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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Judith Lynn, by Annie Hamilton Donnell
+
+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: Judith Lynn
+       A Story of the Sea
+
+Author: Annie Hamilton Donnell
+
+Release Date: February 4, 2009 [EBook #27986]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDITH LYNN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeff Kaylin
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Judith Lynn
+
+A Story of the Sea
+
+By Annie Hamilton Donnell
+
+  Copyright, 1906,
+  By David C. Cook Publishing Co.,
+  Elgin, Illinois.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+
+In Tarpaulin and oilskins she did not look like a Judith. Easily
+she might have been a Joseph or a James. So it was not really to be
+wondered at that the little girl in the dainty clothes--the little
+girl from The Hotel--should say, "Why!"
+
+"What is your name?" the Dainty One had asked.
+
+"Judith Lynn," had answered the boy-one in oilskins.
+
+"Why!" Then, as if catching herself up at the impoliteness of such a
+little word in such a surprised tone--"I mean, please excuse me for
+thinking you were a boy," the little Dainty One had added, in
+considerable embarrassment. And Judith had laughed--Judith's laughs
+were rare, but the crisp, salty brightness of the sea was always in
+them. The sea was in everything about Judith.
+
+"I don't wonder!" laughed Judith. "Me, with these togs on! But I
+guess _you'd_ be a boy when you went out to your traps--you can't
+'tend traps in skirts. Blossom calls me Judas with these on!"
+
+It was strange how suddenly the rather big voice--a voice has to be
+big to compete with the voice of the sea--grew soft and tender at the
+name of Blossom.
+
+In Judith Lynn's rough, hard, salt-savored life Blossom was the one
+thing sweet and beautiful. Blossom was the little frail wisp of a
+child that Judith loved. This other child, here on the sand, watching
+her with friendly wonder, reminded her a little of Blossom. Anyway,
+they were both sweet and beautiful.
+
+"Traps?" queried this other child. "I didn't know there were mice in
+the ocean!--you were going out on the ocean, weren't you?"
+
+Again Judith's rare, bright laugh. Children were such funny
+things!--Blossom was, too.
+
+"Lobster-traps," she explained, when the laugh had laughed itself
+out. "I'm going out to mine to get the lobsters. Out there where
+those little specks of white are bobbing 'round on the water--don't
+you see?"
+
+"I see some little specks--yes, they're a-bobbing! Are those _traps?_"
+
+"Mercy, no! The traps are sunk 'way down to the bottom o' the sea!
+Those are nothing but the little wooden floats that tell me where the
+traps are. I couldn't go hunting all over the bay, you know."
+
+"No--oh, no, you couldn't go hunting all over the bay," repeated the
+small, puzzled voice. The Dainty One was distinctly interested. "I
+s'pose, prob'ly, every one of those little white specks has got a
+fish line to it. I hope they've all got _bites_. Oh, my suz! Here
+comes Elise. Elise is always a-coming!" with a long sigh.
+
+Elise was slender and tall, in cap and apron. She walked with the
+stride of authority. A frown of displeasure was getting visibler and
+visibler on her face, the child noticed with another sigh. Elise was
+'most always a-frowning.
+
+"Good-by. I--I guess I'd better go and meet her," the Dainty One said
+hurriedly. "She isn't quite as cross when you go and meet her. It
+helps."
+
+But the child came back again to Judith Lynn. She held out one little
+sun-browned, sea-browned hand.
+
+"I'm happy to have seen you," she said, with soft graciousness, as if
+Judith were a duchess in laces instead of a boy-girl in fisherman's
+togs. "I'd be pleased to see you some more. I like you."
+
+"Oh!" stammered the boy-girl in fisherman's togs, a flush of pleasure
+reddening her brown face. No one had even said "I'd be pleased to see
+you," to her before, though Blossom, of course, _was_ always pleased.
+No one but Blossom had ever said, "I like you," and Blossom's way
+was, "I love you."
+
+"I must go--she's 'most here," went on the child, rather anxiously.
+"But first I wish you'd tell me who Blossom is. You spoke about
+Blossom, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes. She's my little sister. Her regular name is Janet. It's only me
+calls her Blossom."
+
+"Oh, but that's lots the prettiest name! _I'm_ going to call her
+that, too. I'd be pleased to see Blossom. Is she about my tallness?"
+
+Judith's face had undergone one of its swift changes. It had grown
+defensive and a little fierce. She should not see Blossom!--this other
+child who could walk away over the sand to meet Elises, whoever
+Elises were. She should not see Blossom! Blossom should not see her!
+
+"But, maybe--prob'ly she's a baby--"
+
+"No, she's six. She'd be about as tall as you are, if she was
+straightened--I mean if she could stand up beside o' you. I guess
+you better go to that woman in the cap or she'll scold, won't she?"
+
+"Goodness, yes! Elise always scolds. But I'd rather be scolded than
+not hear about that little Blossom girl--"
+
+"Mademoiselle!" called the woman in the cap sharply. She came up
+puffing with her hurry. "Mademoiselle has escape again--Mademoiselle
+is ba-ad!" she scolded.
+
+"I didn't ex-scape, either--I only walked. You don't walk when you
+ex-scape. You sat and sat and sat, and I wanted to walk."
+
+The child's voice was full of grievance. Sometimes she dreaded
+Elise--when she saw her coming down the beach--but she was never
+afraid of her "near to."
+
+"But it is not for Mademoiselle to walk so far--what is it the doctor
+say? Mademoiselle is ba-ad when she walk so far!"
+
+With a sudden gesture of defiance the Dainty One sprang away across
+the sand, looking over her shoulder willfully. "But it's so good to
+walk!" she cried. "You'd walk if you was me, Elise--you'd walk and
+walk and walk! Like this--see me! See me run--like this!"
+
+The eyes of the woman in the white nurse's cap met for an instant the
+eyes of the boy-girl in the oilskins, and Judith smiled. But Elise
+was gravely tender--Elise's face could undergo swift changes, too.
+
+"Yes, certainment I would," muttered Elise, looking away to the
+naughty little figure. It was running back now.
+
+"And then you'd be goody again--see me!" chanted the child. "And
+you'd go right straight back to Elise--that would be _me_, if you
+were I--and you'd put your arms round her, so, and say, ''Scuse
+me,'--hear me!"
+
+Judith Lynn got into the old brown dory and rowed away to her
+lobster-traps. There was no laughter any more in her eyes; they were
+fierce with longing and envy. Not for herself--Judith was sixteen,
+but she had never been fierce or envious for herself. It had always
+been--it would always be--for Blossom, the frail little wisp of a
+girl she loved.
+
+She was thinking intensely, What if that were Blossom, running down
+the beach? They were about of a "tallness"--why shouldn't it be
+Blossom? Why shouldn't Blossom run down the beach like that and call
+"See me!"
+
+She would walk and walk and walk--it would feel so good to walk!
+Once she had said to Judith--the great oars stopped as Judith
+remembered--once Blossom had said, "Oh, Judy, if I ever walk, I
+shall walk right across the sea. You couldn't stop me!"
+
+But Blossom would never walk. Judith bent to the great oars again and
+toiled out into the bay. Her lips were set in the old familiar lines
+of pain. In the distance was just visible a fleck of white and a
+fleck of blue--Elise and the Dainty One on the sands.
+
+"I never want to set eyes on them again--not on her, anyway!" thought
+Judith as she toiled. "What did she want to speak to me for, in her
+nice little mincing voice! She belongs to hotels and I belong to
+the--sea. Blossom and I--what has she got to do with Blossom!"
+
+But the little mincing voice had said, "I'd be pleased to see you--I
+like you." It had said, "I'd be pleased to see Blossom."
+
+"She sha'n't! I won't have her! I won't have Blossom see her!" Judith
+stormed in her pain.
+
+The picture of the little frail wisp of a child who would never walk
+was so distinct to her--and this other picture of the Dainty One who
+walked and laughed, "See me!" The two little pictures, side by side,
+were more than Judith could bear.
+
+The traps were nearly empty. It was going to be a poor lobster
+season. To hotels like that one down the beach that would be a
+disappointment. To Judith, who stood for fisher-folk, it would mean
+serious loss. When the lobster season was a good one, more than one
+little comfort and luxury found its way into more than one humble
+fisher-home. And Blossom--Blossom would suffer if the lobster-traps
+were empty. For Judith and her mother had agreed to set apart enough
+of the lobster-money to get Blossom a wheel-chair. Judith had seen
+one once on a trip to the nearest town, and ever since she had
+dreamed about a little wheel-chair with Blossom in it. To wheel up
+and down the smooth, hard sand, with Blossom laughing and crying,
+"See me!"
+
+"There's got to be lobsters!" Judith stormed, jerking up her traps
+one after the other. "There _shall_ be lobsters!"
+
+But she rowed back with the old brown dory almost as empty as when
+she had rowed it toilsomely out to her traps.
+
+There were but three Lynns in the small home upshore. Two years ago
+there had been six, but father and the boys, one day, had gone out of
+sight beyond the bay and had never come into sight again. It is the
+sad way with those "who go down to the sea in ships."
+
+Judith was the only man left to 'tend the traps and fish in the safer
+waters of the bay. At fourteen one is young to begin toil like that.
+Even at sixteen one is not old. But Judith's heart was as strong as
+her pair of brown, boy-muscled arms. She and the old dory were well
+acquainted with each other.
+
+To-day Judith did not hurry homeward across the stretch of bright
+water. She let the old dory lag along almost at its own sweet will.
+For Judith dreaded to go home with her news of the poor little "haul"
+of lobsters. She knew so well how mother would sigh and how little
+Blossom would try to smile. Blossom always tried to smile when the
+news was bad. That was the _Blossomness_ of her, Judith said fondly.
+
+"That's Lynn luck," mother would sigh. Poor mother, who was too worn
+and sad to try to smile!
+
+"Never mind, Judy," Blossom's little, brave smile would say. "Never
+mind--who cares!" But Judy knew who cared.
+
+Strange fancies came sometimes to the fisherman-girl in the great
+dory, out there on the bay. Alone, with the sky above and the sea
+beneath, the girl let her thoughts have loose rein and built her
+frail castles in the salt, sweet air. Out there, she had been a
+beautiful princess in a fairy craft, going across seas to her
+kingdom; she had been a great explorer, traveling to unknown worlds;
+she had been a pirate--a millionaire in his yacht--a sailor in a
+man-of-war. She had always had a dream-Blossom with her, on her
+wonder-trips, and sometimes they were altogether Blossom-dreams. Like
+to-day--to-day it was a Blossom-dream, a wistful little one with not
+much heart in it. They seemed to be drifting home, away from
+something beautiful behind them that they had wanted very much. They
+had been sailing after it--in the dream--with their hands stretched out
+to reach it. And it had beckoned them on--and further on--with its
+golden fingers, till at last it had vanished into the sunset, down
+behind the sea, and left them empty-handed after all. They had had to
+turn back without it. And Blossom--the little dream-Blossom in the
+dream--had tried to smile.
+
+"Never mind, Judy," she had said. "Never mind--who cares!" But they
+had both cared so much!
+
+Then quite suddenly Judith's fancy had changed the dream from a sad
+one to a glad one. She had rested lazily on her great black oars and
+painted another picture on her canvas of sea and sky--this time of
+Blossom riding way over a beautiful glimmery sea-road in a little
+wheel-chair, soft-cushioned and beautiful. She, Judith, followed in
+the old dory, and Blossom laughed with delight and called back over
+her shoulder, "See me! See me!"
+
+A whiff of night-breeze warned Judith that it was growing late and
+the dream-fancies must stop. She leaned over the side of the dory and
+pretended to drop them, one at a time, into the sea. That was another
+of her odd little whimsies.
+
+"Good-by, sad dream--good-by, glad dream," she said. "You will never
+go ashore. You will always stay out here in the sea where I drop
+you--unless I decide to dream you over again some day. If I do,
+good-by till then." For Judith never dreamed her day-dreams on land.
+They were a part of the sea and the sea-sky and the old black dory.
+
+She must make her trip to the Hotel with her poor little haul of
+lobsters, for she had promised all she got to Mrs. Ben. But for a
+wonder Judith's pride deserted her, and she decided to tramp away
+down the beach in her fisherman-clothes. When had she done that
+before! When _hadn't_ she walked the weary little distance inshore
+and back, to and from her home, for the sake of going down the beach
+in her own girl-things. But to-night--"Never mind, Judy--who cares!"
+she said to herself, with a shrug. Let Mrs. Ben laugh--let the fine
+people lounging about laugh--let everybody laugh! Who cared? To-night
+Judith was tired, and the stout little heart had gone out of her.
+
+"Land!" laughed Mrs. Ben, in her kitchen door. But the sober face
+under the old tarpaulin checked her. Mrs. Ben's heart was tender.
+
+"I shouldn't think I looked very landish," Judith retorted. "And I
+guess you won't say 'land!' when you see your lobsters. That's every
+one I got to-day, Mrs. Ben!"
+
+But Mrs. Ben said "Land!" again. Then, with an unexpected whirl of
+her big, comely person, she had her hands on the boy-girls' shoulders
+and was gently pushing her toward a chair by the window.
+
+"You poor dear, you! Never mind the lobsters. Just you set there in
+that chair and eat some o' my tarts! You look clean tuckered out."
+
+"Not _clean_ tuckered," laughed Judith rather tremulously. It was
+good to be pushed about like that by big, kind hands. And how good
+the tarts were! She sank into the chair with a grateful sigh.
+
+"I don't suppose you can be expected to bring lobsters when there
+ain't any in the traps! All is, the folks 'll have to eat tarts!"
+Mrs. Ben's folks were the people who lounged about in gay summer
+clothes. Judith could see them out of the window as she ate her
+tarts.
+
+Some ladies were sitting on the doorsteps very near by, and their
+voices drifted in to Judith with intervals of silence. She began to
+notice what the voices were saying. They were talking about a little
+figure in dainty white that was circling about not far away, and the
+little figure in white was Judith's acquaintance of the beach.
+
+One of the voices was a mother-voice--Judith was sure of that from the
+tenderness in it. The other voice was just a plain _voice_, Judith
+decided. It sounded interested and curious, and it began to ask
+strange questions about the dainty little figure. Judith grew
+interested, too--then, very interested indeed.
+
+Suddenly Judith caught her breath in an inarticulate little cry. For
+she could hear what the mother-voice was answering.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+
+"It seems very wonderful," the cool, interested voice said, a
+little more interested, if anything.
+
+"It seems glorious!" broke in the mother-voice; and the throb in it
+beat upon Judith's heart through the waves of air between them.
+Judith's heart was throbbing, too.
+
+"You can't think how it 'seems,'--you don't know anything about it!"
+the earnest, tremulous voice went on. "How can anyone know who never
+had a little daughter?"
+
+"I had one once." The other voice now was soft and earnest.
+
+"But she walked. _Your_ little daughter walked. How can anyone know
+whose little daughter always walk--"
+
+"She never walked." It was very soft now, and the throb had crept
+into it that was in the mother-voice and in Judith's heart. "I only
+had her a year."
+
+They were both mother-voices! Judith could not see, but she felt sure
+the two sat up a little nearer to each other and their hands touched.
+
+"Oh!--then you can know," the first voice said, after a tiny silence.
+"I will tell you all about it--there have only been a few I have
+wanted to tell. It has seemed almost too precious and--and--sacred."
+
+"I know," the other said.
+
+"But you must begin right at the beginning, with me--at the time when
+my little daughter was a year old, when the time came for her to
+learn to walk. That is where my story begins."
+
+"And mine ends. Go on."
+
+"Well, you can see how I must have watched and waited and planned."
+
+"Oh, yes, and planned--_I_ planned."
+
+"You poor dear!" Another tiny silence-space, while hand crept to
+hand again, Judith was sure. Then the story went on.
+
+"You say I ought to have known. Everybody says I ought to have.
+_They_ knew, they say, and I was the baby's mother. The baby's mother
+ought to have known. But that was just why. I was her mother--I
+_wouldn't_ know. I kept putting it off. 'Wait,' I kept saying to
+myself. 'She isn't old enough to walk yet; when she is old enough,
+she will walk. Can't you _wait?_' And I waited. When they did not
+any of them know, I kept trying to stand her on her poor little
+legs--I wouldn't stop trying. When she was fifteen months--sixteen
+months--seventeen, eighteen--when she was two years old, I tried.
+I would not let them talk to me. 'Some children are so late in
+walking,' I said. 'Her legs are such little ones!' I would catch her
+up from the floor and hug her fiercely. 'They sha'n't hurry you, my
+darling. You shall take all the time you want. Then, some day, you'll
+surprise mother, won't you? You'll get up on your two little legs and
+walk! And we'll take hold of hands and walk out there to all those
+bad people that try to say things to us. We'll show them!' But we
+never did. When she was two and a half I began to believe it--perhaps
+I had believed all along--and when she was three, I gave it up. 'She
+will never walk,' I told them, and they let me alone. There was no
+more need of talking then."
+
+Judith was leaning forward, straining her ears to hear. She had
+forgotten Mrs. Ben's tarts--she had forgotten everything but the story
+that was going on out there, out of her sight. It was so much--oh, how
+much it was like Blossom's story! When Blossom was three, Judith had
+given up, too. But not till then. She had kept on and on trying to
+teach the helpless little legs to walk. Father and mother and the
+boys had given up, but Judith had kept on. "She _shall_ walk!" she
+had said.
+
+Sometimes she had taken Blossom down to the beach, tugging her all
+the way in her own childish arms, and selected the hardest, smoothest
+stretch of sand. "Now we'll walk!" she had laughed, and Blossom had
+laughed, too. "Stand up all nice and straight, darling, and walk all
+beautiful to Judith!" But Blossom had never stood up all nice and
+straight; she had never walked all beautiful to Judith. And when she
+was three, Judith had given up.
+
+The story out there was going on: "After that I never tried to make
+her walk again, poor little sweet! We carried her round in our arms
+till we got her a little wheel-chair that she could wheel a little
+herself. She liked that so much--she called it 'walking.' It would
+have broken your heart to hear her say, 'See me walk, mamma!'"
+
+"Oh, yes--yes, it would have," the other voice responded gently. It
+had grown a very gentle voice indeed. Judith wondered in the little
+flash of thought she could spare from Blossom, if the other mother
+were not thinking there might be harder things even than laying a
+little daughter away in a little white casket.
+
+"But when she was five"--sudden animation, joy and a thrill of
+laughter had taken possession of the voice that was telling the
+story--"a little more than five--she's just six now--when she was a
+little more than five, they told us she could walk! There was a way!
+It was not a very hard way, they said. A splendid doctor, with
+a heart big enough to hold all the little crippled children in
+the universe, would make her walk. And so--this is the end of the
+story--we took her across the sea to him. Look at her now! Where
+is she? Oh, there! Marie! Marie! Come here to mother!"
+
+Judith slipped away. She was never quite definite how she got there,
+but she found herself presently in the old black dory that was drawn
+up on the beach. It was the best place to think, and Judith wanted to
+think. She wanted air enough and room enough to think in--this
+Wonderful Thing took up so much room! It was so big--so wonderful!
+
+She sat a long time with her brown chin in her brown palms, her eyes
+on the splendid expanse of shining, undulating sea before her. It
+reached _'way across to him_--to that tender doctor who made little
+children walk! If one were to cross it--she and Blossom in the old
+black dory--and to find _him_ somewhere over across there and say to
+him--if one were to hold out little Blossom and say--"Here's Blossom;
+oh, please teach her little legs to walk!"--if one were to do that--
+
+Judith sunk her brown chin deeper into the little scoop of her brown,
+hard palms. Her eyes were beginning to shine. She began to rock
+herself back and forth and to hum a little song of joy, as if already
+it had happened. The fancy took her that it had happened--that when
+she went up the beach, home, she would come on Blossom walking to
+meet her! "See me!" Blossom would call out gayly.
+
+The fancy faded by and by, as did all Judith's dreams. And Judith
+went plodding home alone--no one came walking to meet her. But there
+was hope in her heart. How it could ever be, she did not know--she had
+not had time to get to that yet--but somehow it would be. It should
+be!
+
+"I won't tell mother--I'll tell Uncle Jem," she decided. "Mother must
+not be worried--she must be surprised!" Judith had decided that. Some
+day, some way, Blossom must walk in on the worn, weary little mother
+and surprise her.
+
+"I'll ask Uncle Jem how," Judith nodded, as she went. Uncle Jem was
+the old bed-ridden fisherman that Judith loved and trusted and
+consulted. She had always consulted Uncle Jem. He lived with Jem
+Three in a tiny, weather-worn cabin near the Lynns. Jem Three was
+Judith's age--Jem Two was dead.
+
+"I'll go over to-night after supper," Judith said.
+
+Uncle Jem lay in the cool, salt twilight, listening, as he always
+did, to the sound of the waves. It was his great comfort. He wouldn't
+swop his "pa'r o' ears," he said, for a mint o' money--no, sir! Give
+him them ears--Uncle Jem had never been to school--an' he'd make out
+without legs nor arms nor _head!_ That was Uncle Jem's favorite
+joke.
+
+"Judy! I hear ye stompin' round out there. I'm layin' low fur ye!"
+the cheerful voice called, as Judith entered the little cabin.
+
+"Is Jem Three here?" demanded Judith.
+
+"_Here?_--Jemmy Three! I guess you're failin' in your mind, honey."
+
+"Well, I'm glad he isn't. I don't want anybody but you--Uncle Jem, how
+can I get Blossom across the sea?" Judith's eager face followed up
+this rather astonishing speech. Uncle Jem turned to meet them both.
+
+"Wal, there's the old dory--or ye mought swim," he answered gravely.
+He was used to Judy's speeches.
+
+"Because there's a great man over there that makes lame little
+children walk--he can make Blossom. There's a little child down at the
+hotel that he made walk. I've got to take her across, Uncle Jem--I
+mean Blossom. But I don't know how."
+
+"No, deary, no; I do' know's I much wonder. It would be consid'able
+great of a job fur ye. An' I allow it would take a mint o' money."
+
+Strange Judith had not thought of the money! Money was so very hard
+indeed to get, and a _mint_ of it--
+
+"Not a mint--don't say a mint, Uncle Jem!" she pleaded. She went up
+close to the bed and took one of the gnarled old hands in hers and
+beat it with soft impatience up and down on the quilt.
+
+"Not a _mint!_" she repeated.
+
+"Wal, deary, wal, we'll see," comforted the old man. "You set down in
+that cheer there an' out with it, the hull story! Mind ye don't leave
+out none o' the fixin's! Ye can't rightly see things without ye have
+all the fixin's by ye. Now, then, deary--"
+
+Judith told the thrilling little story with all the details at her
+command. At its end Uncle Jem's eyes were shining as hers had shone.
+
+"Judy!" he cried, "Judy, it's got to be did! Ye've got to do it!"
+
+"Of course," Judy answered, with rapt little brown face. "I'm _going_
+to, Uncle Jem. But you must help me find a way."
+
+"Wal,"--slowly, as Uncle Jem thought with wrinkled brows--"Wal, I guess
+about the fust thing to do is to go an' ask that hotel child's ma how
+much it cost her to go acrost. Then we'll have that to go by. We
+ain't got nothin' to go by now, deary."
+
+"No," Judith answered, dreamily. She was looking out of the little,
+many-paned window across the distant water. It looked like a very
+great way.
+
+"I suppose it's--pretty far," she murmured wistfully.
+
+"Oh, consid'able--consid'able," the old man agreed vaguely. "But ye
+won't mind that. It won't be fur _comin' home!_"
+
+The faith of the old child and the young was good that this beautiful
+miracle could be brought about. Judith went home with elastic step
+and lifted, trustful face.
+
+Jem Three, scuffing barefoot through the sandy soil, met this radiant
+dream-maiden with the exalted mien. Jem Three was not of exalted
+mien, and he never dreamed. He was brown up to the red rim of his
+hair, and big and homely. But the freckles in line across the
+brownness of his face spelled h-o-n-e-s-t-y. At least, they always
+had before to Judith Lynn and all the world. To-night Judith was to
+read them differently.
+
+"Hullo, Jude!"
+
+It is hard to come out of a beautiful dream, plump upon a prosaic boy
+who says, "Hullo!" It is apt to jolt one. It jolted Judith.
+
+"Oh! Oh, it's you!" she came out enough to say, and then went back.
+The prosaic boy regarded her in puzzled wonder. Head up, shoulders
+back, eyes looking right through you--what kind of a Jude was this!
+Was she walking in her sleep?
+
+"Hullo, I _said_," he repeated. "If you've left your manners to
+home--"
+
+"Oh!--oh, hello, Jem! I guess I was busy thinking."
+
+"Looked like it. Bad habit to get into. Better look out! I never
+indulge, myself. Well, how's luck?"
+
+"Luck? Oh, you mean lobsters?" Judith had not been busy thinking of
+lobsters, but now her grievance came back to her. "Oh, Jem! I never
+got but three! All my pains for three lobsters! And two of those just
+long enough not to be short. It means--I suppose it means a bad
+season, doesn't it?"
+
+Jem Three pursed his lips into a whistle. Afterward, when Judith's
+evil thoughts had invaded her mind, she remembered that Jem Three had
+avoided looking at her; yes, certainly he had shifted his bare toes
+about in the sand. And when he spoke, his voice had certainly sounded
+muttery.
+
+"Guess somethin' ails your traps," he had said. "Warn't nothin' the
+matter with mine."
+
+"Did you get more than three?"
+
+"Got a-plenty."
+
+"Jemmy Three, how many's a-plenty?"
+
+"'Bout twenty-four."
+
+Jemmy Three had got twenty-four! Judith turned away in bitterness and
+envy, and afterwards suspicion.
+
+There was nothing the matter with her traps. If Jem Three got
+twenty-four lobsters in his, why did she get only three in hers?
+Twenty-four and three. What kind of fairness was that! She could set
+lobster-traps as well as any Jem Three--or Jem Four--or Five--or Six.
+
+There had always been good-natured rivalry between the fisher-boy and
+the fisher-girl, and Judith had usually held her own jubilantly.
+There had never been any such difference as this.
+
+Suddenly was born the evil thought in Judith's brain. It crept in
+slinkingly, after the way of evil things. "How do you know but he
+helped himself out o' your traps?" That was the whisper it whispered
+to Judith. Then, well started, how it ran on! "When you and he
+quarreled a while ago, didn't he say, 'I'll pay you back'?--didn't he?
+You think if he didn't."
+
+"Oh, he did," groaned Judith.
+
+"Well, isn't helping himself to your lobsters paying you back?"
+
+"Yes--oh, yes, if he _did_. But Jemmy Three never--"
+
+"How do you know he never? Is twenty-four to three a fair average? Is
+it? Is it?"
+
+"No, oh, no! But I don't believe--"
+
+"Oh, you needn't believe! _Don't_ believe. Go right on finding your
+traps empty and believing Jemmy Three'd never! I thought you were
+going to save your lobster-money for Blossom."
+
+"Oh, I was--I am going to! I'm going to save it to take her across the
+ocean to that doctor. It was going to be a little wheel-chair, but
+now it's going to be _legs_."
+
+"But supposing there isn't any lobster-money? You can't do much with
+three lobsters a day. If somebody helps himself--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Judith angrily, and the evil thought slunk away. But it
+came again--it kept coming. One by one, little trivial circumstances
+built themselves into suspicions, until the little brown freckles on
+Jemmy Three's face came to spell "Dishonesty" to Judith Lynn. If it
+had not been for the terrible need of lobster-money--Judith would have
+fought harder against the evil thing if it had not been for that.
+
+"I've got to have it! There's got to be lobsters in the traps!" she
+cried to herself. "The doctor over there might die! If he died before
+I could carry Blossom to him, do you think I'd ever forgive Jemmy
+Three?"--which showed that the Evil Thing had done its work. It might
+slink away now and stay.
+
+It was a hard night for Judith. Joyful thoughts and evil ones
+conflicted with each other, and among them all she could not sleep.
+It was nearly morning before she snuggled up against Blossom's little
+warm body and shut her eyes. Her plans were made, as far as she could
+make them. To-morrow she would go down and question the hotel mother,
+as Uncle Jem said. To-morrow--she must not wait. And after that--after
+that, heaven and earth and the waters of the sea must help her. There
+must be no faithlessness or turning back.
+
+"You shall walk, little Blossom," Judith whispered softly.
+
+How could she know how soon the sea would help?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+
+"I want to go, Judy--please, please!"
+
+Blossom was up on her elbow, pleading earnestly. Judith was dressing.
+
+"It's a Blossom day--you know it's a Blossom day! And Jemmy Three'll
+carry me down. _I_ know Jemmy Three will! I haven't been out
+a-dorying for such a long time; Judy--please!"
+
+It was always hard work for Judith to refuse Blossom anything.
+Besides--Judith went to the window and lifted the scant little
+curtain--yes, it certainly was a "Blossom day." The sky was
+Blossom-blue, the sea spread away out of sight, Blossom-smooth and
+shining. And the little pleader there in the bed looked so eager and
+longing--so Blossom-sweet! She should go "a-dorying," decided Judith,
+but it would not be Jemmy Three that carried her down to the sea.
+
+"You little tease, come on, then!" laughed Judith. "I'll dress you in
+double-quick, for I've got to get out to my traps."
+
+Judith had overslept, for a wonder. When had Judith done a thing like
+that before! For two hours Blossom had been awake, lying very quietly
+for fear of waking Judy; poor, tired Judy must not be disturbed.
+Downstairs mother had gone away to her work at the beautiful summer
+cottage down-beach, beyond the hotel. It was ironing-day at the
+cottage, and all day mother would stand at the ironing-board, ironing
+dainty summer skirts and gowns.
+
+"I'll ride in front an' be a--a what'll I be, Judy?"
+
+"A little bother of a Blossom in a pink dress," laughed Judith, as
+she buttoned the small garments with the swift, deft fingers that had
+buttoned them for six years.
+
+"No, no! a--don't you know, the kind of a thing that brings good luck?
+You read it to me your own self, Judy Lynn!"
+
+"I guess you mean a _mastif_," Judith said slowly. "Queer it sounds
+so much like a dog!--it didn't make me think of a dog when I read it."
+
+"M-m--yes, I'll be a mastif"--Blossom's voice was doubtful; it hadn't
+reminded her so much of a dog, either, at the time. "An' so you'll
+have good luck. You'll find your traps brim-up full, Judy! Then I
+guess you'll say, 'Oh, how thankful I am I brought that child!'"
+
+Judith caught the little crippled figure closer in a loving hug. "I'm
+thankful a'ready!" she cried.
+
+They hurried through the simple breakfast that mother had left for
+them, and then Judith shouldered the joyous child and tramped away
+over the half-mile that separated them from the old black dory.
+
+"Now, Judy, now le's begin right off an' pretend! Go ahead--you
+pretending?"
+
+"I'm pretending. I'm a chariot and you're a fine lady in pink ging--"
+
+"Ging--!" scorned Blossom. "Silk, Judy--in pink silk, a-ridin' in the
+chariot. It's a very nice, _easy_ chariot an' doesn't joggle her
+hip--Oh, I forgot she hasn't got any hips, of course! Well, here she
+goes a-riding and a-riding along, just as comfortable, but pretty
+soon she says--we're coming to the beautiful part now, Judy!--'I guess
+I better get out an' walk now,' she says. Now pretend she _got out
+and walked, Judy_--you pretending?"
+
+"I'm pretending," cried Judy, her clasp on the little figure
+tightening and her eyes shining mysteriously. Sometime the little
+fine lady should get out and walk! She should--she should!
+
+"Now she's walking--no, she isn't, either, she's riding, and it isn't
+in a chariot, it's in her sister's arms, an' she's _Blossom_. Don't
+le's pretend any more, Judy. There's days it's easy to an' there's
+days it's hard to--it's a hard-to day, I guess, to-day. Those days you
+can't pretend get out and walk very well."
+
+"Pretend I'm an elephant!" laughed Judy, though the laugh trembled in
+her throat. "That's an easy-to-pretend! And you're an--Oh, an Arab,
+driving me! You must talk _Arabese_, Blossom!"
+
+Blossom was gay again when they got to the dory, and Judith dropped
+her into the bow, out of her own weary arms.
+
+"Now say 'Heave-ho!--heave-ho'!" commanded Judith, "to help me drag
+her down, you know. Here we go!"
+
+"I don't know the Arabese for 'heave-ho,'" laughed little Blossom,
+mischievously. "I could say it in American."
+
+"Say it in 'American,' then, you little rogue!" panted Judith, all
+her tough little muscles a-stretch for the haul.
+
+They were presently out on the water, rocking gently with the gentle
+waves. And Blossom was presently shouting with delight. Her little
+lean, sharp face was keen with excitement.
+
+"Now pretend--now, now, now! It's easy to out here! The fine lady's
+going abroad, Judy--do you hear? She's going right straight over
+'cross this sea, in this han'some ship! When she gets there she'll
+_step out_ on the shore an' say what a beautiful voyage she's had,
+an' good-by to the cap'n--you're the cap'n, Judy. An' you'll say, 'Oh,
+my lady, sha'n't I help you ashore?' An' she'll laugh right out,
+it's so ridic'lous! 'Help me, my good man!' she'll 'xclaim. 'I guess
+you must think I can't walk!'"
+
+Blossom's face was alive with the joy of the beautiful "pretend."
+But Judith's face was sober.
+
+"Laugh, why don't you, Judy?" cried the child.
+
+"I'm laugh--I mean I will, dear. But I've got to row like everything
+now, so you must do the pretending for us both. We've got to get out
+there to those traps before you can say 'scat'!"
+
+"Scat!" shrilled Blossom.
+
+It was Blossom's sharp eyes that discovered Jem Three "out there."
+Judith was bending to her work.
+
+"There's Jemmy Three, Judy! True-honest, out there a-trapping! He
+looks 's if he was coming away from our place--he is, Judy! He's got
+our lobsters, to s'prise us, maybe."
+
+"It won't surprise me," muttered Judy, in the clutch of the Evil
+Thought again. She was watching the distant boat now keenly, her eyes
+hard with suspicion. Jem Three it surely was, and he was rowing
+slowly away from Judith's lobster "grounds." It seemed to her his
+dory was deep in the water as if heavily weighted. He had been--had
+been to her traps again. He was whistling--Judith could hear the
+faint, sweet sound--but that didn't hide anything. Let him whistle all
+he wanted to--she knew what he had been up to!
+
+"Ship aho-oy!" came across faintly to them, but it was only Blossom
+that answered.
+
+"Ahoy! Ship ahoy!" she sent back clearly. Judith bent over her
+toiling oars.
+
+"He's going away from us, we sha'n't meet him," Blossom said in
+disappointment.
+
+"Of course he's going away--of course he won't meet us," Judith
+retorted between her little white teeth.
+
+"An' I wanted to 'speak him,'" the disappointed little voice ran on;
+"I was going to call out, 'How's the folks abroad? We're on our way
+'cross, in the Judiana B.,'--this is the Judiana B., Judy, after both
+of us. B. stands for me."
+
+"Funny way to spell me!" laughed Judith with an effort. She must hide
+away her black suspicions. Not for the world would she have Blossom
+know! Blossom was so fond of Jemmy Three, and she had so few folks to
+be fond of.
+
+A surprise was waiting for them "out there." The traps were pretty
+well loaded! Not full, any of them, but not one of them empty. In
+all, there were seventeen great, full-grown, glistening, black
+fellows for Blossom to shudder over as she never failed to do--Blossom
+was no part of a fisherman.
+
+"He didn't dare to take them all," thought Judith, refusing to let
+the Evil Thought get away from her. "Probably he saw us coming. If
+he'd let 'em alone there might have been a lot more--perhaps there
+were fifty!"
+
+"One, two, three,"--counted Blossom slowly. "Why, Judy, there's
+seventeen. You didn't s'pose there'd be as many as seventeen, did
+you? Isn't that a splendid lot?"
+
+"Not as splendid as fifty," answered Judy, assured now that there had
+been as many as that.
+
+"Seventeen from fifty is thirty--thirty-two," whispered the Evil Thing
+in her ear. Evil things cannot be expected to be good in arithmetic
+or anything else. "So he helped himself to thirty-two, did he! Nice
+haul! Thirty-two big fellows will bring him in--"
+
+"Don't!" groaned Judith.
+
+"I don't wonder you say 'don't!' Thirty-two nice big fellows would
+have brought _you_ in a pretty little sum. You could have put it away
+in a stocking in your bureau drawer, for the Blossom-fund."
+
+"Oh, I was going to! I was going to!"
+
+"Thought so--well, you'll have to get along with seventeen. That comes
+of having boys like that for friends!"
+
+"He isn't my friend!" Judith cried sharply to the Evil Thing in her
+breast. "He never will be again. If it wasn't for Uncle Jem I'd never
+look at him again as long as I live!"
+
+All this little dialogue had gone on unsuspected by the little pink
+"mastif" in the bow of the little dory. Blossom had been busy edging
+out of the reach of the ugly things in the bottom of the boat. If
+Judith had only edged away from her Ugly Thing!
+
+Another surprise was even now on the way--a surprise so stupendous and
+unexpected that, beside it, the lobster-surprise would dwindle away
+into insignificance and be quite forgotten for the rest of the day.
+And oddly enough, it was to be Blossom who should be discoverer
+again.
+
+"I'm going a little farther out and fish awhile," Judith announced
+over her last trap. "I've got all my tackle aboard and maybe I can
+find something Mrs. Ben will want. You sit still as a mouse, Blossom,
+for I cant't be watching you and fishing, too."
+
+"I'll sit still as _two_ mice. Needn't think o' me!" answered the
+little one proudly. Did Judy think she was little like that? Just
+because she hadn't legs that would go! They didn't need to go, did
+they, out here in the middle of the sea!
+
+"What makes it look so ripply an' bubbly out there?" she questioned
+with grown-up dignity. Judy should see she could sit still and talk
+like anybody.
+
+"Where?" asked Judith absently. She did not take the trouble to
+follow the little pointing finger with her eyes.
+
+"_There_--why don't you look? It's all pretty an' ripply an' kind of
+queer. Doesn't look like plain water 'xactly. Look, Judy--why don't
+you?"
+
+"I am looking now--Oh, Oh, wait! It looks like--Blossom, I believe it's
+a school! That's the way the water always loo--Blossom, Blossom, do
+you hear me, it's a school! A school of mackerel--a _school_, I tell
+you!"
+
+"Well, you needn't keep on a-telling me." Blossom, anyway, was calm.
+"I'm not deaf o' hearing, am I? If it's a school, le's us go right
+straight out there an' fish it up, Judy."
+
+Judy was going right straight out there with all the strength of her
+powerful young arms. She was not calm; her face was quivering with
+excitement and joy. A school! A school! Oh, but that meant so much
+for the Blossom-fund, to put away in the stocking in the bureau
+drawer! If it should prove a big school--but she and Blossom could not
+manage a big one, never in the world. If Jemmy Thr--no, no, not Jemmy
+Three! This was not Jemmy Three's school--what had he to do with it?
+
+In all the stress and excitement of sending the old dory out there
+where the water was rippling its news to her, Judy had time to think
+of several things. She had time to remember how she and Jem Three had
+used, from the time they were little brown things in pinafores, to
+plan about their first school o' mackerel--what they would do with all
+the wealth it should bring them, how they would share it together,
+how they would pull in the silvery, glistening fellows, side by side.
+What plans--what plans they had made! They had practiced a shrill,
+piercing call that was to summon the one of them who should happen to
+be absent when the "school" was descried out there in the bay. Even
+lately, big and old as they had grown, they had laughingly reviewed
+that call. Now--this minute--if Judith were to utter it, piercing and
+far-carrying and jubilant, perhaps Jemmy Three might hear and come
+plowing through the waves to get his share--had he any share? Because
+when they were little brown things they had made vows, did that give
+him any rights now?
+
+Of course, if--if things had been different--lobster-things--Judith
+might have pursed her lips into that triumphant summons. But--
+
+"Sit still! I'm going to swing her round!" called Judith sharply.
+"I've got to go ashore for father's old net. It's in the boat-house."
+
+"You won't leave me, Judy--promise you'll take me out with you!"
+pleaded Blossom, eagerly.
+
+"I'll have to," Judith responded briefly. "There isn't time to carry
+you home--I don't dare _take_ time."
+
+She made her plans as she went in, and put out again with the clumsy
+heap of netting towering at her feet. The thing she meant to do was
+stupendous for a girl to attempt alone, but she was going to attempt
+it. The shabby old net had lain in its corner, useless, for two
+years. Now it should be used--she, Judith Lynn would use it! She was
+glad as she pulled seaward again that she had thrown in two
+scoops--perhaps when the time came Blossom could make out to use one a
+little.
+
+The net was like a long--a very long--fence, with its lower edge
+weighted heavily and its upper edge provided with wooden floats, to
+insure its standing erect under water. When in position properly it
+surrounded the school of fish, completely fencing in the darting,
+glimmering, silver fellows. Then the circle could be gradually
+narrowed and the fish brought together in a mass, when scoops could
+be used to dip them up into the boat.
+
+The school once located, Judith began to circle slowly round it,
+"paying out" her fence of netting with no small difficulty, but
+gradually surrounding the unsuspected fish, until at length she had
+them penned.
+
+"What did I tell you! I told you I'd be the--the mastif, Judy!"
+Blossom chattered. "I told you you'd say how thankful you was you
+brought that child!"
+
+"How thankful I am!" chattered Judy. Then, launched into the thick of
+the arduous work, they both fell into breathless silence and only
+worked. It was not much Blossom could do, but she did her little
+splendidly. And Judith toiled with all her strength.
+
+They stopped at last, not because there were no more of the
+glistening, silver fellows about them, but because the old black dory
+was weighted almost to the water's edge. They had to stop. And then
+began Judith's terrible hour. For the heavy boat must somehow be
+worked back, a weary little at a time, to the distant shore. Judith
+set herself to this new task gallantly, but it was almost too much
+for her. Over and over again it seemed to her she must give it up and
+toss overboard part, at least, of her silver freight, to lighten her
+load. But over and over again she nerved herself to another spurt of
+strength.
+
+She must do it! She could not give up! She would shut her eyes, like
+this, and row ten more strokes--just ten more. Then she would row ten
+with her eyes open. Ten, shut--ten, open. Perhaps that would help. She
+tried it. She tried other poor little devices--calling the strokes
+"eenie, meenie, minie, mo," the way she and Jemmy Three had "counted
+out" for tag when they were little--brown--things. Her strength--was
+surely--giving out--it shouldn't give out!
+
+Blossom, watching silently from her weary perch, grew frightened at
+Judy's tense, set face and began to sob. And then Judy must find
+breath enough to laugh reassuringly and to nod over her shoulder at
+the child.
+
+They had gone out late--had been out a wearisome time--and the journey
+back to land was measured off by slow, laboring oar-strokes that
+scarcely seemed to move the great boat. So it was late afternoon when
+at length Judith's hard task was done. She seemed to possess but one
+desire--to rest. To get Blossom over the remaining half mile between
+her and home and then to tumble over on the bed and sleep--what more
+could anyone wish than that?
+
+But there would be more than that to do. She must get food for tired
+little Blossom, if not for herself. And before this towered
+gigantically the two last feats of strength that faced her and seemed
+to laugh at her with sardonic glee.
+
+"Drag me up on the beach--drag me up!" the old black dory taunted her.
+
+"Carry me home, Judy, I'm so tired!--carry me home," Blossom pleaded,
+like a little wilted blossom.
+
+She did both things, but she never quite realized just how she could
+have done them. She remembered telling herself she couldn't and then
+finding them done. Of covering her load of mackerel with an old
+rubber blanket she was dimly conscious. It was not until she lay
+drowsing in utter exhaustion on her own bed that she thought of all
+of the rest that must be done to that boat-load of precious freight.
+Then she tried to sit up, with a cry of distress.
+
+"I must go! I cant't stay here! Or I shall lose--Oh, what shall I
+lose?" she groaned in her drowsiness and dread. Something would
+happen if she did not get up at once--she would lose something that
+she _mustn't_ lose. She must get up now, at once.
+
+"I shall lose Blossom--no, I mean Blossom will lose--oh, yes, Blossom
+will lose her legs, if I don't get up," she drowsed, and fell
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+
+Judith awoke with a bewildering sensation of guilt and need of
+action. What had happened? What had she done that she ought not to
+have done?--or was it something that she ought to? Memory struggled
+back to her dimly, then flashed upon her in sudden clearness.
+
+She had taken a school of mackerel--that was what she had done that
+was praiseworthy. She had left them down there in the old black dory,
+undressed and unpacked--that was the thing she ought not to have done.
+That was the awful thing! For if they were not dressed and packed at
+once--
+
+"Oh, I shall lose them! I shall lose them!" moaned poor Judith,
+sitting up in bed and wringing her hands in the keenness of her
+distress. "How could I have _let_ myself fall asleep! How could I
+have slept all this time like a log!"
+
+It was very dark, so it must be midnight or later. There was no light
+anywhere, on land or sea, or in Judith's troubled soul. To her
+remorseful mind all her terrible labor and strain of body had been in
+vain; she had gone to sleep and spoiled everything, everything!
+
+Judith had never been so utterly tired out as when she went to sleep;
+she had never been so tired as she was now. She felt lame in every
+joint and muscle of her body. But her conscience stood up before her
+in the dark and arraigned her with pitiless, scathing scorn.
+
+"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself? See what you've done! All
+those beautiful fish lost, when you might have saved them--just by
+staying awake and attending to them. A little thing like that! And
+you worked so hard to get them--I was proud of you for that. Ah-h, but
+I'm ashamed of you now!"
+
+"Don't! don't--you hurt!" sighed Judith, "I'll get up now, this
+minute, and go down there. Don't you see me getting up? I've got one
+shoe on now."
+
+Judith was not experienced in the dressing of many fish at a time and
+the packing of them in barrels for market. At sixteen, how can one
+be--and one a girl? But she knew in a rather indefinite way the
+importance of having it done promptly. She remembered father's and
+the boys' last school of fish--how she had hurried down to the shore
+and watched the dory come creeping heavily in, how the boys had
+cheered, as they came, how father had let her help at the dressing,
+and mother had brought down hot coffee for them all and then "fallen
+to," herself and worked like a man. How they all had worked to get
+the barrels packed full of the shining layers in time for the steamer
+next morning!
+
+All this Judith remembered as she crept silently away through the
+darkness and turned toward the salty spray that the wind tossed
+in her face. That had been a phenomenally large school of
+mackerel--eighteen barrels for market in the distant city. Judith was
+not quite sure, but she thought the check that came back to father
+had been for a hundred and fifty dollars. Mackerel had been in great
+demand then. A hundred and fifty dollars! Judith stopped short and
+caught her breath.
+
+"But my school was just a little one," she thought, "and maybe people
+aren't very mackerel hungry now." Still, a hundred dollars--or even
+fifty--fifty dollars would go so far toward that doctor across the
+sea! Supposing she had lost fifty dollars! She hurried on through the
+black night, not knowing what she should do when she got to her
+destination, but eager to do something. The lantern she carried cast
+a small glimmer into the great dark.
+
+Judith was not afraid--how long had it been since she was afraid of
+the dark? But a distant thrill shot through her when she saw another
+faint glimmer ahead of her. Then it seemed to divide into two
+glimmers--they blinked at her like evil eyes. They were straight
+ahead; she was going toward them! She must go toward them if she went
+to the old dory drawn up on the beach.
+
+"And I'm goin!" Judy said defiantly. "Blink away, you old bad-y
+two-eyes! Wait till I get there and fix you!" It helped to laugh a
+little and nod defiance at the blinking eyes.
+
+The salty spray increased to a gentle rain, buffeting her cheeks. The
+steady boom of the breakers was in her ears like the familiar voice
+of a friend. Judith tramped on resolutely.
+
+The lights were two lanterns, sheltered from the wind, beside the old
+black dory. Judith came upon them and cried out in astonishment. For
+she had come upon something else--a boy, dressing fish as if his life
+depended on it!
+
+"Jemmy Three!" she ejaculated shrilly.
+
+The boy neither turned about nor stopped.
+
+"Hullo! That you, Jude? Got a lantern? Take that knife there an' go
+to work like chain lightnin'. I've filled two barrels--there isn't any
+time to lose, now, I tell you! Steamer's due at seven."
+
+"But--but--I don't understand--" faltered Judith.
+
+"Well, you needn't, till you get plenty o' time. Understandin' don't
+dress no fish." Jemmy Three, like Jem One, had missed his rightful
+share of schooling. "What we got to do now is dress fish."
+
+Judith went to work obediently, but the wonder went on in her mind.
+What did it all mean? How had Jemmy Three found out about the
+mackerel? Why was he down here in the dead of night dressing and
+packing them?
+
+By and by the boy saw fit to explain in little jerks over his
+shoulder. Judith pieced them together into a strange, beautiful story
+that made her throat throb.
+
+"Saw you had a load here--saw 'twas mackerel--knew they'd got to be
+'tended to--'tended to 'em," Jemmy Three slung over his shoulder, as
+he worked.
+
+"Suspicioned you'd struck a school, and gone home clean tuckered. Oh,
+but you're a smart one, Jude! Couldn't no other girl 'a' done it,
+sir, this side o' the Atlantic!"
+
+He caught up the dressed fish and bent over a fresh barrel; his voice
+sounded muffled and hollow to Judith.
+
+"Knew there weren't no time to spare--nobody hereabouts to help
+out--went at it myself all flyin',--been down here since seven
+o'clock."
+
+"Oh, Jemmy!" Judith trembled. The throb in her throat hurt her. "What
+time is it now?" she asked.
+
+A grunt issued from the barrel depths. "Time! Ain't any time now! I
+told you we'd got to fly!"
+
+It was almost twelve. They worked on, for the most part silently,
+until daylight began to redden the east. One barrel after another was
+headed up by Jemmy Three's tireless hands. Judith counted barrels
+mechanically as she toiled.
+
+"Four!" she cried. Then, "Five!" "Six!"
+
+"There'll be a good eight--you see," Jem Three said, rolling a new one
+into position. "You'll get a good fifty dollars, Jude; see if you
+don't! How's that for one haul? Ain't any other girl could 'a' done
+it!"
+
+"Oh, don't!" sobbed Judith suddenly. She let a little silver fellow
+slip to the ground, half-dressed, and went over to Jemmy Three.
+
+"Don't say another word--don't dress another fish--don't move till I
+tell you!" she cried. "I cant't stand it another minute! I--I thought
+you helped yourself to my lobsters--I _thought_ I thought it. And
+you've been here all night working for me--"
+
+"Oh!" cried Jemmy Three softly. But he did not stop working.
+
+"I thought that was why there were only three yesterday--I thought
+there'd have been fifty to-day," ran on Judith. The new daylight
+lighted her ashamed face redly, like a blush.
+
+"There wouldn't 'a' been but five--" said Jemmy Three, then caught
+himself up in confusion. The blush was on his face now.
+
+Judith's cry rang out above the sea-talk. "Then you _put some in!_"
+she cried, "instead of helping yourself. You put some in my traps,
+Jemmy Three--that's what you did! You put in _twelve!_"
+
+"Guess there's somethin' the matter with your traps, Jude," muttered
+the boy. "Guess they better be overhauled--guess a fellow's gotter
+right to go shares, ain't he?"
+
+"Jemmy Three, I'm going to hug you!"
+
+"Oh, oh--say, look out; I'm all scales!"
+
+"I had scales on my eyes, but they've fallen off now," laughed the
+girl tremulously. "It's worse to have scales on your eyes than all
+over the rest o' you. I can see things as plain as day now,
+and--and--you look perfectly beautiful!"
+
+"Hold on--I'm dressin' fish! The steamer's due at seven--"
+
+"I don't care if she's due this minute, I've got to talk! If she was
+in plain sight--if I could see her smokestack--I should have to talk. I
+tell you I can _see_ now, and you look splendid--splendid, and I look
+like a little black--blot. To think of my being up home asleep, and
+you working down here, dressing _my_ fish--and me thinking those mean
+thoughts of you! It makes me so ashamed I cant't hold my kn-knife."
+
+Judith was crying now in good earnest. She had sunk down on the sand,
+and her crouching figure with the red glow from the east upon it
+looked oddly childish and small. Jemmy Three saw it over his
+shoulder.
+
+"Look a-here, Judy," he said gently, dropping his own knife and going
+over to the rocking, sobbing figure. "You look _a-here_, I tell you!
+What you cryin' for, with eight barrels o' fish 'most packed an' a
+good fifty dollars 'most in your pocket? You better laugh! Come on,
+get up, and let's give a rouser! Three cheers for the only girl in
+the land o' the free an' the home o' the brave that darst tackle a
+school o' mack'rel alone! Hip, hip--"
+
+"Jemmy, Jemmy, don't!"
+
+"_Hooray!_ Now let's dress fish. You're all right--don't you worry
+about bein' a blot, when I tell you you're a reg'lar brick! I'm proud
+o' you!"
+
+It was the longest speech Jemmy Three had ever made, and the
+peroration surprised himself as much as it did Judith. He put up his
+hand and cleared something away from his eyes--it couldn't have been
+scales, for he left the scales there.
+
+At five mother came hurrying down to find Judith. The scale-strewn
+beach and the scale-strewn children, the barrels in orderly rows
+waiting to be rolled to the little landing-place of the steamer, the
+heap of clumsy wet netting--all told her the whole astonishing story.
+And what they did not tell, Judith supplemented eagerly.
+
+"I declare! I declare!" gasped mother in mingled pride and pity, "you
+two poor things, putting in like this! You'll be tired to
+death--you'll be sick abed!"
+
+"Guess we'll weather it," nodded Jemmy Three, working steadily. "But
+if you think we ain't hungry enough to eat a pine shing--"
+
+"I'll go right home and boil some coffee and eggs and bring 'em down,
+and then I'll go to work, too," cried mother energetically. "You poor
+starved things!"
+
+After a salt toilet in the surf, they ate a hurried breakfast with
+keen relish. Judith had forgotten her aching joints and lame muscles,
+and Jemmy Three had forgotten his sleepless night. Victory lay just
+ahead of them, and who cared for muscles or sleep!
+
+"This is the best bread 'n' butter I ever ate," said Judith between
+bites.
+
+There proved to be the "good eight" barrels, when they were done, and
+they were done by six o'clock, or a very little after. By half-past
+six, the barrels had been rolled down the slope of the beach to the
+little wharf not far away. Then the tired two rested, and remembered
+muscles and sleep.
+
+They dropped in the soft, moist sand and rubbed their aching arms.
+
+"I'm proud o' _you_, Jemmy!" Judith said shyly, and looked away over
+the water. Her repentance had come back and lay heavily on her heart.
+She longed unutterably to recall those evil thoughts--to have another
+chance out there beyond to summon Jemmy Three with the little shrill
+old signal. How she would send it shrilling forth now!
+
+"Jemmy," she said slowly, as they waited, "you know our signal, don't
+you? The one we used to practice so much."
+
+For answer Jemmy Three pursed his lips and sent out a clear
+"carrying" cry.
+
+"Well, I wish--don't you know what I wish?"
+
+"'Twas Christmas," Jemmy said flippantly, but he knew. He dug his
+bare toes in the sand--a sign of embarrassment.
+
+"I wish I'd called you out there at the school!" lamented Judith,
+"even if you couldn't have heard. I wish--I wish--I _wish_ I'd called!
+If I ever strike another school--Jemmy, I'd give you half o' this one
+if I dared to. But I'm afraid to have Blossom wait--I don't _dare_
+to!"
+
+"O' course not," agreed Jem Three vaguely. He did not at all know
+what Judith meant. Girls had queer ways of beginnin' things in the
+middle like that. No knowin' what a girl was drivin' at, half the
+time!
+
+"Jemmy--say--"
+
+"What say? Ain't that smoke out there?"
+
+"No, it's a cloud. Jemmy Three, I'm going to tell you something. I
+_want_ to. I'm going to tell you what that money's going to do--you're
+listening, aren't you?"
+
+"With both ears--go ahead."
+
+"Well--oh, it's going to be something so _beautiful_, Jemmy! I never
+knew till day before yesterday that you _could_ do anything so
+beautiful--I mean that anybody could. I never dreamed it! But you
+can--somebody can! There's a man can, Jemmy! All you need is money to
+take you across to him and--there's the money!" waving her hand toward
+the rows of barrels. Her eyes were shining like twin stars. She had
+forgotten aches and lameness again.
+
+"I told Uncle Jem," she went on rapidly, while Jem Three gazed at her
+in puzzled wonder and thought more things about girls. "He told me to
+go down to the hotel and ask that other little girl's mother, and I
+meant to go last night! But I went to sleep last night! So I'm going
+to-day--I'm going to ask her to tell me just exactly how to do it."
+
+"Do what?" inquired Jem Three quietly. That was the only way to do
+with girls--pull 'em up smart, like that!
+
+"Mercy! Haven't I told you?" cried Judith. "Well, then--Jemmy, if you
+were a little mite of a thing--a Blossom, say--and a fairy came to you
+and said, 'Wish a wish, my dear; what would you rather have in all
+the world?' what would you answer, Jemmy? Remember, if you were a
+little mite of a Blossom with a--with a--little broken stem." Judith's
+voice sank to a tender softness. She didn't know she was "making
+poetry."
+
+The boy with his toes deep in the sand was visibly embarrassed.
+Whatever poetry lay soul-deep within him, there was none he could
+call to his lips.
+
+"Wouldn't you answer her, 'Legs to walk with'?" went on the girl
+beside him softly. "You know you would, Jemmy! _I_ would--everybody
+would. You'd say, 'The beautifulest thing in the world would be to
+_walk_--dear fairy, I want to walk so much!' And then supposing--are
+you supposing?--the fairy waved her wand over you and you--_walked!_
+Do you know what you'd say then? _I_ know--you'd say, 'See me! Judy,
+see me! Jemmy, everybody, see me!'"
+
+Judith laughed to herself under her breath. The twin stars in her
+eyes shone even a little brighter.
+
+"The fairy's a great doctor--he's across there, 'way, 'way out of
+sight. He's going to wave his wand over Blossom. He waved it over
+another little broken girl, _and she walked_. I saw her. _She_ said,
+'See me!'--I heard her. That's what the money is going to do, Jemmy."
+
+"Gee!" breathed Jemmy softly. It was his way of making poetry.
+
+"And you see, I don't dare to wait--I'm afraid something might happen
+to that doctor."
+
+"O' course!--you go down there all flyin' an' see that woman, Jude."
+
+And that afternoon Judith went. It was to Mrs. Ben she went first;
+she felt acquainted with Mrs. Ben.
+
+"Can I see--I'd like to see that mother whose little girl can walk,"
+Judith said eagerly.
+
+"Land!" ejaculated Mrs. Ben.
+
+"I mean," explained Judith, smiling, "whose little girl was lame and
+a doctor made her walk by waving his wa--I mean by--by curing her. I
+heard her telling another mother. I'd like to see--do you suppose I
+could see that lady?"
+
+"I guess I know who you mean--there ain't been but one little girl
+here lately," Mrs. Ben said. "But there ain't any now. They've gone
+away."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+
+Judith went straight to Uncle Jem, sobbing all the way
+unconsciously; she was not conscious of anything but what Mrs. Ben
+had said.
+
+"They've gone away!--they've gone away!--they've gone away!" It
+reiterated itself to her in dull monotony, keeping slow time with the
+throbbing pain of her disappointment.
+
+Uncle Jem heard her coming--in some surprise, she came so fast. What
+was the child hurrying like that for? What had happened?
+
+"I hear ye, child!" he called cheerily. The time-worn little
+pleasantry did him service as usual. "I'm layin' low for ye!"
+
+She crossed the outer threshold and the little box of a kitchen
+without slackening her excited pace, and appeared in the old man's
+doorway, breathless and flushed.
+
+"It's too late!" she gasped, briefly. Then, because she needed
+comforting and Uncle Jem was her comforter of old, her head went down
+on the patchwork quilt that covered his twisted old frame, and she
+cried like a grief-struck little child.
+
+"There, there, deary!" he crooned, his twisted fingers traveling
+across her hair, "jest you lay there an' cry it all out--don't ye
+hurry any. When ye get all done an' good an' ready, tell Uncle Jem
+what it's all about. But take your time, little un--take your time."
+
+The child was worn out in every thread of the over-strained young
+body. The excitement and nervous rack of the last twenty-four hours
+was having sway now, and would not be put aside. And the keen
+disappointment that Mrs. Ben's words had brought, added to all the
+rest, had proved too much even for Judith Lynn. She cried on, taking
+her time.
+
+"There now! that's right, storm's clearin'!" said Uncle Jem, as at
+length the brown head lifted slowly. "Now we'll pull out o' harbor
+and get to work." Which meant that now explanations were in order.
+Judith understood.
+
+"They've gone away!" she said thickly. It takes time for throbbing
+throats to come back to their own. "It's too late to find out. If I'd
+gone yesterday--" She stopped hastily, on the verge of fresh tears.
+
+"Go ahead, little un; weather's a little too thick yet to see clear.
+Who's gone away? What's it too late for?" But even as he said it,
+Uncle Jem, too, understood. He went on without waiting, to give
+Judith more time.
+
+"Hold on!--I can pull out o' the fog myself. That mother o' that
+little cured un--she's the one that's gone away, eh? You was too late
+to see her an' ask your questions. I see. Well, now, I call that too
+bad. But 'tain't worth another cry, deary."
+
+"Well, I won't cry another one, so there!" cried Judith. "Only--only--"
+
+"I know--I know! We've got to slew off on another tack. You give Uncle
+Jem time to think, Judy. There's a powerful lot o' thinkin'-time
+handy when you lay here on your back for a livin'. Jest you run home
+an' let your ma put you to bed. I've heard all about your goin's-on,
+an' I guess bed's the best place for you! I'll think it out while
+you're restin' up."
+
+But to unlettered people who rarely get in touch with what is going
+on in the thick of things, "thinking it out" is no easy matter. Their
+one frail little hold on the miracle that could make Blossom whole
+had snapped when the hotel mother and child went away. Where to turn
+next for information--what to do next--was a puzzle that would not
+unravel for any of them. In vain Uncle Jem wrestled with it, as he
+lay through long, patient hours. And Judith wrestled untiringly.
+
+The mackerel-money came in due time, but the wondrous little blue
+check that came out of the official-looking envelope and lay
+outspread on Judith's hard, brown palm had lost its power to give
+legs to little Blossom, and Judith gazed at it resentfully. What was
+the use of it now? A small part of it would get the little
+wheel-chair, but it was not a wheel-chair Judith longed for now. She
+put away the blue check safely, and took up the wrestling again. She
+would find the clue to the puzzle--she refused to give it up.
+
+Then quite privately and uninvited, Jemmy Three began to think. No
+one had thought of asking his advice; thinking had never been Jemmy
+Three's stronghold.
+
+He went into his grandfather's room one early morning arrayed in his
+best clothes. Not much in the way of a "best," but Jemmy had "pieced
+out" as well as possible with scraps of his dead father's best that
+had been packed away. He looked unduly big and plain and awkward in
+the unaccustomed finery, but the freckles across the deep brown
+background of his face spelled d-e-t-e-r-m-i-n-a-t-i-o-n. Uncle Jem
+spelled it out slowly. His astonished gaze wandered downward, then,
+from "best" to "best."
+
+"Well?" he interrogated, and waited.
+
+"I'm goin' to the city, gran'father," the boy said. "I've gotter, on
+a--a--errand. I thought I'd tell you."
+
+"Good idea!" nodded the old head on the pillows. The old eyes
+twinkled kindly. "I suppose ye want me to go out to your traps, don't
+ye? An' do a little trawlin' while I'm out? Jest speak the word!"
+
+Uncle Jemmy said nothing about getting his own dinner, but the boy
+had thought of that.
+
+"Judy's comin' in at noon," he explained. "I've got everythin' cooked
+up. An' she's goin' to look at my traps when she goes out to hers.
+I'll be back in the night, sometime; don't you lay awake for me, now,
+gran'father!"
+
+He went out, but presently appeared again, fumbling his best cap in
+palpable embarrassment.
+
+"I wish--I don't suppose--you wouldn't mind wishin' me good luck,
+gran'father, would you?" he stammered. "I'd kind of like to be wished
+good luck."
+
+"Come here where I can reach ye," the old man said cheerily, putting
+out his hand. "Wish ye luck? I guess I will! Ye're a good boy, Jemmy.
+I don't know what your arrant is, an' I don't need to know, but
+here's good luck on it!"
+
+"I tell you what it is, if--if it succeeds," Jem Three said, gripping
+the twisted old fingers warmly. "I kind of thought I'd rather not
+tell first off. But I can, of course."
+
+"Off with ye, boy! Ye distract me when I'm doin' a bit of thinkin'
+for a lady! When ye get good an' ready, then will be time enough to
+do your tellin'. Queer if I couldn't trust a Jem!"
+
+The city was twenty miles inland from the little flag-station, and
+the flag-station was ten miles away from Jemmy Three. He trudged away
+with his precious boots over his shoulder, to be put on at the little
+station.
+
+Once in the city, he went directly about his "arrant." He chose a
+street set thick with dwelling-houses as like one another as peas in
+a pod are like. He tramped down one side of the street, up the other,
+till at last he came upon what he sought. A smart sign hung on that
+particular house, and Jem Three mounted the high steps and rang the
+door-bell.
+
+"Is this a doctor's house? There's a sign that says--"
+
+"The doctor isn't at home," the smart maid said smartly. "Will you
+leave your address on the slate, or will you call again at office
+hours--two till six."
+
+"I'll call somewheres else," Jem Three said briefly.
+
+He called at many doors in many rows of pea--of houses. It was
+sometime before he succeeded in his quest. When at length he found a
+doctor at home, he was closeted with him for a brief space and then
+drove away with him in a trim little gig to a great, many-windowed
+house where pale people were sunning themselves in wheel-chairs about
+the doors. Jem Three made a call at the many-windowed house.
+
+  *  *  *  *  *
+
+It was with considerable curiosity that two people down by the sea
+awaited the boy's return from his trip, but oddly enough it was
+neither Uncle Jem nor Judith that he sought out at first. It was
+Judith's mother, at her work down-beach at the summer cottage. Jemmy
+Three went straight to her. He had got home earlier than he expected
+and mother had worked later, so they walked back together in the
+cool, clear evening, talking all the way.
+
+"Don't tell Judy," the boy said the last thing, as they parted. "I
+mean, not _it_. It'll be splendid to surprise her, Mis' Lynn!"
+
+"If we can, Jemmy," the mother answered gently. "If it succeeds. The
+more I think of it the more it makes me tremble, Jemmy; but we'll do
+our best and leave the part we cant't do with the One who can do it."
+ The gentle voice trembled into silence. Mother could "make poetry,"
+too. Jemmy caught off his hat suddenly, and the very act was a little
+prayer.
+
+  *  *  *  *  *
+
+"Judy, are you awake?"
+
+Mother stood over the bed in her scant white nightgown. When Judith
+answered, she sat down beside her and felt for one of her calloused,
+oar-toughened little hands.
+
+"Judy, would it be--be all right to use some of the mackerel-money?
+Mother's got to go away for a little while--just a little while, Judy.
+Jemmy says he talked with a man in the city who would give me some
+work to do in his kitchen for a little while. But--why, I thought I'd
+take Blossom, Judy, and of course that would mean spending some
+money--"
+
+"Blossom!"
+
+Judith sat straight up in bed, her eyes like glints of light in the
+darkness.
+
+"Why, yes, dear; she's never been away from the sea in her little
+life. You think of that, Judy! You've been away twice. Blossom never
+saw a steam-car nor a city, nor--nor heard a hand-organ! Jemmy says he
+heard three to-day. You think how pleased Blossom would be to hear a
+hand-organ!"
+
+"Sh!" cautioned Judith, "don't wake her, mother. If--she's going, she
+mustn't know beforehand."
+
+Blossom going away! Not _Blossom!_ Not put one hand out, so, in the
+dark and feel her there beside you--little warm Blossom! Not dress her
+in the morning and carry her downstairs--you the chariot and she the
+fine lady! Not hurry home to her from the traps! Judith lay and
+thought about all that, after mother went away. She put out her hand
+on the empty side of the bed, where no Blossom was, and tried to get
+used to the emptiness. She said stern things to herself.
+
+"You, Judy, are you selfish as _that?_" she said. "To go and begrudge
+your little Blossom a chance to go away and see things and _hear_
+things! Don't you want her to hear a hand-organ? And perhaps see a
+_monkey?_ When she's never been anywhere, nor heard anything, nor
+seen anything! When mother's going, anyway, and can take her as well
+as not--you Judy, you Judy, you Judy! Oh, I cant't sleep with you, I'm
+so ashamed of you!"
+
+  *  *  *  *  *
+
+They went at once, and Judith settled down to her loneliness as
+best she could, and bore it as bravely. They were to be gone a
+month--perhaps two--perhaps three. A month--two, maybe--three,
+maybe--without Blossom!
+
+Uncle Jem and Jemmy Three helped out--how much they did help out! Then
+there were the rare, precious letters. Judith had never had letters
+from mother before in all her sixteen years. She was rather
+disappointed that there were no bits of ragged, printed ones from
+Blossom, but mother's letters had Blossom-bulletins. Blossom sent her
+love, Blossom had heard two hand-organs--three hand-organs; Blossom
+said tell Judy she loved her, oh, my! Blossom was very patient and
+sweet.
+
+"She's always patient and sweet," wondered Judy. Queer mother put
+that in!
+
+"You little sweet, patient Blossom!" Judith's heart cried tenderly,
+"when I get you in my arms again--"
+
+Would the time ever come? Why were days made so long? Twenty-four
+hours were too many--why weren't they made with only twenty?
+
+"Uncle Jem, why don't you tell _me_ how to be sweet and patient?"
+Judith said, folding up the Blossom-bulletin she had been reading to
+him. "Tell me a good receipt."
+
+"Well, deary--well, give me time," laughed the cheery old voice. "I
+guess we can fix up somethin' that will meet your case."
+
+A very few weeks later Judith went wearily homeward to her lonely
+home. She had been out to her traps and down to the hotel with the
+lobsters for Mrs. Ben. Her body was weary, but her heart was wearier
+still. It did seem, she was telling herself as she plodded through
+the sand, as if she could not wait any longer for mother and Blossom
+to come home.
+
+Suddenly a clear little trill of laughter crept into her ears and
+set her pulses throbbing. Then another trill--then Blossom's voice,
+calling something that thrilled her to her soul.
+
+"See me!" called the little triumphant voice of Blossom. And Judy,
+lifting frightened eyes and holding her breath as she looked, _saw_.
+A small, swaying figure was coming toward her very slowly, over the
+hard sand. Blossom--it was Blossom! She was swaying unsteadily a step
+or two, but--_she was walking!_
+
+"See me! See me!" cried Blossom. "I'm walkin', Judy, don't you see? I
+came a-walkin' down to meet you! It's a s'prise!"
+
+Someone caught up the little figure and came leaping down to Judith
+with great strides of triumph.
+
+"That's enough to s'prise her--mustn't do much of it at a time yet,"
+Jemmy Three said gayly. "You've got to begin easy. Yes!" in answer to
+Judy's speechless pleading, "yes, sir, she's goin' to be a reg'lar
+walker, now, ain't you, Blossom? Yes, sir; no more bein' toted--she's
+_folks!_"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes!" trilled Blossom exultantly. "They pulled my legs out
+an' put 'em in over, where they b'long. Only I've got to go easy till
+I'm uncasted."
+
+"Till you're--what? But never mind what! You're my Blossom, and you're
+home again, and you're _walking!_" Judith cried in her exceeding
+great joy. But by and by Jemmy Three explained.
+
+"They put her legs in kind o' casts, you know, that she cant't have
+taken off yet awhile, but when they do take 'em off--"
+
+"Then I'll run!" Blossom interrupted, radiantly.
+
+"Oh, oh--and to think we were going to surprise mother, and you
+surprised me!" breathed Judy. "But I thought--_we_ were going across
+the ocean--"
+
+"You needn't have," Jemmy said. "That great doctor's over there, but
+there's plenty o' second-great ones over here that make children walk
+his way. That's what I went to find out. I thought maybe--"
+
+"You went to find out--_you_ thought--oh, Jemmy, what a boy you are!"
+
+"See here--hold on--wait! Let Blossom do it!" warded off Jemmy Three,
+backing away precipitately.
+
+The beautiful secret was out. Judith had been "s'prised." There were
+still months of uncertainty, but Judith was not uncertain. She went
+about in a cloud of rapture. At night she lay awake beside Blossom,
+and dreamed her rosy, happy dreams. And, in truth, if she could have
+looked ahead into the certain months, and beyond, she would have seen
+Blossom walking steadily through all the years.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Judith Lynn, by Annie Hamilton Donnell
+
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