open for remarks," intimated Elder Skates feebly, afflicted +but firm in his rubber boots. + +After a season of respectful silence within the school-house there was +a sepulchral whisper from one elderly female to another on the back +seats: + +"Did ye know 't Elvine had plucked her geese?" + +"Sartin. She plucked 'em too clost, and they was around fryin' in the +sun scand'lous; but I don't surmise as she knew no better." + +"In course not. Ye know Miss Lester's boardin' some folks 't Gov'ment +sent down t' inspect the lighthouse. It's a young man, an' he brought +his wife, an' after he'd finished his job they liked it so well they're +jest stayin' on, cruisin' 'round an' playin' tricks on each other. So, +ef you'll believe me, what does that Gov'ment young man do one day but +go an' bring home a passel o' snakes----" + +The voice, to the eager ears of the listeners, ventured more and more +upon audibility-- + +"An' he fixed 'em in a box in the woodshed, with a string to the cover, +an' then stepped into the kindlin'-closet, holdin' the string, ter wait +till the women came out, ter pull it an' then see what the verdick +would be! Wal, what think you--but his wife she suspicioned of 'im, +an' she was around thar hidin', an' jest as soon as he stepped into the +closet, afore he could pull the string, she flounced up an' fastened +the door on the outside. An' she kep' 'im in there till he'd say: +'Wife, wife, there's lots o' green in my eye; but I'll make my supper +on humble pie. I'll dump them snakes in the pond, dear wife; an' ef +you'll only let me out I'll be good all my life." + +"Wal, thar now!" said an admiring voice; "I should think she must be +r'al gifted. Did he say it?" + +"Yes, he got it out, somewheres along in the shank o' the evenin'. But +Miss Lester says it's jest as good as bein' to the front seat in a +show, the whole livin', endurin' time." + +"Gov'ment pays their board, in course?" + +"Sartin, and well it c'n be some use now an' then, settin' 'round +there, not knowin' nothin' in this world what to do with its surplice." + +A sharp peal rang through the window. + +"Thar, Pharo! Ef ye want to find yerself, ye'd better start on down t' +the south eend o' the Basin, 'n' negotiate around to leeward o' +Leezur's bresh-heap; that's the d'rection yer ball was a-startin' for, +las' time I seen 'er!" + +"Poo! poo!" said Captain Pharo, drawing a Sunday "parlor" match +explosively along his boot-leg; "jest hold on thar, Shamgar. Jest hold +on till I git my old chimley here a-goin' ag'in----" + +"The meetin' is open and patiently waitin' for remarks," said Brother +Skates, poising himself wearily but ever enduringly on one boot. + +After an appreciative silence within, the whisper finally arose once +more: "But he paid her off pretty well." + +"Dew tell!" + +"She took 'n' hid his pipe one day, and her clo's was hangin' out on +the line--she wears the mos' beautiful, 'labberotest-trimmed clo's you +ever see--so what does he do but go an' git a padlock an' padlocked +them clo's onto the line. 'When you git me my pipe,' says he, 'I'll +unlock your wardrobe,' says he." + +"Wal, I never! Ain't them ructions!" + +"Did the peddler come around to your house this month?" + +"He did so. I bought a pictur' 't was named 'Logan.' It's a fancy +skitch, I guess, 'but I'm goin' to have that pictur', Cap'n Nason Ted,' +says I, 'ef 't takes every egg the hens is ekil to from now t' +deer-stalkin',' says I. It jest completely drored me somehow; it had +sech a feelin' look." + +"Did Nason let ye buy it?" + +"Yis, he did; but he was dreadful sneakish an' j'ilous. 'It's jest a +fancy skitch,' says he; "'tain't nothin' 't ever slammed around in +shoes,' says he." + +"I bought a pair o' black stockings," said the voice of a young matron. +"I remember 'cause I wore 'em the very day that Johnny swallowed six +buttons--and _smut!_--wal----" A picture too dark for the imagination +was relieved by the hum of a discussion now bravely finding voice on +the male side of the house. + +"There's some difference in the price of a hoss afore blueberryin' and +after blueberryin', I can tell ye." + +"All the difference 'twixt black an' white. Wal, thar's mos' things I +can do without, but when you find me without a hoss you'll find me done +'ith trouble altogether an' stretched out ca'm an' laid on the cooler." + +"Skates's raisin' a pretty good colt thar, 'ceptin' 't she's a leetle +twisty in her off hin' leg. What do you consider on her worth, Skates?" + +"I refused two hunderd dollars for 'er last week," said Brother Skates, +in a clearly round, secular tone of voice. + +"Now look a-here, Skates; that stock o' yourn's good workin'-stock, but +they're tirrible hard feeders. Ef you've been offered two hunderd +dollars for that colt don't you wait 'tell after blueberryin'." + +"Mebbe you think," said Brother Skates, now firmly established on both +boots, "'t I'm as green as a yaller cucumber!" + +"Look out thar, Shamgar!" rang through the windows. "Give me sea-room +here!--give me sea-room!"--we saw and heard the preparatory swinging of +Captain Pharo's mallet--"cl'ar the way thar, Shamgar; for by the +everlastin' clam, I'm a-goin' to give ye a clip that'll send ye t' the +west shore o' Machias!" + +A mighty concussion followed. + +Elder Skates, as if reminded by these thunders of his duty, blushed +deeply with shame and penitence. + +"Vesty," he pleaded tremulously, "will you start 'Carried by the +Angels'?" + +Vesty went to the little organ. + +Now we forgot all the rest, all that was rude and incongruous, forgot +how mean the school-house was, how few protective boards left upon it. +Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar dropped their mallets at the first +sound of Vesty's voice, and came in on tiptoe, with changed faces, +reverent. + +For there was the Basin sorrow in Vesty's voice, enough to subdue +greater discords, and the Basin hope in it, implicit, wonderful, +thrilled to tearful vision by a word: + + "Carried by the angels," + +she sang. + + "Carried by the angels. + Carried by the angels to the skies. + Carried by the angels, + Carried by the angels, + "Gathered with the lost in Paradise." + + +Coat-sleeves began to do duty across moist eyes; seeing--we all being +simple Basins--winged white forms in the still air outside the battered +schoolhouse, bearing worn, earth-weary forms away-- + + "Gathered with the lost in Paradise." + +It was not so hard to speak now. + +"I've got my finger on a tex' here," said a white-haired, +weather-beaten Basin, rising; "'In His love and in His pity He redeemed +us.' Now thar was a time when I didn't want nobody to say a word to me +about pity--no sir! Love I wanted and admirin' I wanted, but no pity; +that thar set me broilin'. But--now--I'd e'en a'most ruther have pity +than love; 'nd I thank God most o' all that, in my pride and in my +stren'th, and not wantin' no help an' gittin' mad at the thought of +it--all'as He pitied me, an' He pitied me cl'ar through to the end. + +"For I tell ye, thar can be love and admirin', that flashes up in the +pan mighty strong at first, an' goes out, an' nary mite o' pity in it. +But thar' ain't no pity 'ithout love; and it's a love 't ain't no +fine-spun thread, but a ten-inch hawser; a love 't stands by ye when +thar' 's a trackless path afore and a lost trail ahind; when ye're +scuddin' afore the squall, an' the seas come thunderin' down on ye; +when yer boat 's in splinters, and ye're a-bitin' the sand. Yis, an' +when yer cruisin' 's all done at las', an' ye're jest a poor old hulk +around in the way, driftin' in an' out 'ith the tides, 't calls out to +ye, as ef ye was somebody, 'Ship ahoy! What port?' + +"An' ye says, kind o' hopin', but not darin' nothin', 'The port as they +calls Heaven.' + +"An' 't shouts back to ye, strong across the wave, 'What are ye +doubtin', man? That 's a port sure! and home 's thar, and folks 's +thar, and the little children ye lost is thar. D'ye want a pilot?' + +"'Ay, ay, sir!--ay, ay, sir!'" + +The deep voice sank in tears, then broke out again: + +"Git under the lee o' the wrack! + +"For days an' nights once, in a storm 't I shall never forgit, we +pulled under the lee o' a wracked vessel, 'n' no other way could we 'a' +been saved. + +"An' it was so, 't, in this sea o' life, all open ter the winds o' +sorrer an' temptation, Christ come down, an' He giv' up joy an' a safe +harbor, 'n' all that, jest ter be made a wrack on, so 't we might git +under His lee, an' foller safe. + +"It 's the great Breakwater o' the seas; don't ye fear but it 's a safe +one! + +"Young man, I know 't ye think o' somethin' more'n this, an' vary +diffur'nt from this, a-startin' out each one in his clipper-bark, gay +an' hunky in every strand, 'ith a steady follerin' breeze, an' +everythin' set from skysail pole to the water's edge. + +"All right! ye are the lad for me; ye can pull side an' feather +stroke; ye can cl'ar a tops'l reef-tackle when the sail is full, ye are +the lad for me. Steer bold; only steer true, by night an' day. I wish +'t ye might no' meet wi' fogs an' icebergs an' collisions an' gales---- + +"An' yit, I wish it not. The sea an' the storm is jest to teach us t' +git under the lee o' the great wrack o' Love an' Pity, 't made hisself +lost for us; ay, an' so to make a wrack o' our own happiness for the +poor an' weak, 't's out a-tossin' shelterless, to lead 'em to the true +Breakwater. That 's life, that 's the sea, that 's the lesson. Till +we pass on, up the roads, into the harbor----" + +The old mariner's voice failed him; he sat down. + +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, and cleared his throat huskily; "Vesty, +will you start 'The Tempests broke on Thee'?" + +Vesty's voice: + + "'O Christ, it broke on Thee! + Thy open bosom was my ward, + It braved the storm for me. + Thy form was scarred, Thy visage marred,-- + O Christ, it broke on Thee!'" + + +Great preachers have I heard dry-eyed, and skilled plaintive music +enough; but now I looked out through the broken Basin windows, on the +clear Basin sky, through a mist. + +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, "let 's keep right along into 'Beautiful +Valley o' Eden'!" + + "'How often amid the wild billows, + I dream of thy rest, sweet rest, + Sweet rest.'" + +sang Vesty, with eyes darkly circled and sunken, and the beautiful, +strong hand, labor-worn, and the thin old shawl fallen back from her +shoulders. + +There was a different tone now in the parting salutations of the Basins. + +"I'm a-comin' up to help ye paper," said one woman to another; "ye got +sick last year, and I'm a-comin', whether ye want me to or not." + +"Oh, I want ye bad enough, Mar'ette." + +But I knew what a struggle had been gone through with when I heard Miss +Pray say: + +"Car' Ann, if ye want to borry my ice-cream freezer I ain't a-usin' it +for to-morrer." + +Miss Pray alone of the Basins had acquired the monumental honor of +possessing an ice-cream freezer, esteemed by others with a no less +sacred jealousy than by herself; but she had hitherto refused all +intimations tending toward social interchange and fellowship in the +matter. + +"Vesty's kind o' poorin' away," said one matron, looking wistfully +after the girl. + +"No wonder, with that great boy, and all she does. Aunt Low-ize tried +to hold him, jest while Vesty was singin', an' she had to take him out +and walk twict around Blueberry Hill t' keep him still; he's one o' +this 'ere all-alive, jumpin' kind. I sh'd think he'd kill her." + +I overtook Vesty in the lane; she was gathering flowers in Sunday +pastime for the baby. + +She turned to look at me with quiet gladness, kindness. + +"I love to hear Captain Seabale. He doesn't come very often," said +she, "but he makes me cry." + +"I believe he made me cry," I answered. I watched her shaking a +handful of flowers over the laughing boy. "How far do you think pity +could ever go, Vesty?" + +"Why?"--there was that high, grave study of me in her eyes, that +haunting thought that I was sly! But for all her pains, too simple was +she! No discovery; only the beautiful Basin unconsciousness. "Christ +never said where to stop, did He?" + + + + +XX + +SOCIAL DIVERSIONS AT THE "POST-OFFICE" + +Leafless and brown are the trees, but the Basin has diviner glories +than at midsummer, in colors unspeakable of sea and sky, of +wild-sailing cloud, of sunset and of moon. + +There come great news of Notely. In pursuance of which, "Did ye ever +notice," said Captain Leezur, sitting on the log in the late sunshine, +ambrosially sucking a nervine lozenge; "did ye ever notice, major, how +'t all the great folks, or them 't 's risin' tew be great--how 't they +all comes from a squantum place like this?" + +"Yes," I said, "I've heard it as a remarkable fact." + +"I don't mean t' say 't _everybody_ in a squantum place is beound and +destined tew be great or die!" said Captain Leezur, with whole-souled +disparagement of such a thought: "no, no; they can't carry it on us so +fur as that. 'Forced-to-go,' ye know." + +"No, indeed!" I consented. + +I accepted a nervine lozenge, and we braced ourselves firmly on the +log, placid, but set, against all resistance, not to be great! + +"What is this rewmer abeout Notely, major? I heered how 't you took a +lot o' noos-sheets." + +"It is fine. He is making for himself a name in your politics, and at +the same time there 's the old fire in him, flashing out over +conventions; one can almost hear him laugh. He rings out, clear, amid +any false notes; it is a grand satire; sometimes the dry bones quake." + +"Lord sakes!" said Captain Leezur, turning on me with deep-smitten +dismay; "I heered how't he was bein' successful!" + +"His financial speculations seem touched with magic, they say; he is +courted, feared, praised, maligned; he laughs and rings out, the true +note! His health is not strong, never since that fall. There; you +have all I know, Captain Leezur." + +Captain Leezur meditated. "There _be_ times--I sh'd never want this +said except between you an' me, major--when I'm glad 't Notely Garrison +didn't marry Vesty, after all! Notely 'n' me was great mates, all'as. +But I'll tell ye this, when Notely got everythin' he wanted he'd carry +sail enough to sink the boat, all'as; couldn't never jump rough enough +or fast enough on a high sea; kept the rest on us bailin' water: that +was Note, when he had all the wind he wanted; that was Note, +all'as--but I all'as loved him better 'n them 't was more keerful +sailors." + +The sun saw itself globed in a tear that fell on Captain Leezur's felts. + +"Moderation in all things, ye know," he added, beaming, not to distress +me; "even in passnips." + +I mused with him in silent sympathy. "Oiling the saw again, I see," I +said at last glancing with reverent admiration of such benign industry +at the oil-can. + +"No," said Captain Leezur kindly; "I wa'n't, I was a-goin' deown, by +'n' by, to the cove, to ca'm the water deown, 'n' see ef I c'd spear up +a few fleounders; but I ain't in no hurry. I'd jest as soon set +areound on the int'rust o' my money!" + +This was a joke insatiable between us, always bubbling over, always +enough of it left for next rime. At its utterance Captain Leezur's +countenance was accustomed to break up entirely, while I laughed with +an appreciation that never fainted or palled. + +We felt that there was never aught sparkling enough to be said after +it, but parted in succulent silence, Captain Leezur with his oil-can, +going down to compose the waters, while I pursued my less omnipotent +way to the Basin "post-office." + +"Ef there 's anything trying," said Lunette, though with the peculiarly +official air she always wore on post days, "it is dressin' sand-peeps. +But thar! Tyson come home with a harf-bushel, an' what are ye goin' to +do? Onct a year, Ty says, he wants ter jest stuff himself to the +collar-bone on sand-peep pie, an' then he don't want to see nary one, +nor hear 'em mentioned in his sight--not for another year." + +It might have troubled the casual observer at first to discover, in the +variety of Lunette's official capacity, which was post-office and which +was sand-peeps, so agreeably and informally did these two elements +combine in her surroundings. + +"Mis' Pharo Kobbe!" she called. + +That lady, thus summarily summoned, sprang forward from a cloud of +witnesses, as choice and flattered assistant. + +"Won't you take them letters 't Major Henry's jest brought in, and +deface the stamps on 'em? Turn the ink enter them pictur's o' George +Washin'ton so 't his own mother's son wouldn't know him. I don't +calk'late to have no stamps 't 's sent out from the Basin post-office +washed out an' used over ag'in. The defacement they gets here is for +everlastin' an' for aye." + +I watched helplessly a full discharge of this command on the part of +Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, and proceeded to pluck one of the sand-peeps +meanwhile, along with the rest, waiting the arrival of the post bag. + +"Some o' the rusticators 't was here in the summer," continued Lunette, +sneezing over a culinary preparation of pepper, "though 't we ought to +have two mails a week! Ef I was so dyin' crazy for news 's that, I'd +go an' live to Machias!" + +"That does seem dissipated and unreasonable, certainly," I assented, +interested in the endeavor to extract the minutest pin-feathers from +the tail of the sand-peep. + +"Ef they was all like Major Henry, I told 'em, the post-office 'ud be +easy runnin', an' I don't care if I do say it afore his face. I'd say +it afore the meet'n-house--ef there was one. The very first time 't +Major Henry ever stepped inter this post-office he come up to me an' +handed me a five-dollar bill, 'n' says he: + +"'Mardam, could you kin'ly put my mail t' one side, me not all'as bein' +convienent to be here at its openin', maybe; an' all the mail that +ain't called for at its openin' bein' thrun up onter the top pantry +shelf,' says he, ''nd everybody 't comes in lookin' it over t' see ef +they've got anything, is a most beautiful compliment to human natur',' +says he, 'an' one that I wish I could interduce everywhere; but me not +bein' vary tall,' he says, 'an' kind o' near-sighted, I'm afeered as I +might git somethin' 't didn't belong to me. Have ye got anythin' like +a dror, or anythin' 't ye could lock up?' says he. + +"'No,' says I, 'I hain't, but I'll tell ye what I can do. I can put +'em inter th' old Gran'mother Tyson soup-turreen, 't I don't believe +the led of it 's been lifted this ten year; they'll be as safe as ef +they was buried an' in their graves,' says I. An' so I thought, but ye +know how things is all'as sartin to happen. + +"What, in the name o' ructions, did Ty do but come home that afternoon +with a bag o' ches'nits, which he knows I won't have in the pantry on +account o' breedin' worms; but me bein' over to Mis' Kobbe's, what does +he do, manlike, but dump them letters inter the churn, an' go an' sneak +his ches'nits inter th' old Granm'er Tyson soup-turreen. + +"Wal, I all'as churn my butter Friday mornin', come hail, come wind: so +I gits up--an' 'twas kind o' dark yit--an' in I pours the pail o' cream +an' begins to churn, an' thinks I, 'This spatters onaccountable this +mornin',' an' took off the cover to see what the ructions was! + +"Wal, the verdick of it was, after I'd laid into Ty, I went down to +major with the five-dollar bill an' another atop of it, all I had in +this livin' world--'An' ef that 's any objec', major,' says I, a-wipin' +of my eyes, 'it's all I c'n do.' + +"Wall, what think you, but major laughs, an' wouldn't tetch ary cent of +it, but took 'is letters, an' says he, 'They've ackired a peculiar +richness,' says he, 'an' I'd orter be up there mail-openin' an' not +make a lady so much trouble,' says he. That's the kind o' poppolation +'s I, for one, sh'd like to fill up the Basin with!" said Lunette, +flourishing her rolling-pin. + +A murmur of approval ran through the room. + +Blushing, embarrassed, but swollen with pride, I picked up another +sand-peep to pluck. + +At that instant "Snipe," the household and post-office dog, ran across +the floor with high-careering head, holding a huge envelope in his +teeth. + +"Stop him! stop him!" cries arose: "it's Elvine's registered letter, 't +'s goin' to Boston for a tea-set!" + +A rush followed Snipe into the bedroom, the door of which stood open; +the evil dog ran under the bed and into the farthest corner, where, +with his jaws formed into the semblance of a menace and a mocking +laugh, he assumed an attack upon that potential tea-set. + +Lunette rushed in after him. Now the bed, in default, for some unknown +though doubtless wise Basin reasons, of other stanchions, was set up on +four chairs, one at each corner, and as Lunette rushed under it, she +displaced the outermost chair; whereat the bed at that source collapsed +with a crash, imprisoning both her and the dog. + +"I've been a-threatenin' to have that bed fixed," said Tyson, with +politic zeal, as his wife and dog were delivered. + +Lunette with voiceless indignation seized one of a buttress of +birch-switches behind the door, and began applying it to the +consciously ruined Snipe, at the arising of whose howls the +post-carrier drove up, and, entering, threw the bag, in loud token of +his arrival, upon the floor. + +Snipe, of all places, ran and entrenched himself behind my feeble legs! +Whereat, "Don't whip him any more," I pleaded, being already flattered, +in one way and another, as high as mortal could sustain. + +Lunette turned unwillingly to the post. The post-driver stood about +seven feet in his boots, with a handsome face, all mud-bespattered. +Many voices beset him familiarly. + +"Say, Will, did ye bring down my molasses?" "Say, Will, did ye match +that ribbin f'r me?" "Say, Will," etc., etc. + +"You bet I did, every time!" he answered jovially, showing his white +teeth. Interest in the post was comparatively moribund; a general +parcel-distributing and hand-shaking followed--until we were startled +by a cry from Lunette: + +"Look a' this, Will Hunson!" said she; "look a' this, will ye? A whole +pot o' strawberry jam soaked right plumb inter the middle o' the United +States Governmunt!" + +It was only too true. The pile of letters and papers which she had +emptied onto the moulding table were red and glowing as the summer rose. + +Will hung his dismayed head. + +"Be them ructions, or ain't they?" coldly demanded Lunette, pointing to +the awful pile. + +"I didn't mean to," said Will. + +"Didn't mean to!" cried Lunette. "Didn't mean to, lived in a lean-to!" + +Blasted by terror and sarcasm, we all hung our heads. Snipe grovelled +in still farther behind my legs. + +"There 's got to be something done!" cried Lunette. "Folks's got to +learn 't the United States Governmunt is a awful an' a solemn an' a +turrible thing. What ef it sh'd be told 't we hadn't no more respec' +for her down here to the Basin 'n to soak her through with strawberry +jam an' molarsses! These here ructions have been a-goin' on too long +with the Basin post-office. I'm a-goin' to fill out a blank an' send +it to Washin'ton!" + +Snipe howled. Lively apprehension, none the less poignant for being +vague, sat on every pale brow. + +"Here," continued Lunette, "'s major's business letters, looks as +though they'd been a-settin' in the dentist's chair, havin' all the old +stumps extracted for a whole set of uppers and unders!" + +Lunette's comparison, though tragic, was not inapt. + +"Here"--blind terror yielded to curiosity on many features--"here is +Jennie Cossey's letter from her beau, down to New London, with a +cardboard dagarrier in it. Yes," said Lunette, manipulating the +envelope curiously and holding it to the light; "I knew 't the next +thing he'd be sendin' his pictur'. How 'd you feel, Will Hunson, ef +you was stan'in' in his shoes an' had gone an' combed yer hair 'tell +yer arm ached, an' stuck the end o' yer hankercher outer yer pocket, +an' had yer pictur' took, an' then sot down an' wrote a lot o' +sweetness to wrop around it--an' when she took it out have it look like +Injuns a-yellin' on the warpath!" + +"Say, Lunette," said honest Will, his handsome face redder than any of +the lively imageries she had called up to terrorize his conscience; "I +got that front hair fascinater ye wanted, an' I sold the spruce gum for +two dollars for ye. Look a' here!" + +"Will Hunson, don't ye ride no more strawberry jam an' molarsses down +here in the middle o' the United States Governmunt ag'in, will ye?" +said Lunette, determined to fall gently. + +But it appeared then that no blank was to be filled out and sent to +Washington! + +With a sharp yelp of joy Snipe sprang from behind the impregnable +covert of my legs, and rushed out into the free and gladsome elements. + +I gathered up my portion of matter from the illuminated heap of +"government," beside the sand-peep pie on the table, and with a fond +smile at Lunette I also departed. + + + + +XXI + +BROKEN WINDOWS + +Always now on the evening of post day, after I had read my newspapers, +came the worn shawl and the dark, weary eyes--Vesty, to sit awhile with +Miss Pray. + +"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?" + +Now and then I made her put the question, but oftener I was kind and +volunteered any information on this subject that I had been able to +glean; and at the news of joy or success for him, how her eyes glowed! +Basin pure and great, with no thought for the shadow of her own +lot--Vesty of the Basins. + +"Is there any news of Notely, Major Henry?" + +She was pinning the shawl at her throat after a short call, before +going out; and she gave me her direct, reproachful look, as though I +had been teasing her. + +But I was not teasing her; my heart yearned over her where she stood, +facing the dark. + +"I will tell you what I have read," I said, "as I walk home with you. +You are 'helping' them at your own father's again now?" + +She bowed her head. Her dark eyes filled me with a kind of frenzy to +make rest and comfort about her; and I had hard news for her! + +"In my papers of the past week the beginning of what concerned Notely +Garrison was a medley. 'Reformer,' 'The old never-heeded cry of a St. +John in the wilderness,' and again, from the other side, 'Fanatic,' +'Visionary,' 'Throwing out his by no means boundless wealth like water +for the sake of chimeras, ideally noble enough, but still vain +chimeras!' And the news at the week's end, 'Young Garrison stricken: a +shock. Overwork, over-excitement, and the result of an accident +suffered not long since. Recovery very doubtful.'" + +"I want to go to him," said Vesty. I heard her breath coming painfully +and quick. + +"I knew that. I have already made arrangements for you to leave early +in the morning." + +"Just to see him. I promised him. Notely! Notely! I can't bear +it--just as though it was little Gurd." + +"You shall see him by to-morrow night. I have sent a messenger to make +special arrangements for conveyance, in case you should desire this." + +"Major Henry, I forgot. I cannot; I have no money." + +"Ah, but you can and must. It is arranged." + +"And I do not know the way. I was never from the Basin." + +"I am going with you. In my country high ladies travel with a servant, +thus. Get what rest you can and be ready at four. They will take good +care of little Gurd while you are gone." + +"Some time," said Vesty, on the morrow, "when Gurd is a little older, +and I can take him away somewhere where I can earn wages, I can pay +you, Major Henry. They want me now--his mother wants me, somehow, I +know." + +"You are safe to think that." + +"My clothes are not like theirs," said Vesty quietly, when we came at +night more and more into the throngs of civilized life. "Do you mind? +I knew that I should not be dressed like them." + +"In my country high ladies wear what they will." + +She gave a low, perplexed laugh, looking at me with curious sorrow for +my hallucinations. + +"But I am only Vesty." + +"Surely. But you remind me so of a lady." + +At least Vesty travelled as a princess might. I brought her the long +and devious journey swiftly, with as little fatigue as possible: but it +was late at night when we mounted the steps of the Garrison town +residence; the house was all alight. + +Mrs. Garrison brushed past the servant at the door. + +"Vesty Rafe! I knew it was you. I knew you would come, somehow, +child." She drew her in, and fell on her neck, weeping. + +"He is dying?" murmured Vesty then, with cold lips. + +"He has not spoken since the shock. He does not know us; but it may be +he will know you! Come!" + +Servants from the doorways of the wide, rich hall were staring +strangely at Vesty and at me. Vesty turned to me now, to consider me. + +I gave her the warning look. "I came to show Vesty the way," I said in +simple Basin speech. "I will go to my hotel. I will call." + +The girl's sad eyes looked reproach at me, but she obeyed me. + +"Wait," she said then; "I want to speak with Major Henry." She came to +me in the door. + +"When will you come back?" she murmured, low. + +"I will call in the morning." + +"You will come?" A strange abandoned distress was in her eyes, as of a +child lost in crowded city ways. + +"Vesty!" + +She turned, chidden, but with a sort of wilful content. + +My heart bounded as I limped down the steps. I smiled to myself, safe +in the dark, sardonically. Make what you will of it, with other men +she was strong, womanly, serene; with me, she had the sweet grace to +show weakness. + +The carriage bounded over the paving-stones and stopped at my hotel. +The driver lifted his hat obsequiously. I, with sardonic smile, +entered the hotel, where I was not unknown. No doubt was made as to +the character of my apartments. + +I rested sumptuously, but could not sleep. + +"How was he now, who lay stricken yonder? Had he known her, or would +those rare blue eyes be lifted to her too, unrecognizing, and so break +her heart?" + +Eyes once seen, to haunt one, the handsomest in form and color and +expression that I had ever seen in human head. + +Now I saw them again, as I had first seen them at the meeting in the +Basin school-house; the firm, brown hand grasping the sailor's bonnet; +eyes omnipotent with health and joy, casting their mischievous, +beautiful glances over toward Vesty--she, patient, struggling, with her +holy look! + +And the Basin wind blew in through the cracked windows, and a bird flew +upward: + + "Softly through the storm of life, + Clear above the whirlwind's cry"-- + + +It all resolved itself into that at last; the human voice crying +upward, shivering, like the bird's flight; but with sure aim now! + +I saw how it was at the first look at Vesty's face, when I called the +next morning. + +Notely, waking once, had not known her among the group of doctors and +attendants; only stared at her as one of them, kindly, vaguely. + +But, for the most part, he slept in weary bliss. Once, later, they +thought her face had awakened some old memory. + +"The school-house--is growing--dark," he murmured, in indistinct, +half-recovered speech, then fell off again into his soundless slumbers. + +The doctors knew. I knew. The mother read no hope. + +"He has so much to leave," she sobbed, turning ever to Vesty, who, numb +with sorrow, yet tried to comfort her. + +So much to leave!--but who knows ever to how much going! Not so Mrs. +Garrison. The bright way ended at this pass, in blank darkness. + +And Notely slept on, wearied, heedless; soft, luxurious trappings of +life all about him; his reconciled young wife; his hope now of an heir +for his name and fortune; the work he had struggled at last so +unrestingly to do; and the dear, lost love of his youth, Vesty, bending +over him. + +Leaving them, not able to be heedful, so deep-wrapped in unknown +dreams. Waking once more and turning from them vaguely (ah, the +sublime, unconscious contempt of death!); turning from them vaguely, as +though in some far Basin the dawn were breaking! + +"Uncle Benny," said he, holding out his wasted hand, "the school-house +is very dark--I'll go home now." + + * * * * * * + +So Vesty's heart was broken in her, and to me she came, as to a father, +or more as to a friendly, favoring ghost. + +"Take me back to the Basin!" + +"Yes." + +She sat in a kind of patient apathy, numb, her heart faithful with the +dead. + +"How little Gurd will call for you when he sees you again!" I spoke; +but to waken her was to bring such a torrent of tears, choking, she +entreated me not. + +But, "It is well, I believe," I said to her; "there is life enough! Be +sure he does not lack for life. What! do you think we have found the +best of it, and all of it, here? I imagine God has enough! It is not +because His bread fails Him that any go hungry, or because He lacks for +gold that any are poor, but only for His purpose--we must guess--and +when the poor, shattered school-house grows dark the light breaks +elsewhere." + +Vesty had not slept for two nights; the sweet face was haggard. + +Again passing among crowds of restless, hurrying life, faces cold and +strange, or often staring curiously, the haunted look of one lost came +again into her eyes. + +"I must go and take care of Gurd," she said, "as well as I can, while I +live. O God! I hope he never may get lost, out in the world." + +"No; how could he, in God's world?" + +"When we get back to the Basin then you will be tired of staying there +in the bleak and cold. You will never wait for me to pay you; you will +laugh at me, and you will go back to the world." + +"Vesty!" + +Wearily she turned her heavy eyes on me--a ghost; there was the forced, +unconscious cry in them of the child, or even of the woman. + +Sacredly I shielded their glance, and ghostly; it was as though I had +not seen. + +"You mistake my courage. There is no winter," I said, smiling, "strong +enough to drive me from the Basin." + + + + +XXII + +"NEIGHBORIN'" + +Vesty never said "Stay!" but that unconscious look in her eyes made a +sort of forlorn fireplace of hope to me, desolate, open to all the +winds. As God wills. I wait. + +I went often to Captain Leezur; the nervine lozenges were potent. + +"We all'as dew neighbor a great deal in winter," said he approvingly, +stretching those dear felts before the blaze. + +"Is that a piece of the log we used to sit on?" I inquired mournfully. + +"Wal, neow! I r'a'ly believe ye feel a kind o' heart-leanin' to'ds +her, don't ye?" + +"How can I help it?" + +"Sartin! sartin!" said he, delighted; "we're jest like twin-brothers. +But neow don't you werry one mite. She 's done a good werk an' she 's +returnin' to Natur's God. I've got another one 't I'm goin' to roll +deown, first hint o' spring. I don't calk'late ever to be feound, like +them wise an' foolish virgins, without no log to set on." + +"Thar 's somethin' abeout a log," continued Captain Leezur; "when ye go +inter the heouse in warm weather, an' sets deown in a cheer, the women +kind o' looks at ye as though you was sick or dreffle lazy; but when +ye're eout settin' on a log ye feels as though God was on yewr side, +an' man nor woman wa'n't able to afflict ye. They 's a depth an' a +ca'm to the feelin' of it, 't them 't sets on fringe an' damarsk sofys +don't know nothin' abeout." + +"You must have required a great deal of oil in sawing up the old log, +captain," I said. + +The captain gave the restful sigh of battles overpast. + +"Mebbe you think 't the drippin's o' one skunk did it," said he; "but +they didn't. Did ye ever think," he resumed, "o' what a wonderful +thing ile is, an' what 'd we dew without 'er?--heow the wringin' +machine 'ud seound when ye was turnin' on 'er for yer wife, Monday +mornin's?" + +"No," said I sadly. + +"Then ag'in, it 's ile in yer natur' keeps ye ca'm an' c'llected, an' +it's ile in yer dispersition l'arns ye t' say, 'Moderation 's the rewl, +even in passnips.'" + +Lubricated with a sense of peace and blessing, I arose. + +"Ye're jest like me," gurgled Captain Leezur; "ye don't feel easy in a +cheer! Ye wanter be eout on the old log, don't ye?" + +"Yes," said I. "This isn't quite like." + +"We're nateral twin-brothers!" he exclaimed, following me to the door. +There he looked cautiously backward. + +"Dew you remember what I said to ye once," said he, "on the subject o' +kile?" + +"Ahem!--female affection?" I inquired gently. "Yes." + +"Some calls it that," said my twin-brother, beaming on me, "and some +calls it kile. Wal, neow, ef a sartin person shows a dispersition to +kile, let 'em! Let 'em," said Captain Leezur, irradiating my thin +being with the glory of his countenance; "let em." + +"Ah," said I, and shook my head again sadly, "I think more and more we +will have to go our pilgrimage without that, my friend." + +"Neow you look a' here," said Captain Leezur. "I ain't a-sayin' +nothin', that they will or that they won't, but if they dew, let 'em. +Did ye ever think o' what a heap o' wisdom there is in a poor old +bean-pole? + +"Mornin' glory comes up an' looks at it. Bean-pole stands up stiff, +without no feelin's: don't look at 'er, nor bend over an' kiss 'er, nor +nothin'. Mornin' glory don't git skeered, an' she peouts out a lot o' +leaves an' tenderls an' begins to kile. Bean-pole takes a chaw o' +terbakker an' looks off t'other eend o' the field t' see what the +pertater crop 's goin' to be. Mornin' glory peouts out more leaves an' +blossoms, an' keeps a-kilin'. By 'n' by thar ain't no poor old +God-forsaken bean-pole standin' there--it 's all one mess o' kile an +mornin' glory! + +"I tell ye, major, we need once in a while for t' l'arn a lesson from +natur'. I ain't a-goin' to press ye to stay longer, for I know ye +wanter go neighborin'!" + +Dazzled, I turned away from the refulgent keenness of his wink. + +But I did not take the direction that wink had indicated. I had an +invitation, not from Vesty, but from the two most ancient of the Basins +to tea, and I stopped in, a solitary and thoughtful bean-pole, at +Captain Pharo's on the way. + +The music-box was playing. I was glad to hear that; a tune in +undertone, like waves slowly, softly breaking. + +"She used ter play fifteen different tunes when we first had her," said +Captain Pharo pensively; "but she got to squeakin', an' so we had +Leezur up to ile 'er, an' ever sence she 's played one tune fifteen +times! Poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'My days are as the grass--'] + +Shouldn't care so much, though, ef 'twas only 'The Wracker's Darter.' + +"I've threatened a good many times to overhaul her myself, but I ain't +no knowledge o' instermental music, and I s'pose I might spend a week +on 'er, and not combine 'er insides up to playin' no 'Wracker's +Darter,' arter all. Hohum! + +[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r.] + + +At each successive pause the organs of the music-box wheezed, +struggled, almost faintly let go of life, then began again the +undertone, of waves softly breaking. + +"I like it," I said. "I like it wonderfully." + +Captain Pharo gave me a keen look and went to the door and winked. I +was no longer supine under such invitations. I rose and followed him. +"Look a' here, major," said he, when we were alone, coughed. "My foot +'s 'most well." + +"I am glad of it, captain." + +"Look a' here, major," said he, desperately, "what makes you so took up +with that 'ere monotonous tune in thar? I'm afeered I may 'a' misled +ye, times past, with regards to female grass." He coughed again and +lit his pipe. I waited. + +"'Specially," he groaned, "some things I may h've said with regards to +red and white clover." + +Still I waited. + +"Look a' here, major, when anybody sets down 'n' admires to sech a +monotonous tune as that in thar, thar's somethin' the matter with 'em." + +Still I would not speak. Tears almost were in his eyes. + +"Now I may h've said some things on partickaler pesterin' 'casions in +times past, but in general my verdick--hohum!--is fav'rable to female +grass; 'specially--hohum! hohum!--wal, wal, ye knows my meanin', +major--'specially with regards to red and white clover: hohum! how 's +Vesty?" + +The captain gave a sigh that would have exculpated him from the gravest +of crimes, and looked steadfastly toward the west. + +"I haven't seen her to-day." + +"Ye'll think it over, won't ye, major?" said he, still with that far +withdrawn vision. + +"Well, yes; I'll think it over." + +I had proceeded but a little way when he called me back. + +"I had it on my mind to tell ye," said he, "when I heered 't ye'd been +'nvited down t' Aunt Gozeman's and Aunt Electry's t' tea; ef they give +ye some o' their green melon an' ginger persarves, do ye manage to +bestow 'em somewhar's without eatin' of 'em, somehow. They're amazin' +proud an' ch'ice of 'em, an' ye don't want to hurt their feelin's, but +ye'd better shove 'em right outer the sasser inter yer britches pocket +'n eat 'em--leastways that 's the way they 'fected me." + +Visions of a past mortal suffering flitted across Captain Pharo's face. + +"I'll try," I said. + +"Ef thar 's melon an' ginger persarves settin' by yer plate, d'ye ask +them two old women, in some kind of genteel s'ciety ructions sort o' a +way, ter go outer the room an' git ye somethin', an' soon 's they've +gone d'ye jump up an' thring a shawl over that darn' parrot o' theirn +'t stands there noticin' 'an' swearin', an' chuck 'em in over behind +the wood-box or somewhar's, but don't eat 'em." + +"All right," I said, as he shook my hand with suggestive earnestness +once more in parting. + +The sisters, by mutual adoption, not by birth, lived together in the +"Laury Gleeson;" the sign of a wrecked schooner nailed up over their +shanty door. + +"And why not? We be all a-sailin', been't we?" said Aunt Electry, who +was ninety years old, lighting her pipe; "only I wish 't some 't 's +sailin' solitary had mates 't 's fit for 'em--how is Vesty?" + +"I don't know," I began, afflicted with a sort of lightness of head. I +wanted to take out Uncle Benny's pocket-mirror that I carried with me +now. Was I beautiful, and tall, and fair? What had happened me! + +"Lectry 's a great girl for straight-for'ard langwidge," said Miss +Gozeman kindly, pitying my confusion; she was only eighty and did not +smoke. + +They led me out more nimbly, almost, than I could follow, to show me +the "stock"--some forlorn, fantastic stumps of trees, long dead, all +whitewashed with tender art! the pet coon, the tame crow, the wicked +goat. + +There was another treasure; who, as we came in and sat down to tea, +eyed me from his cage with grudging and disfavor: it was the parrot; +and I presume injunctions were upon him to keep still, but I did not +know. + +"Does he talk?" I Inquired kindly. + +He snapped viciously at the cage. + +"A friend 't had him on shipboard gave him to us long ago," explained +Miss Gozeman, with gentle evasion; "we ain't ever been able to break +him of it." What the habit was of which they had not been able to +break him I sadly inferred. + +There was a munificent dish of the green melon and ginger preserves by +my plate. I was chatting with my friends, and at the same time +meditating what to do, when the tame crow, who had slyly entered the +house behind us and stolen Miss Gozeman's spectacles, was now +discovered through the window hastening to hide them in the chip-pile. + +My entertainers trotted nimbly out after him. I rose, and, lifting the +cover of the stove, dashed in the contents of my saucer--when I was +startled by a shrill voice and a mocking laugh. + +"Oh, I see ye! I'll tell!" + +I had forgotten to cover the parrot. + +"You are no gentleman if you do!" I retorted, forgetting with whom or +what I was talking. + +"Shut up!" said the parrot, and laughed. "I see ye, d--n ye! I'll +tell!" + +At all events I turned, with the intention of going out to assist the +ladies in their search for the spectacles, when the scene through the +window held me for a moment spellbound. + +The crow, having accomplished his mischievous device, was perched near +by, gravely regarding the search of the two estimable and time-honored +women, who were peering with their faces near the earth, and their +backs turned unconsciously; when the cherished goat, creeping +maliciously up, made a rush at them from the rear, and pitched them +both into the chip heap. + +This unspeakably base proceeding had the result, however, of +discovering to them the glasses, with which they soon after entered, +smiling. + +"Bill often hides our glasses," said Aunt Electry. + +"Does the goat often bunt you over?" I inquired, with dismay. + +"Shut up!" said the parrot, at the sound of my voice. "Oh, I see ye! +I'll tell!" + +My kind friends gave him a sharp glance, but considerately did not look +at me. They saw my emptied preserve plate, however, and concluding +that I had taken advantage of their absence the more greedily to gorge +myself on its contents, they generously piled it full again of what +they imagined to be the same coveted substance. + +Seeing this, the parrot shrieked with fiendish joy. + +"Indeed it is excellent----" I began. + +"Oh, stow your gab!" sneered the parrot, in a suddenly gruff bass voice. + +Aunt Electry rose and stamped her foot at him. + +"He only knows what he 's been taught long ago--by a friend," said Aunt +Gozeman reassuringly; "he can't--tell anything new, right out!" + +All the crime they imputed to me then was gluttony in the matter of +preserves! Very well; I preferred that. + +"They were really so delightful," I began, with the natural reaction +from my qualms. + +"Oh, wur-r-r!" interrupted that horrible grating voice, and then +laughed high and loud. + +The sisters in affliction rose and bore the cage out into the shed But +I heard oaths and cackles of malicious intention fired at me through +the door. + +"Sing 'We be a-sailin',' sister," said Aunt Electry, when we had +retired again to the fireside. + +Miss Gozeman obediently began, in a soft, timid tremulo. + +"We are _eout_ on the ocean _sail_ing," came in mocking, strident +accents from the wood-shed; "Oh, h--ll! give us a rest!" But dear Aunt +Gozeman sang right on, smiling pitifully: + + "'To our home beyond the tide.'" + + +Ah, what tides! what tides had been in these two lives! And stranded +here for a little, how they cherished with a great heart of compassion +the dead trees that bore them no fruit, loving and pitying the wicked +parrot that mocked at them, the crow that stole from them, the goat +that upset them. + +My own notions of charity seemed so little and mean in comparison. + +"Ask me again," I pleaded; "I have been so seldom invited to tea. I +have enjoyed it." + +Even the fate of the green melon and ginger preserves lay hard on my +awakened conscience. But I made up for that. Not for this winter nor +any winter, so long as they live, should Aunt Electry or Aunt Gozeman +want either for preserves or less brilliant condiments. + +Indeed, I play at making home and occupation, and they of the Basin are +to me as my sheep through this wild, strange winter; and I as their sly +shepherd--sly, like Captain Leezur. + +All except Vesty. To her child I can make gifts, unknown, through my +stanch friend, Lunette, even of food and clothing, but not to her. The +old frayed shawl is grander than any ermine, and the goddess' chest is +erect and broad; the winter will not kill her--but I have gazed sadly +in the mirror, and I go often to Captain Leezur. + + + + +XXIII + +THE "FLAG-RAISIN'," OR "THE OCCASION" + +"If there 's any fun going on," frankly admits Mrs. Kobbe, "you'll +all'as find me up an' dressed!" Perhaps I sympathize more truly with +her kind-hearted spouse, who says with a deep sigh: "We mustn't be +tackiturn jest because the wind's off the snow-banks." + +So I go to the flag-raising. + +"The Crooked Rivers and Capers have had their flag up these three +weeks," said Lunette; "and I heard how the Artichokes had h'isted +theirn yesterday. When the Artichokes have got their flag up, seems as +though the Basins had better be thinkin' o' what time it is in the +mornin'!" + +"What is the flag to be raised for?" I inquired, with unsuspecting +innocence. + +There was an afflicted silence; still they loved me. Lunette alone +answered at last, turning to Tyson, not to me. + +"I should think it 's enough to have a flag-raisin' without a-askin' +what it is for!" said she. "What does trees grow for? What does +anything in natur' act the way it does for?" + +I, ever safe anchored behind Lunette's championship, looked out +securely at the derelict Tyson, to see if he could answer. He could +not, but was abashed. Still I so far appropriated the hint, wisely and +delicately delivered, that I made no further inquiries, only giving +myself unhesitatingly to the joy of preparation. + +The flag was to be raised over the school-house, and instead of wending +our way dissonantly thither, as was our habit in attending the +meetings, we were to go in procession! + +A curious awe attached to this idea, in which I fully shared, as, being +formed in line, I tried to limp martially behind the valiant Lunette. + +"Halt, by clam!" said our general. + +"What is it?" came in whispers along the line. + +"Jakie Teel" (one of the sculpins) "'s got his trousers on hind side +afore!" + +"Flory dressed him by candlelight this mornin', so 't she could get +time to make three loaves o' angel-cake for the flag-raisin'." + +The victim of this mysterious adventure was led away by his mother for +reaccoutrement, while we as a regiment waited patiently for his return +to warlike rank and file. + +"If these condummit ructions are over," said our general--for the wind +was blowing cold--"forwards ag'in, by clam!" and we marched upon the +schoolhouse; but we encountered so many difficulties, of wayward ropes, +in hoisting our ensign, that Captain Pharo declared, rubbing his +chilled hands: + +"'T we'd omit the usual cheerin' 'tell we'd been in and thawed out--ef +they was any thaw to us--leastways baited." + +Vesty was there with the rest, munching a slice of angel-cake--fit food +for her! I smiled kindly upon her, but did not forget that I was an +indifferent bean-pole. + +"Major!" cried the Basin, toward the close of the repast, with its +mouth sweet and full--"Major, a speech! a speech!" + +Now I had a heart given to the Basin, with a simple thought or two, and +I requisitioned the best of my forces for the "Occasion," conscious of +my morning glory there--oh, she of the skies! munching angel's food. + +Whatever I had said or done, moreover, the Basin would have applauded; +yet such cheers as I heard now left no doubt upon my too-willing and +plastic sense of a phenomenal and hitherto unsuspected ability. + +"Vesty," said Elder Skates, starting to his feet, "will you +start--start--start--anything?" + +"We always _do_ sing + + "'In the prison cells I set, + Thinking, mother dear, of you,' + +to flag-raisin'," said the ever well-informed and officious Lunette. + +"Somehow," said Captain Pharo, shrugging his shoulders, "thar 's too +much of a sea-rake blowin' acrost the back o' my neck t' sing 'Prison +Cells;' 'tain't clost enough for it here. What d'ye say to 'Hold the +Fort'?" + +What they said was unanimous. Even Captain Leezur knew it, and the +sculpins, of terrible voice. It was sung with such complete personal +abandonment to strong oral gifts that, at the second verse, the +remaining quota of plastering upon the school-house roof became +loosened and fell with a crash upon the head of that very unfortunate +sculpin who under other blighting circumstances had been forced to +undergo temporary absence from our ranks in the morning. + +He uttered a mature sea-oath, and was again marched violently from our +presence by his mother; but I was happy to see that he returned soon +afterward and renewed his portion of the song with a gusto which the +added quality of defiance now rendered deafening, while through all our +din sounded true the flute of Vesty's sweet voice. + +"We mustn't forgit the occasion, I s'pose," said Captain Pharo, our +general, at length. "Poo! poo! hohum! I s'pose it's about time we was +thinkin' o' goin' out to cheer the flag. Forwards, by clam! Poo! poo! +hohum! Wal, wal-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass--'"] + + +"Sh!" said Mrs. Kobbe, deftly getting audience at his ear. + +"Ladies an' gentlemen an' childern," said Captain Pharo, taking his +place beside the flag; "we've h'isted of 'er, an' here she blows"--he +put his hand in his pocket for his pipe, and drew from his vest a match. + +Mrs. Kobbe coughed loudly, and even shook her head at him: he put them +back. + +"We have h'isted on 'er," he continued, "an' here she blows!" + +Mrs. Kobbe's cough of deeper warning and high-mounting blushes on his +account nerved him. + +"We've h'isted of 'er," he shouted with desperate defiance, "and thar +she blows, don't she, by clam! on the full, the free, the glorious, an' +the ever-lastin' h'ist!" + +A sturdy round of applause was not wanting, but on this point Mrs. +Kobbe was visibly sceptical: she received her lord with sniffs of +disdain. + +"'The full, the free, the glorious, an' the ever-lastin' h'ist'!" said +she. "Where was you eddicated, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?" + +"It don't make but darn little difference whar ye've been eddicated," +replied Captain Pharo, "when ye're tryin' to make a speech, an' one o' +them devil-fish boys goes around behind ye an' snaps a live lobster +onto the slack o' yer britches!" + +Giggles from a school of sculpins safe hidden somewhere lent further +aggravation to the dilemma. + +"Jakie Teel an' Pharie Kobbe, Junior, 'll come to judgment," cried Mrs. +Kobbe, in a loud voice, "'specially Pharie Kobbe as soon 's ever he +gits home," whereat giggling from that miscreant quarter ceased, and +she relieved her lord of his painful embarrassment. + +But at this point a new and surprising development arose. The Basin +horses attached to some wholesale herring-boxes, extemporized as +sleighs, were driven to the scene. Captain Pharo, with heart-whole joy +at the sight, lit his pipe and declared, with now beaming countenance: + +"It has been arranged, to crown this happy 'casion, for all our +unmarried Basins over sixteen year o' age, not forgettin' widders under +forty, to have a sleigh ride. Elder Skates'll reel off the names, +accordin' to which you can pile yerselves in accordin'ly, two 'n' two, +side by side, thus 'n' so, male an' female, created He them!" + +Flushed with inspiration, Captain Pharo glanced triumphantly at his +wife, who, at this more than Pentateuchal illustration, refused to +sneer. + +So absorbed was I in watching the gleeful embarkation, and so little +dreamed I of being considered in a case like this, it had not even +occurred to me that I too was an unmarried Basin widely over sixteen +years of age, and yet a little under forty, when-- + +To the choicest seat in the very largest herring-box, the back of which +was stylishly bedizened by the splendors of the star bedquilt, I heard +my own name called: + +"Major Paul Henry and the Widder Rafe!" + +Who and where was the Widow Rafe? Lo! Vesty stepped out. To be +sure--the formal, the flag-raising, the "Occasion" name of Vesty! + +I led her to her place, but, as for me, I sat down, lost to mortal +woes, silent and dazed, among the stars. + +"Didn't you want to sit with me?" said Vesty, her face rather grave. + +"Oh, why do you ask that?" + +"You looked, when they called our names, as though you didn't want to." + +Now I tried to dwell upon the words of Captain Leezur, but, however +callous I succeeded in appearing on the outside, at heart I was a +happy, happy bean-pole. + +"I was stunned," I said. "Besides, you see, I did not expect to be +invited." + +"Why not, Major Henry?" + +Oh, the beautiful Basin! the beautiful Basin! I tried to speak, but +could not. + +"You never seemed before," said she, a sea-shell color glowing in her +cheeks, "to feel above us!" + +She felt humbled, and my poor brain was too dizzy and incredulous to +frame fitting words. I swallowed hard; that was a Basin prerogative, +and by exerting it a direct Basin inspiration seemed to come to me. + +"Feel above you! O Vesty!" + +At that the sea-shell color went away down low, even to her lips, but +no further illumination came to me. + +Past ghostly hill and moor and still-gleaming flood we flew. "I am +happy," I could say at last, "as I ought not to be. In all scenes and +places where I may ever be I shall remember this, Vesty." + +She shivered a little. Ah! the sad old shawl! I clinched my hands. + +Past hill and moor and still-gleaming flood: the light of day changed +to one unfathomed, possible, as of sweet, unspoken dreams becoming +blessed at nightfall. + +Then all at once, round and full above a distant hill-top, rose the +hoyden moon, and the Basins saluted her with shouts of natural delight, +all save Vesty and I, who were silent. + +Now, I saw, was the hour when each Basin put his arm about his girl. I +could not have touched my girl, not under all the rollicking moonbeams +that ever fired the heart of youth and man. Farther she seemed to me +than that far white hill-top, glittering and high. + +Yet it pierced me that it was a gloomy ride for her. "It was good and +kind of them," I said, "to place a poor old fellow like me here beside +you; but you should have one of those rosy, handsome lads with you; you +so young, though we forget it. Your life is yet to live." + +At the reproach in her eyes--a look of anger, too, but for its wild and +dark distress--my heart had almost leaped to my lips. + +But--too merry the rollickers, who had fallen behind us, driving on the +homeward road; there had been several laughing, reckless adventures of +overturned herring-boxes in the snow-drifts; now the pole attached to +one of these had broken; the frightened horses had cleared themselves +and were veering madly on the narrow road, with the swinging cross-bar, +toward that side of the sled where my girl sat, unconscious of the +danger, still and pale. + +I sprang, fell in a heap, but rose again somehow; and now at last I put +up my arm. It was not without strength--in this case more than mortal +strong--still, in the end, I fell. + +When I came to myself we were still flying through the wild, +swift-changing scene, homeward bound; one of my hands was numb, and my +wrist bandaged, and my head--was on Vesty's shoulder! We were in right +Basin fashion now, only by needs it was Vesty's arm that was about me. + +"Am I dead, Vesty?" said I, half believing it in my bliss; besides, I +had ever a great appreciation of the Irish humor. + +"Oh, don't, major; don't!" said Vesty; "you saved me from getting +terribly hurt, they say--or----" + +"Ugh!" I groaned. + +"Your poor arm!" said she. "Oh, the pain!" + +"Nothing pains me," said I. + +"Your arm wasn't broken, major; but it 's terribly bruised and +sprained." + +"And my neck, Vesty--you are sure that was not broken?" + +She sighed, but since I was bent, she followed my humor. + +"Never fear," said this demure young woman; "that 's too proud ever to +get a twist." + +Here was a dilemma--that I should be developing into a wit and Vesty +into a coquette! + +"Well," said I, "I must try and straighten myself up again," and with +that endeavor the pain did cut me so cruelly I fainted, quite without +any maiden affectation, back again on to Vesty's arm. + +"Try and think," said she, when I could hear her voice, "that I am some +old woman, just trying to take care of you--somebody not disagreeable +to you, and keep still till we get home." + +"Very well," said I, tormenting myself with the thought that she was +acting under some compelling sense of obligation; and that should never +be. + +So I answered briefly all at once; and no sooner had I spoken than I +endured a gnawing consciousness that I was the hatefullest thing that +had escaped extermination that night. I kept still, however; the pain +was something to dread. + +At least I had my beautiful mother's hair, thick and curling; that was +all Vesty could see now there on her shoulder. I comforted myself with +that thought as a child. I was weak, and I let some tears roll down my +face that Vesty could not see. + +When the strong fellows took me out of the sleigh and bore me very +gently up to the door they stopped there for a moment, while I +wondered; and if any bitter sense of their physical supremacy pierced +me at that moment it ceased forever, as with a preconcerted signal from +the foremost they lifted the caps from their heads and cheered my name, +thrice and again, and again, with ringing cheers--and Vesty standing by! + +The old Basin flag--almost as dilapidated as I--had heard nothing like +it; but when they dressed the swollen arm pain sent me off into +oblivion again. Vesty's was the last face I saw bending over me: + +"Do you"--timidly--"do you want me to come to-morrow, and see how you +are?" + +"Oh, if you will--thank you! Still, I am all right--I shall be all +right, never fear." + +She lingered still a moment, but spoke calmly: + +"If you don't care anything about me why did you risk your life to save +me from getting hurt?" + +A demon possessed me. Pity I could have endured, but if she were stung +on by that inflicted sense of gratitude? + +"Why did you risk your life to save me?" + +"Oh, it was _pity_, child," I answered her; the surging bitterness +within made it almost a sneer--"natural human pity: it is strong in all +my race." + +She looked at me with a beautiful sorrow, and as though she called me +proudly, to a better contempt of myself. + +"I wish you had a mother," said she then, and flushed, the holy eyelids +low, pinning the old shawl--"as it is, I don't know what to say." + + + + +XXIV + +THE STORY OF THE SACRED COW + +Vesty came next day at evening, but she took pains to be found in +company with almost the entire Basin. + +I was so much better that I was able to be about and receive my guests; +at sight of Uncle Coffin even the maimed hand seemed to tingle +healthily. He marched me to a chair with an ostentation of violence, +that really treated me, however, with the softest gentleness, and sat +me down. + +"Dodrabbit ye!" he cried, standing off and regarding me. "What ye been +a-doin' of, you young smashin', slashin', cavortin'-all-around young +spark, you!" + +"Well," said I, naturally feeling rakish after this, "I will tell you. +Miss Pray had a brood of chickens come off unseasonably to-day, who +desired particularly and above all things, having taken a general +outlook on life, not to live. Under Miss Fray's directions I have been +amusing myself with trying to defeat that purpose. I have watched for +any signs of hope in their world-disgusted eyes, dipped their unwilling +beaks in food, put chips upon their backs to help them maintain an +earthly equilibrium--so little desired by them, however, that oftener +they have toppled over and turned their infantile legs entreatingly +upward; but I have conquered; they live." + +"Wal, neow," said Captain Leezur, my chiefest admirer, "ef you ain't a +case to describe anything in natur'! Ef I had you areound I shouldn't +never want no dagarrier of a sick chicken, for you'd call 'em right up +afore me!" + +I murmured my low thanks, blushing as usual under flattery. + +Vesty was talking brilliantly with some of the company, quite away from +me. She had a bright, disdainful look, when I chanced to glance that +way, new to her, but quite befitting--ah me! ah me!--some lady one +might dream of, of high, disdainful quality. + +"Ain't he a case neow to describe anything in natur'?" joyfully +reiterated Captain Leezur to Uncle Coffin. + +Uncle Coffin, with his hands on his knees, shook his head at me, +finding no words quite to the mark. + +"Dodrabbit ye!" said he; "you sly young dog, you!" + +"That's what I tell him!" rippled the deep-gurgling brook of Captain +Leezur's voice; "we're jest like nateral twin-brothers. Only," he +added tenderly and gravely, "he ain't nigh so ongodly as I use' ter be." + +"Ongodly! Why, dodrabbit ye, Leezur!" said this native Artichoke, "ye +never done an ongodly thing in yer life--'cept, maybe," he added, "to +cuss a little when ye was fishin' for the bucket." + +"'Specially," said Captain Leezur intelligently, "when the women folks +has been thar afore ye, r'ilin' the water and jabbin' of her furder +deown." + +Uncle Coffin gave me an irresistible but a loving and true, not a +malicious, wink. + +"Speakin' o' women folks, Leezur," said he, "is there any news from +Lot's wife?" + +Captain Leezur cleared the mellow symphonies of those organs through +which he intoned his speech; and was about to reply, fully and sweetly, +when Captain Pharo made his appearance at the door. + +Uncle Coffin sprang from his chair, and with a grave face, which only +later broke out into those beams of affection which were storming his +bosom, shook him violently by the collar, dragged him across the floor, +and set him in a chair by the fireplace with a loud, conclusive thump. + +"Dodrabbit ye, man!" said he, "I hain't heered your voice since I was a +baby." + +Captain Pharo, with a countenance full of delight and sympathy, pulled +his ruffled jacket down nearer to the waist line, and lit his pipe. + +"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" continued Uncle Coffin, and turned from his pet +to me with another wink, "what are yer days like now? They ain't like +the grass, are they? I b'lieve they are, jest like the same old grass, +or like the morning flower, the blighting wind sweeps o'er. She +withers in an'--why don't ye never finish on 'er out, Pharo? Why don't +ye never ring the last note on 'er--eh?" + +"Because, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with a smile of deep meaning, +"because thar's so many things that when they're onct finished they 're +completely done for in this world; eat a meal o' vittles and thar 's +the end on't; smoke a pipe an' she runs dead; I like t' have one thing +left over. I like to feel, Coffin, by clam! 't thar's somethin' 't +thar ain't go'n' to be no end on!" + +Uncle Coffin had been studying him attentively, with his hands on his +knees. + +"Kobbe," said he, "you're a philosoffarer." + +Captain Pharo wiggled uneasily. + +"I don't say hippopotamar nor rhinosossarer," said Uncle Coffin; "I say +philosoffarer." + +Captain Pharo drew a strange breath of relief. + +"Mebbe we're a little alike in that respec'," Captain Leezur assured +him deliciously; "'cept 't he ain't nigh so ongodly as I use' ter be." + +"I don' know," said Captain Pharo. "I have worked sometimes, +Sundays--poo! poo! hohum!--but not 'less 'twas somethin' 'mportant, +gettin' in hay or somethin' like that. And I have--poo! poo! hohum! +Wal, wal--hauled out my lobster car sometimes Sundays waitin' for the +smack--hohum!" + +"Pharo," said Uncle Coffin, holding up his finger, "no more! I know +ye. Thar ain't an ongodly bone in yer body--'cept maybe when ye've +lost yer pipe an' cussed a little." + +"An' the women folks wants to haul ye over somewhar's on a flat sea to +have yer gol darn pictur' took!" said Captain Pharo, with poignant +recollection of a still unquiet grief. + +"Kobbe," said Uncle Coffin, "no more!" + + "'I know not why I love her, + The fair an' beau'chus she; + She bro't the cuss upon me, + Und'neath the apple-tree: + But she asked me for my jack knife, + And halved 'er squar' with me, + Sence all'as lovely woman + Gives the biggest half to thee.'" + + +"Judah's wife writ that," exclaimed Captain Pharo, with a generic awe +of poetry as poetry. + +"She did," said Uncle Coffin, with eyes appreciative of the muse fixed +gravely on the fire, "she did." + +There was a daughter of Eve who was treating me very severely. + +Instead of the old encouraging smile and gleam of merry recognition or +sympathy in her eyes, there was now an averted gaze, bent very +brightly, it seemed, on every one but me; in that direction alone, a +studied coldness, a haughty carriage of the head. What could I +expect?--but it broke my heart. + +I subscribed silently to the mood of Belle O'Neill, whose mind was +subject to vagaries, and who in the midst of the gay company was +playing weird, plaintive "revival" tunes upon the mouth-harp, +enthusiastically absorbed in her art. + +Her mistress, Miss Pray, who notably for some time had been receiving +the attentions of Pershal, the man who had been in California, had +withdrawn with him, with tacit understanding of apologies, to the +kitchen, where they were carrying on their courting, as all good Basins +should, undisturbed. + +The young people were playing a game of forfeits. I heard Vesty's +penalty pronounced; it was, to go and put her hand upon "the handsomest +man in the room." + +She began to move, with her lovely, erect head and brilliant, averted +smile, toward the fireplace. Surely she would not put any ignominy or +mockery upon me--ah, no! I knew in my heart. But she came nearer, and +I gazed, spellbound; and then she bowed her beautiful head with a +tender, laughing smile, and laid her hand on Captain Leezur's shoulder. + +"Here!" she said. + +Oh, how he laughed! Robins by the brook, and sun-sparkles. + +"That 's right, Vesty!" he exclaimed; "that 's right, darlin'. Come +and kile yourself areound them 't 's got some feelin's!" + +He winked at Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin. The sweet girl blushed +disdainfully--for some one--and, with a lingering touch on the dear +man's shoulder, went away. + +"I've all'as been kiled over a good deal," explained Captain Leezur +gently, with a smile the subtlety of which he sought in a measure to +hide. + +"And we mustn't forgit," he added, "that thar 's a time for all things +under the sun. Thar 's a time to be a bean-pole and thar 's a time to +kile." + +He winked at me; fearing that I had not understood, he winked still +broader; then, moving his back toward his two companions, he directed +full upon me a wink so vast and expressive that I endeavored at once to +signify my enlightenment by replying in kind; but, unpractised as I was +in the art, I could only infer what the unlovely aspect of my features +must have been from the look of sorrowful disgust which immediately +thereafter overspread Vesty's own. + +But it transpired that that look of disgust was not for me. It was for +Belle O'Neill, who, moved by another inspiration, had thoughtfully +abandoned her mouth-harp to creep through the surreptitious channel of +the wood-box and learn how Miss Pray and Pershal were progressing in +their courting. + +She returned with a face of excitement. + +"Be they j'indin' hands, or anything like that?" we asked. + +"No," said Belle O'Neill: "he told 'er winter pears was the pears for +him, an' she giv' him a slap an' started down suller to get a dish o' +fruit, an' he told 'er when she come back he was goin' ter tell her a +story 't he hadn't never told or dreamed o' tellin' to anybody but her; +he said he'd all'as kep' it to himself, 'cause folks 't hadn't been in +Californy was ign'runt an' env'ous, an' wouldn't believe nothin' 't was +told 'em, but he guessed she loved him well enough to b'lieve it; an' +he said the name of it was 'The Story o' the Sacred Cow!'" + +On uttering these words with a countenance of feverish eagerness and +expectation, Belle O'Neill unhesitatingly turned and crept back through +the passage. + +Not long afterward I found myself lifted bodily over into the wood-box, +and guided by the silent wake of Captain Pharo's pipe before, and +entreated gently by Uncle Coffin from behind, I crawled to the little +store-room adjoining the kitchen. + +The door was slightly ajar; and with whatever shame I have only to +record that I stood with delectation by this door and waited for the +Man-Who-had-Been-in-California to tell "The Story of the Sacred Cow." + +"Arter all, Jane," said he, plunging his knife into a choice pear, +"you'd orter seen the winter fruit we use' ter have in Californy!" + +Miss Fray's face fell. We heard Captain Pharo groan silently; +moreover, his pipe had gone out, and he dared not relight it. + +"I thought you was goin' to tell a new one--about the Sacred Cow?" said +Miss Pray. + +"So I will, Jane," said Pershal; "but the fact is, it 's sech a true, +sech a solemn an' myster'ous thing, that I fa'rly dread to tackle it!" + +Belle O'Neill would have gasped, had she dared. She kicked the calf of +my lame leg convulsively instead. + +"Thar's been a great many stories," continued Pershal, "about sacred +cows. Folks has claimed t' seen 'em. Circuses has claimed t' had 'em: +but the fact, an' the solemn fact, is, thar wa'n't never but one Sacred +Cow, and that was raised on my farm in Californy. + +"She was white, and nothin' monst'ous, jest about the size of an +ordinary cow"--Captain Pharo drew an inaudible sigh of relief--"it was +the intellex of her and the sacredness; wal, the go-to-meet'n-ness of +her, as ye might say, that was so monst'ous an' so strange that I +trem'le to call it up ag'in; but I've promised, an' I will." + +Belle O'Neill, pale in the darkness, stifled another gasp. + +"She wa'n't nothin' byordinar' as a calf; run an' gambil around with +the other calves, bunt everythin', an' shake her heels out with the +sinfullest. It was when she got to be a cow, and a old cow, that these +here ructions o' sacredness, as ye might say, begun to develop +themselves in her. + +"First I knew, she wouldn't eat nothin': we warmed her mess an' we +salted it; no, nothin' 'u'd do. We tried all manner o' gimcracks an' +fussin' with her. Finally says Jim--my man--say she: 'Perhaps she's +the Sacred Cow,' says he, laffin', an' went in an' got a hymn-book an' +sot it up afore her, and"--Belle O'Neill shivered--"what does the old +cow do but pitch in and eat her mess regalar! Minit we took that +hymn-book away or shet it up, she'd stop eatin'." + +Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin nudged each other in voiceless agony. I +felt, but could not see, the calm irradiance of Captain Leezur's look. + +"Then another singalar thing begun to be noticed. All them 't drunk +the milk from her was took an' possessed to jine the church! I use' +ter send out peddlin' carts o' milk--for my ranch was the biggest in +that section--it use' ter be all mixed together in course, an' the +smallest elemunt o' that old cow's milk in it made it jest the same as +ef 'twas all hern. Sometimes I thought ser'ously whether I hadn't +ought to take her and go around an' start seasons o' special interest +with her all over the kentry; and then thinks I--no, I'll stay here and +I'll let 'em build new churches. So they kep' a-goin' up--three new +Baptis', four new Methodis', in a month's time." + +Captain Leezur was softly but strenuously sucking a nervine lozenge. I +heard Captain Pharo crunching one down stormily, at the same time one +was pressed into my hand. "They come high," whispered the beloved +voice; "cent apiece, dollar a hunderd, but----" + +"But the strangest and singalarest of it all, I didn't find out till +'long toward the last. I was a-milkin' on her one day, an' I spilled +the milk accidental, an' I said a word that I hadn't ort'er said. When +she heered that she up an' kicked me, an' I give her tail a yank, an' +she began to sing----" + +Belle O'Neill clutched me by the neck. + +"I don' say that she sung as Vesty doos. I don' say that she +pernounced the words jest regalar; but as fur as tune goes, she hit the +tune right squar' in the bull's eye every time. She sung: + + "'From Greenlan's icy mountings, + From Injy's coral stran', + Whar Aferk's sunny fountings + Roll down their goldin' san';'" + +And when she got as fur as that"--Pershall showed evidences of lively +distress--"she keeled right over an' died." + +"You've heered o' the tewn 't the old cow died on? Wal, that 's whar +it all started, Jane; right thar. That was the very cow and the very +event. It was _my_ old cow that died." + +"Give me sea-room here, by clam!" muttered Captain Pharo, shooting his +arms about. + +"Ef I b'lieved in gho's, I sh'd say 't your but'ry was harnted, Jane," +came from the kitchen the solemn and shifty voice of the +Man-Who-had-Been-in-California: "le's step around by the outside way to +the door whar the folks is. Jest look at the stars, Jane," he +continued, when they were safe out. "See anythin' o' my old cow up in +the Milky Way? Down in the southern latitude, whar I was, the Milky +Way use' ter be so plain some nights 't ye could see----" + +We lost it in the distance, as we returned, by the honorable and +legitimate highway now offered us, to the guest-room. "I never keered +so much about money in the bank," said Uncle Coffin, giving me a nudge; +"all 't I ever as't for was luck!" + +But I yearned in secret to know the developments of the Milky Way; +especially as the length of time absorbed by Pershal and Miss Pray in +walking between the two doors advised me with an only too tragic hint +of the marvel and interest I had lost. + +I could not wonder that Vesty was now loftier toward me than ever. +Uncle Coffin, Captain Pharo, Captain Leezur and I kept close together +as a sort of brazen and disgraceful community. Uncle Coffin, having to +retrace his steps to Artichoke, was the first to leave the party. + +"I can't tell ye, Miss Pray," said he, "how much I've enjiyed the +evenin'--no, honest, I can't tell ye!"--he winked at Captain Pharo, who +choked and had to resort to song--"but I und'stand thar 's a happy +event comin', an' I wish ye jiy; ye know I do!" + +As he disappeared down the road he indulged in a continued, loud, and +exact imitation of Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up (who was also a justice of +the peace, and who married people): + +"G'long, ye old fool! Git up, ye old skate!" + +At which we all, including Pershal and Miss Pray, laughed inordinately, +gazing out into the sweet Basin night; and indeed I was even ready to +avow with my life that it was a joke of the extremest savor. Even had +all Uncle Coffin's sins been known, he would have been forgiven. + +Captain Leezur put on Vesty's shawl for her: + +"Sence I'm the han'somest man in the room," he gurgled. + +"So you are!" The tender, girlish light of her great eyes was on him; +no kind look for me. + +"Vesty!" Captain Leezur whispered, but a whisper that could not be dark +and secret to save itself; I heard: "why don't ye speak to major? Ye +ain't spoke tew words tew him the hull endurin' evenin'." + +She darted a dark flash at him too. + +"Vesty! Vesty!" said the beloved old man, in that whisper that so +thoroughly deceived him--"I know 't I set ye up to this bean-pole +business. But it won't dew for both on ye to be bean-poles. One or +the other on ye 's got to kile. Neow, Vesty, ye know 't major 's got +some misfortin's in his looks 't makes him beound to be preoud; ye +wouldn't have him other ways. Ye see, Vesty, he don't know 't----" + +She stopped him with a haughty look. + +"An' in course," said he, "I don't know, neither. But it dews make me +feel dreadful t' think I've started sech a rank bean-pole farm as this, +when I've all'as told ye, my little gal, 't we'd ort'er use +moderation"--Captain Leezur wiped his blessed shining eyes--"moderation +in all things, even in passnips--I have said--an' neow I change it to +bean-poles." + +Vesty's mouth quivered; her eyes looked fit to enfold the whole sinful +world for his sake. + +"Good-night, major!" she said coldly; but she had spoken. And, +beautiful and tall, she passed out of sight. + +As Captain Leezur turned to me, in spite of the dark duplicity of his +conduct toward me, my heart gushed out to him unawares. I grasped his +hand silently. + + + + +XXV + +IN THE LANE + +I met her on the morrow in the lane. She would have passed me with a +mere morning salutation, but I spoke to her. "I will tell the story at +least," I thought, "before I go away." + +"Vesty," said I timidly. Even the handsomest of the Basins were timid +in putting the question; and I, so miserable, and believing it not to +be a question at all, but only a confession, was choking. + +"Yes, sir," said Vesty, with reassuring meekness, but there was +something wicked about her mouth and eyes. O Vesty, had you been of +the world I fear you would have been a sad one! + +"What did you mean," said I, starting in wise Basin fashion, at a +millennium distance from the intended point, "what did you mean, the +other night, when you said that you wished I had a mother?" + +"Oh, because we all need them, for comfort--and then, sometimes--for +correction." + +"And which did you think that I needed one for?" + +Vesty turned her sheathed eyes away toward the safe west with a smile +that gave me no other answer. + +"It is lifting to be a glorious day," I said. + +"If you want to talk about the weather," rippled the girl's voice, +quite gently, "why don't you go and sit on the log with Captain Leezur? +He rolled down another this morning." + +"I am going," I sighed. "What do you think he would tell me about the +weather?" + +"What we all say: 'The wind's canting in from the west, and you'll see +this fog hop.'" + +"It is what I say, and shall say forever, in such a case. 'The wind's +canting in from the west, and you'll see this fog hop.'" + +"You only pretend to be a Basin!" + +"God forgive you! No; I don't pretend. I shall never get over it. I +shall be one forever and ever, wherever I go, Vesty." + +She looked down and paled. "Are you going away, major?" + +"Yes." Then said I, looking at her, "How far do you think pity could +lead one, Vesty--you, so pitiful and kind? Do you think that it could +even lead you--to marry me? To take little Gurd and go away with +me--and help me to live--for pity?" + +"No! oh, no!" she gasped. + +"Then," said I, grasping hard on my cane with my feeble hand, "as God +wills!" + +"Because," said Vesty, "I'm not so unselfish as that. I can't marry +you for that reason--because--I love you!" + +The red of the Basin sunset, that would be by and by unsurpassed, +glowed in her cheeks. + +As for me--forever a Basin--I dashed my hand across my eyes. A Voice +above land and sea rolled toward me in that moment, through her voice, +in gathering waves that covered all the pitiful accident and despair of +a maimed, halting, birth-marked universe: + +"And the crooked places shall be made straight; and the rough places +plain. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart." + + + + +XXVI + +JUST THE SCHOOL-HOUSE + +Waves, slowly, softly breaking, not on the Basin shore: though ever, in +remotest lands, we dream of that. + +We hold it mystic more and more, for love of it!--ay, we have it +mingled in our thoughts with that one safe and sweet possession, the +Land unspoken, the Basin whose colors dawn at eventide! + +And we never count: "Such an one was lost," and, "Such an one was +living, when we knew." For there, there are none lost. They live +again! + +I suggested once that we should build a house fitting those grand +sea-cliffs, sometimes to occupy it. + +But Vesty, ever wise, was silent, troubled, and I read her thought. + +No, we should introduce no discordant element there, of liveries and +servants, and riches and seclusive walls, of _mine_ and _thine_. + +"Mine _is_ thine if thou needest it," was ever the Basin code: "even my +life!" Before such a spirit the admission of worldly wealth and rank +were tawdry. + +But Vesty communicates with them (dear to me when they arrive are the +stamps unutterably erased by Lunette's faithful art): and we know that +they are happier for us, and by us comforted. + +And do I never blush for Vesty in her new position? Ay, a thousand +times, for pride and joy! Her manners are from a high source indeed; +you will not find me any that are higher. + +Full are her hands of charity and mercy, given, as the great Founder of +our nobilities gave, without stooping, of condescension. Saint Vesta! +who gives a glory to my name it never had before--the high and noble +lady of my house! + +And love makes, as fully as may be in this world, security about her +steps, which yet it would not hamper. + +Driven in her state carriage, robed in velvet and sable, she is royal; +yet not so queenly, not so matchless, as when walking, pitiful, lonely, +and strong against misfortune, by the Basin shores, with her child +upheld upon her arm, and the old shawl. + +One evening I found her by the window, gazing out wistfully where the +wind was tossing the rain, which ceased now and then in strange +intermittent gusts, still wild of the tempest. + +She looked up at me with a smile, trustful, but earnest and pathetic. + +"I want to go out in the storm," she said. + +"Then go, child," I answered her. "Your possessions are wide, and, as +we of the Basin say, you are not made of sugar, to melt; neither," I +added, "are you like Lot's wife." + +She showed her fine teeth over that old tender and beloved +reminiscence, but the wistful look, and sad, was still in her eyes. + +"And--I would like to put on the old shawl again, just this once," she +said. + +"Oh," said I, "that is another thing. That is priceless, and I have +it, as you know, locked among my treasures. Still, this once, yes." +And I brought it to her. + +Still smiling at me, as pleading for her fancy, she held it at her +throat as of old. + +I made haste to resume my reading with seeming preoccupation apart, for +I thought she wished to go alone. + +"Aren't you coming?" said she, wistfully again, and paled and turned to +me. + +The look in her eyes--she wanted me! Oh, how my heart leaped--a trick +taught it at the Basin, which now it will never get over. + +But, sly as Captain Leezur, I hid my delight in the folds of my great +overcoat. + +Long we walked together. "What inspired you to this? This is best of +all," I said. + +"Why?" said Vesty, glowing and beautiful. + +"Because now I see again that you are 'Vesty.' And my Lady of M---- +was a possible dream always. But Vesty seemed unattainable. + +"That rose color," I added, looking at her cheeks, "I never saw +anywhere except at certain sunsets--you know where." + +For we of the Basin--however wilfully inclined sometimes, as Captain +Pharo--at heart bow down to our wives, and make love to them, long, +long after we are married: quite, indeed, until death do us part, as +all true Basins should. + +"Paul!" said Vesty. Now "Paul" was really my name, with considerable +before and after it, but never mind all that. + +"Paul!" + +"Well?" I said. + +Confused with the rose-color blushes: "I forgot," she murmured, "what I +was going to say." + +No, she had not forgotten it! Her face was eloquent; only she cannot +talk with that fluency with which she can look beautiful and sigh. +Especially when she would express anything of deep feeling, she has a +way of brushing a speck of dust from my right shoulder, and letting her +hand rest there a moment, that tells me worlds, but would not go for +much, I admit, on a smart female rostrum. + +But "Paul!" that voice creeps to me at all times, for counsel, for +sympathy; comes impulsively, that is the best of it--comes ever +impulsively. I do not know why I am so blessed among my fellows! Just +as the lad comes to me--he, too, of the highest breeding. I never saw +a look of wonder or shrinking on his face; and once, in an illness that +he had he clung to me, cried for me, even above his mother. + +I gave my heart to him then. When a sick child, with a mother like +Vesty, turns and clings to one--well, it is like to set one up. + +He quotes me, refers to me, defends me, apes all my mannerisms, and +struts with them proudly as clear legal type and documentary evidence. + +He has my name, Gurdon "Paul," with the rest: he is my heir. Handsome, +stalwart, as our race has notably been; loving, generous, fearless, all +that the world can give him will be his besides; tutors, splendors, +wide, luxurious travel, the entrance to glittering courts--only, God +grant that he may find just the Basin at last!--the true, the pitiful, +the pure of heart: that he may come up to the stature of his father, +who knew but one plain path, and that the royal one; who, in the battle +with fear and death, was greater than the storm. + +So, often in rich and high cathedrals with Vesty by my side, the organ +has but to peal forth plaintively, and those stately, emblematic +windows fade away to others, broken, swaying in the wind, and the roar +of the tides comes in, and high above the great clouds pass wondrously. + +And I think how the Christ, painted in purple and crimson glories in +these walls, and before whose image the hosts bow down, was a poor +Basin of the Basins, in His birth and in His death; who had never a +sure pillow, and who minded all woes save His own. + +And above the written scroll of the preacher I hear the old prophetic +voice, how "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not +many noble, are called." . . . + +Vesty walks this new way with me, that was not of her knowledge or +choosing with a patience in any tedious form or imposed convention, far +surpassing mine. + +Then I tell her that I am only an adopted Basin, and have missed so +many of the first important years of good breeding; when I was taught +to be only moody, if I would, and solitary and selfish. + +Then she turns the rose-color, and her eyes shine on me; and if I have +been patient with some vapid visitor, uttering weary commonplaces +(longing, oh how infinitely, all the while in my heart, for Captain +Leezur and the log!) she comes to me afterward, and leans over me with +a caress and says, "That 's a dear Basin!" + +Thus I observe always my lady's rank, and am happy when she exalts me +to it. + +Sometimes in dark hours, when gigantic shadows, unexplained, oppress +heart and soul----lo! the "Boys" play softly to us once again upon +instruments above our art, with a touch that thrills above these +masters. + +We recognize that life is not a draught, either of joy or misery, but a +sweet, stern task set us, in a failing tenement; and half between +smiles and tears we dream how, to that darkening school-house, when the +shadows grow heartbroken and weary, some loving Basin, only great +because of the faith that was in him, shall come to lead us home. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Vesty of the Basins, by Sarah P. 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